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.
To quantify things, if Private Ryan is a 100%, then Flags is...about a 65%.
The movie does jump around, and somehow on the emotional side touches on the maudlin in a way that Ryan totally avoided.
I was expecting a Ryan of the Pacific Theatre, and...mostly I didn't get it.
I figured that because Clint Eastwood was directing it, it would just be mind-blowingly good, but it was just.....good and not more.
Also, I thought somehow the fierce fighting of the Japanese in the Pacific Islands was factored somehow into Truman's decision to drop the A-bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Is that perspective true (I may be mistaken-- it's not a decision I have spent any serious time pondering or researching, but just accepting as a part of history) and if so, is it present or missing in the book/movie?
"...For Your Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today"
IMO, Liberals and RINOs aren't worthy of licking these mens boots! These brave American heroes must be turning in their graves at the dirty politics and anti-American, anti-military garbage that we have representing us.
I think that it will just send libs completely through the roof. Mexicans will love it, you will love it, conservatives everywhere will love it.
The guy who directed "Jesus Camp" will probably have a stroke, or heart attack, or perhaps both at the same time.
Joseph leading pregant Mary on a donkey, wise men crossing dunes, bearing gifts....I saw it, and it looks GREAT.
Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer will have to come out to feed, after this one...
Read the book. Saw the movie. I liked the book. I didn't like the movie.
My wife and I saw it today. We also took my Dad who was a pharmacists mate (Navy Corpsman) who invaded Iwo Jima on D-Day and Okinawa (also) on D-Day.
First, I liked the movie. I thought the depictions of the mayhem of the invasion were quite realistic. My Dad said they were, as well. He said he also remembers how hard it was to hear anything in the din, although he never thought about that in all the years since then until we saw the movie.
Second, I was apprehensive about seeing it because I thought the war bond drive portion could degenerate into a soap opera which is a shame since the story of the invasion is such a great story on its own. After seeing it I thought they could have spent more time on Iwo and less on the bond drive.
I understand you can't do 2.5 hours in just the din of battle. That would have lost most the viewers. Still, the bond drive I thought could have been more of an interlude to give the viewers a rest from time to time. Clint did a good job of showing what filthy slime were politicians in those days as they are today. The flash backs within flash backs didn't harm the movie for me. The way it was written, that made sense.
I'm sure I'll think of more things as time goes by, but here are some impressions:
Quintessential Eastwood (in these sensitive times): The Sailors and Marines did seem to enjoy a good smoke.
The audience was mostly older folks. I was among the youngest there. I'm going to be 55 next month. My guess is the vast majority of the population never heard of Iwo Jima, as it doesn't make the radar screen among the young folk.
Unusual item: When the movie ended, the exit theme was marvelously understated. During the theme and credits, there were many pictures of the real battle flashed on the screen. While they were flashing these pictures, no one in the theater moved. We all just sat there and looked at those pictures. I think it lasted several minutes, maybe five or so.
I knew the story of Ira Hayes long ago. I remember an ancient Johnny Cash song that told the tragic story. I didn't need to see it today, so anyone can have my part of it...again...too much focus on the bond drive.
Other than my Dad, I've met two other men in my life that participated in that invasion. With but one or two questions, I have never...NEVER...had the least bit of difficulty getting these guys to tell their story.
I also once sought out and spoke to a sailor on the Yorktown in the Battle of Midway. This guy just loved telling me his story.
I have worked with and personally known guys in battle in Vietnam. I have never...NEVER...had the least difficulty in getting these guys to tell their stories. (I grew up with one guy that went to Vietnam and returned a head case ala Ira Hayes. He was the only one I ever met that did so.)
I think the axiom of ex-military never wanting to talk about war experiences is a bunch of drivel. Just an opinion.
I do rememeber asking my dad when I was a teen how guys can keep pushing forward when guys around them are getting blown to bits. He told me long before I ever heard anyone else say it that in that kind of struggle guys fight for the guys around them, no more, no less.
Disclaimer: I was Navy and never involved in any battles so all of my battle genre experiences have been vicarious.
That theme is raised in the adverts and I thought 'Huh? We were going to pack it in in winter 1945 when we were on the verge of victory in both Europe and the Pacific?' Granted after Iwo there was still Okinawa and still a lot of fighting and dying in Europe too in March and April, but......
I just watched the trailer for The Nativity online. I've got to see that one. I loved "This Christmas" as the trailer opens. If the actual movie is half as good as the trailer, this one is going to be special. They don't make movies like that anymore. Thanks for the heads up.
Re war stories: (1) Friend of my parents was a medic in WWII and he wouldn't talk about it. (2) Another family friend was on a ship in the Pacific that was sunk - he always told the story of his two buddies - one couldn't swim - said the oil in the water was on fire and when a life raft appeared the guy who couldn't swim managed to beat the other two to the raft (3) My Mum's love of her life (no, not my father) was on the ship that sank and the men attacked by sharks - don't think she ever really got over that loss all the way to age 80 when she passed.
Thanks for that great post.
I just saw the movie and I was looking online for reviews and came across this....
BTW, it was OK... but then again, I didn't like Saving Private Ryan...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1927787,00.html
Absent from history: the black soldiers at Iwo Jima
Nearly 900 African-Americans fought on the Japanese island but not one appears in Clint Eastwood's Oscar-tipped film, writes Dan Glaister
Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Friday October 20, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
The portrayal in Clint Eastwood's film, Flags of Our Fathers, of the raising of the US flag on Iwo Jima.
On February 19 1945 Thomas McPhatter found himself on a landing craft heading toward the beach on Iwo Jima.
"There were bodies bobbing up all around, all these dead men," said the former US marine, now 83 and living in San Diego. "Then we were crawling on our bellies and moving up the beach. I jumped in a foxhole and there was a young white marine holding his family pictures. He had been hit by shrapnel, he was bleeding from the ears, nose and mouth. It frightened me. The only thing I could do was lie there and repeat the Lord's prayer, over and over and over."
Sadly, Sgt McPhatter's experience is not mirrored in Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood's big-budget, Oscar-tipped film of the battle for the Japanese island. While the battle scene's in the film - which opens today in the US - show scores of young soldiers in combat, none of them are African-American. Yet almost 900 African-American troops took part in the battle of Iwo Jima, including Sgt McPhatter.
The film tells the story of the raising of the stars and stripes over Mount Suribachi at the tip of the island. The moment was captured in a photograph that became a symbol of the US war effort. Eastwood's film follows the marines in the picture, including the Native American Ira Hayes, as they were removed from combat operations to promote the sale of government war bonds.
Mr McPhatter, who went on to serve in Vietnam and rose to the rank of lieutenant commander in the US navy, even had a part in the raising of the flag. "The man who put the first flag up on Iwo Jima got a piece of pipe from me to put the flag up on," he says. That, too, is absent from the film.
"Of all the movies that have been made of Iwo Jima, you never see a black face," said Mr McPhatter. "This is the last straw. I feel like I've been denied, I've been insulted, I've been mistreated. But what can you do? We still have a strong underlying force in my country of rabid racism."
Melton McLaurin, author of the forthcoming The Marines of Montford Point and an accompanying documentary to be released in February, says that there were hundreds of black soldiers on Iwo Jima from the first day of the 35-day battle. Although most of the black marine units were assigned ammunition and supply roles, the chaos of the landing soon undermined the battle plan.
"When they first hit the beach the resistance was so fierce that they weren't shifting ammunition, they were firing their rifles," said Dr McLaurin.
The failure to transfer the active role played by African-Americans at Iwo Jima to the big screen does not surprise him. "One of the marines I interviewed said that the people who were filming newsreel footage on Iwo Jima deliberately turned their cameras away when black folks came by. Blacks are not surprised at all when they see movies set where black troops were engaged and never show on the screen. I would like to say that it was from ignorance but anybody can do research and come up with books about African-Americans in world war two. I think it has to do with box office and what producers of movies think Americans really want to see."
He added: "I want to see these guys get their due. They're just so anxious to have their story told and to have it known."
Roland Durden, another black marine, landed on the beach on the third day. "When we hit the shore we were loaded with ammunition and the Japanese hit us with mortar." Private Durden was soon assigned to burial detail, "burying the dead day in, day out. It seemed like endless days. They treated us like workmen rather than marines."
Mr Durden, too, is wearied but unsurprised at the omissions in Eastwood's film. "We're always left out of the films, from John Wayne on," he said. Mr Durden ascribes to both the conspiracy as well as the cock-up theory of history. "They didn't want blacks to be heroes. This was pre-1945, pre civil rights."
A spokesperson for Warner Bros said: "The film is correct based on the book." The omission was first remarked upon in a review by Fox News columnist Roger Friedman, who noted that the history of black involvement at Iwo Jima was recorded in several books, including Christopher Moore's recent Fighting for America: Black Soldiers - the Unsung Heroes of World War II. "They weren't in the background at all," said Moore.
"The people carrying the ammunition were 90% black, so that's an opportunity to show black soldiers. These are our films and very often they become our history, historical documents." Yvonne Latty, a New York University professor and author of We Were There: Voices of African-American Veterans (2004), wrote to Eastwood and the film's producers pleading with them to include the experience of black soldiers. HarperCollins, the book's publishers, sent the director a copy, but never heard back.
"It would take only a couple of extras and everyone would be happy," she said. "No one's asking for them to be the stars of the movies, but at least show that they were there. This is the way a new generation will think about Iwo Jima. Once again it will be that African-American people did not serve, that we were absent. It's a lie."
The first chapter to James Bradley's book Flags of Our Fathers, which forms the basis of the movie, opens with a quotation from president Harry Truman. "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know." It would provide a fitting endnote to Eastwood's film.
One of the things I always found infinitely interesting about Iwo Jima had to do with the guts of the guys that did that job. In those days the planners knew from much experience that an island that size would be taken in about 3 or 4 days. It was simply a "given."
I read somewhere once that Kuribayashi knew it was a suicide mission. He had the same basic information as did General Smith and Admiral Spruance that in that war for invasion after invasion after invasion the Americans had never been hurled back, not once. He knew if they maintained the will, Iwo would fall. His plan was to surrender it a square inch at a time. The whole event still makes me shudder to think of it.
Eastwood really has only two points he spends the movie dwelling on:
1. War is a brutal hell.
2. White people in the 40's were racists.
Some of the old war movie cliches are just too good for him to pass up too, for example, the senior officers are preening, incompetent boobs.
The ridiculous line that the country was going bankrupt or so weary of war that it was on the verge of offering the Japanese peace terms was laughable.
I would encourage Mr. Durdin to go see Seargent Rutledge someday before he joins that great theater in the sky.
You've got to be kidding me! I've been doing inventory at work all week, so I haven't had much of a chance to catch any news and this is the first I've heard of this.
Those scumbags should, at the very least, be brought up on charges of accessory to murder, if not outright treason.
I talked to lots of German vets of WWII and noticed the same thing, once they knew we were GIs and not peaceniks, actually interested in hearing their stories, they were more than willing to talk. Funny thing tho' everybody fought the Russians, no one ever fought Americans (wink).
One guy got a little loaded and remarked next time would be better, they had good allies this time, the Americans and British!
I`m still ready to pop, check out Drudge and CNN`s own web site. Rush went nuts over it and its on his web site. I really shows who`s side CNN is on.Some how, must be because of a clerical error, the story isn`t being covered by the MSM. Hope the Republicans bring it up on the Sunday shows but I won`t hold my breath
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