I don't know when the word anti-war began to appear in film and television works, and we can only continue to look for traces in film and television works in the early years. The most familiar anti-war movies are nothing more than Vietnam-themed war films shot by Americans, and in every Vietnam War-themed movie that is filmed, anti-war can always be the core of the game. However, when the anti-war word is gradually seen by the audience behind the true face, we have to think about what kind of anti-war thinking the United States is talking about? Why are they willing to discuss the injustice of war from various angles and use it to oppose war.
"Iron Cross" tells the story of a German sergeant during World War II, in the confrontation between the German army and the Soviet army on the eastern battlefield, he is different from the cold-blooded ruthlessness of many German soldiers, even on the battlefield, this sergeant also maintains a demeanor, a kind of respect for the enemy, a kind of cultivation of moral sentiments and so on. However, even so, in the cruel war, the sergeant still did not die well.
Because war is not a one-man thing. This sentence can summarize the opposite of the core idea of the film "Iron Cross". The reason why there are such anti-war movies is that the people who control public opinion need to change some well-known perceptions to manipulate public opinion. This film was released in 1977 and is a war-themed film shot in West Germany, so this kind of shooting idea is easy to understand, it turns out that as early as the Cold War, this anti-war trend of thought has become the first definition of war films in the Western world. Then it's not surprising that they went on to make some war-themed films.
The reason why the anti-war spirit displayed in the "Iron Cross" was not the mainstream in the war situation at that time, and it can even be said to be a kind of hypocritical propaganda rhetoric, is that no one came forward to take responsibility after the defeat of Germany. This is the same standard for any form of warfare. The perspective of this film is based on the ordinary soldiers of a country that started a war, and when we see the sergeant in this film is disgusted by the war itself, and even disdainful of the Iron Cross, which symbolizes honor, this trend of thinking does not affect the sergeant from becoming an ordinary soldier and carrying out his own tasks on the battlefield. Therefore, even if the sergeant himself was anti-war, his actions did not follow his thoughts.
The reason why we chose a German perspective to narrate is that we were more commonly Allied or Soviet troops at that time, and under the dual effect of people's tolerance and curiosity for alternative perspectives, it would be much more natural to add some material to this perspective. This is why many Americans' films about the Vietnam War always like to choose some tricky angles to reinterpret the war in the background. For example, choose a lewd North Vietnamese soldier, choose a South Vietnamese soldier with a free spirit, an American like a savior, and so on. These alternative interpretations themselves have the psychology of making the audience curious, and people generally have a certain curiosity about the reverse narrative, if the creator adds some of his own ideology to this narrative at this time, then it is easy to capture the audience, and then achieve the effect of distorting a piece of history. Because the film created can create public opinion, but there is no need to be responsible for history.
"Iron Cross" is such a movie, why the German soldiers were chosen, the essential reason is to find a reason to whitewash Germany, the initiator of World War II, why whitewash, because this film is a film made in West Germany, naturally it is necessary to control some powerful public opinion about itself, even if such public opinion has reached a distorted level of history, of course, these are not the parts that the creator needs to think about.
Watching "The Iron Cross", we can easily come to the conclusion that Germany also has good people, and the German army also has moments of conscience discovery, and these points can indeed be seen from the sergeant in the film, but this does not represent the role of Germany in World War II. It is easy for us to find one or two shining points from a person who has committed a heinous crime, there is no doubt about it, but when we find these shining points, does it mean that the previous crimes of this heinous person can be written off? Of course not, everyone understands this truth, but when the film gradually subverts the audience's cognition in this form, the audience may have some different understanding of history, and the real history has been shaken from this moment, which is the so-called "anti-war movie" The original intention.
Why anti-war movies always take place in the country that initiated the war is also intriguing, because they know better than anyone the justice and injustice of war, and the reason why they don't think about whether they play the role of aggressors in the war, but blindly oppose the war indiscriminately, this is not because they don't understand it, but because they know too well whether the role they play is just or not, because as long as they are just or not, they will always be the origin of the war, but when people's attention shifts from justice to anti-war sentimentThe initiator of war can easily attribute the reason for his war to the weakness of human nature.
They can say that I am also a human being, you are also a human being, we all have weaknesses, I started the war because of the weakness of human nature, not because I am cruel and unkind, when you are in that situation, everyone is the same, no one laughs at anyone, so that the victim is reduced to the same level as the perpetrator, and justice is self-defeating. The ultimate goal of anti-war has been achieved. This is the hypocritical lie of anti-war, but too many people today have been deceived.
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