War Film - The Military and The Film Industry

The Military and The Film Industry

Many war films have been produced with the cooperation of a nation's military forces. The United States Navy has been very cooperative since World War II in providing ships and technical guidance; Top Gun is the most famous example. The U.S. Air Force provided considerable verisimilitude for The Big Lift, Strategic Air Command and A Gathering of Eagles, filmed on Air Force bases and using Air Force personnel in many roles.

Typically, the military will not assist filmmakers if the film is critical of them. Sometimes the military demands some editorial control in exchange for their cooperation, which can bias the result. Critics point out that the film Pearl Harbor's US-biased portrayal of events is a compensation for technical assistance received by the US armed forces. For another example, the U.S. Navy objected to elements of Crimson Tide, especially mutiny on board an American naval vessel, so the film was produced without their assistance.

If the home nation's military will not cooperate, or if filming in the home nation is too expensive, another country's may assist. Many 1950s and 1960s war films, including the Oscar-winning films Patton, Lawrence of Arabia, and Spartacus, were shot in Spain, which had large supplies of both Allied and Axis equipment. The Napoleonic epic Waterloo was shot in Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union), using Soviet soldiers. The D-Day scenes in Saving Private Ryan were shot with the cooperation of the Irish army because the French couldn't afford to close down the real Omaha Beach due to it being a monument. All of the major sequences in Dark Blue World were shot in the Czech Republic, at a disused air force base. In the "Crimson Tide" example, the French Navy (Marine Nationale) assisted the production team with the French aircraft carrier Foch and one SNLE.