The way I interpret the quote is that war always carries themes of heroism, sacrifice, adventure, etc. Ideas that always make it compelling. Even a film that portrays war in the most brutal unromanticized way still ends up glorifying it simply by engaging with these themes.
What you go for is a "damn I never want to go to war" reaction but what you get is "sucks those guys died, would have been different if i was there though" and that is the "glorification".
I think this is what Truffaut meant that it's a poor medium to convey conflict as the lens must glorify otherwise its not longer a movie, just footage.
At least people get a vague idea of what war really can be like. Very few people would be attracted by that violence unless it’s extremely romanticized.
There were no war movies before WW1 and no major wars for a few generations so there were millions of extremely eager young men lining up in front of recruitment offices in Germany, Britain and France. They had zero idea what they were signing up for.
> Even a film that portrays war in the most brutal unromanticized way still ends up glorifying it simply by engaging with these themes
I think this is plain wrong. Unless you count "glorification" to mean anything that makes a subject compelling to watch. But I think that's stretching the meaning of the word past it's breaking point.
What you go for is a "damn I never want to go to war" reaction but what you get is "sucks those guys died, would have been different if i was there though" and that is the "glorification".
I think this is what Truffaut meant that it's a poor medium to convey conflict as the lens must glorify otherwise its not longer a movie, just footage.