Since the end of World War II, the devastating global conflict that spanned almost six years, involved more than 70 countries and claimed up to 85 million lives has inspired numerous documentaries, TV series and films.<\/p>\n
From the doomed romance between jaded nightclub owner Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and his freedom-fighting ex Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) in the 1942 classic Casablanca \u2013 which was filmed while the war was still raging \u2013 to the revisionist, anarchic fantasy of Quentin Tarantino\u2019s 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, WWII has been examined from many different perspectives and in many different styles.<\/p>\n
One of Cate Blanchett\u2019s first major film roles was in Bruce Beresford\u2019s Paradise Road, in which she plays an Australian nurse held captive in a Japanese internment camp. Unlike a lot of narratives about WWII, the 1997 movie was told predominantly from a female perspective.<\/p>\n
Blanchett\u2019s co-star Julianna Margulies told US talk show host Bobbie Wygant that, before filming Paradise Road, she hadn\u2019t known anything about this particular chapter of history, and the extreme hardships endured by the many British, Dutch and Australian women in these camps.<\/p>\n
Responding to concerns about how the Japanese would react to negative portrayals in the movie, Margulies told Wygant: \u201cI know that people were worried it seemed racist and anti-Japanese, but what are you going to do? This is what happened. It\u2019s like in Schindler\u2019s List.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what? Ralph Fiennes played a really terrifying character, but he existed. What are you going to do? That\u2019s history. It doesn\u2019t mean we hate them now. But it\u2019s important to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
In one harrowing scene, Blanchett\u2019s character is forced by her callous captors to kneel for days, with barbed wire poles behind her.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to watch it, it\u2019s another thing to imagine being on your knees,\u201d Margulies said. \u201cI actually knelt down with Cate \u2013 we tried, just to see how long we could last on our knees, on the cement floor \u2013 and I lasted maybe half an hour. It\u2019s exhausting. Your back starts hurting. Try doing that for two days with your hands tied behind your back and the sun beating down on you. I mean, it\u2019s pretty shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since Paradise Road, Blanchett has made many more films about the period, each unique in tone and style. In 2014\u2019s comedy The Monuments Men, Blanchett plays Claire Simone, a French art curator who assists the Allies in tracking down precious pieces stolen by the Nazis, while in 2001\u2019s romantic war drama Charlotte Gray, directed by Aussie Gillian Armstrong, she was the titular Scottish resistance operative.<\/p>\n
For Blanchett, 2006 thriller The Good German offered a particularly unique artistic challenge. Playing Lena Brandt, a Jewish German collaborator, Blanchett\u2019s character is now on the wrong side of history. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, the story is also told in the style of films from the period itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I learnt that it was going to be shot in black and white on the Universal back lot using old 1940s techniques and rear projection, that\u2019s when the project went through the stratosphere for me because I just don\u2019t know of another film that\u2019s done that,\u201d Blanchett explained at The Good German\u2019s Hollywood premiere.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been other films in black and white, but one that is so ambitious in inventing some sort of hybrid with modern actors and modern language, it\u2019s quite Brechtian, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fellow double Oscar-winner Tom Hanks is another star with a long history of bringing WWII stories to the screen. Beginning with his starring role in 1998\u2019s Saving Private Ryan, Hanks has also produced the acclaimed TV dramas Band Of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010), and the more recent Masters Of The Air (2024).<\/p>\n
To prepare for their roles in Band Of Brothers, actors such as Donnie Wahlberg, David Schwimmer, Scott Grimes, Michael Fassbender and Neal McDonough were put through an exacting boot camp. The tough conditions wore the cast down, until Hanks intervened.<\/p>\n
McDonough recalled on the Inside Of You podcast in 2022: \u201cTom Hanks came in a helicopter, with his Cast Away beard and hair, and gave us this speech as to why we owe it to the men of Easy Company to work our butts off to tell the truth, because they died for us. Were it not for them, we wouldn\u2019t be speaking English right now \u2026 were it not for these men who gave their lives for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Announcing in 2024 that he would be narrating World War II With Tom Hanks, a 20-part docuseries currently streaming on SBS On Demand, Hanks explained why he was so passionate about keeping stories about this turbulent chapter alive in people\u2019s minds.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring my formative years, every single adult in my life would make references to two words: the war,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe lasting effects of WWII on the world and my own family wasn\u2019t lost on me.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an interview with the Royal Television Society, historian Dan Snow shed light on why people continue to be fascinated by stories about WWII. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Second World War was the biggest political, military, human tragedy the world has ever witnessed,\u201d Snow explained. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a war that had more of an impact on our landscapes and our cities than any other war in history; we\u2019re still living with the consequences of that war.\u201d<\/p>\n
To learn about just some of the stories of WWII, check out these films now streaming on Tubi:<\/p>\n
\u2022 The Final Days Of The Nazis<\/a>: This 2023 documentary details what happened in the last days before the Third Reich fell and the pursuit of justice afterwards.<\/p>\n