Reading Comp - War Movies

[MadeleineK361]

During and immediately after a war, Hollywood films typically trumpet the glory of sacrifice and unquestioning patriotism. Ten to fifteen years later, however, morally fraught and sometimes pacifistic movies about the conflict typically emerge. For example, after America joined World War I in 1917, the still infant film industry glorified the fight against “the Hun.” But by the early 1930s, films such as All Quiet on the Western Front did not shy away from depicting the horrors of combat and the disillusionment of soldiers. After World War II began, the cycle repeated itself. Guadalcanal Diary, produced during the second world war, portrayed “the ultimate sacrifice” as a noble and undisputed good while diminishing the ethical complexities. By 1957, though, films such as The Bridge on the River Kwai, first published in book form in 1952, were winning awards for depicting the moral confusion inherent in war. Subsequently, the movie The Green Berets, produced at the height of the Vietnam war in the late 1960s, was far closer in tone to Guadalcanal Diary than to The Bridge on the River Kwai. A decade or more passed before the film industry finally began producing more complex and ambivalent depictions of the Vietnam war, such as Apocalypse Now and Platoon.

Question: The passage implies which of the following about the message portrayed in the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai?

A. It supports the author’s view that it is better to depict the full complexities and moral confusions of a conflict than to pretend that sacrifice is always worthwhile.
B. It put forward the pioneering portrayal of the moral confusion of war.
C. It represented a more realistic depiction of war than did the message in Guadalcanal Diary.
D. It incorporated the negative aspects of war more so than did the message in Guadalcanal Diary.
E. It was more similar in tone to the message in Apocalypse Now than to the message in All Quiet on the Western Front.

The correct answer is D. I put C because the author says the film portrayed the moral confusion INHERENT in war. The use of the word "inherent" implies that the author agrees that moral confusion is present and true in any war, and thus this portrayal is realistic. Meanwhile, to generalize "negative aspects" is unfair here. There is no definition of what is negative in this passage - the passage says the later films are more complex in terms of ethics and morals and perhaps that they depict more violence, but there is no reason to believe the initial portrayals do not depict some negative aspects as well - they likely have plenty of combat, death, and blood involved - the passage does nothing to lead us to believe otherwise. I suppose I could justify the answer by inferring that they depict more negative aspects than the other films, but it take an inferential step and does not help me understand why C is wrong. I would greatly appreciate some guidance.

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

First, I'm glad to see that you're choosing between C and D, and I agree that it's a subtle difference. There's clearly a distinction between two types of film: ones such as 'The Hun', 'Guadalcanal Diary', and 'The Green Berets' that glorify war, and those such as 'All Quiet on the Western Front', 'The Bridge on the River Kwai', 'Platoon', and 'Apocalypse' now. In general, the latter group sounds both more realistic and more negative about war than the first group.

However, I disagree with your logic that portraying an "inherent" characteristic necessarily means that a film is more realistic. There may be other features of the film that make it unrealistic.

I encourage you to notice that answer D follows from the statement that 'Guadalcanal Diary ... portrayed “the ultimate sacrifice” as a noble and undisputed good', and 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' is introduced as a contrast to Guadalcanal Diary, implying that it incorporates more negative aspects.