Towards Just War-Film Theory: A Critical Analysis of Propagandistic Elements in US War Film

Mythology is the appropriate word because it properly gestures toward the way in which superstructural valuations of reality can be embedded not only in the lives and actions of the actors which constitute the narrative, but also its intended audience (in this case a given public). Within any narrative—including that of film—there are tacit frameworks required in which the subjects are embedded, contextualized, and through which the mythology is reified and manifested in discreet events or actors. In war film, the state's conflict and the war itself, as well as its coded moral evaluations, serve as the superstructure of the narrative.

In using just war theory as a framework through which to evaluate these coded moral evaluations, the mythology can be critiqued as either adequately representing, or misconstruing the necessary elements with which a viewer is capable of making fair moral judgements concerning whether or not the conflict was just. If a war film is understood as propagandistic (in Ellul's sense) we can critique its justness by determining how, for example, the given mythology transcodes a moral evaluation of the war by obfuscating the complex historical realities which one would require to make this moral evaluation (vis-à-vis just war theory). In part, this is accomplished by the reflexive nature of the mythological reality, where the morality of particular character's actions can be coded onto an evaluation of the state's action through war as a whole. It so doing, these narrative apparatuses code moral evaluations such as right or legitimate authority onto the historic war.¹⁹

Take, for example, Steven Spielberg's World War II film Saving Private Ryan (1998), a watershed film in the transition from what has been termed the Vietnam Syndrome.²⁰ It is a film worthy of consideration in the course of this analysis because it is a paradigmatic example of contemporary depictions of "the good war" in the recent history of film.²¹ For the purposes of this investigation, Saving Private Ryan serves as a preeminent example of a war film in which the narrative of a few soldiers is cast against the backdrop of a war which receives little to no explicit moral evaluation within the confines of the film.

Consider how the film bookends with the overtly patriotic screen-filling shot of an American flag, with the rays of the sun shining through Spielberg's emblematic, war-desaturated, color-grading and the affective accompaniment of the John Williams.²² The entire film, from start to finish is saturated with Americana and pulls primarily from American influences while following the story of American soldiers.²³ There is no significant reference to other allied forces who contributed to the success of the war, the Normandy invasion or V-E Day.²⁴ This patriotism undergirding the American-centric depiction of conflict in Saving Private Ryan codes into the film a moral evaluation about just authority and can rightly be criticized as a form of "American triumphalism."²⁵

The only depiction of American authority in the film, are those of the commanding officers who opt to send Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) on the benevolent, self-sacrificial mission to save Private James Ryan (Matt Damon). While Miller's soldiers, as well as Miller himself, question their mission's legitimacy, these are elements of rising action that climax inevitably in the narrative's conclusion that the mission was just because of Private Ryan's salvation and following as a "good man," alongside the willingness of the soldiers to die performing their duty. In spite of the questioning of commands, these depictions of the American military authority, and the soldiers willingness to honorably perform their duty despite doubts, are prime examples of the reflexivity of the mythological function in war film: because the authorities (such as the Chief of Staff George Marshall) are portrayed as benevolent authority figures, this "just authority" is thusly coded onto the moral evaluation of World War II as a historical reality present in the film.²⁶

The obfuscation of the role of other global forces, as well as the explicit patriotic bookends and exclusivity of the role of the United States in the depiction of the war, offer another lens through which to critique to coding of just authority onto World War II in Saving Private Ryan. In this case, it does not necessary present the viewer with a just authority which may otherwise be absent (as expressed in the previous point). Instead, it augment's the viewers perception of where just authority for war would be derived.²⁷ In the case of World War II, assuming the imperial regimes in Europe were legitimate malefactors from the standpoint of just war theory, the impetus for just cause in war was historically sourced from a variety of global authorities including the British Empire, the Soviet Union, etc. The obscuring of these authorities, along with the depiction of the United States as a just authority, not only augments the historical premises from which just authority may be derived in a moral evaluation of World War II, but singularly accentuates the priority of US authority as a sufficient source of legitimacy for the depicted military engagement.²⁸ As Childress says, "[the criterion of just authority] determines who is primarily responsible for judging whether the other criteria are met." This obfuscation of just authority is also present in criticisms of other World War II films such as Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk (2017), in which criticizers argues that colonial forces are obscured for the sake of lionizing the role of the West in the victory against Axis forces.²⁹

Whether or not the United States is considered a just authority within the evaluation of World War II through just war theory is immaterial to this analysis, but this is precisely the point. The coding of a moral evaluation of just authority into the narrative of the World War II film predetermines the transcoded historical evaluation for the viewer, particularly the uncritical one. Within the framework proposed by this analysis, we can also point toward a more precise tool for understanding the mechanism which makes patriotism or nationalism in general subversive in the context of war film: that is, it utilizes the mythological apparatus and exploits on viewers nationalistic affectivity to code a just authority moral evaluation onto the film.

Mythologizing in war film functions by positioning particular actors as stand-ins which actualize the moral evaluation of a state agent in war, as well as through depictions of the state which bear a totalizing valuation on its actions and the actions of its actors.³⁰ In the case of Saving Private Ryan, both of these facets are accomplished through the benevolent depiction of military commanders as benevolent authorities, and the patriotism portrayed through the lens of the filmmaker's cinematography. Although a variety of different just war principles could be viewed through an interpretation of these narrative apparatuses, this analysis has singled out the way the apparatuses code into the movie the presence of a just authority, and therefore a moral evaluation of the war. As Childress notes that the just war premise of legitimate authority is the first grounds from which the other principles fall in step, it is appropriate that Saving Private Ryan—a paradigmatic modern war cinema in the positive portrayal of war—can be explicated through the framework proposed by this analysis.³¹