Class Notes for March 8 & 13: The War Film

In his provocative and problematic article on the appeal and unappeal of war films, Lawrence Weschler discussed how Jarhead (2005) director Sam Mendes carefully structured his film to try and avoid the mistakes he saw in Francis Ford Coppola's classic critique of Vietnam Apocalypse Now (1979). Namely, Mendes wanted to alter the point of view and camera gazes that made Coppola's scenes of violence so appealing to military persons. In short, he wanted to take the porn out of the film's violence. Weschler's essay chronicles the coincidental production notes that linked up Mendes professional interests with that of Coppola's, and how both were strangely connected by the music that united key scenes from both of their films--Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries.

Although Weschler ironically had problems avoiding perverse language as he wrote about the potential for war porn, his article raised several ideas that should cause any student of war to pause and consider: 1) What violence is pornographic, and what war films work in that direction? 2) Should a critique of war using film emphatically avoid violence altogether to communicate its message?

Also part of the problem, Weschler noted, is that film itself regulates those who consume it in ways other texts cannot. When you watch film, it hypnotizes you; it thinks for you. It's difficult to look away. As a class, we decided that when we critique film we should maintain control over the text by constantly regulating how we consume it: we should pause it, we should stop it, we should watch scenes repetitively, and we should write our thoughts down while we watch. While thinking of other ways to avoid film's hypnosis, I decided that it also might work to watch the film with the sound muted. That way, you force yourself to pay attention to the visual strategy of the camera.

In order to explore this idea ourselves, we viewed four clips in class. The first two were relevant to the Weschler article: the Valkyries scene from AN, and the clip from Jarhead when the soldiers joyously consume that same footage.

The second two clips we watched tested another theory that Weschler discussed, though he got the idea from his recent interview with Coppola. What happens when we watch films that portray the lives of characters who have already fought in a war, and are trying to recover? In other words, do films better describe the 'war experience' if they focus on situations of recovery and aftermath?

For these clips, we viewed two scences from The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and a scene from The Manchurian Candidate (2004).