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Comment by insane_dreamer | Hacker News Reader

not sure I agree with Truffaut; I think that Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July, for example, are quite good at _not_ glorifying war

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Yes, it's hard to think of anything in 'Born on the Fourth of July' that would leave a viewer more enthusiastic about war.

• The main character's enthusiasm to enlist is portrayed as irritatingly naive and ridiculous.

• The combat centers around the main character accidentally killing innocent villagers and a fellow American soldier.

• The main character winds up paraplegic, impotent, incontinent.

And all this happens before Willem Dafoe even shows up.

If brutality and cruelty didn't appeal to a certain type of person we wouldn't have war, fighting, or any of that stuff in the first place. For the same reason a brutal war movie motivates someone towards it, is the same reason watching UFC videos of guys faces getting rearranged motivates. It balloons up the part of you that believe they failed where you won't. That is why it "glorifies".

I don't think the egotistical notion that the viewer would succeed where others failed is even a thing, or that it takes a "certain type of person". It's just that violence is stimulating and fun to the perpetrators and witnesses. Civilization is not something innate, it's something that must be learned and maintained and practiced or else we lose it.

There is a lot of truth to that, and it applies to many of the other films people have mentioned in this thread.

It's easy to see why someone would find aspects of 'Saving Private Ryan' attractive (eg: Private Jackson, the sharpshooter), and it doesn't require much imagination to see how aspects even of Nazi villains can be attractive (they had the best uniforms).

It's more difficult to see how 'Born on the Fourth of July' would leave anyone - even a sadist - enthusiastic about war.

It's not like Kubrik's 'Clockwork Orange' in which some of the violence, in a sick way, empowers the main character.

Instead, the main character pathetically bumbles into shooting people he doesn't mean to, is shot himself, and turns into an angry loser in a wheelchair (until he finds his calling as a peace activist).

> they had the best uniforms

And the fascists have the outfits

But I don't care for the outfits

What I care about is music

And the communists have the music

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7A2-ACZhg_g

100%. Conservatives are usually failed artists. Great tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iAIM02kv0g

Great song thank you.

> If brutality and cruelty didn't appeal to a certain type of person we wouldn't have war, fighting, or any of that stuff in the first place.

There have on occasion been wars that were fought over resources rather than for recreation.

You can trade and bargain for resources. It only gets to war if someone finds war more appealing.

Or stealing them is easier. Pre modern economies were to a large extent zero sum and violence was pervasive (e.g. there was a lot of overlap between being a merchant and a pirate, you did whichever seemed more profitable at the time).

Some more examples: Saving Private Ryan, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Deer Hunter.

Personally, I would also include Schindler's List.

The Thin Red Line

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun_(film)

Saving Private Ryan, while it does give a particularly realistic view of storming Omaha Beach, and some other scenes, is also generally heroic -- the "good guys save their buddy from the bad guys" -- which serves to glorify war, giving it a "higher purpose".

I suggest Grave of the Fireflies, which is entirely about children slowly starving to death.

I’d also recommend The Saviour.

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