Perspectives of War

Clint Eastwoods

Flags of Our Fathers

&

Letters From Iwo Jima

Conversion narrative?

Emotionalizing conflict?

Anti-war films appear during isolationism or opposition to a war.

Showing American soldiers as averse to bloodshed and cruelty

Features of many (pro-)war films

Dehumanizes the enemy.

The enemy is rarely shown in close-ups.

The enemy is often shown in large groups, as threatening mass rather than individual.

Pain is only shown on our side.

Topics for discussion

Text and context

Immediacy and contemporaneity.

Realism.

Imagology

Recognition value rather than truth value

Iconosphere

Memory

Remembering / Re-living

Authenticity

Images of war

The war machinery

War heroics

Letters From Iwo Jima opening

The Japanese war machine

Japanese honor

Letters and the Japanese

Letters

Hierarchy