Characters who in the process of fighting the bad guys are less than fully noble themselves, antiheroes share many of the characteristics of villains. They may be violent, break laws, treat women badly, etc., but they generally follow a code of conduct that leaves them on the side of the angels by the final fade-out. Despite (or perhaps, because of) the fact that the antihero is usually a cynical loner, there is something romantic about this movie figure; he's a seemingly hardened man, but while the villains and even the heroine cannot always see his vulnerability, the audience always does - and it takes him to its heart.
The antihero came into being at the very beginning of the FILM NOIR era in the early 1940s, and he was (and remains) best personified by HUMPHREY BOGART. There were toughguy heroes during the 1930s, but they weren't antiheroes. James Cagney, Clark Gable, etc., played their share of hardedged protagonists, but it wasn't until Bogart played Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941) that the antihero was born. Bogart continued playing antiheroes in films such as Casablanca (1942) and To Have and Have Not (1944), but as the 1940s progressed and the film noir became a movie staple, actors such as JOHN GARFIELD and ALAN LADD joined the antihero ranks.
The rise of the western in the 1950s slowed the antihero movement, but it didn't stop it. In fact, westerns were a breeding ground for future antiheroes, as several of the most interesting actor/villains of the 1950s became antihero stars in the 1960s and early 1970s, including Lee Marvin, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson. A great many antihero stars began their careers playing bad guys, but not all of them. Clint Eastwood, for instance, became a star as an antihero in Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns and in the original Dirty Harry (1971), but he has since developed into a more conventional heroic star in the tradition of John Wayne.
The dividing line between heroes and antiheroes has become blurred in recent years as the viewing public has grown more accepting of violent and lawless behavior on the big screen. As a consequence, stars such as SYLVESTER STALLONE and ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER have some of the elements of the antihero, but they rarely elicit the vulnerability that is part and parcel of the antihero's makeup.
It comes as no surprise that there are far more films glorifying war than there are films condemning it. The big surprise, though, is that most antiwar films have been extremely successful at the box office.
In 1925, director KING VIDOR made The Big Parade, a shocking new kind of film: the realistic war drama. For the first time in Hollywood history, audiences were presented a fairly authentic view of men at war. For American audiences, an ocean away from World War I's bloody trenches, the movie was a revelation. The film's tenor was decidedly antiwar; it highlighted the terrible pain, agony, and waste of “the war to end all wars.” But rather than being repelled by the subject matter, audiences flocked to see the film. The Big Parade played in a first-run Broadway movie theater for 96 consecutive weeks, a record that remained unbroken for nearly 25 years. The film took in roughly $15 million and assured MGM's financial stability.
Several other popular antiwar films followed, including RAOUL WALSH's What Price Glory? (1926). But there wasn't another film to match the impact of The Big Parade until LEWIS MILESTONE made the film version of Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). The graphic battle scenes are so striking that even today, one is compelled to turn away from the screen in horror. The film was both an indictment of war and a box-office success. The antiwar movie virtually disappeared during the later 1930s as Hitler's Germany became an increasing threat to freedom, and when America finally entered World War II in 1941, the antiwar film was a genre of the distant past.
It was only after the conflagration ended that Hollywood took stock of the human cost of war. WILLIAM WYLER's Academy Award–winning 1946 film, The Best Years of Our Lives, was a thoughtful, realistic story of three veterans who return home exhausted, confused, and in one case, crippled. There are no battles in the movie, except for those fought in the souls of the survivors as they readjust to a changed world. The movie is about people, not politics, and is powerful and somber.
World War II had been a popular, justifiable war and in the cold war with Russia that quickly developed in the later 1940s, antiwar attitudes were equated with being “soft” on communism. The only way to make an antiwar film in that charged atmosphere was to set it in the past, and that's exactly what director STANLEY KUBRICK did. In the only significant antiwar film of its time, Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957) reached back to World War I to expose the insanity of warfare.
Thirty years later, Kubrick created yet another antiwar masterpiece, Full Metal Jacket (1987). But he was neither alone nor first in using the Vietnam War as a backdrop for his themes. Coming Home (1978), Apocalypse Now (1979), and Platoon (1986) successfully tackled the Vietnam War experience - and all of them were commercial hits. The popularity of antiwar films declined during the 1990s, perhaps because America's subsequent experiences with war did not occasion significant dissent similar to that provoked by the war in Vietnam. Military action in places such as Grenada, Kuwait, and the Balkans did not threaten American national security significantly and enjoyed not only popular support but also international approval. In 1999 came Three Kings starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, and Ice Cube, with a negative and stilted look at the repercussions of the first Gulf war.
The critically lauded film featured a highly stylized look and innovative visual sequences. On the eve of the second Gulf war, however, Michael Caine, playing Graham Greene's cynical and doubting Thomas Fowler in The Quiet American (2002) reminded Americans of the sort of mischief well-intentioned but morally blind American colonialists caused in French Indochina and could still provoke elsewhere in the world.
The popularity of many antiwar films, however, has always been subject to criticism. It is often said that antiwar films that make their point through action and adventure also tend to glorify war and ennoble it; the violence inherent in battle scenes may be what draws large audiences, not the underlying antiwar message. But it's worth noting that what draws a moviegoer to the theater may not necessarily be the same element that he or she remembers when the film is over.
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1. Don Ameche was one of the leading men of 20th Century Fox
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