THE MOVIE TO END ALL WARS

Victor Bloom MD

Steven Spielberg is at it again. "Saving Private Ryan" is the movie to end all wars. The critics agree that it is a masterpiece of showing the horrors of actual battle. I am sure that his intention was to convince everybody---no matter what--- there shall be no more war!

He says this as if God Himself made it a Commandment,amazingfake.com a commandment to reinforce His original, "Thou Shalt Not Kill". It is clear that the great novel and movie, "All Quiet on the Western Front" after World War I, did not prevent World War II. Presently, World War III is unthinkable, but that is what we thought after the first world war, that another war was unthinkable. It was the war to end all wars.

Now we see that there is no such thing as a war to end all wars. Now we know why this 20th century has been dubbed "The Age of Anxiety". Sigmund Freud tried to explain what our anxiety was about, and anxiety became the recurrent theme of co�ntemporary literature, music and the arts.Freud taught, following Darwin, that Man was endowed with primitive instincts. The 'theory' was another threat to those theologians who insisted that God made a noble creature, in His own image, that would do good and be loving. Fortunately, there is much good in the world, but also there is much evil. Spielberg was an intelligent and sensitive child who seems to be trying to 'repair the world', an ancient Hebrew admonition.

Our purpose in living is to repair the world. We don't know who broke it, but it has to be fixed. This concept may have come from biblical 'original sin', or it may be that humans are all genetically flawed--- that is, we are capable of war.War has always seemed to me the suspension of civilized values. Once you decide to wage war, it becomes, "all's fair in love and war", and thereby horrors and devastation ensue. In this day of inter�continental ballistic missles and nuclear warheads, war becomes unthinkable and undo-able, and yet, seemingly, we must prepare for war. As Freud predicted before World War II, as long as nations prepare for war, there will be war.

Like no other before him, Freud was convinced of the power of the destructive instincts. One had to do nothing more to be convinced than to look around and see with open eyes and a receptive and perceptive brain. If, for a moment, we surrender our denial and complacency, we cannot but be convinced that man is a flawed creature. He may be flawed, but he is not beyond redemption. We have a brain to watch and see, experience and learn.I am sure Spielberg had it in mind that we should all see the horrors and futility of war.

His other masterpiece, "Schindler's List" was an attempt to make sure that the Holocaust would never be forgotten. He showed us what can happen once war is declared. A crazy man named Hitler succeeded in getting a whole nation, �a seemingly cultured and historically cultivated one, that an entire race of people should be exterminated from the face of the earth. If he had won, if the Third Reich had truly won, every Jew on the face of the earth would have faced extermination. Spielberg's answer to the denyers and revisionists was "Schindler's List", in which he balanced man's capacity for good with his urge to do evil. One of the characteristics of great art is its capacity to focus and hold our attention to truths ordinarily not attended to or perceived.

Picasso's "Guernica", depicting the destruction of a Spanish town by aerial bombing became a focus of the horrors of modern warfare on a human plane. "Saving Private Ryan" is Spielberg's "Guernica."Steven Spielberg attracts us in many ways. He can be uniquely entertaining. He made "Close Encounters" and "ET." He made "Jurassic Park". That was to get our attention. Then he gave us "The Color Purple" to show us the evils of prejudice, intolerance and slavery. He a�dded "Amistad" for emphasis. This was after "Schindler's List" which I am sure will become part of the history of this century. And now he presents us with "Saving Private Ryan", a film of such quality and power, that it will not be forgotten. It is the coda to all the end-war films which preceded it, such as--- and the list goes on--- "Tell it to the Spartans", "Apocalypse Now", "Full Metal Jacket", "Platoon", "The Deer Hunter" and "Born on the Fourth of July".

How long will the carnage go on? When will we ever learn?

Dr. Bloom is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is a member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and corresponding editor of their quarterly journal, Academy Forum. He welcomes comments and questions at his e-mail address: hyperlink URL- victorbloom.com