Wars and their movies

I have picked up a quirk of watching war movies over the last couple of weeks. The fascination has grown over to such an extent now that the view rate is almost one a day. I have come to realize that this is a really vast genre of film-making and the breadth of work on offer demands one to be very selective based on tastes. At the same time i never did want to be straitjacketed into only watching lists on IMDB or Academy award winners. Like i said, i let me decide what to watch.
To my mind some of the classifications i work with are contemporary big budget, jingoistic 4'th of july release types (behind enemy lines, LOC, black hawk down); takes on the idea of war by acclaimed directors (private ryan, full metal jacket ); and fictionalized accounts of past wars and strategies adopted by generals ( longest day, letters from iwo-jima, Patton, Mc Arter etc).

The last is the type of movie that i enjoy the most. Maybe its because of the fact that of the other classifications ive mentioned, these movies are the one's most fiercely anti-war. I believe it stems from the fact that the overwhelming futility of war can never stand the test of solid reason and objective questioning. And in the military, its only Generals who are allowed to do that.

They are the ones debating the finer details of going to war with mostly unscrupulous and at times war-mongering politicians. Knowing fully well that the stakes are as high as they can be and that the only voice of reason and experiance of the horrors of war's would be his alone. As Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw once choose to put it "I wonder whether those of our political masters who have been put in charge of the defence of the country can distinguish a mortar from a motor; a gun from a howitzer; a guerrilla from a gorilla."


They are the one's weighing between battles to be fought or sidetracked, it is their decision alone. And most of the times these decisions need to made with incomplete information and gut feel. Even worse is when these decisions need to be taken under political interference. For example, as shown in the movie The Longest Day, on the night of D'day when german troops were stationed at all the wrong beaches and there was enough evidence that the allies have landed elsewhere, following is the conversation purported to have been held between Field Marshal Rommel and his deputy General Jodl:

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: Those men are sitting on the beach at Calais throwing rocks at each other while our men are being slaughtered in Normandy.
General Alfred Jodl: [firmly] The Fifteenth Army is waiting for Patton at Calais and he will land there.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: You seem perfectly willing to accept this nonsense, Jodl. Why? General Alfred Jodl: [chuckles] Because I am not allowed to dispute the Fuehrer.



And then there are the times when, as a last resort, the Generals have to push their forces, at times fully aware that their doing so can means certain death for the soldier. Even at these times movies have typically shown Generals to be at their witty and learned best. In Patton 1977, the general is shown to have remarked "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country." His adversary Field Marshal Rommel, in a different context, eggs his loosing foot soldiers by saying "In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it."


Unfortunately, within a military hierarchy serious thought about issues of actual importance during a war are only encouraged above and from the ranks of Generals. Below them everyone else is engaged only in thinking through the best way to make that kill. Any other thought is quickly branded mutiny or cowardice.Thinking, for the military war machine, is pushed up to the Generals. That is why most of the engaging of war movies have to be on them.