Quote:
Originally Posted by TripletDaddy
I dont think movies portray things realistically because they lack the critical emotional component of the subject being portrayed--that is, while showing people getting their head blown off can make you think, "Wow, that is awful. Our boys sacrificed everything for us at Normandy," I feel it is naive to think, "Wow, watching this movie is realistic. It is like being there. I get it...War is Hell." I think that does more disservice to the honor of those that were there and vomiting from fear than to assume that watching a movie and actually portrays any sort of reality. People that watch war movies do not suffer emotionally for the rest of their lives.
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Art is always a subjective experience. I think fictional accounts like War and Peace, the Iliad, the Aeneid, and Blood Meridian have helped me to better appreciate the horrors of war, and the sacrifices made by those who have fought and even paid the ultimate price. I feel the same way about the movies discussed here, though in general I consider literature to be a superior medium to film, though it is inherantly more abstract (hence perhaps more firing of the imagination).
The fact that literary and dramatic works depicting war and heroism and tragedy have had such permanent and transcendent power in our culture makes Lebowski's point. The Iliad may be THE seminal writing in our culture, since Greek and ultimately all Classical culture sprang from it, and we are their cultural progeny. If you don't like graphic violence stay away from the Iliad. Also, most of Shakespeare's historicals and tragedies should get R or NC-17 ratings for violence. Harold Bloom thinks that Shakespeare's works have replaced the Iliad or the Bible as our fouding epic.