Editing War film (section)

== Second World War ==
[[File:HMS Tribune fiming 1943 IWM D 13211.jpg|thumb|Filming aboard the [[Royal Navy]] submarine {{HMS|Tribune|N76|6}}, playing the role of "HMS ''Tyrant''" in a [[propaganda]] film, 1943]]

=== Made by Western Allies ===
{{further|List of Allied propaganda films of World War II}}

The first popular [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] war films made during the [[World War II|Second World War]] came from [[United Kingdom|Britain]] and combined the functions of [[documentary film|documentary]] and propaganda. Films such as ''[[The Lion Has Wings]]'' and ''[[Target for Tonight]]'' were made under the control of the Films Division of the Ministry of Information. The [[Cinema of the United Kingdom|British film industry]] began to combine documentary techniques with fictional stories in films like [[Noël Coward]] and [[David Lean]]'s ''[[In Which We Serve]]'' (1942)—"the most successful British film of the war years"{{sfn|Murphy|2005|p=64}}—''[[Millions Like Us]]'' (1943), and ''[[The Way Ahead]]'' (1944).<ref name="Swann1989">{{Cite book |last=Swann |first=Paul |title=The British Documentary Film Movement, 1926–1946 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JAV80f4DohgC |year=1989 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-33479-2 |pages=viii, 150–173}}</ref>

[[File:Thirty-seconds-over-tokyo.jpg|thumb|left|[[B-25]]s about to launch from the {{USS|Hornet|CV-8|6}} in ''[[Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo]]'' (1944)]]

In America, documentaries were produced in various ways: General Marshall commissioned the ''[[Why We Fight]]'' propaganda series from Frank Capra; the War Department's Information-Education Division started out making training films for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy; the Army made its own through the U.S. Signal Corps, including [[John Huston]]'s ''[[The Battle of San Pietro]]''.<ref name="Manning2004">{{Cite book |last=Manning |first=Martin J. |title=Historical Dictionary of American Propaganda |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1-JjwDPcOLQC&pg=PA86 |year=2004 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-29605-5 |pages=86–87}}</ref> [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]] made films with propaganda messages about America's allies, such as ''[[Mrs. Miniver]]'' (1942), which portrayed a British family on the home front;<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mrs. Miniver (1942) |url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/33719/Mrs-Miniver/overview |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023093926/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/33719/Mrs-Miniver/overview |url-status=dead |archive-date=23 October 2007 |department=Movies & TV Dept. |work=[[The New York Times]] |author=Hal Erickson |author-link=Hal Erickson (author) |date=2007 |access-date=7 March 2015}}</ref> ''[[Edge of Darkness (1943 film)|Edge of Darkness]]'' (1943) showed Norwegian resistance fighters,<ref>{{tcmdb title|id=2891|title=Edge of Darkness}}</ref> and ''[[The North Star (1943 film)|The North Star]]'' (1943) showed the [[Soviet Union]] and its [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]].<ref>{{tcmdb title|id=85227|title=The North Star}}</ref> Towards the end of the war popular books provided higher quality and more serious stories for films such as ''[[Guadalcanal Diary (film)|Guadalcanal Diary]]'' (1943),<ref>{{tcmdb title|id=77030|title=Guadalcanal Diary}}</ref> [[Mervyn LeRoy]]'s ''[[Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo]]'' (1944),{{sfn|Orriss|1984|pp=93–100}} and [[John Ford]]'s ''[[They Were Expendable]]'' (1945).<ref>{{tcmdb title|2070|They Were Expendable}}</ref>

[[File:Moscow Strikes Back 24-52 Infantry riding into battle on tanks.jpg|thumb|Screenshot from ''[[Moscow Strikes Back]]'' (1942). [[Snow camouflage]]d Russian ski infantry ride into battle on [[BT-7]] cavalry tanks in the [[Battle of Moscow]]]]

The Soviet Union, too, appreciated the propaganda value of film, to publicise both victories and German atrocities. Ilya Kopalin's documentary ''[[Moscow Strikes Back]]'' ({{langx|ru|Разгром немецких войск под Москвой}}, literally "The rout of the German troops near Moscow"), was made during the [[Battle of Moscow]] between October 1941 and January 1942. It depicted civilians helping to defend the city, the parade in [[Red Square]] and [[Stalin]]'s speech rousing the Russian people to battle, actual fighting, Germans surrendering and dead, and atrocities including murdered children and hanged civilians. It won an Academy Award in 1943 for best documentary.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Moscow Strikes Back |url=https://archive.org/details/MoscowStrikesBack |publisher=[[Artkino Pictures]] |access-date=17 March 2015 |date=1942}}</ref><ref name=NYT1942>{{Cite news|last1=T.S. |title=Movie Review: Moscow Strikes Back (1942) 'Moscow Strikes Back,' Front-Line Camera Men's Story of Russian Attack, Is Seen at the Globe |url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9501E0D7113CE33BBC4F52DFBE668389659EDE |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=18 March 2015 |date=17 August 1942}}</ref> Newsreel cameras were similarly rushed to [[Stalingrad]] early in 1943 to record "the spectacle which greeted the Russian soldiers"—the starvation of Russian prisoners of war in the Voropovono camp by the [[6th Army (Wehrmacht)|German Sixth Army]], defeated in the [[Battle of Stalingrad]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Beevor |first1=Antony |title=Stalingrad |year=1999 |orig-date=1998 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=0-14-024985-0 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/stalingrad00anth/page/350 350–351] |url=https://archive.org/details/stalingrad00anth/page/350 }}</ref>

Feature films made in the west during the war were subject to censorship and were not always<!--qua, hardly ever--> realistic in nature. One of the first to attempt to represent violence, and which was praised at the time for "gritty realism", was [[Tay Garnett]]'s ''[[Bataan (film)|Bataan]]'' (1943). The depiction actually remained stylised. Jeanine Basinger gives as an example the "worst image for stark violence" when a Japanese soldier beheads an American: the victim shows pain and his lips freeze in a scream, yet no blood spurts and his head does not fall off. Basinger points out that while this is physically unrealistic, psychologically it may not have been. The wartime audience was, she points out, well aware of friends and relatives who had been killed or who had come home wounded.<ref name=AHA-Basinger>{{Cite journal |last1=Basinger |first1=Jeanine |title=Translating War: The Combat Film Genre and Saving Private Ryan |journal=Perspectives on History|url=http://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/october-1998/translating-war-the-combat-film-genre-and-saving-private-ryan |date=1998 |publisher=American Historical Association |access-date=7 March 2015 |issue=October 1998}}</ref>

=== Made by Axis powers ===
{{further|Nazi propaganda|Japanese propaganda during World War II}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1990-1002-500, Besuch von Hitler und Goebbels bei der UFA.jpg|thumb|left|[[Hitler]] and [[Joseph Goebbels|Goebbels]] visiting [[Universum Film AG]] in 1935. The studio made propaganda films such as ''[[Triumph des Willens]]'' (1935) and ''[[Kolberg (film)|Kolberg]]'' (1945).]]

The [[Axis powers]] similarly made films during the Second World War, for propaganda and other purposes. In Germany, the [[Oberkommando des Heeres|army high command]] brought out ''[[Sieg im Westen]]'' ("Victory in the West", 1941).<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Herzstein |first1=Robert E | title=The War that Hitler Won |date=1979 | publisher=Hamish Hamilton |isbn=0-399-11845-4 |page=281}}</ref> Other Nazi propaganda films had varied subjects, as with ''[[Kolberg (film)|Kolberg]]'' (1945), which depicts stubborn [[Prussia]]n resistance in the [[Siege of Kolberg (1807)]] to the invading French troops under [[Napoleon]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Kolberg |url=http://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/kolberg_ea43d4a739775006e03053d50b37753d |publisher=FilmPortal.de |access-date=13 March 2015}}</ref> The propaganda minister [[Joseph Goebbels]] chose the historical subject as suitable for the worsening situation facing Nazi Germany when it was filmed from October 1943 to August 1944. At over eight million marks, using thousands of soldiers as extras and 100 railway wagonloads of salt to simulate snow, it was the most costly German film made during the war. The actual siege ended with the surrender of the town; in the film, the French generals abandon the siege.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Leiser |first1=Erwin |title=Nazi Cinema |url=https://archive.org/details/nazicinema0000leis |url-access=registration |date=1974 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=0-02-570230-0 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/nazicinema0000leis/page/122 122–129]}}</ref>

For Japan, the war began with the [[Second Sino-Japanese War|undeclared war and invasion of China in 1937]], which the Japanese authorities called "The China Incident". The government dispatched a "pen brigade" to write and film the action in China with "humanist values". [[Tomotaka Tasaka]]'s ''[[Mud and Soldiers]]'' (1939) for instance, shot on location in China, [[Kōzaburō Yoshimura]]'s ''[[Legend of Tank Commander Nishizumi]]'', and [[Sato Takeshi]]'s ''[[Chocolate and Soldiers]]'' (1938) show the common Japanese soldier as an individual and as a family man, and even enemy Chinese soldiers are presented as individuals, sometimes fighting bravely.<ref>{{Cite book |last=High  |first=Peter B  |year=2003 |title=The Imperial Screen: Japanese Film Culture in the Fifteen Years' War, 1931–1945 |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press| location=Madison |isbn=0-299-18130-8 }} esp. Ch. 5 [https://books.google.com/books?id=6XiA9DOuvjAC War Dramas in the China Incident]</ref> <!-- [[File:Tank Commander Nishizumi Film Poster.jpg|thumb|left|''Tank Commander Nishizumi'' (Indonesian and Japanese)]] -->Once war with the United States was declared, the Japanese conflict became known as the [[Pacific War]]. Japanese film critics worried that even with Western film techniques, their film output failed to represent native Japanese values.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Calichman |first=Richard  |year=2008 |title=Overcoming Modernity: Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-14396-7 | page=174 |quote=Even though Japanese film techniques were basically learned from American and Soviet films, most of what has been expressed through these techniques has been fake, showing neither real Japanese customs nor the Japanese heart.}}</ref> The historian [[John W. Dower|John Dower]] found that Japanese wartime films had been largely forgotten, as "losers do not get reruns", yet they were so subtle and skilful that Frank Capra thought ''Chocolate and Soldiers'' unbeatable. Heroes were typically low-ranking officers, not [[samurai]], calmly devoted to his men and his country.{{sfn|Dower|1993|p=48}} These films did not personalise the enemy and therefore lacked hatred, though Great Britain could figure as the "cultural enemy". For Japanese film-makers, war was not a cause but more like a natural disaster, and "what mattered was not whom one fought but how well". Asian enemies, especially the Chinese, were often portrayed as redeemable and even possible marriage partners. Japanese wartime films do not glorify war, but present the Japanese state as one great family and the Japanese people as an "innocent, suffering, self-sacrificing people". Dower comments that the perversity of this image "is obvious: it is devoid of any recognition that, at every level, the Japanese also victimized others."{{sfn|Dower|1993|p=49}}

=== Postwar ===
{{further|List of World War II films}}
[[File:Shooting of a scene from A bridge too far.jpg|thumb|right|Shooting a scene from ''[[A Bridge Too Far (1977 film)|A Bridge Too Far]]'' on location in [[Deventer]], Netherlands, 1977]]

According to Andrew Pulver of ''The Guardian'', the public fascination with war films became an "obsession", with over 200 war films produced in each decade of the 1950s and 1960s.<ref name=Pulver /> War film production in the United Kingdom and United States reached its zenith in the mid-1950s.{{Sfn|Mayer|2003|p=83}} Its popularity in the United Kingdom was brought on by the critical and commercial success of  [[Charles Frend]]'s ''[[The Cruel Sea (1953 film)|The Cruel Sea]]'' (1953).{{Sfn|Mayer|2003|p=83}} Like others of the period, ''The Cruel Sea'' was based on a bestselling novel, in this case the former naval commander [[Nicholas Monsarrat]]'s story of the [[battle of the Atlantic]].<ref>{{Cite news |last1=A. W. |title=The Cruel Sea (1953) The Screen in Review; Monsarrat's 'The Cruel Sea', a Graphic Record of Valor, Opens at Fine Arts |url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9406E3D61731E53BBC4952DFBE668388649EDE |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=14 March 2015 |date=11 August 1953}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article58094591 |title=From London |newspaper=[[The Mail (Adelaide)|The Mail]] |location=Adelaide|date=9 January 1954 |access-date=10 July 2012 |page=50 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Others, like ''[[The Dam Busters (film)|The Dam Busters]]'' (1954), with its exciting tale of the inventor [[Barnes Wallis]]'s unorthodox [[bouncing bomb]] and its distinctive [[theme music]], were true stories. ''The Dam Busters'' became the most popular film in Britain in 1955,<ref>{{"'}}The Dam Busters{{'"}}. ''The Times'' [London, England], 29 December 1955, p. 12.<!--Access date removed. Meaningless without providing the URL it relates --></ref> and remained a favourite as of 2015 with a 100% score on [[Rotten Tomatoes]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Dam Busters (1954) |url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_dam_busters/ |website=Rotten Tomatoes |access-date=8 March 2015}}</ref> though, partly because it celebrated an "exclusively British [victory]", it failed in the American market.<ref name="Ramsden2003">{{Cite book |author=John Ramsden |title=The Dam Busters: A British Film Guide |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VIwOnhtH9UUC&pg=PA128 |year=2003 |publisher=I.B. Tauris |isbn=978-1-86064-636-2 |page=118}}</ref> A large number of war films were made in the 1955–1958 period in particular. In 1957 alone, ''[[Bitter Victory]]'', ''[[Count Five and Die]]'', ''[[The Enemy Below]]'', ''[[Ill Met by Moonlight (film)|Ill Met by Moonlight]]'', ''[[Men in War]]'', ''[[The One That Got Away (1957 film)|The One That Got Away]]'', and ''[[Seven Thunders (film)|Seven Thunders]]'', and the highly successful, critically acclaimed pictures ''[[The Bridge on the River Kwai]]'' (which won the Academy Award for Best Picture that year{{sfn|Monaco|1992|p=96}}) and ''[[Paths of Glory]]'' were released.{{sfn|Wojik-Andrews|2002|p=76}} Some, such as ''Bitter Victory'', focused more on the psychological battle between officers and egotism rather than events during the war.{{Sfn|DiLeo|2010|p=196}} ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' brought a new complexity to the war picture, with a sense of moral uncertainty surrounding war. By the end of the decade the "sense of shared achievement" which had been common in war films "began to evaporate", according to Pulver.<ref name=Pulver />

[[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]] films in the 1950s and 1960s could display spectacular heroics or self-sacrifice, as in the popular ''[[Sands of Iwo Jima]]'' (1949) starring [[John Wayne]]. U.S. Marines considered ''Sands of Iwo Jima'' visually authentic, but found Lewis Milestone's ''[[Battle Cry (film)|Battle Cry]]'' (1955), with its attention to the lives of the men, the more realistic film.{{sfn|Suid|2002|pp=116–135}} The formula for a successful war film consisted, according to Lawrence Suid, of a small group of ethnically diverse men; an unreasonable senior officer; cowards became heroic, or died.{{sfn|Suid|2002|pp=116–135}} Jeanine Basinger suggests that a traditional war film should have a hero, a group, and an objective, and that the group should contain "an Italian, a Jew, a cynical complainer from Brooklyn, a sharpshooter from the mountains, a midwesterner (nicknamed by his state, 'Iowa' or 'Dakota'), and a character who must be initiated in some way".<ref name=AHA-Basinger /> Films based on real [[commando]] missions, like [[Gift Horse (film)|''The Gift Horse'']] (1952) based on the [[St. Nazaire Raid]], and ''[[Ill Met by Moonlight (film)|Ill Met by Moonlight]]'' (1956) based on the capture of the German commander of Crete, inspired fictional adventure films such as ''[[The Guns of Navarone (film)|The Guns of Navarone]]'' (1961), ''[[The Train (1964 film)|The Train]]'' (1964), and ''[[Where Eagles Dare]]'' (1968). These used the war as a backdrop for spectacular action.<ref name=Pulver>{{Cite news |last1=Pulver |first1=Andrew |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jul/17/why-so-obsessed-second-world-war-films |title=Why are we so obsessed with films about the second world war? |newspaper=The Guardian |access-date=7 March 2015 |date=17 July 2014}}</ref>

[[File:Tora Fire Break 08.JPG|thumb|left|Supposed realism: the [[Commemorative Air Force]]'s [[Gulf Coast Wing]]'s ''[[Tora! Tora! Tora!]]'' team simulating the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]] with a wall of fire instead of explosions, using planes such as [[T-6 Texan]]s converted to resemble [[Mitsubishi A6M Zero]]s, and generating smoke<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Goebel |first1=Greg |title=The Mitsubishi A6M Zero |url=http://www.airvectors.net/avzero.html |access-date=15 March 2015 |date=1 March 2015 |quote=A large number of flyable Zero replicas exist. These were modified from North American AT-6 Texans for the 1969 movie 'TORA TORA TORA', about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The replicas are surprisingly convincing, though they are still clearly fakes, since the Texan is a chubbier aircraft than the slender Zero. 25 of these bogus Zeroes were built}}</ref>{{efn|Further, two of the aircraft are still carrying their weapons after the attack.}} 2008]]

[[Darryl F. Zanuck]] produced the 178 minute documentary drama ''[[The Longest Day (film)|The Longest Day]]'' (1962), based on the first day of the [[D-Day landings]], achieving commercial success and Oscars.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Longest Day (1962) Awards |publisher=Turner Classic Movies, A Time Warner Company | url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/81774/the-longest-day | access-date = 7 March 2015}}</ref> It was followed by large-scale but thoughtful films like [[Andrei Tarkovsky]]'s ''[[Ivan's Childhood]]'' (1962), and quasi-[[Documentary film|documentary]] all-star epics filmed in Europe such as ''[[Battle of the Bulge (1965 film)|Battle of the Bulge]]'' (1965), ''[[Battle of Britain (film)|Battle of Britain]]'' (1969), ''[[The Battle of Neretva]]'' (1969), ''[[Midway (1976 film)|Midway]]'' (1976), and ''[[A Bridge Too Far (1977 film)|A Bridge Too Far]]'' (1977). In Lawrence Suid's view, ''The Longest Day'' "served as the model for all subsequent combat spectaculars".{{sfn|Suid|2002|pp=188–189}} However, its cost also made it the last of the traditional war films, while the controversy around the help given by the U.S. Army and Zanuck's "disregard for Pentagon relations" changed the way that Hollywood and the Army collaborated.{{sfn|Suid|2002|pp=188–189}}

Zanuck, by then an executive at [[20th Century Fox]], set up an American–Japanese co-production for [[Richard Fleischer]]'s ''[[Tora! Tora! Tora!]]'' (1970) to depict what "really happened on December 7, 1941" in the surprise [[attack on Pearl Harbor]].{{sfn|Parish|1990|pp=411–412}}{{sfn|Orriss|1984|pp=194–195}} The film, panned by [[Roger Ebert]]<ref>{{Cite journal | author=Ebert, Roger | url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19701012/REVIEWS/10120301/1023 | title=Tora! Tora! Tora! (review) | journal=Chicago Sun-Times | date=12 October 1970 | access-date=15 March 2015 | archive-date=11 March 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130311201839/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F19701012%2FREVIEWS%2F10120301%2F1023 | url-status=dead }}</ref> and ''[[The New York Times]]'',<ref>{{Cite journal| author=Canby, Vincent |url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F0CE7DC1E38E73ABC4C51DFBF66838B669EDE |title=Movies: Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) |journal=The New York Times | date=4 September 1970 |access-date=15 March 2015}}</ref> was a major success in Japan.{{sfn|Parish|1990|pp=411–412}} Its realistic-looking attack footage was reused in later films such as ''[[Midway (1976 film)|Midway]]'' (1976), ''[[The Final Countdown (film)|The Final Countdown]]'' (1980), and ''[[Australia (2008 film)|Australia]]'' (2008).{{sfn|Dolan |1985|p=87}} The story was revisited in ''[[Pearl Harbor (film)|Pearl Harbor]]'' (2001), described by ''The New York Times'' as a "noisy, expensive and very long new blockbuster", with the comment that "for all its epic pretensions (as if epic were a matter of running time, tumescent music and earnest voice-over pronouncements), the movie works best as a bang-and-boom action picture".<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Scott |first1=A. O. |title='Pearl Harbor': War Is Hell, but Very Pretty |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/25/arts/25PEAR.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=8 March 2015 |date=25 May 2001}}</ref>

[[Steven Spielberg]]'s ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]'' (1998) uses hand-held camera, sound design, staging, and increased audio-visual detail to defamiliarise viewers accustomed to conventional combat films, so as to create what film historian Stuart Bender calls "reported realism", whether or not the portrayal is genuinely more realistic.{{sfn|Bender|2013|p=ix}} Jeanine Basinger notes that critics experienced it as "groundbreaking and anti-generic", with, in James Wolcott's words, a "desire to bury the cornball, recruiting poster legend of John Wayne: to get it right this time"; and that combat films have always been "grounded in the need to help an audience understand and accept war".<ref name=AHA-Basinger /> Its success revived interest in World War II films.<ref name="Stein2004">{{Cite book |last=Stein |first=Howard F. |title=Beneath the Crust of Culture: Psychoanalytic Anthropology and the Cultural Unconscious in American Life |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mTxfvLvjeGEC&pg=PA6 |year=2004 |publisher=Rodopi |isbn=90-420-0818-0 |page=6 |quote=Chris Vognar writes<!--2002-->: 'Saving Private Ryan wasn't just a great movie: it was also the cultural touchstone for the country's revived interest in World War II.'}}</ref> Others tried to portray the reality of the war, as in  [[Joseph Vilsmaier]]'s ''[[Stalingrad (1993 film)|Stalingrad]]'' (1993), which ''The New York Times'' said "goes about as far as a movie can go in depicting modern warfare as a stomach-turning form of mass slaughter".<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Holden |first1=Stephen |title=Stalingrad (1992) Film Review; In War's Horrors, Chaos May Rank With Carnage |url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=990CE5DA163EF937A15756C0A963958260 |newspaper=New York Times |access-date=8 March 2015 |date=24 May 1995}}</ref>

=== Military–film industry relations ===
{{See also|Military-entertainment complex}}
[[File:Colonel Frank Capra (right) of the US Army Signal Corps confers with Captain Roy Boulting of the British Army Film Unit on the editing of the film 'Tunisian Victory' in February 1944. D18377.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8 |Colonel [[Frank Capra]] (right) of the [[US Army Signal Corps]] confers with Captain [[Roy Boulting]] of the British Army Film Unit on the editing of the film ''[[Tunisian Victory]]'' in February 1944]]

Many war films have been produced with the cooperation of a nation's military forces. Since the Second World War, the [[United States Navy]] has provided ships and technical guidance for films such as ''[[Top Gun]]''. The [[U.S. Air Force]] assisted with ''[[The Big Lift]]'', ''[[Strategic Air Command (film)|Strategic Air Command]]'' and ''[[A Gathering of Eagles]]'', which were filmed on Air Force bases; Air Force personnel appeared in many roles.{{sfn|Suid|2002|pp=161–209}} Critics have argued that the film ''Pearl Harbor''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s US-biased portrayal of events is a compensation for technical assistance received from the US armed forces, noting that the premiere was held on board a U.S. Navy carrier.{{sfn|Rayner|2007|pp=1–2}} In another case, the U.S. Navy objected to elements of ''[[Crimson Tide (film)|Crimson Tide]]'', especially mutiny on board an American naval vessel, so the film was produced without their assistance.{{sfn|Suid|2002|p=609}} The film historian Jonathan Rayner observes that such films "have also clearly been intended to serve vital propagandist, recruitment and public relations functions".{{sfn|Rayner|2007|pp=1–2}}