War Films: Writing and Re-Writing History in Hollywood and Germany
GRMN 3050
3 hours
War Films: Writing and Re-Writing History in Hollywood and Germany
Analytical Thinking
Critical Thinking
Course Description
This course introduces students to war films from Hollywood and Germany from the last 100 years, focusing on how history is written and rewritten in films at different times in the U.S. and Germany. Students will read films as part of cultural history and critically analyze their content.
Athena Title
War Films Re-Writing History
Prerequisite
ENGL 1101 or ENGL 1101E or ENGL 1101S or permission of department
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
Students will gain an overview, and analyze the history and prevalent themes of war films produced in the US and Germany in the last 100 years.
Students will critically appraise how war films in the US and Germany use the experience of war, collective memory, and larger historical and geopolitical circumstances to write and re-write history.
Students will obtain a basic understanding of analyzing the formal grammar of film.
Students will critically appraise how war films were a product of and catered to individual horizons of expectation at different times and in different countries.
Students will analyze scholarly and journalistic writing on film, global conflicts, as well as intercultural and historical topics.
Students will develop original arguments about the films that highlight their status as expressions of a national, collective memory in the US and Germany about specific wars.
Topical Outline
DISCLAIMER: The films listed below are NOT required viewing, but they will form the basis for the lectures. The course syllabus will contain detailed information on how films will be treated in the course: There is no list of mandatory films, rather students will have to select a total of eight films from a comprehensive film list and watch those in their entirety on their own. These will also form the basis for the writing (film précis) assignments. Students will also have to research basic information on the films for any given class day (country, year, director, main actors, basic plot) on the imdb.com website, this information will be tested in daily quizzes.
Students will be assigned readings in a world history textbook for each new era (WWI, WWII, Cold War, Vietnam, Recent Wars). Readings / handouts in film analysis underpin the introductory section.
1. Reading a film. Basics of film theory, shot composition, scene analysis
2. WWI and the interwar period (1914-1939): The history
3. WWI Films: "Storms of Steel"? The horrors of a new kind of war
Films: All Quiet on the Western Front (US 1930), Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front, FRG 2022).
7. WWII Films: The war as a recent memory of the 1950s and 60s. Soldiers stemming Nazi aggression vs. soldiers stemming allied invasion.
Films: Where Eagles Dare (US 1969), The Longest Day (US 1962), The Bridge at Remagen (US 1969), Die Brücke (The Bridge, FRG 1959), U47 – Kapitänleutnant Prien (FRG 1958).
8. WWII Films: Pearl Harbor and fighting the "yellow peril"
Films: Pearl Harbor (US 2001), From Here to Eternity (1953), King Rat (US 1965), Bridge on the River Kwai (US 1957), Letters from Iwo Jima & Flags of our Fathers (US 2006)
9. WWII Films: The experience of combat.
Films: Dunkirk (GB, US 2017), Saving Private Ryan (US 1998), The Thin Red Line (US 1999), Stalingrad (FRG 1993), Das Boot (FRG 1981)
10. WWII Films: POWs.
Films: Stalag 17 (US 1961), Hart's War (US 2002), Empire of the Sun (US 1987)
11. WWII Films: Concentration camps.
Films: Sterne (GDR 1959), Schindler's List (US 1991), La Vita È Bella (Life is Beautiful, ITAL 1997), The Counterfeiters (FRG 2007), The Zone of Interest (GB, US, POL 2023)
12. WWII Films: Civilian victims.
Films: Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter (Generation War, FRG 2014), Dresden (FRG 2006), Rosenstraße (FRG 2003), Au Revoir, Les Enfants (Goodbye Children, FR 1987)
13. Midterm
14. WWII Films: Endgame, re-assessments and re-writings
Films: Der Untergang (Downfall, FRG 2004), Valkyre (US 2008), Fury (US 2014), The Monuments Men (US 2014), Inglourious Basterds (US 2009)
15. WWII Films: Dealing with the aftermath in Germany and the US.
Films: Die Mörder sind unter uns (Murderers Among Us, GER 1946) , Best Years of Our Lives (US 1946), Der unbekannte Soldat (The Unknown Soldier, FRG 2006), The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (FRG 1993), Labyrinth des Schweigens (Labyrinth of Lies, FRG 2014)
16. The Cold War From Korea to Vietnam (1950-1975): The history
17. The Cold War at home: Stories of infiltration and separation
Films: The Manchurian Candidate (US 1962 and 2004), Und Deine Liebe auch (And your Love, Too, GDR 1962), ), Deutschland ’83 (FRG 2015)
18. Vietnam Films: The homefront of a controversial war.
Films: Born on the Forth of July (US 1989), Berkeley in the 60s (US 1990), Forrest Gump (US 1994), 1968: Tunnel Rats (FRG/CAN 2008), Baader-Meinhof Complex (FRG 2008)
19: Vietnam films: A dirty war with conflicted heroes.
Films: OK (FRG 1970), Full Metal Jacket (US 1987), Platoon (1986), Apocalypse Now (US 1979), The Deer Hunter (US 1978)
20. Recent wars: The history (1980-2010s). Middle East, post-Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq
21. Recent wars: The new hero then and now
Films: Top Gun (US 1986), Top Gun Maverick (US 2022), American Sniper (US 2014), Kommando Leopard (FRG 1985)
22. Recent wars: Media realities.
Films: Wag the Dog (US 1997), Jarhead (US 2005)
23. Recent wars: The US as "world police," German peace keeping & humanitarian missions
Films: Waffenstillstand (Ceasefire, FRG 2009), Black Hawk Down (US 2001), Three Kings (US 1999), The Hurt Locker (US 2009)
24. Closing discussion: War films, history, and collective memory
25. Final Exam
Institutional Competencies Learning Outcomes
Analytical Thinking
The ability to reason, interpret, analyze, and solve problems from a wide array of authentic contexts.
Critical Thinking
The ability to pursue and comprehensively evaluate information before accepting or establishing a conclusion, decision, or action.
