one day they wont be here to remind you it was real
Around the last week of spring term we were having a BBQ with the soccer team and we were talking about united 93 and someone said how they wouldn't want to see that movie for the same reason they don't like to see WW2 movies. It can't convey what happened and it cheapens the memory. I disagreed and all I could think about was a special on holocaust movies i had seen on AMC, and a thought someone had said. Basically one day the last person who lived through a holocaust camp will pass away, just as the last WW2 veteran and last firefighter who ran into the twin towers on 9/11. And with them the reality of what happened the true emotions of the event will leave forever. And while the events may never be forgotten i think that movies about these events are going to be what keep them in our mind and prevent them from becoming just a chapter or paragraph in textbook. WW2 is so romanticized partially i believe because of its portrayal in movies through the years. And its also these movies that bring us the images in our mind. For example the U.S. civil war doesn't have that many movies in comparison to vietnam and WW2 but there are a few movies that make you realize that the war was probably the most defining moment in american history, and that there was a real sacrifice in order to keep this country from splitting into two and possibly being at odds for decades. the point is that these movies i dont think should be made to please the people who lived through it because no movie can ever truly capture what happened no matter how good the acting or the special effects. But its for society. its a piece of art like the statue of iwo jima, the book night, or a portrait of a decorated veteran that gives the idea of what happened emotion and emotion is what makes it human and what makes it something we, as a society who weren't there, won't forget.