the damaged male and the contemporary american war film

elationships to geopolitics and the system of global capitalism presided over by US market
and trade dominance.
The films under consideration in this thesis are all remarkable for their shared characteristics.
Obviously, they all share the same characteristic of being war films and hence depicting scenes
of battle and violence, but there are also commonalities in the manner in which this violence is
conveyed, both in terms of narrative and aesthetics. Many of the films include the unique
narrative device of the ‘surprise ending’ in which a previous diegetic reality is subverted by
crucial information disclosed towards the conclusion of the film. Most of the films under
consideration also possess either a sense of achronology or chaotic narrative, or an emphasis
on flashbacks and hallucinations that are embedded in the formal techniques of the film and
form part of the film’s diegesis. In terms of trauma, all the films either insist on a narrative
focus on traumatic memory, or depict a central character who possesses post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD), this trauma being communicated through cinematic practice. This is achieved
in these films by a specific stylistic practice. This might include using a bleached and washed
out colour scheme and low density film stock; skin colour treated with make-up in order to
seemingly possess a deathly pallor; geographies and locales of waste and ruination; blood,
damage and debris; and images of death and bodily dismemberment and annihilation. It is also
achieved through editing techniques such as the jump cut, shot fragments, and the overlaying
of chaotic images. Finally, most of these films fetishize the hard male body or the technology
and costume of war, and include within this fetishizing scenes of self-abasement and
annihilation.
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