Journalistic image in Western war films

Editor's note: War correspondents travel through the flames of war to spark and deepen reflections on the philosophy of war, social issues, and the fate of mankind. Huang Shuting, Distinguished Professor of the School of Communication of Linyi University, Deputy Secretary-General of the Jiangsu Television Artists Association, and Senior Editor of the 11th Issue of Media Observation in 2020, combs through the traces of war history, looks back at the imprints of films, considers the journalists' drawings and historical traces in Western war films, and deepens the reader's understanding of news, history, war and film art.

Journalistic image in Western war films

Huang Shuting

Looking at the history of world journalism, Western war correspondents report on wars, witness major events, freeze sensitive times, practice news missions, and are participants, recorders, and promoters of social events and the course of war, detecting and measuring the boundaries of legal system and virtue. They travel through the smoke of war, capture the text, spread the aphorisms, and the imprint is shallow and deep. Many war correspondents understand war in complex battlefields and become unique playwrights and vivid playwrights.

Frontal depiction of the group portrait of the journalist

The 1940s and 1970s, as well as the turn of the new millennium, were prolific periods for journalistic films. During this period, the reporter appeared on the camera, and the main creators won many international awards. Peter Vaughan in One Night (1934), Hildy Johnson and Walter Burns in Girlfriend Friday (1940), Charles Kane in Citizen Kane (1941), Joe Bradley in Roman Holiday (1953), L.B Jeffries in Rear Window (1954), and Diana Christensen in Television Storm (1976) all left an impression of objectivity and integrity. Although there are negative images such as Sid Huggins in Los Angeles Confidential (1997), Megan Carter in No Malice (1981), Tom Grunick in The Radio News (1987), and Stephen Glass in "Want to Cover the Face" (2003), the main tone and protagonist are still upright, taking the world as their own responsibility, paying attention to the public interest, daring to challenge authority and limits, and having a deep-rooted persistence.

The image of many journalists in Western war films is shaped, their words and deeds are independent, they focus on beauty, they coexist with generals and officers and soldiers, and they coexist with the history of war examples and battles, which shows the filmmakers' attitude and cognition of journalists. The image of the war correspondent pays more attention to the portrayal of professional and spiritual aspects, and strengthens the diagnosis and treatment of political and social chronic diseases, such as the action film "The Hunting Party" (2006) in which the press corps went deep into Sarajevo to investigate the filthy behavior of war criminals, the British and French documentary "The Enemy of My Enemy" (2007) exposing the Nazi "Butcher of Lyon" Babi, and the biopic "The Darkest Hour" (2017) that cross-examined winston Churchill during the war. Its theme and structure are similar to the American films "Good Night, Good Luck" (2005) and "Focus" (2015), which depict the group of excellent journalists.

A journalist-turned-film guru

There are many journalist-turned-filmmakers, such as david Griffith, the "father of American cinema". Born into a run-down military family, Griffiths was a reporter for the Louisville Courier when he was about 17 years old. Griffith is famous for the epic blockbuster "The Birth of a Nation" and "The Party Fights The Same Thing". "The Birth of a Nation" covers major events such as the Battle of Gettysburg and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, revealing the purgatory and unfair treatment of black people, telling the cruelty of the melee and the hardship of the strike, which can be called the precursor of anti-war films. Drawing on the interpretation of the "Quartet", "The Party Is The Same" is interspersed with plots such as the Passion of Christ, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the Fall of Babylon, and uses symbols, metaphors, fables, Gestalts, montages, etc., to indict attacks and struggles, indicating that party jealousy is a common disease of mankind and an important source of war and suffering.

The black-and-white film "Iron Wings", which won the first Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Technical Effects, was released in August 1927. One of the film's main actors is Richard Allen, a journalist. Aaron was a former Royal Canadian Air Force pilot, playing U.S. pilot David in the film, with a crush on the girl next door, Mary. Mary's sweetheart was David's compatriot and comrade-in-arms Jack Powell. Aaron's style is down-to-earth, refuses to use a stand-in, insists on real people on camera, flips, swoops, glides, crashes and the like, all move in earnest, and suffer a lot. Aaron has acted in more than 60 films, and after his death in 1976, Time magazine published an article to commemorate it.

12 years after the release of "Iron Wing", the huge production "Gone with the Wind" was grandly unveiled. Director Victor Fleming received government instructions during World War I to oppose war correspondents, acted as spy photographers, accompanied President Woodrow Wilson on a trip to Europe, and published a documentary news book after the war, President Wilson's Journey to Europe. "Gone with the Wind" was born from the novel "Gone with the Wind" by the original Atlanta News reporter Margaret Mitchell, set in the Civil War, and won the 12th Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Artist, best editing, and has been praised as "masterpiece of masterpieces" and "classics of classics" in world cinema.

Due to the uniqueness and cruelty of the war, coupled with ideology, film censorship and other reasons, the reporters of the fascist camp and the filmmakers in exile in Nazi Germany made achievements in aesthetic trends, pain expressions, production modes, and technical presentation, but on the whole their performance was mediocre. The Japanese film Warlord, released in 1970, was played by The Mainichi Shimbun reporter Goro Arai, who was forcibly recruited into the navy by the fierce Hideki Tojo because of his true reporting on the war situation, and was sent to serve in the Pacific Theater, becoming a witness to the rise and fall of the Japanese militarists. The German documentary "The Third Reich in Color", released in 1998, was written and directed by the German journalist and writer Michael Kloft. The film relies on surviving film to reproduce shots of Hitler's inspections, speeches, growlings, casualness, and dog teasing.

In 1987, Barry Levinson, an American choreographer who graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in journalism, directed the comedy "Good Morning Vietnam" starring Robin Williams and Forrest Whitaker, for which Williams won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. Director Catherine Bigelow's Bomb Disposal Unit was released in 2008 and won the 82nd Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing, and Best Sound, becoming the first Oscar for Best Female Director. The writer of "Bomb Disposal Unit" is New York-born producer Mark Ball, who was 35 years old at the time. During the Iraq War, Bauer worked as a war correspondent, covering the story of Ordnance Technician Jeffrey Savile in Playboy and Reader's Digest. The film begins with a quote from New York Times reporter Chris Hedges: "Fighting a war is extremely addictive, and war is a drug." "The film provides an in-depth look at the conflict between the technological, programmatic, and human nature of a post-industrial society.

Military experience, high-quality works to empower film dramas

The complex resumes of famous journalists and their excellent works are an important source of film adaptation. The military experiences and journalistic careers of Joseph Pulitzer, Hearst, A Tolstoy, Hemingway, Churchill, Mikhail Sholokhov, Cornelius Ryan, Winston Grumm, etc., injected heterogeneous nutrition into their works and facilitated film and television adaptations.

William Wheeler's House of Loyalty was released in 1942, and the script was born out of a series by journalist Jane Strath, and the story was set in the atmosphere of the Dunkirk evacuation. At this moment, World War II is in full swing, the aftershocks of the "Pearl Harbor Incident" are not over, the United States and Japan and Germany have declared war on each other, and the film produced by MGM is both rushing and exciting. Churchill wrote to Meyer praising the film as the best mobilization order, no less effective than 100 warships. The film won the 15th Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography.

Time magazine cover characters Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman starred in the American film "War Bells", adapted from Hemingway's Spanish Civil War novel "For Whom the Death Knell Sounds". Released in 1943, the film won Best Supporting Actress at the 16th Academy Awards and Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress at the inaugural Golden Globe Awards. Cooper's ideal as a teenager was to be a painter, and after graduating from college, he worked as a newspaper comic editor, went to Los Angeles to run a newspaper, but was unsuccessful, and signed paramount to find the right position. "The Snow of Cilimanjaro" is set in the Spanish Civil War, the male protagonist Harry is a writer, and Hemingway, Orwell, Kappa, etc. are all participants in the war. Harry, a former chicago tribune reporter, joined the International Volunteer Army in search of his lover, Cynthia Green, and came to Madrid from Detroit to aid the National Army and the Pikees. Hemingway, who has successively worked for the "Kancheng Star" and "Toronto Star", created journalistic novels, following his own life trajectory and psychological activities, using white paintings, symbols and allegories and other means to play the themes of perseverance, escape and redemption, to create the image of a tough guy who is not afraid of danger, suffering, and cold face of death, expressing the anti-war concept and nihilistic sentiment of the "confused generation", refracting the "American Dream" with a humanitarian background, and demonstrating the simplicity of the "iceberg principle".

The original work emphasizes readability, and the film pursues condensation. The Czechoslovak comedy "The Good Soldier Shuaik", which was released in 1957, is based on Yaroslav Hašek's satirical novel "The Adventures of the Good Soldier Shuaik", which is deeply rooted in the shadow of the author. Hashek joined the national independence movement at the age of 14 and was once imprisoned by the police. After graduating from a business school, he engaged in writing, editing publications such as Commune, Animal World, Wild Ride, Attack, and Dawn. During World War I, he served in the 91st Infantry Regiment, that is, the unit of Shuaike in the book, was captured by the Russian army, came to Kiev, became a reporter for the Czech-language magazine "Czechoslovakia", and continued to write "Good Soldier Shuaike". On 30 April 1983, on the occasion of Hašek's 100th anniversary, UNESCO held a memorial service to honor him as a "world cultural figure".

In 1977, the British-American co-production feature film "The Bridge Far Away" was released, and soon won the 31st British Academy Film Academy Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Effects, and Best Music Awards. The film is set in operation Market Garden, the largest airborne battle of World War II, the defeat of Marshal Bernard Montgomery, and translated as "The Revenge of the Bridge". "The Bridge Far Away" is adapted by William Goldman from the american journalist and writer Ryan's desperate work "The Bridge Far Away". Born in Ireland, Ryan worked as a war correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, covering the Battle of Berlin and the Pacific. After the war, he was sent to Jerusalem as the Middle East bureau chief of the Daily Telegraph, where he worked for The Time, The Express, Newsweek, Currier, Reader's Digest and other newspapers. While at Currier, he covered the U.S. space program and German rocket designer Werner von Braun, winner of the Bengareira Prize for Literature in Italy and the Knight of the Legion of Honor in France. The documentary "The Longest Day" and "The Last Battle" caused a sensation, the former was made by Fox as a black-and-white film of the same name, which is a classic of panoramic presentations of the Normandy landings, and the latter shows the fierce appearance of the Siege of Berlin. In 1974, Ryan published "The Bridge Far Away", reached the peak of his career, received an honorary doctorate from Ohio University, and died of cancer in the same year at the age of 54.

The 1994 American inspirational film Forrest Gump, adapted from Winston Grum's 1986 satirical novel of the same name, has both forward-looking presuppositions and historical extensions, and restores the context of the times. From 1965 to 1969, Glum worked as a correspondent for the Vietnam War, and after retiring from the army, he worked for the Washington Star before resigning to write professionally. Released in 2005, the American feature film "The Flag of the Fathers," directed by Clint Eastwood and produced by Steven Spielberg, is based on real-life events and is based on the Battle of Iwo Jima, based on Joe Rosenthal's Pulitzer Prize-winning press photo "Raising the Star-Spangled Banner on Iwo Jima", and adapted from the documentary literature "The Flag of the Fathers: Heroes of the Battle of Iwo Jima" co-authored by James Bradley and Ron Ball.

The Battle of Stalingrad is a classic example of a popular film and television theme, and has been repeatedly presented and reset. At the end of 2013, Fedor Bundalchuk used 3D technology to remake the subject. The script refers to the novel "Life and Destiny" by the Soviet writer Vasily Grossman, with the Battle of Stalingrad as the central axis, depicting the suffering of the Shaposhnikov family, reflecting the fierceness of the war, reflecting on the shortcomings of the totalitarian system, reflecting on the inferiority of the nation, and was praised by the translator Robert Chandler as the "real War and Peace" of the 20th century. Born in Ukraine, Grossman served as a reporter for the Red Star newspaper during the Soviet-German war, went to the front line to collect wind, and published "The Direction of the Main Turmoil", "Treblin's Hell", "The People Are Immortal" and other famous communications. After the war, Grossmann wrote his novel "For the Just Cause", which was published in New World magazine in 1952 and was denounced by The General Secretary of the Soviet Writers Association, Alexandrovich Fadeyev. After the deaths of Joseph Stalin and Fadeyev, Grossmann continued to write a sequel, Survival and Destiny. Unexpectedly, after submitting the article to the "Flag" magazine, it was interrogated by the KGB, and the work re-entered the cold palace, and the situation continued to deteriorate. Survival and Destiny was published in 1988 to critical acclaim. The release of the new version of "The Battle of Stalingrad" has allowed the world to know more about Grossman's life, deeply appreciate the tragic connotation of war, and gain insight into the complex relationship between journalists, writers and society. In addition, in Western war films, journalists often undertake serial scenes, narrations and retelling narratives, leading the audience to "immerse themselves".

War correspondents are the new force of war practice and film art, although subject to the environment, they can react to reality, with a high degree of self-awareness, build cultural identity, pay attention to serious thinking about human nature and war, and cut into and deepen broad philosophical themes. With the process of virtuality, diversity and integration of film art, a new landscape of interweaving, linkage, intertextuality and "reversible production" has emerged between film and novel, drama, games, animation and short videos.

(Published in the November 2020 issue of Media Watch, the original text is about 9800 words, and the title is: Combing the Journalist's Image in Western War Films.) This is an excerpt, charts and notes, etc. are omitted, please refer to the original article for academic citations. ）

【About author】Huang Shuting, Distinguished Professor of School of Communication, Linyi University, Deputy Secretary-General of Jiangsu Television Artists Association, Senior Editor

Source: Purple Cow News