Film Studies Librarian
Lucinda M. Hall
Contact:
Evans Map Room, Baker-Berry Library
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
(603) 646-0962
Website Skype Contact: d1128r8@kiewit.dartmouth.edu
Other library resource(s)
- Apocalyspe: the Second World War byCall Number: Streaming videoApocalypse brings a 21st-century perspective to the Second World War, the deadliest and most destructive conflict of all time. Using archival footage -- most of it previously unseen and now colorized -- the series takes a very human look at the enormity of the conflict through the eyes of the people who lived through it: the front-line soldiers, the victims, and the political and military leaders. Using mostly unfamiliar footage -- including home movies shot by soldiers and civilians -- this series brings you the ultimate re-telling of an era of courage and fear, offering a comprehensive new examination of history's most devastating war. ...
Celluloid wars: a guide to film and the American experience of war by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .W3 W48 1992ISBN: 9780313260995This easy-to-use guide explores the relationships between film images and the experience of war, showing how films influence war-time behavior and how wars influence films. This unique reference combines essays on the aesthetic and historical aspects of war films with classifications and discussions of films about different wars, a filmography arranged alphabetically with annotations, a bibliography of books and articles dealing with war films, a general guide for film study, along with separate indices to film titles, filmmakers, and subjects. ...
Theaters of war: how the Pentagon and CIA took Hollywood by Call Number: Streaming videoIf you’ve seen Top Gun or Transformers, you may have wondered: Does all of that military machinery on screen come with strings attached? Does the military actually get a crack at the script? With the release of a vast new trove of internal government documents, the answers have come into sharp focus: the US military has exercised editorial control over thousands of films and television programs. ...
The Vietnam experience: a concise encyclopedia of American literature, songs, and films by Call Number: Baker-Berry DS 557.73 .H55 1998ISBN: 9780313301834The Vietnam War was one of the most painful and divisive events in American history. The conflict, which ultimately took the lives of 58,000 Americans and more than three million Vietnamese, became a subject of bitter and impassioned debate. The most dramatic, and frequently the most enduring, efforts to define and articulate America's ill-fated involvement in Vietnam emerged from popular culture. American journalists, novelists, playwrights, poets, songwriters, and filmmakers, many of them eyewitnesses, have created powerful, heartfelt works documenting their thoughts and beliefs about the war. By examining those works, this book provides readers with a fascinating resource that explores America's ongoing struggle to assess the war and its legacies. ...
War film from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286War films first appeared in 1898, a few years after the birth of the motion picture. Their subject was the Spanish-American War, which began shortly after the sinking of the USS Maine. From the beginning they proved a sensational draw for audiences who wanted information about the first major international conflict they and the country were experiencing. War films have remained a consistent attraction for viewers. ...
An introduction to war films
An enduring, varied, international genre showing scenes of war. Home-front dramas, veteran films, service comedies, basic training films, documentaries, prisoner-of-war movies, and partisan films may all be regarded as war films. However, the war film is generally (if somewhat arbitrarily) regarded as featuring scenes of combat that are dramatically central and that determine the fate of the film’s principal characters—hence the other commonly used term, combat film. As a sub-set of the history film, filmmakers have shown the wars of ancient Greece and Rome, medieval crusades, the Napoleonic wars, and the US Civil War (the latter described as ‘war pictures’ in the early film trade press); and yet the genre is typically associated with 20th-century wars: for example, the Edison Company’s films of the Spanish-American War and British films of the Boer War are often claimed to be the earliest war films. ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). War film. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 17 May 2021
Finding library resources for war films
To find film resources on wars in general or a specific war, you can use the subject headings like the ones below.
- war filmsCall number range PN 1995.9 .W3 on Baker Level 4. Add a country's name to see what we have focused on that country.
- vietnam war 1961 1975 motion pictures and the warMost resources are located in the call number range DS 557 through DS 559.9.
Introductory reading(s)
A companion to the war film by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .W3 C66 2016ISBN: 9781118288894A Companion to the War Film contains 27 original essays that examine all aspects of the genre, from the traditional war film, to the new global nature of conflicts, and the diverse formats that war stories assume in today's digital culture. Includes new works from experienced and emerging scholars that expand the scope of the genre by applying fresh theoretical approaches and archival resources to the study of the war film Moves beyond the limited confines of "the combat film" to cover home-front films, international and foreign language films, and a range of conflicts and time periods. ...
War and film by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .W3 C53 2008ISBN: 9781861893475From the onset of the film medium, directors have found war an endlessly compelling and fruitful subject for their art. In War and Film, Chapman explores their fascination as well as audiences' enduring need to examine and experience the vicissitudes of war. Chapman examines the issues of truthfulness and realism that arise in depictions of war, whether in the supposed truth telling of war documentaries or Hollywood battle scenes that are "more realistic than the real thing." The book considers films from the U. S., Britain, and Europe, and the national responses to cinematic depictions of particular conflicts. ...
The war film by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .W3 W36 2005ISBN: 9780813534978War has had a powerful impact on the film industry. But it is not only wars that affect films; films influence war-time behavior and incisively shape the way we think about the battles that have been waged. In The War Film, Robert Eberwein brings together essays by scholars using a variety of critical approaches to explore this enduringly popular film genre. Contributors examine the narrative and aesthetic elements of war films from four perspectives: consideration of generic conventions in works such as All Quiet on the Western Front, Bataan, and The Thin Red Line; treatment of race in various war films, including Glory, Home of the Brave, Platoon, and Hamburger Hill; ...
Why we fought: America's wars in film and history by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .W3 W53 2008ISBN: 9780813191911Film moves audiences like no other medium; both documentaries and feature films are especially remarkable for their ability to influence viewers. James Brady remarked that he joined the Marines to fight in Korea after seeing a John Wayne film, demonstrating how a motion picture can change the course of a human life -- in this case, launching the career of a major historian and novelist. In Why We Fought: America's Wars in Film and History, editors Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor explore the complexities of war films, describing the ways in which such productions interpret history and illuminate American values, politics, and culture. This comprehensive volume covers representations of war in film from the American Revolution in the 18th century to today's global War on Terror. ...
Selected book title(s)
The Battle of Britain on screen: The Few in British film and television drama by Call Number: Baker-Berry D 743.23 .M329 2007ISBN: 9780748623907This book examines in depth for the first time the origins, development, and reception of the major dramatic screen representations of "The Few" in the Battle of Britain produced over the past seventy years. It explores both continuity and change of presentation in relation to a wartime event that acquired near-mythical dimensions in popular consciousness even before it happened and has been represented multiple times over the course of the past seven decades. ...
Lebanese cinema: imagining the civil war and beyond by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .L4 K47 2008ISBN: 9781845116286Modern Lebanese cinema can best be explored in the context of the Civil War, in part because almost all the Lebanese films made since its outset in 1975 have been about this war. Lina Khatib takes 1975 Beirut as her starting point, and takes us right through to today for this, the first major book on Lebanese cinema and its links with politics and national identity. She examines how Lebanon is imagined in such films as Jocelyn Saab's Once Upon a Time, Beirut, Ghassan Salhab's Terra Incognita, and Ziad Doueiri's West Beirut. In so doing, she re-examines the importance of cinema to the national imagination. ...
Mediating war and identity: figures of transgression in 20th and 21st century war representation by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .W3 M43 2020ISBN: 9781474446266In state and public discussion about war and conflict, figures of transgression such as deserters, pacifist and emigrants are often marginalised, but they also play a key role in rethinking cultural and national identity in the wake of military violence. Raising questions of agency, responsibility and culpability in relation to the 'other', their cultural representation can enable reflection on and renegotiation of values and collective norms after the destabilisation of war. Through an interdisciplinary lens, this collection analyses the depiction of these transgressive figures in a variety of visual media, as well as the narrative, socio-cultural, political and historical contexts in which they emerge.- Nuclear war films byCall Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .W3 N8ISBN: 9780809308798The first book-length critical examination of nuclear war motion picture feature films, documentaries, and educational short films in addition to recognizing a new film genre reflects an important era of modern film history. Taken as a whole, the 25 contributions by 21 film specialists brought together here provide a comprehensive view of 32 feature films, documentaries, and educational short films comprising a representative selection of the new genre all produced between 1946 and 1975 by American, French, British, and Japanese film makers. In addition to discussions of such well-known films as On the Beach, Hiroshima, mon amour, and Dr. Strangelove, the collection analyzes and comments on a number of less well known but important films such as A Thousand Cranes, Countdown to Zero, and To Die, To Live, documentaries and educational short films that hitherto have been inadequately presented in cinema literature. ...
The philosophy of war films by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780813141688Wars have played a momentous role in shaping the course of human history. The ever-present specter of conflict has made it an enduring topic of interest in popular culture, and many movies, from Hollywood blockbusters to independent films, have sought to show the complexities and horrors of war on-screen.
Finding articles & journals
Articles and other writings about war movies can be found in many publications. We don't have any periodicals that look exclusively at war films in our collections. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find articles.
Film & television literature index by Call Number: Electronic resourceUse this index to find articles about war films.
Screen studies collection by Call Number: Electronic resourceA comprehensive survey of current publications related to film scholarship alongside detailed filmographies. This collection includes the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database and the detailed and complementary filmographies created by the American Film Institute (AFI) and the British Film Institute.
The web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Selected list of war films
Find more war films in the library's online catalog.
49th parallel by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #5282ISBN: 9781934121269When a Nazi U-boat crew headed by the ruthless Lieutenant Hirth is stranded in Canada during the thick of World War II, the men evade capture by hiding out in a series of rural communities before trying to cross the border into the still-neutral United States.Danny Boy by
Call Number: Streaming videoThe true story of a young soldier's journey from hero to alleged war criminal, the determined lawyer on his tail and their search for truth in the fog of war. Brian Wood is among several British soldiers accused of committing war crimes after a specific engagement in Iraq, the so-called Battle of Danny Boy. The allegations call into question Brian's memories, his actions and the example he wants to set to his wife Lucy, sons Bailey and Charlie, and his former soldier dad Gavin. ...
Die Fälscher = The counterfeiters by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #7627ISBN: 9781424898923Germany, 1936. Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch is the king of counterfeiters. He lives a life of cards, booze, and women. Suddenly his luck runs dry when he is arrested by Superintendent Friedrich Herzog. He is immediately thrown into the Mauthausen concentration camp. There, Salomon exhibits exceptional skills and is soon transferred to the upgraded camp of Sachsenhausen. Upon his arrival, he once again comes face to face with Herzog, who is there on a secret mission. Hand-picked for his unique skill, Salomon and a group of professionals are forced to produce fake foreign currency under the program Operation Berhard. The team, which also includes detainee Adolf Burger, is given luxury barracks for their assistance. Salomon attempts to weaken the economy of Germany's opponents. But, Adolf refuses to use his skills for Nazi profit and would like to do something to stop the operation. Now faced with a moral dilemma, Salomon must decide whether his actions are ultimately the right ones.
Hollywood contra Franco = A war in Hollywood by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #16550Feature-length documentary about the impact and influence that the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) had in Hollywood film production during the years of strife and the evolution of Franco's image over various political periods: from the affection and support towards the Republican cause and the romantic vision of war by many liberal artists and creators, to the upholding Franco's in the '40s and '50s.
The hurt locker by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #9500US Army Staff Sergeant Will James, Sergeant J.T. Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge comprise the Bravo Company's bomb disposal unit stationed in Baghdad. James is the tech team leader. When he arrives on the scene, Bravo Company has thirty-nine days left on its current deployment, and it will be a long thirty-nine days for Sanborn and Eldridge whose styles do not mesh with their new leader. James' thrill of the dismantlement seems to be the ultimate goal regardless of the safety of his fellow team members, others on the scene or himself. On the other hand, Sanborn is by the books: he knows his place and duty and trusts others in the army to carry out theirs as well as he. Eldridge is an insecure soldier who is constantly worried that an error or misjudgment on his part will lead to the death of an innocent civilian or a military colleague. While the three members face their own internal issues, they have to be aware of any person at the bomb sites, some of who may be bombers themselves.
In harm's way by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #1868ISBN: 9780792172505Epic treatment of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the attack on the naval base.
Joyeux Noël = Merry Christmas by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #4505ISBN: 9781424817627Loosely based on true episodes, this film tells the story of German, French, and Scottish soldiers in the bloody trenches of World War I and the miraculous Christmas Eve truce they unexpectedly forge. Follows a French lieutenant, a Scottish priest, and a German tenor and his beloved Danish soprano as music and the spirit of Christmas create bonds between enemies.
La bataille d'Alger = The battle of Algiers by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #2223ISBN: 9780780028876Dramatizes the harrowing events of 1957, a key year in Algeria's struggle for independence from France. Recreates the tumultuous Algerian uprising against the occupying French in the 1950s. As violence escalates on both sides, the French torture prisoners for information and the Algerians resort to terrorism in their quest for independence. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range, women plant bombs in cafés. The French win the battle, but ultimately lose the war as the Algerian people demonstrate that they will no longer be suppressed.
Nobi = Fires on the plain by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #5536ISBN: 9781934121283In this Japanese anti-war film, acts of cannibalism bring home the terrifying brutality of war. Japanese troops are in retreat in the Philippines. Supplies run out and discipline crumbles.- No man's land: hell on earth byCall Number: Streaming videoThe story of five men -- an Englishman, a Frenchman, a German, a Russian Jew and a Black man, who meet on the battlefield of World War I. Setting aside their prejudices, they refuse to kill each other and march forward against the real enemy -- War! The themes of international brotherhood resulted in this film being destroyed by the Nazis in 1933, but a surviving American print was discovered and restored. (We have the videotape in the collection).
A pozdravuji vlastovky = Give my love to the swallows by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #3199ISBN: 9781565804630Tells the true story of Maruska Kuderikova, a courageous, young Moravian girl who was part of the Czech Resistance during World War II. Maruska was arrested by the Nazis for her resistance work, an experience she chronicled in a makeshift diary.
Tangerines by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #18996An older ethnic Estonian man cares for two wounded soldiers from opposite sides of the 1990s-era war in Georgia. The story of awakening humanity in the midst of violence.
Internet resource(s)
- List of war films and TV specials from WikipediaLooking for a specific war depicted in a movie? This page lists movies under particular wars.
- War film from WikipediaWar film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about naval, air, or land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. ...
- War films from The Criterion CollectionSince 1984, the Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, has been dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements.
