Posted on 10/20/2006 7:04:56 PM PDT by LS
This is not intended as a full-scale review, just some impressions from seeing the movie tonight.
First, as you likely know, it deals with the three men (a Navy corpsman and two Marines) of the six flag raisers who survived Iwo Jima. Clint Eastwood directed this pic, which traces the first flag-raising---which, of course, was thought to be "the" flag-raising---then the second, captured for all time in Joe Rosenthal's photo. The main plot line is that the nation was broke, and would have to sue for peace with the Japanese (right) if we didn't generate more money, quickly, through war bond sales. So these three men were dragooned into doing war bond tours, even to the point of re-enacting their "charge" up Suribachi and their flag-raising.
Second, Eastwood jumps back and forth between time frames---the bond tour, combat on Iwo Jima---that it's extremely difficult to follow. Despite taking time on the ship to try to set the characters of those other than the three main characters (Ira Hayes, Rene Gagnon, and John Bradley), the grittiness of war makes the men look so much alike that, well, it's hard to identify with any particular characters---at least, it was for me.
The main theme of the movie is guilt: the guilt felt by the flag-raisers for their buddies who didn't survive, guilt on Gagnon's part for "only" being a runner, guilt on Hayes's part for only firing his weapon a few times. Eastwood drives home the difficulty of bearing the label "hero," especially when one hasn't done anything particularly outstanding, except for surviving. While he does try, through the War Department representative, to grapple with the public's need for heroes---men who can symbolize what the others went through---Eastwood never quite gets there. Torn between trying to depict the carnage and mayhem of war and the importance of living icons with which to identify, Eastwood comes up a little short in each.
The final lines of the movie repeat the refrain from "Black Hawk Down," "Saving Private Ryan," and other recent war movies: Ultimately, they fought for each other, not for a cause or a country. Perhaps some did, but I find it hard to believe that so many millions of men signed up just to fight for each other.
Moreover, while the photo did capture the public's imagination, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that we would win the Pacific eventually; and in February 1945, with Nazi Germany collapsing, the Bulge pocket pushed back out, and American armies pushing into Germany, to suggest that Americans were about to "give up" if we hadn't gotten a miraculous photo is utter nonsense.
In short, I was disappointed only because I expected a lot more.
And if they don't the army loses and the nation goes under the yoke of oppression by the victorious enemy.
I can't help the fact that virtually NO historian of any reputation agrees with you, nor can I help that the Japanese themselves, in their private memoirs, don't agree with you. That's why it actually helps to read people before you criticize them.
If you want a slightly different, if fictional, take on this, I'd be happy to send you my yet-unpublished "counter-history" novel, "Midway."
No religious "reformation" occurs quickly. Islam has managed to avoid the hard questions, due to the West basically allowing it to, for centuries. Westerners---esp. the English---were more willing to prop up Islamic governments (as long as they were "friendly") rather than seek the fundamental changes Bush seeks.
Also, there are going to be lots of countries where Islam will not be the majority religion, and the non-Islamic governments (if they are smart) will also reinforce this "moderation." I'm not saying it will be easy, but it won't happen overnight, and the conditions now are quite different than even 30 years ago. So we'll see.
[...the battle of Iwo Jima really was. 6000 marines were killed in a two-month long battle securing this two-mile speck of black sulphur in the Pacific.]
These are the heros that a movie can not depict. I don't really care about their reasons for joining, it is important that they stood through the fear and sorrows and despicable horror that inescapable battles between men (representing and defending and protecting the average joe like me and you)bring and fought to win. And we don't know them in any way except they were of our fathers who decided to fight against an evil enemy who would have destroyed us if they did nothing, and so they did.
Can you imagine this happening today with so many young and violent pacifists who have been raised to avoid fighting for their country? I can not, I hope I am wrong.
While I loved the film, I did find the whole "America's broke and ready to quit the war aspect" puzzling. Especially with all the rationing and scrap metal drives that went on. Guess I'll have to read the book to find out if "we're broke, we quit" angle is in there, too, or what. The official's whole speech about needing them to get money for the war made it sound like Democrats know how to sell the war and Republicans don't.
Read "Shattered Sword." It will enlighten.
Exactly. The bond drives were to control inflation, not to raise money per se. But we WOULD have the money, one way or another. Our productive capacity had just geared up in 1944, producing more than 100,000 airplanes a year, 30,000 tanks a year, and four fleet carriers per year. I know they needed a "dramatic hook," but the notion that America's fate rested in the hands of three "star" heroes doing war bond drives beyond silly.
Among US service members:
61.2% draftee
38.8% volunteer
Source: World War II Almanac 1931-1945 by Robert Goralski, (c) 1981
Do you have a breakdown by year? I wonder in in the first 6 months after Pearl Harbor the majority were vols.
Negative. Don't have that info.
Wow, what a great post overall, but I have to question the emphasized text, "protecting our great heritage.". I agree with the construction of your your argument, but your premise is somewhat flawed insofar as many Americans simply do not know our heritage. How can they defend that which they cannot define? And, sadly, I don't think we can depend on our public schools. All the more reason the give generously to organizations that defend the Boy Scouts.
Something that always bothered me about Iwo Jima is it was a tiny island the size of a zit with 20k something Japanese on it...So why didn`t we bomb the damn thing into oblivion? Was it because the Japs were buried like ticks on a dog and it would have done no good?
Bingo... This movie sounds like another hit piece on America. Eastwood by the way is no longer a conservative. He use to be. I think his brain has rot since he has been in Hollywood too long.
The first, as you were writing about, was the jarring back and forth of the story line. I know that it can be an effective technique, but it gave the movie a herky jerky movement, when more of the story could have been told. Eastwood could have portrayed all the battle scenes first, and continued on after with the bond drives and then flashed back. To me, it would have told the story just as well.
The other thing was the overemphasis on "We weren't heroes, the guys who died on Iwo Jima were the heroes." I don't disagree with that, but I am also viewing from the perspective of the present. And to me, anyone who was on that island during the fighting was a hero. No one was safe. It mattered little if one was a corpsman, a runner, or had other duties not directly related to actual combat, everyone was in jeopardy.
Now by no means am I attempting to devalue the actions of those who were in continual combat either. The accounts I have read leave one dazed. I just think Eastwood carried the "We weren't heroes" too far.
Good points. A guy who is on a supply ship is just as valuable as someone actually shooting. No, at that moment, perhaps he isn't in as much danger---but there are other dangers, including the constant threat of subs and air attacks, for which he is almost entirely unarmed and unprotected. Some people are heroes "for real" (Sgt. York) and some people are heroes symbolically, who happen NOT to get shot storming a hill. They went up, all the same.
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