War in Film

Andrew Klavan offers an impressive, and quite lengthy, overview of American war movies. His thesis is that films of the past were more likely to convey the belief in the existence of an existential struggle between good and evil, and that America, while a flawed nation, yes, nonetheless fights on the right side. Today however, political pressures, agendas and what Klavin deftly labels "fashionable leftism", have left little room for any conviction that America might actually go to war for a noble cause. In many ways, cynicism has replaced patriotism in Hollywood. His impressive piece of work is interlaced with some salient observations about American and European culture.

Though European intellectuals and their left-wing American acolytes are loath to admit it, the U.S. had already provided an excellent new rationale for that emotion [rooted in an atavistic nationalism as opposed to bland "cosmopolitanism"]. Our Founding redefined nationhood along social-contract lines that Europeans can still only theorize about. Our love of nation at its best was ethical, not ethnic. Our patriotism was loyalty not to race, or even to tradition, but to ideals of individual liberty and republican self-governance.

And speaking in reference to Clint Eastwood's recent war-movie projects, Klavan opines,

These films create the illusion of war’s futility through the ultimate act of cosmopolitanism: they delete the knowledge of good and evil. True, the Bible tells us that we lived in a peaceful paradise before we acquired that knowledge. But the Bible likewise tells us that the way back there is barred by a sword of fire.

Klavan leaves us with a reflection on the glory of the warrior's sacrifice:

That glory, however, is not the stuff of fantasy alone. The threat of global jihad is all too real, and the stakes are all too high. Liberty, tolerance, the harmony of conflicting voices—these things didn’t materialize suddenly out of the glowing heart of human decency. People thought of them, fought and died to establish them, not in the ether, but on solid ground. That ground has to be defended or the values themselves will die. The warriors willing to do this difficult work deserve to have their heroism acknowledged in our living thoughts and through our living arts. We should hear their voices every day, saying: Earn this. Earn it.

http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_1_urb-war.html