the other night, i watched hart’s war. although film-veteran bruce willis was in it and although colin farrell bared his ass for just one fleeting moment, by the end of the film i still felt cheated. for me, going to films about wars and historic battles is an experience. i try to learn something new about the human condition, something i have to look really hard for. most of the time it baffles me because i don’t know how to react or how to absorb such knowledge bestowed unto me, this naive and insignificant girl. i feel this way mainly because i have never experienced war. most westernized movie-goers haven’t experienced it, either. they go for the action, the bombs, and sometimes even the popcorn.

it’s not that i have secrets, but i don’t think that everything is better when shared with everyone. you know, hemingway wrote these great descriptions of people who had been through different experiences — soldiers, for example, who come home from war and know people don’t understand what it was they went through. and whenever the soldiers talk about what they’ve been through with other people, they feel cheap afterward. i understand that feeling of betraying something that was mine by sharing it — it makes me feel cheap, too.
edward norton

this is the problem with watching historic films, such as black hawk down. we hardly know what it’s like to be there, to have lived through those events, yet we feel we are able to critique such cinematic approaches. we aren’t even equipped with the capacity to do so.

like the above quote from edward norton suggests, war is something subjective to the people who have lived through it. we may read about it in the newspaper and we may catch first-hand accounts of it in world history class, but we will never completely understand it until it’s there and until it’s real to us. war films are not real to us, even if they’re “based on a true story,” like we were soldiers. no one’s going to deny the vietnam war’s existence, but we attempt to regard such period films as “great insight” when most films are just out to make a buck (millions of them, at that). i’m scared of a generation that, when reflecting back on significant events like WWII and the holocaust, will only know tom hanks in fatigues and liam neeson in a nice suit.

don’t get me wrong, i like a good war film like the next manly man (!). but throwing out historic films every which way for the sake of making a buck isn’t what i call appealing. i’m sure the director or screenwriter intended to make a statement about human nature, yet all i see is one walking marketing gimmick. and we think we know a little bit about war after we watch movies like this? for shame.

i agree that films like saving private ryan and schindler’s list allow you to empathize, if only momentarily, with the life of a soldier or presecuted person. but the feeling is fleeting and soon forgetten when films like black hawk down or a thin red line come out (and they all basically attempt to convey the exact same overly-said message) and make you think you know something about war. how naive are we? i can’t imagine how real soldiers and veterans must feel to see their efforts being made commonplace before pimply-faced teens with just too money.

discussing war and putting the fact of war out there to be scrutinized and judged cheapens it. it trivializes what those great people who took part in such battles did for humanity, or perhaps even how much they were against the idea of war, no matter how hard they fought in it.

experiencing war is kind of like a secret; once you tell it to someone, that significant part of you is lost forever.