Though I don’t think many call it an anti war film, “Grave of the Fireflies” does a really good job of showing how bad war can be without it being a spectacle or showing heroism. It’s just two children trying to get by and still be kids. It also shows how most innocent people suffer from wars instead of the governments who start them. Great video by the way!
War is both great & terrible. It encompasses the absolute best & worst feelings of life: Total Victory & absolute loss. It elevates some to gods, others it reduces to slaves and nothingness. War is not simply one side of the coin; it's the entire treasury, so to speak.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). 85 percent of the movie is just soldiers struggling to survive *outside* of combat, and the ending…that ending is so powerful. Oh, and it’s also a true adaptation. “He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front. He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.”
O yes, this soldiers just try occupay another country, lets make film about their strangling during that time. There is absolutely zero hypocrisy in this situation, right?))
I think Kubrick said it best when he remarked that there's more to be said about war than "its bad". He also noted that we enjou combat scenes in war films simply because physical courage is appealing, it's just human nature
@@itsjustcinema But that's the thing we don't need a thousand thing said when its right there in front of us,his movies can be disected through careful analysation,a picture speaks a thousand words.We just need to look through his lenses,Kubrick intented a ambiguity in his films an exacmple can be taken from Dr.Strangelove(my favorite Kubrick film) the plot of the film is about mass destruction,the corruption of government and horrors of human nature.Yet we're laughing at the absurdity of it because Kubrick shows us the brutal reality of ourselves even in the most dreadful situations we can still be cracking jokes.So even if we say "war is bad" its very common knowledge yet our emotions take hold of us and our instinct is what guides us to thinking its honorable.Because we think what we like even if the idea is horrible.Our ideas can be stupid as anti-semitism yet we still fully believe in them to please ourselves.Kubrick wasn't this "Good person" he accepted the darker sides of our nature and instead of running away from it he embraced it with equality and ofcourse there are no good or bad when speaking of subjective experiences.
except when you think about it this is not physical courage, it is murder, outright murder and in no way can that be argued. If you kill another person for any other reason then self defense, you are a murderer. You cannot claim self-defense if you go to another country and fight, under any circumstance. You are a murderer.
@@tedwojtasik8781So you’re saying that fighting to defend others is straight up murder? The Ukrainians driving the authoritarian Russia out of their homeland are murderers? The Americans who stormed Normandy to drive the Nazis out of Germany were murderers? The men who fought to abolish slavery during the US civil war were murderers? The men who fought for American independence were nothing more than remorseless murderers? That is a fundamentally flawed take. There is courage in facing death for a cause you believe in, and there is even more courage in sacrificing your very humanity to protect yourself, but above all, your nation.
"All quiet on the western front" was a great depiction of war - no heroism, just senseless, preventable death, sometimes at the hands of egotistical generals. Boys, barely men, going into battle only to end up back where they started and die anyway. I generally like historical action/war movies, but this one made me cry and rethink every other war movie that I've seen.
I made the mistake of reading "Johnny Got His Gun" on the plane flight to start my army basic training. I disagree with the sentiment presented here, there is absolutely anti-war films and books.
The paradox is that in real life, real soldiers find combat exciting. It’s scarring to the psyche, if they don’t get killed, but the thrill of narrowly escaping death is primal. That’s why I think the best Anti-War TV series was MASH. It was a war show that never showed any combat. But viewers would be fatigued by endless wounded coming in every episode. By only showing the relentless consequences, without the excitement, they conveyed a powerful anti-war message. And it wasn’t just a one off, it was in peoples homes 5 nights a week when it was in syndication. That’s why there needs to be more shows like MASH.
God what an underrated series. When Hawkeye breaks down in the last episode? Or the last season. It was the first time I realized what it would be like to be around all that suffering every day.
@@MissingSirius it’s a great show isn’t it? One of the greatest of all time. Marvel and other franchises could learn a lot from this classic about how to make a show funny without the jokes undermining the emotion. MASH is a rare show that hits it out of the park with both. Thats probably why it lasted 14 seasons, 11 years longer than the war it depicted!
Yes! I've grown up hearing a lot of good things about MASH from my parents that have watched the show often. It's been on my watchlist since then, along with many other shows! ^^
Sam Fuller, a WW2 veteran and film director, made a comment that was along the lines of ‘the only way to make a truly realistic war movie would be for someone to wait behind the cinema screen and, during the battle scenes, randomly fire shots into the audience.
Sam Fuller would have changed his tune had he watched the beach scene in _Saving Private Ryan_ with a first-class theatre sound system. I physically recoiled as my ears detected malign flecks of metal zinging past at 2000 mph. You don't respond to those sounds with: "Where did that come from?" You respond instead with: "What parts of my body are still attached?" The answer comes back muffled through a scrim of raw terror. The rest of that film has problems. With skydiving, the second jump is reported to be a lot harder than the first jump. After running toward a machine gun nest in my local theatre, doing it for a second time in real life is beyond imagination.
Soviet war movies are insane. Even when they look normal, action-packed and filled with jokes, they still leave you hollow inside after watching, since everything is surrounded by atmosphere of endless despair. Characters remain hopeful and bright, but fate breaks every possible piece of hope and throws disasters at them like it's nothing. Dying is never either glorified or even payed attention to. When someone dies, no one sobs and no one speaks tons of confessions, death is just accepted as it is. During filming of Come and See Klimov sought for people who experienced war themselves rather than a professional actors, thus most of the elder people there have actually experienced everything shown in the film IRL. Many shots were failed or retaken dozens of times just because Klimov was afraid of emotional breakdowns of the crew, that's why there were always psychologists on the set.
There are Old Soviet movie not about the war, but about those who survived. Many years after the victory protagonists of “Belorusskiy vokzal”(Belorussky Station, main railroad station from which soldiers went to the war) gather again to bury their former commanding officer. They have vastly different lives now, many years have passed, but those hellish days still haunts them. Some of the actors really went to the war One of my favorites.
Yeah people there actually experienced the war. All the movies mentioned as bad examples of antiwar movies were made by Americans, who haven't had an actual war on their soil in over 150 years. I'm American by my family came from Russia and Ukraine, I was 10 when 9/11 happened so my formative years were marked by how flippantly we view war in the US.
seems that you don`t understand soviet films. These films are war propaganda and we see that when Russia invased Ukraine and killed civil people like in Bucha.
@@yaroslavzhurba670 You are confusing old Soviet war films with modern Russian ones. I suggest watching "Sign of Trouble" 1986 since apparently few people know about this film.
@@yaroslavzhurba670 seem like you're a bot or just pushing your own agenda. Modern Russia's movies are of course the ones you're talking about because all creative people with opposing views are imprisoned (the Berkovich-Petriychuk case) or pushed out the country. But the vast majority of Soviet war films were pro-USSR (of course), but not pro-war in any possible sense. Get over it.
In "Jarhead" by Anthony Swafford, he talks about this very subject. As a Marine, he was taught to love violence and killing, and the scenes in movies like "Apocalypse Now" that attempt to shock the audience with brutal violence elicited nothing more than approval and longing from Swafford and his fellow Marines. He discusses the "Ride of the Valkyries" scene in Apocalypse Now causing the members of his unit to cheer loudly and applaud when the villagers were slaughtered.
@@spehhhsssmarineer8961 what in the eighth grade emo phase kind of response is that. i meant respect for life as in "the sanctity of life (as a concept)" or "the fact that other people are people too," not "i don't like my situation." thought that was obvious
When I first saw Come and See I had this thought, “that was one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen and I never want to watch it again.” It made me realize that if a war film makes you excited to rewatch it or look up clips of it on RUclips, then it probably didn’t portray war very accurately. Edit: warning, bad faith what-about-isms in the replies to this for some reason
yeah probably bcs the movie has a lot of practical effects that simply could depicts what happened in wartimes, real munitions (10cm above the actor florya, those were real) and dynamites were used
But even that film only represents on viewpoint, the Russian youth and it does so not entirely accurately. Let us not forget that Russia soldiers mass raped many german civilians. While we see Floya lower his rifle before killing the child Hitler, it is to be remembered that his country men did not spare the German women. That of course isnt present, it never is
You're calling me out so i'll have to defend myself lol. I did watch the movie many times, and wanna watch it again right now. It's way too good not to, as a lover of cinema. The movie is an unimaginable masterpiece, it gives me so much inspiration as an artist myself.
@@ShadowedAgony They weren't russian to begin with lol, netiher the characters nor the director. Besides, what are you talking about? Where did you get that info from?
I'd say "All quiet on the Western front" is the one true anti-war film. The author of the book was an actual WW1 veteran, and he witnessed what might be one of the scariest wars to fight in. He had no intention of being pro war, and he didn't even write his book as a blatant anti war book, he just wrote the war how it was. Same with the 1930 movie. A movie with WW1 veterans as actors. Saying that this is a pro-war movie is completely ridiculous.
I was awaiting for someone to mention this movie. Yeah there may be “heroic” or rallying moments (e.g chanting and excitement the kids face), but at absolutely no point during or after did I feel “wow I totally still wanna fight WWI.” The whole movie is just constant anxiety/apprehension that slowly transforms into helplessness and despair.
@@martian9035 before WW1, war was seen as a great adventure young men should be lucky to participate in. The cold unfeeling mechanization of WW1 completely shattered that delusion for those poor boys.
@@martian9035 Exactly. You see the horror of war in the movie, you can even feel it sometimes. And the heroic moments get overshadowed quickly, like the attack where Paul gets trapped in the bomb crater and has to kill the French soldier.
Agree completely. The movie does a particularly good job of showing the futility and meaninglessness. The main character's death isn't heroic and emphasized just how little all of his struggles actually meant. His survival was pure chance and so was his death. The only character who achieves anything of significance is the one guy pushing hard for peace.
That movie made me hate anyone who talks about war positively. The scene I hated the most was the fat general eating extravagant meals while his men are starving.
That's not true. Ofcourse people will react differently but when making a movie you can definitly choose to make the general audience experience certain emotions. The Video explained how different "anti war" movies had different effects, and when making a movie you can control what effect your movie has. Just because good artists have had works with unwanted reactions doesnt mean you cant make a work that will lead to a certain reaction.
@@themeta6096 your final statement doesn't really argue their point though. Good artists having unwanted reactions IS what the op says. No matter how well you make a piece of media, audiences will react to it differently than intended. That's the nature of art.
@@cousinpatsey2471 I am saying that just because some good artists, have had unwanted reactions doesn't mean that it is impossible to evoke the wanted reaction. And if those artists consider a lot of factors and are skilled enough can to a great degree evoke a certain reaction
@@themeta6096 sorry but naive take. humans come from very different backgrounds. you can't get the same reaction from 2 different people belonging to 2 different demographics in 2 different parts of the world. it's impossible.
Perhaps, but there is a big risk in that most video documentation from conflicts was created either by participants or friendly war correspondents. This is partially why the popular image exists of Nazi Germany having a highly mechanized war machine when in reality they largely depended on horsepower.
You should watch Johnny got his gun. It is a real anti war movie, and one of the most tragic movie of all time. It's really cruel and devestating, just as the Great War
I think Studio Ghibli is amazing at making real anti war films. Films like The wind rises, Porco Rosso or most of all, Grave of the fireflies succeed at showing what war does to people and to the world, by not showing many war scenes and especially not many battle sequences, but because the war is an obstacle, but not the main conflict, you are able to see it as something truly bad.
I would also add Howl's moving castle. 100%, Grave of the Fireflies, is one of the ultimate "war is bad for children and other living things. The moonshine of militarism and how totalitarianism corrupts people.is front and center throughout. (The aunt is a great villain , but her behavior is the logical application of totalitarian indoctrination changing a persons morals and behavior)
I would have to disagree with Porco Rosso being an anti war film since even though he vocally opposes what was done in the war his talents and ability is glorified. The wind rises does a good job because all the protagonist wants to do is make beautiful planes and grave of the fireflies is excellent it shows how horrible war can be for civilians and the youth
Girls’ Last Tour…Pretty good philosophical anime that, in my opinion, highlights how irrelevant wars are to most people’s concerns. Not on the same class as Studio Ghibli, but it’s a nice short anime
@@saron95662I completely (but respectfully) disagree. That scene when he's young and still human piloting with his friend shows that the talent for piloting is something capable of wonders, not violence. Not just that but the whole movie is about a world of principles, honor and beauty that was torned apart by war. For me is the most beautiful anti-war movie ever done
@@saron95662I don't know if I'd call Porco Rosso a direct Anti-war film, however I think the admiration with which flying skills are depicted is part of the anti-militarism themes of the films, as the idea of something that brings joy being appropriated and weaponised by the state to engage in war is treated as disgust and the main threat of the film. It mirrors the disgust Porco feels towards himself after surviving WW1 and deserting the air force that traumatised him, made manifest in his pig form. Even the dog fights depicted in the film are probably unrealistically non-fatal, they represent the playfulness of flying as a sport, and stands in contrast to the threat of being drafted into the airforce where the killing will be real. The main cast are all draft-dodgers and deserters, and even the pirates are depicted as more noble than the military organisation. The film plays into that conflict Miyazaki has, between loving air-crafts but loathing their use in war, the fear of seeing yourself becoming a cog in the war machine.
I might be wrong but "The Pianist" seems to be pretty good movie showing horrors of war, we don't really have glorifying anything, just main character trying to survive...
Survival stories give a false narrative that anyone can survive if they’re just lucky enough. If I run fast enough, if enough bullets miss me, if I find a good hiding place… that’s the message only survivors can give. The dead can’t give their message, that there’s impossible situations where you will die, period. I think stories focus on the lucky ones a bit too often.
@@americanbookdragon If you're interested in finding survival movies that have higher stakes for characters, zombie movies might be up your alley (along with most other horror-adjacent post-apocalyptic movies). With the horror genre, it's not always a guarantee that the main cast survives (albeit most of it is due to bad decision making/being dumb - but there's some exceptions in the horror genre where characters can fight for survival and still die).
@americanbookdragon what the heck are they supposed to do? Have a 5 minute long movie about the first guy to get killed off the boat? No matter the message trying to be said, movies are there to entertain. No one is going to pay to see the first person to die, and if you have actually seen the Pianist, I dont think you would be saying that. It is a heart wrenching movie about a musician trying to survive prison camps and battles hes not even a part of. He wasn't a soldier, and he wasn't a hero. By the end he was basically a rat scavenging for scraps in what little remained of his city and his life.
@@americanbookdragonI’m truly lost on how anyone could come to that conclusion after watching a movie based on an autobiography of a real person who went through these things. “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
I feel like one of the main problems with a lot of war films, especially those that try to be explicitly anti-war, is that they are all essentially battle films. That's all most war films focus on, even though most people who join the army won't see battle, and even those who fight spend most of their time outside of active combat. I've always thought the perfect anti-war film would start on a silent battlefield, strewn with rotting corpses.
As an example from another medium, take All Quiet on the Western Front, the book by Remarque. Actually banned in Nazi Germany for not portraying battles and "the soldier's life" gloriously enough (among other things). Instead, it focuses on something much more dangerous, and much more true (from the perspective of someone who relived the eerily same military experience decades later): The tedious, boring, bureaucratic, logistical aspects of everyday war, slowly eating away at your body, mind and soul. Peace.
Case in point, I didn't see Dunkirk as anti-war, didn't even know it was supposed to be anti-war until I watched this. I saw it as a tribute to the valor of those that risked their lives to see their fellows brought home and an exploration of the kinds of stress and fears that people undergo when forced into some of the most horrific events in human history. Ultimately, I think anti-war films get human nature wrong. We are drawn to heroism, selflessness, and courage. Deeds of valor inspire us and even just surviving a terrible situation can be a daunting challenge that those of us who did not live through it can only see as an act of courage and determination in its own right because the easy way out of that hellish path is to simply give up and end it. Someone in response to another comment said that war is just murder, there is no moral or physical courage in it, and I think that is wrong. War is something that should never be undertaken lightly, but to say that war or violence is never justifies is to ignore that sometimes those are the only answers left to us. When we are faced with death or the threat of death, when we are attacked, when we are told we must give up our convictions and morals, to accept what is morally repugnant or die, then we have a duty to stand and fight. When we see others facing those same choices, it is right to defend them. To choose to fight when giving in and compromising your morals would be safer and easier shows moral and physical courage. What anti-war films remind us of is the cost in blood and pain we have to pay when we choose that route. They remind us to not take up the sword lightly. So much effort is put into subverting and denouncing the role of heroism and valor in our society that I think that lesson, that we should not choose to take and risk lives lightly, is at risk of being forgotten, or worse, the lesson that there are times we must stand up or become chattel will be tossed aside as an atavism of an uncivilized past.
Spielberg's logic is that war is bad. Therefore, any movie depicting war is anti-war because it's showing war and since war is bad, it's showing war is bad. It's overly simplistic, but I understand why he felt that way. The normal response to war is disgust, but Saving Private Ryan proves him wrong. Enlistment in the US military got boosted from that movie. Despite the intent, the movie inspired people to want to go to war. So can a movie that inspired people want to go to war be anti-war? The answer is no, he made a pro-war movie. The protagonists win, the day is saved, their is triumph and glory in dying because their cause was just. Nothing else matters at that point
You might be jumping to a conclusion regarding higher enlistment. Enlisting in the military does not directly imply one wants to go to war. It does imply one feels called to serve one's country and it does imply one wants to be part of something larger than oneself, a brotherhood. Keep in mind, the movie came out three years before 9/11. A lot of the people who ended up going to Afghanistan had joined up because they wanted free college via the GI Bill, or they wanted to learn a technical skill. They reacted with dismay because they'd joined up during a time of peace and hadn't considered they might have to go to war.
I have rarely been as angry at a movie as I was after seeing _Saving Private Ryan_ in the theater. It was so clearly war propaganda, and bad propaganda at that, and most reviews treated it as a unique achievement. It was a cliched WWII film with the "best" moment for the translator being when he violated the Geneva Convention by indiscriminately killing prisoners.
I would add 4. The protagonist is not a hero, he doesn't save lives or win a glorious medal. His aim is surviving, not defeating the enemy in a grand way.
@@itsjustcinema come on, man! You selected three movies that you consider the only ones to be truly anti war, and two of them happen to be directed by Soviet movie makers that happened to be married to each other! (although, to be honest, Come And See was only made after the death of the wife). But that’s ok, I was just curious, it’s not a rant at the video, it’s just that I was really expecting that fact to be mentioned lol.
@Someone_Unknown90 Not the entire flow of a video, the flow of whatever was the topic in that moment where this funfact was relevant. The way the script works here is one topic follows another in continuity. He could mention it at the end of a topic, but the moment where the funfact would fit was in the middle of the topic, adding funfacts in the middle just makes it harder to focus on the video
I've yet to see the film itself, but I feel like I hardly see M.A.S.H. the series talked about in anti-war media discussions. The very premise shows us the direct aftermath of combat, the 'heroics' are already over. The characters are in a constant, endless struggle to repair and heal that which has been destroyed or mangled by war. I don't remember the exact quote, but I remember a showrunner talking about an angry letter they received after the death of a main character, with the letter saying the death was just "wasteful." The showrunner replied, "That's exactly what war is, wasteful."
The reason you cannot make an antiwar movie is simple: war is a great evil, but if good people refuse to fight, than the worst people win by default. When your country is being invaded, you are at war whether you like it or not. Soviet partisans, to take the example of _Come and See,_ did indeed suffer horribly, but what do you think that allowing the Germans to conquer their country would have been better? Would they have avoided horror had they done that? And the more horribly you depict war, the more imperative you make it to resist conquest.
Wow, you really think WW2 is that simple? The "good guys" couldn't care less about what Germany was doing in its dead camps. All they cared about is that Germany was harming their interests. And besides, fighting Germany was good for the soviet men. They had two choices: stay at home and watch your wife and kids die from starvation under Stalin's boot, or go to the battlefealed, where you can't watch your wife and kids die from starvation and there is votca.
@@valentinkambushev4968 I clearly understand a lot more about WW2 than you do. First of all, the mass famines in the Soviet Union were over before World War Two began. Soviet citizens behind the lines certainly were not eating well during the war, but the idea that the alternative to fighting was watching your family starve was just ahistoric nonsense. Second, the issue is not whether Allied governments cared about the death-camps. The issue is what would have happened to Soviet citizens had the Germans conquered their country. And the reason the Soviet people fought so hard was that they understood what that would be.
@gibby_crusader that's bullshit. They were dragging their feet The Entire Time Europe was at War.. because their Own Corporations were Funding The Nazi War Machine. It's no Surprise that they Lured Japan into Attacking them through Monopolization, just so they can have a "Heroic" Excuse to Enter The War. Also not a Surprise that they Raced The Soviets to Berlin, to Save Their Nazi Allies whom they put in Power later on.. in The UN.
My dad used to say this thing: “everything is debatable” and he would try to prove his point by debating a contrary opinion to an objective fact. But I would always say “arguing against a fact doesn’t make it debatable, it just makes you wrong. You voicing an obviously incorrect opinion doesn’t change the truth of the thing you’re talking about”. And well that’s how I feel about this argument that there are no anti-war films. Audiences Missing the broader point of an entire film doesn’t invalidate the film’s point.
the overall argument of this video is strange. first, we are supplied with an argument to the effect that *no* movie could possibly be an anti-war movie. the argument is something like: (1) films ultimately and inevitably function as entertainment for the viewer. (2) neuro-psychological research indicates that “anti-war” films often elicit adrenaline rushes (and thus “excitement” and “heightened engagement”) for the viewer. (3) any piece of media that serves as entertainment for the viewer, and that furthermore gives (has the potential to give?) that viewer sparks of adrenaline-excitement through depictions of warfare, actually *glorifies* war, and thus could not possibly be anti-war. (4) therefore, there could not possibly be a truly anti-war film. but then the author advances (after providing the smokescreen of spielberg’s contrary view that *all* war movies are anti-war movies) with a further argument to the effect that certain war films (namely, come and see, ascent, and the human condition) really are in fact anti-war films. but why don’t premises (1)-(3) in the above argument apply to come and see, ascent, and the human condition? they are all movies, and so (according to the author) serve as a form of entertainment. i imagine that they all have the potential to elicit exciting adrenaline rushes in at least some viewers. it seems, then, that each of these three movies actually glorifies war, and thus could not be anti-war. i haven’t been able to make sense of this tension in the overall argument. and beyond that, the argument in (1)-(4) doesn’t seem quite right. the biggest problem, i think, is in the claim that films that have the potential to cause adrenaline rushes in viewers during battle/war scenes are actually glorifying war. this doesn’t sound right to me. to glorify something is to extol something, to hold it in high esteem and regard. now, (supposedly) anti-war movies like paths of glory certainly do not extol warfare. at best, we can say that some viewers of (supposedly) anti-war films, wittingly or not, pervert the central message of those films; and in the process of doing so, end up themselves glorifying war. in light of this point, the really important questions are the following: could a film that is, despite the intentions of the writers, producers, directors, etc., prone to being perverted and twisted in the eyes of certain viewers into war glorification, still be anti-war? how important a role do the intentions of the “authors” of a film play in determining whether or not that film is anti-war? of course, there is the further issue of what is meant by “entertainment” in (1). i think only by a quite broad and liberal understanding of “entertainment” could (1) be made out to be true. “entertainment” would have to be read closer to “enrichment,” and not “fun.” separated from the rest of the argument, their criteria for a movie to be counted as anti-war seem promising. but each such criterion stands in need of justification. why those? why are each of the listed criteria necessary for a film to be anti-war? why are they together sufficient criteria? and this isn’t just a nitpick. this is about what really makes an anti-war movie anti-war. it’s central to the entire discussion at hand. (note that they would have to explain why authorial intent doesn’t play a central role in determining whether or not a film is anti-war.)
“Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.” - C.S. Lewis I think that this is the best we can do. War is a terrible thing, but we ought to teach the next generations to strive to be a virtuous hero in the midst of so much wickedness. That is the ultimate importance of myth.
I think teaching kids to be a "hero" is what causes so much war. It teaches them to find justification for slaying the enemy, and that the enemy is somehow a lesser creature. We need to be teaching the next generation that war is just simply NEVER acceptable. Like NEVER EVER.
There is no such thing as a virtuous hero in war unless your country was attacked and you are directly defending your homeland. If you go to another country and fight, for any reason, you are a murderer. No valor in murder.
I think the only anti war film which I genuinely think is really anti war is threads. Genuinely the most terrifying thing I’ve watched and has made me anti nuclear weapons ever since. I watched it once and only once. Left me having nightmares for 2 weeks straight.
I think that a really good anti war movie that is almost entirely set in the middle of a battle is "Many wars ago" (Uomini Contro): It's set in the Alps in ww1 and the original title means men against themselves, it has no heroism. Every time there's a fight "we / the protagonist side" lose in an unjust slaughter, showing all the pain that can be shown. The enemy (Austrians) is not vicious, meanwhile the Italian officers are the ones talking about glory and courage while sending kids to be mowed down by both Italian and Austrian machineguns. Near the end they make you think that the good guys are going to succeed in a mutiny against the cruel officers but, as for real wars, it all ends in a bloodbath where the bad guys keep their game and the protagonists are executed. No heroism, just teens trying (and failing) to survive a massacre and come back home to their moms. P.S. This is the movie that contains the scene where a few soldiers wearing heavy knight-like armour try to cut barbed wire and are gunned down one after another
@@kino_61best scene of this movie is when a soldier shows to general a lookout where an austrian sniper shoots anyone who looks out of armoured window to try to kill him, but when general looks out sniper doesn't shoot, and after that shows a cigaret out of window and sniper imidiatly shoots it.
I think too much has been made of Truffaut's anti-war comment . He was making a valid point about many so called movies glorifying war, battle and sacrifice. He's not a 100% correct but he's mostly right. "Come and See" is a must see movie regardless of genre, label, or any preconceptions of war/anti-war.
@@peregrinecovington4138 Agreed. Gut wrenching, heart breaking, suffocating and deafening, all told through the eyes of a boy caught up in the madness of war. One of the most visceral films I have ever seen.
I feel like we need to understand that being exposed to unadulterated gory violence on a battlefield rarely turned people away from further war in history. Most of the Leadership of the Nazi Party were veterans of WW1, Hitler himself witnessed unbelievably horrible things, got shot multiple times, lost a testicle to a shrapnel wound, and almost got gassed to death at the end of the war, he opened his eyes in a hospital in Germany when the war ended. His first reaction to the news of the war ending was frustration that the war was lost, many German veterans also shared the same feeling, including Göring and Hess.
100% correct. That was the norm throughout history and not anything unique to the Nazis. The vast majority of wars throughout history were initiated by people who had already experienced it. Bismark himself said "Anyone who has looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war." and he certainly was no pacifist although not a war-monger either, just like 99.9% of people throughout history.
Why is being "anti-war" always treated as the default correct position or message? Is it not immoral to be anti-war in the context of a conflict like World War 2? I feel like treating war as this abstract great evil can make an anti-war message too vague and ineffective. For example the reason I felt that the book "All Quiet on the Western Front" presented an effective anti war message is not just because of the horrific depiction of what the characters go through on the front, but that this was contrasted by the detachment and even disgust they felt towards the "cause" for the war.
I had to comment here that my preferred candidate for an "antiwar" film is - inevitably - a film about a civil war and its consequences for a woman and her family: Villeneuve's "Incendies". BOTH Kubrick's most obvious anti-war films come across (to me) as "preachy" - something I absolutely hate in a film. (The brilliant Dr Strangelove gets a pass here because of its comedy.)
Just because a film is meant to be entertaining and provides a "spectacle" doesn't mean it's not anti-war. If someone can't look past the form the story is presented in and see the film's message, that's on them. It's like putting a happy music over a footage of someone getting murdered - it doesn't suddenly mean murder isn't supposed to be bad.
Well, they treat a form of entertainment as something that endorses something bad, simply because it entertains you (at least not in the way they think they should). This would be the same line of reasoning as saying that GTA influences and endorses people to be criminals. Furthermore, I do not agree with the statement that ALL wars are senseless/unnecessary, is fighting a war (and recognizing the courage and sacrifice of its combatants) to avoid being massacred by your enemies not something justifiable? (I wonder if these people would not fight to defend their basic rights and submit themselves without resistance to a totalitarian regime)
@@gamerbg294 I agree. Think of also the partisans/freedom fighters from throughout history who were resisting annihilation from enemy forces. Even though some of those devolved into banditry (such is human nature, I guess) it's still difficult to say they have an unjust cause.
Full Metal Jacked was anti war, but after it was aired there was a spike in enlistment. People cnow right from wrong, but they supconsciously admire strength and power. And spectacle always provides show of strenth and power.
in finland we have this classic book "manillaköysi" which works as an anti-war film is that it doesn't really have any scenes that depict the fighting but follows a person returning after the ending of the war, showing how it destroys people and ultimately depicts how useless the war was.
in what way does apocalypse now not fit within your criteria it portrays war as a senseless and hedonistic activity that makes sense to no one, done for the benefit of nobody it shows women, children, the young and the innocent all dying, jungles blown up, villages massacred, psyches destroyed and morals abandoned the only way i can see you saying it doesnt fit is that it isnt directly based on the individual experience of one victim of war, but it is based on a work which tackles war and violence, informed by the vietnam war and the experiences of those on both sides both in the jungle and back home and it was also shot during an actual war using equipment that was often comandeered to be used in battle only to be returned later for more filming spectacle does not equal glorification, stupid people will always see explosions and think they are cool but they are also an essential part of telling the story of war, come and see is full of spectacle saying any film that doesnt fit within arbitrary categories that you invented is automatically glorifying war is completely ridiculous. to put a film like ivans childhood in the same category as a us army recruitment funded michael bay film is beyond defendable
It's important to note in particular how adolescent boys see these films, for example just about every anti war film on the list we watched as teenagers, I remember after watching Three Kings I mentioned it was considered an anti war film, the two friends I was talking to looked perplexed and said... how is it an anti war film? To us it was just another "in war shit happens film". As teenage boys what the critics and connoisseurs said meant nothing.
Ivan Butler, in his book ‘The War Film’ (1974) made a similar argument to your post. Butler wrote ‘most so-called ‘anti-war’ films are not anti-war, they’re merely against the incompetent waging of it’. Butler, when writing about ‘Paths of Glory’, argued that Kubrick’s film was not anti-war, it was against war being directed & organised by callous, incompetent leaders. In a way, the film is saying that war could be a lot ‘better’ if nicer & more intelligent officers like Kirk Douglas’ character were in charge. Even the famous 1933 film ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ does not get a rave from Butler who refers to it as cloying & sentimental. The final scene of Paul being shot as his hand reaches for a butterfly was, Butler argued, unnecessarily melodramatic and overly contrived in its symbolism when Paul could have more likely been shot reaching for a discarded tin of beans.
I think the formula for a good anti-war film is less combat scenes and more scenes about how much it sucks to be in war. Less exciting set piece battles and more hunger, fear and dudes dying to snipers and mines. Having a civilian protagonist would make this easy, but if you want to have protagonists as soldiers then you better have them on the losing side of the war. Fires on the Plain and Burmese Harp are nice additions to this list given that the Japanese soldiers spend more time hiding from the allied soldiers, local guerillas, starving from lack of supply and getting abused by their superiors than actually fighting the enemy. I think movies about POWs would also make for good anti-war movies, given that they spend more time being abused by their captors than actually fighting. Especially ones set in the Pacific theater because the Japanese are quite notorious for their brutal treatment of POWs.
I disagree on the point about movies about POWs. If the bad things that happen to the protagonists reflect the cruelty of their enemies, it makes war against those enemies seem more important. The suffering and death of allied soldiers then become noble sacrifices.
Stalingrad (1993), a movie about Germans soldier stuck in freezing Russia after capturing the city of Stalingrad made me depressed, you could really feel the hopelessness
I don’t think it has to be on the literal losing side of war, one of the parts of war is that ultimately everybody involved loses. Sure, maybe you won the battle and got what you wanted, you’re permanently changed as a person. I think the more effective depiction shows how even victory in battle can be harrowing and haunt people.
1983's Barefoot Gen is one of the most harrowing looks at war from the POV of everyday people (non-combatants) I have ever seen. It's also one of the best adaptations of a manga, which was authored by Keiji Nakazawa, a survivor of the Atomic bombings who loosely based what he drew & wrote on what he actually saw or heard from fellow survivors' experiences. To clarify, it's not meant to make Americans feel guilty or villainize the U.S. military for how it ended WW II. It's a story primarily about survival in the aftermath of disaster. But it does show that Hiroshima & Nagasaki were a human tragedy in their own right and NOT something to be celebrated or glorified. It illustrates the brutal realities of what happens when ANYONE resorts to such weapons (justifiably or not) and the cost paid by innocents. It's an unapologetically mature exercise in showing that, no matter who wins or who was right, war is Hell regardless but nuclear war is a Hell all its own.
That's probably not far from the truth tho Belarussian population suffered, probably, the most during the war, since we are right between Poland and Russia Concentration camps, battles, villages destroyed It's estimated that 1/4 of the population was killed during the war - every 4th person
@@hanna.ciszewska Japanese lost 2.500.000 people. It's around 3% of entire population, which is less than Romania's or Greece's losses (in %), for example. Even Burma and Philippines lost more people (in %) during WW2 than Japan. And there are some countries that felt WWII a lot more. Yugoslavia lost 8%; Germany lost 11%; Malaysia lost 15%; Poland, as you've mentioned, 17%; Belorussia lost around 35-40% of its people and overall USSR - 13%. That's the numbers that start to scare, and that's where all the WAR was going. Not only in a political sense of words.
I've always had the impression that most "war movies" are just action movies wearing a costume. Which isn't necessarily wrong depending on how tastefully it's done. Though I can't help but roll my eyes at people who congratulate themselves for watching movies like Fury and All Quiet on the Western Front (the new one), as if action spectacles and artificial horror is an enlightening revelation about the realities of war.
What should also be considered though is that war shows the expanse of the human condition the bad, and the good. “Hacksaw Ridge” is about a real man, Desmond Doss, who saved the lives of over 75 men without carrying a gun. That occurred during war as well. Is a war movie bad if it portrays the allies fighting Nazi Germany as a good thing? I’ve met holocaust survivors, including my own grandmother, who spoke positively of the allied and partisan war efforts, and viewed fighting Germany in ww2 as just and good. Granted this gives me a bias, but while “come and see” is an amazing film that shot the abject horrors of the Second World War, it is also not the whole of the experience of war. War can at times show the worst qualities of humanity and the best qualities of humanity.
Absolutely, I've heard people praise All Quiet on the Western Front for its accuracy in capturing the time, but I've not heard about it as a tale of emotion or people. I've not seen that iteration myself, but I saw the 1979 movie of the same name, and what stood out in that film wasn't anything about the time period, but rather how it was about generations of people with hopeful plans for the future being physically and mentally ground down until they were nothing but bodies in mud.
@@ashleyhamman just watch it. it is not a waste of time. (im talking about the new "all quiet on the western front"). I don't ever want to watch it again, despite it being very well made.
i think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about how films are meant to be entertaining. whether it's a film, book, game, etc, any story by default is meant to be entertaining, and though most good stories have educational/informative purposes too they still exist to entertain. you can make a story that's primary function isn't entertainment, but it's extremely difficult to keep the audience engaged without some form of entertainment especially for such brutal subjects as war, and that's what i think the issue is. these directors are trying to tell anti-war stories, but they feel like they have to give us good characters to follow, humour to take the edge off, and heroic acts to prevent us losing all faith in humanity, and by including these things they're unintentionally ruining the message. if you're trying to make a film that's telling us how war makes us into monsters, how there's no real bad guys and it's full of senseless violence with no purpose, then as soon as you make it into good vs evil, have heroic protagonists and give their deeds a purpose you're directly conflicting the message. if directors want to make honest films about such horrific subjects then they need to accept the fact that the film won't be fun or easy to watch, and they need to be extremely careful that the positive things they include in the film don't conflict with the message. it's slightly off topic but i think schindler's list does a great job of that, it's a very unflinching story that's willing to make you feel awful to make it's point, and while it is technically a film about schindler i'd argue the main focus of the film is on the horrors of the holocaust, with schindler's story basically just there to be that small bit of positivity to make it watchable and engaging
it does create a challenge, then, if you want to bring an anti-war perspective to a wide audience. because the general public is ultimately who you want anti-war messaging to reach, but getting bums in seats to see a relentlessly unpleasant, gruelling cavalcade of nauseating and senseless cruelty? that’s a difficult ask. yay, grab the popcorn, we’re off to see [checks ticket] an unflinching portrait of the human spirit at its most flayed and hollowed out? boy, i can’t wait to watch the light behind a man’ eyes sputter out well before any shrapnel stops his heart, for he has beheld the milky skinned children floating in the mud of the mangroves, their bloated bellies and sunken cheeks, mosquitoes landing on eyes incapable of sight. he is walking, for now, but he considers himself annihilated. this morning a man he once considered a brother-in-arms dragged a sobbing pregnant woman out of the village. he didn’t even ask what he was doing with her, he just stared as she was pulled away into the reeds. then they were out of sight. find out what happened in the reeds THIS SUMMER IN 3D! ONLY IN CINEMAS! as a storyteller myself, i don’t want to be preaching to the choir. putting in the work of making a film, only for it to mainly serve to remind people who already despised war that yes, they do indeed still despise it, feels a little futile. honestly, if something i made was able to simply plant the seeds of doubt in the mind of someone otherwise ambivalent or uncritical, i’d consider that more of a victory than making a steadfast pacifist 8% more steadfast than before.
@@joa1401 i totally get what you're saying and it is a huge challenge, but there are definitely ways to solve the problem which is my point. to oversimplify things slightly, you need to make the war elements miserable enough to drive the point home then have everything else be positive enough to make it tolerable. to go back to my schindler's list example, that film provides an absolutely brutal depiction of the holocaust and goes into great detail about how jewish people suffered in ww2, and it's very careful to ensure that any positivity specifically comes from schindler undermining the nazis or the jewish captives making the best of the situation. the end result is that while the film is hard to watch it manages to be engaging, schindler's bravery along with the unbreakable spirit of the people he helped are inspirational, and they stand in direct conflict with the senseless horror of what was going on around them. that's obviously not as easy to do as i'm making it out to be, but that's why directing an anti-war film is a challenge, and i'd argue it's better to make a bad film that keeps the message than an enjoyable film that sends the wrong message
I think “Generation Kill” is one of the most impactful war media i’ve ever seen, a show which ticks all the boxes of an anti-war film given in this video. It shows a small part of the American perspective of the invasion of iraq. It’s relentless, and a bit difficult to digest for the average viewer, as it focuses on accurate portrayal over audience engagement. It’s made by a reporter who went followed a platoon of recon Marines all the way to Baghdad, and everything is based off his and these man’s experiences (The show is really good, it just doesn’t coax you, which i like. One example is they only explaining 3/4 into the show that they call one of the soldiers Whopper, because it’s a Burger King item, because BK is short for “baby killer”. Which is fucked) The combat scenes are few and far between, and these are never glorified. The two i can think of, although adrenaline rushing, are uncomfortable to watch. It shows how gruesome, dehumanising, tragic, and down right stupid war is, and the consequences both the soldiers and the civilians have to deal with because of it.
@@youegg9873 i haven't seen it but that sounds like an interesting watch i might check it out, i'd much rather war films were like that than glorify it. i don't watch that many but i recently saw on the western front and thought it was pretty good, it follows a german kid who enlisted in ww2 and fought in france. it does a great job of showing the propaganda that was used to trick people into enlisting, the few combat scenes are all horrific and make it crystal clear how senseless the violence was, and the effect it had on the soldiers was shown in detail. it was also a nice touch to show the german perspective for a change, the vast majority of nazis were ordinary people fighting for their country and the idea that all nazis were monsters is far too common (in no small part thanks to many other ww2 films), and it's not the soldiers' fault that their leaders are the ones who started the war
@@aldrichunfaithful3589 Highly recommend it, it’s on HBO. Yes, i have seen it. Great film! It only shows the soldiers side and not civilians though, but i don’t necessarily agree with the criteria that an anti-war film has to show how war affects everyone in war (as long as no side is portrayed as villains). Your point about soldiers at the whim of leaders is really prominent in Generation Kill, as they show the downright incompetence and gross negligence of some of these assholes. Clout chasers losing and taking lives just in order to gain a medal and climb the ranks
Another great anti-war movie that fits the criteria is "Waltz with Bashir". Totally recommend it! (It's an animated movie, not a live-action, but still fits the criteria).
Does all quiet on the western front meet the criteria? 1. It definetly doesn't glorify the war and makes a very stark point of the futility 2. Well we see scenes where Heinrich returns to his father and see how civilian life was, and the French farmer family is another group of civilians depicted 3. It is based off the personal experiences of most of the actors from the original who were almost all war veterans from ww1.
I'd argue a film like Zone of Interest is an anti war film. Films that are about society during war, rather than war itself, can be effective anti war films.
My father was a Vietnam veteran. [The family, including 3 year old me, accompanied him on his second tour and were evacuated from Saigon.] There were two films that we both found devastating. The first was Casualties of War which showed the moral erosion of U.S. soldiers and the negative consequences that led to incidents like My Lai. The second was Platoon -- which fulfills your criterion that the story must be personal. Dad's one word review was "accurate." Then we all went to a bar. It was the first time I drank hard liquor in front of him and one of the only times I saw him drink whisky. It was a devastating film.
Was there anything in the movie Platoon that made the North Vietnamese government regret their decision to start the Vietnam War? How about the movie The Day After, did it deter the Russians from invading Ukraine? How are these movies anti-war movies if they never deter the aggressor from starting the war in the first place. Alls Quiet on the Western Front didn't deter Germany from starting World War II, and that one was written from a German perspective. I guess Germans think dying on the battlefield is a lot of fun, because they went and did it again!
@@thomaskalbfus2005 America didn't have to draft young men to die in a swamp just because ANOTHER country was having a civil war. Thats why people protested having troops there, and thats why america had to eventually pull out. America IS the aggressor, in some cases. It is more patriotic to acknowledge that your country is not perfect than be a silly fanatic. You are asking it to deter aggressive governments from war. its just films. its not gonna be able to do that. It's purpose is to use literature to educate people about the horrors of war. And because these films help educate people about these things, they can protest against unjust wars, and get stuff done. Anti-War films are not the main source of anti-war education, so don't expect them to singlehandedly change hitler as a person or something. But they do help. Germans do not like dying a battlefield, I guess I'll just say that, and WW1 was a pointless war for both sides (not WW2 that war was destined to happen ever since that hitler bitch took power).
@@thomaskalbfus2005 - HIstory has shown that the Gulf f Tonkin which led to US involvement in the War didn't happen. It was what some people call a FAlse Flag. As for the Russians invading Ukraine- you should listen to an Interview Tucker Carlson did with some Professor from GEorge WAshington Universirty whose name I forget. I think RFK Jr and others have said the same thing. It is much more complicated than Russia is the Bad Guy and PUtin is the new Hitler
good vid, ever thought of adding the name of the film in the corner for whenever you show scenes? i saw some beautiful shots from a lot of films i recognized but some i didnt know. also on full metal jacket i would argue that just because people see the the drill sergeant as comical, it doesn’t take away from the anti war aspect. is it the movies fault if people miss the point? more of a societal problem imo
while i agree its a societal problem those are things you MUST consider when you are making a film, when you are vetting which scenes do and dont get in on the final picture you have to consider not the context of how you want to convey it but how you think the audience will receive it, what context have you given them? is there anything else you can do to help steer it towards your desired view? what recent events might influence the audiences view? its why we learn about the things going on in and during a authors life when studying a book, the society that views and enjoys the media is just as important as the media itself and should be accounted for when creation of said media is taking place.
@@snage-thesnakemage Great way to make an otherwise unique and interesting story generic. Too many writers make the mistake of dumbing down their story by fear of the audience missing the point, so much so that that any impactful message will feel forced and awkward. The climax of the first act is Gomer Pyle killing the instructor. Everything prior serves to set up that scene. Do you really think taking away the iconic performance does anything besides diminish the impact of the Sergeants death? Making him a generic mustache twirling evil guy gets the point across of military bad much better but then you would be cheering when he dies. Having Gomer Pyle kill an actual person you connect with on some human level even if because you find his dialogue humorous instead of a perfect audience tested stand in for "war bad" makes the effects of his bullying and subsequent mental breakdown feel so much more real. Also the film was made in 1987 how’s he supposed to predict people with todays sense of humour making jokes about the 1000 yard stare and the drill instructor. Why are you pointing out the importance of taking into account things in and around the authors life if you’re only looking at the discourse in present day when the author is already dead. He also said he wasn’t making an anti war movie but instead a movie about war. He wanted to depict what war actually was. So the drill instructor acting like one would in reality in my opinion only makes the movie better.
I also must add a criminally underseen but powerful film to the actual “anti-war” genre. Quo Vadis, Aida? is one of a kind. Up there with Come and See and Human Condition for me
As someone who going through the war right at this moment and was going through it for almost 3 past years, I want to warn you against true anti-war movies. It is very humane to have empathy, pacifistic worldview and to seek experience that will horrify you about the war in movies, but it will all break after you will see the war first hand. If you never were in active combat zones, this type of movies may teach you to be scared more than you need to be, especially if you are civilian in the middle of major conflict. This fear can lead you to wrong decisions that may cost somebody a life. Keep your morale up folks. Pacifism is cool until somebody will invade your country, destroy your home and steal the best years of your life.
Mmm, it is noticeable that people's criteria here for a truly anti-war movie forces the movie to disproportionately show the most horrific parts or else people will get the wrong idea. To me, it feels like saying that to make a truly anti-war movie, you have to mislead people. I get it though-shoot-y scenes that are obviously horrific are usually also exciting-but I don't know what to think of it, because I think it'd be ridiculous if we couldn't show working tanks and planes because they make people enlist. I hope you all make it out of the war ok.
@@kindlingking your theory was disproved so many times its comical you still hold the belief that Ukraine shelled "poor unnarmed russian minorities" when there was literally Russian military personnel crossing the border to fight with the separatists.
There are few things more exciting than a large battle. Being able to view it in safety makes it even better. When you are young, you are more likely to want to be a part of those battles because younger people seek excitement. Whether directly or indirectly, war films are often responsible for young men joining up with their nations' militaries, regardless of how different real combat is than film combat.
Doesn't help that the climax in war movies is often a large battle, whereas in real life the story doesn't end there. The effect that war has on the people that take part will be felt for years afterward.
I believe that Elem Klimov’s film is truly anti-war because the film shows war as an absolute defeat. While watching the film, you don’t have thoughts like: “my grandfather/great-grandfather went through this!” the film does not inspire pride, it shows real horrors.
"A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things they have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie." -Tim O'Brien
A film made by an awful person. Even here it shows the conquering soviets as a good force. Only the Germans are treated as evil in that film, so I think it fails as being anti war since fighting against them is shown as just.
@@Aradel1200 For the time period 'The Pianist' depicts, the Soviet forces would have been seen as a relief versus the Germans who occupied that area of Poland. The focus was on the humanity shown in a love of music. Remember the scene where he's wearing a dead German officer's coat just to keep warm, runs into a Soviet soldier, starts playing the piano for him, and the soldier just relaxes and enjoys the music?
"Yet beautiful." And that's why it's not a solid anti-war movie. Even the films ending, with Spilzman playing the piano triumphantly to a concert hall, clean-shaven and dapper as ever, after the war undermines the anti-war message of the film. He survived, he didn't look any worse for the wear, and the heroic German officer saved his life with a warm coat, some cake, and silence. A genuinely anti-war film can't show any redeeming qualities. There cannot be any heroes or successful compassion - there cannot be *any* humanity. And that's a problem when a film also has to be entertaining and not just 90 minutes of suffering. Even a film like Come and See is exceedingly difficult to watch because of just how much the characters and the viewers are beaten down by the relentless horror. The only relief that film has to offer is that the protagonist wouldn't kill baby Hitler...
@@FabrisFanaticthe problem with that is if you genuinely show no compassion whatsoever you trade one lie for another Hacksaw Ridge is a true story about a selfless man who went through all the hells of WW2 without firing a single shot and saving 75 lives and was so cartoonishly heroic that the film had to actively leave out his most ludicrous exploits to make it more believable Yet it still shows the brutality and horrors of war in such a way that no one would ever want to fight it If a film had to show absolutely no compassion, joy or humanity in war at all times to be genuinely anti war, the only films that could then qualify is truly anti war are bad films And I don’t think you want that
@@ivrxr8693 a story about a guy who does amazing selfless things in a war is not anti-war. That is the point. You can show war as brutal and horrible, but if you say "war creates heroes" then you're undercutting the anti-war message of the film. Audiences start making excuses for war and things like 'necessary sacrifice.' Look at how you just described Hacksaw Ridge. "It's the story of a selfless man who saved 75 lives..." not "it's the story of how many lives were ruined forever by war." The protagonist survived - he had a happy ending (the film ends with him being lifted away with Christ-like imagery and then getting the Medal of Honor!). Besides that, lots of people see these war movies portraying the horrors of combat and wouldn't want to fight in it themselves... but they're absolutely happy to support policies that send OTHER people to go fight in those horrible wars. An anti-war film has to not just make you averse to personally participating, but supporting ANYONE participating in it. Not just "oh geez, war sucks I don't want to fight in one" but full on "war should be outlawed." And no, films that are relentless in their inhumanity are not bad films. Come And See and AQOTWF (original and modern version) are two examples of genuinely good films that do not try to equivocate about their subject matter with platitudes like, "war is hell, but look at these heroes!" Another two good films that I consider as genuinely anti-war are Dr. Strangelove and The Day After. The latter film had an actual, real-life effect on changing the course of international relations and averting nuclear war. The events of the film were cruel, the compassion of the protagonists was in vain, and the world ended in a pointless nuclear apocalypse. The movie terrified and disturbed US and Soviet leaders that they signed nuclear arms reduction treaties. This is the kind of movie I'm talking about. A movie so thoroughly anti-war that it convinced global leaders to actually take measures to outlaw it. And this is why truly anti-war films are so hard to pull off. It's much more than just showing lots of people being killed horribly.
Terrence Malick's 'The Thin Red Line' is the only one I've seen that I feel confident saying is anti-war. And even that gets a bit too rhapsodic and philosophically close to apologetic or nihilistic in places.
I totally agree because he places the war in the background. Almost as if it is a distraction to the existential and sacred. IMO Most war movies (pro or anti war) focus too much on the war itself to the point of humanity becoming a distraction if that makes sense. The Thin Red Line does the exact opposite. It really stands out as different to me. A lot of people criticized it as not being focused, but It is incredibly focused on the existential in my opinion. I will say though I don't believe it was Terrence Malicks intention on making an anti war movie. He seems like he's more interested in filming beautiful birds or the ocean.
The problem with calling The Thin Red Line anti-war is that only a portion of the movie is even interested in its own topic: repeatedly throughout the movie it feels as though Mallick just wanted an excuse to go somewhere tropical and film a wildlife documentary, and any themes the movie may or may not display on war are entirely incidental. Can you call a movie anti-war if the driving creative force seems to have lost interest halfway through filming and turned his attention to birds?
@@jamesderiven1843 that's a good point, but I do think the nature stuff wasn't as disconnected to war as it seems. The opening in the movie asks "what's this war in the heart of nature". The Thin Red Line is focused on portraying paradise and the war happening within it is ironic. The movies narrative is not focused on critiquing war at all. More asking the question of how suffering and beauty seem to exist in the same sentence. I might agree in that case. The Thin Red Line certainly stands out to me as a transcendental film and maybe trying to look at it as an anti war film will distract from its main ideas of existentialism.
i agree especially the scene where they question why wars even happen is enough to strengthen tha take, hell they even joke about it being more reasonable to have the guys on top like the kaiser just battle it out 1v1 with the enemy. i fully support that lmao
I think movie directors understand something that in your discussion of neuroscience you may be missing. While it's true that there is a risk of making a war movie thrilling, a good director will make you ashamed of being thrilled. In other words, they will evoke the adrenaline response, then show you something that cuts you off at the knees, showing how superficial your response was.
Can't find the source - I think it was in Modine's Full Metal Jacket Diary - but I recall an account where Kubrick, prior to making Full Metal Jacket, told a friend that he wanted to make a war film. His friend said he already made one with Paths of Glory. Kubrick replied that Paths was an anti-war film, and that he wanted to make a war film.
I understand you’re mainly focused on movies, but I honestly would love to see your takeaways for games and other forms of media and their depictions of war! Especially when it comes to something like Halo or Spec Ops: The Line! And of course, seeing how you’d dissect CoD would be really fun too
Thanks so much for making this video! I’d also love to hear your thoughts on The Killing Fields, Das Boot, Letters from Iwo Jima, and Downfall (aka Der Untergang). All four are movies that I’ve come to deeply appreciate. In my opinion, the latter two are especially effective as anti-war films on account of how relentlessly they deny catharsis to the audience. The only real glimpse of hope they offer is at the very end, when both protagonists (Saigo and Traudl) survive - but only because their war happened to end before the Reaper could collect them, as it had collected so many of their friends. LFIJ and Downfall are both deeply sorrowful films, that pull no punches in showing how entire generations of German and Japanese youth had their lives utterly wasted in wars of aggression, waged for the sake of a dictator’s ego. Downfall, in particular, is ruthless in skewering fascism as a snake that eats its own tail, and how its promises of martial glory are proven to be venomous lies - lies that people gulp down because they want to believe in them, even when their whole world is coming to an end.
While it is true that action in war films tends to be flashy just for the sake of entertainment rather than making a statement about the horrors of war or bringing up the psychological consequences it creates on people (soldiers and civils alike) I think the statement of "There's no such thing as an anti-war film" diminishes the value of a movie, because in the end what the author of the movie communicates or tries to doesn't depend on the perception of the viewers. Everyone can make their own ideas based on their ideologies and experiences, but the meaning of a story doesn't change with how people perceive it
I believe that is missing the thesis of the video, they don't have to be pro-horror. It's just not an anti-horror movie. Inherently, there is enjoyment from horror movies; whether they repulse you or not, you still take a peek through the hands covering your eyes because you want to see more; hence not anti-horror.
I don’t think you understand. War is something akin to industrial scale r*pe. The fact that it is a movie genre is a byproduct of how war has become “distant” to certain populations. It doesn’t matter why you watch it, it isn’t right. You wouldn’t watch a r*pe movie for the thrill. But a fictional horror movie can offer thrill with mindless carnage. There are other ways to portray courage, you don’t have to make a war movie.
@@asdf-sr1ny idk man i'm pretty sure when a movie,show,or media portrays how horrible war is, I'm not watching it bcz I think its cool or fun to watch, but because I'm intrigued on what these people went through. I always love media and movies that show the individual vs the overall events of a war. people didn't watch movies like come and see and all quiet on hte western front just for the thrill of seeing people die and break down and have their psyche ruined. People who like war movies wouldn't watch those and I doubt they'd like it (I'd say they'd even go as far as to call them boring) They'd probably watch something like full metal jacket or gods and generals etc etc the movies that actually have either mindless carnage or try to show extensive heroism. Books that show a person's thoughts and feelings and what they went through or someone attempting to portray war in a bad light,show why it's horrible,meaningless, that's anti war like, not sure how that's an argument. No one watches those movies and thinks "oh hell yeah,i want to join hte army. oh we need to go to war." People think how horrible it is, maybe even persuade people to NOT join the military. And further more,tells the story of people that are long forgotten and expresses the feelings of people we may never learn about as war kills so many people with many being forgotten to history with no one to tell their stories.
As someone mentioned in a reply, I don't think you understood the thesis of the video. He didn't say he agreed with "there is no such thing as an anti war film" he said he partially agrees. it should also be noted that the saying isn't "every war is pro war". Though, I disagree with "there is no such thing as an anti war film" , he also is somewhat disagreeing. He believes there are anti war films and that certain criteria should be met to be seen as anti war in his eyes (afterall its all just opinions) Horror is a horrible comparison. Horror could be pro horror, a lot of them could be. People get inspired by horror movies even. They sure aren't saying they're pro horror (at least for most. def some that could easy be argued that they are) but they sure can inspire someone to want to be the killer in their own fantasy. Like in horror, there's so many positive things someone can feel either the thrill of hide and seek or being chased,the thrill of chasing or killing or the suspense. Anti war films don't have that. There's no thrill in killing, only the stripping of innocence. The closest thing that can maybe relate is the suspense, but anti war movies don't show or have suspense to give you a jump or something like that. It's there to portray a soldier's/person's feelings. Their life can end at any moment, they won't know its coming even till its too late, the constant suspense gripping one's heart can be horrifying as there's nothing you can do about it, and these people in these real life situations have to feel this for hours upon hours,days after days,months.
Really surprised because no one is talking about Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood. While not being his best film by any means, it is definetly anti war, even the "good" war
Jimmy Stewart served in the Air Force in WW2 and the Vietnam war and he was a legitimate war hero (this was during his early blissing acting career). He later said that he didn’t want to be in war movies because, having been through war and seeing the hellish horrors first hand (as well as ofc the effects the soldiers endured after coming home), he believed that no war movie could accurately depict the atrocities he saw.
Good video, but to be honest I don't think it's an argument that warrants being had. Neither Truffaut nor Spielberg have the final say on such things. I think both positions can merit an interesting position but ultimately neither position holds entirely when viewed widely in the genre. I think even the criteria offered here is subjective enough that I wouldn't agree with it. Similarly I don't feel that the assertions of why Full Metal Jacket doesn't fit the mold are entirely convincing.
@@itsjustcinemaabsolutely. Don’t take my comment to mean you shouldn’t debate this issue or have opinions on it. But personally I just don’t like the binary assessment of a genre is such a blithe way as Truffaut and Spielberg have taken it.
@@The_Reviewist Totally agree, while its interesting to point out something that a lot of media in the genre ends up doing, its a bit too wide of a swing to say something about the WHOLE genre
I also agree with Truffaut. I think that many so-called “anti-war” films are punctuated by scenes that explore the spectacular side of war. Of course, there are war films in which courage and violence are the only themes present, leaving out the horror, madness, suffering, injustice and the traumatic loss of innocence. Films like The Thin Red Line, Paths of Glory and Come and See reflect on precisely these themes. They are therefore more humanistic and, as a result, more realistic. Another thing that is evident, especially in the first two films I mentioned, is that they are deeply critical of the military leadership and of the distorted, cold logic behind many of their decisions. The military apparatus is portrayed in these films as a machine that destroys human beings, both those it attacks and those it commands.
Despite being a vehicle to sell toys and model kits, 1979 Gundam and Zeta do a pretty good job at the anti war stuff and examining how Japan's leaders treated the value of soldiers' lives very poorly
I mean that’s ultimately what war is. Even a successful offensive that despite us your enemy or a successful defense that repulses them will result in casualties.
@@baneofbanes Yes, of course, but I was referring to a destruction that is not only physical, but also psychological. Like the one that takes place in the first part of Full Metal Jacket. The military institution destroys its own children.
@@mrfugazi1181 yah that’s what war is dude. It’s psychologically damaging humans are no king we individuals, they’re tools. It’s an extension of human society in general.
Before i got to the midpoint of the video i was going to say that if an anti war film exists its Come and See. Easily one of the most terrifying movies ive ever seen and its lived in my head rent free ever since
First I should this was a very nice video, very much appreciate it, then I would like to say that, the picture at 08:43, isn't from ww2, Because of the equipment (SKSs and RPD), probably is related to 60s Vietnam conflict.
While I understand the last "requirement" you put I feel like it restricts the possible pool needlessly. It goes without saying that an anti-war film will be better if made by someone who authentically went through war. But It doesn't mean someone who hasn't gone through war cannot do the same, I mean if the sentiment from these movies cannot be passed on without war happening then they fail to do what i believe is the purpose of an anti-war film. Warn the coming generations of the horrors and hope they steer clear from it. Because for that to work without us forgetting the lesson, there HAS to be a point in which someone who has only ever heard about war tries to pass down this warning in some way shape or form. And if they can't then the lesson is doomed to die out whenever peace time is found.
@@MrRizeAG ah ok my bad, but now properly informed the problem is still there. Like for a real world analogue imagine if the great war(WWI) was the last war, it would be impossible for most of the population to make an anti-war film by this definition because all WWI vets are dead today, and their families and those who have been informed by them would be naturally dwindling. I hope that helps portray the problem of tying experience of war to the definiton of anti-war. I believe that those who have researched war should be able to make an anti-war film. And discrediting a film from a genre purely based on someones lack first or second hand of experience with the subject matter limits us.
@@snage-thesnakemage I don't think the experience necessarily has to be from THAT war, though it is usually better. You can transpose the experiences in one war to just about any other war if you're smart about it. All that really changes is the set dressing and technology.
It is a very intense movie not in the action sense but in the emotional sense. It is definitely anti war. I wont spoil anything but if you could watch it as blind going in as you can the better. Also the captain is a great film also.
The Zone of Interest, completely ripped off any climactic adrenaline-infusing scenes, could make a good example on the topic. The mundanity of it is the true horror.
I once accidentally left RUclips on when I went to sleep and it autoplayed "Come and see". I woke up several times to gunshots, viceral screams and children crying. The most intese part of the expeience was that it all blended together neither asleep or awake. I checked the phone and saw one of the most memorable scene of the film, when the main character was shooting at the picture of Hitler covered in mud and screaming painfully at the top of his lungs. It hit me like a truck man.
Yes, I enjoy WATCHING combat. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm a small organism in a Petri dish whose behavior can be changed entirely by "neuron activation". There is process called "thinking". There are tons of things that I enjoy and avoid because of it.
I find that what Truffaut says kinda reminds me of how most people talk about most of the horror genre (which makes sense - a lot of war/anti-war films could arguably be extensions of the horror genre imo). Though with the horror genre, sometimes they have meta commentary about itself (like the Scream franchise, and the movie Funny Games that has commentary where it's supposed to scold the audience for being entertained by violence). I definitely agree with the conclusion part of this video though, because - like anti-war films - there's definitely ways to create horror art/media with respect and care for people (for example, there's arguably a big difference between how Perfect Blue handles it's subject matter vs what Megan is Missing does when it comes to SA - though I say arguably because everyone handles trauma differently, so what can be respectful for one SA survivor might not be the same for someone else, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's similar for most war veterans too).
I'm not sure that I fully agree with this. Just because the brain is equally engaged when watching either anti- or pro-war films does not mean that the impact on the psyche is the same. The opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan does not show young men dying gloriously, but it shows the horrors of being blown apart. The gore, the screams, grown men crying for their mothers. It's fundamentally different from pro-war movies or even the Transformers movies which, while not war movies, glorify life in the military and are basically propaganda. You can make the argument that Saving Private Ryan's ending having an inspirational tone defeats the anti-war message, and you might have a point, but the entire story was literally saving a man from the war. Ryan represents the audience and anyone impressionable enough to believe that war is glorious. The goal of the film is literally to save the audience from Hollywood's often pro-war propaganda. Just as the opening of Saving Private Ryan dispels the myth of "dying gloriously in battle", the show Generation Kill dispels the myth of military service as an "adventure". It shows young men being subjects and pawns to military leaders that are so out of touch, they gave jungle camo fatigues as the uniform for a desert operation. They sent them out with barely enough batteries for their night vision to carry out their night operations. They also forced them to carry pointless equipment that they would never use and only added to their overall weight (famous example of this: everyone had their rifles equipped with ACOG scopes, but the leaders wanted to make sure that they had iron sights as a backup. So they forced everyone to attach the carry handle to the underbarrel of their rifle, which did nothing but add weight because the carry handle wouldn't be properly sighted if they switched it out). Generation Kill shows that life in the military is a pain in the ass where you're forced to submit to the whims of people that will often give the most questionable of commands because you can't refuse, and soldiers left at the other end with the question of "How do I give them what they want, and stay alive?" This drastically makes the viewer question their views of military service. The anti-war elements go even further when you look at the reality that the Iraq war was built on lies. The men and women that died there died for nothing. Even comedies like Barry can deliver very subtle anti-violence messages. Barry attempts to de-glorify violence through cinematography and dark comedy. Scenes that are meant to be "bad ass" are usually deflated with comedic elements that wind up with the "bad ass" making a fool of themself. The only exception to this was the assault on the Bolivians (that I can think of, currently), which Barry is unconscious for so we never actually see it. The final confrontation between Fuches and NoHo Hank has so much tension behind it and when the tension comes to a head, we don't get a huge John Woo action scene. It's a flat, static camera shot of two groups of men in an open room with no cover clumsily shooting at each other. Violence is never shown as something that is "cool". These are powerful messages that go far to remove the 'sexiness' that Hollywood applies to war movies and violence. Yes, the stories are engaging, but so is a car wreck. Just because we can't look away from a car wreck doesn't mean that we think it's cool or want to drive more recklessly. It's the same principle with anti-war/anti-violence media. The lesson that the audience learns as a result from engaging in the story, what they believe after watching it, is what ultimately determines whether something was pro- or anti-war.
"The lesson that the audience learns as a result from engaging in the story" Sometimes I wonder if it's just too easy to turn one's brain off when watching something. I think that's a big reason why it's tricky to make the audience learn these lessons. You show a bunch of bored annoyed grunts in Generation Kill, getting screwed by their superiors, and to some extent, people will see cool-looking guys-fit, uniformed, armed-cracking funny jokes at each other. I mean, the lessons themselves aren't complicated of course, but somehow they lack the same emotional appeal perhaps? Like a battle scene where a character dies horribly, but your overall feeling is still excitement.
'Casualties of War' is a grueling watch with maybe one or two spots of "comfort", one of those apparently being forced by the studio, because otherwise they felt audiences would leave the theater without a hint of catharthis. The movie is basically one drawn out violent sexual assault, so know what you're getting into. It's probably the most vicious depiction of war crimes by Americans to ever come out of the Hollywood system, and was likely only allowed to be made because Vietnam war movies were ironically all the rage in the 80's.
My father was a Vietnam veteran, and he considered _Casualties of War_ to be one of the best Vietnam war films he ever saw. Also, Michael J. Fox's performance was possibly his best.
I thought it was a good Movie. I dont' thinkit was all one sexual Assault. I think it showed how many essentailly good People can go Crazy and become Ruthless Monsters during War. The Sean Penn Character who was heroic at the Beginnning of the Movie- I think hte saved Michel J Fox's character life- becomes a monster after some of his friends are killed. That Movie I beleive was based on a real life inidient. It was MJ Fox's best performance. No Alex Keaton or even Marty McFly in that Movie. Althoughj, I guess like Marty McFly, his character was Heroic.
There are dozens of films being listed here that seem to disprove the thesis. There are a great deal of war films that don't glorify war and genuinely show the horrors of war.
To me, both Truffaut and Spielberg are wrong. There's no film that can purely be call Pro nor Anti war film, being this more of an spectrum, where all war-themed films will appear, this being specially true if you lean into death of the author theory. Even the most jingoistic films like the John Wayne vehicle The Green Berets have to show their guys getting killed at times, even graphically (otherwise, the work would seem nakedly manipulative/unrealistic or they would seem like bullies) while something as effectively anti-war as Come and See can be seen from a propagandistic lense if you squint hard enough (for example, what if a Pro-Russian person interprets it not as "war is awful and brutal", but as "Germans/Western pigs invaded our land, burned our houses and brutalized our people and I won't let that happen again"). It's practically impossible to be purely on one end of that spectrum, no matter how close you get there. However, it doesn't mean artists shouldn't/won't strive to reach one end of the spectrum if they believe they have to. Anyway, I still liked the video a lot and I wanna thank you for the recommendations. Never heard of "The Ascent" before and now it's on my watch list, and I feel now more compelled to look for the "Human Condition" trilogy. In exchange, I wanna recomend you the animated film "Funan", which is pretty good, though very harrowing as well and leans as much towards the anti-war spectrum as something like Come and See does.
What about Platoon? It's director was a Vietnam vet, and the ending quote having this line "we didn't fight the enemy, we fought ourselves" , I've also like to point out that song used in the movie which always makes me come back to it when I hear it
I think making an anti-war movie by showing war is the equivalent of making an anti-smut film by showing smut. The very appeal of many smut films is precisely the taboo nature, viewing such content as wrong is precisely what makes it appealing. So you can only ever make valid anti-smut content without any sexually gratifying material. Sorry to say this, but even films where civilians get endlessly physically and mentally tortured by war and factors entirely beyond their control, with no good or bad guys, with no discernable objective besides survival, are not good at portraying anti-war messaging, but more so existential horror. They don't possess a cohesive argument against war, besides utilizing psychological terror to submit the audience into taking an anti-war stance. I don't deny the importance of them acting as a form of documentation of war from civilian perspective, but they don't possess sophisticated anti-war messaging, besides primal terror of potentially being in the same situation. A real anti-war pacifist film would have a setting along the lines of diplomat being tasked with a herculean task of averting WW3 when the world is on the verge of nuclear holocaust and barely succeeding. The objective is to make an audience feel excited and relieved at the aversion of war, not feeling excited from the war itself. To this day, a Ferengi arguing with a Vulcan in Star Trek on why continuation of a war is bad is the most intelligent piece of anti-war fiction I've seen and it's the only piece of art that has ever made me on some level think "Okay, I am not insane. War really can be illogical".
Finally, *FINALLY* somebody mentioned Come and See in the debate video of ''what is an anti-war film.'' I've seen a lot of similar videos about the paradox of anti-war films, but this one is definitely the best and most agreeable by far.
Gotta check out The Forgotten Battle if you haven’t seen it - a devastating movie but one that really shows how war destroys not just communities but people themselves, even if they survive.
You showed a brief clip of The Zone of Interest. I think that's an interesting one. It's less focused on war than on the Holocaust, but I think their choice to not depict any of the violence was an interesting way to avoid some of these pitfalls. You could also say that it's distracting, with its focus on the German family and these ironically beautiful spaces amid the horror, but I think it has a deeply unsettling effect.
To me Apocalypse Now refutes this perspective outright. The film makes it very clear that the Americans shouldn't be there, that they're running around dealing out death to people who pose no more threat to them than a cornered, desperate, and provoked animal (Like a tiger). Neither the protagonist nor the antagonist have any faith in the American cause anymore, nor does the Enemy have much tangible presence in the film; it's impossible to root for anyone's triumph because clearly nobody knows what they're trying to do. What you're rooting for is for the horror of war to not rob them of their lives or their souls, to get out of there as soon as possible because they're doing nobody an ounce of good by fighting these grotesque, never-ending battles.
yes and art has no relation to the time or place the work is set of course, the curtains are blue, robert duvall is robert duvall, wagner is wagner. even if you want to claim thematic detachment on the grounds of its loosely adapting conrad the rhetoric is still shaky because apocalypse now is 100% beholden to the colonialist framing of its source.
@@Gravitynaut Why? Why would Americans be incapable of making a film that was critical of American military policy, even disgusted and horrified by it? Do you think Duvall is supposed to be heroic, the Wagner blasting behind him uplifting, the setting he stands in an opportunity to fawn over American military might?
@@MagusMirificusTo start with, yes. The military grants a tremendous financial and locational assistance to films which they have final say in the manner in which they are depicted. and anyways just because a film intends itself and frames itself as an imperialist critique, doesn't make it magically immune to criticism, or mean that it might never adhere to problematic imperialist frames
@@Gravitynaut Of course not. But that doesn't preclude the possibility of a work transcending those frameworks and making a genuine critique. There is a sense in which the state has pretty tight control over the explicit parameters of ALL creative work, not just that which deals with war. Artists often tend to strain against those barriers in any way they can get away with; plus, during the filming of Apocalypse Now, F.F.C. was at war with his own studio, spiraling into overtime and overbudget as the project spun out of control. Somehow I doubt that through that chaos the US Military was able to exert meaningful creative influence over the project's direction, nor does the film itself suggest such an influence. This all just sounds like capitalist realist "Beneficiaries of a system are ontologically incapable of opposing that system" defeatism to me.
Because games literally cannot be anti-war. Yes, the white phosphorus scene in spec-ops: the line is haunting, but in first person shooters, you choose do the shooting, because it is entertaining. You make the choice to go shoot some people, not because it's your duty or because you have to, but for fun. Therefore, making that experience "anti-war" is impossible
@@axelotlgaming7921 Just to be clear your telling me the game with the line “To kill for yourself is murder. To kill for your government is heroic. To kill for entertainment is harmless.” is not anti-war
@@axelotlgaming7921I don't think spec ops was designed to be fun, it's generic and uses so many tropes from shooters simply to have the message be conveyed through it. I didn't really have fun playing it, but I found value in how it examines how we make the choice to play both it and games about war in general.
Honestly, i can't really disagree. War involves so many human behaviours that are so basic and relatable. To our tribalism. The only way to make an anti war movie really is making a documentary about proton stars
"Where the Wind Blows" is an animated adaptation of a comic, about an elderly couple trying to prepare for nuclear fallout without understanding how it works, and without taking it seriously. It's gutting.
To me the true mark of an anti war film is a film that can only be watched once, not because it’s bad, but because it’s so brutal/uncomfortable to watch. But you can still acknowledge it as a successful work of art from a technical perspective (great writing/story/direction/execution etc.). The film can be acknowledged as a great work of art but can only be watched once because of how heavy the subject matter is. Come And See is exactly that for me.
I don’t disagree in the sense that if someone is “pro-war” there isn’t a piece of cinema by itself that will change their outlook. They’ll see grave of the fireflies be moved but still justify the US’s actions. Seen it first hand in film school
I mean fundamentally there’s a difference between “war is awesome” like most action movies and “war is a necessary evil”. Grave of the Fireflies response is the second. The unfortunate truth is that there was no reasoning with Japan at that point in way that wasn’t just capitulation after they attacked the US. The reaction to more peaceful means of dissuading them from war with the oil embargo was responded to with Pearl Harbor
@@badart3204Lies. The Japanese government were ready to surrender but their only condition was that the Emperor shouldn't be harmed or be held under trial. The Americans only accepted "Unconditional Surrender", and they bombed the country afterwards. Japanese unwilling to surrender because it's in their culture is a racist myth.
@@badart3204All lies. There is no necessary war. Only propaganda. The Japanese were willing to surrender only under the condition that the Emperor to not be put under trial due to his cultural significance.
@@jkabrams341 after being thoroughly beaten on the high seas during the war. Stop defending evil governments you coward. There are necessary wars such as national self defense. The answer to Pearl Harbor, Nanjing, and Bataan Death March is Fat Man. You have no sympathy for the victims of the Japanese aggression you only cry when someone does something about it.
@@jkabrams341 They were also conquering Southeast Asia, and they sent tens of thousands of bombs by balloon, hoping to cause chaos within the U.S. You’re brushing over why we were in a war with Japan. I agree, that the A bombs weren’t necessary, but the Japanese were committing atrocities, as bad as any that have ever happened, over in that part of the world. Who else would’ve stopped it? You really believe the U.S. military, was a worse option, than 1945 Japan, having such a foothold in that region? That’s debatable, but the Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, and others in the region, have been fighting one another for thousands of years. The racism and hatred for one another, was far beyond even the worst U.S. soldier’s and brass’s towards their enemies. Japan didn’t see there soldiers murdering civilians, including graping, and horribly murdering, women and children. Babies on the bayonets, like stories of the U.S. and natives that were massacred. Though, many natives committed the same, upon settlers and others, who weren’t soldiers, and many who weren’t even armed. Was war not necessary, for those natives? Should they just have moved, risking their way of life? Tribes fought amongst one another, long before a European arrived. If not for the small pox, first brought by Columbus and Vespucci, the natives in North America, would’ve had their own countries. 90% were gone, within a couple hundreds years, just from the spread of small pox, by the natives who traded goods with one another. The trade and disease, would spread across both continents, before most Europeans had even explored half of it. War is unnecessary, if one believes in non-violence, to the point of being killed. If they don’t care what the invader/attacker does to them and those they love, and/or their city, county, state, country, etc. Saying “war is never necessary…” sounds good, but it’s just not reality. That’s the thinking of an idealist, but the strong have taken advantage of those weaker, poorer, sicker, etc. since tribes have existed. What if one’s tribe couldn’t get enough food for the winter, because another tribe, which they didn’t make war with when it showed up near them, has hunted the game to the point that there isn’t enough for the tribe living their first. If they go to that other tribe, and talk about the food, asking whether they could share supplies, as the new tribe has more than enough, but get turned away, what should they do? And what if this tribe, also says they will kill anyone who tries to take their food? Does the first tribe just starve to death, or risk the same and worse, trying to migrate? You still think war isn’t necessary, even if they’d been there for longer than any living person has memory to recount their ancestors. Yes, technically, war isn’t necessary, but that only works if no one is able to wage it.
I would add the animated movie waltz with bashir as another very effective antiwar movie. Maybe the most effective antiwar movie since the 90s till now. And it had all the "entertaining" parts, even comedic sequences that could be considered distasteful to the victims of that conflict. The trick here is to distant itself from any feeling of triumph, release, validation or purpose and focus on the human cost both physical and mentals. Any great imagery it conjured up isnt to embelish events or a perverted needs for technical showcase on the part of the movie crew but directly link to the atrocity perpetrated and discussed in the movie. You won't connect scenes like Elias's death leading to justice enacted on Barnes, nor will the death of Conrad be connected to the release of tension built throughout the movie, just the cost of lives and souls for everybody involved and the denial thereafter.
Jarhead is one of those anti-war film that simply edging its viewer for war, making the audiences feel empathy for the protagonist to simply just want to rain bullets on enemies
I think that we shouldn't try to create fiction that glorifies war or is anti-war. We should create fiction that shows the horror of war but also the people that fight through, survive it, and triumph. We should create something that both shows us the truth while also inspiring us to be stronger and prepare for when the inevitable happens. Because war will not go away. Conflict will never stop. We can't stop it. But we can survive it. "As long as there's two people left on the planet, someone is gonna want someone dead."
As Russian I can confirm - in Soviet Union after World War 2 there are tons of movies about war that were directed by people, who saw the war by their own eyes. That’s why these movies are so powerful. And that’s one of many reasons why modern Russian war films suck
THere is nothing more tone-deaf to me than making an anti-war film from the Allies' perspective in World War 2. Fighting in War is horrific, yes, but do you tell a woman suffering in Nazi Occupied France that its better to not have Americans storm the beaches of Normandy? Do you tell a man on his way to the Auschwitz gas chambers that the Red Army is staying home to avoid hurting young people? Do you tell a woman who just saw her baby speared on a Japanese Bayonet in Namking that they've got to just deal with it so that the US Marine Corps doesn't have to deal with Banzi Charges? War is hell. But sometimes what War prevents is worse than Hell, and that makes it worth fighting.
Yeah thats why making an anti war film is such a slippery slop, because unfortunately many conflicts in our history needed to use aggression to stop the worse from spreading and many would agree that it was necessary. I still get people dissatisfaction with how a anti war film is presented, but something like Come and See is something you watch only once and after never want to see again , while I can watch Groly over and over, as its inspiring.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all three films cited by this video as “true” antiwar films center around militaries that either rivaled their already-evil opponents in terms of sheer brutality (the Red Army, at least towards the end of the war) or were straight-up unspeakably evil through and through with no redeeming qualities whatsoever in how they conducted themselves in warfare (the Imperial Japanese army).
![Quando Rondo - Life Goes On [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/eIf3fhMXAow/mqdefault.jpg)
Though I don’t think many call it an anti war film, “Grave of the Fireflies” does a really good job of showing how bad war can be without it being a spectacle or showing heroism. It’s just two children trying to get by and still be kids. It also shows how most innocent people suffer from wars instead of the governments who start them.
Great video by the way!
Yeah I love that film!
Came to the comments to say this and I'm glad it was the first thing I saw. 100% true. Even Roger Ebert agreed it was one of the GOATs.
Yeah that is the best war film I’ve seen but I haven’t checked out this RUclipsrs recommendations yet for these war movies
@@itsjustcinema what about life is beautiful?? I bet that one counts
War is both great & terrible. It encompasses the absolute best & worst feelings of life: Total Victory & absolute loss. It elevates some to gods, others it reduces to slaves and nothingness. War is not simply one side of the coin; it's the entire treasury, so to speak.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). 85 percent of the movie is just soldiers struggling to survive *outside* of combat, and the ending…that ending is so powerful.
Oh, and it’s also a true adaptation.
“He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front. He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.”
O yes, this soldiers just try occupay another country, lets make film about their strangling during that time. There is absolutely zero hypocrisy in this situation, right?))
@@воваомелюх-к8о
Not sure what you’re trying to say here, but I presume it was not complimentary.
Have you even seen or read All Quiet?
@@воваомелюх-к8оSo we should say the same for all Soviet films, right comrade? )))
@@Miszorov yes, absolutely. Soviet union (together with Mao comunist China) is the biggest evil thing in modern history.
@@воваомелюх-к8о truly the words of someone who's never read the book or understood it
I think Kubrick said it best when he remarked that there's more to be said about war than "its bad". He also noted that we enjou combat scenes in war films simply because physical courage is appealing, it's just human nature
It’s a shame Kubrick was such a recluse because I’d love to be able to hear or read more of his takes on this kinda thing
@@itsjustcinema But that's the thing we don't need a thousand thing said when its right there in front of us,his movies can be disected through careful analysation,a picture speaks a thousand words.We just need to look through his lenses,Kubrick intented a ambiguity in his films an exacmple can be taken from Dr.Strangelove(my favorite Kubrick film) the plot of the film is about mass destruction,the corruption of government and horrors of human nature.Yet we're laughing at the absurdity of it because Kubrick shows us the brutal reality of ourselves even in the most dreadful situations we can still be cracking jokes.So even if we say "war is bad" its very common knowledge yet our emotions take hold of us and our instinct is what guides us to thinking its honorable.Because we think what we like even if the idea is horrible.Our ideas can be stupid as anti-semitism yet we still fully believe in them to please ourselves.Kubrick wasn't this "Good person" he accepted the darker sides of our nature and instead of running away from it he embraced it with equality and ofcourse there are no good or bad when speaking of subjective experiences.
except when you think about it this is not physical courage, it is murder, outright murder and in no way can that be argued. If you kill another person for any other reason then self defense, you are a murderer. You cannot claim self-defense if you go to another country and fight, under any circumstance. You are a murderer.
The law of conquest may not be moral, but just try and stop it.
Survival of the fittest.
@@tedwojtasik8781So you’re saying that fighting to defend others is straight up murder? The Ukrainians driving the authoritarian Russia out of their homeland are murderers? The Americans who stormed Normandy to drive the Nazis out of Germany were murderers? The men who fought to abolish slavery during the US civil war were murderers? The men who fought for American independence were nothing more than remorseless murderers? That is a fundamentally flawed take. There is courage in facing death for a cause you believe in, and there is even more courage in sacrificing your very humanity to protect yourself, but above all, your nation.
"All quiet on the western front" was a great depiction of war - no heroism, just senseless, preventable death, sometimes at the hands of egotistical generals. Boys, barely men, going into battle only to end up back where they started and die anyway. I generally like historical action/war movies, but this one made me cry and rethink every other war movie that I've seen.
I made the mistake of reading "Johnny Got His Gun" on the plane flight to start my army basic training. I disagree with the sentiment presented here, there is absolutely anti-war films and books.
The paradox is that in real life, real soldiers find combat exciting. It’s scarring to the psyche, if they don’t get killed, but the thrill of narrowly escaping death is primal.
That’s why I think the best Anti-War TV series was MASH. It was a war show that never showed any combat. But viewers would be fatigued by endless wounded coming in every episode. By only showing the relentless consequences, without the excitement, they conveyed a powerful anti-war message.
And it wasn’t just a one off, it was in peoples homes 5 nights a week when it was in syndication.
That’s why there needs to be more shows like MASH.
God what an underrated series. When Hawkeye breaks down in the last episode? Or the last season. It was the first time I realized what it would be like to be around all that suffering every day.
I'm watching MASH for the first time and we're obsessed! It's incredible.
@@MissingSirius it’s a great show isn’t it? One of the greatest of all time. Marvel and other franchises could learn a lot from this classic about how to make a show funny without the jokes undermining the emotion. MASH is a rare show that hits it out of the park with both. Thats probably why it lasted 14 seasons, 11 years longer than the war it depicted!
It might be one of the shows to break into the category of timelessness.
It’s among the best.
Yes! I've grown up hearing a lot of good things about MASH from my parents that have watched the show often. It's been on my watchlist since then, along with many other shows! ^^
Sam Fuller, a WW2 veteran and film director, made a comment that was along the lines of ‘the only way to make a truly realistic war movie would be for someone to wait behind the cinema screen and, during the battle scenes, randomly fire shots into the audience.
Some dude tried that in Aurora. 😂
@@lecobra418oof ig bro walked right into that one 😬
@@lecobra418 That's not funny
@@spao9411 No, it is.
Sam Fuller would have changed his tune had he watched the beach scene in _Saving Private Ryan_ with a first-class theatre sound system. I physically recoiled as my ears detected malign flecks of metal zinging past at 2000 mph.
You don't respond to those sounds with: "Where did that come from?"
You respond instead with: "What parts of my body are still attached?"
The answer comes back muffled through a scrim of raw terror.
The rest of that film has problems. With skydiving, the second jump is reported to be a lot harder than the first jump. After running toward a machine gun nest in my local theatre, doing it for a second time in real life is beyond imagination.
Soviet war movies are insane. Even when they look normal, action-packed and filled with jokes, they still leave you hollow inside after watching, since everything is surrounded by atmosphere of endless despair. Characters remain hopeful and bright, but fate breaks every possible piece of hope and throws disasters at them like it's nothing. Dying is never either glorified or even payed attention to. When someone dies, no one sobs and no one speaks tons of confessions, death is just accepted as it is.
During filming of Come and See Klimov sought for people who experienced war themselves rather than a professional actors, thus most of the elder people there have actually experienced everything shown in the film IRL. Many shots were failed or retaken dozens of times just because Klimov was afraid of emotional breakdowns of the crew, that's why there were always psychologists on the set.
There are Old Soviet movie not about the war, but about those who survived. Many years after the victory protagonists of “Belorusskiy vokzal”(Belorussky Station, main railroad station from which soldiers went to the war) gather again to bury their former commanding officer. They have vastly different lives now, many years have passed, but those hellish days still haunts them.
Some of the actors really went to the war
One of my favorites.
Yeah people there actually experienced the war. All the movies mentioned as bad examples of antiwar movies were made by Americans, who haven't had an actual war on their soil in over 150 years. I'm American by my family came from Russia and Ukraine, I was 10 when 9/11 happened so my formative years were marked by how flippantly we view war in the US.
seems that you don`t understand soviet films. These films are war propaganda and we see that when Russia invased Ukraine and killed civil people like in Bucha.
@@yaroslavzhurba670 You are confusing old Soviet war films with modern Russian ones. I suggest watching "Sign of Trouble" 1986 since apparently few people know about this film.
@@yaroslavzhurba670 seem like you're a bot or just pushing your own agenda. Modern Russia's movies are of course the ones you're talking about because all creative people with opposing views are imprisoned (the Berkovich-Petriychuk case) or pushed out the country. But the vast majority of Soviet war films were pro-USSR (of course), but not pro-war in any possible sense. Get over it.
In "Jarhead" by Anthony Swafford, he talks about this very subject. As a Marine, he was taught to love violence and killing, and the scenes in movies like "Apocalypse Now" that attempt to shock the audience with brutal violence elicited nothing more than approval and longing from Swafford and his fellow Marines. He discusses the "Ride of the Valkyries" scene in Apocalypse Now causing the members of his unit to cheer loudly and applaud when the villagers were slaughtered.
The movie Jarhead definitely doesn’t qualify as anti-war, but it still treats war with a surprising amount of nuance and the book is amazing.
that is horrifying. how can people be trained so far away from respecting life?
@@silverrraven5349 Because life shows no respect back.
@@spehhhsssmarineer8961 what in the eighth grade emo phase kind of response is that. i meant respect for life as in "the sanctity of life (as a concept)" or "the fact that other people are people too," not "i don't like my situation." thought that was obvious
brick by brick
When I first saw Come and See I had this thought, “that was one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen and I never want to watch it again.”
It made me realize that if a war film makes you excited to rewatch it or look up clips of it on RUclips, then it probably didn’t portray war very accurately.
Edit: warning, bad faith what-about-isms in the replies to this for some reason
yeah probably bcs the movie has a lot of practical effects that simply could depicts what happened in wartimes, real munitions (10cm above the actor florya, those were real) and dynamites were used
But even that film only represents on viewpoint, the Russian youth and it does so not entirely accurately. Let us not forget that Russia soldiers mass raped many german civilians. While we see Floya lower his rifle before killing the child Hitler, it is to be remembered that his country men did not spare the German women. That of course isnt present, it never is
@@ShadowedAgony the movie literally has a moment where Florya stumbles across the declothed corpse of a German woman :/
You're calling me out so i'll have to defend myself lol. I did watch the movie many times, and wanna watch it again right now. It's way too good not to, as a lover of cinema. The movie is an unimaginable masterpiece, it gives me so much inspiration as an artist myself.
@@ShadowedAgony They weren't russian to begin with lol, netiher the characters nor the director. Besides, what are you talking about? Where did you get that info from?
I'd say "All quiet on the Western front" is the one true anti-war film. The author of the book was an actual WW1 veteran, and he witnessed what might be one of the scariest wars to fight in. He had no intention of being pro war, and he didn't even write his book as a blatant anti war book, he just wrote the war how it was. Same with the 1930 movie. A movie with WW1 veterans as actors. Saying that this is a pro-war movie is completely ridiculous.
I was awaiting for someone to mention this movie. Yeah there may be “heroic” or rallying moments (e.g chanting and excitement the kids face), but at absolutely no point during or after did I feel “wow I totally still wanna fight WWI.”
The whole movie is just constant anxiety/apprehension that slowly transforms into helplessness and despair.
@@martian9035 before WW1, war was seen as a great adventure young men should be lucky to participate in. The cold unfeeling mechanization of WW1 completely shattered that delusion for those poor boys.
@@martian9035 Exactly. You see the horror of war in the movie, you can even feel it sometimes. And the heroic moments get overshadowed quickly, like the attack where Paul gets trapped in the bomb crater and has to kill the French soldier.
Agree completely. The movie does a particularly good job of showing the futility and meaninglessness. The main character's death isn't heroic and emphasized just how little all of his struggles actually meant. His survival was pure chance and so was his death. The only character who achieves anything of significance is the one guy pushing hard for peace.
That movie made me hate anyone who talks about war positively. The scene I hated the most was the fat general eating extravagant meals while his men are starving.
No artist, no matter how talented, can control how audiences will react to the work.
That's not true. Ofcourse people will react differently but when making a movie you can definitly choose to make the general audience experience certain emotions. The Video explained how different "anti war" movies had different effects, and when making a movie you can control what effect your movie has. Just because good artists have had works with unwanted reactions doesnt mean you cant make a work that will lead to a certain reaction.
@@themeta6096 your final statement doesn't really argue their point though. Good artists having unwanted reactions IS what the op says. No matter how well you make a piece of media, audiences will react to it differently than intended. That's the nature of art.
@@cousinpatsey2471 I am saying that just because some good artists, have had unwanted reactions doesn't mean that it is impossible to evoke the wanted reaction. And if those artists consider a lot of factors and are skilled enough can to a great degree evoke a certain reaction
@@themeta6096 sorry but naive take. humans come from very different backgrounds. you can't get the same reaction from 2 different people belonging to 2 different demographics in 2 different parts of the world. it's impossible.
No youtube video, no matter how thorough, can avoid stupid comments
The best anti-war films are documentaries.
One cannot truly be pro or anti war until they've seen footage of conflicts like the Congo Crisis.
Perhaps, but there is a big risk in that most video documentation from conflicts was created either by participants or friendly war correspondents. This is partially why the popular image exists of Nazi Germany having a highly mechanized war machine when in reality they largely depended on horsepower.
Trust me, there’s plenty of horrible war footage from outside of the Congo as well.
@@baneofbanes "like", as in there are many conflicts just as horrible as that one was, some still going on today.
20 days in Mariupol is a good example
War is defense. Being anti-defense is nonsensical, who would want that? You should be anti-aggression, not anti-defense
You should watch Johnny got his gun. It is a real anti war movie, and one of the most tragic movie of all time. It's really cruel and devestating, just as the Great War
I’ll check it out!
One
I didn't see the film, but the book is possibly the most harrowing, frightening book I've ever read.
Oh yeah, that movie is so anti-war it makes Jesus Christ Superstar look pro-war.
So good, Metallica made an entire song about it and it's one of their best work
I think Studio Ghibli is amazing at making real anti war films. Films like The wind rises, Porco Rosso or most of all, Grave of the fireflies succeed at showing what war does to people and to the world, by not showing many war scenes and especially not many battle sequences, but because the war is an obstacle, but not the main conflict, you are able to see it as something truly bad.
I would also add Howl's moving castle. 100%, Grave of the Fireflies, is one of the ultimate "war is bad for children and other living things. The moonshine of militarism and how totalitarianism corrupts people.is front and center throughout. (The aunt is a great villain , but her behavior is the logical application of totalitarian indoctrination changing a persons morals and behavior)
I would have to disagree with Porco Rosso being an anti war film since even though he vocally opposes what was done in the war his talents and ability is glorified. The wind rises does a good job because all the protagonist wants to do is make beautiful planes and grave of the fireflies is excellent it shows how horrible war can be for civilians and the youth
Girls’ Last Tour…Pretty good philosophical anime that, in my opinion, highlights how irrelevant wars are to most people’s concerns. Not on the same class as Studio Ghibli, but it’s a nice short anime
@@saron95662I completely (but respectfully) disagree. That scene when he's young and still human piloting with his friend shows that the talent for piloting is something capable of wonders, not violence. Not just that but the whole movie is about a world of principles, honor and beauty that was torned apart by war. For me is the most beautiful anti-war movie ever done
@@saron95662I don't know if I'd call Porco Rosso a direct Anti-war film, however I think the admiration with which flying skills are depicted is part of the anti-militarism themes of the films, as the idea of something that brings joy being appropriated and weaponised by the state to engage in war is treated as disgust and the main threat of the film. It mirrors the disgust Porco feels towards himself after surviving WW1 and deserting the air force that traumatised him, made manifest in his pig form.
Even the dog fights depicted in the film are probably unrealistically non-fatal, they represent the playfulness of flying as a sport, and stands in contrast to the threat of being drafted into the airforce where the killing will be real. The main cast are all draft-dodgers and deserters, and even the pirates are depicted as more noble than the military organisation.
The film plays into that conflict Miyazaki has, between loving air-crafts but loathing their use in war, the fear of seeing yourself becoming a cog in the war machine.
I might be wrong but "The Pianist" seems to be pretty good movie showing horrors of war, we don't really have glorifying anything, just main character trying to survive...
Survival stories give a false narrative that anyone can survive if they’re just lucky enough. If I run fast enough, if enough bullets miss me, if I find a good hiding place… that’s the message only survivors can give. The dead can’t give their message, that there’s impossible situations where you will die, period. I think stories focus on the lucky ones a bit too often.
@@americanbookdragon
If you're interested in finding survival movies that have higher stakes for characters, zombie movies might be up your alley (along with most other horror-adjacent post-apocalyptic movies). With the horror genre, it's not always a guarantee that the main cast survives (albeit most of it is due to bad decision making/being dumb - but there's some exceptions in the horror genre where characters can fight for survival and still die).
@americanbookdragon what the heck are they supposed to do? Have a 5 minute long movie about the first guy to get killed off the boat? No matter the message trying to be said, movies are there to entertain. No one is going to pay to see the first person to die, and if you have actually seen the Pianist, I dont think you would be saying that. It is a heart wrenching movie about a musician trying to survive prison camps and battles hes not even a part of. He wasn't a soldier, and he wasn't a hero. By the end he was basically a rat scavenging for scraps in what little remained of his city and his life.
I was thinking this, no adrenaline I just felt dreadful watching it and that’s how it was intended
@@americanbookdragonI’m truly lost on how anyone could come to that conclusion after watching a movie based on an autobiography of a real person who went through these things.
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
I feel like one of the main problems with a lot of war films, especially those that try to be explicitly anti-war, is that they are all essentially battle films. That's all most war films focus on, even though most people who join the army won't see battle, and even those who fight spend most of their time outside of active combat. I've always thought the perfect anti-war film would start on a silent battlefield, strewn with rotting corpses.
As an example from another medium, take All Quiet on the Western Front, the book by Remarque.
Actually banned in Nazi Germany for not portraying battles and "the soldier's life" gloriously enough (among other things).
Instead, it focuses on something much more dangerous, and much more true (from the perspective of someone who relived the eerily same military experience decades later):
The tedious, boring, bureaucratic, logistical aspects of everyday war, slowly eating away at your body, mind and soul. Peace.
I love that book!
Case in point, I didn't see Dunkirk as anti-war, didn't even know it was supposed to be anti-war until I watched this. I saw it as a tribute to the valor of those that risked their lives to see their fellows brought home and an exploration of the kinds of stress and fears that people undergo when forced into some of the most horrific events in human history.
Ultimately, I think anti-war films get human nature wrong. We are drawn to heroism, selflessness, and courage. Deeds of valor inspire us and even just surviving a terrible situation can be a daunting challenge that those of us who did not live through it can only see as an act of courage and determination in its own right because the easy way out of that hellish path is to simply give up and end it.
Someone in response to another comment said that war is just murder, there is no moral or physical courage in it, and I think that is wrong. War is something that should never be undertaken lightly, but to say that war or violence is never justifies is to ignore that sometimes those are the only answers left to us. When we are faced with death or the threat of death, when we are attacked, when we are told we must give up our convictions and morals, to accept what is morally repugnant or die, then we have a duty to stand and fight. When we see others facing those same choices, it is right to defend them.
To choose to fight when giving in and compromising your morals would be safer and easier shows moral and physical courage. What anti-war films remind us of is the cost in blood and pain we have to pay when we choose that route. They remind us to not take up the sword lightly. So much effort is put into subverting and denouncing the role of heroism and valor in our society that I think that lesson, that we should not choose to take and risk lives lightly, is at risk of being forgotten, or worse, the lesson that there are times we must stand up or become chattel will be tossed aside as an atavism of an uncivilized past.
Spielberg's logic is that war is bad. Therefore, any movie depicting war is anti-war because it's showing war and since war is bad, it's showing war is bad.
It's overly simplistic, but I understand why he felt that way. The normal response to war is disgust, but Saving Private Ryan proves him wrong.
Enlistment in the US military got boosted from that movie. Despite the intent, the movie inspired people to want to go to war. So can a movie that inspired people want to go to war be anti-war? The answer is no, he made a pro-war movie. The protagonists win, the day is saved, their is triumph and glory in dying because their cause was just. Nothing else matters at that point
My thoughts exactly. Well put. Peace.
Spielberg lied. Is that so surprising? He's not an artist, he's a propagandist
You might be jumping to a conclusion regarding higher enlistment. Enlisting in the military does not directly imply one wants to go to war. It does imply one feels called to serve one's country and it does imply one wants to be part of something larger than oneself, a brotherhood.
Keep in mind, the movie came out three years before 9/11. A lot of the people who ended up going to Afghanistan had joined up because they wanted free college via the GI Bill, or they wanted to learn a technical skill. They reacted with dismay because they'd joined up during a time of peace and hadn't considered they might have to go to war.
I have rarely been as angry at a movie as I was after seeing _Saving Private Ryan_ in the theater.
It was so clearly war propaganda, and bad propaganda at that, and most reviews treated it as a unique achievement.
It was a cliched WWII film with the "best" moment for the translator being when he violated the Geneva Convention by indiscriminately killing prisoners.
@@VinceLyle2161 this guy is definitely not brainwashed
6:40 - I think, "The Pianist" fits these criteria quite well
Have you seen “Come and See” ?it’s the movie that that young boy is in with salt and pepper hair.
I would add 4. The protagonist is not a hero, he doesn't save lives or win a glorious medal. His aim is surviving, not defeating the enemy in a grand way.
Excellent addition
It's funny that you mentioned Come And See and The Ascent but failed to mention that their directors were married to each other.
I didn’t think it was relevant to the video!
@@itsjustcinema come on, man! You selected three movies that you consider the only ones to be truly anti war, and two of them happen to be directed by Soviet movie makers that happened to be married to each other! (although, to be honest, Come And See was only made after the death of the wife). But that’s ok, I was just curious, it’s not a rant at the video, it’s just that I was really expecting that fact to be mentioned lol.
@@gabrielmachado7190 It could be mentioned in a pinned comment, but there is no way to include that in the video, it would ruin the flow.
@@lukkkasz323one off comment wouldn’t ruin the entire flow of a video, what are you talking about
@Someone_Unknown90 Not the entire flow of a video, the flow of whatever was the topic in that moment where this funfact was relevant. The way the script works here is one topic follows another in continuity. He could mention it at the end of a topic, but the moment where the funfact would fit was in the middle of the topic, adding funfacts in the middle just makes it harder to focus on the video
I've yet to see the film itself, but I feel like I hardly see M.A.S.H. the series talked about in anti-war media discussions. The very premise shows us the direct aftermath of combat, the 'heroics' are already over. The characters are in a constant, endless struggle to repair and heal that which has been destroyed or mangled by war. I don't remember the exact quote, but I remember a showrunner talking about an angry letter they received after the death of a main character, with the letter saying the death was just "wasteful." The showrunner replied, "That's exactly what war is, wasteful."
There's still the heroics of saving the soldiers. Why do you think there's a million doctor shows?
The reason you cannot make an antiwar movie is simple: war is a great evil, but if good people refuse to fight, than the worst people win by default. When your country is being invaded, you are at war whether you like it or not. Soviet partisans, to take the example of _Come and See,_ did indeed suffer horribly, but what do you think that allowing the Germans to conquer their country would have been better? Would they have avoided horror had they done that? And the more horribly you depict war, the more imperative you make it to resist conquest.
Wow, you really think WW2 is that simple? The "good guys" couldn't care less about what Germany was doing in its dead camps. All they cared about is that Germany was harming their interests.
And besides, fighting Germany was good for the soviet men. They had two choices: stay at home and watch your wife and kids die from starvation under Stalin's boot, or go to the battlefealed, where you can't watch your wife and kids die from starvation and there is votca.
@@valentinkambushev4968 I clearly understand a lot more about WW2 than you do. First of all, the mass famines in the Soviet Union were over before World War Two began. Soviet citizens behind the lines certainly were not eating well during the war, but the idea that the alternative to fighting was watching your family starve was just ahistoric nonsense. Second, the issue is not whether Allied governments cared about the death-camps. The issue is what would have happened to Soviet citizens had the Germans conquered their country. And the reason the Soviet people fought so hard was that they understood what that would be.
@@valentinkambushev4968holy fcking shit imagine being this brainwashed
@@valentinkambushev4968 I don't believe the Allied Leadership even knew about the death camps until right as the war ended
@gibby_crusader that's bullshit. They were dragging their feet The Entire Time Europe was at War.. because their Own Corporations were Funding The Nazi War Machine.
It's no Surprise that they Lured Japan into Attacking them through Monopolization, just so they can have a "Heroic" Excuse to Enter The War. Also not a Surprise that they Raced The Soviets to Berlin, to Save Their Nazi Allies whom they put in Power later on.. in The UN.
My dad used to say this thing: “everything is debatable” and he would try to prove his point by debating a contrary opinion to an objective fact. But I would always say “arguing against a fact doesn’t make it debatable, it just makes you wrong. You voicing an obviously incorrect opinion doesn’t change the truth of the thing you’re talking about”.
And well that’s how I feel about this argument that there are no anti-war films. Audiences Missing the broader point of an entire film doesn’t invalidate the film’s point.
the overall argument of this video is strange. first, we are supplied with an argument to the effect that *no* movie could possibly be an anti-war movie. the argument is something like:
(1) films ultimately and inevitably function as entertainment for the viewer.
(2) neuro-psychological research indicates that “anti-war” films often elicit adrenaline rushes (and thus “excitement” and “heightened engagement”) for the viewer.
(3) any piece of media that serves as entertainment for the viewer, and that furthermore gives (has the potential to give?) that viewer sparks of adrenaline-excitement through depictions of warfare, actually *glorifies* war, and thus could not possibly be anti-war.
(4) therefore, there could not possibly be a truly anti-war film.
but then the author advances (after providing the smokescreen of spielberg’s contrary view that *all* war movies are anti-war movies) with a further argument to the effect that certain war films (namely, come and see, ascent, and the human condition) really are in fact anti-war films. but why don’t premises (1)-(3) in the above argument apply to come and see, ascent, and the human condition? they are all movies, and so (according to the author) serve as a form of entertainment. i imagine that they all have the potential to elicit exciting adrenaline rushes in at least some viewers. it seems, then, that each of these three movies actually glorifies war, and thus could not be anti-war. i haven’t been able to make sense of this tension in the overall argument.
and beyond that, the argument in (1)-(4) doesn’t seem quite right. the biggest problem, i think, is in the claim that films that have the potential to cause adrenaline rushes in viewers during battle/war scenes are actually glorifying war. this doesn’t sound right to me. to glorify something is to extol something, to hold it in high esteem and regard. now, (supposedly) anti-war movies like paths of glory certainly do not extol warfare. at best, we can say that some viewers of (supposedly) anti-war films, wittingly or not, pervert the central message of those films; and in the process of doing so, end up themselves glorifying war. in light of this point, the really important questions are the following: could a film that is, despite the intentions of the writers, producers, directors, etc., prone to being perverted and twisted in the eyes of certain viewers into war glorification, still be anti-war? how important a role do the intentions of the “authors” of a film play in determining whether or not that film is anti-war?
of course, there is the further issue of what is meant by “entertainment” in (1). i think only by a quite broad and liberal understanding of “entertainment” could (1) be made out to be true. “entertainment” would have to be read closer to “enrichment,” and not “fun.”
separated from the rest of the argument, their criteria for a movie to be counted as anti-war seem promising. but each such criterion stands in need of justification. why those? why are each of the listed criteria necessary for a film to be anti-war? why are they together sufficient criteria? and this isn’t just a nitpick. this is about what really makes an anti-war movie anti-war. it’s central to the entire discussion at hand. (note that they would have to explain why authorial intent doesn’t play a central role in determining whether or not a film is anti-war.)
In what world did anyone consider Dunkirk an anti-war movie? The whole sweeping triumphant ending about how they will live to fight another day?
“Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.” - C.S. Lewis
I think that this is the best we can do. War is a terrible thing, but we ought to teach the next generations to strive to be a virtuous hero in the midst of so much wickedness. That is the ultimate importance of myth.
I really love that quote. Thank you for sharing!
and sometimes that myth is actually lived.
I think teaching kids to be a "hero" is what causes so much war. It teaches them to find justification for slaying the enemy, and that the enemy is somehow a lesser creature.
We need to be teaching the next generation that war is just simply NEVER acceptable. Like NEVER EVER.
There is no such thing as a virtuous hero in war unless your country was attacked and you are directly defending your homeland. If you go to another country and fight, for any reason, you are a murderer. No valor in murder.
@@tedwojtasik8781 What if you’re helping your friends in another country who are defending their homeland that was unjustly attacked?
I think the only anti war film which I genuinely think is really anti war is threads. Genuinely the most terrifying thing I’ve watched and has made me anti nuclear weapons ever since. I watched it once and only once. Left me having nightmares for 2 weeks straight.
I think the less combat scenes there are, the more effective a movie is with its anti war message.
Yes a brutal experience watching this. Several scenes have burned into my mind. Unpleasant to watch but that’s how it should be.
I disagree but it is definitely anti war
I think that a really good anti war movie that is almost entirely set in the middle of a battle is "Many wars ago" (Uomini Contro):
It's set in the Alps in ww1 and the original title means men against themselves, it has no heroism.
Every time there's a fight "we / the protagonist side" lose in an unjust slaughter, showing all the pain that can be shown.
The enemy (Austrians) is not vicious, meanwhile the Italian officers are the ones talking about glory and courage while sending kids to be mowed down by both Italian and Austrian machineguns.
Near the end they make you think that the good guys are going to succeed in a mutiny against the cruel officers but, as for real wars, it all ends in a bloodbath where the bad guys keep their game and the protagonists are executed.
No heroism, just teens trying (and failing) to survive a massacre and come back home to their moms.
P.S. This is the movie that contains the scene where a few soldiers wearing heavy knight-like armour try to cut barbed wire and are gunned down one after another
@@kino_61best scene of this movie is when a soldier shows to general a lookout where an austrian sniper shoots anyone who looks out of armoured window to try to kill him, but when general looks out sniper doesn't shoot, and after that shows a cigaret out of window and sniper imidiatly shoots it.
I think too much has been made of Truffaut's anti-war comment . He was making a valid point about many so called movies glorifying war, battle and sacrifice. He's not a 100% correct but he's mostly right. "Come and See" is a must see movie regardless of genre, label, or any preconceptions of war/anti-war.
One of the main reasons why I love Come and See is that ultimately it's about the human condition, not war
@@peregrinecovington4138 Agreed. Gut wrenching, heart breaking, suffocating and deafening, all told through the eyes of a boy caught up in the madness of war. One of the most visceral films I have ever seen.
Come and See is an overrated meme
I feel like we need to understand that being exposed to unadulterated gory violence on a battlefield rarely turned people away from further war in history. Most of the Leadership of the Nazi Party were veterans of WW1, Hitler himself witnessed unbelievably horrible things, got shot multiple times, lost a testicle to a shrapnel wound, and almost got gassed to death at the end of the war, he opened his eyes in a hospital in Germany when the war ended. His first reaction to the news of the war ending was frustration that the war was lost, many German veterans also shared the same feeling, including Göring and Hess.
100% correct. That was the norm throughout history and not anything unique to the Nazis. The vast majority of wars throughout history were initiated by people who had already experienced it. Bismark himself said "Anyone who has looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war." and he certainly was no pacifist although not a war-monger either, just like 99.9% of people throughout history.
Why is being "anti-war" always treated as the default correct position or message? Is it not immoral to be anti-war in the context of a conflict like World War 2?
I feel like treating war as this abstract great evil can make an anti-war message too vague and ineffective. For example the reason I felt that the book "All Quiet on the Western Front" presented an effective anti war message is not just because of the horrific depiction of what the characters go through on the front, but that this was contrasted by the detachment and even disgust they felt towards the "cause" for the war.
Kusturica's 'Underground' (1995) unexpectedly qualifies.
Marko: 'A war is no war until the brother kills his brother.'
I actually haven’t seen that one!
@@itsjustcinema Brace yourself for the ending.
Gojira qualifies
My favourite anti-war movie ever.
I had to comment here that my preferred candidate for an "antiwar" film is - inevitably - a film about a civil war and its consequences for a woman and her family: Villeneuve's "Incendies".
BOTH Kubrick's most obvious anti-war films come across (to me) as "preachy" - something I absolutely hate in a film. (The brilliant Dr Strangelove gets a pass here because of its comedy.)
Just because a film is meant to be entertaining and provides a "spectacle" doesn't mean it's not anti-war. If someone can't look past the form the story is presented in and see the film's message, that's on them. It's like putting a happy music over a footage of someone getting murdered - it doesn't suddenly mean murder isn't supposed to be bad.
Well, they treat a form of entertainment as something that endorses something bad, simply because it entertains you (at least not in the way they think they should). This would be the same line of reasoning as saying that GTA influences and endorses people to be criminals. Furthermore, I do not agree with the statement that ALL wars are senseless/unnecessary, is fighting a war (and recognizing the courage and sacrifice of its combatants) to avoid being massacred by your enemies not something justifiable? (I wonder if these people would not fight to defend their basic rights and submit themselves without resistance to a totalitarian regime)
@@gamerbg294 I agree. Think of also the partisans/freedom fighters from throughout history who were resisting annihilation from enemy forces. Even though some of those devolved into banditry (such is human nature, I guess) it's still difficult to say they have an unjust cause.
Full Metal Jacked was anti war, but after it was aired there was a spike in enlistment. People cnow right from wrong, but they supconsciously admire strength and power. And spectacle always provides show of strenth and power.
in finland we have this classic book "manillaköysi" which works as an anti-war film is that it doesn't really have any scenes that depict the fighting but follows a person returning after the ending of the war, showing how it destroys people and ultimately depicts how useless the war was.
I'm learning Finnish, I'll write that one down so that I'll read it when I'll know how to speak the language properly :)
in what way does apocalypse now not fit within your criteria
it portrays war as a senseless and hedonistic activity that makes sense to no one, done for the benefit of nobody
it shows women, children, the young and the innocent all dying, jungles blown up, villages massacred, psyches destroyed and morals abandoned
the only way i can see you saying it doesnt fit is that it isnt directly based on the individual experience of one victim of war, but it is based on a work which tackles war and violence, informed by the vietnam war and the experiences of those on both sides both in the jungle and back home and it was also shot during an actual war using equipment that was often comandeered to be used in battle only to be returned later for more filming
spectacle does not equal glorification, stupid people will always see explosions and think they are cool but they are also an essential part of telling the story of war, come and see is full of spectacle
saying any film that doesnt fit within arbitrary categories that you invented is automatically glorifying war is completely ridiculous. to put a film like ivans childhood in the same category as a us army recruitment funded michael bay film is beyond defendable
It's important to note in particular how adolescent boys see these films, for example just about every anti war film on the list we watched as teenagers, I remember after watching Three Kings I mentioned it was considered an anti war film, the two friends I was talking to looked perplexed and said... how is it an anti war film? To us it was just another "in war shit happens film". As teenage boys what the critics and connoisseurs said meant nothing.
Ivan Butler, in his book ‘The War Film’ (1974) made a similar argument to your post. Butler wrote ‘most so-called ‘anti-war’ films are not anti-war, they’re merely against the incompetent waging of it’.
Butler, when writing about ‘Paths of Glory’, argued that Kubrick’s film was not anti-war, it was against war being directed & organised by callous, incompetent leaders. In a way, the film is saying that war could be a lot ‘better’ if nicer & more intelligent officers like Kirk Douglas’ character were in charge.
Even the famous 1933 film ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ does not get a rave from Butler who refers to it as cloying & sentimental. The final scene of Paul being shot as his hand reaches for a butterfly was, Butler argued, unnecessarily melodramatic and overly contrived in its symbolism when Paul could have more likely been shot reaching for a discarded tin of beans.
I think the formula for a good anti-war film is less combat scenes and more scenes about how much it sucks to be in war. Less exciting set piece battles and more hunger, fear and dudes dying to snipers and mines. Having a civilian protagonist would make this easy, but if you want to have protagonists as soldiers then you better have them on the losing side of the war.
Fires on the Plain and Burmese Harp are nice additions to this list given that the Japanese soldiers spend more time hiding from the allied soldiers, local guerillas, starving from lack of supply and getting abused by their superiors than actually fighting the enemy.
I think movies about POWs would also make for good anti-war movies, given that they spend more time being abused by their captors than actually fighting. Especially ones set in the Pacific theater because the Japanese are quite notorious for their brutal treatment of POWs.
I disagree on the point about movies about POWs. If the bad things that happen to the protagonists reflect the cruelty of their enemies, it makes war against those enemies seem more important. The suffering and death of allied soldiers then become noble sacrifices.
What about The Thin Red Line?
Stalingrad (1993), a movie about Germans soldier stuck in freezing Russia after capturing the city of Stalingrad made me depressed, you could really feel the hopelessness
plus, remove plot armor, PLEASE 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
I don’t think it has to be on the literal losing side of war, one of the parts of war is that ultimately everybody involved loses. Sure, maybe you won the battle and got what you wanted, you’re permanently changed as a person. I think the more effective depiction shows how even victory in battle can be harrowing and haunt people.
Come and see is one of the only movies that I feel sick watching every time I watch it
1983's Barefoot Gen is one of the most harrowing looks at war from the POV of everyday people (non-combatants) I have ever seen. It's also one of the best adaptations of a manga, which was authored by Keiji Nakazawa, a survivor of the Atomic bombings who loosely based what he drew & wrote on what he actually saw or heard from fellow survivors' experiences. To clarify, it's not meant to make Americans feel guilty or villainize the U.S. military for how it ended WW II.
It's a story primarily about survival in the aftermath of disaster. But it does show that Hiroshima & Nagasaki were a human tragedy in their own right and NOT something to be celebrated or glorified. It illustrates the brutal realities of what happens when ANYONE resorts to such weapons (justifiably or not) and the cost paid by innocents. It's an unapologetically mature exercise in showing that, no matter who wins or who was right, war is Hell regardless but nuclear war is a Hell all its own.
So what I learned from this video is if you want to make an anti-war film step one is to be Belorussian
That's probably not far from the truth tho
Belarussian population suffered, probably, the most during the war, since we are right between Poland and Russia
Concentration camps, battles, villages destroyed
It's estimated that 1/4 of the population was killed during the war - every 4th person
Or Polish. Or Ukrainian. Or Japanese. The ones who lost, in more ways than just political.
@@hanna.ciszewska Japanese lost 2.500.000 people. It's around 3% of entire population, which is less than Romania's or Greece's losses (in %), for example. Even Burma and Philippines lost more people (in %) during WW2 than Japan.
And there are some countries that felt WWII a lot more. Yugoslavia lost 8%; Germany lost 11%; Malaysia lost 15%; Poland, as you've mentioned, 17%; Belorussia lost around 35-40% of its people and overall USSR - 13%.
That's the numbers that start to scare, and that's where all the WAR was going. Not only in a political sense of words.
@@hanna.ciszewska You mean Chinese*. They suffered far more than the Japanese
I've always had the impression that most "war movies" are just action movies wearing a costume. Which isn't necessarily wrong depending on how tastefully it's done. Though I can't help but roll my eyes at people who congratulate themselves for watching movies like Fury and All Quiet on the Western Front (the new one), as if action spectacles and artificial horror is an enlightening revelation about the realities of war.
Yeah I’m of a similar opinion really
What should also be considered though is that war shows the expanse of the human condition the bad, and the good. “Hacksaw Ridge” is about a real man, Desmond Doss, who saved the lives of over 75 men without carrying a gun. That occurred during war as well. Is a war movie bad if it portrays the allies fighting Nazi Germany as a good thing? I’ve met holocaust survivors, including my own grandmother, who spoke positively of the allied and partisan war efforts, and viewed fighting Germany in ww2 as just and good. Granted this gives me a bias, but while “come and see” is an amazing film that shot the abject horrors of the Second World War, it is also not the whole of the experience of war. War can at times show the worst qualities of humanity and the best qualities of humanity.
Absolutely, I've heard people praise All Quiet on the Western Front for its accuracy in capturing the time, but I've not heard about it as a tale of emotion or people. I've not seen that iteration myself, but I saw the 1979 movie of the same name, and what stood out in that film wasn't anything about the time period, but rather how it was about generations of people with hopeful plans for the future being physically and mentally ground down until they were nothing but bodies in mud.
@@ashleyhamman just watch it. it is not a waste of time. (im talking about the new "all quiet on the western front"). I don't ever want to watch it again, despite it being very well made.
action films in uniforms i say
i think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about how films are meant to be entertaining. whether it's a film, book, game, etc, any story by default is meant to be entertaining, and though most good stories have educational/informative purposes too they still exist to entertain. you can make a story that's primary function isn't entertainment, but it's extremely difficult to keep the audience engaged without some form of entertainment especially for such brutal subjects as war, and that's what i think the issue is. these directors are trying to tell anti-war stories, but they feel like they have to give us good characters to follow, humour to take the edge off, and heroic acts to prevent us losing all faith in humanity, and by including these things they're unintentionally ruining the message. if you're trying to make a film that's telling us how war makes us into monsters, how there's no real bad guys and it's full of senseless violence with no purpose, then as soon as you make it into good vs evil, have heroic protagonists and give their deeds a purpose you're directly conflicting the message. if directors want to make honest films about such horrific subjects then they need to accept the fact that the film won't be fun or easy to watch, and they need to be extremely careful that the positive things they include in the film don't conflict with the message. it's slightly off topic but i think schindler's list does a great job of that, it's a very unflinching story that's willing to make you feel awful to make it's point, and while it is technically a film about schindler i'd argue the main focus of the film is on the horrors of the holocaust, with schindler's story basically just there to be that small bit of positivity to make it watchable and engaging
it does create a challenge, then, if you want to bring an anti-war perspective to a wide audience. because the general public is ultimately who you want anti-war messaging to reach, but getting bums in seats to see a relentlessly unpleasant, gruelling cavalcade of nauseating and senseless cruelty? that’s a difficult ask.
yay, grab the popcorn, we’re off to see [checks ticket] an unflinching portrait of the human spirit at its most flayed and hollowed out? boy, i can’t wait to watch the light behind a man’ eyes sputter out well before any shrapnel stops his heart, for he has beheld the milky skinned children floating in the mud of the mangroves, their bloated bellies and sunken cheeks, mosquitoes landing on eyes incapable of sight. he is walking, for now, but he considers himself annihilated.
this morning a man he once considered a brother-in-arms dragged a sobbing pregnant woman out of the village. he didn’t even ask what he was doing with her, he just stared as she was pulled away into the reeds. then they were out of sight. find out what happened in the reeds THIS SUMMER IN 3D! ONLY IN CINEMAS!
as a storyteller myself, i don’t want to be preaching to the choir. putting in the work of making a film, only for it to mainly serve to remind people who already despised war that yes, they do indeed still despise it, feels a little futile. honestly, if something i made was able to simply plant the seeds of doubt in the mind of someone otherwise ambivalent or uncritical, i’d consider that more of a victory than making a steadfast pacifist 8% more steadfast than before.
@@joa1401 i totally get what you're saying and it is a huge challenge, but there are definitely ways to solve the problem which is my point. to oversimplify things slightly, you need to make the war elements miserable enough to drive the point home then have everything else be positive enough to make it tolerable. to go back to my schindler's list example, that film provides an absolutely brutal depiction of the holocaust and goes into great detail about how jewish people suffered in ww2, and it's very careful to ensure that any positivity specifically comes from schindler undermining the nazis or the jewish captives making the best of the situation. the end result is that while the film is hard to watch it manages to be engaging, schindler's bravery along with the unbreakable spirit of the people he helped are inspirational, and they stand in direct conflict with the senseless horror of what was going on around them. that's obviously not as easy to do as i'm making it out to be, but that's why directing an anti-war film is a challenge, and i'd argue it's better to make a bad film that keeps the message than an enjoyable film that sends the wrong message
I think “Generation Kill” is one of the most impactful war media i’ve ever seen, a show which ticks all the boxes of an anti-war film given in this video. It shows a small part of the American perspective of the invasion of iraq. It’s relentless, and a bit difficult to digest for the average viewer, as it focuses on accurate portrayal over audience engagement. It’s made by a reporter who went followed a platoon of recon Marines all the way to Baghdad, and everything is based off his and these man’s experiences (The show is really good, it just doesn’t coax you, which i like. One example is they only explaining 3/4 into the show that they call one of the soldiers Whopper, because it’s a Burger King item, because BK is short for “baby killer”. Which is fucked) The combat scenes are few and far between, and these are never glorified. The two i can think of, although adrenaline rushing, are uncomfortable to watch. It shows how gruesome, dehumanising, tragic, and down right stupid war is, and the consequences both the soldiers and the civilians have to deal with because of it.
@@youegg9873 i haven't seen it but that sounds like an interesting watch i might check it out, i'd much rather war films were like that than glorify it. i don't watch that many but i recently saw on the western front and thought it was pretty good, it follows a german kid who enlisted in ww2 and fought in france. it does a great job of showing the propaganda that was used to trick people into enlisting, the few combat scenes are all horrific and make it crystal clear how senseless the violence was, and the effect it had on the soldiers was shown in detail. it was also a nice touch to show the german perspective for a change, the vast majority of nazis were ordinary people fighting for their country and the idea that all nazis were monsters is far too common (in no small part thanks to many other ww2 films), and it's not the soldiers' fault that their leaders are the ones who started the war
@@aldrichunfaithful3589 Highly recommend it, it’s on HBO. Yes, i have seen it. Great film! It only shows the soldiers side and not civilians though, but i don’t necessarily agree with the criteria that an anti-war film has to show how war affects everyone in war (as long as no side is portrayed as villains). Your point about soldiers at the whim of leaders is really prominent in Generation Kill, as they show the downright incompetence and gross negligence of some of these assholes. Clout chasers losing and taking lives just in order to gain a medal and climb the ranks
Another great anti-war movie that fits the criteria is "Waltz with Bashir". Totally recommend it!
(It's an animated movie, not a live-action, but still fits the criteria).
Does all quiet on the western front meet the criteria?
1. It definetly doesn't glorify the war and makes a very stark point of the futility
2. Well we see scenes where Heinrich returns to his father and see how civilian life was, and the French farmer family is another group of civilians depicted
3. It is based off the personal experiences of most of the actors from the original who were almost all war veterans from ww1.
I'd argue a film like Zone of Interest is an anti war film. Films that are about society during war, rather than war itself, can be effective anti war films.
My father was a Vietnam veteran. [The family, including 3 year old me, accompanied him on his second tour and were evacuated from Saigon.]
There were two films that we both found devastating. The first was Casualties of War which showed the moral erosion of U.S. soldiers and the negative consequences that led to incidents like My Lai.
The second was Platoon -- which fulfills your criterion that the story must be personal. Dad's one word review was "accurate." Then we all went to a bar. It was the first time I drank hard liquor in front of him and one of the only times I saw him drink whisky. It was a devastating film.
Was there anything in the movie Platoon that made the North Vietnamese government regret their decision to start the Vietnam War? How about the movie The Day After, did it deter the Russians from invading Ukraine? How are these movies anti-war movies if they never deter the aggressor from starting the war in the first place. Alls Quiet on the Western Front didn't deter Germany from starting World War II, and that one was written from a German perspective. I guess Germans think dying on the battlefield is a lot of fun, because they went and did it again!
@@thomaskalbfus2005 America didn't have to draft young men to die in a swamp just because ANOTHER country was having a civil war. Thats why people protested having troops there, and thats why america had to eventually pull out. America IS the aggressor, in some cases. It is more patriotic to acknowledge that your country is not perfect than be a silly fanatic. You are asking it to deter aggressive governments from war. its just films. its not gonna be able to do that. It's purpose is to use literature to educate people about the horrors of war. And because these films help educate people about these things, they can protest against unjust wars, and get stuff done. Anti-War films are not the main source of anti-war education, so don't expect them to singlehandedly change hitler as a person or something. But they do help. Germans do not like dying a battlefield, I guess I'll just say that, and WW1 was a pointless war for both sides (not WW2 that war was destined to happen ever since that hitler bitch took power).
@@thomaskalbfus2005 - HIstory has shown that the Gulf f Tonkin which led to US involvement in the War didn't happen. It was what some people call a FAlse Flag.
As for the Russians invading Ukraine- you should listen to an Interview Tucker Carlson did with some Professor from GEorge WAshington Universirty whose name I forget. I think RFK Jr and others have said the same thing. It is much more complicated than Russia is the Bad Guy and PUtin is the new Hitler
@@thomaskalbfus2005 Nazis have literally banned All Quiet on Western front.
good vid, ever thought of adding the name of the film in the corner for whenever you show scenes? i saw some beautiful shots from a lot of films i recognized but some i didnt know. also on full metal jacket i would argue that just because people see the the drill sergeant as comical, it doesn’t take away from the anti war aspect. is it the movies fault if people miss the point? more of a societal problem imo
while i agree its a societal problem those are things you MUST consider when you are making a film, when you are vetting which scenes do and dont get in on the final picture you have to consider not the context of how you want to convey it but how you think the audience will receive it, what context have you given them? is there anything else you can do to help steer it towards your desired view? what recent events might influence the audiences view? its why we learn about the things going on in and during a authors life when studying a book, the society that views and enjoys the media is just as important as the media itself and should be accounted for when creation of said media is taking place.
@@snage-thesnakemage Great way to make an otherwise unique and interesting story generic.
Too many writers make the mistake of dumbing down their story by fear of the audience missing the point, so much so that that any impactful message will feel forced and awkward.
The climax of the first act is Gomer Pyle killing the instructor. Everything prior serves to set up that scene. Do you really think taking away the iconic performance does anything besides diminish the impact of the Sergeants death? Making him a generic mustache twirling evil guy gets the point across of military bad much better but then you would be cheering when he dies. Having Gomer Pyle kill an actual person you connect with on some human level even if because you find his dialogue humorous instead of a perfect audience tested stand in for "war bad" makes the effects of his bullying and subsequent mental breakdown feel so much more real.
Also the film was made in 1987 how’s he supposed to predict people with todays sense of humour making jokes about the 1000 yard stare and the drill instructor. Why are you pointing out the importance of taking into account things in and around the authors life if you’re only looking at the discourse in present day when the author is already dead.
He also said he wasn’t making an anti war movie but instead a movie about war. He wanted to depict what war actually was. So the drill instructor acting like one would in reality in my opinion only makes the movie better.
it is, in fact, the movies fault if people miss the point
“All Quiet on the Western Front” directed by Edward Berger is, in my opinion, is 100% an anti-war film, and an amazing movie in general.
thanks for mentioning it, it is THE anti-war film.
@@bydsarrett0 Then why wouldn't any of the previous adaptations qualify? The new one doesn't do anything better than the 1930 one.
@@ReverendMeat51 I think the 1930 one is the anti-war film he is talking about. The new one is nothing of the sort of an anti-war film.
@@charanimations9801 He was obviously referring to the new one. He even specified the director ffs.
I despise that film. Absolute insult of an “adaptation,” especially the ending.
I also must add a criminally underseen but powerful film to the actual “anti-war” genre. Quo Vadis, Aida? is one of a kind. Up there with Come and See and Human Condition for me
2:27
It's not paradoxical, it's contradictory at most. And adrenaline doesn't necessarily create joy.
As someone who going through the war right at this moment and was going through it for almost 3 past years, I want to warn you against true anti-war movies. It is very humane to have empathy, pacifistic worldview and to seek experience that will horrify you about the war in movies, but it will all break after you will see the war first hand.
If you never were in active combat zones, this type of movies may teach you to be scared more than you need to be, especially if you are civilian in the middle of major conflict. This fear can lead you to wrong decisions that may cost somebody a life.
Keep your morale up folks. Pacifism is cool until somebody will invade your country, destroy your home and steal the best years of your life.
Mmm, it is noticeable that people's criteria here for a truly anti-war movie forces the movie to disproportionately show the most horrific parts or else people will get the wrong idea. To me, it feels like saying that to make a truly anti-war movie, you have to mislead people. I get it though-shoot-y scenes that are obviously horrific are usually also exciting-but I don't know what to think of it, because I think it'd be ridiculous if we couldn't show working tanks and planes because they make people enlist.
I hope you all make it out of the war ok.
Great advice. It also help to not practice neonazism and shell someone's houses for almost 8 years, because they don't want to be ethnocided.
@@kindlingking I think russian perspective in anti-war discussion is most irrelevant thing you can bring to the table.
@@kindlingking your theory was disproved so many times its comical you still hold the belief that Ukraine shelled "poor unnarmed russian minorities" when there was literally Russian military personnel crossing the border to fight with the separatists.
There are few things more exciting than a large battle. Being able to view it in safety makes it even better. When you are young, you are more likely to want to be a part of those battles because younger people seek excitement.
Whether directly or indirectly, war films are often responsible for young men joining up with their nations' militaries, regardless of how different real combat is than film combat.
Doesn't help that the climax in war movies is often a large battle, whereas in real life the story doesn't end there. The effect that war has on the people that take part will be felt for years afterward.
I believe that Elem Klimov’s film is truly anti-war because the film shows war as an absolute defeat. While watching the film, you don’t have thoughts like: “my grandfather/great-grandfather went through this!” the film does not inspire pride, it shows real horrors.
"A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest
models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things they have always done.
If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you
feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been
made the victim of a very old and terrible lie."
-Tim O'Brien
"The Pianist" is as close as you'll get to a solid anti-war movie. Haunting, gruesome, yet beautiful. It's a remarkable movie.
A film made by an awful person. Even here it shows the conquering soviets as a good force. Only the Germans are treated as evil in that film, so I think it fails as being anti war since fighting against them is shown as just.
@@Aradel1200 For the time period 'The Pianist' depicts, the Soviet forces would have been seen as a relief versus the Germans who occupied that area of Poland. The focus was on the humanity shown in a love of music. Remember the scene where he's wearing a dead German officer's coat just to keep warm, runs into a Soviet soldier, starts playing the piano for him, and the soldier just relaxes and enjoys the music?
"Yet beautiful."
And that's why it's not a solid anti-war movie. Even the films ending, with Spilzman playing the piano triumphantly to a concert hall, clean-shaven and dapper as ever, after the war undermines the anti-war message of the film. He survived, he didn't look any worse for the wear, and the heroic German officer saved his life with a warm coat, some cake, and silence.
A genuinely anti-war film can't show any redeeming qualities. There cannot be any heroes or successful compassion - there cannot be *any* humanity.
And that's a problem when a film also has to be entertaining and not just 90 minutes of suffering. Even a film like Come and See is exceedingly difficult to watch because of just how much the characters and the viewers are beaten down by the relentless horror. The only relief that film has to offer is that the protagonist wouldn't kill baby Hitler...
@@FabrisFanaticthe problem with that is if you genuinely show no compassion whatsoever you trade one lie for another
Hacksaw Ridge is a true story about a selfless man who went through all the hells of WW2 without firing a single shot and saving 75 lives and was so cartoonishly heroic that the film had to actively leave out his most ludicrous exploits to make it more believable
Yet it still shows the brutality and horrors of war in such a way that no one would ever want to fight it
If a film had to show absolutely no compassion, joy or humanity in war at all times to be genuinely anti war, the only films that could then qualify is truly anti war are bad films
And I don’t think you want that
@@ivrxr8693 a story about a guy who does amazing selfless things in a war is not anti-war.
That is the point. You can show war as brutal and horrible, but if you say "war creates heroes" then you're undercutting the anti-war message of the film. Audiences start making excuses for war and things like 'necessary sacrifice.'
Look at how you just described Hacksaw Ridge. "It's the story of a selfless man who saved 75 lives..." not "it's the story of how many lives were ruined forever by war." The protagonist survived - he had a happy ending (the film ends with him being lifted away with Christ-like imagery and then getting the Medal of Honor!).
Besides that, lots of people see these war movies portraying the horrors of combat and wouldn't want to fight in it themselves... but they're absolutely happy to support policies that send OTHER people to go fight in those horrible wars. An anti-war film has to not just make you averse to personally participating, but supporting ANYONE participating in it. Not just "oh geez, war sucks I don't want to fight in one" but full on "war should be outlawed."
And no, films that are relentless in their inhumanity are not bad films. Come And See and AQOTWF (original and modern version) are two examples of genuinely good films that do not try to equivocate about their subject matter with platitudes like, "war is hell, but look at these heroes!"
Another two good films that I consider as genuinely anti-war are Dr. Strangelove and The Day After. The latter film had an actual, real-life effect on changing the course of international relations and averting nuclear war. The events of the film were cruel, the compassion of the protagonists was in vain, and the world ended in a pointless nuclear apocalypse. The movie terrified and disturbed US and Soviet leaders that they signed nuclear arms reduction treaties. This is the kind of movie I'm talking about. A movie so thoroughly anti-war that it convinced global leaders to actually take measures to outlaw it.
And this is why truly anti-war films are so hard to pull off. It's much more than just showing lots of people being killed horribly.
Terrence Malick's 'The Thin Red Line' is the only one I've seen that I feel confident saying is anti-war. And even that gets a bit too rhapsodic and philosophically close to apologetic or nihilistic in places.
Yeah I’m on the fence with Thin Red Line
I totally agree because he places the war in the background. Almost as if it is a distraction to the existential and sacred. IMO Most war movies (pro or anti war) focus too much on the war itself to the point of humanity becoming a distraction if that makes sense. The Thin Red Line does the exact opposite. It really stands out as different to me. A lot of people criticized it as not being focused, but It is incredibly focused on the existential in my opinion. I will say though I don't believe it was Terrence Malicks intention on making an anti war movie. He seems like he's more interested in filming beautiful birds or the ocean.
The problem with calling The Thin Red Line anti-war is that only a portion of the movie is even interested in its own topic: repeatedly throughout the movie it feels as though Mallick just wanted an excuse to go somewhere tropical and film a wildlife documentary, and any themes the movie may or may not display on war are entirely incidental. Can you call a movie anti-war if the driving creative force seems to have lost interest halfway through filming and turned his attention to birds?
@@jamesderiven1843 that's a good point, but I do think the nature stuff wasn't as disconnected to war as it seems. The opening in the movie asks "what's this war in the heart of nature". The Thin Red Line is focused on portraying paradise and the war happening within it is ironic. The movies narrative is not focused on critiquing war at all. More asking the question of how suffering and beauty seem to exist in the same sentence. I might agree in that case. The Thin Red Line certainly stands out to me as a transcendental film and maybe trying to look at it as an anti war film will distract from its main ideas of existentialism.
I feel like the og All Quiet on the Western Front is definitely an example of a true anti war film.
I’m on the fence with this one
what year is the OG one? ive only heard of the recent one.
@@snage-thesnakemageit's 1930 if I'm not mistaken
i agree especially the scene where they question why wars even happen is enough to strengthen tha take, hell they even joke about it being more reasonable to have the guys on top like the kaiser just battle it out 1v1 with the enemy. i fully support that lmao
All Quiet On The Western Front dorks vs Storm Of Steel chads
I think movie directors understand something that in your discussion of neuroscience you may be missing. While it's true that there is a risk of making a war movie thrilling, a good director will make you ashamed of being thrilled. In other words, they will evoke the adrenaline response, then show you something that cuts you off at the knees, showing how superficial your response was.
Can't find the source - I think it was in Modine's Full Metal Jacket Diary - but I recall an account where Kubrick, prior to making Full Metal Jacket, told a friend that he wanted to make a war film. His friend said he already made one with Paths of Glory. Kubrick replied that Paths was an anti-war film, and that he wanted to make a war film.
I understand you’re mainly focused on movies, but I honestly would love to see your takeaways for games and other forms of media and their depictions of war! Especially when it comes to something like Halo or Spec Ops: The Line! And of course, seeing how you’d dissect CoD would be really fun too
Thanks so much for making this video! I’d also love to hear your thoughts on The Killing Fields, Das Boot, Letters from Iwo Jima, and Downfall (aka Der Untergang). All four are movies that I’ve come to deeply appreciate.
In my opinion, the latter two are especially effective as anti-war films on account of how relentlessly they deny catharsis to the audience. The only real glimpse of hope they offer is at the very end, when both protagonists (Saigo and Traudl) survive - but only because their war happened to end before the Reaper could collect them, as it had collected so many of their friends.
LFIJ and Downfall are both deeply sorrowful films, that pull no punches in showing how entire generations of German and Japanese youth had their lives utterly wasted in wars of aggression, waged for the sake of a dictator’s ego.
Downfall, in particular, is ruthless in skewering fascism as a snake that eats its own tail, and how its promises of martial glory are proven to be venomous lies - lies that people gulp down because they want to believe in them, even when their whole world is coming to an end.
While it is true that action in war films tends to be flashy just for the sake of entertainment rather than making a statement about the horrors of war or bringing up the psychological consequences it creates on people (soldiers and civils alike) I think the statement of "There's no such thing as an anti-war film" diminishes the value of a movie, because in the end what the author of the movie communicates or tries to doesn't depend on the perception of the viewers. Everyone can make their own ideas based on their ideologies and experiences, but the meaning of a story doesn't change with how people perceive it
Interesting take!
people like horror movies. that doesn't mean they're pro-horror in real life
I believe that is missing the thesis of the video, they don't have to be pro-horror. It's just not an anti-horror movie. Inherently, there is enjoyment from horror movies; whether they repulse you or not, you still take a peek through the hands covering your eyes because you want to see more; hence not anti-horror.
I don’t think you understand. War is something akin to industrial scale r*pe.
The fact that it is a movie genre is a byproduct of how war has become “distant” to certain populations.
It doesn’t matter why you watch it, it isn’t right.
You wouldn’t watch a r*pe movie for the thrill. But a fictional horror movie can offer thrill with mindless carnage.
There are other ways to portray courage, you don’t have to make a war movie.
@@asdf-sr1ny idk man i'm pretty sure when a movie,show,or media portrays how horrible war is, I'm not watching it bcz I think its cool or fun to watch, but because I'm intrigued on what these people went through. I always love media and movies that show the individual vs the overall events of a war.
people didn't watch movies like come and see and all quiet on hte western front just for the thrill of seeing people die and break down and have their psyche ruined. People who like war movies wouldn't watch those and I doubt they'd like it (I'd say they'd even go as far as to call them boring) They'd probably watch something like full metal jacket or gods and generals etc etc the movies that actually have either mindless carnage or try to show extensive heroism.
Books that show a person's thoughts and feelings and what they went through or someone attempting to portray war in a bad light,show why it's horrible,meaningless, that's anti war like, not sure how that's an argument. No one watches those movies and thinks "oh hell yeah,i want to join hte army. oh we need to go to war." People think how horrible it is, maybe even persuade people to NOT join the military. And further more,tells the story of people that are long forgotten and expresses the feelings of people we may never learn about as war kills so many people with many being forgotten to history with no one to tell their stories.
As someone mentioned in a reply, I don't think you understood the thesis of the video. He didn't say he agreed with "there is no such thing as an anti war film" he said he partially agrees. it should also be noted that the saying isn't "every war is pro war". Though, I disagree with "there is no such thing as an anti war film" , he also is somewhat disagreeing. He believes there are anti war films and that certain criteria should be met to be seen as anti war in his eyes (afterall its all just opinions)
Horror is a horrible comparison. Horror could be pro horror, a lot of them could be. People get inspired by horror movies even. They sure aren't saying they're pro horror (at least for most. def some that could easy be argued that they are) but they sure can inspire someone to want to be the killer in their own fantasy. Like in horror, there's so many positive things someone can feel either the thrill of hide and seek or being chased,the thrill of chasing or killing or the suspense.
Anti war films don't have that. There's no thrill in killing, only the stripping of innocence. The closest thing that can maybe relate is the suspense, but anti war movies don't show or have suspense to give you a jump or something like that. It's there to portray a soldier's/person's feelings. Their life can end at any moment, they won't know its coming even till its too late, the constant suspense gripping one's heart can be horrifying as there's nothing you can do about it, and these people in these real life situations have to feel this for hours upon hours,days after days,months.
Thats actually a good point
Really surprised because no one is talking about Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood. While not being his best film by any means, it is definetly anti war, even the "good" war
Jimmy Stewart served in the Air Force in WW2 and the Vietnam war and he was a legitimate war hero (this was during his early blissing acting career). He later said that he didn’t want to be in war movies because, having been through war and seeing the hellish horrors first hand (as well as ofc the effects the soldiers endured after coming home), he believed that no war movie could accurately depict the atrocities he saw.
Good video, but to be honest I don't think it's an argument that warrants being had. Neither Truffaut nor Spielberg have the final say on such things.
I think both positions can merit an interesting position but ultimately neither position holds entirely when viewed widely in the genre.
I think even the criteria offered here is subjective enough that I wouldn't agree with it. Similarly I don't feel that the assertions of why Full Metal Jacket doesn't fit the mold are entirely convincing.
Debating subjectivity is the foundation for great conversations!
@@itsjustcinemaabsolutely. Don’t take my comment to mean you shouldn’t debate this issue or have opinions on it.
But personally I just don’t like the binary assessment of a genre is such a blithe way as Truffaut and Spielberg have taken it.
@@The_Reviewist Totally agree, while its interesting to point out something that a lot of media in the genre ends up doing, its a bit too wide of a swing to say something about the WHOLE genre
"Stalingrad", 1992, German movie.
I also agree with Truffaut. I think that many so-called “anti-war” films are punctuated by scenes that explore the spectacular side of war. Of course, there are war films in which courage and violence are the only themes present, leaving out the horror, madness, suffering, injustice and the traumatic loss of innocence. Films like The Thin Red Line, Paths of Glory and Come and See reflect on precisely these themes. They are therefore more humanistic and, as a result, more realistic. Another thing that is evident, especially in the first two films I mentioned, is that they are deeply critical of the military leadership and of the distorted, cold logic behind many of their decisions. The military apparatus is portrayed in these films as a machine that destroys human beings, both those it attacks and those it commands.
Despite being a vehicle to sell toys and model kits, 1979 Gundam and Zeta do a pretty good job at the anti war stuff and examining how Japan's leaders treated the value of soldiers' lives very poorly
I mean that’s ultimately what war is. Even a successful offensive that despite us your enemy or a successful defense that repulses them will result in casualties.
@@baneofbanes Yes, of course, but I was referring to a destruction that is not only physical, but also psychological. Like the one that takes place in the first part of Full Metal Jacket. The military institution destroys its own children.
@@mrfugazi1181 yah that’s what war is dude. It’s psychologically damaging humans are no king we individuals, they’re tools. It’s an extension of human society in general.
Before i got to the midpoint of the video i was going to say that if an anti war film exists its Come and See. Easily one of the most terrifying movies ive ever seen and its lived in my head rent free ever since
First I should this was a very nice video, very much appreciate it, then I would like to say that, the picture at 08:43, isn't from ww2, Because of the equipment (SKSs and RPD), probably is related to 60s Vietnam conflict.
While I understand the last "requirement" you put I feel like it restricts the possible pool needlessly. It goes without saying that an anti-war film will be better if made by someone who authentically went through war. But It doesn't mean someone who hasn't gone through war cannot do the same, I mean if the sentiment from these movies cannot be passed on without war happening then they fail to do what i believe is the purpose of an anti-war film. Warn the coming generations of the horrors and hope they steer clear from it. Because for that to work without us forgetting the lesson, there HAS to be a point in which someone who has only ever heard about war tries to pass down this warning in some way shape or form. And if they can't then the lesson is doomed to die out whenever peace time is found.
He didn't say it had to be made by someone with firsthand experience, only that it had to be informed by someone who did. And I think that's correct.
@@MrRizeAG ah ok my bad, but now properly informed the problem is still there. Like for a real world analogue imagine if the great war(WWI) was the last war, it would be impossible for most of the population to make an anti-war film by this definition because all WWI vets are dead today, and their families and those who have been informed by them would be naturally dwindling. I hope that helps portray the problem of tying experience of war to the definiton of anti-war. I believe that those who have researched war should be able to make an anti-war film. And discrediting a film from a genre purely based on someones lack first or second hand of experience with the subject matter limits us.
@@snage-thesnakemage I don't think the experience necessarily has to be from THAT war, though it is usually better. You can transpose the experiences in one war to just about any other war if you're smart about it. All that really changes is the set dressing and technology.
I’ve seen short clips of Come and See and the whistle shot, knowing the context behind it, is *horrifying*
It is a very intense movie not in the action sense but in the emotional sense. It is definitely anti war. I wont spoil anything but if you could watch it as blind going in as you can the better. Also the captain is a great film also.
The Zone of Interest, completely ripped off any climactic adrenaline-infusing scenes, could make a good example on the topic. The mundanity of it is the true horror.
I once accidentally left RUclips on when I went to sleep and it autoplayed "Come and see".
I woke up several times to gunshots, viceral screams and children crying. The most intese part of the expeience was that it all blended together neither asleep or awake. I checked the phone and saw one of the most memorable scene of the film, when the main character was shooting at the picture of Hitler covered in mud and screaming painfully at the top of his lungs. It hit me like a truck man.
Many army guys cite Full Metal Jacket as the reason why the enlisted... it's as if we watched an entirely different movie.
So they watch a movie about Marines and enlist in the Army. Good choice. 😄
1:20 Gordon Freeman
Bro 😭
Yes, I enjoy WATCHING combat. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm a small organism in a Petri dish whose behavior can be changed entirely by "neuron activation". There is process called "thinking". There are tons of things that I enjoy and avoid because of it.
I find that what Truffaut says kinda reminds me of how most people talk about most of the horror genre (which makes sense - a lot of war/anti-war films could arguably be extensions of the horror genre imo). Though with the horror genre, sometimes they have meta commentary about itself (like the Scream franchise, and the movie Funny Games that has commentary where it's supposed to scold the audience for being entertained by violence). I definitely agree with the conclusion part of this video though, because - like anti-war films - there's definitely ways to create horror art/media with respect and care for people (for example, there's arguably a big difference between how Perfect Blue handles it's subject matter vs what Megan is Missing does when it comes to SA - though I say arguably because everyone handles trauma differently, so what can be respectful for one SA survivor might not be the same for someone else, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's similar for most war veterans too).
I'm not sure that I fully agree with this. Just because the brain is equally engaged when watching either anti- or pro-war films does not mean that the impact on the psyche is the same. The opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan does not show young men dying gloriously, but it shows the horrors of being blown apart. The gore, the screams, grown men crying for their mothers. It's fundamentally different from pro-war movies or even the Transformers movies which, while not war movies, glorify life in the military and are basically propaganda. You can make the argument that Saving Private Ryan's ending having an inspirational tone defeats the anti-war message, and you might have a point, but the entire story was literally saving a man from the war. Ryan represents the audience and anyone impressionable enough to believe that war is glorious. The goal of the film is literally to save the audience from Hollywood's often pro-war propaganda.
Just as the opening of Saving Private Ryan dispels the myth of "dying gloriously in battle", the show Generation Kill dispels the myth of military service as an "adventure". It shows young men being subjects and pawns to military leaders that are so out of touch, they gave jungle camo fatigues as the uniform for a desert operation. They sent them out with barely enough batteries for their night vision to carry out their night operations. They also forced them to carry pointless equipment that they would never use and only added to their overall weight (famous example of this: everyone had their rifles equipped with ACOG scopes, but the leaders wanted to make sure that they had iron sights as a backup. So they forced everyone to attach the carry handle to the underbarrel of their rifle, which did nothing but add weight because the carry handle wouldn't be properly sighted if they switched it out). Generation Kill shows that life in the military is a pain in the ass where you're forced to submit to the whims of people that will often give the most questionable of commands because you can't refuse, and soldiers left at the other end with the question of "How do I give them what they want, and stay alive?" This drastically makes the viewer question their views of military service. The anti-war elements go even further when you look at the reality that the Iraq war was built on lies. The men and women that died there died for nothing.
Even comedies like Barry can deliver very subtle anti-violence messages. Barry attempts to de-glorify violence through cinematography and dark comedy. Scenes that are meant to be "bad ass" are usually deflated with comedic elements that wind up with the "bad ass" making a fool of themself. The only exception to this was the assault on the Bolivians (that I can think of, currently), which Barry is unconscious for so we never actually see it. The final confrontation between Fuches and NoHo Hank has so much tension behind it and when the tension comes to a head, we don't get a huge John Woo action scene. It's a flat, static camera shot of two groups of men in an open room with no cover clumsily shooting at each other. Violence is never shown as something that is "cool".
These are powerful messages that go far to remove the 'sexiness' that Hollywood applies to war movies and violence. Yes, the stories are engaging, but so is a car wreck. Just because we can't look away from a car wreck doesn't mean that we think it's cool or want to drive more recklessly. It's the same principle with anti-war/anti-violence media. The lesson that the audience learns as a result from engaging in the story, what they believe after watching it, is what ultimately determines whether something was pro- or anti-war.
"The lesson that the audience learns as a result from engaging in the story"
Sometimes I wonder if it's just too easy to turn one's brain off when watching something. I think that's a big reason why it's tricky to make the audience learn these lessons. You show a bunch of bored annoyed grunts in Generation Kill, getting screwed by their superiors, and to some extent, people will see cool-looking guys-fit, uniformed, armed-cracking funny jokes at each other. I mean, the lessons themselves aren't complicated of course, but somehow they lack the same emotional appeal perhaps? Like a battle scene where a character dies horribly, but your overall feeling is still excitement.
'Casualties of War' is a grueling watch with maybe one or two spots of "comfort", one of those apparently being forced by the studio, because otherwise they felt audiences would leave the theater without a hint of catharthis. The movie is basically one drawn out violent sexual assault, so know what you're getting into. It's probably the most vicious depiction of war crimes by Americans to ever come out of the Hollywood system, and was likely only allowed to be made because Vietnam war movies were ironically all the rage in the 80's.
My father was a Vietnam veteran, and he considered _Casualties of War_ to be one of the best Vietnam war films he ever saw.
Also, Michael J. Fox's performance was possibly his best.
I thought it was a good Movie. I dont' thinkit was all one sexual Assault. I think it showed how many essentailly good People can go Crazy and become Ruthless Monsters during War. The Sean Penn Character who was heroic at the Beginnning of the Movie- I think hte saved Michel J Fox's character life- becomes a monster after some of his friends are killed. That Movie I beleive was based on a real life inidient. It was MJ Fox's best performance. No Alex Keaton or even Marty McFly in that Movie. Althoughj, I guess like Marty McFly, his character was Heroic.
There are dozens of films being listed here that seem to disprove the thesis.
There are a great deal of war films that don't glorify war and genuinely show the horrors of war.
To me, both Truffaut and Spielberg are wrong. There's no film that can purely be call Pro nor Anti war film, being this more of an spectrum, where all war-themed films will appear, this being specially true if you lean into death of the author theory. Even the most jingoistic films like the John Wayne vehicle The Green Berets have to show their guys getting killed at times, even graphically (otherwise, the work would seem nakedly manipulative/unrealistic or they would seem like bullies) while something as effectively anti-war as Come and See can be seen from a propagandistic lense if you squint hard enough (for example, what if a Pro-Russian person interprets it not as "war is awful and brutal", but as "Germans/Western pigs invaded our land, burned our houses and brutalized our people and I won't let that happen again"). It's practically impossible to be purely on one end of that spectrum, no matter how close you get there. However, it doesn't mean artists shouldn't/won't strive to reach one end of the spectrum if they believe they have to.
Anyway, I still liked the video a lot and I wanna thank you for the recommendations. Never heard of "The Ascent" before and now it's on my watch list, and I feel now more compelled to look for the "Human Condition" trilogy. In exchange, I wanna recomend you the animated film "Funan", which is pretty good, though very harrowing as well and leans as much towards the anti-war spectrum as something like Come and See does.
Anyway, shout out to "Like Stories of Old" since this point of view was partially shaped by one of his videos about the subject.
Agreed and well articulated. Also a viewer of LSoO and glad to have found this comment. Thanks. 🙌🏾
@@KrispyKrunchee Thank you for the kind words.
There are soooo many well Articulated and well made thoughts and opinions in this comment section, but this might be the best of all of them.
I agree.
What about Platoon? It's director was a Vietnam vet, and the ending quote having this line "we didn't fight the enemy, we fought ourselves" , I've also like to point out that song used in the movie which always makes me come back to it when I hear it
I think making an anti-war movie by showing war is the equivalent of making an anti-smut film by showing smut. The very appeal of many smut films is precisely the taboo nature, viewing such content as wrong is precisely what makes it appealing. So you can only ever make valid anti-smut content without any sexually gratifying material.
Sorry to say this, but even films where civilians get endlessly physically and mentally tortured by war and factors entirely beyond their control, with no good or bad guys, with no discernable objective besides survival, are not good at portraying anti-war messaging, but more so existential horror. They don't possess a cohesive argument against war, besides utilizing psychological terror to submit the audience into taking an anti-war stance. I don't deny the importance of them acting as a form of documentation of war from civilian perspective, but they don't possess sophisticated anti-war messaging, besides primal terror of potentially being in the same situation.
A real anti-war pacifist film would have a setting along the lines of diplomat being tasked with a herculean task of averting WW3 when the world is on the verge of nuclear holocaust and barely succeeding. The objective is to make an audience feel excited and relieved at the aversion of war, not feeling excited from the war itself. To this day, a Ferengi arguing with a Vulcan in Star Trek on why continuation of a war is bad is the most intelligent piece of anti-war fiction I've seen and it's the only piece of art that has ever made me on some level think "Okay, I am not insane. War really can be illogical".
Finally, *FINALLY* somebody mentioned Come and See in the debate video of ''what is an anti-war film.'' I've seen a lot of similar videos about the paradox of anti-war films, but this one is definitely the best and most agreeable by far.
I want to see the Thin Red Line talked about. That movie really stands out to me among the genre of war movies.
Given the criteria listed, I'd consider Grave of the Fireflies anti-war.
Gotta check out The Forgotten Battle if you haven’t seen it - a devastating movie but one that really shows how war destroys not just communities but people themselves, even if they survive.
You showed a brief clip of The Zone of Interest. I think that's an interesting one. It's less focused on war than on the Holocaust, but I think their choice to not depict any of the violence was an interesting way to avoid some of these pitfalls. You could also say that it's distracting, with its focus on the German family and these ironically beautiful spaces amid the horror, but I think it has a deeply unsettling effect.
3:30 none of those films glorify war.
Apocalypse Now isn't even about the war itself to begin with, its just the backdrop.
To me Apocalypse Now refutes this perspective outright. The film makes it very clear that the Americans shouldn't be there, that they're running around dealing out death to people who pose no more threat to them than a cornered, desperate, and provoked animal (Like a tiger). Neither the protagonist nor the antagonist have any faith in the American cause anymore, nor does the Enemy have much tangible presence in the film; it's impossible to root for anyone's triumph because clearly nobody knows what they're trying to do. What you're rooting for is for the horror of war to not rob them of their lives or their souls, to get out of there as soon as possible because they're doing nobody an ounce of good by fighting these grotesque, never-ending battles.
yes and art has no relation to the time or place the work is set of course, the curtains are blue, robert duvall is robert duvall, wagner is wagner.
even if you want to claim thematic detachment on the grounds of its loosely adapting conrad the rhetoric is still shaky because apocalypse now is 100% beholden to the colonialist framing of its source.
@@Gravitynaut Why? Why would Americans be incapable of making a film that was critical of American military policy, even disgusted and horrified by it? Do you think Duvall is supposed to be heroic, the Wagner blasting behind him uplifting, the setting he stands in an opportunity to fawn over American military might?
@@MagusMirificusTo start with, yes. The military grants a tremendous financial and locational assistance to films which they have final say in the manner in which they are depicted. and anyways just because a film intends itself and frames itself as an imperialist critique, doesn't make it magically immune to criticism, or mean that it might never adhere to problematic imperialist frames
@@Gravitynaut Of course not. But that doesn't preclude the possibility of a work transcending those frameworks and making a genuine critique. There is a sense in which the state has pretty tight control over the explicit parameters of ALL creative work, not just that which deals with war. Artists often tend to strain against those barriers in any way they can get away with; plus, during the filming of Apocalypse Now, F.F.C. was at war with his own studio, spiraling into overtime and overbudget as the project spun out of control. Somehow I doubt that through that chaos the US Military was able to exert meaningful creative influence over the project's direction, nor does the film itself suggest such an influence. This all just sounds like capitalist realist "Beneficiaries of a system are ontologically incapable of opposing that system" defeatism to me.
Spec Ops: The Line: I didn’t hear nothing about games!
Because games literally cannot be anti-war. Yes, the white phosphorus scene in spec-ops: the line is haunting, but in first person shooters, you choose do the shooting, because it is entertaining. You make the choice to go shoot some people, not because it's your duty or because you have to, but for fun. Therefore, making that experience "anti-war" is impossible
@@axelotlgaming7921 Just to be clear your telling me the game with the line “To kill for yourself is murder. To kill for your government is heroic. To kill for entertainment is harmless.” is not anti-war
@@axelotlgaming7921I don't think spec ops was designed to be fun, it's generic and uses so many tropes from shooters simply to have the message be conveyed through it. I didn't really have fun playing it, but I found value in how it examines how we make the choice to play both it and games about war in general.
Honestly, i can't really disagree. War involves so many human behaviours that are so basic and relatable. To our tribalism. The only way to make an anti war movie really is making a documentary about proton stars
Interesting take!
Another human behavior is uh, empathy
@@DownWithTheImperialists His comment didn’t preclude that.
@@taffysaur yeah but my point is that there are much human behavior is anti-war
"Where the Wind Blows" is an animated adaptation of a comic, about an elderly couple trying to prepare for nuclear fallout without understanding how it works, and without taking it seriously. It's gutting.
To me the true mark of an anti war film is a film that can only be watched once, not because it’s bad, but because it’s so brutal/uncomfortable to watch. But you can still acknowledge it as a successful work of art from a technical perspective (great writing/story/direction/execution etc.). The film can be acknowledged as a great work of art but can only be watched once because of how heavy the subject matter is. Come And See is exactly that for me.
I don’t disagree in the sense that if someone is “pro-war” there isn’t a piece of cinema by itself that will change their outlook. They’ll see grave of the fireflies be moved but still justify the US’s actions. Seen it first hand in film school
I mean fundamentally there’s a difference between “war is awesome” like most action movies and “war is a necessary evil”. Grave of the Fireflies response is the second. The unfortunate truth is that there was no reasoning with Japan at that point in way that wasn’t just capitulation after they attacked the US. The reaction to more peaceful means of dissuading them from war with the oil embargo was responded to with Pearl Harbor
@@badart3204Lies. The Japanese government were ready to surrender but their only condition was that the Emperor shouldn't be harmed or be held under trial. The Americans only accepted "Unconditional Surrender", and they bombed the country afterwards. Japanese unwilling to surrender because it's in their culture is a racist myth.
@@badart3204All lies. There is no necessary war. Only propaganda. The Japanese were willing to surrender only under the condition that the Emperor to not be put under trial due to his cultural significance.
@@jkabrams341 after being thoroughly beaten on the high seas during the war. Stop defending evil governments you coward. There are necessary wars such as national self defense. The answer to Pearl Harbor, Nanjing, and Bataan Death March is Fat Man. You have no sympathy for the victims of the Japanese aggression you only cry when someone does something about it.
@@jkabrams341
They were also conquering Southeast Asia, and they sent tens of thousands of bombs by balloon, hoping to cause chaos within the U.S.
You’re brushing over why we were in a war with Japan.
I agree, that the A bombs weren’t necessary, but the Japanese were committing atrocities, as bad as any that have ever happened, over in that part of the world.
Who else would’ve stopped it?
You really believe the U.S. military, was a worse option, than 1945 Japan, having such a foothold in that region?
That’s debatable, but the Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, and others in the region, have been fighting one another for thousands of years.
The racism and hatred for one another, was far beyond even the worst U.S. soldier’s and brass’s towards their enemies.
Japan didn’t see there soldiers murdering civilians, including graping, and horribly murdering, women and children. Babies on the bayonets, like stories of the U.S. and natives that were massacred. Though, many natives committed the same, upon settlers and others, who weren’t soldiers, and many who weren’t even armed.
Was war not necessary, for those natives? Should they just have moved, risking their way of life? Tribes fought amongst one another, long before a European arrived.
If not for the small pox, first brought by Columbus and Vespucci, the natives in North America, would’ve had their own countries. 90% were gone, within a couple hundreds years, just from the spread of small pox, by the natives who traded goods with one another.
The trade and disease, would spread across both continents, before most Europeans had even explored half of it.
War is unnecessary, if one believes in non-violence, to the point of being killed. If they don’t care what the invader/attacker does to them and those they love, and/or their city, county, state, country, etc.
Saying “war is never necessary…” sounds good, but it’s just not reality.
That’s the thinking of an idealist, but the strong have taken advantage of those weaker, poorer, sicker, etc. since tribes have existed.
What if one’s tribe couldn’t get enough food for the winter, because another tribe, which they didn’t make war with when it showed up near them, has hunted the game to the point that there isn’t enough for the tribe living their first.
If they go to that other tribe, and talk about the food, asking whether they could share supplies, as the new tribe has more than enough, but get turned away, what should they do?
And what if this tribe, also says they will kill anyone who tries to take their food?
Does the first tribe just starve to death, or risk the same and worse, trying to migrate?
You still think war isn’t necessary, even if they’d been there for longer than any living person has memory to recount their ancestors.
Yes, technically, war isn’t necessary, but that only works if no one is able to wage it.
I would add the animated movie waltz with bashir as another very effective antiwar movie. Maybe the most effective antiwar movie since the 90s till now. And it had all the "entertaining" parts, even comedic sequences that could be considered distasteful to the victims of that conflict. The trick here is to distant itself from any feeling of triumph, release, validation or purpose and focus on the human cost both physical and mentals. Any great imagery it conjured up isnt to embelish events or a perverted needs for technical showcase on the part of the movie crew but directly link to the atrocity perpetrated and discussed in the movie. You won't connect scenes like Elias's death leading to justice enacted on Barnes, nor will the death of Conrad be connected to the release of tension built throughout the movie, just the cost of lives and souls for everybody involved and the denial thereafter.
Yeah Waltz with Bashir is great
Jarhead is one of those anti-war film that simply edging its viewer for war, making the audiences feel empathy for the protagonist to simply just want to rain bullets on enemies
I think that we shouldn't try to create fiction that glorifies war or is anti-war. We should create fiction that shows the horror of war but also the people that fight through, survive it, and triumph. We should create something that both shows us the truth while also inspiring us to be stronger and prepare for when the inevitable happens. Because war will not go away. Conflict will never stop. We can't stop it. But we can survive it.
"As long as there's two people left on the planet, someone is gonna want someone dead."
As Russian I can confirm - in Soviet Union after World War 2 there are tons of movies about war that were directed by people, who saw the war by their own eyes. That’s why these movies are so powerful. And that’s one of many reasons why modern Russian war films suck
THere is nothing more tone-deaf to me than making an anti-war film from the Allies' perspective in World War 2. Fighting in War is horrific, yes, but do you tell a woman suffering in Nazi Occupied France that its better to not have Americans storm the beaches of Normandy? Do you tell a man on his way to the Auschwitz gas chambers that the Red Army is staying home to avoid hurting young people? Do you tell a woman who just saw her baby speared on a Japanese Bayonet in Namking that they've got to just deal with it so that the US Marine Corps doesn't have to deal with Banzi Charges?
War is hell. But sometimes what War prevents is worse than Hell, and that makes it worth fighting.
Yeah thats why making an anti war film is such a slippery slop, because unfortunately many conflicts in our history needed to use aggression to stop the worse from spreading and many would agree that it was necessary. I still get people dissatisfaction with how a anti war film is presented, but something like Come and See is something you watch only once and after never want to see again , while I can watch Groly over and over, as its inspiring.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all three films cited by this video as “true” antiwar films center around militaries that either rivaled their already-evil opponents in terms of sheer brutality (the Red Army, at least towards the end of the war) or were straight-up unspeakably evil through and through with no redeeming qualities whatsoever in how they conducted themselves in warfare (the Imperial Japanese army).
All video essayists are the same
Real.
what a stupidly reductive comment. This one was really boring to listen to tho tbf