Movie version of "Flags of Our Fathers" is coming out in October

[rudy45]

What's the word on this movie? I hope it's good.

[Brian Mosely]

Trailer looks good

[rudy45]

You're right, it looks really good.

[battlegearboat]

Try reading the book without breaking down in tears.

[battlegearboat]

Call him drunken Ira hayes

He won't answer anymore

that whiskey drinkin' Indian

or Marine that went to war

[Mrs. Darla Ruth Schwerin]

Looks like one belonging in the sane category. Maybe I'll go see it.

[spankalib]

Do you think they'll have that mother who insisted it was her boy....no matter what anyone would say.....because she "knew it was his butt"?

....they'd better have that song in there! (credit roll, at least)

[SquirrelKing]

This looks damn good. A few threads here on FR are bemoaning another anti-US anti-military movie, but I don't get that from this.

Only time will tell - I'll reserve judgment till I have my tub of popcorn...

[af_vet_rr]

Variety has a review (yes, it's Variety, but the only one I've seen so far):

Conventional wisdom suggests directors slow down as they reach a certain age (Eastwood is now 76), become more cautious, recycle old ideas, fall out of step with contemporary tastes, look a bit stodgy. Eastwood has impertinently ignored these options not only by undertaking by far his most expensive and logistically daunting picture, but by creating back-to-back bookend features offering contrasting perspectives on the same topic; the Japanese-language "Letters From Iwo Jima," showing the Japanese side in intimate terms, will be released by Warner Bros. next year.

....It is also a film about the so-called Greatest Generation that considers why its members are, or were, reticent to speak much about what they did in the war, to boast or consider themselves heroes.

(talking about the publicity tour the government sent them on after Iwo Jima) And once they've done their bit raising billions for the government, they're left on their own to put their lives back together. It's not an easy road, particularly for Hayes, who in one moving, genuinely Fordian moment, treks a long distance for a brief visit with the father of one of his fallen comrades.

Given this dramatic, wrenching arc, Hayes' story becomes the heart of the movie, and Beach, who previously played a Native American in the Pacific campaign in "Windtalkers," unquestionably takes the acting honors with it, delivering a full sense of the character's pain and sense of entrapment in an absurd situation. Other perfs are thoughtful, credible and deliberately unspectacular, although Pepper supplies special power as the leader the young men need as they come face to face with the enemy.

I didn't realize that the movie follows them after the war. It appears to have tried to stay as close to the book as possible (the book was written by one of the participant's sons).

What I think will be interesting about this, is the firestorm that's going to crop up. These days, knowledge of history is not ad abundant as it once was, and many people do not realize that there was a second flag raising, and some are going to be uncomfortable that the government sent the survivors on a publicity tour of the US.

Of course, most of us know all of this stuff (and if you watch the old newsreels that ran before movies in the '40s, you'd see all the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that were went on such tours), but still, there will be people that get upset.

I'm more curious to see the Japanese version of this that they are releasing next year. I've visited several of the islands that saw the heaviest fighting, and it was amazing how tenacious they were. I'm guessing that since they are going to show both sides, that this might play well in Japan.

From what I've seen, a lot of Japanese are insanely curious about the war, but are discouraged in Japan from looking into it.

I remember a group of Japanese tourists came through the US National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas (yes, it's in the middle of Texas!) a few years ago, and some even participated in the recreations (they have a "living history" group at the museum who recreate island assualts, complete with flamethrower).

[af_vet_rr]

In reference to what some of the book/movie gets into, Wikipedia has a decent rundown of what happened:

Upon seeing the photo, President Franklin D. Roosevelt realized the picture would make an excellent symbol for the upcoming 7th war bond drive, and ordered the Marines identified and brought home. The Marines were brought home at the conclusion of the battle. Using a photo enlargement, Rene Gagnon identified the others in the photograph, but refused to identify the sixth man (Hayes), insisting he had promised to keep the man's name a secret.[19] Gagnon had promised not to discuss Hayes's identity only because Hayes—who despised Gagnon—had threatened to kill him.[20] After being brought to Marine Corps headquarters and informed that he was being ordered by the President to reveal the information, and that refusing an order to reveal the name would be a serious crime, Gagnon revealed Hayes's name.

Gagnon also misidentified Harlon Block as Sergeant Henry O. "Hank" Hansen, who had not survived the battle (but who had, incidentally, participated in the first flag raising). On April 8, 1945, the Marines Corps released the identification of five of the flag raisers (including Hansen)—Sousley's identity was withheld pending notification of his family of his death during the battle.

The three survivors went on a whirlwind bond tour. The tour was a smashing success, raising $23.3 billion, twice the tour's goal.

In late 1946, Ira Hayes broke his silence and revealed that Harlon Block had been misidentified as Hank Hansen. Enlarge

Questions lingered about the misidentification of Harlon Block. His mother, Belle Block, refused to accept the official identification, noting that she had "changed so many diapers on that boy's butt, I know it's my boy."[22] Immediately on arrival in Washington, D.C. on April 19, Hayes noticed the misidentification in the photo, and noted this to the Marine public relations officer who had been assigned to him. The public relations officer told Hayes that the identifications had already been officially released, and ordered Hayes to keep silent about it.[23]

Over a year and a half later, amidst the depression and alcoholism that would characterize the rest of his life following the war, Ira Hayes hitchhiked to Texas to inform Block's family that Block had, in fact, been the sixth flag raiser.

Ira remembered what Rene Gagnon and John Bradley could not have remembered, because they did not join the little cluster until the last moment: that it was Harlon [Block], Mike [Strank], Franklin [Sousley] and himself [Hayes] who had ascended Suribachi midmorning to lay telephone wire; it was Rene [Gagnon] who had come along with the replacement flag. Hansen had not been part of this action.

Block's mother, Belle, immediately composed a letter to her congressional representative Milton West. West, in turn, forwarded the letter to Marine Corps Commandant Alexander Vandegrift, who ordered an investigation. Both Bradley and Gagnon, upon being shown the evidence, agreed that it was probably Block and not Hansen.[26] Block, Hansen and Hayes were all parachute-trained Paramarines.

[SunkenCiv]

I heard about this movie from a veteran who served on Iwo, who was showing me the book a couple of weeks ago.

[SunkenCiv]

From what I've seen, a lot of Japanese are insanely curious about the war, but are discouraged in Japan from looking into it.

The Japanese disaster at Midway was suppressed in Japan, with the general public not learning of its extent until the mid-50s. It wasn't as hard as one might think to do this, because the operation was secret in the first place, and the thousands of next of kin weren't notified of the exact circumstances.