155-509: Paris After Dark is a 1943 American war drama film directed by Léonide Moguy and starring George Sanders , Philip Dorn and Brenda Marshall . It portrays the activities of the French resistance in occupied Paris during World War II . The portrayal of the resistance was modeled on the Communist -led Front National , possibly due to the influence of screenwriter Harold Buchman who
310-771: A Homestead Act , a transcontinental railroad, the National Bank Act , authorization of United States Notes by the Legal Tender Act of 1862 , and the end of slavery in the District of Columbia . The Revenue Act of 1861 introduced income tax to help finance the war. In December 1860, the Crittenden Compromise was proposed to re-establish the Missouri Compromise line, by constitutionally banning slavery in territories to
465-703: A "war propaganda film ". A 1978 Mondadori poll placed Alexander Nevsky among the world's 100 best motion pictures. American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names ) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from
620-522: A Baltimore newspaper editor, Frank Key Howard , after he criticized Lincoln in an editorial for ignoring Taney's ruling. In Missouri, an elected convention on secession voted to remain in the Union. When pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson called out the state militia, it was attacked by federal forces under General Nathaniel Lyon , who chased the governor and rest of the State Guard to
775-531: A British family on the home front; Edge of Darkness (1943) showed Norwegian resistance fighters, and The North Star (1943) showed the Soviet Union and its Communist Party . Towards the end of the war popular books provided higher quality and more serious stories for films such as Guadalcanal Diary (1943), Mervyn LeRoy 's Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), and John Ford 's They Were Expendable (1945). The Soviet Union, too, appreciated
930-644: A Japanese perspective. These "generally fail to explain the cause of the war". In the decades immediately after the Second World War, Japanese films often focused on human tragedy rather than combat, such as The Burmese Harp (1956) and Fires on the Plain (1959). From the late 1990s, films started to take a positive view of the war and of Japanese actions. These nationalistic films, including Pride (1998), Merdeka 17805 (2001), and The Truth about Nanjing (2007), have emphasized positive traits of
1085-424: A Japanese soldier beheads an American: the victim shows pain and his lips freeze in a scream, yet no blood spurts and his head does not fall off. Basinger points out that while this is physically unrealistic, psychologically it may not have been. The wartime audience was, she points out, well aware of friends and relatives who had been killed or who had come home wounded. The Axis powers similarly made films during
1240-692: A State to remain in the Union" was not among the "enumerated powers granted to Congress". A quarter of the US army—the Texas garrison—was surrendered in February to state forces by its general, David E. Twiggs , who joined the Confederacy. As Southerners resigned their Senate and House seats, Republicans could pass projects that had been blocked. These included the Morrill Tariff , land grant colleges,
1395-413: A blockade of the Confederacy to suffocate the South into surrender. Lincoln adopted parts of the plan but opted for a more active war strategy. In April 1861, Lincoln announced a blockade of all Southern ports; commercial ships could not get insurance, ending regular traffic. The South blundered by embargoing cotton exports before the blockade was fully effective; by the time they reversed this decision, it
1550-482: A close second. The costliest war in U.S. history in terms of American life, this war has been the subject of, or the backdrop to, numerous films, documentaries and mini-series. One of the earliest films using the Civil War as its subject was D.W. Griffith 's 1910 silent picture, The Fugitive . Films that have the war as its main subject, or about a certain aspect of the war, include the 1989 film Glory , about
1705-519: A conflict between "good" and "evil" as represented by the Allied forces and Nazi Germany whereas the Western portrays the conflict between civilized settlers and the savage indigenous peoples. James Clarke notes the similarity between a Western like Sam Peckinpah 's The Wild Bunch and "war-movie escapades" like The Dirty Dozen . The film historian Jeanine Basinger states that she began with
SECTION 10
#17327902336561860-705: A draft law in April 1862 for men aged 18–35, with exemptions for overseers, government officials, and clergymen. The U.S. Congress followed in July, authorizing a militia draft within states that could not meet their quota with volunteers. European immigrants joined the Union Army in large numbers, including 177,000 born in Germany and 144,000 in Ireland. About 50,000 Canadians served, around 2,500 of whom were black. When
2015-483: A firm hand by Lincoln tamed Seward, who was a staunch Lincoln ally. Lincoln decided holding the fort, which would require reinforcing it, was the only workable option. On April 6, Lincoln informed the Governor of South Carolina that a ship with food but no ammunition would attempt to supply the fort. Historian McPherson describes this win-win approach as "the first sign of the mastery that would mark Lincoln's presidency";
2170-479: A man until she died in 1915 at the age of 71. The small U.S. Navy of 1861 rapidly expanded to 6,000 officers and 45,000 sailors by 1865, with 671 vessels totaling 510,396 tons. Its mission was to blockade Confederate ports, control the river system, defend against Confederate raiders on the high seas, and be ready for a possible war with the British Royal Navy . The main riverine war was fought in
2325-399: A patriotic fire under the North. On April 15, Lincoln called on the states to field 75,000 volunteer troops for 90 days; impassioned Union states met the quotas quickly. On May 3, 1861, Lincoln called for an additional 42,000 volunteers for three years. Shortly after this, Virginia , Tennessee , Arkansas , and North Carolina seceded and joined the Confederacy. To reward Virginia,
2480-477: A powerful emotional impact. It was watched by some 20 million people in Britain in its six weeks of exhibition, making it what the critic Francine Stock called "one of the most successful films of all time". The 1925 American film The Big Parade depicted unglamorous elements of war: the protagonist loses his leg, and his friends are killed. William A. Wellman 's Wings (1927) showed aerial combat during
2635-411: A preconception of what the war film genre would be, namely that: What I knew in advance was what presumably every member of our culture would know about World War II combat films—that they contained a hero , a group of mixed types [of people], and a military objective of some sort. They take place in the actual combat zones of World War II, against the established enemies, on the ground, the sea, or in
2790-528: A quiet Russian and an extrovert southerner from Odessa, singing in his dugout. The many Soviet films about the Second World War include both large-scale epics such as Yury Ozerov 's Battle of Moscow (1985) and Mikhail Kalatozov 's more psychological The Cranes are Flying (1957) on the cruel effects of war; it won the 1958 Palme d'Or at Cannes. Japanese directors have made popular films such as Submarine I-57 Will Not Surrender (1959), Battle of Okinawa (1971) and Japan's Longest Day (1967) from
2945-505: A traditional war film should have a hero, a group, and an objective, and that the group should contain "an Italian, a Jew, a cynical complainer from Brooklyn, a sharpshooter from the mountains, a midwesterner (nicknamed by his state, 'Iowa' or 'Dakota'), and a character who must be initiated in some way". Films based on real commando missions, like The Gift Horse (1952) based on the St. Nazaire Raid , and Ill Met by Moonlight (1956) based on
3100-597: The 1860 presidential election . Seven Southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina . A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after
3255-664: The Algerian War (1954–1956). It was shot on location as an Italo-Algerian co-production. It had the black and white newsreel style of Italian neorealism , and even-handedly depicts violence on both sides. It won various awards including Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival . It was attacked by French critics and was for five years banned in France as well as Jamila, the Algerian (1958). Few films before
SECTION 20
#17327902336563410-543: The Battle of Gettysburg . Western successes led to General Ulysses S. Grant 's command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union General William Tecumseh Sherman , followed by his March to the Sea . The last significant battles raged around
3565-411: The Battle of Stalingrad . Feature films made in the west during the war were subject to censorship and were not always realistic in nature. One of the first to attempt to represent violence, and which was praised at the time for "gritty realism", was Tay Garnett 's Bataan (1943). The depiction actually remained stylised. Jeanine Basinger gives as an example the "worst image for stark violence" when
3720-622: The Confederate States of America , on February 4, 1861. They took control of federal forts and other properties within their boundaries, with little resistance from outgoing President James Buchanan , whose term ended on March 4. Buchanan said the Dred Scott decision was proof the Southern states had no reason to secede and that the Union "was intended to be perpetual". He added, however, that "The power by force of arms to compel
3875-618: The Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in January 1863, ex-slaves were energetically recruited to meet state quotas. States and local communities offered higher cash bonuses for white volunteers. Congress tightened the draft law in March 1863. Men selected in the draft could provide substitutes or, until mid-1864, pay commutation money. Many eligibles pooled their money to cover the cost of anyone drafted. Families used
4030-560: The Emancipation Proclamation , which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, applying to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans . The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River , while Confederate General Robert E. Lee 's incursion north failed at
4185-658: The Indonesian war of independence (1945–1949). Two other films about the same period portray the Indonesian equivalent of the Chinese Long March : Usmar Ismail 's Darah dan Doa ( The Long March , literally "Blood and Prayer", 1950) and Mereka Kembali ( They Return , 1975). Each of these films interprets the past from the perspective of its own time. The more recent Merdeka (Freedom) trilogy (2009–2011), starting with Merah Putih ("Red and White",
4340-705: The Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War. The film cuts to an (American) "helicopter-eye view", contrasting painfully with the human tenderness seen earlier. Dino Mustafić's Remake (2003), written by Zlatko Topčić , tells the parallel coming-of-age stories of a father living in Sarajevo during World War II and his son living through the Siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War . According to Topčić,
4495-451: The North 's reasons for refusing to allow the Southern states to secede. The pseudo-historical Lost Cause ideology denies that slavery was the principal cause of the secession, a view disproven by historical evidence, notably some of the seceding states' own secession documents . After leaving the Union, Mississippi issued a declaration stating, "Our position is thoroughly identified with
4650-732: The Second World War and the American Civil War . The stories told may be fiction , historical drama , or biographical . Critics have noted similarities between the Western and the war film. Nations such as China, Indonesia, Japan, and Russia have their own traditions of war film, centred on their own revolutionary wars but taking varied forms, from action and historical drama to wartime romance. Subgenres, not necessarily distinct, include anti-war , comedy , propaganda , and documentary . There are similarly subgenres of
4805-572: The Second World War came from Britain and combined the functions of documentary and propaganda. Films such as The Lion Has Wings and Target for Tonight were made under the control of the Films Division of the Ministry of Information. The British film industry began to combine documentary techniques with fictional stories in films like Noël Coward and David Lean 's In Which We Serve (1942)—"the most successful British film of
Paris After Dark - Misplaced Pages Continue
4960-592: The Virginia to prevent its capture, while the Union built many copies of the Monitor . The Confederacy's efforts to obtain warships from Great Britain failed, as Britain had no interest in selling warships to a nation at war with a stronger enemy and feared souring relations with the U.S. By early 1861, General Winfield Scott had devised the Anaconda Plan to win the war with minimal bloodshed, calling for
5115-497: The battle of the Atlantic . Others, like The Dam Busters (1954), with its exciting tale of the inventor Barnes Wallis 's unorthodox bouncing bomb and its distinctive theme music , were true stories. The Dam Busters became the most popular film in Britain in 1955, and remained a favourite as of 2015 with a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes , though, partly because it celebrated an "exclusively British [victory]", it failed in
5270-406: The 168,649 men procured for the Union through the draft, 117,986 were substitutes, leaving only 50,663 who were conscripted. In the North and South, draft laws were highly unpopular. In the North, some 120,000 men evaded conscription, many fleeing to Canada, and another 280,000 soldiers deserted during the war. At least 100,000 Southerners deserted, about 10 percent of the total. Southern desertion
5425-473: The 1950s and 1960s. War film production in the United Kingdom and United States reached its zenith in the mid-1950s. Its popularity in the United Kingdom was brought on by the critical and commercial success of Charles Frend 's The Cruel Sea (1953). Like others of the period, The Cruel Sea was based on a bestselling novel, in this case the former naval commander Nicholas Monsarrat 's story of
5580-474: The 20th century. The fateful nature of battle scenes means that war films often end with them. Themes explored include combat , survival and escape, camaraderie between soldiers , sacrifice, the futility and inhumanity of battle, the effects of war on society, and the moral and human issues raised by war. War films are often categorized by their milieu, such as the Korean War ; the most popular subjects are
5735-733: The American market. A large number of war films were made in the 1955–1958 period in particular. In 1957 alone, Bitter Victory , Count Five and Die , The Enemy Below , Ill Met by Moonlight , Men in War , The One That Got Away , and Seven Thunders , and the highly successful, critically acclaimed pictures The Bridge on the River Kwai (which won the Academy Award for Best Picture that year ) and Paths of Glory were released. Some, such as Bitter Victory , focused more on
5890-703: The Americans. Similarly, the country's films about the Korean War show victory without help from the Chinese. The film scholar Johannes Schönherr concludes that the purpose of these films is "to portray North Korea as a country under siege", and that since the U.S. and its "puppet" South Korea invaded the North once, they would do so again. Gillo Pontecorvo 's dramatic The Battle of Algiers (( Italian : La battaglia di Algeri ; Arabic : معركة الجزائر ; French : La Bataille d'Alger ), 1966) portrayed events in
6045-545: The Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Insurance rates soared, and the American flag virtually disappeared from international waters, though reflagging ships with European flags allowed them to continue operating unmolested. After the war, the U.S. government demanded Britain compensate it for the damage caused by blockade runners and raiders outfitted in British ports. Britain paid the U.S. $ 15 million in 1871, but only for commerce raiding. Dinçaslan argues that another outcome of
6200-566: The Bahamas in exchange for high-priced cotton. Many were lightweight and designed for speed, only carrying small amounts of cotton back to England. When the Union Navy seized a blockade runner, the ship and cargo were condemned as a prize of war and sold, with proceeds given to the Navy sailors; the captured crewmen, mostly British, were released. The Southern economy nearly collapsed during
6355-400: The British response to the U.S. was toned down, helping avert war. In 1862, the British government considered mediating between the Union and Confederacy, though such an offer would have risked war with the U.S. British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston reportedly read Uncle Tom's Cabin three times when deciding what his decision would be. The Union victory at the Battle of Antietam caused
Paris After Dark - Misplaced Pages Continue
6510-621: The British to delay this decision. The Emancipation Proclamation increased the political liability of supporting the Confederacy. Realizing that Washington could not intervene in Mexico as long as the Confederacy controlled Texas, France invaded Mexico in 1861 and installed the Habsburg Austrian archduke Maximilian I as emperor. Washington repeatedly protested France's violation of the Monroe Doctrine . Despite sympathy for
6665-830: The Central Powers and the Allies produced war documentaries. The films were also used as propaganda in neutral countries like the United States. Among these was a film shot on the Eastern Front by official war photographer to the Central Powers, Albert K. Dawson : The Battle and Fall of Przemysl (1915), depicting the Siege of Przemyśl , disastrous for the Austrians, with incidents reenacted using soldiers as extras. The 1915 Australian film Within Our Gates (also known as Deeds that Won Gallipoli ) by Frank Harvey
6820-528: The Civil War the deadliest military conflict in American history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming World Wars . The origins of the war were rooted in the desire of the Southern states to preserve the institution of slavery . Historians in the 21st century overwhelmingly agree on the centrality of slavery in the conflict. They disagree on which aspects (ideological, economic, political, or social) were most important, and on
6975-575: The Commonwealth, which at its greatest extent was over half the state, and it went into exile after October 1862. After Virginia's secession, a Unionist government in Wheeling asked 48 counties to vote on an ordinance to create a new state in October 1861. A voter turnout of 34% approved the statehood bill (96% approving). Twenty-four secessionist counties were included in the new state, and
7130-400: The Confederacy refused to exchange black prisoners. After that, about 56,000 of the 409,000 POWs died in prisons, accounting for 10 percent of the conflict's fatalities. Historian Elizabeth D. Leonard writes that between 500 and 1,000 women enlisted as soldiers on both sides, disguised as men. Women also served as spies, resistance activists, nurses, and hospital personnel. Women served on
7285-518: The Confederacy, France's seizure of Mexico ultimately deterred it from war with the Union. Confederate offers late in the war to end slavery in return for diplomatic recognition were not seriously considered by London or Paris. After 1863, the Polish revolt against Russia further distracted the European powers and ensured they remained neutral. Russia supported the Union, largely because it believed
7440-450: The Confederacy. According to Lincoln, the American people had shown they had been successful in establishing and administering a republic, but a third challenge faced the nation: maintaining a republic based on the people's vote, in the face of an attempt to destroy it. Lincoln's election provoked South Carolina 's legislature to call a state convention to consider secession. South Carolina had done more than any other state to advance
7595-704: The Confederate capital was moved to Richmond . Maryland , Delaware , Missouri , West Virginia and Kentucky were slave states whose people had divided loyalties to Northern and Southern businesses and family members. Some men enlisted in the Union Army and others in the Confederate Army. West Virginia separated from Virginia and was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, though half its counties were secessionist. Maryland's territory surrounded Washington, D.C. , and could cut it off from
7750-542: The District of Columbia by seizing prominent figures, including arresting one-third of the members of the Maryland General Assembly on the day it reconvened. All were held without trial, with Lincoln ignoring a ruling on June 1, 1861, by Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney , not speaking for the Court, that only Congress could suspend habeas corpus ( Ex parte Merryman ). Federal troops imprisoned
7905-635: The Golden Mulberry at the Udine Far East Film Festival, but was criticised for its nationalistic sympathy with kamikaze pilots. The wartime authorities in both Britain and America produced a wide variety of documentary films. Their purposes included military training, advice to civilians, and encouragement to maintain security. Since these films often carried messages, they grade into propaganda. Similarly, commercially produced films often combined information, support for
SECTION 50
#17327902336568060-403: The Great War" without attempting to classify these. However, some directors and critics have offered at least tentative definitions. The director Sam Fuller defined the genre by saying that "a war film's objective, no matter how personal or emotional, is to make a viewer feel war." John Belton identified four narrative elements of the war film within the context of Hollywood production: a)
8215-407: The Japanese military and contended that the Japanese were victims of post-war vindictiveness and viciousness. Such films have, however, been subject to protest for revisionism . The Eternal Zero (2013) narrates the tale of a Zero fighter pilot who is considered a coward by his comrades, as he returns alive from his missions. It broke the record takings for a Japanese live action film, and won
8370-431: The Japanese state as one great family and the Japanese people as an "innocent, suffering, self-sacrificing people". Dower comments that the perversity of this image "is obvious: it is devoid of any recognition that, at every level, the Japanese also victimized others." According to Andrew Pulver of The Guardian , the public fascination with war films became an "obsession", with over 200 war films produced in each decade of
8525-422: The Maine Victims , Blanket-Tossing of a New Recruit , and Soldiers Washing Dishes . These non-combat films were accompanied by "reenactments" of fighting, such as of Theodore Roosevelt 's "Rough Riders" in action against the Spanish, staged in the United States. During the First World War, many films were made about life in the war. Topics included prisoners of war, covert operations, and military training. Both
8680-545: The North. It had anti-Lincoln officials who tolerated anti-army rioting in Baltimore and the burning of bridges, both aimed at hindering the passage of troops to the South. Maryland's legislature voted overwhelmingly to stay in the Union, but rejected hostilities with its southern neighbors, voting to close Maryland's rail lines to prevent their use for war. Lincoln responded by establishing martial law and unilaterally suspending habeas corpus in Maryland, along with sending in militia units. Lincoln took control of Maryland and
8835-434: The Russian people to battle, actual fighting, Germans surrendering and dead, and atrocities including murdered children and hanged civilians. It won an Academy Award in 1943 for best documentary. Newsreel cameras were similarly rushed to Stalingrad early in 1943 to record "the spectacle which greeted the Russian soldiers"—the starvation of Russian prisoners of war in the Voropovono camp by the German Sixth Army , defeated in
8990-510: The Second Sino–Japanese War from 1937 onwards did war film become a serious genre in China, with nationalistic films such as Shi Dongshan 's Protect Our Land (1938). The Chinese Civil War, too, attracted films such as Cheng Yin 's From Victory to Victory (1952). A more humanistic film set in the same period is Xie Jin 's The Cradle (1979), while more recent large-scale commercial films include Lu Chuan 's City of Life and Death (2009). Chinese directors have repeatedly attempted to cover
9145-407: The Second World War, for propaganda and other purposes. In Germany, the army high command brought out Sieg im Westen ("Victory in the West", 1941). Other Nazi propaganda films had varied subjects, as with Kolberg (1945), which depicts stubborn Prussian resistance in the Siege of Kolberg (1807) to the invading French troops under Napoleon . The propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels chose
9300-919: The South regarded it as insufficient. The remaining eight slave states rejected pleas to join the Confederacy, following a no-vote in Virginia's First Secessionist Convention on April 4. On March 4, Lincoln was sworn in as president. In his inaugural address , he argued that the Constitution was a more perfect union than the earlier Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union , was a binding contract, and called secession "legally void". He did not intend to invade Southern states, nor to end slavery where it existed, but he said he would use force to maintain possession of federal property, including forts, arsenals, mints, and customhouses that had been seized. The government would not try to recover post offices, and if resisted, mail delivery would end at state lines. Where conditions did not allow peaceful enforcement of federal law, US marshals and judges would be withdrawn. No mention
9455-408: The South's post-war recovery. Cotton diplomacy proved a failure as Europe had a surplus of cotton, while the 1860–62 crop failures in Europe made the North's grain exports critically important. It also helped turn European opinion against the Confederacy. It was said that "King Corn was more powerful than King Cotton," as U.S. grain went from a quarter to almost half of British imports. Meanwhile,
SECTION 60
#17327902336569610-416: The South. The Confederacy turned to foreign sources, connecting with financiers and companies like S. Isaac, Campbell & Company and the London Armoury Company in Britain, becoming the Confederacy's main source of arms. To transport arms safely to the Confederacy, British investors built small, fast, steam-driven blockade runners that traded arms and supplies from Britain, through Bermuda, Cuba, and
9765-399: The U.S. and Britain over the Trent affair , which began when U.S. Navy personnel boarded the British ship Trent and seized two Confederate diplomats. However, London and Washington smoothed this over after Lincoln released the two men. Prince Albert left his deathbed to issue diplomatic instructions to Lord Lyons during the Trent affair. His request was honored, and, as a result,
9920-471: The Union Army or pro-Union guerrilla groups. Although they came from all classes, most Southern Unionists differed socially, culturally, and economically from their region’s dominant prewar, slave-owning planter class. At the war's start, a parole system operated, under which captives agreed not to fight until exchanged. They were held in camps run by their army, paid, but not allowed to perform any military duties. The system of exchanges collapsed in 1863 when
10075-401: The Union blockade. The Confederacy purchased warships from commercial shipbuilders in Britain, with the most famous being the CSS Alabama , which caused considerable damage and led to serious postwar disputes . However, public opinion against slavery in Britain created a political liability for politicians, where the anti-slavery movement was powerful. War loomed in late 1861 between
10230-413: The Union hospital ship Red Rover and nursed Union and Confederate troops at field hospitals. Mary Edwards Walker , the only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor , served in the Union Army and was given the medal for treating the wounded during the war. One woman, Jennie Hodgers, fought for the Union under the name Albert D. J. Cashier. After she returned to civilian life, she continued to live as
10385-440: The Union would win if it could resupply and hold the fort, and the South would be the aggressor if it opened fire on an unarmed ship supplying starving men. An April 9 Confederate cabinet meeting resulted in Davis ordering General P. G. T. Beauregard to take the fort before supplies reached it. At 4:30 am on April 12, Confederate forces fired the first of 4,000 shells at the fort; it fell the next day. The loss of Fort Sumter lit
10540-433: The Union, this was never likely, so they sought to bring them in as mediators. The Union worked to block this and threatened war if any country recognized the Confederacy. In 1861, Southerners voluntarily embargoed cotton shipments, hoping to start an economic depression in Europe that would force Britain to enter the war, but this failed. Worse, Europe turned to Egypt and India for cotton, which they found superior, hindering
10695-408: The Union-held Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter is located in the harbor of Charleston , South Carolina. Its status had been contentious for months. Outgoing President Buchanan had dithered in reinforcing its garrison, commanded by Major Robert Anderson . Anderson took matters into his own hands and on December 26, 1860, under the cover of darkness, sailed the garrison from the poorly placed Fort Moultrie to
10850-411: The Union. The central conflict leading to war was a dispute over whether slavery should be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states , or be prohibited from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of controversy over slavery were brought to a head when Abraham Lincoln , who opposed slavery's expansion, won
11005-426: The West, where major rivers gave access to the Confederate heartland. The U.S. Navy eventually controlled the Red, Tennessee, Cumberland, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers. In the East, the Navy shelled Confederate forts and supported coastal army operations. The Civil War occurred during the early stages of the industrial revolution, leading to naval innovations, notably the ironclad warship . The Confederacy, recognizing
11160-504: The air. They contain many repeated events, such as mail call, all presented visually with appropriate uniforms , equipment, and iconography of battle. Further, Basinger considers Bataan to provide a definition-by-example of "the World War II combat film", in which a diverse and apparently unsuited group of "hastily assembled volunteers" hold off a much larger group of the enemy through their "bravery and tenacity". She argues that
11315-588: The atrocities committed by the Japanese during the Nanjing Massacre (1937–1938), with films such as the political melodrama Massacre in Nanjing , Mou Tun Fei 's docudrama Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre , and the "contrived Sino–Japanese romance" Don't Cry, Nanking . Zhang Yimou 's epic Chinese film Flowers of War (2011), based on Geling Yan 's novel, portrays the violent events through
11470-719: The attempted invasion of the Russian city of Novgorod by the Teutonic Knights . By April 1939 the film had been seen by 23,000,000 people. In 1941 the director and three others were awarded the Stalin Prize for their contributions. The film features a musical score by the classical composer Sergei Prokofiev , considered by artists such as the composer André Previn the best ever written for cinema. Russell Merritt, writing in Film Quarterly , describes it as
11625-497: The best of popular Indonesian cinema". It was the first Indonesian film to become well known internationally. War has been the Soviet Union's cinema's major genre, becoming known indeed as the "cinema front", and its war films ranged from grim portrayals of atrocities to sentimental and even quietly subversive accounts. Leonid Lukov 's popular and "beautiful" Two Warriors (1943) depicted two stereotypical Soviet soldiers,
11780-521: The blockade was the rise of oil as a prominent commodity. The declining whale oil industry took a blow as many old whaling ships were used in blockade efforts, such as the Stone Fleet , and Confederate raiders harassed Union whalers. Oil products, especially kerosene, began replacing whale oil in lamps, increasing oil's importance long before it became fuel for combustion engines. Although the Confederacy hoped Britain and France would join them against
11935-523: The capture of the German commander of Crete, inspired fictional adventure films such as The Guns of Navarone (1961), The Train (1964), and Where Eagles Dare (1968). These used the war as a backdrop for spectacular action. Darryl F. Zanuck produced the 178 minute documentary drama The Longest Day (1962), based on the first day of the D-Day landings , achieving commercial success and Oscars. It
12090-704: The climactic ends of war films. Not all critics agree, either, that war films must be about 20th-century wars. James Clarke includes Edward Zwick 's Oscar-winning Glory (1990) among the war films he discusses in detail; it is set in the American Civil War , and he lists six other films about that war which he considers "notable". The screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identifies war films as one of eleven super-genres in his screenwriters' taxonomy , claiming that all feature-length narrative films can be classified as belonging to one of them. The British military historian Antony Beevor "despair[s]" at how film-makers from America and Britain "play fast and loose with
12245-562: The colours of the flag of the new Indonesia), revisits the campaign for independence through the lives of a diverse group of cadets who become guerillas. Karya's November 1828 (1979) looks at Indonesia's struggle for independence through historical drama about the Java or Diponegoro War (1825–1830), though the colonial enemy was the same, the Dutch . Deanne Schultz considered it "a valuable interpretation" of Indonesian history that "embodies
12400-424: The combat film is not a subgenre but the only genuine kind of war film. Since she notes that there were in fact only five true combat films made during the Second World War, in her view these few films, central to the genre, are outweighed by the many other films that are only just war films. However, other critics such as Russell Earl Shain propose a far broader definition of war film, to include films that deal "with
12555-494: The comment that "for all its epic pretensions (as if epic were a matter of running time, tumescent music and earnest voice-over pronouncements), the movie works best as a bang-and-boom action picture". Steven Spielberg 's Saving Private Ryan (1998) uses hand-held camera, sound design, staging, and increased audio-visual detail to defamiliarise viewers accustomed to conventional combat films, so as to create what film historian Stuart Bender calls "reported realism", whether or not
12710-804: The common Japanese soldier as an individual and as a family man, and even enemy Chinese soldiers are presented as individuals, sometimes fighting bravely. Once war with the United States was declared, the Japanese conflict became known as the Pacific War . Japanese film critics worried that even with Western film techniques, their film output failed to represent native Japanese values. The historian John Dower found that Japanese wartime films had been largely forgotten, as "losers do not get reruns", yet they were so subtle and skilful that Frank Capra thought Chocolate and Soldiers unbeatable. Heroes were typically low-ranking officers, not samurai , calmly devoted to his men and his country. These films did not personalise
12865-670: The cost of authenticity. Although the 1918 Finnish Civil War between Whites and Reds remained a controversial topic a century later in Finland , many Finnish filmmakers have taken up the subject, often basing their work on a book. In 1957, Toivo Särkkä 's 1918 , based on Jarl Hemmer 's play and novel, was screened at the 7th Berlin International Film Festival . Recent films include Lauri Törhönen 's 2007 The Border , and Aku Louhimies 's 2008 Tears of April , based on Leena Lander 's novel. Perhaps
13020-477: The crisis was Secretary of State William H. Seward , who had been Lincoln's rival for the Republican nomination . Embittered by his defeat, Seward agreed to support Lincoln's candidacy only after he was guaranteed the executive office then considered the second most powerful. In the early stages of Lincoln's presidency Seward held little regard for him, due to his perceived inexperience. Seward viewed himself as
13175-713: The de facto head of government, the " prime minister " behind the throne. Seward attempted to engage in unauthorized and indirect negotiations that failed. Lincoln was determined to hold all remaining Union-occupied forts in the Confederacy: Fort Monroe in Virginia, Fort Pickens , Fort Jefferson , and Fort Taylor in Florida, and Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces opened fire on
13330-492: The destructive impact of American military presence on village life. The violent action films Shiri (1999) and Joint Security Area (2000) presented North Korea in a favourable light. Films in North Korea were made by government film studios and had clear political messages. The first was My Home Village (1949), on the liberation of Korea from the Japanese, presented as the work of Kim Il Sung without help from
13485-401: The enemy and therefore lacked hatred, though Great Britain could figure as the "cultural enemy". For Japanese film-makers, war was not a cause but more like a natural disaster, and "what mattered was not whom one fought but how well". Asian enemies, especially the Chinese, were often portrayed as redeemable and even possible marriage partners. Japanese wartime films do not glorify war, but present
13640-493: The ensuing guerrilla war engaged about 40,000 federal troops for much of the war. Congress admitted West Virginia to the Union on June 20, 1863. West Virginians provided about 20,000 soldiers to each side in the war. A Unionist secession attempt occurred in East Tennessee , but was suppressed by the Confederacy, which arrested over 3,000 men suspected of loyalty to the Union; they were held without trial. The Civil War
13795-503: The entire breadth of the war. Some films deal with the human aspects of the war, such as The Red Badge of Courage (1951), or Shenandoah (1965), on the tragedy that the war inflicted on the civilian population. Ken Burns 's The Civil War is the most-watched documentary in the history of PBS . The first war films come from the Spanish–American War of 1898. Short "actualities"—documentary film-clips—included Burial of
13950-430: The essential role of cotton in the European economy. The European aristocracy was "absolutely gleeful in pronouncing the American debacle as proof that the entire experiment in popular government had failed. European government leaders welcomed the fragmentation of the ascendant American Republic." However, a European public with liberal sensibilities remained, which the U.S. sought to appeal to by building connections with
14105-513: The eyes of a 13-year-old girl. Many Indonesian films deal with the occupation of the archipelago by the Japanese during the Second World War. Teguh Karya 's Doea Tanda Mata ( Mementos , literally "Two Eye Marks", 1985) covers the limited nationalist resistance to Dutch colonial rule in the 1930s. A third group of films such as Enam Djam di Jogja ( Six Hours in Yogyakarta , 1951) and Serangan Fajar ( Attack at Dawn , 1983) covers
14260-516: The facts", yet imply that "their version is as good as the truth". For example, he calls the 2000 American film U-571 a "shameless deception" for pretending that a US warship had helped to win the Battle of the Atlantic—seven months before America entered the war. He is equally critical of Christopher Nolan 's 2017 film Dunkirk with its unhistorically empty beaches, low-level air combat over
14415-512: The fighting, the successful South Korean action film Piagol about leftist guerrilla atrocities encouraged other film-makers. The 1960s military government punished pro-communist film-makers and gave Grand Bell Awards to films with the strongest anti-communist message. The Taebaek Mountains (1994) dealt with leftists from the south who fought for the communists, while Silver Stallion (1991) and Spring in My Hometown (1998) showed
14570-765: The film Pearl Harbor 's US-biased portrayal of events is a compensation for technical assistance received from the US armed forces, noting that the premiere was held on board a U.S. Navy carrier. In another case, the U.S. Navy objected to elements of Crimson Tide , especially mutiny on board an American naval vessel, so the film was produced without their assistance. The film historian Jonathan Rayner observes that such films "have also clearly been intended to serve vital propagandist, recruitment and public relations functions". The first Chinese war films were newsreels like Battle of Wuhan (1911) and Battle of Shanghai (1913). Still in films such as Xu Xinfu 's Battle Exploits (1925), war featured mainly as background. Only with
14725-550: The first formal unit of the Union Army during the American Civil War to be made up entirely of Black volunteers. Some films such as Gettysburg focused on a single battle during the war, or even on a single incident, like the French short film La Rivière du Hibou ( An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge ) and Disney 's The Great Locomotive Chase (1956). Others like the 1993 miniseries North and South spanned
14880-410: The free-versus-slave status of the new territories was a critical issue, both for the North, where anti-slavery sentiment had grown, and for the South, where the fear of slavery's abolition had grown. Another factor leading to secession and the formation of the Confederacy was the development of white Southern nationalism in the preceding decades. The primary reason for the North to reject secession
15035-543: The genre is for the most part well defined and uncontentious, since war films are simply those about war being waged in the 20th century, with combat scenes central to the drama. However, Neale notes, films set in the American Civil War or the American Indian Wars of the 19th century were called war films in the time before the First World War. The critic Julian Smith argues, on the contrary, that
15190-508: The greatest screenplay ever written for the motion-picture medium"; Richard Attenborough 's satirical anti-war musical comedy based on Joan Littlewood 's play of the same name, Oh! What a Lovely War (1969); Spielberg's 2011 war drama War Horse was based on Michael Morpurgo 's children's novel of the same name . Many of the films promoted as "documentaries" added context to authentic battlefield scenes by staging critical events, and invented episodes and dialog to enhance excitement at
15345-407: The historical subject as suitable for the worsening situation facing Nazi Germany when it was filmed from October 1943 to August 1944. At over eight million marks, using thousands of soldiers as extras and 100 railway wagonloads of salt to simulate snow, it was the most costly German film made during the war. The actual siege ended with the surrender of the town; in the film, the French generals abandon
15500-439: The homefront economy could no longer supply. Surdam contends that the blockade was a powerful weapon that eventually ruined the Southern economy, costing few lives in combat. The Confederate cotton crop became nearly useless, cutting off the Confederacy's primary income source. Critical imports were scarce, and coastal trade largely ended as well. The blockade's success was not measured by the few ships that slipped through but by
15655-622: The institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world." The principal political battle leading to Southern secession was over whether slavery would expand into the Western territories destined to become states. Initially Congress had admitted new states into the Union in pairs, one slave and one free . This had kept a sectional balance in the Senate but not in the House of Representatives , as free states outstripped slave states in numbers of eligible voters. Thus, at mid-19th century,
15810-554: The international press. By 1861, Union diplomats like Carl Schurz realized emphasizing the war against slavery was the Union's most effective moral asset in swaying European public opinion. Seward was concerned an overly radical case for reunification would distress European merchants with cotton interests; even so, he supported a widespread campaign of public diplomacy. U.S. minister to Britain Charles Francis Adams proved adept and convinced Britain not to challenge
15965-464: The last of the traditional war films, while the controversy around the help given by the U.S. Army and Zanuck's "disregard for Pentagon relations" changed the way that Hollywood and the Army collaborated. Zanuck, by then an executive at 20th Century Fox , set up an American–Japanese co-production for Richard Fleischer 's Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) to depict what "really happened on December 7, 1941" in
16120-460: The late 1970s about the Vietnam War actually depicted combat; exceptions include The Green Berets (1968). Critics such as Basinger explain that Hollywood avoided the subject because of opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War , making the subject divisive; in addition, the film industry was in crisis, and the army did not wish to assist in making anti-war films. From
16275-798: The late 1970s, independently financed and produced films showed Hollywood that Vietnam could be treated in film. Successful but very different portrayals of the war in which America had been defeated included Michael Cimino 's The Deer Hunter (1978), and Francis Ford Coppola 's Apocalypse Now (1979). With the shift in American politics to the right in the 1980s, military success could again be shown in films such as Oliver Stone 's Platoon (1986), Stanley Kubrick 's Full Metal Jacket (1987) and John Irvin 's Hamburger Hill (1987). The Vietnamese director Nguyễn Hồng Sến [ vi ] 's The Abandoned Field: Free Fire Zone ( Cánh đồng hoang , 1979) gives an "unnerving and compelling .. subjective-camera-eye-view" of life under helicopter fire in
16430-484: The legislatures of the dissolution of ties to the Union. However, at least four—South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas —provided detailed reasons for their secession, all blaming the movement to abolish slavery and its influence over the North. Southern states believed that the Fugitive Slave Clause made slaveholding a constitutional right. These states agreed to form a new federal government,
16585-534: The metaphor of hunting to criticise the aggressiveness of Spanish fascism . It won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 16th Berlin International Film Festival in 1966. Ken Loach 's Land and Freedom ( Tierra y Libertad , 1995), loosely based on George Orwell 's Homage to Catalonia , follows a British communist through the war to reveal the painful contradictions within the anti-fascist Republican side. Samuel Fuller 's The Steel Helmet (1951)
16740-665: The most famous film about the Finnish Civil War is Edvin Laine 's 1968 Here, Beneath the North Star , based on the first two books of Väinö Linna 's Under the North Star trilogy; it describing the civil war from the losing side, Finland's Red Guards . The Spanish Civil War has attracted directors from different countries. Sam Wood 's For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), based on Ernest Hemingway 's book of
16895-476: The need to counter the Union's naval superiority, built or converted over 130 vessels, including 26 ironclads. Despite these efforts, Confederate ships were largely unsuccessful against Union ironclads. The Union Navy used timberclads, tinclads, and armored gunboats. Shipyards in Cairo, Illinois, and St. Louis built or modified steamboats . The Confederacy experimented with the submarine CSS Hunley , which
17050-418: The new Confederacy sent delegates to Washington to negotiate a peace treaty. Lincoln rejected negotiations, because he claimed that the Confederacy was not a legitimate government and to make a treaty with it would recognize it as such. Lincoln instead attempted to negotiate directly with the governors of seceded states, whose administrations he continued to recognize. Complicating Lincoln's attempts to defuse
17205-724: The north of it, while permitting it to the south. The Compromise would likely have prevented secession, but Lincoln and the Republicans rejected it. Lincoln stated that any compromise that would extend slavery would bring down the Union. A February peace conference met in Washington, proposing a solution similar the Compromise; it was rejected by Congress. The Republicans proposed the Corwin Amendment , an alternative, not to interfere with slavery where it existed, but
17360-421: The notion that a state had the right to nullify federal laws and even secede. On December 20, 1860, the convention unanimously voted to secede and adopted a secession declaration . It argued for states' rights for slave owners but complained about states' rights in the North in the form of resistance to the federal Fugitive Slave Act, claiming that Northern states were not fulfilling their obligations to assist in
17515-465: The popular Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) starring John Wayne . U.S. Marines considered Sands of Iwo Jima visually authentic, but found Lewis Milestone's Battle Cry (1955), with its attention to the lives of the men, the more realistic film. The formula for a successful war film consisted, according to Lawrence Suid, of a small group of ethnically diverse men; an unreasonable senior officer; cowards became heroic, or died. Jeanine Basinger suggests that
17670-514: The portrayal is genuinely more realistic. Jeanine Basinger notes that critics experienced it as "groundbreaking and anti-generic", with, in James Wolcott's words, a "desire to bury the cornball, recruiting poster legend of John Wayne: to get it right this time"; and that combat films have always been "grounded in the need to help an audience understand and accept war". Its success revived interest in World War II films. Others tried to portray
17825-464: The primary cause of disunion, it was disunion itself that sparked the war." Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election . Southern leaders feared Lincoln would stop slavery's expansion and put it on a course toward extinction. His victory triggered declarations of secession by seven slave states of the Deep South , all of whose riverfront or coastal economies were based on cotton that
17980-480: The propaganda value of film, to publicise both victories and German atrocities. Ilya Kopalin's documentary Moscow Strikes Back ( Russian : Разгром немецких войск под Москвой , literally "The rout of the German troops near Moscow"), was made during the Battle of Moscow between October 1941 and January 1942. It depicted civilians helping to defend the city, the parade in Red Square and Stalin 's speech rousing
18135-456: The psychological battle between officers and egotism rather than events during the war. The Bridge on the River Kwai brought a new complexity to the war picture, with a sense of moral uncertainty surrounding war. By the end of the decade the "sense of shared achievement" which had been common in war films "began to evaporate", according to Pulver. Hollywood films in the 1950s and 1960s could display spectacular heroics or self-sacrifice, as in
18290-783: The reality of the war, as in Joseph Vilsmaier 's Stalingrad (1993), which The New York Times said "goes about as far as a movie can go in depicting modern warfare as a stomach-turning form of mass slaughter". Many war films have been produced with the cooperation of a nation's military forces. Since the Second World War, the United States Navy has provided ships and technical guidance for films such as Top Gun . The U.S. Air Force assisted with The Big Lift , Strategic Air Command and A Gathering of Eagles , which were filmed on Air Force bases; Air Force personnel appeared in many roles. Critics have argued that
18445-414: The return of fugitive slaves. The "cotton states" of Mississippi , Florida , Alabama , Georgia , Louisiana , and Texas followed suit, seceding in January and February 1861. Among the ordinances of secession, those of Texas, Alabama, and Virginia mentioned the plight of the "slaveholding states" at the hands of Northern abolitionists. The rest made no mention of slavery but were brief announcements by
18600-430: The roles of civilians, espionage agents, and soldiers in any of the aspects of war (i.e. preparation, cause, prevention, conduct, daily life, and consequences or aftermath.)" Neale points out that genres overlap, with combat scenes for different purposes in other types of film, and suggests that war films are characterised by combat which "determines the fate of the principal characters". This in turn pushes combat scenes to
18755-599: The same name , portrays the fated romance between an American played by Gary Cooper and a partisan played by Ingrid Bergman against the backdrop of the civil war. The epic 168-minute film with its landscapes shot in Technicolor and a "beautiful" orchestral score was a success both with audiences and with critics. Alain Resnais 's Guernica (1950) uses Picasso 's 1937 painting of the same name to protest against war. Carlos Saura 's La Caza (The Hunt, 1966) uses
18910-515: The sea, and rescues mainly by the "little ships". Beevor feels, however, that Continental European film-makers are often "far more scrupulous"; for example, in his view the 2004 German film Downfall accurately depicted the historical events of Hitler's final days in his Berlin bunker, and he considers the 1965 French film The 317th Platoon , set in Vietnam, "the greatest war movie ever made". The 1966 film The Battle of Algiers is, he argues,
19065-523: The siege. For Japan, the war began with the undeclared war and invasion of China in 1937 , which the Japanese authorities called "The China Incident". The government dispatched a "pen brigade" to write and film the action in China with "humanist values". Tomotaka Tasaka 's Mud and Soldiers (1939) for instance, shot on location in China, Kōzaburō Yoshimura 's Legend of Tank Commander Nishizumi , and Sato Takeshi 's Chocolate and Soldiers (1938) show
19220-636: The southwestern corner of Missouri (see Missouri secession ). Early in the war the Confederacy controlled southern Missouri through the Confederate government of Missouri but was driven out after 1862. In the resulting vacuum, the convention on secession reconvened and took power as the Unionist provisional government of Missouri. Kentucky did not secede, it declared itself neutral. When Confederate forces entered in September 1861, neutrality ended and
19375-532: The stalwart island Fort Sumter. Anderson's actions catapulted him to hero status in the North. An attempt to resupply the fort on January 9, 1861, failed and nearly started the war then, but an informal truce held. On March 5, Lincoln was informed the fort was low on supplies. Fort Sumter proved a key challenge to Lincoln's administration. Back-channel dealing by Seward with the Confederates undermined Lincoln's decision-making; Seward wanted to pull out. But
19530-446: The state reaffirmed its Union status while maintaining slavery. During an invasion by Confederate forces in 1861, Confederate sympathizers and delegates from 68 Kentucky counties organized the secession Russellville Convention, formed the shadow Confederate Government of Kentucky , inaugurated a governor, and Kentucky was admitted into the Confederacy on December 10, 1861. Its jurisdiction extended only as far as Confederate battle lines in
19685-461: The story is based on incidents from his own life. The Iraq War served as the background story of U.S. movies, like The Hurt Locker from 2008, Green Zone from 2010, and American Sniper from 2014. The War in Afghanistan since 2001 was depicted in various movies, among them Restrepo in 2010 and Lone Survivor from 2013. The first popular Allied war films made during
19840-485: The subject of cultural and historiographical debate . Of continuing interest is the fading myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy . The war was among the first to use industrial warfare . Railroads, the electrical telegraph , steamships, the ironclad warship , and mass-produced weapons were widely used. The war left an estimated 698,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian casualties, making
19995-457: The substitute provision to select which man should go into the army and which should stay home. There was much evasion and resistance to the draft, especially in Catholic areas. The New York City draft riots in July 1863 involved Irish immigrants who had been signed up as citizens to swell the vote of the city's Democratic political machine , not realizing it made them liable for the draft. Of
20150-541: The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor . The film, panned by Roger Ebert and The New York Times , was a major success in Japan. Its realistic-looking attack footage was reused in later films such as Midway (1976), The Final Countdown (1980), and Australia (2008). The story was revisited in Pearl Harbor (2001), described by The New York Times as a "noisy, expensive and very long new blockbuster", with
20305-402: The suspension of civilian morality during times of war, b) primacy of collective goals over individual motivations, c) rivalry between men in predominantly male groups as well as marginalization and objectification of women, and d) depiction of the reintegration of veterans. The fateful nature of battle scenes means that war films often end with them. The film critic Stephen Neale suggests that
20460-408: The ten-month Siege of Petersburg , gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond . The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House , setting in motion the end of the war . Lincoln led the nation through that victory but was shot by an assassin on April 14. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure
20615-451: The thousands that never tried. European merchant ships could not get insurance and were too slow to evade the blockade, so they stopped calling at Confederate ports. To fight an offensive war, the Confederacy purchased arms in Britain and converted British-built ships into commerce raiders . The smuggling of 600,000 arms enabled the Confederacy to fight on for two more years, and the commerce raiders targeted U.S. Merchant Marine ships in
20770-516: The war and was made in cooperation with the Army Air Corps. It proved a powerful recruiting tool. It became the first film (in any genre) to be awarded an Oscar for best picture. Later films of varied genres that deal with the First World War include David Lean 's "colossal epic", both war film and biopic Lawrence of Arabia (1962), shot in the then unfamiliar and exciting 70mm Technicolor , and described by Steven Spielberg as "maybe
20925-487: The war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis , the Confederacy asserted control over a third of the U.S. population in eleven states. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued. During 1861–1862 in the Western theater , the Union made permanent gains—though in the Eastern theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued
21080-430: The war created jobs for arms makers, ironworkers, and ships to transport weapons. Lincoln's administration initially struggled to appeal to European public opinion. At first, diplomats explained that the U.S. was not committed to ending slavery and emphasized legal arguments about the unconstitutionality of secession. Confederate representatives, however, focused on their struggle for liberty, commitment to free trade, and
21235-478: The war due to multiple factors: severe food shortages, failing railroads, loss of control over key rivers, foraging by Northern armies, and the seizure of animals and crops by Confederate forces. Historians agree the blockade was a major factor in ruining the Confederate economy; however, Wise argues blockade runners provided enough of a lifeline to allow Lee to continue fighting for additional months, thanks to supplies like 400,000 rifles, lead, blankets, and boots that
21390-493: The war effort, and a degree of propaganda. Newsreels , ostensibly simply for information, were made in both Allied and Axis countries, and were often dramatised. More recently, in the Iran–Iraq War , Morteza Avini 's Ravayat-e Fath (Chronicles of Victory) television series combined front-line footage with commentary. Sergei Eisenstein 's 1938 historical drama Alexander Nevsky depicts Prince Alexander 's defeat of
21545-675: The war film in specific theatres such as the Western Desert of North Africa and the Pacific in the Second World War, Vietnam , or the Soviet–Afghan War ; and films set in specific domains of war, such as the infantry, the air, at sea, in submarines or at prisoner of war camps. The war film genre is not necessarily tightly defined: the American Film Institute , for example, speaks of "films to grapple with
21700-467: The war film lacks the formal boundaries of a genre like the Western , but that in practice, "successful and influential" war films are about modern wars, in particular World War II, with the combination of mobile forces and mass killing. The film scholar Kathryn Kane points out some similarities between the war film genre and the Western. Both genres use opposing concepts like war and peace, civilization and savagery. War films usually frame World War II as
21855-699: The war years" — Millions Like Us (1943), and The Way Ahead (1944). In America, documentaries were produced in various ways: General Marshall commissioned the Why We Fight propaganda series from Frank Capra; the War Department's Information-Education Division started out making training films for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy; the Army made its own through the U.S. Signal Corps, including John Huston 's The Battle of San Pietro . Hollywood made films with propaganda messages about America's allies, such as Mrs. Miniver (1942), which portrayed
22010-425: The world" within a few years. Some European observers at the time dismissed them as amateur and unprofessional, but historian John Keegan concluded that each outmatched the French, Prussian, and Russian armies, and without the Atlantic, could have threatened any of them with defeat. Unionism was strong in certain areas within the Confederacy. As many as 100,000 men living in states under Confederate control served in
22165-433: Was cultivated by slave labor. Lincoln was not inaugurated until March 4, 1861, giving the South time to prepare for war during the winter of 1860–1861. Nationalists in the North and "Unionists" in the South refused to accept the declarations of secession. No foreign government ever recognized the Confederacy. The U.S. government, under President James Buchanan , refused to relinquish its forts that were in territory claimed by
22320-594: Was described by the Motion Picture News as "a really good war story, which is exceptional". The 1916 British film The Battle of the Somme , by two official cinematographers, Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell, combined documentary and propaganda, seeking to give the public an impression of what trench warfare was like. Much of the film was shot on location at the Western Front in France; it had
22475-487: Was destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves. The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in U.S. history . It remains
22630-557: Was followed by large-scale but thoughtful films like Andrei Tarkovsky 's Ivan's Childhood (1962), and quasi- documentary all-star epics filmed in Europe such as Battle of the Bulge (1965), Battle of Britain (1969), The Battle of Neretva (1969), Midway (1976), and A Bridge Too Far (1977). In Lawrence Suid's view, The Longest Day "served as the model for all subsequent combat spectaculars". However, its cost also made it
22785-408: Was high because many soldiers were more concerned about the fate of their local area than the Southern cause. In the North, " bounty jumpers " enlisted to collect the generous bonus, deserted, then re-enlisted under a different name for a second bonus; 141 were caught and executed. From a tiny frontier force in 1860, the Union and Confederate armies grew into the "largest and most efficient armies in
22940-422: Was known for his left-wing views. The film's sets were designed by art directors James Basevi and John Ewing . This article about a war drama film is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . War film War film is a film genre concerned with warfare , typically about naval , air , or land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with
23095-451: Was made during the Korean War (1950–1953). The critic Guy Westwell notes that it questioned the conduct of the war, as did later films like The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954) and Pork Chop Hill (1959). Fuller agreed that all his films were anti-war. No Hollywood films about the Korean War did well at the box office; the historian Lary May suggested in 2001 that they reminded American viewers of "the only war we have lost". In 1955, after
23250-405: Was made of bullion lost from mints. He stated that it would be US policy "to collect the duties and imposts"; "there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere" that would justify an armed revolution. His speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union, famously calling on "the mystic chords of memory" binding the two regions. The Davis government of
23405-566: Was marked by intense and frequent battles. Over four years, 237 named battles were fought, along with many smaller actions, often characterized by their bitter intensity and high casualties. Historian John Keegan described it as "one of the most ferocious wars ever fought," where, in many cases, the only target was the enemy's soldiers. As the Confederate states organized, the U.S. Army numbered 16,000, while Northern governors began mobilizing their militias. The Confederate Congress authorized up to 100,000 troops in February. By May, Jefferson Davis
23560-512: Was not successful, and with the ironclad CSS Virginia , rebuilt from the sunken Union ship Merrimack . On March 8, 1862, Virginia inflicted significant damage on the Union's wooden fleet, but the next day, the first Union ironclad, USS Monitor , arrived to challenge it in the Chesapeake Bay . The resulting three-hour Battle of Hampton Roads was a draw, proving ironclads were effective warships. The Confederacy scuttled
23715-460: Was pushing for another 100,000 soldiers for one year or the duration, and the U.S. Congress responded in kind. In the first year of the war, both sides had more volunteers than they could effectively train and equip. After the initial enthusiasm faded, relying on young men who came of age each year was not enough. Both sides enacted draft laws (conscription) to encourage or force volunteering, though relatively few were drafted. The Confederacy passed
23870-418: Was to preserve the Union, a cause based on American nationalism . Background factors in the run up to the Civil War were partisan politics , abolitionism , nullification versus secession , Southern and Northern nationalism, expansionism , economics , and modernization in the antebellum period . As a panel of historians emphasized in 2011, "while slavery and its various and multifaceted discontents were
24025-525: Was too late. " King Cotton " was dead, as the South could export less than 10% of its cotton. The blockade shut down the ten Confederate seaports with railheads that moved almost all the cotton. By June 1861, warships were stationed off the principal Southern ports, and a year later nearly 300 ships were in service. The Confederates began the war short on military supplies, which the agrarian South could not produce. Northern arms manufacturers were restricted by an embargo, ending existing and future contracts with
#655344