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WAR EMOTIONS EFFECT ON FLIM

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
We made it--England the allied high command--we had quite the long, hard and
miserable journey, but it was all well worth it to have escaped from the German prisoner of war
camp. The trip had many unique stops that could have been disastrous along the way.
Scene 1 the beginning three prisoners of war named bobby, Joe, and Steve that have
been sent to a stalag in the middle of Germany. There is about 200 prisoners in the camp and the
camp is approximately 40 miles from the North Sea. Bobby, Joe and Steve were talking and
came to the conclusion that we would never get out of this miserable place; however, there is an
officer in our camp that had some connections outside the camp. This officers name is col.
Hogan. He would talk to London on our secret radio. The connections that Hogan has to the
outside world the Germans called these people the underground, they classified these people as
traitors to the third right and spys, and they helped us to escape. Joe and his friends had been
talking to Hogan and they got the ok and then decided to dig a tunnel out from our barracks.
Scene 2 the Escape On our journey we were helped by these people dressed as
innkeepers merchants and other people. Thank god for Steve to be a great impersonator of
German voices. They were all dressed in civilian clothes with maps identification papers and
small amount of food. The people in the underground were at specific check points along the
way. The goal of our escape was to get to the English Channel were we would get picked up by
an English submarine. This is the end of our story of the escapes from the Nazis. This is an
example of a screen play from the time around WWII.
Over the past fifty years the film industry and war time scenarios have changed lots in the
way of plots, reasoning, and philosophy behind the films. There is however one thing that

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remains very different in the films form the past fifty years to now. Throughout this paper we
will explore the evolution of the war time films genre; also we will investigate the reason for the
creation of the Prisoner of War genre during World War II along with the portrayal of the genre
in the period.
Before I go in to any detail I feel the need to explain my relations to the topic. My
feelings on this topic is that the truth should always be revealed. I am not an active or past
soldiers or pass veteran; however, most of my family is veterans my grandpa was in WWII and I
have a couple of uncles that were in Vietnam. As an avid Hogans heroes watcher I have a love
for the comical story that is portrayed. I love the system of tunnels and the way that they operate
in a prisoner of war camp. I have been watching this kind of shows and movies for about five
years. I have been to Germany myself and seen the people over there. I am not a reader by any
means that I get a lot of important information from movies, TV Shows, and documentaries.

LITERACY REVIEW
My sources are very specific they bring lots of good strong points to the topic of the
prisoner of war genre. Mr. Royer it helps to explain how the French cinemas have evolved over
the years of war in all the countries. They use a very unique phrase in this article that is very
intriguing to talk about the types of fill that are made and it goes Just as written history is not a
solid and unproblematic object, But a mode of thought, so is the historical film said by Mr.
Royer.in the French theater that made it apparent to avoided all of the harsh content so that the
people wound not get worried and it was felt that it was not good for morale (Royer, 2012). Now
in the next article, Mr. Elliott has a very unique side of the film to look at is in his eyes the
movies play to the peoples emotions and get a lot of heighten emotions; he write an

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autobiography that mentions way of escapes in films TV shows the critical part of this is that it is
the Americans point. Some movies that he mentions that show this in action is in Rambo first
blood part 2 and the biggest is the great escape this movies shows how that 70 prisoners
attempted to escape with theirs movies and many more they all have those people that we call
intrepid heroes. Mr. Elliott has gone on to reference another show that was played around 1965 it
is called Hogans heroes and it a sitcom that show that a prisoner of war that choses to stay
behind to help outers to escape from Germany(Gruner, 1993). In this next source Mr. Cull states
that the war played a huge part in the life of the English and that they had created the prisoner of
war genre and it was filled with post war phenomena; the genre was started in 1946 and it
spanned all the way to 1963 with the movie The Great Escape. The genre was claimed to be
authentic implicit and explicit to give a sense of the truth of the time; Prior to that time the war
genre was composed of mostly memories of former war vets. They felt that it was important for
the English community. the stories that the vets told is what gave them bases for how the TV
shows and or movies would be made; the overall plot as explained by Mr. Cull is that the
prisoners would all cause trouble foe the Germans at all times and that they would end up with
tunnels that they would use for escaping(Cull, 2014).
The next way that I found to break it down was the secrets to escapes in the films.
Hogans heroes is a show that was started in 1965 that was a motivational piece; the reason for
this piece of acting done by Hollywood was to make the tragedies of the time period not as
terrible, but instead they wanted to show a different side of the camps. In this observation I have
received a notion of a camp that the commandant and the prisoners go along good and they lived
together in a kind of harmony. This all and all is what would be called propaganda and this gives
me explicit examples of the type of things that the prisoners would do by trying to escape and or

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punish the German war effort at all cost (Russo, 2014). Then, in this source you look at a very
sneaky side if the WWII film study; you look at the spys that are on both sides and how they
affect what is going on with the war. The spys are always looking for other spys the reason for
this is that they like life in their own world and spys can tell when there is another around. In
this article it is talking about how that the reasons for some of the happening around the war is
by the spys messing around and cusing trouble (Rubenstein, 2000).
The last way to show was to come out and say what was happening. Mr. Pringle
and his associates are very descriptive with the way that they explain the POW camps of WWII;
they explain them as how the prisoners were separated by their ranks and by the outfit that they
are in and they called them weird German names. They did reiterate that the activity that most
prisoners was digging escape tunnels the rough estimate is that about 60 tunnels were dug per
year and trying to break out ;however they did not all want to participate in this so there for some
would rather try their luck going over or under the fences of the camps. Even in these camp they
had developed escape committees and they were common in different parts of the camps
however when the escapes would be attempted only a few at a time would be able to escape in a
tunnel.in this book it was very descriptive in this on camp that they are in(Pringle, Doyle, Babits,
2007). The chapter of the book is called the month of escapes. It starts off with the prisoners
saying that their chance to escape is slowly diminishing unless that they move fast. They had
twenty eight other prisoners try to escape but they all got caught and with each escape the
window got tighter. In this chapter they talk about the prisoner of war camp as a castle; that is
what it felt like to them. In this chapter it talks about the way that they sustained life in the camp
at Coldits, they said that it was imprisonment twenty four hours a day seven days a week; and
that they would get so board and the only way to get rid of it was to play games or organize

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events. Most of the inhabitants were British soldiers. Eventually they organized a thing called the
Olympic Games and the book says that the British never listened and that where ever they were
supposed to be there never was one. It was a fun in games until the British tried to escape during
the closing ceremonies (Chancellor, 2001).
ENTERING THE CONVERSATION
During war time it is a very uneasy and peoples emotions are much effected. In my
literature review I have shown the things that have been done to do what some people would say
is sugar coating. In the French cinemas they made it apparent to no show what was actually
going on in the war. They are not the only ones to do that all of the major allied powers were
doing this. The next ones were the English it was said by Mr. Elliot how the cinemas where
making movies that made the Germans different they actually were. One of the films made by
the English was The Great Escape now the Americans also made a film but it was more of a TV
show that was like the English movie and it was called Hogan`s Heroes. These films of the
time were very good at what they did. And these countrys felt that it was necessary to reclassify
these films.
The real world situations are sometimes unbearable to think about. World War II was a
hard time for the allied powers, the countries are America, France and, England. The major thing
that was going on is the propaganda of the war. This is also during the time of the Jewish
concentration camps. The knowledge of these events bring on great oppression to a countrys
spirit this spirit leads to moral. What really happened in the prisoners of war was some of the
most horrific thing that could happen.
The film industry plays a key role in our lives and it can influence our judgments. The
question that comes from these two sides of this conversation why not tell everyone what really

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happening in the war. What really happens during the time is so crucial to the emotions that we
have. Over the many years the film world has changed in what movies and TV shows can show
and how much they show. In this time period I feel that there is more freedom to what gets
shown.
Films during the time of WWII lots of stuff was going on with the war with the axis
powers especially Germany; therefor there was a need for a specific genre for the movies about
the war and it is known as the POW genre. The films that were made during this time were like
Hogans heroes, the great escape, and von Ryans express. In these films they all shared
somewhat of a common relation. These production all portrayed the Germans as incompetent
fools primarily. They also allowed the prisoners of war to run their camps and operation of
escaping. With things like radios, trains, and tunnels. The prisoners were well taken care of and
were protected by what was known as the Geneva Convention. This genre was made to hide the
realities of war.
In film structure in this day in age we show everything. We look at it as the more detail
the better. Now back during the time it was not good to show all the harsh reality of what was
going on in the POW camps. We look at the prisoner of war genre, we consider comedy;
however, in this time the genre is filled with more documentarys and true storys. The show that
we see now are of what really happened in the camps. Now people want the true story about the
prisoners in the camps starving and dying in cramped barracks.

CONCLUSTION/ SO WHAT
In this paper I have brought up the changing of the film industry in the past fifty years
especially during war time. We have explored the creation of the prisoner of war genre in WWII.

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The main purpose of this paper was to show how the time period plays a big role on what can
and will be shown over TV or movie. In this paper so far I have brought up crucial points of film
during the time of World War II. Some of these topics include the way that war films were
detailed and especially the prisoner of war camps. I have added may contribution of how in the
22nd century we find out what really happened in these camps. The films like The Great
Escape, Von Ryans express and, Hogans Heroes were created to lighten the mood and to ease
the public on war. In other words that were a form of propaganda for the allies.
The importance if my contribution is to let the truth come out. Many people of this time
were under the influence that theyre friends were in good care cause they were solders. The
truth of it was they were treated similar to the Jews of the time. Now there was some sabotage
but nothing like in these shows. The films that we made for this time were just to bring to
knowledge of the time but they however did not want the people to be frightened. From my
research I have learned a lot form what the time was all about. I was one of those people that was
in the dark about the am I love to watch these show and all the crazy actions that happen in the
camp. From the sub way of tunnels all the way to the outside connections for the camp and even
the craziest getting dressed in German clothes and walking out of the camp. It is a very important
topic to know to understand the history. The question that I feel that need to be answered and
could use some or explanation is the ones like how where other films influenced during other
times of the year like Vietnam, the Korean war and other important events of the year.

Work cited

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Royer, Michelle. "Shaping and Reshaping WWII: French Cinema and the National
Past." Literature & Aesthetics 16, no. 2 (2012).1
Pringle, J. K., P. Doyle, and L. E. Babits. "Multidisciplinary investigations at Stalag Luft III
allied prisonerofwar camp: The site of the 1944 great escape, Zagan, Western
Poland." Geoarchaeology 22, no. 7 (2007): 729-746.3
Author(s): Lenny Rubenstein
Source: Cinaste, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Spring 1979), pp. 16-21
Published by: Cineaste Publishers, Inc
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41685906 .
Accessed: 02/10/2014 21:25
Gruner, Elliott. "What code? Or, no great escapes: The Code of Conduct and other dreams of
resistance." Armed Forces & Society 19, no. 4 (1993): 599-609.1
Cull, Nicholas J. "Great Escapes: ?Englishness? And The Prisoner Of War Genre." Film History:
An International Journal 14 (2002): 282-95. Accessed October 6, 2014.
http://www.jstor.org.librarylink.uncc.edu/stable/3815433.
Russo, Nicholas. "Hogans Heroes Observations, UNCC Cameron building, 2014
Chancellor, Henry. "Month of Escapes." In Colditz: The Untold Story of World War II's Great
Escapes, 169-189. New York: W. Morrow, 2001.3
Chancellor, Henry. "The Stage Is Set." In Colditz: The Untold Story of World War II's Great
Escapes, 75-90. New York: W. Morrow, 2001.3
(Chancellor, 2001)