Independent Study: Rationale

For my Independent Study I will be examining how cinematic techniques in wartime and post war American war movies such as Sands of Iwo Jima were used for propaganda purposes to glorify war.

I will then compare this films cinematic techniques with more recent American war movies such as Flags of Our Fathers and most importantly Letters from Iwo Jima both of which are companion films that see the war from both the American and Japanese perspectives. I will be investigating how war movies have evolved from propaganda to feature films.