Is There Too Much Emphasis on Film Music in War Movies?
Comments on two of my recent reviews (The Front Line and Special Forces) made me question the use of music in war movies. I remember that I was once not so keen on music in films and that I had liked some, like The Army of Shadows, especially because they hardly use any music at all. When it comes to more action-driven movies, I think that the music is to a large extent the reason why I like them so much. I couldn’t imagine Black Hawk Down, Gladiator, King Arthur, The Last of the Mohicans and many more without music.
On the other hand I’ve seen a few movies who would have been good with other or no music. In those cases the choice was so bad, it really damaged the film. One of those examples is The Killing Fields.
I think one of the problems is whether the score has been composed especially for the film or whether they just added known songs and pieces of music. This can work as well, as we can see in some of the Vietnam movies, but often it doesn’t.
Should a movie not be excellent without music? How important is it? Is there a overuse of music, particularly in US productions?
What do you think?
Let’s find out but share your opinion as well and name some examples in which the music was used especially well or others in which it damaged the movie.
Laurel & Hardy at War – Pack Up Your Troubles (1932)
Pack up your Troubles is only one of many Laurel & Hardy movies showing them at war. There are better examples but it still has a few iconic and quite hilarious scenes. I grew up with Laurel & Hardy, during my childhood they were always on Sunday TV and so, no matter how silly, I’m fond of them.
The US are entering WWI. In his typical boasting way Hardy pretends he would join up if only he was given a chance. The chance is given soon enough in form of a conscription officer but the moment Hardy sees him, he tries to escape and weasel out. To no avail. They are drafted and end up in the trenches of France where they go about their own business pretty oblivious of the mess around them. Food, warmth and a few other things are more important for them. While this was certainly essential for all the soldiers, in Laurel and Hardy’s case it’s center stage. They behave in the trench like an old couple at home. The shelling and bombing is perceived as a major nuisance but not as the real danger it is. Sent to make a few prisoners, they turn a dangerous mission into a hilarious adventure that ends with a surprising success.
Edie Smith, a fellow soldier, tells them about his little daughter. He had to leave her behind with a couple of really abusive folk. When he goes missing, our two heroes decide that after the war they will bring the girl to her rightful grandparents.
The second part of the movie takes place after the Armistice and shows their adventures with the little girl and all their troubles and mishaps until they finally find the grand parents.
Pack Up Your Troubles is one hour long. It’s amusing, not one of my favourites, but still entertaining. They pack all the elements of WWI movies into a film – the trenches, the barbed wire, the mud, the bombings – and add a humorous twist. Laurel & Hardy’s humour is slapstick, it’s not satirical, nor very profound. If you like it, you will enjoy this as well.
Do you have a favourite Laurel & Hardy at war? Or another favourite Laurel & Hardy?
The Most Terrible Weather Conditions in Infantry Combat Movies – 4 Examples
Combat is hell. We all know that. But some combat situations are made even worse because of the weather. I have seen four movies and episodes of series in which the depicted weather conditions made me think: “How utterly awful this must have been”. The terrible weather conditions are a great means for film directors to enhance how horrible combat is and how utterly futile some battles when facing not only a strong(er) opponent but the force of nature.
The first movie is Stalingrad. To watch those troops in the icy cold snow of the Eastern Front is harrowing. Countless men who survived the battle died from hunger and cold.
Horror weather example number two is also due to snow and cold. It is shown in the episode “Bastogne” from Band of Brothers.
As brutal as the winter in Europe and the Eastern Front was, the constant rain the troops had to face in The Pacific was no less demoralizing. Example number three is the episode number 4 “Cape Gloucester” from The Pacific which takes place just after the battle of Guadalcanal. Humidity and the constant noise of the torrential rain lead to stress and illness.
Another really harrowing example was shown in the Australian movie Kokoda. The mud, rain and dirt of the Kokoda trail has to be mentioned among the worst experiences any troops have undergone.
I just realized that all these are examples from WWII. Makes it look as if there hadn’t been any terrible weather conditions during other wars but that is of course not the case. I remember a few WWI movies in which the mud and rain played an important role but I’m not able to pick a perfect example. Additionally I would like to add an example in which scorching heat proved to be fatal.
Which is the worst weather you have ever seen in any war movie?
Save Sean Bean
This is hilarious. I found it on Susan Hated Literature. It has been taken from Rockpapercynic.
It goes very well with my previous post on Lord of the Rings in which he dies one of the more dramatic deaths of his career.
I Once Saw a Movie…
My mother had a favourite war romance, a movie she liked more than any other. When I was a kid it was on TV once and we watched it together. I wasn’t as taken with the film as she was but thinking of her, I often thought of that movie as well. Since she passed away, I couldn’t ask her the name of the movie. All I remembered was that two people met during an air raid and that the woman was forced into prostitution later. And something about a bridge. I asked many people whether they knew the film. Nobody did. I couldn’t remember the title, nor the actors, nor the end. However I was 100% sure it was a WWII movie and pretty sure it was British.
Well, as the picture above may indicate, I’ve found it meanwhile. It was the US black and white WWI and WWII set movie Waterloo Bridge. The prostitution element is quite important and it stayed with me. However with that alone I wouldn’t have found the movie. I did a laborious search including movies – war – bridges. Since “bridge” was part of the title, it was more or less easy to find it. Unfortunately that’s not always how it goes.
More than one movie someone is looking for will never be found. There are many reasons. The most important being that memory plays tricks. We think we saw a German movie but it was American with a German point of view. Or Russian. Very often we only remember one little scene. The scene is what stayed with us, it impressed us and has an importance in our memory that it may not even have had in the movie.
Why am I writing all this?
I get a lot of e-mails. E-mails by people who are looking for a movie. A movie they have seen. A movie someone else has seen. A movie they have heard of. They hope that I will be able to either find it or help them find it. I have to admit that I often fail. Because I like to help, it frustrates me when I’m not able to find a movie and I know that people are extremely disappointed.
On the other hand it’s so great when I manage to find a movie. Funny enough, it’s hardly ever after the initial e-mail but only after I wrote back and ask a few specific questions that we are successful. Sometimes my questions even help people find the movie on their own.
And here is what is really important: You may think you have forgotten most of the movie but you haven’t. You remember far more but you don’t think it’s important. For you it’s important that someone sang a song in a sequence, while this isn’t even a side story but just a brief moment. But trust me, you do remember a lot more.
If you are looking for a movie try to think about the below questions first and include the answers in your mail.
Which war?
What language?
Was it a subtitled or a dubbed movie?
What country of origin?
Black and white?
Any idea how old?
Who was the main character?
Famous actors or not so famous actors?
Where was it set? Countryside or town?
What season and weather conditions?
Was it a “real” war movie or rather a war themed movie?
It is very rare that people look for combat movies and that makes it even more difficult because there are so many war themed movies out there. To get the (sub) genre right, can be crucial.
If you really don’t remember a lot, don’t hesitate to write anyway. It may still work. Not long ago someone only remembered that there was a sequence in a movie in which a pair of boots was changing their owner. The very same scene had impressed me as well and the movie – All Quiet on the Western Front (the 30s original, the scene is not in the remake) – was found.
I still haven’t re-watched Waterloo Bridge but I would like to. I’m pretty sure I would enjoy it much more now than when I was a child.
Are there any movies you have been desperately looking for?
Poll Results – Is Black Hawk Down Too Combat Intense?
More than a year ago I asked the question on this blog whether Black Hawk Down was too combat intense. Someone had made this comment and I was astonished because I thought the intensity of the combat in Black Hawk Down was one of the reasons why it was such an extremely powerful movie. I checked the poll a few times in the beginning and the forgot about it. The other day I had a look and the result is interesting.
26 people have answered the question. 50% think that it isn’t too combat intense, 13% however thought, that yes, indeed it was too intense. Another 20% thought that it should be even more intense and the remaining people didn’t care.
I’m still surprised anyone would think it is too combat intense but maybe we would have to know what they mean. Black Hawk Down depicts the Battle of Mogadishu, an army operation that went seriously wrong. The result of the operation shook everyone who knew about it or who was involved. The special units deployed got under heavy fire and faced an incredible aggression. They weren’t only fighting other soldiers but a huge, armed mob. Depicting something like this as realistically as possible requires intensity.
I would say, that from the point of view of a soldier who was under heavy fire, I guess, it’s not intense as nothing can equal the real thing. But maybe for someone purely watching it, it could be too intense, meaning, “too intense to watch”.
In any case, I will check back on the poll from time to time and keep you posted.
A little question for you. Do you think there is any other war movie which depicts such intense combat scenes? I think some of the more recent South Korean war movies I watched do but can’t think of an older one as intense as this.
You can find the original post with the poll here. Please vote, if you haven’t done so already.
Waltz with Bashir aka Vals Im Bashir (2008)
The Israeli animated movie Waltz with Bashir aka Vals Im Bashir is this rare thing – a really surprising movie. On top of that it’s well done, original, interesting and has a great score by Max Richter (Shutter Island).
In Waltz with Bashir Ari Folman tells his own story. He was in Lebanon in 1982, fighting with the Israeli army. At the beginning of the movie we see a pack of dogs, running in the night. It’s a very haunting, eerie image and we learn soon that it’s from a nightmare form one of Ari’s friends who was fighting in Lebanon at the same time. Although not capable of shooting people, he had to shoot the dogs who guarded the villages at night. Those dogs have come back, after far more than 20 years and haunt him in his dreams. One evening in a bar he tells Ari about it. They had never spoken about the war before and Ari had never thought of it much. To his great dismay he realizes that he doesn’t even remember anything. It’s as if it had never taken place.
After this conversation with his friend, he dreams of the war for the first time. The pictures seem to be part of a memory that he cannot really place. It looks like he is remembering a massacre in a refugee camp.
The conversation and the subsequent dream are the reason why Ari thinks, he needs to recover his memory, needs to talk to old friends, to comrades and officers. He travels to Holland and many other places, looking for people who were in Lebanon with him. He speaks to psychologists and learns a lot about the way how memory works, about dissociation and how traumatic experiences are suppressed.
It is highly fascinating to watch how he recovers his memory. Fascinating and sad as he finds out so many horrible things. It’s interesting that more than one person recovers their memory or snaps out of a state of dissociation when thinking of dying and killed animals.
What adds further complexity to the story is the fact that Ari Folman’s father was in Auschwitz. It becomes apparent after a while that the horrors his father has described to him are somehow linked to his suppressed meories and once he recovers the memory of the war he has been in, he remembers everything else as well.
During the last five minutes the movie suddenly turns into a documentary. It is no longer an animated picture but we see original footage of the war in Lebanon.
This is the second animated war movie I have seen (the other one was Grave of the Fireflies) and both were excellent. It’s a medium that works extremely well for this topic.
Waltz with Bashir is highly recommendable. It contains a moving and profound anti-war statement and a very interesting exploration of memory.
“Is Platoon a War Movie?”
“Is Platoon a war movie?”
No, I’m not being funny. I have been asked exactly this question a while ago by someone I told about this blog. It was a man in his late forties. He wasn’t really sure what I meant when I was saying I wrote a blog about war movies. It’s a genre he isn’t familiar with and he finds it highly dubious. He asked me this question to fully understand what it was that I was reviewing and writing about. Guess if he had been a bit younger the question would have been either “Is Saving Private Ryan a war movie?” or “Is The Hurt Locker a war movie?”.
What I’m getting at here is that there is such a ting as THE war movie. A movie that is known far beyond the borders of the genre and by an audience that will normally not watch war movies. I don’t think it is a coincidence that he chose Platoon. Platoon and Apocalypse Now used to be the exemplary movies whenever people were talking about war movies, whether they were aficionados of the genre or they belonged to those who despise the genre.
It is hard for someone like me who has seen a lot of war movies to try to find out which is the movie that comes to mind first upon hearing the expression “war movie”. Now that I’m writing this post it’s pretty hard to think of any other war movie than Platoon. Still, for some weird reasons, the war movies which seem to be the most representative of the genre for me are Vietnam movies and that’s why, I guess, I would think of Platoon. This has nothing to do with “favourite movie”. A favourite movie could be far less typical.
How about you, which is the movie you think of first, which is the one that embodies the genre for you?
13 Holocaust Movies You Should See
I recently saw a list on which there were 100 Holocaust movies you need to watch. The number seemed slightly excessive. Maybe they counted each and every WWII movie in which there were Jewish people. No idea. I wouldn’t call a movie a Holocaust movie unless it focusses on Jewish life during WWII, either in ghettos, concentration camps or, like in Defiance as a Resistance group or on the run. Everything else is just a WWII movie. I just watched Jakob the Liar which I will review soon and that gave me the idea to make a list of the 13 Holocaust movies I consider to be the best. My favourite of the movies below is The Round Up – La Rafle. If you think I missed one that is extremely good and should be added, let me know.
Holocaust (1978, TV mini-series US) The story of a Jewish family and their struggle to survive in Nazi Germany.
Sophie’s Choice (1982, UK/US) The horrible story of a Polish mother who has to make a terrible choice that will scar her for life.
Triumph of the Spirit (1989, US) The true story of box champion Salamo Arouch who survives Auschwitz. See my review
Schindler’s List (1993, US) The true story of the courageous man Schindler who saved a great number of Jews.
La vita è bella – Life is Beautiful (1997, Italy) An family of Italian Jews is deported to a concentration camp where the father pretends it’s all a game. See my review
Jakob the Liar (1999, US) Jakob Heym pretends to have a radio in the ghetto and makes up stories about the war going to end very soon. See my review
Anne Frank – The Whole Story (2001, TV mini-series US/ Czech Republic) The whole story of Anne Frank including her stay at the concentration camp.
The Grey Zone (2001, US) Story of Jews who work in the crematoria of Auschwitz.
The Pianist (2002, FR/PL/GE/UK) The true story of a Polish pianist who hid in the Warsaw ghetto. See my review
Ghetto (2006, Germany/Lithuania) A sadistic Nazi commander rules over a ghetto in Lithuania.
Die Fälscher – The Counterfeiters (2007, AU/GE) True story of a famous Jewish counterfeiter who gets caught by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp where he should help forge foreign currency. See my review
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008, UK/US) Uncanny story of a boy who befriends a Jewish boy in a concentration camp not knowing that his father is in charge of that camp or what the camp is. See my review
The Round Up – La Rafle (2010, FR/GE/HU) In the night of July 16 1942, 13000 Parisian Jewsare arrested and confined in the Vel d’Hiv before being sent to Drancy and later exterminated in Auschwitz. True story. See my review
Have you seen them? Did you like them?
Sisters of War (2010 TV) The True Story of the Australian POW Nurses and Nuns
Sisters of War is an Australian TV movie based on the true story of Lorna Whyte and Berenice Twohill, a nurse and a nun who were held captive for several years by the Japanese during WWII. The film looks a bit “made for TV” but other than that I liked it. There are so many of these forgotten stories and it’s great when a director decides to bring them to our attention.
1942, Vunapope, Papua New Guinea, an Australian hospital camp and mission. Nurses and nuns help the wounded alongside the army doctors. When the troops withdraw, the doctors follow them to help them and, to everyone’s dismay, decide to abandon the nurses, nuns and the wounded. Some of the troops remain hidden in the surrounding forest.
The remaining sisters scan the horizon daily, hoping for the Americans to come to their rescue. When they see boats land they are at first extremely happy until they realize their mistake. The landing troops are Japanese and their mission is soon turned into a prison camp. In this mess and confusion two women, the nurse Lorna whose fiancé is among the troops hidden in the forest and the devoted sister Berenice become close friends and are a moral support for each other.
The months that follow are hard. The American bombard the mission thinking it is Japanese, while the Japanese rule with a fierce hand, punishing everyone who doesn’t comply and torturing and executing all the soldiers they capture. It’s particularly harrowing for Lorna when they capture her fiancé.
The food is scarce and the few buildings they have are constantly bombed. The mission has to be abandoned in the end. Bishop Scharmach decides to send the nurses away. They suspect that they have been sold as “comfort women” to the Japanese. This isn’t true but the plans the Bishop had, to have them exchanged against Japanese prisoners of war, doesn’t work and the nurses are sent to a labour camp in Japan.
I thought the movie was quite well done, not too sentimental and managed to show a forgotten story and is also a testimony to the great strength and courage of those nurses and sisters. As we are told in the closing credits, those nurses, as they were mostly not military nurses, didn’t get any recognition until quite recently.
It’s a nice touch that we see the real Lorna Whyte and Berenice Twohill, now elderly, sit together on a bench and chat at the end of the movie.
I really wonder how this could have happened, that the whole military, especially the doctors, just left those women on their own. They knew so well how the Japanese treated prisoners. At first I thought that the depiction of the Japanese soldiers was overly negative but towards the end, the portrayal is balanced.
The only instances in which you can see that it must have been a low-budget production is the make-up. They all look pretty odd but if you can forgive that, it’s a highly watchable movie, quite tragic but suspenseful and fascinating too.
