Formal Film Study: Three Wars in Three Decades

Out of my long list of movies to watch, I decided to focus on the three war movies that represent three different wars in three different decades. These movies are Saving Private Ryan (1998 on WWII), The Deer Hunter (1978 on the Vietnam War), and The Hurt Locker (2008 on the Afghanistan War).

All of these movies were wonderfully done and incredibly well-acted. They brutally show the reality of these wars while showing the beauty of brotherhood. I could not choose a favorite out of these since each are both ironically so different from the other.

Opening Scenes:

Saving Private Ryan had the most intense opening scene. It started with a close-up of Tom Hanks getting ready to enter into battle on Omaha beach. Once the battle began, which felt like an hour of the movie, the shots changed quickly to the quick deaths of the soldiers, to medics trying desperately to save dying men, to one man picking up his arm and carrying on, and finally to Tom Hanks’s hopeless face. This quick moving pace shows the tramatic battles fought in the Pacific and sets the intense nature for the rest of the movie.

The Hurt Locker opens, initially, with a semi-light-hearted scene of three friends joking and getting ready to disarm a roadside bomb. The scene, which consisted of medium shots of the bomb disarmer, shifts quickly when it is realized that the bomb is going to go off.
The scene ends with the inside of Staff Sergeant Matt Thompson’s (Guy Pierce) helmet getting covered in blood. This sets the movie to have an untrusting feeling to the survival of the men.

The Deer Hunter differs from the other two because it starts off with a wedding. The light-hearted chaos of this small town getting ready for a big wedding seems to be the main issue of the first hour; even the future soldiers getting announced is only a minor detail during the wedding. Paradoxically, the remaining two-thirds of the movie are grotesquely similar to the opening scenes in The Hurt Locker and Saving Private Ryan. The slower pace of the film allows more time to divulge into the slow paced lives of these men and how war broke that tradition of regular life.

Women:

Women are portrayed very differently in each of the three movies. The Hurt Locker and Saving Private Ryan take a more positive view of women and their roles/actions. In Saving Private Ryan, women and home was viewed as the paradise these soldiers were reaching for, as said by Tom Hanks’s character, Captain Miller. Also, the whole rescue mission is to save this poor mother one of her sons. They risked their lives for her. The Hurt Locker had a similar idealized view of women and having a family as seen through Anothony Mackie’s character, Sergeant JT Sanborn, who went through a personal journey about wanting a son and to be a father. Even Sergeant First Class William James (Jeremy Renner) wanted stability at home. The Deer Hunter, on the other hand, shows a much different view on the treatment of women. The scenes in their small Pennsylvanian town were filled with multiple abusive scenes against women. The one that stood out to me was at the wedding when Stan‘s (John Cazale) girlfriend was dancing which a guy who was touching were butt and she was the one knocked out cold. Even after the incident, she immediately went back to him. This inferior view of women seems to be heightened to portray a small town during the Vietnam War and how women were treated. It gave an air to the future soldiers and friends that took away from their “hero” image, as opposed to the other two movies that did not use women as a means of showing negative qualities of the protagonists. Yet, The Hurt Locker, portraying the war where women could go to war, showed barely any women overseas. The lack of female soldiers adds to the stereotypical masculinity theme of war.

Symbols:

Each movie had their own symbol which characterized the main actor and their corresponding war. The Deer Hunter had a the intense and disturbing symbol of Russian Roulette, a game played in the movie by force and by choice. The relating theme of “one shot” is used to show how one’s life is over in one shot, that’s all it takes. 

This vulnerability to death is seen throughout all the movies and is dealt with in their own ways, including Saving Private Ryan’s main goal to prevent a mother from losing all of her sons. The effects of war are seen in Captain Miller’s shaking hand in Saving Private Ryan. This hand, which eventually goes still, symbolizes the stress and catastrophic emotional results from war. The Hurt Locker takes a more light-hearted, yet slightly morbid, symbol through James’s collection of bomb parts. The movies all had a general theme of how such a little thing can cause the loss of life more than we’d like to imagine.

War Propaganda?:

Although these movies do differ, they all share a common theme. They all criticize war. Granted, they do on different levels. Saving Private Ryan showed the brutality of WWII and how many men died needlessly, yet the portrayal of the US army trying to help this poor mother lessens the criticism (also, there were few who disagree with the US’s pivotal involvement in WWII against Hitler). The Hurt Locker shows the cruel nature of the Taliban through the insane bombings and the torturing of the young boy and how there are citizens who support the US’s involvement.

Criticizing the war, the movie shows how these soldiers’ jobs are to basically stop things/people from blowing up. There is only chaos in the war without much progress. Although these two movies showed some silver linings about war, The Deer Hunter showed no compassion to the US’s involvement in the Vietnam War. This might have been supported due to the heavy opposition against the war, while WWII and Afghanistan have more justifiable intentions. The Deer Hunter does show the brutality of the North Vietnamese, especially in the first scene in Vietnam where a shot is taken looking down to a bunker full of civilians and only the grenade falling in. Also, the POW scenes involving Russian Roulette and horrifying torture of US soldiers adds to the harsh and incredulous nature of the Vietnam War. Yet, the POW scene and the aftermath of the soldiers coming home only criticize the war. Nick (Christopher Walken) was driven crazy due to the pressure and shock he was in, Stevie (John Savage) was left physically scarred, while finally Michael (Robert de Niro) has been emotionally scarred. The Deer Hunter also focused on the contrast of the soldiers’ hometown before and after their tours, showing how war affected the population in its entirety negatively. The ironic singing of “God Bless America” puts the icing on the cake of the anti-Vietnamese message of the film. There were no justifications seen in this movie.

Unique Characteristics:

Saving Private Ryan: There were no “glorious hero” deaths in this movie. Even the captain’s death was due to his shock leading him to carelessly walk into open fire. The death that stood out the most was of T-4 Medic Wade’s (Giovanni Ribisi). The shot is a close-up of his face surrounded by his platoon trying to stop his bleeding. His final words were nothing inspirational, but simply “Mama” repeated over and over again. This signifies that death in was was not as heroic as it usually is played up to be.

The Hurt Locker: During bomb disarmament scenes, many of the shots alternated between close-ups of Jeremy Renner’s character working on the bomb to long shots showing the scene from above. This seems to show how vulnerable these soldiers are in these situations.

The Deer Hunter: Robert de Niro was the most realistic soldier and friend during the Russian Roulette scenes. The shots were usually medium close-up shots of de Niro, but it is his facial expressions that define the scene. When he was a POW, the concentrated fear and leadership was scene in his consistent demanding of Nick to play the game and overcome his shock in order to survive. Contrasting to the final Russian Roulette scene, one of little words, is described by de Niro’s face. His eyes are filled with tears and the look on his face shows that he knows that he has forever lost Nick. This realization, although with no significant shot change, is overwhelmed by the “silence within the chaos” of the scene.

(POW Russian Roulette)

(Final Russian Roulette (SPOILER))

Money Money Money:

Surprisingly, these movies did very different in the box offices when compared to each other. Although The Hurt Locker and The Deer Hunter both had an estimated budget of $15,000,000, The Deer Hunter beat The Hurt Locker’s (US) gross $17,017,811 by having a gross of $50,000,000. This difference could be due to the fact that The Hurt Locker was portraying a current war while The Deer Hunter was filmed after the war. Saving Private Ryan skyrocketed over the other two by making a US gross of $216,540,909. This could partly be due to the fact that their budget was an estimated $70,000,000.

Final Thoughts:

All of these movies are a must see. They all portray war more realistic than the idealized image that many people have held over decades. The journeys that these men had to go through were tremendous and these movies realistically shows examples of those journeys and their outcomes. Granted, my desire to go to war has diminished greatly and I will probably be watching very happy movies for a while now. I highly recommend watching these movies not only for their content, but also the fantastic acting and the designs of the set and scenes. I give all the movies a 5/5.