Movies depicting WWII Redux

[Bruce Baird]

Dear Colleagues,

I am gratified at your quick response to my colleagues question, and  
I thank you on his behalf.  However, he confessed to me that he  
hadn't worded his question properly to get the response he wanted,  
though he had gotten leads about where to go and about further  
avenues for exploration, but I thought there was some utility in  
coming to you all again.

Here is his more nuanced question:

"What I had meant to inquire about was movies that depict major  
battle actions and that deal with them in a strategic sense.  So even  
1959's "Nobi" wouldn't suit, as it (it seems to me typically) deals  
with the _aftermath_ of the war (as with 1956's Burma Harp).  When  
does a Japanese studio try to tell the story of a major action from a  
point of view that is at least partly strategic or and not purely  
retrospective?  I have the feeling that it takes a while (though I'm  
guessing sometime in the 60s for "ownership" of the more successful  
engagements, at least, like Pearl Harbor). "

So the issue for my friend Steve is the retelling of battles not as  
if in hindsight, but as if from the perspective of actual  
engagement.  Of course, it is going to be hard to portray some  
battles because no one is going to be that excited about having to  
revisit losing, but as Steve suggests, there may be some early  
battles when the war was going well that a studio would want to  
portray, or there may have been left-leaning directors that would  
want to portray a lost battle in the postwar climate of partial  
repudiation of militarism.

Best,

Bruce


Bruce Baird
Assistant Professor
Asian Languages and Literatures
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Butô, Japanese Theater, Intellectual History

717 Herter Hall
161 Presidents Drive
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003-9312
Phone: 413-577-4992
Fax: 413-545-4975
baird at asianlan.umass.edu




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