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IU Themester Streaming and DVD Resources

Background

The phrase “war and peace” is altogether familiar, but for the most part we hear it as if “war” is the primary and normal condition of conflict in which we live, while peace is an idealistic appendage, often seen as little more than the somewhat passive, absence of conflict. Making War, Making Peace encourages us to reconsider that relationship by focusing attention on the ways in which both war and peace are actively “framed,” “envisioned,” “represented” or otherwise “constituted” and “constructed” through human practices—social, political, economic, technological, scientific, ethical, aesthetic, rhetorical, and so on.

The issues raised by such consideration are both timeless and timely: Should we go to war, and for what reasons? What counts as war or peace for a particular culture or era? What resources do we (or might we) actively draw upon as we negotiate how we “make” war and peace?

Several prevailing questions guide Themester 2011: In what ways are both war and peace implicated by the use of violence to achieve so-called “desirable” results? How does our understanding of wartime violence shape how we imagine “peace,” or vice versa, how might the production of a “positive peace” through efforts such as the promotion of human rights, campaigns for nonviolence, and efforts at reconciliation influence the ways in which we cognitively engage the practices and conditions of war? And what are the consequences—intended and otherwise—for how we animate warlike or peace building attitudes and behaviors? - Adapted from IU Themester Homepage

Representation

 

All Images courtesy of imdb,com; accessed August 2021

IUB Streaming Titles

The following resources require IUB CAS Authentication.

The Battle of Algiers (1966, 122 min.) One of the most influential political films in history, THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, by Gillo Pontecorvo, vividly re-creates a key year in the tumultuous Algerian struggle for independence from the occupying French in the 1950s. As violence escalates on both sides, children shoot soldiers at point-blank range, women plant bombs in cafes, and French soldiers resort to torture to break the will of the insurgents.  Shot on the streets of Algiers in documentary style, the film is a case study in modern warfare, with its terrorist attacks and the brutal techniques used to combat them. Pontecorvo's tour de force has astonishing relevance today.

The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954, 103 min.) The masterful story of a war-weary World War II veteran who must leave his family to fight again.

Cartel Land (2015, 101 min.) In this Sundance award-winning film, Director Matthew Heineman and Executive Producer Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) gain unprecedented, on-the-ground access to the riveting stories of two modern-day vigilante groups and their shared enemy-- the murderous Mexican drug cartels. In the Mexican state of Michoacan, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as "El Doctor," leads the Autodefensas, a citizen uprising against the violent Knights Templar drug cartel. Meanwhile, in Arizona's Altar Valley - a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley - Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to stop Mexico's drug wars from seeping across our border.

Freedom Summer (2014, 114 min.) In the hot and deadly summer of 1964, the nation could not turn away from Mississippi. Over 10 memorable weeks known as Freedom Summer, more than 700 student volunteers joined with organizers and local African Americans in a historic effort to shatter the foundations of white supremacy in one of the nation's most segregated states -- even in the face of intimidation, physical violence, and death.

Germans and Jews (2015, 77 min.) Today, Europe's fastest growing Jewish population is in Berlin. Germany is considered one of the most democratic societies in the world, assuming the position of moral leader in Europe as it embraces hundreds of thousands of refugees. None of these developments could have been imagined in 1945. Through personal stories Germans & Jews explores the country's transformation from silence about the Holocaust to facing it head on. Unexpectedly, a nuanced story of reconciliation emerges. What began as a private conversation between the two filmmakers and friends, Tal Recanati (Jewish) and Janina Quint (non-Jewish German), grew into a cultural exchange among many. This title encourages one to examine the process of “making peace.”

The Hurt Locker (2008, 130 min.) Based on the personal wartime experiences of journalist Mark Boal (who adapted his experiences with a bomb squad into a fact-based, yet fictional story), director Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq War-set action thriller The Hurt Locker presents the conflict in the Middle East from the perspective of those who witnessed the fighting firsthand -- the soldiers. As an elite Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team tactfully navigates the streets of present-day Iraq, they face the constant threat of death from incoming bombs and sharp-shooting snipers.

Night and Fog (1955, 34 min.) Ten years after the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, filmmaker Alain Resnais documented the abandoned grounds of Auschwitz. One of the first cinematic reflections on the horrors of the Holocaust, NIGHT AND FOG (Nuit et brouillard) contrasts the stillness of the abandoned camps' quiet, empty buildings with haunting wartime footage.  With NIGHT AND FOG, Resnais investigates the cyclical nature of man's violence toward man and presents the unsettling suggestion that such horrors could come again.

Watchers of the Sky (2014, 122 min.) An extraordinary testament to one man's perseverance, the Sundance award-winning film Watchers of the Sky examines the life and legacy of the Polish-Jewish lawyer and linguist who coined the term genocide. Inspired by Samantha Power's Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Problem From Hell, this multi-faceted documentary interweaves Raphael Lemkin's struggle with the courageous efforts of four individuals keeping his legacy alive: Luis Moreno Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the ICC; Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; Ben Ferencz, a former Nuremberg prosecutor still tenaciously lobbying the UN for peace, and Rwandan Emmanuel Uwurukundo, UN Refugee Agency Field Director in Chad.

Whose Streets? (2017, 102 min.)  Told by the activists and leaders who live and breathe this movement for justice, WHOSE STREETS? is an unflinching look at the Ferguson uprising. When unarmed teenager Michael Brown is killed by police and left lying in the street for hours, it marks a breaking point for the residents of St. Louis, Missouri. Grief, long-standing racial tensions and renewed anger bring residents together to hold vigil and protest this latest tragedy. Empowered parents, artists, and teachers from around the country come together as freedom fighters. As the National Guard descends on Ferguson with military grade weaponry, these young community members become the torchbearers of a new resistance.

Zero Dark Thirty (2012, 156 min.) A CIA agent leads a 10-year hunt for Osama bin Laden that reveals the cruelty of the War on Terror in this masterful docudrama. Just when it seems that all hope of finding bin Laden has faded, an old clue leads her team right to his doorstep.

Explore more awesome documentaries and feature films via IUCAT as well as via IUB's licensed subscriptions to Films for Education, Kanopy and SWANK at Media Services Libguide to Streaming Databases.

IUB DVD/Video Films

Be sure to check with Media Services for hours.  VHS titles are housed off-site at ALF, and can be requested via IUCAT.  

All Quiet on the Western Front (1979, 156 min.) A young soldier faces profound disillusionment in the soul-destroying horror of World War I.

Casablanca (1942, 102 min.) Set in World War II Morocco within a city filled with European refugees. A bitter nightclub owner helps his former lover and her Resistance-hero husband escape from the Nazis.

Dunkirk (2017, 106 min.)  A World War II thriller about the evacuation of Allied troops from the French city of Dunkirk before Nazi forces can take hold. The evacuation was aided by civilians who traversed the English Channel in order to collect the soldiers stranded on the beach.

Grave of the Fireflies (1988, 89 min.) As the Empire of the Sun crumbles upon itself and a rain of firebombs falls upon Japan, the final death march of a nation is echoed in millions of smaller tragedies. Seita and his younger sister Setsuko are two children born at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and now cast adrift in a world that lacks not the care to shelter them, but simply the resources. They are forced to fend for themselves in the aftermath of fires that swept entire cities from the face of the earth.

Hotel Rwanda (2004, 122 min.) A five-star hotel manager risks his own life and uses his wits and words to save more than 1,200 lives during the 1994 Rwandan conflict.

Letters From Iwo Jima (2006, 140 min.) Sixty-one years ago, the United States and Japanese armies met on Iwo Jima. Decades later, hundreds of letters are unearthed from that stark island's soil. The letters give faces and voices to the men who fought there, as well as the extraordinary general who led them. Leading the defense is Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi. With little defense other than sheer will and the volcanic rock of the island itself, Gen. Kuribayashi's unprecedented tactics transform what was predicted to be a quick and bloody defeat into nearly 40 days of heroic and resourceful combat.

Loving (2017, 123 min.) The story of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple, whose challenge of their anti-miscegenation arrest for their marriage in Virginia led to a legal battle that would end at the US Supreme Court.

Mrs. Miniver (1942, 133 min.) The story of a middle-class British family and their struggle to survive during WWII. Mrs. Miniver nobly tends her rose garden while her stalwart husband participates in the evacuation at Dunkirk. She personafies grace under pressure as the Miniver family huddles in their bomb shelter during a Luftwaffe attack, while she is forced to confront a downed Nazi paratrooper in her kitchen, and while she is preparing for her annual flower show despite the exigencies of bombing raids. Even the vicars climactic call to arms from the pulpit of his ruined church seems to bring out the best in people.

Schindler's list (2013, 196 min.) The incredible true story follows the enigmatic Oskar Schindler, who saved the lives of more than 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust. It is the triumph of one man who made a difference and the drama of those who survived one of the darkest chapters in human history because of what he did.

Waltz with Bashir (2009. 90 min.)  An animated documentary based on events in the director's own life, involving his attempts to both remember and verify his wartime experiences. After not being able to recall the time he spent on an Israeli Army mission during the Lebanon War, Ari attempts to unravel the mystery by traveling around the world to interview old friends and comrades. As the pieces of the puzzle begin to come together, his memory begins to return in illustrations that are surreal. At the end of the animated film is a very short part of the film that shows real people dead and alive.

Explore more titles related to this topic via IUCAT.

Internet Resources