War and Film

My grandfather served in the military at the end of World War II, but he never saw combat. Nevertheless, I know he struggled watching war films. I can remember him reading military history, and surely those accounts were vividly written. But films like Saving Private Ryan were apparently too real for someone who knew the young—very young—men that died in World War II.

Indeed, Saving Private Ryan has carved a niche in film history for its “realistic” depiction of World War II. Every war film made since seems to borrow Saving Private Ryan’s cinematography and editing to achieve an effect that puts the audience “in the trenches” or “on the front lines.” Even so, I would argue that none of Ryan’s successors has combined sound mixing, makeup, cinematography, visual effects, and editing as effectively.

Despite all of Saving Private Ryan’s painful shots, it fails to represent the reality of World War II in one extremely important way. The average American soldier in World War II was 26 years old. However, the eight actors dispatched to save Pvt. Ryan in Spielberg’s film had an average age of 30 while filming. Only Giovanni Ribisi—who plays Pvt. Wade, the ill-fated medic—was less than 26 years old. The film’s main role, that of Captain Miller, was filled by 42-year old Tom Hanks.

Another film about World War II released in the same year, The Thin Red Line, is even further from reality. The average age of the actors in that film is 35. Several years later, when Clint Eastwood began preparing Flags of Our Fathers, about the soldiers who raised the American flag at Iwo Jima, media reports said he was looking for young, unknown actors to make the film feel “real.” Of course, the film ended up with minor stars like Ryan Phillippe, Barry Pepper, and Adam Beach. They and their co-stars had an average age of 31 when filming wrapped.

This is a historic flaw with war films. All Quiet on the Western Front was released in 1930, featuring actors with an average age of 29. Likewise, whereas the average age of US American soldiers in Vietnam was 23, the average age of the main actors in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket was 32. Oliver Stone’s Platoon, also about the Vietnam War, is perhaps the greatest exception, as its actors had an average age of only 26.

So far only a few films have been released about the United States’ current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Only one of them has been of high quality—this year’s The Hurt Locker, about a three-person bomb squad in Iraq. According to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the average age of US American soldiers in those countries is 27, but The Hurt Locker’s three main actors have an average age of 34. If one includes the film’s other minor speaking roles, this average increases to 41.

Essentially, war films have continually failed to represent a crucial reality of our country’s conflicts: the men and women fighting and dying are very young. Approximately 2% of high school seniors are entering the military. Boys that can’t grow facial hair or buy alcohol are dismantling bombs and being charged with protecting rightly suspicious populations that speak a different language. The complexity of how a young man or woman summons the maturity to handle these objectives is missing from films.

But much more importantly, filmmakers are inadvertently distorting our understanding of who is fighting our wars. Considering films and television are the only view of war that the vast majority of my generation will ever see (knock on wood), I believe this distortion is very significant for our opinions and policy preferences.

This year’s military recruits might have trouble remembering the Clinton administration and the Spice Girls. Depending on Obama’s strategy for the future of Afghanistan, in a few years we may be sending soldiers who hardly remember 9/11. The stories of young people joining the military should be told by filmmakers, so that more US Americans will understand that we don’t just fight wars for our children—children fight our wars for us.