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The Fatal Alliance: A Century of War on Film – An Arresting Meditation on the Moral Conundrum of Depicting Battle on Screen
From one of the greatest living writers on film, a magisterial look at a century of battle depicted on screen, and a meditation on the twisted relationship between war and the movies. “Thomson’s own genius is his ability to remain one of the leading authorities on cinematic history, without shying away from the controversial. Cinephiles seeking provocative arguments will appreciate his work.”— Library Journal In The Fatal Alliance the acclaimed film critic David Thomson offers us one of his most provocative books yet—a rich, arresting, and troubling study of that most beloved the war movie. It is not a standard history or survey of war films, although Thomson turns his typically piercing eye to many favorites—from All Quiet on the Western Front to The Bridge on the River Kwai to Saving Private Ryan . But The Fatal Alliance does much more, exploring how war and cinema in the twentieth century became inextricably linked. Movies had only begun to exist by the beginning of World War I, yet in less than a century, had transformed civilian experience of war—and history itself—for millions around the globe. This reality is the moral conundrum at the heart of Thomson’s book. War movies bring both prestige and are so often box office blockbusters; but is there something problematic at how much moviegoers enjoy depictions of violence on a grand scale, such as Apocalypse Now, Black Hawk Down, or even Star Wars ? And what does this truth say about us, our culture, and our changing sense of warfare and the past?
448 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 14, 2023
26 people are currently reading
1813 people want to read
About the author
David Thomson
66 books152 followersDavid Thomson, renowned as one of the great living authorities on the movies, is the author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fifth edition. His books include a biography of Nicole Kidman and The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. Thomson is also the author of the acclaimed "Have You Seen . . . ?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. Born in London in 1941, he now lives in San Francisco.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
July 31, 2024
Unreadable. The author is exceptionally smug, and mocks just about everything with scathing vitriol including people trying to read his book. I gave up on this book at page 33, (normally I give any book 50 pages), but the authors' constant lecturing me on how I don not know how to read a map, am unaware of history, current events, and don't know anything about war movies forced me stop reading this book.
As a lifelong reader, with a passion for history books and someone who really enjoys movies as well, I regret buying this book. In my opinion, the author took great pleasure through his sarcastic prose to point out how smart he is and how ignorant his readers are. Finally, in his critique of the movie "Black Hawk Down", he incorrectly labeled the actor Tom Sizemore character as a Sergeant, but was a Lieutenant Colonel. If you are going to be smug and pretentious, at least be accurate.
As a lifelong reader, with a passion for history books and someone who really enjoys movies as well, I regret buying this book. In my opinion, the author took great pleasure through his sarcastic prose to point out how smart he is and how ignorant his readers are. Finally, in his critique of the movie "Black Hawk Down", he incorrectly labeled the actor Tom Sizemore character as a Sergeant, but was a Lieutenant Colonel. If you are going to be smug and pretentious, at least be accurate.
November 28, 2023
READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE
THE FILM industry of the nineteen-thirties hadn’t explored the war-film sub-genre as much as the gangster-film. The Big Parade (1925) by King Vidor walked so that All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) could win Outstanding Production (Best Picture) at the third Oscar Awards. The former received $20 million at the box office from a sub-$400 thousand budget, and, according to David Thomson in his new book, The Fatal Alliance: A Century of War on Film, “may be the most influential war movie ever made. Its mix of battle and romance (and box office) would be crucial. A genre was established.” More than that, it helped solidify MGM as a prominent studio and proved that war films could be massively profitable. But Thomson criticizes the naivety of Vidor and his use of unrealistic aesthetics for effect. Never mind that this was the first of its kind in an industry invented thirty years prior. He prefers Virginia Woolf’s influence of WW1 on the character of Septimus Warren Smith in Mrs. Dalloway, or Robert Graves’s memoir about being wounded on the Somme, as if literature (a medium he inherently privileges without qualifiers) provides an insight into explorations of interiority while cinema explores exteriority, a concept new for cinema (remember, thirty years old, versus literature, which is…much older).
Thomson then moves on to All Quiet. It was adapted from the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a former Imperial German soldier who wanted to write an early entry in the explicitly non-satirical anti-war sub-genre. His novel was published less than a year before the Great Depression started, in Germany, which was quickly translated into English and became the highest selling novel of 1929 in the United States, ten years after that war had ended. Universal Studios bought the rights and immediately began production. Thomson approves of the improvements made since The Big Parade, which scrapped the romantic plot and led to the death of the protagonist in the end. (He also admires the poetic and ambivalent English title, but not before mistranslating the German title literally.) All Quiet made considerably less money at the box office than The Big Parade on a bigger budget, but that doesn’t matter, according to Thomson, because it’s remembered today in a more favorable (critical) light.
Here begins, nearly one-hundred pages into The Fatal Alliance, the problem of context—time and place and politics, oh my, in that, there isn’t much in this monograph. The ambition of a book on a century of war on film with less than four hundred pages of text came at the loss of a lot of background information. While this wouldn’t generally be a problem, Thomson, rather than offering an exhaustive analysis on the matter, criticizes some films for their narrow-minded point of view devoid of historical context. While I agree with this regarding the lazy war-films, the same way period-pieces in general should be critiqued, it would owe a great deal to the sub-genre—and reader—to know more about, perhaps, why black Americans haven’t been more present, or women, or other nationalities. Thomson focuses nearly all his attention on Anglo-American productions, much like his own split-Atlantic identity, as well as several hand-picked continental European examples. The exceptions to the rule include a large chapter simply called “Russia” as well as passing references to colonial peoples in Zulu (1964).
Global historical context is important. But reading this gives one the idea that Thomson’s traditional impressionistic staccato writing style fails to mention that, for instance, The Big Parade was made during a moviegoing highpoint while All Quiet was released half-a-year into the Great Depression. The Depression is referenced, but not explained, nor used conjunctively with “Great,” three times. “Interwar,” “inter-war,” and/or “inter war,” a vitally important era for the sub-genre, along with “modernity” and/or “modernism” are never mentioned. Thomson expects You to know that, which is why he uses that pesky second-person “you” and royal “we” to implicate you and/or me, the reader(s), in his own shorthand of history. Neither can one find much information on the British Empire, nor its hand-over to the Americans in the 20th century, an important event You should already understand, I guess. Instead, he prefers patronizing the reader for not knowing where Somalia is on a map or how many Russians died during WW2—as if he’s unlocking the historical archives for the first time, thus enlightening us. He’ll be shocked to find out how many Chinese people died via the occupation by the Japanese Empire.
Thomson too often relies on disputed facts and anachronisms in his disjointed impressions. For instance, he claims that WW1 “was the first war in which governments felt the need to justify the exercise of those who served.” Before 1914, did governments never propagandized war efforts to retain combat readiness? It wasn’t even the first war of the century to do this. Or that the machine gun, specifically the MG 08—which he uncomfortably fetishizes and tries to implicate us in that as well—though invented in 1890, “had very little testing in action.” Perhaps the Russo-Japanese War, taking place before Thomson’s starting point in 1914, wasn’t cinematic enough. But apparently WW1 was the annunciation of many other weapon technologies: machine guns as well as long-range artillery, submarines, airplanes. One shouldn’t bother looking into the Boer War, the American Civil War, or the Italo-Turkish War. And lastly, to make a counter-point about Russia, he writes that “battle has not been fought on US ground since 1865.” Does Pearl Harbor not count because it was mostly in the water/air—a game of semantics? But surely, he knows about the American Indian Wars, right? As disgusting as those were, they were fought on, and very much for, so-called “US ground.” Or what about that incursion by Pancho Villa into New Mexico in 1916 that Patton was sent to quell? Thomson mentions this incident no more than sixty pages prior but maybe forgot.
THE FILM industry of the nineteen-thirties hadn’t explored the war-film sub-genre as much as the gangster-film. The Big Parade (1925) by King Vidor walked so that All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) could win Outstanding Production (Best Picture) at the third Oscar Awards. The former received $20 million at the box office from a sub-$400 thousand budget, and, according to David Thomson in his new book, The Fatal Alliance: A Century of War on Film, “may be the most influential war movie ever made. Its mix of battle and romance (and box office) would be crucial. A genre was established.” More than that, it helped solidify MGM as a prominent studio and proved that war films could be massively profitable. But Thomson criticizes the naivety of Vidor and his use of unrealistic aesthetics for effect. Never mind that this was the first of its kind in an industry invented thirty years prior. He prefers Virginia Woolf’s influence of WW1 on the character of Septimus Warren Smith in Mrs. Dalloway, or Robert Graves’s memoir about being wounded on the Somme, as if literature (a medium he inherently privileges without qualifiers) provides an insight into explorations of interiority while cinema explores exteriority, a concept new for cinema (remember, thirty years old, versus literature, which is…much older).
Thomson then moves on to All Quiet. It was adapted from the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a former Imperial German soldier who wanted to write an early entry in the explicitly non-satirical anti-war sub-genre. His novel was published less than a year before the Great Depression started, in Germany, which was quickly translated into English and became the highest selling novel of 1929 in the United States, ten years after that war had ended. Universal Studios bought the rights and immediately began production. Thomson approves of the improvements made since The Big Parade, which scrapped the romantic plot and led to the death of the protagonist in the end. (He also admires the poetic and ambivalent English title, but not before mistranslating the German title literally.) All Quiet made considerably less money at the box office than The Big Parade on a bigger budget, but that doesn’t matter, according to Thomson, because it’s remembered today in a more favorable (critical) light.
Here begins, nearly one-hundred pages into The Fatal Alliance, the problem of context—time and place and politics, oh my, in that, there isn’t much in this monograph. The ambition of a book on a century of war on film with less than four hundred pages of text came at the loss of a lot of background information. While this wouldn’t generally be a problem, Thomson, rather than offering an exhaustive analysis on the matter, criticizes some films for their narrow-minded point of view devoid of historical context. While I agree with this regarding the lazy war-films, the same way period-pieces in general should be critiqued, it would owe a great deal to the sub-genre—and reader—to know more about, perhaps, why black Americans haven’t been more present, or women, or other nationalities. Thomson focuses nearly all his attention on Anglo-American productions, much like his own split-Atlantic identity, as well as several hand-picked continental European examples. The exceptions to the rule include a large chapter simply called “Russia” as well as passing references to colonial peoples in Zulu (1964).
Global historical context is important. But reading this gives one the idea that Thomson’s traditional impressionistic staccato writing style fails to mention that, for instance, The Big Parade was made during a moviegoing highpoint while All Quiet was released half-a-year into the Great Depression. The Depression is referenced, but not explained, nor used conjunctively with “Great,” three times. “Interwar,” “inter-war,” and/or “inter war,” a vitally important era for the sub-genre, along with “modernity” and/or “modernism” are never mentioned. Thomson expects You to know that, which is why he uses that pesky second-person “you” and royal “we” to implicate you and/or me, the reader(s), in his own shorthand of history. Neither can one find much information on the British Empire, nor its hand-over to the Americans in the 20th century, an important event You should already understand, I guess. Instead, he prefers patronizing the reader for not knowing where Somalia is on a map or how many Russians died during WW2—as if he’s unlocking the historical archives for the first time, thus enlightening us. He’ll be shocked to find out how many Chinese people died via the occupation by the Japanese Empire.
Thomson too often relies on disputed facts and anachronisms in his disjointed impressions. For instance, he claims that WW1 “was the first war in which governments felt the need to justify the exercise of those who served.” Before 1914, did governments never propagandized war efforts to retain combat readiness? It wasn’t even the first war of the century to do this. Or that the machine gun, specifically the MG 08—which he uncomfortably fetishizes and tries to implicate us in that as well—though invented in 1890, “had very little testing in action.” Perhaps the Russo-Japanese War, taking place before Thomson’s starting point in 1914, wasn’t cinematic enough. But apparently WW1 was the annunciation of many other weapon technologies: machine guns as well as long-range artillery, submarines, airplanes. One shouldn’t bother looking into the Boer War, the American Civil War, or the Italo-Turkish War. And lastly, to make a counter-point about Russia, he writes that “battle has not been fought on US ground since 1865.” Does Pearl Harbor not count because it was mostly in the water/air—a game of semantics? But surely, he knows about the American Indian Wars, right? As disgusting as those were, they were fought on, and very much for, so-called “US ground.” Or what about that incursion by Pancho Villa into New Mexico in 1916 that Patton was sent to quell? Thomson mentions this incident no more than sixty pages prior but maybe forgot.
April 22, 2025
This is not just a film-lover's book. Not just a war-movie-lover's book.
Even though I am both, I found myself discovering that the book means ultimately to dig at the psychological relationships among viewers, makers, and subject matter.
And to suggest a warning about how art -- usually beneficial in revealing the 'reality' beyond daily experience -- also can condition us away from seeing what is uncomfortable to know about ourselves and from avoiding our worst actions.
Movies pamper our sense of heroics while letting us (semi-)consciously explore rigors without effort and bloodlust without blame. They condition us to minimizing the cost of aggression and war.
And in doing so, allow the ignorance of actual situations that lead to conflict.
Thomson has written many superb books on movies, and it's clear he loves them and knows them. This is one of them. As a writer, he gives more than quippy journalistic advisory insights professional reviewers lay out. But he's not attempting the stuffy theoretics of an academician.
He's a scout on the same path we step.
Our lookout.
Even though I am both, I found myself discovering that the book means ultimately to dig at the psychological relationships among viewers, makers, and subject matter.
And to suggest a warning about how art -- usually beneficial in revealing the 'reality' beyond daily experience -- also can condition us away from seeing what is uncomfortable to know about ourselves and from avoiding our worst actions.
Movies pamper our sense of heroics while letting us (semi-)consciously explore rigors without effort and bloodlust without blame. They condition us to minimizing the cost of aggression and war.
And in doing so, allow the ignorance of actual situations that lead to conflict.
Thomson has written many superb books on movies, and it's clear he loves them and knows them. This is one of them. As a writer, he gives more than quippy journalistic advisory insights professional reviewers lay out. But he's not attempting the stuffy theoretics of an academician.
He's a scout on the same path we step.
Our lookout.
July 31, 2024
This book was like a podcast run by a guy in his late twenties who talks but doesn't listen. It goes off on tangents that have nothing to do with the title. It's opinionated in an 'i'm so clever i don't even need to give you context because you should know this stuff already ya jerk' way rather than a 'i'm going to break this down for you in a succint, easy to understand way because i know what i'm talking about' way. The opening chapters are just long winded, stream of conciousness diatribes that don't meet the title, and when he talks about the actual films, you don't get any inference or reading other than 'This was a great film' or 'this might not be such a good film.' The only good thing about this book is him knocking America's perception of it's own place in the world wars.
July 29, 2024
Meandering and bloated, not to mention a tenuous grasp on actual military history (citing the literal Nazi propaganda number for Dresden, for instance), I was mostly just finishing this out of spite at the end. Many words to say very little, and just felt outright masturbatory at points in terms of just how pointless some digressions ended up being.
March 2, 2024
Solid analysis of Black Hawk Down, that’s about it. Sounds like a self-flagellator
May 30, 2024
Absolute drivel, keeps going off on non relevant tangents, uses some films as an opening to lecture on politics, said Casablanca was naff, factually inaccurate in places. Avoid like the plague.
July 21, 2024
Thomson at his smuggest.
January 27, 2024
My thanks to both Goodreads and the publisher Harper for a copy of this collection of essays discussing the fascination of filmgoers with movies dealing with war, and what is says about us, our enjoyment of entertainment, and the different messages these movies contain.
David Thomson has probably forgotten more about movies than I will ever know. Renowned for his biographys and biographical dictionaries on players, performers and craftspeople, along with histories about the film industry, Thomson has in recent books focused on different genres and themes in movies. For this book, The Fatal Alliance: A Century of War on Film, Thomson looks a the portrayal of War from gung-ho films, to documentaries and looks at why people love these kind of films, the messages behind some of the more popular, and looks at lost and forgotten works that still ring true today.
Thomson talks much about his past in this book, growing up a child during the Blitz and bombing of London during the Second World War. Thomson's house was close to a target, a railway station, and bombs fell close, in fact causing part of his house to be condemned. At the same time Thomson grew up with survivors of war, from an Uncle whose body was left shattered, another relative who told of being at the front in the First World War, and others in the neighborhood. And yet Thomson grew to enjoy war films, not understanding their draw at first, but with years of film experience Thomson explains what makes this movies work. From patriotic drivel, award winning films, documentaries, and films that really capture the experience of civilians at war. Thomson looks at directors, actors, the many different wars, and Cold War movies also.
David Thomson is a wonderful writer, a man who loves film, understands the power of film and loves to learn, experience and share with others. The writing is very good, and one doesn't have to be a TCM watcher or film student to understand what Thomson is discussing. This is a powerful book dealing with films that motivate one to hate the other, see what war is like, or in the case of some documentaries mentioned the cost of war, and the afterglow as the trumpet of war fades. I enjoyed the movies discussed and found quite a few I knew nothing about. A Charlie Chaplin comedy about the Little Tramp winning the Big War in Shoulder Arms. The works of Humphrey Jennings a documentarian and film maker in World War II, whose films are available on Kanopy. A John Huston movie, considered so controversial about the care of shell shocked soldiers, that the Government but the kibosh on it for almost 40 years. Plus the stories, the behind the scenes tales, and the different ways of looking at movies that were once so familiar, and now seem new and exciting.
Recommended for film students, film lovers and people who just want to read about movies. A book that can cause endless discussions, and hours of time watching some classic films.
David Thomson has probably forgotten more about movies than I will ever know. Renowned for his biographys and biographical dictionaries on players, performers and craftspeople, along with histories about the film industry, Thomson has in recent books focused on different genres and themes in movies. For this book, The Fatal Alliance: A Century of War on Film, Thomson looks a the portrayal of War from gung-ho films, to documentaries and looks at why people love these kind of films, the messages behind some of the more popular, and looks at lost and forgotten works that still ring true today.
Thomson talks much about his past in this book, growing up a child during the Blitz and bombing of London during the Second World War. Thomson's house was close to a target, a railway station, and bombs fell close, in fact causing part of his house to be condemned. At the same time Thomson grew up with survivors of war, from an Uncle whose body was left shattered, another relative who told of being at the front in the First World War, and others in the neighborhood. And yet Thomson grew to enjoy war films, not understanding their draw at first, but with years of film experience Thomson explains what makes this movies work. From patriotic drivel, award winning films, documentaries, and films that really capture the experience of civilians at war. Thomson looks at directors, actors, the many different wars, and Cold War movies also.
David Thomson is a wonderful writer, a man who loves film, understands the power of film and loves to learn, experience and share with others. The writing is very good, and one doesn't have to be a TCM watcher or film student to understand what Thomson is discussing. This is a powerful book dealing with films that motivate one to hate the other, see what war is like, or in the case of some documentaries mentioned the cost of war, and the afterglow as the trumpet of war fades. I enjoyed the movies discussed and found quite a few I knew nothing about. A Charlie Chaplin comedy about the Little Tramp winning the Big War in Shoulder Arms. The works of Humphrey Jennings a documentarian and film maker in World War II, whose films are available on Kanopy. A John Huston movie, considered so controversial about the care of shell shocked soldiers, that the Government but the kibosh on it for almost 40 years. Plus the stories, the behind the scenes tales, and the different ways of looking at movies that were once so familiar, and now seem new and exciting.
Recommended for film students, film lovers and people who just want to read about movies. A book that can cause endless discussions, and hours of time watching some classic films.
May 29, 2024
A VERY generous 3/5.
I’ll preface this by saying that I don’t normally read histories of film or really watch that many films in general. I’ve never seen Saving Private Ryan apart from the beach landing sequence for example.
The first section, 50 or so pages was pretentious drivel, enough that I nearly quit the book.
The main theme of the book is movies about various wars over the twentieth century, mainly WWI, WW2 and Vietnam and the general meaning of these films. The movies chosen are a mix of older obscure ones and quite well known ones.
The themes are generally are a leftwing nature. War movies generally ignore the wider policitcs - ‘why are American soldiers interfering in Somalia (Black Hawk Down - haven’t seen it), they ignore wider issues like racism or poverty, and they still glorify war even when being anti war.
The bits that just cover the histories of various war films weren’t too bad but like I said I don’t normally read histories of film/cinema so I’ve got nothing to compare it too.
I paid a £1 on a Kindle offer so I’m not too annoyed at it but if I paid new physical copy prices (it the book is available physical) I’d be annoyed at wasting my money. Overall I just feel like I wasted my time with the book and that I didn’t get much out of it. The only reason I’ll ever refer back to this book is for suggestions any old war movies worth watching.
I’ll preface this by saying that I don’t normally read histories of film or really watch that many films in general. I’ve never seen Saving Private Ryan apart from the beach landing sequence for example.
The first section, 50 or so pages was pretentious drivel, enough that I nearly quit the book.
The main theme of the book is movies about various wars over the twentieth century, mainly WWI, WW2 and Vietnam and the general meaning of these films. The movies chosen are a mix of older obscure ones and quite well known ones.
The themes are generally are a leftwing nature. War movies generally ignore the wider policitcs - ‘why are American soldiers interfering in Somalia (Black Hawk Down - haven’t seen it), they ignore wider issues like racism or poverty, and they still glorify war even when being anti war.
The bits that just cover the histories of various war films weren’t too bad but like I said I don’t normally read histories of film/cinema so I’ve got nothing to compare it too.
I paid a £1 on a Kindle offer so I’m not too annoyed at it but if I paid new physical copy prices (it the book is available physical) I’d be annoyed at wasting my money. Overall I just feel like I wasted my time with the book and that I didn’t get much out of it. The only reason I’ll ever refer back to this book is for suggestions any old war movies worth watching.
March 19, 2025
This was incredibly disappointing. It starts out strong with some really beautiful writing, but almost immediately falls into a pit of scattershot and scatterbrained, surface level observations about some of the important war films of history. Others are barely mentioned, and more still are omitted entirely. The worst part of this experience is how disorganized it is. It jumps around time periods and wars, referring to films fifty years apart and entirely unrelated wars sometimes in the same sentence, making no sense of connecting them. Worse yet is the author's attempt to relate some of the historicity of the wars to current events like covid and modern wars and politics. If you were going into this book looking for a documented history of war films, especially one that's organized, structured, or in any way gives insight into the time period as far as filmmaking or public consciousness of war goes, you will likely be let down by this book. What this actually is is the disjointed rambling subjectivities of an old man, opining about some of his favorite movies and trying to make sense of the world. This feels like a first draft, completely unorganized and still missing the actual research that could make this piece remarkable or at all informative. I guess it's proof that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, even when it's a really awesome cover like this book has.
June 30, 2024
I really enjoyed this book! As someone who loves film and the study of film, I appreciated how it challenged my perception of the war-fillm genre and it helped me to look at how many of these films are made by people with agendas ($$$) for people with agendas (escapism) - at least in some cases. I can't speak on historical accuracy, but I appreciate the historical context on the films he critiqued and how he related it to the problems of today. Thomson's writing style is definitely a bit elevated (he won't spell everything out) and definitely takes some getting used to (I tried reading his other book, The Big Screen, but couldn't do it), but it helped me become a lot more critical of what I watch, especially in this chaotic time.
November 13, 2023
I read this over many months, which is actually a fine way to approach this book unless you intend to review it and don't take notes.
Thomson addresses a central conundrum for movie lovers: Why is it that so many liberal anti-war moviegoers still love war movies? At least that's where he starts and to some extent ends this book. But in between he meanders all over the place giving us plenty of opportunity to enjoy his wonderful prose. While I didn't take notes, you probably should so you can write down the titles you need to see. Among them might be Peter Jackon's documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, one that I added to my list.
The book focuses on World War I, World War II and the post-war period including Viet Nam. Amongst the treasures is a loving tribute to The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (a favorite of mine), a take down of Coming Home (deserved), and ambivalence regarding The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now (although the best account of Apocalypse Now is the highly fictionalized version in Viet Than Nguyen's novel The Sympathizer.
This book is highly recommended for lovers of war movies and David Thomson's writing. Thomson may not be for everyone but you can count me in as a fan.
Thanks to netgalley for providing a copy for early review.
Thomson addresses a central conundrum for movie lovers: Why is it that so many liberal anti-war moviegoers still love war movies? At least that's where he starts and to some extent ends this book. But in between he meanders all over the place giving us plenty of opportunity to enjoy his wonderful prose. While I didn't take notes, you probably should so you can write down the titles you need to see. Among them might be Peter Jackon's documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, one that I added to my list.
The book focuses on World War I, World War II and the post-war period including Viet Nam. Amongst the treasures is a loving tribute to The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (a favorite of mine), a take down of Coming Home (deserved), and ambivalence regarding The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now (although the best account of Apocalypse Now is the highly fictionalized version in Viet Than Nguyen's novel The Sympathizer.
This book is highly recommended for lovers of war movies and David Thomson's writing. Thomson may not be for everyone but you can count me in as a fan.
Thanks to netgalley for providing a copy for early review.
November 14, 2023
As is usually the case with Thomson's novels, the overall theme doesn't resonate as much as individual sections about specific films and performances. Even in only a few paragraphs, he manages to write compellingly about such movies as All Quiet on the Western Front, The Battle of Algiers, Crossfire, The Dam Busters, Go Tell the Spartans, and Zulu, and personalities like Mel Gibson and Robert Ryan. Then he goes back to his themes on war movies, and much of it feels redundant. Maybe I just prefer him in shorter form.
June 2, 2024
This book just jumps around in its analytic and thematic focus. It is trying to be a film criticism, history and sort of anthology. While there are parts that are intriguing and the long-time film critic can offer his insights into various films, it felt like something was lacking. Not that the writing was horrible, but it just jumped across time and themes to a degree that it was hard to follow all of the author's trains of thought. Perhaps some will get more out of this, but for me, while there were some interesting perspectives, this is not a work that I will revisit.
December 27, 2023
Fascinating and frustrating in equal measure. The topic is one of those "about time" ones that are dealt with comprehensively...but the writing style is best described as some philosophical jingle-jangle ramble through time & space that left my head spinning. I was determined to complete the book as it had my attention...yet it battered my consciousness with what I wouldn't describe as respect for structure & chronology. Superb...but also utterly barmy!
November 14, 2025
Overall I enjoyed reading this as this is made for film fans. But the author is a bit smug and some of their points are a bit obtuse or even “shrug I mean I guess” as the reaction of the reader.
I would only recommend this if you absolutely love war films. But also don’t mind an author’s wild takes on some classics.
I would only recommend this if you absolutely love war films. But also don’t mind an author’s wild takes on some classics.
April 8, 2024
An in depth fascinating read about the collision of war and movies. Thankyou Goodreads for this free book
June 9, 2024
David Thomson is consistently the most compelling film writer out there. He's not a movie reviewer, but doesn't hesitate to offer his opinion of, well, just about anything. Hence we have "The Fatal Alliance: A Century of War on Film." Film buffs will enjoy his fascinating take on how violent human conflict impacts what's we see on the screen. He'll tick you off, make you think "darn right," even "I never thought of it that way before."
Spoiler warning: Thomson gives away the ending of most of the movies he discusses. especially who lives and who dies! Know this in advance or you may find yourself hurling his book across the room. Armchair generals should know Thomson is also strongly anti-war, but generally explains why. This is challenging stuff.
Sometimes "compelling" also means "complicated." In Thomson's case, this makes for some rough sledding. He reads a great deal into the meaning of each movie and its sometimes complex connections to the wars of man. Again, this is not really a book for readers seeking reviews of which movies to see.
The author of more accessible movie histories such as "The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies" and "The New Biographical Dictionary of Film," Thomson is usually essential reading for movie lovers. As noted above, his writing can be bit thorny but well worth the effort.
Spoiler warning: Thomson gives away the ending of most of the movies he discusses. especially who lives and who dies! Know this in advance or you may find yourself hurling his book across the room. Armchair generals should know Thomson is also strongly anti-war, but generally explains why. This is challenging stuff.
Sometimes "compelling" also means "complicated." In Thomson's case, this makes for some rough sledding. He reads a great deal into the meaning of each movie and its sometimes complex connections to the wars of man. Again, this is not really a book for readers seeking reviews of which movies to see.
The author of more accessible movie histories such as "The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies" and "The New Biographical Dictionary of Film," Thomson is usually essential reading for movie lovers. As noted above, his writing can be bit thorny but well worth the effort.
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