Potrayal of war in different forms of fiction media.

I was wondering how people feel about the potrayal of war in different mediums,how effective it is,and what you get out of it. for example my three thatI enjoy are.

Movies-Movies do a good job,at least at the visual aspects. I persoanlly feel though the biggest issues with movies is sometimes it glorifies violence too much,and seems most prone to anti or pro war propaganda and slants.

Video games-While i am one of the people that feel video games have the potential to be art,they are not near the level of other forms of media,except in one area which they excel. because of the immersion and interactivity of the medium,you have a very close view and actual emotional attachment to the concepts "glorious victory" and "the agony of defeat". They have a way to go,but could eventually be the best medium. Though like movies they can often also glorify violence without the opposite view of the horror of war.

Novels-to me these are the best,not only do they combine all the elements of above,but some of the best find a rare objectivity that no other form of media does for me.

This is just a start,not all my ideas,I just want to see if other people have ideas to discuss and debate on this subject.

This will be boring but I agree with each and every statement you made. I stray to books, as I think they are the best. Movies and videogames can't engross you the way a brilliant novel can. Thanks matty, spot on to the earlier discussion.btaylor2404

One year ago I read "The Afghan Campaign", by Pressfield, and it was amazing. It showed how war is very far from the glorious and epic versions shown in films. It was not anti-war in the true sense. It just showed you that war is nonsense.

And for the trivia, the book was about Alexander's campaign in Asia.

EDIT: But I consider movies to be the best in portraying war, no matter how far reality of war is from the image they portray of it sometimes.

Books and poetry are the place to go. Film and videogames can habit of sensationalising everything, which really isn't good, and while literature may do that as well, there is enough that doesn't to even it all out.

I definitely think novels are the best forms of media for portraying war mainly because they can describe what a character is really thinking. Brings the idea of fear and other emotions into the story much better than some movie with a bunch of buff guys with guns. (There are great war movies though.)

Books and poetry are the place to go. Film and videogames can habit of sensationalising everything, which really isn't good, and while literature may do that as well, there is enough that doesn't to even it all out.

Samwel_X

All mediums can portray war effectively if they do it right. In my opinion, the best representation of war and its horrors is to focus, not directly on the battles and action, but rather on the consequences. Grave of the Fireflies, Pan's Labyrinth and the Deer Hunter are all great examples.jointed

I'd say that both novels and films have their own advantages and weaknesses in how they depict war. Where novels and poetry can convey the innermost thoughts of the combatant the medium of film shows the visual end of it. Both medium are affected by the person who made them. Unless the writer and/or filmmaker are making a documentary (and even then certain biases will seep through) and historical dissertation their personal bias will affect the tone of their work.

Videogames can never truly depict war as anything but an entertaining endeavor. It's not the fault of the medium that it does. It's just the nature of the medium that it be, first and foremost a game.

For me films provide the more extreme emotional impact of the three genres. Books can provide deeper context in the form of longer discourses of inner thoughts and personal reflections to a given situation as well as painting vivid unseen pictures by way of meaningful poetic analogies. But to me films being a visual medium have to push the emotional context a bit further as we actually are forced to witness the horror as it is painted for the viewer and how it is perceived by the actor. It forces you away from your personal vision of the act and forces one on you which, depending upon what kind of a reader you are, can have a much greater impact.

For me video games are still the odd man out here and are very far away from creating much of an emotional impact on the player as the goal generally is to create an enjoyable playing experience and not a thought-provoking one. There have been some games that have strived to insert meaningful content or poetic imagery, such as Shadow of the Colossus, but these moments are generally brief and short-lived. One day perhaps.