by Chris Marshall:
Among Oscar winners, anyway, war films have tended to be
character studies, rather than broad action movies. That’s understandable; the
people involved in the wars are typically more interesting (to me, at least)
than who wins and loses particular battles. War often brings out the very best
and very worst of people, so it can lead to some fascinating cinema.
Just think about the films that have won so far. Even the
very first Best Picture winner, Wings,
was a war movie that focused on two pilots (and their love triangle, also a
favorite of the Academy). In more recent years, there’s been Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai, the latter
of which was in some sense a war movie but was more interested in Colonel
Nicholson’s devotion to being a leader of men than it was in any bigger
picture.
And now we have Patton,
a hybrid war movie/biopic that examines a small period in the military life of
General George S. Patton, one of the most successful and controversial men in
the history of the American military.
