Feel of the trenches at a safe distance war on the Silver Screen whether patriotic glorification or cautionary tale movies shaped our ideas about war they tell stories of heroism. And trauma real truth. But where are the black soldiers on the cinematic battlefield and what roles do women play in war movies we put the film genre in our crosshairs 75 years after the end of world war 2. Most of us have never and hopefully will never go to war. Our experience of battle comes from the movies. War has fascinated filmmakers from the stark. Battle scenes to push the technical limits of movie making. Over a century of cinema war movies have become more intense more realistic and more violent. But they show us what war is really like sam fuller hollywood director and world war 2 veteran i didnt think you called or who was sometimes in a bad mood would then say if you really wanted to film war you would have to actually fire real and you nation out of the audience or over the heads of the audience. One of the 1st great war films was the list milestones last of. All quiet on the western front it was the 1st popular movie to depict the fors of world war one you know what. This means and also quiet on the western front is of course a groundbreaking work of course and of this i think we expose all it shows the ugly side of the war a fight in my particular on a mass deaths on the western front biggest event gets hyped up the. Most on was a declared pacifist but even his movie makes war seem exciting. And so you see the machine gun and then in a reverse shock you see the people that are being mowed down as though it was the camera itself moeen the people down he cant get out of this problem which is to say that he has to stage the very drama that hes also trying to criticize. The excitement of war cinemas taken to the extreme in 1917 director sam mendez depicts his grandfathers experience in world war one as a grand adventure. Indeed hunter said half a century later in vietnam war is not a fun adventure the infamous game of russian roulette may or may not be historically accurate for director Michael Chaney no russian roulette is a metaphor for how combat really feels. Waiting because of firefly usually is fierce. Unbelievably. Insane and is over in a very short space of time. And then. Youre a paraplegic. One of the through. The window when Steven Spielberg recreated the world war 2 d. Day landings in saving private ryan he made it as visceral and violent as anything deerhunter. Spielberg wanted to try to put the viewer exactly in the position of one of the infantry soldiers you know who had. His body was essentially you know a target the viewer can feel the fear the. The excitement the pressure the terror the nervousness everything theres no other way that an audience would get that much of a strong impression of exactly what it was like to be in that battle. Because its very uncomfortable for the viewer confidence was shot at the same time and in an almost perverse way its fascinating because its like going on a ghost writer on the guy we experience something that were not really experienced during the you know the monsters are real in the movie you know the war isnt real this. Moment i mean in the end war cinema remains entertainment war cinema is never a war. Our movie memory is a battle of become more visceral and more violent but were still a long way from knowing what war is really like sitting. There both fascinating and horrifying films that are critical of war. I love the spot at the top of the morning. Its like the. Victory. Its one of the most quoted lines from a war film Robert Duvall cynical commentry as no kill goal in apocalypse now. This comes shortly after he and his troops carry out a helicopter attack on a vietnamese village accompanied by wagners ride as a valid trace Francis Ford Coppolas message was total madness. Incompetence as are you i say that i am tired working almost normal domes in which war can never be justified. Calm they have them in contrast for me in war films my doors may be justified but they still do not say that war is beautiful or good thoughts in the end they still show the horrors of war he talks them off the shackles cletus tight. World like the 2nd world war in the dirty dozen decision and loyalty determine victory in defeat the director robert ill judge the ends justify the means as long as the nazis are united. It is. Rambo Sylvester Stallone is sent to vietnam to free american prisoners feel much singlehandedly losing even in real life the United States had lost. Rambo what people call an. Equal footing. The dividing line between propaganda and patriotism between glorification and deterrence is very theme in many films. That cover. The fallout from the american disaster in vietnam caused more and more filmmakers in hollywood to take a stand against me and i was successful over the stone one for oscars with clinton but can a film really be anti rule have a pacifist mess each with all the slow some. Believe the whole problem with a pacifist war phil is that this is a contradiction in terms. Of how. I think its definitely possible to make war films in such a way that at the end of the film people are filled with what classic tragedy called pity an all or shock and horror but i think that only works by virtue of the narrative you tell a strong story like the bridge it shocked audiences 15 years after the end of world war 2 was German Society was then experiencing an economic miracle that it displaced the memories of killing and dying the book is something very courageous and that is especially suitable for young people here from the back because its about young people go and they can identify incredibly well with all these characters that you bodies are theres also an excellent film an incredibly well performed feel for the most. I dont even know youngs ice jam Going Forward and you got to talk about your god he cant just all the boys dont listen and come to regret it deeply the next week he not only wanted to remember the 2nd movie he also hate and then there. Was the same film that was a film that spoke out against the media rearmament just a couple of years after the west german army had been found it was going to indirectly it also asking questions about where the confrontation in the cold war was leading us in fact it should be forgotten and of the film was released in 196461 shortly before the cuban missile crisis for which the 3rd world war almost broke out at about 3. 00 couple of tenants malik is not interested in politics but philosophy in the finrod line he depicts the battle in the pacific in 1942 from the perspective of nature. Beautiful and disturbing shots he seems to be asking us how can these things coexist all the beauty and all the horror film could hardly explicitly the war has no place on this planet. Long. Many popular war movies were made in the usa but how close does the hollywood version come to the real thing. Most images of american soldiers in war one thing in common all the soldiers are white. Africanamericans have fought in every american war but black faces in battle have been almost entirely whitewashed from americas visual history. Especially at the movies. John wayne is the epitome of the american g. I. From world war 2 vietnam hollywood has consistently shown the great white hero saving the world. But hollywood got its history wrong in not getting the true story. In fact the 1st american killed by the british at the boston massacre was a black man i was a black man an addict. Crispus attucks was the 1st in a long line of africanamericans who served and died for their country. After the 2nd shot. Him before you start to fire all hell breaks loose in 2008 director spike lee told the story of the real life 92nd Infantry Division the socalled Buffalo Soldiers who fought in italy in world war 2. They. Were using force. For them and these film wasnt the 1st to show black americans in combat in glory Denzel Washington plays a soldier in the 1st all black company in the civil war i dont want to know your films with africanamerican soldiers front and center are still the exception stripes on their. Like pitt 1st of all. Most studio and most filmmakers have been white males and theyve been telling a white male story im right but with the black lives Matter Movement the calls to tell other stories have gotten louder. As have the calls for america to reckon with its buried history. I think that black lives matter and all of the conversation now around social justice and historic reckoning is a really productive one i think its very very educational why were there not more stories about africanamericans put in the forefront why were token representations ok this is something that i think is a reckoning that has to happen and its a good moment to begin it on the. Telling me africanamerican story changes the heroic image of america seen in most war movies black soldiers who fought fascism abroad came home to a very different country than their white counterparts. Contest when the right to. Be boys was no problem so we just let them to some good advice let us go from bad gifts. For. They were all back to. Their grandma who our service bought them because it was a hit list to step is you feet in over the world with either love or trough in the backyard like im some theyre picking on me to shoot you in the right what we did was a guy down the americans are. Remembering that forgotten history can help White America understand where todays protests come from. I mean the last time your city had a curfew was 943 you know what the reason was a black soldier coming back from war 2 is killed by a cop harvey went crazy so these riots not skew the i dont want to get to it with the guys that were right these uprisings. Dont come out of nowhere. With. The least new film shows African Americans fighting and dying in vietnam while back home civil rights protests rage. America has been here before one step to imagine a different future will be to put black faces back into americas war history. America has been here before one step to imagine a different future will be to put black faces back into americas war history. Though women are rarely in the foreground war movies wouldnt be complete without them. Men interacting with men men fighting men men dying with and because of men can seem like an exclusively male affair and war movies especially so when all the women. They appear rarely often only in the form of a photo or a memory all the designs of those on the front lines like this scene from 1917 a male soldier longing for his wife. They are something worth fighting for what is the virtuous you know Family Member whos photo is in the pocket of the soldier who he looks at away from the front depictions of the mother figure like here in spielbergs saving private ryan silently suffering she watches tragic news approaching. We see the fear in. Her eyes has another of her sons been taken from her. Father and clips from. Women in war films are spectral are counterpoints of the manse the im over this my its the middle by soft and human. The author emphasized the hardness in humanity of male behavior notice many asians have been speaking. With the with these. And the 3 swing shuffled. To the show because. Women symbolize goodness theyre hospital nurses healers they sympathize and give comfort they can also play the role of restoring men for the next battle they feel keeping the war going. The women have on some level. A very conservative function they are loyal you know wife and mother who stay behind and wait for their husband to come back they are the ones who keep the country in the family going. In the spielberg film the mother is a strangely passive character her grief is voiceless time on screen less than 10 minutes shes already lost 3 sons to war now the last son james is to be sent home to minimize her anguish. Youre going. Are his or bring your back so i can leave is that what theyre supposed to tell your mother. When they send her another folded american flag. Color when you found me. I was here and i was with the only brothers that i have left and theres no way i was going to desert them. For the son kamerad or even his fellow soldiers trumps his mothers grief and so it goes in times of war. Because sometimes a womans role is symbolic like when scofield to meet some mother and child Something Like mary and jesus figures. His own death. All off question but as soon as the soldier leaves this apparently blesses the same feeling to news falling for cop women embody the costs of war and even in war films without passages undertones sense and. Women are hardly present in the films sexuality and especially homosexuality are completely absent bodily contact happens only for the purpose of annihilation. Women characters are only rarely central mrs nineveh shows the suffering of civilians living through war here its not a man whos the victim of a battle but a young woman she dies in the arms of mrs min of a very much an exception in this genre and. Counting. Girl you. Think. The last person a man sees is usually a man you know that whether its the 1st world war or vietnam war will also destroys those men who make it home alive often they cant relate to their wives count understand what makes them tick a return to normality is unthinkable im not going to make excuses for what. What i found. I dont know. And our family i dont know. What led to the lack of women characters from the one dimensional perspective on me could it be the result of decades of male dominated only with directing. I think its an interesting question about what women directors will do when they get a bigger seat at the table and a chance to make more films and to make more high budget films. Now its like im going to do. Something may have begun to change in the last few years wonder woman signals a new direction the woman goes ahead into battle men follow its directed by a woman to look at him jenkins some have celebrated the film as a kind of feminist manifesto but can there be such a thing as a feminist will film. Were still waiting for the who are movies that really think battle from the position of women the womens violent war hero doesnt seem like any kind of role model but its likely to be giving us more in the future lead. When the physical battle and the psychological one begins how hollywood depicts the hidden moves that wars leave behind. And now long here to tell you that i have killed for my country or whatever. And i dont feel good about. This war zone relevant to society lie to me it like my brothers son i cant i cant find the words to express leadership of just government sickens me. To veterans with the saying. The United States since it speaks. To its soldiers. Training is part of now protested. The 1st time soldiers were allowed to talk about their war trauma they were not allowed to do that after the 1st or 2nd and also not after the korean war. In coming home from 1978 until crews in 1990 were feeling on the 4th of july the veterans return time now confined to wheelchairs and found they got anything but a heros welcome darkness higher than in the vietnam era people who returned put their uniform in the closet and never wore it again in public because the you know people who protested against the war would criticize them and they didnt want to put themselves in that position so i think that these kind of felons have really helped to process the trauma for veterans for americans who were not involved in the conflict but may be opposed to it to feel st the issues differently one of the stones will trauma leaves room for the possibility that there might be something were going to hear from you after really shoulder to shoulder. Because i think its a bit different with a film like coming home which primarily shows us that war is often associated with the experiences of people never get over the money money that the war never really ends for the survivors and the burdens heavy applies. For one person alone to carry sidearms and. One soldier chooses not to return home as in apocalypse now colonel walter played by monem brand loses his sanity you must make a friend of hoarder. And. He takes his unit deep into the jungle to service his private army so he can roam free of any concept of morality the character is used as a means to convey director Francis Ford Coppolas antiwar message. These are films that have to really deal with a kind of National Hangover and at the end those he has them is over the wreckage and carnage is visibly clear and how do you bend to deal with that every record oh mark Robert Altman uses cynicism to make his point in his film mash a mobo Army Surgical hospital looks after the wounded showing the korean war but the doctors hearts and minds a focus more on the attractive nurses on football its their way of keeping the pain and suffering at bay the harsh reality of what they face every day in the operating theaters. Nothing is sacred to outman not even the image of the last supper which he recreates 1st seen in the movie a shot is heard in his antiwar film but punchy lines run thick and fast maybe it is the best way to survive a war after all farewell. Video yeah. Yeah. War movies are gripping both visually and emotionally thats all from this episode of arts 2175 years after the end of the 2nd world war. Move. Into the conflict zone in these extraordinary times we decided to take the opportunity to focus on the impact that the coronavirus pandemic is having on human rights around the world there are reports of invasive surveillance of authoritarian power grabs my guest is the head of Human Rights Watch a kind of problem of how many limitations are people willing to accept in order to fight a threat like coronavirus conflicts. In 30 minutes on d w. Morning am farces a policy on a connection. Minus a recurring theme into any new testament it is essential to us and has been lovingly come to baby abide by our system is a monasteries for centuries. Well take a look at an ancient craft that has gone suppressing. 60 minutes on d w. The title of this special must. Travel. Extremely. Close doors from nigeria you know thats what money would. Send to. Plan successful beyond belief. Followed this is the way we do it. Would start aug 7th on d w. Frankfurt. International gateway to the best connection self air road and rail. Located in the heart of europe you are connected to the whole world. Experience outstanding shopping and dining off 1st and try our services. Biala gassed at Frankfurt Airport city managed by from a bought. 50 w. News live from Berlin Police stepped in to break up a protest against coronavirus restrictions in the german capital most of the people attending the rally were not observing high