War is awful. War is hell. War is a good opportunity to gather a bunch of attractive young stars, stick them in some camouflage and write over some of the most controversial conflicts in US history. The highly anticipated Warfare from A24 dropped its first trailer, and it’s already causing controversy. Some say it’s recklessly re-writing America’s widely condemned involvement in Iraq, and others said, “Oh, that’s the guy from Stranger Things” and smiled when they saw the explosions.
Those are the two sides that the internet would have us believe exist when it comes to war movies and Warfare specifically. But there’s a whole spectrum to explore that can make two things be true at the same time. For nearly as long as we have been capable of capturing moving images, we have been capturing war. With this comes the conversations around whether movies can ever be just pro or anti-war, and as ever, there’s no real answer to this question.
This hasn’t stopped filmmakers and audiences from labeling war movies as such and rightly questioning the morality of filming war, particularly from the American-centric viewpoint that Warfare seems to be taking. Is Warfare glorifying America’s involvement in Iraq? Are movies ever just pro or anti-war? What could this early conversation mean for Warfare when it releases next year? Here’s what you need to know.
Is Every War Movie an Anti-War Movie? Spielberg Seems to Think So
Steven Spielberg once said (via BBC): “Of course every war movie, good or bad, is an anti-war movie” when discussing Saving Private Ryan, a statement that has drawn both praise and criticism. It isn’t as simple as that. Toby Miller, author of Global Hollywood 2, believes the picture lets America proclaim its righteousness: “It’s a legitimisation of the idea that the United States is the last great saviour of humanity – that’s the claim it makes.” Taking these two contrasting views into account, it suggests that much like war itself, directors cannot help but show their patriotism for their country within their work, whilst Spielberg rejects that. If these two sides sit at the top of the debate, then Sheril Antonio, an NYU professor, goes deeper.
Related
Saving Private Ryan to Oppenheimer: A 25 Year Difference
Saving Private Ryan defined the modern war movie. Oppenheimer followed in its footsteps. But what has changed in the intervening years?
She says: “Any person who glorifies violence and shooting and killing people may only see that aspect of the film and celebrate that aspect of the film, they may not appreciate it as a cautionary tale.” With this, Antonio tackles the main problem war films face if they want to say something about conflict. Anything they say will always be hidden underneath the guns and violence, implying that it’s the audience’s responsibility to look for the subtext, which might be a problem if there isn’t any there. If it’s an audience’s job to search for meaning, directors have to tread that line if Antonio is to be believed.
Does ‘Warfare’ Look Pro-War?
If war movies are a conflict between intentions and distractions, Warfare so far looks like it falls into the latter, with plenty of action to make a trailer exciting. But this doesn’t make it a pro-war movie because, as Miller said, there’s an undercurrent of American nationalism that can choose to make America into a hero or a villain. That’s one of Hollywood’s biggest mistakes in something like American Sniper, one of the most well-received American shoot-em’-ups in recent memory. Warfare only shows the Americans so far, but this doesn’t mean it will endorse their actions.
Related
Alex Garland’s Civil War Is a Political Failure but a Success on Max
Alex Garland’s Civil War fails to give a strong political message in response to violence but is still successful on the streaming service Max.
For a movie to be pro-war, it needs to show a complete lack of vulnerability in the side you are mainly following. There aren’t many World War II movies from the Nazi perspective because of the lack of vulnerability and humanity the Nazis are often remembered for. Warfare has a gentle line to walk, but the attitudes of those firing the guns matter the most. Spielberg’s thoughts are grossly simple, but at the same time, to take out the bias from a war movie would seemingly defeat the purpose.
How Will These Debates Impact ‘Warfare’ Next Year?
A frustrating lack of answers is representative of the way war is in real life. There are rarely any victories, just a concession of defeat from the opposing side. Warfare looks like a traditional Iraq pro-America movie, but to label it either way would be to misunderstand why we are so fascinated by the evils of humanity. We don’t necessarily watch war movies for the truth about our national identity; we might just want to watch some exciting action. A war movie doesn’t have to pick either side, just as Warfare can have all of its American soldiers survive and not be pro-war.
It isn’t as easy as that, and to inject an opinion like that dilutes the experience the movie might be trying to implicitly tell you. The fact is, no one film can entirely change our memory of a war, and Warfare‘s ultimate result will not dissuade those who think America was in the right to invade Iraq. Warfare can show us something without having to comment, just as it can stand on the battlefield while people on Twitter/X argue. A war veteran is co-directing, too, suggesting a hopeful layer of accuracy that can be true to one man’s experience, but we know that wasn’t the only experience.
Warfare won’t be a pro or anti-war movie unless someone decides it is for themselves, and that’s both enlightening and frustrating. Warfare might show America as the best there ever was, but it won’t change anything. Movies are not a permanent medium, and they change as our perspectives do. If we are still in the time when Hollywood doesn’t want to examine Iraq with the same level of nuance as Vietnam, maybe that means that for now, that conflict will remain what it is, a reductive blank canvas for directors to paint on as they please, as long as audiences don’t rush to label it something it doesn’t have to be. Warfare releases in 2025.