On Heroism and its Disguises

Abstract

The working title of this film was “The History of the Second World War,” but the film you are going to see is called simply “The War,” as though the events of 1939–45 were only one episode in the huge, continuous war that is always being fought somewhere, always has been and always will be, humankind being what it is, and this film is simply a sample of the nature of all war—past, present, and the one that is coming. It’s in no sense a polemical work, either for or against war; you don’t have to preach when you have authentic images and true testimony to tell the story. It simply shows what war is like.