Editing War film (section)

== Genre ==
{{further|List of war films}}

The war film genre is not necessarily tightly defined: the [[American Film Institute]], for example, speaks of "films to grapple with the Great War" without attempting to classify these.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Cinema and the Great War|url=http://www.afi.com/silver/films/2014/p67/thegreatwar.aspx|publisher=AFI|access-date=23 June 2015}}</ref> However, some directors and critics have offered at least tentative definitions. The director [[Sam Fuller]] defined the [[film genre|genre]] by saying that "a war film's objective, no matter how personal or emotional, is to make a viewer feel war."<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Macnab |first1=Geoffrey |title=Fury, film review: Brad Pitt stars as an unsympathetic hero in muted war movie |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/fury-film-review-brad-pitt-gives-intriguing-performance-as-unsympathetic-war-hero-9806584.html |newspaper=The Independent |access-date=5 March 2015 |date=20 October 2014}}</ref> [[John Belton (academic)|John Belton]] identified four narrative elements of the war film within the context of [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]] production: a) the suspension of civilian morality during times of war, b) primacy of collective goals over individual motivations, c) rivalry between men in predominantly male groups as well as marginalization and objectification of women, and d) depiction of the reintegration of veterans.{{sfn|Belton|1994| pp=165–171}} The fateful nature of battle scenes means that war films often end with them.{{sfn|Neale|2000|p=118}}

[[File:John Wayne in The Longest Day trailer.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.35<!--size for low-aspect-ratio image-->|[[John Wayne]] in ''[[The Longest Day (film)|The Longest Day]]'', 1962]]

The film critic Stephen <!--Bernard Morris-->Neale suggests that the genre is for the most part well defined and uncontentious, since war films are simply those about war being waged in the 20th century, with combat scenes central to the drama. However, Neale notes, films set in the [[American Civil War]] or the American [[Indian Wars]] of the 19th century were called war films in the time before the First World War.{{sfn|Neale|2000|p=117}} The critic Julian Smith argues, on the contrary, that the war film lacks the formal boundaries of a genre like the [[Western (genre)|Western]], but that in practice, "successful and influential" war films are about modern wars, in particular World War II, with the combination of mobile forces and mass killing.<ref name="Manchel1990">{{Cite book |last=Manchel |first=Frank |title=Film Study: An Analytical Bibliography |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BebEAji_wH4C&pg=PA200 |date=1990 |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press |isbn=978-0-8386-3186-7 |page=200}}</ref> The film scholar Kathryn Kane<ref>Kane, 1982.</ref> points out some similarities between the war film genre and the Western. Both genres use opposing concepts like war and peace, civilization and savagery. War films usually frame [[World War II]] as a conflict between "good" and "evil" as represented by the [[Allies of World War II|Allied forces]] and [[Nazi Germany]] whereas the Western portrays the conflict between civilized settlers and the savage indigenous peoples.<ref>Kane, Kathryn. "The World War II Combat Film". In: Wes D. Gehring (ed.) ''Handbook of American Film Genres''. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988, pp. 90–91, {{ISBN|978-0-313-24715-6}}.</ref> James Clarke notes the similarity between a Western like [[Sam Peckinpah]]'s ''[[The Wild Bunch]]'' and "war-movie escapades" like ''[[The Dirty Dozen]]''.{{sfn|Clarke|2006|pp=9–10}}

The film historian [[Jeanine Basinger]] states that she began with a preconception of what the war film genre would be, namely that:<!--{{sfn|Basinger|1986|p=23}}-->

{{blockquote|What I knew in advance was what presumably every member of our culture would know about World War II combat films—that they contained a [[hero]], a group of mixed types [of people], and a [[military objective]] of some sort. They take place in the actual combat zones of World War II, against the established enemies, on the ground, the sea, or in the air. They contain many repeated events, such as mail call, all presented visually with appropriate [[uniform]]s, equipment, and iconography of battle.{{sfn|Basinger|1986|p=23}}}}

Further, Basinger considers ''[[Bataan (film)|Bataan]]'' to provide a definition-by-example of "the World War II combat film", in which a diverse and apparently unsuited group of "hastily assembled volunteers" hold off a much larger group of the enemy through their "bravery and tenacity".{{sfn|Eberwein|2005|pp=30–31}} She argues that the combat film is not a subgenre but the only genuine kind of war film. Since she notes that there were in fact only five true combat films made during the Second World War, in her view these few films, central to the genre, are outweighed by the many other films that are only just war films.{{sfn|Basinger|1986|pp=14–75}} However, other critics such as Russell Earl Shain propose a far broader definition of war film, to include films that deal "with the roles of civilians, espionage agents, and soldiers in any of the aspects of war (i.e. preparation, cause, prevention, conduct, daily life, and consequences or aftermath.)"{{sfn|Neale|2000|pp=117–121}} Neale points out that genres overlap, with combat scenes for different purposes in other types of film, and suggests that war films are characterised by combat which "determines the fate of the principal characters". This in turn pushes combat scenes to the climactic ends of war films.{{sfn|Neale|2000|p=118}} Not all critics agree, either, that war films must be about 20th-century wars. James Clarke includes [[Edward Zwick]]'s Oscar-winning ''[[Glory (1989 film)|Glory]]'' (1990) among the war films he discusses in detail; it is set in the [[American Civil War]], and he lists six other films about that war which he considers "notable".{{sfn|Clarke|2006|pp=227–237}}{{efn|Clarke's list of "notable Civil War films" is ''[[Shenandoah (film)|Shenandoah]]'' (1965), ''[[Gods and Generals (film)|Gods and Generals]]'' (2003), ''[[Andersonville (film)|Andersonville]]'' (1966), ''[[The Beguiled (1971 film)|The Beguiled]]'' (1971), ''[[North and South (TV miniseries)|North and South]]'' (1985), and ''[[Ride with the Devil (film)|Ride with the Devil]]'' (1999).{{sfn|Clarke|2006|p=236}} }} The screenwriter and scholar [[Eric R. Williams]] identifies war films as one of eleven super-genres in his [[Screenwriters Taxonomy|screenwriters' taxonomy]], claiming that all feature-length narrative films can be classified as belonging to one of them.{{efn|The other ten super-genres are [[Action film|action]], [[Crime film|crime]], [[Fantasy film|fantasy]], [[Horror film|horror]], [[Romance film|romance]], [[Science fiction film|science fiction]], slice of life, [[Sports film|sports]], [[Thriller film|thriller]], and [[Western (genre)|western]].<ref name="Williams 2018">{{harvnb|Williams|2018|loc=Chapter 2 Movie Types and Supergenres}}</ref> }}<ref name="Williams 2018" />

The British military historian [[Antony Beevor]] "despair[s]" at how film-makers from America and Britain "play fast and loose with the facts", yet imply that "their version is as good as the truth".<ref name="Beevor 2018">{{Cite news |last=Beevor |first=Antony |author-link=Antony Beevor |title=War films: Antony Beevor: the greatest war movie ever – and the ones I can't bear |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/29/antony-beevor-the-greatest-war-movie-ever-and-the-ones-i-cant-bear |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=29 May 2018}}</ref> For example, he calls the 2000 American film ''[[U-571 (film)|U-571]]'' a "shameless deception" for pretending that a US warship had helped to win the Battle of the Atlantic—seven months before America entered the war.<ref name="Beevor 2018" /> He is equally critical of [[Christopher Nolan]]'s 2017 film ''[[Dunkirk (2017 film)|Dunkirk]]'' with its unhistorically empty beaches, low-level air combat over the sea, and rescues mainly by the "little ships".<ref name="Beevor 2018" /> Beevor feels, however, that Continental European film-makers are often "far more scrupulous"; for example, in his view the 2004 German film ''[[Downfall (2004 film)|Downfall]]'' accurately depicted the historical events of Hitler's final days in his Berlin bunker,<ref name="Beevor 2018" /> and he considers the 1965 French film ''[[The 317th Platoon]]'', set in Vietnam, "the greatest war movie ever made". The 1966 film ''[[The Battle of Algiers]]'' is, he argues, a close second.<ref name="Beevor 2018" />