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Radio War Nerd EP #78—Eileen Jones on Movies & War (Patreon)

Published:
2017-04-04 19:05:21
Imported:
2026-06
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Guest: Eileen Jones, movie critic & UC Berkeley lecturer on Rhetoric & Film

We talk with Eileen Jones, world's greatest movie critic, about war & film, and why the hell are so many war films so damn awful . . . 

At 1:36:40 we discuss the latest RWN subscriber newsletter on "Euphrates Sham"— the astonishing failure of Turkey's incursion into Syria, code-named "Operation Euphrates Shield". . . .

Read Eileen Jones movie reviews at Jacobin, In These Times, and Exiled Online. And buy Eileen Jones' brilliant and funny book "FilmSuck USA"  on decline & fall of Hollywood movies . . . 

Total time: 2:14:48

Direct link  to this episode's mp3 here 

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Comments

Don't @@ me

LOL kinda frustrating that they either haven't seen, don't know anything about, or don't know the names of half the movies they discuss. Still good conversation.

Karl Knight

Oh. My. God.... The eXile crew back together? This is going to blow my mind.

Anders Olsson

It might not be a pure war movie but speaking of documentaries Bitter Lake was really fucking good. It covers the whole range of war stuff from beautiful explosions set to that great Burial song, to that grisly scene with the innocent bystanders being gunned down by the motorcade for no good reason.

Benjamin Glover

oh my stars i can't wait to listen to this

grey

Im not sure what the point of this was in bringing someone who hates the war movie genre. I would have enjoyed it more if there was someone who took a more nuanced view of the genre. If i want to talk about psychological thrillers im not going to bring in someone who hates and only wants to ridicule the genre.

Brian Taulbee

Black comedy? How about MASH and Starship Troopers?

Keith Grennan

Yeah was also thinking MASH, an American Korean War movie and comedy. Would be curious to hear what Eileen, John and Mark's thoughts on it.

Max

For the cold war, no one touches Costa-Gavras, especially Z, State of Siege, the Confession, and Missing. All following true events very closely: the leadup to the Junta takeover in Greece, Uruguay (Tupamaru kidnapping of Dan Mitrione), Stalinist purges in Czechoslovakia (including some very familiar "enhanced" interrogation techniques) and, finally the 1973 coup in Chile (an American film this time if you don't like subtitles, and interestingly the only one to not name the country or perpetrators by name, though it's hardly necessary.)

Max

12 o clock high is definitely the best American movie about WWII (which are mostly very bad as movies made by winners tend to be). Bomber Command was a near death sentance in the early days of daylight bombing and it was a very grim business leading men into it all anyways. And nothing will ever beat the realism, it's all real combat footage! The Thin Red Line, fifty years later is pretty good too though. Mostly we just make the same contrived movies again and again with better special effects and buckets of gore though.

Jim Borynec

The Odd Angry Shot - 1979. Best Vietnam war movie.

Max

Finally, most people wouldn't count it, but its too bad because the Seven Samurai is surely one if the greatest. It looks at war in minature by way of the defense of a single small village, a seemingly primitive sort of conflict that shows as well as anything the timeless way real violence smashes people's grand ideas about war. No sentimentality, or glory, just grim, desperate grasping in the filth, chewing you up so badly in one way or another that victory becomes something only truly enjoyed by those you fought for, because the soldiers always lose.

Andrew James

as far as Korean War Films, I think Pork Chop Hill with Gregory Peck deserves honorable mention.

Alexander Songe

I think that Paths of Glory is seriously underrated, and I think that I can summarize why in a quick way that will either get you on board or disgust you. Paths to Glory is about the tragedy of middle management. The protagonist is about the highest he can realistically get without being born into the aristocracy. He is a defense attorney whose education and occupational status allow him to take a higher rank. He is high enough in the chain of command to glimpse the idiotic machinations of those in charge and the petty politics (not even the grand disputes, but the truly petty infighting and squabbles), but low enough to see everything that happens on the ground. It was apparently one of the inspirations for The Wire.

sympatheticjargon

i think that was the third (?) consecutive episode featuring mark's al pacino, and i am thoroughly in favor of this.

Crazy B0nkers

Here are some good non-US recent war movies: WW1: Captain Conan, A Very Long Engagement, La Peur. WW2: Stalingrad(1993), Days Of Glory. Indochina/Vietnam: The 317th Platoon, Dien Bien Phu. Algeria: L’Ennemi Intime. Afghanistan: 9 Rota/ 9th Company, Neither Heaven Nor Earth. That Little-Known Conflict in New Caledonia: Rebellion / L'Ordre et la Morale (awesome assault scene in the jungle at the end).

Crazy B0nkers

Otherwise, if I had to recommend only one war movie it would be Das Boot.

xnfec

It's been a long time since I saw these films but I think I liked them once. The director Sam Fuller made a film of his own memories of the war called "Big Red One" with Lee Marvin. I liked "Memphis Belle". Years ago, they used to show a film on Sunday afternoons called "A Walk in the Sun" with (wait for it) Jack Palance which was quite good. For Westerns, how about "Cheyenne Autumn"? I'd read the book which is based on a true story I believe, and wanted to see the film, but maybe more interesting than great. I was disappointed in "Catch 22". In the book you get a sense of some vast, unfeeling bureaucracy in the background but it was absent from the film. (Unrelated but for comic bureaucracy you can't beat "Infernal Machine" by Macleish and de San Marzano) The Spanish film, "Alatriste", is good for a story of the end of the 30 Years War. It is a condensation of about 5 or 6 novels in a series but is good. It shows a scene of a fight in siege tunnels during the seige of Breda. The film ends at Rocrois.

Crazy B0nkers

+1 for Alatriste. With Viggo Mortensen actually speaking good Spanish.

chowder_julius

There's a scene in the British sitcom Peep Show where Mark (one of the great TV war nerds) watches Das Boot on a date, and about an hour in his date asks how much longer it is.

eh

The Italians had a whole subgenre of Westerns set during the Mexican Revolution ("Zapata Westerns") which was large enough to spawn semiparodies like Long Live Your Death. I'd recommend Sergio Corbucci's Zapata trilogy ( The Mercenary, Vamos a Matar, Compañeros and What am I Doing in the Middle of the Revolution?). Compañeros is probably the most successful one, as it manages to pull of some pretty dark humor without veering into straight comedy like What am I Doing, but they're all worth watching.

eh

Corbucci also has a tendency to make his villains ex-Confederates for example in Django where one of the gangs Nero faces down is clearly modelled on the KKK, and Hellbenders, which follows some vile southern soldiers who are transporting a large amount of stolen gold in a bid to revive the CSA,

xnfec

I liked the odd pauses where you found yourself looking at an oil painting on the screen.

Jason McDonald

Any chance you can link the SITREP website that was briefly mentioned? I'm not familiar and it sounded intriguing to checkout.

Benjamin Glover

btw you totally need to pull a 20-30 minute segment out of this for preview purposes, this entire podcast is gold.

Brian

Awesome episode, and very funny

V. V.

Hacksaw Ridge is probably the best one in recent memory. The Beast also for a good low-budget cat-and-mouse movie with a Soviet tank getting lost in an Afghan mountain valley and followed around by a band of mujahideen. Shame the Russians speak English in it, but it does have a very strong script (adapted from a stage play if I remember correctly).

NaviaDaveaua

Wasn't the eternal city section of the Catch-22 movie pretty much the same as that section in the book? I thought it was pretty effective in the book.

Avery

That's why the last scene of that film is so great as well. It's not generic "war is hell," it actually reminds us about how much is beyond the control of the troops and goes unspoken.

radiowarnerd

Yeah, someone put that clip on FB after the episode. But Mark is a mere amateur. I took this woman to an actual theater, to see it in first release. There was no escape.

radiowarnerd

Yeah, I don't know a lot of these films but I did see Alatriste. Two amazing scenes stand out: the canal infiltration in Flanders and, of course, Rocrois.

radiowarnerd

Wow! That is definitely the first I've heard of a New Caledonia war film!

radiowarnerd

That's true. The more I thought about it, the more movies could be called war movies. Eileen mentioned that there has to be a combat scene according to some film scholars, but even that doesn't seem iron-clad.

radiowarnerd

After the show a friend of mine wrote that he knows someone who got 'Hail to the king, baby' tattooed on his arm, but the arm was too skinny and they had to cut the spacing and 'king baby' ended up as one word.

radiowarnerd

Yeah...never been sure about that one. Too much star power or something. Or maybe just my anti-Clooney bias. Every time I see him it seems like he should be wearing a doctor's coat in some soap opera.

S.L.

Welp, I've had my comments - two variations of the same thing - disappeared twice. I'll keep it link-free and simple this time, and see what happens... While I haven't seen it in many years, Paddy Chayevsky's (scriptwriter) 1964 "The Americanization of Emily" was a pretty solid antiwar film, at least for its time. I suspect it will have held up pretty well over the years on that score, though I'd have to watch it again before making that call. Having mostly remembered James Garner from the (IMO) relatively one-dimensional characters he played in his later years (especially on TV), it was nice to be reminded* that he could do more. *There are numerous clips on YouTube from the film - and I think the whole thing is available there, though maybe not free - and one clip in particular impressed me. I'm not linking to it here this time, since that may have been what zapped my earlier commenting attempts.

Avery

I see your comment and link this time. Patreon is terrible at saving comments and edits.

Hugo Turner

This Happened to me too last week Patreon is out of control.

Hugo Turner

Very funny episode. Burn is a great war movie from the director of battle of algeirs although hard to get ahold of in which Marlon Brando plays a british agent who first backs a slave revolution for geopolitical and economic reasons then crushes it once the island can be brought safely into the british empire.

xnfec

"Veteranos al frente!" is what I remember from the Rocrois scene. Also, "Big Red One" had a scene on the beach at D-Day where the group were desperately trying to swap numbers before the Bangalore relay up until the last minute.

Alex Hahl

Great episode. I'd always thought that "Eileen Jones" was a JD pen name since you're the only two people on the planet who use the word "bathos."

Adam Scott Glancy

The two wars that you mentioned as tragically under represented were the Spanish-American War and the Korean War. I wanted to throw out a few films that might fill that niche for you. First is the film “Amigo” (2010) directed by John Sayles. If you liked what Sayles did with films like “Eight Men Out” or “Matewan” you might enjoy this film. I thought it did a pretty good job showing America troops blundering into a Philippine village, which in turn is forced to adjust to the US occupation. Low budget. Good writing. Good performances. “Amigo” is a pretty realistic a film about counter-insurgency. Family connections determine political loyalties. There are grudges left over from the previous conflict against the Spanish. I particularly remember a scene where the US troops shoot all the village’s livestock and burn their crops, and then ship in canned rations that they keep under lock and key so none of it can be used by the insurgents. A sort of preview of the strategic hamlet tactic from Vietnam. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1562847/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_2" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1562847/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_2</a> On the other end of the realism scale is “The Real Glory” (1937) with Gary Cooper, David Niven and Broderick Crawford all arriving in Mindanao to help our “little brown brothers” grow up to be Americans. The first step appears to be creating the Philippine Scouts and instilling in them the martial discipline and manliness one expects from Gary Cooper. Later our Philippine Scouts will mow down bushels of sadistic, treacherous Moros, who are naturally led by a white actor in yellowface. It’s about as self-congratulatory and white washy as you’d expect from a 1937 film justifying our colonial possessions. Think “King of the Bengal Lancers” only with palm trees. Nevertheless it is an interesting artifact and I thought some of the actions sequences were pretty entertaining. There’s plenty of Colonial peril, with the Muslim Moros deploying their iron age version of the suicide bomber- the juramentado, who runs through hails of bullets to hack their target to death. Very informed by pulp-fiction notions of the Assassins of Iran and Syria. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031842/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031842/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1</a> Maybe it doesn’t count as a “movie,” but back in 1997 John Milius wrote and directed a miniseries for TBS called “The Rough Riders” that essentially followed Teddy Roosevelt’s involvement in the war. There are cameos by other later important military figures like Leonard Wood and John Pershing. It was limited by budget, but it covered some of the action in Cuba fairly entertainingly. However, I was a bit surprised by the number of German military advisors depicted among the Spanish forces. Milius makes a fetish out of historical detail, so I have to wonder about that. The film feels like an attempted return to Milius’ glory days with “The Wind and the Lion,” but I don’t think it succeeded. Nevertheless, it is at least a depiction of the Spanish American War that includes accidentally shooting the Cuban rebels and dying of Yellow Fever. So there you go. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118453/?ref_=nv_sr_1" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118453/?ref_=nv_sr_1</a> As for Korea, I’ve got three films to suggest. The earliest is Sam Fuller’s 1951 “The Steel Helmet.” It featured a lot of snappy Sam Fuller dialog, and was a lot grimmer and grimier than most war movies of the period, maybe on par with “A Walk in the Sun” from WWII. And yes, while the US team is a rainbow coalition of ethnicities because we’ve got some points to make about how not segregated we are, and yes there is even a Korean kid who falls in with the dog faces who is named “Short Round” (I’m looking at you Spielberg), 1950s racial issues are not shied away from and Jim Crow and the Japanese internment both come up. Fuller was an infantryman in WWII and his experiences informed the film- especially a scene where a US soldier executes a communist prisoner. This was something Fuller insisted stay in the film despite objections from the US Army, which had provided much of the stock footage. This scene and others apparently got the film accused of being pro-Communist and financed by “Reds.” Apparently The Daily Worker didn’t think much of it either, so perhaps it was actually fairly balanced. Altogether “The Steel Helmet” seems relatively honest. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044072/?ref_=nv_sr_1" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044072/?ref_=nv_sr_1</a> The next Korean War film that might be worth your time is the 1959 “Porkchop Hill,” starring Gregory Peck. Frankly it freakin’ stars everyone… with a cast of “hey, it’s that guys” that goes on forever. The battle is meaningless. A hill is lost to the Chinese so Peck and his men have to take it back otherwise some insubstantial “advantage” will be lost at the negotiation table in Panmunjom. And while our soldiers are dying for this pointless piece of real-estate, every possible fuck up occurs. Search lights accidently illuminate the advancing Americans during a night assault and they are shot to pieces by the Chinese. Units are sent into the battle without being told there is a battle, so reinforcements get cut down before they arrive. And later, a unit gets an erroneous order to withdraw, even though the hill isn’t secured yet. When Peck is forced to deliver a speech about why this bullshit matters, it comes out as forced and hollow despite being delivered by Atticus Finch in olive drab. It might be worthwhile just for the way it edges up to the absurdity and brutality of the conflict. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053183/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_31" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053183/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_31</a> The last Korean war film I have to suggest is the 1962 film “War Hunt.” Starring Robert Redford as the draftee who’s arriving just at the end of the Korean conflict, with literally days to go before the armistice. Redford is told to steer clear of the company’s resident useful weirdo, played by John Saxon. Saxon is tolerated by the men, and enabled by the unit’s Captain. Instead of regular duty, Saxon just goes out every night and hunts and kills the enemy… ritualistically. But command keeps overlooking this because he’s useful for scouting enemy positions and keeping them off-balance. At some point the word comes down that the ink is dry on the armistice and as everyone celebrates Saxon’s character just packs up his gear and moves out into the DMZ to continue the hunt. Now the unit has to find Saxon and bring him out before he reignites the conflict (or at least causes an incident which will FUBAR the Captain’s career). When told the war is over, Saxon’s response is “There’ll be another.” <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056675/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_180" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056675/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_180</a>

sansheriff

This was a wonderful episode - started my subscription after hearing the preview.

radiowarnerd

Sorry the comments were deleted. Thanks for the tip! Never saw that. I'll look it up.

radiowarnerd

I remember that one quite well! There's a great scene where he paces around a room of planters (intercut with this beautiful slave woman) explaining to them why it's cheaper to pay workers than support slaves.

Jack Firman

Amy of Darkness is a classic. A couple of other 80s not mentioned Spies Like Us and original Red Dawn.

Timmay

I'm extremely late to this party, but I just caught up with this episode (love Eileen). We may shit on WWII movies (with good reason), but I highly recommend the deeply cynical 1968 movie Play Dirty with Michael Caine. Imagine The Dirty Dozen, but shot through with utter seriousness and no sentimentality, and filled with dirt and oil and grime - with an ending as bitter as Das Boot's. It's excellent. I'd also second (third?) the recommendation of Sam Fuller's The Steel Helmet. While it's not as good, his other Korean War film Fixed Bayonets! has a few great scenes including a battle in the snow. Some other interesting/unique American WWII films from that era (1940s-1950s) include Objective Burma with Errol Flynn, They Were Expendable by John Ford, Attack! by Robert Aldrich, and the incredible documentary Let There Be Light by John Huston. And if you've never seen the documentary The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On then try to track it down and watch it. It's an excellent and searing Japanese documentary about one man's search for the men responsible for the deaths of two soldiers in his old unit. (He fought in New Guinea, and if you know the history of that theater, then you know how utterly brutal, difficult, and depraved it was.)