War Poster
There are many images from wars, in past history and from current conflicts. Patriotic fervor, anti-war sentiment and war movie publicity shots are all available. People have their own viewpoint and different attitudes are represented by the war poster outlets.
In times of peace and war, the armed forces have always tried to recruit. Before the invention of television, the quest for new people had to rely on the war poster. As TV advertising campaigns to recruit became more common, the poster has become more of a nostalgia movement. The anti-war movement moved into that space however, and anti-war messages are often expressed through posters.
World War I was fought with volunteers at the beginning, so men had to be persuaded before conscription came in. America had Uncle Sam saying, I want you for U.S Army. In Britain, the Minister for War, Lord Kitchener declared, Britons, join your country’s army.
There are many patriotic scenes depicted from World War II, showing landings and invasions by Allied forces. These are often romanticized images of fighter planes against a stormy sky or battleships glinting in the sun. They are a more subtle form of unofficial recruitment as well as a form of remembrance. A war poster rarely shows anyone actually in the act of war or any consequences of the fighting. Consequences are left to the anti-war movement.
Anti -war campaigns started in earnest during the Vietnam War. There is a powerful image of a row of white gravestones with the caption; you can’t be all that you can be if you’re dead. Modern war zones have also inspired this kind of war poster, including the war in Iraq. One shows a picture of Picasso’s famous Guernica, which he painted after a Basque town was bombed during the Spanish Civil War, in which an American tank and stars and stripes logo have been placed. Another is the Oil is War poster in which a simple graphic picture of a gasoline pump and a revolver appears.
War movies need to project the right image to communicate the story that the director is trying to tell. There is a war poster of John Wayne dressed as a Green Beret and another one of George C. Scott dressed as General Patton, which conveys a sense of patriotism. Other movies have a different message to relate, and want to relay the futility of war. These include the Vietnam movies, Apocolypse Now, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket. The posters for Dr. Strangelove are shorthand for anti-war feeling.
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