Unbroken: Analysis of the Portrayal of War War is proven to be a contest that produces no winner. In the film Unbroken, directed by Angelina Jolie, two sides are examined: the Japanese soldiers, exemplified by a man nicknamed “The Bird”, and the prisoners in the Japanese POW camp, specifically former Olympian Louie Zamperini. Even though history declares America the “winner”, this film shows the contrary; American soldiers must deal with grueling conditions in a POW camp and endure the cruel treatment of The Bird. However, the narrative that history primarily recognizes is still present in the short portrayal of Japan post-atomic bomb; the audience was shown a city in ruins with its buildings torn down, reduced to rubble, and bodies being …show more content…
“If we win, we’re dead” he warns them. This quote displays how the prisoners realize that the American’s success would translate into their deaths. Furthermore, the inevitable defeat of either the prisoners or the United States in this situation demonstrates the absence of a true “winner” as a result of war itself. Overall, the position that Zamperini finds himself in provides a contrast to the illusion that Americans had emerged victorious over the Japanese after the war. He must endure the wrath of the Bird, such as being punched in the face by each prisoner because he decided not to lie about America and his situation for a Japanese radio show. Zamperini, a representation for the United States of America, had experienced sever abuse at the camp. This provides a metaphor for the true result of World War II, or any war, as portrayed in Unbroken: that war guarantees no legitimate …show more content…
As the Japanese soldiers march the POWs into a new camp, the company must walk through a city brought down to the ground. On top of the pile of rubble, corpses covered by sheets are surrounded by grieving people; with a Japanese Torii the only structure left standing; it is highly inferred that this destruction is the result of the atomic bombs dropped by the United States. This scene displays the equally-less discussed point of view of the uninvolved Japanese citizens, in order to complement the movie’s focus the POWs. The historical defeat of Japan in World War II, as featured in Unbroken, reveals the point of view of an American looking in on the destruction left by their home country, a feeling shown through the somber faces of the POWs as they marched on. Along with their countenance, the stealing glances taken by the prisoners demonstrate their second-hand guilt as they look on at the bodies and mourners that travel the city. Decisions to include scenes such as this were a result of the director of the film, in this case Angelina
These six chapters illustrates the time Zamperini spends in U.S. Air Corps while fighting in World War II. The first five of there chpters detail Zamperini’s training, deployment, missions, and the dangers of flying in the war. The final chapter introduces the crashing of their plane into the ocean.
World War Two was a rough time for the US. Along with Louie Zamperini and Miné Okubo. The novel Unbroken written by Laura Hillenbrand, is based on the time period of WWII. WWII was between Japan and America. Zamperini was an Olympian who went into the air forces, once war broke out. In the article The Life Of Miné Okubo, Okubo was a Japanese-American who grew up in America and was put into a camp once Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Both Louie Zamperini and Miné Okubo struggled to get by during the war, but they managed. Zamperini and Okubo resist invisibility, and dehumanization the camps try to put them through, and have resistance against World War Two, as they fight for their lives.
Films are created for many reasons. Some of these include to entertain, inform, and raise awareness. Whilst the film ‘Kokoda’ is entertaining, it also has some value as a historical source. However, its information is limited and some aspects of the battle are not portrayed. The battle conditions for Australian soldiers in Papua New Guinea is presented in an informative way in the movie yet it does not cover the conditions the Japanese soldiers had to face as well. The portrayal of the conditions for the 39th battalion full of Australians is depicted effectively in the film through scenes that emphasise the struggle and difficulties the soldiers faced due to them. We can see the tough terrain in many scenes in the movie such as when the
In the essay “The Scar,” the author Kildare Dobbs reports the parallel stories of Emiko; a young Japanese girl and Captain Robert Lewis; a U.S. army Captain harrowing events of Aug 6/1945 in Hiroshima, a day that forever changed their lives. Emiko, a 15 year old “fragile and vivacious” Japanese girl lived an hour’s train ride away from Hiroshima, in a town called Otake with her parents, her two sisters and brother. At that time, her youngest sister was extremely sick with heart troubles, her 13 year old brother was with the Imperial Army and her father was an antique dealer. Emiko and her 13 year old sister Hideko traveled by train daily to Hiroshima to their women’s college. Captain Robert Lewis was the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, a U.S.
Within the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story,” O’Brien writes about a story that Mitchell Sanders recounts to be true. The surrealist part is when Sanders talks about how they heard noises within the forests of Nam. Sanders says, “...but after a while they start hearing -you won’t believe this- they hear chamber music… Then after a while they hear gook opera and a glee club…” (Pg. 71). When he says this he is really adding details to pad the story up. Like when Sanders say, “The whole country. Vietnam. The place talks. It talks. Understand? Nam - it truly talks.” (Pg. 71). He means to say that he added those things that they heard because there were sounds they heard that couldn’t be explained. Later on he says that those things they heard
According to the author Tim O’Brien, people tend to readily accept the ‘facts’ presented of what happened during a war. People do not consider the existence of fallacies regarding the actual stories of what happens in wars, few consider that the ‘facts’ of an incident often change through people’s words. The film ‘Saving the Private Ryan’ by Steven Spielberg features both facts and seemingness part of the war story. Since it is so difficult to fully describe a war using human language, Spielberg ended up revising his stories to make sense out of it. Spielberg included parts that did not occur or exclude parts that did occur in order to make their stories seem more credible. According
Tomorrow When The War Began is a well-known novel written by the Australian writer John Marsden, detailing the seige of Australia by an unknown power. In this book, the author draws out both the inferior and superior side of the characters in the various circumstances faced during war. This is clearly illustrated at the beginning of the book when the characters Homer, Kevin and Ellie take a journey to Hell. However when they returned, they realised that they were involved in a war. To suit this sudden realisation, they changed both their approaches and attitudes. These significant character changes reveal a completely different side of them, resulting in the considerable difference of character even when accompanied by their closest companions. Consequently, their friendship was brought to a whole new level. All of the changes is attributed to the realisation of the war, and it would be true to say that war brings out both the worst and best in people.
War can be loud and visible or quiet and remote. It affects the individual and entire societies, the soldier, and the civilian. Both U.S. prisoners of war in Japan and Japanese-American citizens in the United States during WWII undergo efforts to make them “invisible.” Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken hero, Louie Zamperini, like so many other POWs, is imprisoned, beaten, and denied basic human rights in POW camps throughout Japan. Miné Okubo, a U.S. citizen by birth, is removed from society and interned in a “protective custody” camp for Japanese-American citizens. She is one of the many Japanese-Americans who were interned for the duration of the war. Louie Zamperini, as a POW in Japan, and Miné Okubo, as a Japanese-American Internee both experience efforts to make them “invisible” through dehumanization and isolation in the camps of WWII, and both resist these efforts.
During World War II, thousands of POWs experienced isolation and dehumanization in an Japanesethe attemptefforts of the Japanese to make them feel invisible. In Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, American POW and former Olympic runner Louis “Louie” Zamperini rwas just one of the many soldiers who was dehumanized while in Japanese
Individuals everywhere grimace at war. Images of the strike of the gun, the burst of the bombs, and the clash of the soldiers all elicit a wince and a shiver. Moviegoers close their eyes during gory battle scenes and open them again only once the whine of the bullets stops rattling in their ears. War is hell, as the common aphorism goes, and the pain of war is equally hellish. Most individuals naturally accept this conclusion despite never experiencing war themselves. Without enduring the actual pain of war injuries, individuals still argue the importance war and its miseries. Individuals rely on media and entertainment for education about the suffering and evils of war. Writers provide an acute sense of a soldier’s physical and mental
History has shown how Japanese people are stoic people. During the time of terror and grief they showed no emotions but put one foot forward and continue to strive to build their communities. The six characters each experience the bombing but feel as if it only happened to them at first.
Jarhead follows the journey of Anthony Swofford during his service in Middle East. Throughout his journey, Swofford presents a unique perspective on a variety of issues that indirectly affect American life and the “war” on terrorism. Some of the issues touched on include the mental stability and mentality of American soldiers, the influence of politics in the presentation of war, and the construction of a marine. Through these themes, along with the unique perspectives offered by the characters in the film, the audience is able to gain insight into the corruption and lies that are “war”. This insight ultimately helps the audience analyze the text deeper and enables them to draw the similarities in current events and dissect what they
The us armies are foolish to believe that Japan have not surrendered yet and is their fault they have caused millions of death. After the military analysts insists that Japan is on its knees because they are weak, they claim that the “American ….
Many Japanese viewers went and watched the movie, leaving the theatre in tears due to the scenes relating so vividly to the events that occurred. One such occurrence included the lucky dragon incident, which involved a tuna trawler that trekked dangerously close to an H-bomb test site, resulting in radiation poisoning to the crew members. Along with this imagery, a still illustration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in ashes after being hit by Godzilla symbolizes the attack of atomic bombs by the Americans. This visual resembles how both cities looked after they had been attacked by the atomic bombs. After the successful release of the film, Japanese critics accused the directors of cashing in on national hysteria, and thus were not pleased. To support Ryfle’s argument, Susan Napier partially agrees with what Ryfle has to say in her article, “Panic Sites,” by stating that “the notion of disaster is of course not the only theme in Japanese science fiction” (Napier 330)—meaning that the aesthetic concentration of disaster is not always praising the special effects but moreover looking at the effects of disaster. Furthermore, she states, “The film offered its immediate post war Japanese audience an experience that was both cathartic and compensatory, allowing them to rewrite or at least to re-imagine their wartime experience” (Napier 330). They both conclude that certain science fiction movies have intensive dramatics as well as something important to
As this film chronicles the disaster of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this is not the end-all goal for Honda’s film; as his film demonstrates, this is only the beginning of the horrors to come, and as the old adage holds true, we must learn from our past or be condemned to repeat it.