The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre

by Jeanine Basinger

Traces the development of the war film as a genre, describes the stories of typical examples, and shares examples of variations on the genre, including comedies

Genres: Media Tie In, Film, Nonfiction, World War II, War

373 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Jeanine Basinger holds a BS and MS from South Dakota State University. She is a film historian, professor of Film Studies at Wesleyan University and curator and founder of The Cinema Archives at Wesleyan University. In addition, she is a trustee emeritus of the American Film Institute, a member of the Steering Committee of the National Center for Film and Video Preservation, and one of the Board of Advisors for the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers.

She has appeared in several movie-related documentaries and completed audio commentaries on about a dozen classic films.

Reviews

[Nat]

It is such a relief to read a book about war movies without having to read through endless complaints about how what are supposed to be Marines are, in fact, wearing army uniforms, or that the tanks are Korean-war era M-47s and not WWII Shermans, or that the last stand in Saving Private Ryan is unrealistic because the Germans would have blasted the church steeple right away rather than letting the sniper up there shoot a bunch of their guys (it does annoy me, however, that it is a P-51 that blows up the German tank at the end rather than a P-47 or a rocket-firing Typhoon and someone refers to it as a "tank buster").

This book is enjoyable in all sorts of ways, but I will be indebted to it forever for telling me about the documentary The Fighting Lady (watch it on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5JbX...), which was shot by Edward Steichen and has the most incredible gun camera and carrier deck footage I've ever seen. I was familiar with some of the footage of damaged Hellcats crashing on the carrier, but there was a lot more that I hadn't seen, including the brutal shredding of a gigantic Japanese "Emily" recon float plane by a bunch of Hellcats (though I guess the Emily was pretty heavily armed: 5 20mm cannon and a bunch of MGs).

It's also a refreshingly non-film studiesy, non-jargony study of genre, which just goes ahead and gives you a list of the generic features of the combat film.

[Michael Ritchie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a fan of WWII movies (not just combat films, but espionage and homefront films as well), I enjoy genre theory, and I like reading academic film studies, but this book was not nearly as enjoyable a read as I was hoping. She repeats details constantly, she rarely delves deeply into any of the movies she focuses on, and she is terrible at giving any kind of plot summary--many don't even get a cursory summary sentence or two. (I did like her book The Star Machine, though I am not particularly fond of her audio commentary for The Philadelphia Story--something of a wasted opportunity). She does a nice job of setting up the genre conventions for the combat film and the earlier films that influenced it, but that takes up about a third of the book. The rest, as she discusses "evolution" and variations, is fairly tedious. However, her 50-page annotated filmography at the end of the book is fun and interesting, and the only reason I'll probably keep this book on my shelves. [BTW, Goodreads, her last name only has 1 "s")

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

While focused on a very narrow topic, ww II combat films, this book is the definitive source for anyone working in this genre. It's wonderful and rich in knowledge.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Basinger uses the WW II combat film (she's old enough to remember when WW II films were depicting current events) to study how a genre develops, matures, evolves (hence the focus — WW II films including home front drama, spy stories and basic training would be a much larger and unmanageable topic).
The first WW II films drew heavily on conventions of WW I films, then developed their own iconography and tropes. Later films became self-referential, recycling the established tropes, but also putting a fresh spin on them. WW II combat films could be anti-war, question the nature of heroism, take a different view of the horrors of war, cross with other genres (WW II musicals! WW II SF combat films!).
It's not a history of WW II movies or combat movies per se, but more analytical than that, which works for me. And happily Basinger can write without sinking into academese.

[Malcolm Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was disappointed that the author did not discuss British war fims,particularly since she discussed Operation Burma in great detail.This was a film withdrawn from British cinemas due to its distortions of the Burma campaign,as American troops had minimal involvement.The film was based on the exploits of Wingates Chindits.
I found the first half of the book interesting.However after 1945 she tended to ramble on a bit and I became less interested.