The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Five stars are not enough. This work is quite thorough and entertaining. I now fancy myself somewhat of a military film guru thanks to the education from Jeremy Arnold and Jeanine Basinger.

Rating:
Summary: Over 1,000 films in total
Review: Knowledgeably written by Jeanine Basinger (Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, Wesleyan University), The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy Of A Genre is a close and detailed study of an entire class of movies (over 1,000 films in total), pertaining to World War II. Originally published in 1986, The World War II Combat Film has now been completely updated and significantly expanded. Enhanced with a thorough filmography, The World War II Combat Film is especially recommended for military movie buffs and an invaluable addition to academic Cinematic Studies and Film History reference collections.

Rating:
Summary: War as a Genre
Review: This is a very good, readable book that not only traces the development of the WWII combat film, but also discusses how genres change over time.

Basinger takes the WWII combat film to see how genres work. She did this because, obviously, there were none made before December 7th 1941, so there are no "lost films" in this genre. Thus she sees how genre elements come together gradually (the prototype phase), snap into place as a perfect model (the archetype), are used by skillful directors for powerful films that transcend the norm (masterpiece) and then lose their effectiveness and are inverted or combined with other genres to try to attract an audience (decadence.)

She looks at combat films from the 1940s to the 1980s, so she doesn't talk about all films made in Hollywood in 1941-5. If a film doesn't have a lot of combat, she ignores it. However, she does discuss many films and besides showing how genres develop, she shows how the combat film changed. The focus on a platoon of average Joes (Guadacanal Diary) eventually gives way to a focus on an elite force (Where Eagles Dare, for instance).

A very informative and thought producing book, perhaps the best by Basinger.