politicalviolenceataglanceI leave to the reader, as an exercise, completion of this list…
1929 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque
1938 Johnny Got His Gun Dalton Trumbo
1957 Paths of Glory Stanley Kubrick
1961 Catch 22 Joseph Heller
1967 “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” Country Joe and the Fish
1969 “Fortunate Son” Credence Clear Water Revival
1969 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut
1970 “Vietnam” Jimmy Cliff
1970 “War” Edwin Starr
1971 “Imagine” John Lennon
1977 Born on the 4th of July Ron Kovic
1978 Coming Home Hal Ashby
1979 Apocalypse Now Francis Ford Coppola
1980 Breaker Morant Bruce Beresford
1981 Gallipoli Peter Weir
1981 White Man, Black War Bruce Moore-King
1989 When Heaven and Earth Changed Places Le Ly Hayslip
@WilHMoo
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Great list. Also “Grand Illusion”, “Three Kings”; “Dr. Strangelove”; “Fog of War”; Kurt Vonnegut also wrote a great anti-war play (also updated version of the Odyssey, 1973?) called “Happy Birthday, Wanda June.” It’s a bit dated, but parts are still powerful.
Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War is a great anti-war entry into the sci-fi canon. It’s social commentary is a bit dated, but it’s a novel that stays with you.
Bergman’s film Shame should be on this list. As should The Battle of Algiers, of course.
In the category of “one of these things is not like the other” is Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. Trumbo, a secret Communist party member, authored the book which was published in September 1939 right after the signing of the Hitler-Stalin Pact which unleashed WWII. For those under Communist party discipline in American the most important task was to prevent the U.S. from helping Britain and so Johnny Got His Gun was not really intended as a general anti-war book, rather it was a propaganda instrument designed to further the policies of the mass-murderer Stalin. Immediately upon the German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Johnny Got His Gun was, at Trumbo’s request, removed from circulation with Trumbo calling for U.S. intervention in the war in accordance with party instructions. During the war, when he received letters requesting copies of the book he turned the letters over to the FBI! It is a disgrace to include him on this list.