Another year is about to pass, and our troops will once again be celebrating in the bunkers of Baghdad. It is becoming increasingly clear that a switch in leadership in Washington will not bring the soldiers home. What upsets me more though is the failure of the American people to rise up in protest. Nowhere is this failure more apparent than in the art our culture produces.
The Vietnam War brought on an artistic revolution. Antiwar music shaped the minds of a whole generation, for decades afterwards films like Platoon, Apocalypse Now, and Born on the Fourth of July, changed the way we view the world. The Iraq war has thus far failed to produce anything similar. The same talentless pop stars and braindead rappers polute our airways and ipods. The same lousy movies are playing at the boxoffice. It is as if the war is not happening. Clearly the culture has not been effected by our political and military calamities.
To be fair, there have been a steady trickle of antiwar films at the boxoffice. But they fail both as art, and as a means to capture the imagination of the masses. Films like Redacted, In the Valley of Elah, Lions and Lambs, and Rendition lose money at the boxoffice because the public would much rather watch militant pro-war films like 300. So until the culture catches up, here are five great antiwar films from the past, to inspire us for the future. These are also great as conversion tools with pro-war friends and family, it is much easier to move the heart than to change the mind.
The Fog of War - This is an amazing documentary which tries to enter the mind of ex-secretary of defense Robert McNamara, the Rumsfeld of Vietnam. McNamara was also the man who recommended the fire bombing of Japanese cities during WWII, killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians. No other movie reveals just how easily a nations leaders make the decision to go to war, and the human suffering which comes with this decision. The people who planned and executed the war in Iraq are routinely dismissed as either bumbling idiots or blood thirsty warmongers. This movie is a gateway into the minds of such people, and shows that they are neither.
The Battle of Algiers - By far the best film ever made about terror and counter-insurgency. Muslim militants rebel against the French colonial forces in Algiers. They quickly go from protests and economic strikes, to armed rebellion and terror. French paratroopers are brought in to crush the insurgency; they are lead by a charismatic colonel who is not above using torture to crush the uprising. The movie avoids the temptation of portraying the colonel as a heartless Nazi, instead showing him as a soldier who is given a mission and allowed to use brutal means to accomplish it. This movie was screened at the Pentagon before the invasion of Iraq and they clearly missed the point. Truly amazing to watch, it paints a picture of the Iraq war 40 years before it happened.
All Quiet on the Western Front - A movie about a group of idealistic German students who volunteer to fight in WWI. Their idealism is shattered when they observe the true face of war. This classic is one of the first anti-war films. All subsequent war films have copied and imitated it, still packs an emotional punch after so many years.
The Deer Hunter - Probably the most human war film ever made. Three miners from a poor working class town are drafted and sent to fight in Vietnam. One is maimed, another loses his mind and spends his days playing Russian roulette in Saigon, the third is torn with guilt and tries to help the other two. An absolutely heart wrenching look at how the horrors of war effect ordinary people, and how once you witness them, there is no home to come back to.
Paths of Glory - "Military Justice" is an oxymoron if one ever existed. During WWI, political pressure results in the French army attempting an impossible attack against an enemy fortress. After the attack fails, the French military court-martials three random soldiers for the "cowardice" of the whole army. The film exposes the absurdity of trying to find justice in war, and the ignorance of the civilian leadership in military affairs. A poignant message at the time when congress discusses the morality of torture.