US war films and the African question: reproducing “other” in Black Hawk Down
In 1979, Apocalypse Now, an American Vietnam war film directed by Francis Coppola, came out to receive very controversial reviews. One scene in the film includes a number of helicopter fighters moving in formation to assault a village housing Viet Cong members and playing Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries opera to scare off the “enemy”. …