Apocalypse the Spielberg Way: Representations of Death and Ethics in Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers and the Videogame Medal of Honor: Frontline

Authors

  • Eva Kingsepp

Keywords:

death, ethics, authenticity, remediation film-videogame

Abstract

“Authenticity” is an issue central to Steven Spielberg in his re-creations of World War II. But while the films are (hyper)realistic also in their representation of death, this is not the case in the videogames. Does this suggest anything about contemporary society’s view of killing, dying and death? In my paper I study death and ethics in Saving Private Ryan, the TV series Band of Brothers, and the video game Medal of Honor: Frontline (2002), all sharing the same topic: the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II. The differences indicate an ambiguity in the notion of authenticity as well as different strategies of handling ethical questions. (Work in progress – please do not quote!)

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Published

2003-01-01

Bibtex

@Conference{digra89, title ="Apocalypse the Spielberg Way: Representations of Death and Ethics in Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers and the Videogame Medal of Honor: Frontline", year = "2003", author = "Kingsepp, Eva", publisher = "DiGRA", address = "Tampere", howpublished = "\url{https://dl.digra.org/index.php/dl/article/view/89}", booktitle = "Proceedings of DiGRA 2003 Conference: Level Up"}