How important is realismPaper Rating: Word Count: 1821 Approx Pages: 7
How important is realism in constructing the narrative of Steven Spielberg's Band of Brothers?
The television series Band of Brothers is the story of Easy Company of the US Army Airborne Paratrooper Division and their mission in WW II France during Operation Overload. Like any other war/anti war series, it represents the horror and heartbreak of war. Common generic conventions of war series are POW camp experiences, submarine warfare, espionage, heroism, air dog fights, tough trench/infantry experiences, and in the majority of episodes of the ten hour series, they represent one of more of these elements.
The iconography of Band Of Brothers such as the wartime music, 1940s clothes and uniform, German and American tanks and war time weapons, the majority being originals dating back to 1939, all reinforce the idea or realism and help associate it to the war genre. A number of war films are actually historical epics, authentic attempts to recreate the experience of war on screen, rather than pure war films. War films as a major film genre emerged after the outbreak of World War I. A number of films were produced to inspire anti-German feeling in the US-one of the first to portray the atrocities of the enemy was ËœThe Ba