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Part 15: Pro-peace/Anti-war

by Dr. John Ruhland

The movies on this list are well suited to watching as a group to stimulate political discussions. All can be found on DVD through independent video stores. In Seattle, try Scarecrow Video. A few are also available at Seattle Public Library.

*highly recommended ** must see

*ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT Lewis Milestone, 1930. Classic WWI film.

*THE ANDERSON PLATOON Pierre Schoendorffer. Documentary that follows a platoon of soldiers during the US Vietnam War.

A RUMOR OF WAR Idealistic marines quickly learn the truth about the Vietnam War when they become cannon fodder.

ASHES AND EMBERS Haile Gerima, 1983. African-American finds meaning after his return from the Vietnam war.

A YEAR OF THE QUIET SUN (Polish) 1984. Moving story of love affair between an American soldier and a Polish war-widow.

BALLAD OF A SOLDIER (USSR) Grigori Chukhrai, 1960. Recounts events from the life of a soldier, including falling in love.

**BARRY LYNDON Stanley Kubrick, 1975. Award-winning film about financially poor young Irishman whose ambition is to be a nobleman.

*BEFORE THE RAIN Beautiful, sad contemporary war movie, set in Macedonia.

BERKELEY IN THE SIXTIES Mark Kitchell, 1990. Examines free speech fight, civil rights movement, and anti-Vietnam War movements in Berkeley.

*BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY. Patriotic American enlists in the Marines, and has a dramatic transformation.

*THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI David Lean, 1957. Again we see the insanity of fighting to establish markets and sources of raw materials. Writer of script was black-listed during McCarthy period.

**THE BURMESE HARP Kon Ichikawa, 1956. The cost of a war for colonial power and the conversion of a soldier to a pacifist is stunningly and feelingly portrayed.

*CAPTAIN CONAN (CAPITAINE CONAN) Bertrand Tavernier. WWI soldiers adapting to war and then peace after the war is over.

*CROSS OF IRON Sam Peckinpah, 1977. Powerful war film set in WWII, portraying the universal truth of the different agendas of enlisted men as compared with commissioned officers.

** CUP FINAL Eran Riklis, 1992. Israeli soccer fan misses World Cup because he is part of Israel's invasion force in Lebanon in the 1982 war. He is captured by a PLO leader who shares his love for the

Italian team.*DAS BOOT Action-packed and suspenseful film of life on a WWII German submarine.

**FORBIDDEN GAMES (French) Rene Clement, 1952. Depicts the relationship developed by two children during WWII.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS Sam Wood, 1943. American joins the Spanish anti-fascist Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War.

FRIENDLY PERSUASION Humorous love story that takes up the subject of Quakers (pacifists) who must decide whether to participate in the Civil War.

FULL METAL JACKET Stanley Kubrick. Follows soldiers from boot camp through to combat.

GALLIPOLI Peter Weir, 1981. Australians join British to fight the Turks who've joined the Germans. Moving war movie.

GANDHI Richard Attenborough, 1982. Moving epic of a preeminent promoter of peaceful protest.

GERMANY: YEAR ZERO Roberto Rossellini. Germany immediately after WWII.

THE GO MASTERS (Japanese) 1983. A personal story of the effect of imperialist war.

GOOD MORNING BABYLON Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, 1987. Two Italian artisans emigrate to America to better their life. After tragedy tears them apart, WWI reunites them.

**THE GOOD WAR, AND THOSE WHO REFUSED TO FIGHT IT: THE STORY OF WWII CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS Rick Tejada-Flores & Judith Ehrlich. Documentary on WWII Conscientious objectors.

GO TELL THE SPARTANS (MASH-style) escalation of US war against Vietnam, from "Military Advice" to "real" war.

GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (Japan) Isao Takahata, 1988. Hard-to-watch, but very good anime film of life for two children

GREEN EYES John Erman, 1984. American GI returns to devastation caused by US Imperialism in Vietnam, in order to find mother of his child.

**THE GUNS OF AUGUST (1965). The story of WWI.

HEDD WYN (Welsh) Paul Turner, 1992. Beautiful story of a prize winning poet sacrificed on the front lines.

HELL IN THE PACIFIC John Boorman. Examines the interaction between two soldiers for enemy countries when they are stranded together.

*HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR (1959). Man and woman, scarred by war, begin to heal when they fall in love.

THE HO CHI MINH TRAIL (1984). In the series GREAT JOURNEYS by the BBC; gives insight into heroism of the Viet Cong.

INTOLERANCE DW Griffith, 1916. Epic film showing clear-cut cases of injustice, although racism is accepted, due perhaps to the film's liberal viewpoint.

*IT HAPPENED HERE Fictional story of what life was like in England under Nazi German occupation.

IVAN'S CHILDHOOD (MY NAME IS IVAN) (USSR) Andrei Tarkovsky, 1962. About a war orphan who joins war effort.

WWW Washington Free Press