Methodological features of the study of «combat films» in the United States of 1941-1945

Abstract

In modern studies on the history of wars, a fairly popular direction is the study of information discourse specifics. A special role in this discourse is played by propaganda through cinematography, which uses images, historical symbols and stable metaphors, the appeal to which can form a certain public reaction. The study of the main aspects of this topic is impossible without recourse to interdisciplinary methods of the humanities, developed as a result of a number of turns in the development of modern humanitarian knowledge, including anthropological, linguistic, cultural, calling to study the perception of the world, human behavior in the past in the totality of socio-economic, political, cultural practices adopted in the studied society at a given time. In addition, an appeal to the methods of historical imagology will make it possible to trace the evolution of the process of visualization and mythologization of the Second World War in US cinematography more accurately. Without the study of the basic principles, methods, mechanisms and tools of this process it is extremely difficult to understand the peculiarities of the development and interaction of cinema and US propaganda at subsequent historical stages and the present. American scientists have achieved significant results in the study of directors creative biographies, in the specifics of their interaction with federal government bodies, and in the analysis of the activities of the Office of War Information in the field of cinematography.