It’s a reality of modern war films — or, at least, the good ones — that they tend to be horrifying and exciting at the same time.
You could say that’s a contradiction that grows out of the kinetic, larger-than-life nature of the movie medium.
Or you could say it’s a truth that expresses something fundamental about war: that the very reason war persists, for all its terror and destruction and death, is that there’s something in human nature that is drawn to war.
The movies, in their way, act this out for us.
Once again, though, I’m speaking of the good ones.
There is no more powerful an example than “Saving Private Ryan.” I have never seen a war film more thrilling, and I have never seen a war film that made me confront, more memorably, the unspeakable blood-spurting fear and devastation of war.By contrast,
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