People of every generation remember key events, defining moments that shaped their lives. The Greatest Generation, or the generation directly involved with World War II, in their own sense, despite witnessing various other significant events in their lives, continuously refers to D-Day as a major historical checkpoint, perhaps a critical event that ultimately shaped the success of American diplomacy throughout the twentieth century. Modeled after Cornelius Ryan’s bestseller of the same title, the wildly ambitious the Longest Day captures D-Day’s best and worst moments, delivering an utterly compelling story through the efficient integration of an overarching panoramic view and individual anecdotes, transcribing intangible emotions into precise …show more content…
The Longest Day, unlike other movies that portray the devastating effects of war, undermines the obligation to depict combat scenes through a restricted plot or behind the lens of a small group of soldiers. The movie, instead, covers D-Day’s significance beyond strategic and military successes, depicting the invasion in a holistic manner, accurately capturing the eagerness to fight, the fear and anxiety felt by Allied troops, and most vividly, the excitement among French civilians at the sight of Allied arrivals. As Allied forces await General Eisenhower’s decision, for instance, the movie captures fearful Americans ruthlessly gambling their savings away, studious generals anxiously finalizing their battalion's plans for the invasion and eager Brits blindly wishing against another postponement. The strangely intimate depictions of varying characters, in this case, accompanied by the deliberate use of poignant anecdotes, including the young soldier’s inner thoughts to divide his craps winnings between his mother and for celebrating once he arrives in Paris, truly allow the movie to highlight the spectrum of varying emotions amongst Allied troops in preparation for the invasion. Furthermore, as Allied battleships fires at strategic …show more content…
The movie, for instance, unlike other Hollywood blockbusters of the time, treats characters from each nation with magnanimous respect, portraying commonly abhorred German commanders as smart and brisk, lowly Brits filled with bravery, and most drastically, woeful French resistants with courage. These depictions, alongside the appearance of the vernacular accompanied by English subtitles in other versions, highlight the anodyne multilateral approach taken by the directors, suggesting that despite the Nazi outrages and woeful nationalism in postwar Europe, the United States continuously acknowledged its allies, overlooking past incidents to unify, perhaps even evoke a common European mentality against the imposing threats of Communism in the East. Contradictions between the depictions of varying nations, however, contradict the message sent by the movie’s magnanimous acknowledgement of each nation. The movie, unlike its portrayal of sharply dressed German commanders, often portrays Americans as plainspoken, blatantly crafting heroic personalities, attributing utter flawlessness to ordinary soldiers, separating these so-called heroes from their Allied partners. This glorification,
In An American Soldier in World War I, David Snead examines account of George Browne, a civil engineer who fought as part of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during World War I. Snead shares Browne’s account of the war through the letters he wrote to his fiancé Martha Ingersoll Johnson. Through Browne’s letters and research conducted of the AEF, Snead gives a concise, informative, and harrowing narrative of life as a soldier serving in the camps and front lines of the Great War. Snead attempts to give the reader an understanding of Browne’s service by focusing on his division, the 42nd Division, their training and preparation, combat on the front lines, and the effects of war on George and Martha’s relationship. As Snead describes, “Brownie’s letters offer a view of the experiences of an American soldier. He described the difficulties of training, transit to and from France, the dangers and excitement of combat, and the war’s impact on relationships.” (Browne 2006, 2) Furthermore, he describes that despite the war’s effect on their relationship, “their
“The war correspondent is responsible for most of the ideas of battle which the public possesses … I can’t write that it occurred if I know that it did not, even if by painting it that way I can rouse the blood and make the pulse beat faster – and undoubtedly these men here deserve that people’s pulses shall beat for them. But War Correspondents have so habitually exaggerated the heroism of battles that people don’t realise that real actions are heroic.”
Man, John, The Facts on File D-Day Atlas, The Definitive Account of the Allied Invasion of Normandy (Swanston Publishing Limited 1994)
Guy Sajer’s The Forgotten Soldier is a work notable not only for its vivid and uncompromising account of his experience as a member of the Wehrmacht in World War II, but also for its subtle and incisive commentary about the very nature of war itself. What is perhaps most intriguing about Sajer’s novel is his treatment of the supposedly “universal” virtues present within war such as professionalism, patriotism, camaraderie, and self-sacrifice. Sajer introduces a break between how war is thought about in the abstract and how it has actually been conducted historically.
Michael C. C. Adams' book, The Best War Ever: America and World War II, attempts to dispel the numerous misconceptions of the Second World War. As the title suggests, Americans came out of the war with a positive view of the preceding five turbulent years. This myth was born from several factors. Due to the overseas setting of both theaters of the war, intense government propaganda, Hollywood's glamorization, and widespread economic prosperity, Americans were largely sheltered form the brutal truth of World War II. Even to this day, the generation of World War II is viewed as being superior in morality and unity. The popular illusion held that 'there were no ethnic or gender problems, families were happy and united, and children worked hard in school and read a great number of books.' (115)
Many times readers lose interest in stories that they feel are not authentic. In addition, readers feel that fictitious novels and stories are for children and lack depth. Tim O’ Brien maintains that keeping readers of fiction entertained is a most daunting task, “The problem with unsuccessful stories is usually simple: they are boring, a consequence of the failure of imagination- to vividly imagine and to vividly render extraordinary human events, or sequences of events, is the hard-lifting, heavy-duty, day-by-day, unending labor of a fiction writer” (Tim O’ Brien 623). Tim O’ Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” examines the correlation between the real experiences of war and the art of storytelling. In O’Brien’s attempt to bridge the gap between fiction and non-fiction, the narrator of the story uses language and acts of violence that may be offensive to some.
In the history of modern western civilization, there have been few incidents of war, famine, and other calamities that severely affected the modern European society. The First World War was one such incident which served as a reflection of modern European society in its industrial age, altering mankind’s perception of war into catastrophic levels of carnage and violence. As a transition to modern warfare, the experiences of the Great War were entirely new and unfamiliar. In this anomalous environment, a range of first hand accounts have emerged, detailing the events and experiences of the authors. For instance, both the works of Ernst Junger and Erich Maria Remarque emphasize the frightening and inhumane nature of war to some degree – more explicit in Jünger’s than in Remarque’s – but the sense of glorification, heroism, and nationalism in Jünger’s The Storm of Steel is absent in Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Instead, they are replaced by psychological damage caused by the war – the internalization of loss and pain, coupled with a sense of helplessness and disconnectedness with the past and the future. As such, the accounts of Jünger and Remarque reveal the similar experiences of extreme violence and danger of World War I shared by soldiers but draw from their experiences differing ideologies and perception of war.
O'Brien, Tim. "How to Tell a True War Story." Writing as Re-Vision. Eds. Beth Alvarado and Barbara Cully. Needham Heights, MA: Simon & Schuster Custom Publishing, 1996. 550-8.
As I enter my last week as a twenty-year-old, I find myself nostalgically looking back on the past two decades while wondering what life has in store for me over the next two. Where will I be in twenty years? What will I have accomplished? Where will I be living? Will I be married? Have chil… wait a minute, no, that one will have to wait a few more years. These questions have all passed through my mind at one point or another over the last few weeks, but I realize that they are really quite a luxury. Paul, the narrator of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, never had the opportunity to lean back from his desk and daydream about what the next twenty years of his life had in store for him. He was busy dodging bullets and artillery shells, trying to stay alive on Germany’s Western Front during World War I.
Adams, Michael C. C. The "Best War Ever: America and World War II" Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD 1994. Bailey, Ronald H. The Home Front, U.S.A. Time-Life Publishing, Chicago, IL. 1978 Bard, Mitchell G.
When reading Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis’ ‘A War in Words’ I was initially overwhelmed at how the First World War and the experiences from 1914-1918 are portrayed throughout the book. From the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914 to children of 10 and 12 years old whose lives are threatened by the rampage of war, the book gives a moving interpretation of life in war; not only of the soldiers fighting for their country, but their families, their friends and their children. Telling the story of World War One from the ‘first shots’ in Sarajevo to the victory and defeat in 1918, ‘A War in Words’ uses diaries and letters to present a primary account of what happened during the war. Palmer and Wallis follow a number of soldiers-British, French, German and Russian-and children during the Great War through their many diary entries and letters home.
Book Critique of The Longest Day Cornelius Ryan, born in Dublin, Ireland in 1920, worked as a reporter covering the battles in Europe from 1941-1945 and then the final months of the Pacific Campaign. His articles were printed in both Reuters and the London Daily Telegraph. His first book was The Longest Day, published in 1959, selling over 4 million copies in 27 different editions. In 1962, a director named Darryl Zannuck made the book into a movie. Ryan's next book was The Last Battle, published in 1966.
The Vietnam War was not a “pretty” war. Soldiers were forced to fight guerilla troops, were in combat during horrible weather, had to live in dangerous jungles, and, worst of all, lost sight of who they were. Many soldiers may have entered with a sense of pride, but returned home desensitized. The protagonist in Louise Erdrich’s “The Red Convertible,” is testament to this. In the story, the protagonist is a young man full of life prior to the war, and is a mere shell of his former self after the war. The protagonists in Tim O’Brien’s “If I Die in a Combat Zone,” and Irene Zabytko’s “Home Soil,” are also gravely affected by war. The three characters must undergo traumatic experiences. Only those who fought in the Vietnam War understand what these men, both fictional and in real life, were subjected to. After the war, the protagonists of these stories must learn to deal with a war that was not fought with to win, rather to ensure the United States remained politically correct in handling the conflict. This in turn caused much more anguish and turmoil for the soldiers. While these three stories may have fictionalized events, they connect with factual events, even more so with the ramifications of war, whether psychological, morally emotional, or cultural. “The Red Convertible,” and “Home Soil,” give readers a glimpse into the life of soldiers once home after the war, and how they never fully return, while “If I Die in a Combat Zone,” is a protest letter before joining the war. All three protagonists must live with the aftermath of the Vietnam War: the loss of their identity.
Historically, American students are taught from a single perspective, that being the American perspective. This approach to history (the single perspective) dehumanizes the enemy and glorifies the Americans. We tend to forget that those on the opposing side are also human. The author's main theme centers not only on the loss of innocence experienced by Paul and his comrades, but the loss of an entire generation to the war. Paul may be German, but he may just as easily be French, English, or American.... ...
For a long time, when anyone thought of a war movie, they immediately thought of Darryl F. Zanuck’s, The Longest Day. Cornelius Ryan, who was the author of the book by the same name, and happened to be a D-day veteran himself, wrote the movie. The book meticulously recreates the events preceding and during the invasion. It is filled with detailed descriptions of multiple occurrences during the invasion. It explains everything from mass attacks on beaches and towns to humorous anecdotes. The book wasn’t exactly a story involving characters, and neither was the film. The Longest Day is more a story of tragedy, glory, and courage surrounding one very important day. And even though mainly American and English filmmakers produced the movie, the movie and book both portray the Germans fairly. But the film added so much to the story that the book could not. Without some of the stunning visuals that the five (Zanuck went unaccredited, but was said to have directed over half the movie) directors put in the film, it would have been impossible to comprehend the scale of it all.