I realize that the blog post I was supposed to write on this movie was saved as a draft and never published. Therefore, I am publishing it now.
The film “Paths of Glory” really shows the corruptness of military officials back in the older times of war. The plot of this film basically surrounds one person, General Mireau. Mireau wants Colonel Dax’s troops to try and take “The Ant Hill” which is across enemy lines, even though he knows that half of the men will probably lose their lives in the process. He is so caught up on attacking the enemy that he will do whatever he deems necessary to try and capture them, even if it means losing unnecessary life. When the men do go out on the battlefield, the whole atmosphere of war proves too much as most of the men do not even make it out of the trenches. The fire of arms was so much and the weather so clear so as not to give the men the advantage of a hidden attack, that taking “The Ant Hill” was not at all possible. When Mireau sees the men not making progress, he gets so antsy that he might not capture the enemy that he actually orders artillery to open fire on his own men, thinking that maybe this would give them a better surge of enemy to crawl on further. This whole scene goes back to Clausewitz’s idea that only unreasonable actions come from passionate feelings. Mireau was acting so unreasonable under the pressures of losing a battle.
Of course, from here Mireau took three soldiers whom he felt were guilty of cowardice in the face of the enemy, to a trial where they were unable to call witnesses and were sentenced to be shot for not having “courage.” This is an extreme abuse of authority that isn’t anything new to the military. In the history of the war, there is the idea decimation which is basically killing a form of military discipline where officers would end up killing 10 percent of their regiment for things such as being cowardly in war. Although this is a very extreme aspect of war that was used mostly in the Roman military service, one can see that Paths of Glory uses a subtler way of expressing this idea by having only 3 men die for their cowardice. By doing this, Paths of Glory asserts itself as a film based on the history of war; that history can in fact repeat itself and that authority figures can still in fact abuse their power, such as General Mireau did. It shows that abusing one’s power is no new concept and has been going on for a while, even if it is in slightly different versions. This of course suggests that this will continue to happen and that maybe it is in one’s nature to be corrupt in this manner, since it happened in the past and can happen again so easily.
Instead of trying to write my paper on two texts that are hardly connected, I have decided to just change my topic. I am now going to use the films “Waltz with Bashir” and “Grave of the Fireflies” to analyze animation as a medium to depict war. More specifically, I am interested in examining if animation acts to filter out the reality of war. If so, why have the filmmakers choose to depict war in this way? War itself is a very real and gruesome experience, so why use animation (a medium that is generally used to defy reality) to relay the experience of war? Doesn’t the illustrated characters with their overly exaggerated features, the cartoon-looking settings and the unrealistic occurrences all take away from the authenticity of war experiences? So why not just make a regular movie with real actors? What qualities does animation offer? These are just some of the questions I hope to explore in my paper.
Grave of the Fireflies. Dir. Isao Takahata. Shinchosha Company, 1988. DVD.
Waltz with Bashir. Dir. Ari Folman. 2008. DVD.
The Fog of War. Dir. Errol Morris. Perf. Robert McNamara. Sony Pictures Classics, 2003. 08 May 2009. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfPwR00HXM0>.
Napier, Susan J. “Vol. 149, No. 1 (Mar., 2005), Pp. 72-79.” The Problem of Existence in Japanese Animation Mar. 2005: 72-79. JSTOR. Web. 05 Dec. 2010.
For my final paper I will be researching the role that communication plays in warfare today. Communication is on of those concepts of war that has developed as time went on and has kept on going. From sending a messenger running to another base with intel to having instantaneous messages in todays world, the role of communication in war has played an important part in warfare. For my research project, I will be exploring the concept of how Clausewitz would rewrite “On War” in regards to a modern military which has our sophisticated military technology. In an attempt to further detail my project, I will be focusing on his concepts of friction and the fog of war, two concepts that have changed as communication became more intricate.
This commercial really struck me. I think the video game industry has overstepped their boundaries in trying to promote their product. This commercial young children and adults of all races, ages, and professions involved in this violent scene. It includes a young girl in glasses, a rising African American professional, a receptionist, a chef, Koby Bryant, and others. The most atrocious part of it all is that at the end it says, “There is a soldier in all of us.” My biggest concern is how young children will be influenced by this commercial and their opinion of war. I decided to post this for our class because I find it interesting the connection of media and war. This commercial gives the illusion that a child may shoot a gun at several targets without any consequence. It also makes them seem invinsible because they can always restart the game in perfect shape. I wonder if commercials like this motivate young adults to sign up for the military. If so, do the recruits have an accurate perception of how brutal, violent, and dangerous war can actually be?
For my research paper, my main topic is the affects of trench warfare on soldiers during World War I, and the psychological impacts that this leaves on the soldiers. While Ernst Junger’s “Storm of Steel” is my main source, I will not be focusing on German soldiers against the French in particular, but rather on soldiers collectively who have been through the trench warfare experience during World War I.
Throughout my research, I found that while some soldiers become afraid and anticipate their opponent’s attacks, other soldiers become killing machines. I want to compare the behaviors of different groups of soldiers, how they behave under pressure, and how they react to the horrors of war, when placed in the same situation.
I came across a particular article that talks about the psychological impacts of trench warfare on the soldiers, and what interested me the most was the fact that soldiers had more chances of having a psychological disorder when they were “not allowed to kill”, rather than soldiers that killed quite a bit. This article also focuses on the fact that the soldiers most prone to having a mental breakdown were the ones that were exposed the most to the risk of being killed. Since Junger focuses more on being descriptive, rather than on what he felt or went through emotionally, I feel that you have to sort of read between the lines about what went on in his head.
Bibliography:
Wessely, Simon. Twentieth Century Theories on Combat Motivation and Breakdown, Journal of Contemporary History. Sage Publication, Ltd., 2006.
Jones, Edgar. The Psychology of Killing: The Combat Experience of British Soldiers During the First World War, Journal of Contemporary History. Sage Publication, Ltd., 2006.
Junger, Ernst, and Michael Hofmann. Storm of Steel. Penguin Classics, 1920.
As I’m wrapping up the final paper, which includes gravitys rainbow I began thinking just how wrong I was. Yes, this is my cathartic moment and sending out apologies to the freaking man…Thomas Pynchon. Here it goes, buddy I was wrong!! After rereading the once thought ghastly novel is indeed an awesome trippy experience.
Yes, I will agree the beginning is tough to drag through. But after Pynchon gets his groove going. He brings the nonsense and the absurd in the most amazing way possible. Everybody is paranoid!! About what?? To slothrop it’s a boner rocket, that’s hilarious. To Mexico it’s his lifes work, it’s the poisson distribution, the doctor must get the dogs!
I guess what I love is the fct that Pynchon in an original way g gets the mentality of war in this silly plot but nails it completely. Pynchon I was weong
For my paper, I plan on writing about Gang violence, its culture, and how it can create an experience of war. I plan to focus on how unwritten rules of conduct and “social contractualism” govern how civilians and gang members act in an environment plagued by violence. It is these codes and social contracts that reign over a population, rather than an actual political presence which would conventionally govern the behavior of its people. How does an environment such as this stay alive, let alone function on an everyday basis? Although gang violence and war, are two different experiences, I will also be touching base a little bit on how living in the presence of gang violence evokes a feeling of constant unease and danger, extremely similar to the experience of war. I plan on using Freud’s “Why War” as the literary resource from class.