Images of Horses in Film

War Horse is an emotional epic directed by "the only filmmaker that most Americans can name off the top of their heads." 

There are, generally speaking, three types of war films:
1. Films made by those who fought in a war first hand
2. Films made by those who were raised by family members with first hand experience
3. Films made by those who experienced war through war films

Steven Spielberg, philosophically, falls into the third category. His treatment of war is time and time again, both humanistic and morally centered. It represents the type of fighting and dying we want to believe exists in the physical world. The result is a clean (even when filthy), cinematic, battle between sound and image with human characters trapped somewhere in the middle. His camera, being decidedly dramatic (in the Bordwell sense), is capable of achieving any angle imaginable without regard for physical space or character perspective. Thus it's easy to infer that Spielberg's interests are not with the moral ambiguity of killing for ones ideals, but more with the mise en scene of battle. War for Spielberg works as a backdrop, and one that does most of the emotional legwork for the filmmaker, as an audience member will inherently bring with them one (or perhaps all) of the three perceptions of war.

The film looks and sounds like an important cultural artifact, and so, coupled with its pedigree most people (seemingly the Academy included) will treat it as such. They know what to feel before the lights even dim; they are simply waiting for proper cues. And in terms of utilizing cinematic discourse as a cue for emotion, in lieu of any actual emotion War Horse succeeds. In short: Spielberg knows how movies are made, and as such War Horse is the cinematic equivalent of putting together a puzzel of a flower, rather than growing one yourself. At its core, War Horse is a "film as John Ford workshop" for Spielberg, but what he has neglected to include is the emotional build that motivated Ford's aesthetics.

What is interesting about the film is that it operates around a character (Joey...a horse) without a sense of ethics. Joey simply moves through spaces, occasionally stopping to stare blankly back at the ancillary characters that are constantly risking their lives for him. Joey is the reason for the narrative, but never its cause. In a sense he is utilized in the same manner that early Hong Kong films were accused of utilizing female characters. He is a pretty thing meant to stand, back lit by a blood red sunset, while he is photographed from the most pleasing angle possible until he is to be placed in danger.