Analysis of Fury (2014): Whose War Is It Anyway?

The film Fury, which is named after the main war tank we follow throughout the film and the crew that goes into battle with it. This is a story set during WW2, focused on a group of American soldiers with an experienced sergeant who goes by the name Wardaddy leads his army squad across German battlefields and towns, targeting every Nazi soldier they run into, as that is the role they are playing and those are the enemies they must destroy for their country’s honor. This analysis will be focusing on their projected self in comparison to their true selves. We will be doing some character analyses, their role representations in war, and uncovering their intended purpose using metaphors and specific examples. Spoilers ahead! If you don’t care, charge on.

Early on, we run into the concept of the ego, with Wardaddy and his crewmen which have switched from their birth names to their war names. It is evident that the ego invites issues of man vs. man, you vs. me, and us. vs them, top kill the enemy at all costs. The relationship between these character’s pre-war selves and post-war selves is a large contrast, and creates dissociation and internal, and subsequently external conflict. As a method for protecting themselves and surviving each passing day, they must build up these egoic walls to maintain war status and embody the “fury” of the tank they operate when dominating and battling against the conditioned enemy.

Norman is an ordinary young man, a former typist and a newly enlisted soldier sent to join Wardaddy’s crew. Free of war’s corruption, he represents innocence, a free state of mind, while showing polite and cordial behavior, which the men devalue him for. He stands as a moral compass and a voice of reason, protesting the killing of fellow humans. Very quickly, he learns he’s in a deadly game of war, and goes through psychological trauma and emotional craze. He is instructed to shoot a Nazi soldier, which he refuses to do until Wardaddy forces his hand. Although he states his conscience is clean of what he was forced to do, he soon begins to cave and accept the reality he is facing. He tries his best to remain pure and maintain his human decency, but unfortunately, he is trapped inside of an operation that only has one way out. Teetering toward defeat, he transforms into a “raging” soldier of war, adopting the name Machine his comrades nicknamed him, repressing his sorrow and guilt from the situation he was literally thrown into. Without any time to process the deaths he was responsible for and the trauma he was absorbing from the chaotic environment he found himself in, you can easily read he is deeply distraught and uncomfortable with the setting he’s in. Feeling disturbed, he chooses to imitate his comrades and act like he is fine, as a method for coping. Throughout the film, you feel heightened degrees of sympathy and empathy for Norman, feeling as if you are processing his emotions and terror for him. There is no way you could imagine yourself in these types of scenarios, as one could only understand once they’re in it. 

The crew Norman was placed in began calling him Machine to force it through his mind, while in reality he is the opposite, emotional and caring, displaying his human thoughts and feelings. In the case of Norman, we see him earning the nickname, Machine, as he embraces the character he’s been labeled as and cracking under the pressure of his crew Captain, Wardaddy, who doesn’t share his “real” name as he doesn’t identify with his old self anymore. Norman’s breaking point was the death of his first love, Emma, who he met in an apartment of an abandoned town and found a brief, yet tender moment to spend with her. As he was leaving the town, her building was struck by a missile, killing her and her older cousin on the spot. That is when he snapped. He has no time to process his emotions over Emma, having to bury them almost immediately to return to war, as his comrade, “Coon-Ass”, roughens him up and instructs him to “accept the realities of war.” Norman wasn’t in the head space or had any capacity to shed tears due to the commotions of war, therefore, he stuffed it down and released it shortly after in the battlefield on Nazi soldiers, which is where his adopted warname, “Machine” comes into play. It is apparent he needed and wanted to grieve over Emma, as he is a sensitive young man, but he was not given the opportunity. He finally starts earning respect from his comrades once he accepts defeat. Now acquiring a source of fuel to start killing “ruthlessly.”

The observation that these men literally have to be insane to function in the war is pervasive. Not only were they forced to partake in war, and basically change their entire identity, they have to kill as emotional outlet, as it is the only way of releasing these bottled up angers, frustrations, delirium, and desperation. Targets provide something to unleash his their individual and collective powerlessness and devastation on, from being ripped from their families and thrown into a game which only seems to end one way.

I am reminded of the Prison Stanford Experiment from 1971, which almost immediately took a dark turn, where the participants who were randomly selected as guards bullied, tormented and assaulted the participants who were chosen to role-play as prisoners. The experiment ended after only 6 days, where the “prisoners” begged for the study to end after only a few days. They chose to cancel the experiment early because of social disapproval and backlash from the participant’s family. The Stanford Experiment is a perfect example of the classic “don’t let it get to your head” case where the takeaway is that your environment, your roles and power of authority changes how you respond and perceive yourself and the other. 

God and religion is an apparent theme in this film as the characters do their best to explain the randomized death or survival of themselves and their platoon. What is fascinating is one of the men is nicknamed “Bible” as he claims to be a religious man, who attempted to preach the gospel to his comrades, and would pray over dying American and Nazi soldiers, while continuing to gundown Nazi soldiers, so a bit of a hypocrite, but what choice does he have? We see Bible have an ongoing internal battle during the film where he clings to his Bible and studies it every free minute, and prays/speaks to God, as a way of coping with the cruel reality he’s in. If he were living as his true self, and he wasn’t thrown into war like the rest of them, he likely wouldn’t be as heavily devoted to the gospel. He wants to be saved and believe he is going to Heaven afterlife, hoping that his faith will bring forgiveness for the war crimes he’s having to commit. 

Wardaddy has a longing for the family life deep among his core, which is gathered when he runs into two women, one younger, one older in an apartment in one of the ravaged towns they takeover. There are dynamic interactions between Norman (Machine) and Don (Wardaddy) at various points in the film where there are hints of a father-son style relationship. As he feels a fatherly responsibility as a father figure to Norman in the war, and in a sense, covers him more than a few times, he almost plays this role of father with a wife, son and daughter, yet he calls himself father of war, right? He plays “pretend house” sitting at a dinner table with Norman and the German women. He uses this short period as an escape from the reality of war, showing more of his true side, even if for a brief moment. His true self and his war (projected) self.

Wardaddy, Machine and Bible have ironic names as they are living the opposite of who they really are, as forced by the historical circumstances. These men have adopted these names and roles, and therefore seemed to have changed their entire persona because of them. If the personal stories and details were revealed about “Coon-Ass” and “Gordo,” we likely would have seen a very different side of them, contrasting their true selves (before war) and their war selves. The dissociation between the projected self and the real self as a result of war, causes additional chaos and confusion atop of the expected traumas of war. 

Other methods of coping these men indulged in were decadent behaviors in the form of vices such as alcohol, cigarettes, and sex with German women. As these men are all living in survival mode, which is to be expected in the historical and geographical setting, these men don’t much care to retain their morals or to live consciously. They know there’s only one door to walk through, so they’re living like there are no consequences, and I really don’t blame them!

War is a repeating cycle of trauma, desperation and dominion, then needing an emotional outlet. And the cycle repeats. They are so deprived of all of their needs emotionally, mentally, and physically. Running on little food, sleep, or sense of safety as they are not guaranteed life from minute to minute. They are fueled on utter fear and in a literal state of madness, at the very basic level of human existence, in a fight for survival. Those are the worst variables to any equation called reality to any person’s current life circumstances. These men are not themselves anymore. They are playing characters in a game, in a real life game reality, simulated by utter chaos. Their lives are deduced into nothing more than an NPC in a minigame. Like all the lives being stolen are animated pixels on a screen. They seem to forget they are other humans with all the same emotions and sensations. These men live to be soldiers. They don’t have an identity outside of the war anymore. The war is their life, as Wardaddy himself contends when their time’s ending as we approach the film’s conclusion. 

The sergeant, Wardaddy, lives for his mission, his purpose and his role, and that is eradicating all Nazi soldiers. The men are all products of a larger complex social and political issue. As the last crew left in battle, and with a broken tank and a huge squad of Nazi soldiers marching their way, Wardaddy chose to stay and fight. Wardaddy is a great leader of war, so great in fact, that his crew chose to follow him to their graves by fighting alongside him, knowing there was miniscule chances of survival for any of them. His devotion and patriotism was unmatched and his crew couldn’t let him die alone in battle when they were the last tank crew left. Loyalty can go as far as listening to your sergeant as he sends you into a suicide mission. His crew, Machine, Bible, Coon-Ass, and Gordo are permanently tied together in their roles and purpose, the last reason they have for living is to defend their country. These men have formed trauma bonds with each other and, most prominently, their sergeant, who holds the crew together and who displays excellent leadership with unshakeable faith in himself and his crew, and unwavering courage during their time on the battlefield. 

Norman narrowly escapes once all other members of his crew, including Wardaddy, had their last breath fulfilling their mission. Human to human The last act of humanity to reward Norman for his reluctance to participate in the war originally was a human to human encounter. A Nazi soldier allowed him to get away from the final standoff when he found him lying under the tank once he crawled out through the hatchet on the floor of the tank. Norman was the only survivor, and the Nazi soldier saw the plea in his eyes and decided to remain quiet about the sighting as they exchanged human emotions and mercy, past what verbal language can convey.

To me, this film highlights the problematic nature of imperialism, economics & war, governments, propaganda, and agendas. These soldiers are too heavily living in their egos and labels, and unfortunately they don’t have much of a choice. No one chooses what culture, nation, or body of governance they’re born into. Nobody chooses what types of identities, labels, and perceptions are attached to them from birth. Certainly, nobody has a desire to go to war and risk their life unless it is the only area they believe they can find meaning. The statuses and circumstances we witness these characters go through in this compelling story gives the viewer an idea of the obstacles these real humans went through. It is all conditional, as these humans have been conditioned and programmed by entities and systems which are controlling these humans as pawns in their imperialistic, material games. 

For me, it is a war of the self.

Sources:

https://www.prisonexp.org/conclusion