I have a terrible confession to make.

Over the past few months I’ve developed a shameful, dirty secret: I have become an ardent fan of war films. While most of the Western world has spent the year in sombre remembrance, I have been getting my kicks from jingoistic, rousing tales of wartime derring-do and inspiring visions of courage under fire. I can’t help but feel a traitor, or fraud. Aren’t artists supposed to be against all this? I hope it doesn’t mean I get kicked out of the club.

It all started in the run-up to the D-Day anniversary in June. I happened to catch the first five minutes of the classic World War II film The Longest Day and, before I knew it, three hours had gone. I tried to rationalise my interest as being healthily sociological: I was struck by the remarkable sensitivity the film had, enlisting four different directors to tell the story of D-Day from their own side. It seemed incredible, in an age where the Nazis are the byword for contemporary evil, that a film so close to events could treat some of the German military in a sympathetic light. Many of the actors starring in The Longest Day had actually taken part in the real thing, for crying out loud. You’d have forgiven them for a bit of gross caricature.

And yet, I’m not sure that fully explains what happened next. After The Longest Day I couldn’t resist re-watching Saving Private Ryan for comparison. Then, obviously, it was Enemy At The Gates for a reminder of the brutality and sacrifices made by the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. On and on this process went, eating up idle weekends and immobile sick days, devouring the sorrows and glories of warfare. It was a worrying period, and not just because it made me feel like Mark from Peep Show.

From the War Poets and devastated landscapes of John Nash to the bleak horror of WG Sebald, there is little great twentieth century art that could overlook the brutal realities of war; for solider and citizen alike. Our own current news is, awfully, not short of reminders on the endless human tragedies of warfare.

Obviously, not all conflicts are alike. The Second World War tends to lend itself to heroic narratives more than the more obviously pointless slaughter of the First, with its status of being a “good” war. Though a simple glance at some of that great Second World War art, from Kurt Vonnegut to Australian writer Mark Dapin’s recent novel Spirit House, would show you neither conflict was morally or politically straightforward.

Indeed, as Radio 4 series The Long View offered a vivid reminder of recently, between the world wars a horde of Western writers – from George Orwell to Ernest Hemingway (along with thousands of others, male and female) – were inspired to sign up to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War. From Picasso’s legendary protest painting Guernica to Guillermo del Toro’s film Pan’s Labyrinth, it was another war that has left a better artistic legacy than political one.

So was my war movie diet a betrayal of the powerful anti-war message? I’m not convinced. Artists from the First World War have certainly stood in opposition to the pity and futility of war. But it is equally untrue to claim many artists as pacifists or disinterested observers. It isn’t always pretty but like so many experiences we engage with through art it is vitally important. At least that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Now, who wants to join me for all five hours of German submarine film Das Boot?

The opinions expressed in The Columnist do not necessarily represent those of IdeasTap.  

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Image by AH Studio.