Bataan Death March
Posted on 12/22/2006 7:35:47 AM PST by meg88
Clint Eastwood, formerly a Hollywood favorite among American patriots, is taking some heat for fictionalizing scenes in his latest movie "Letters From Iwo Jima" – scenes that made the Japanese soldiers look more humane than their American GI counterparts.
Perhaps the sharpest criticism has come from nationally syndicated talk-radio host Michael Savage, who compared the director unfavorably to Tokyo Rose, the World War II-era Japanese radio propagandist.
"The astonishing transformation of Clint Eastwood, from his 'Dirty Harry' days, cannot be more forcefully understood than by appreciating the level to which he has gone in order to appease the liberal gods of Hollywood," said Savage.
"Tokyo Rose would be more of an American patriot than Clint Eastwood in his new propaganda flick.
Almost all of Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima were shown as courageous, long-suffering, loyal, kindly men dragged into the war against their wishes. Revisionist historians should watch this film simply to learn new techniques."
"In one astonishing scene, old Clint has the audacity to show besieged Japanese troops, treating an American prisoner, giving him their last morphine injections!" he said.
"The reality, of course, of Japanese soldiers during World War II, was one of utmost brutality. I kept wanting to scream out, 'Remember the Bataan Death March!' or 'Why don’t you show flashbacks to human experiments on prisoners in Manchuria by the Japanese?'
In fact, while most of the movie is taken from accounts in letters written by Japanese soldiers, this scene was made up. In addition, a Japanese deserter surrenders to the Americans, who shoot the prisoner.
"Eastwood's descent into liberal madness, may be a product of too much success for a young actor with no formal education to speak of," added Savage.
"The years at Pebble Beach have altered an American icon into an unrecognizable Anti-American propagandist."
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
What do you expect from Eastwood after movies like "Million Dollar Baby"?
All I know is I have a much higher regard for Clint Eastwood than I do for Michael Savage.
It happens to most of them. That is the way liberals are - agree with them or suffer the consequences. That is why they should never have power, even the power to award and withhold money, movie roles, etc.
I liked 'Unforgiven' but that was a while back.
Savage Nation Ping!!!!!!!!
Me too. All these expressions of faux outrage are just attempts to get people to listen to his show. If Savage were as perpetually angry as he pretends to be, he would have died of a heart attack years ago. ;)
I have no doubt the majority of Japanese soldiers were forced to fight at swordpoint. An army full of psychopathic killers would not remain a a functional army for very long - and even if only one in a hundred Japanese officers was a brutal psychopath, that's more than enough to account for the harm done to our soldiers and POW's.
Eastwood has the perfect right to tell this story, even if it conflicts with some people's facile, shorthand way of looking at the world. It's the same "Nuke Mecca!" crowd that always gets upset.
Let Ralph Ignatowski never be forgotten! And if you have to say "Ralph who?", google it. What happened to him was so typical of Japanese barbarity in that war.
This is what happens when our enemies come from a different moral perspective than we do and do not have Judeo-Christian values incorporated into their sensibility from a young age. (That's something to bear in mind during today's war, BTW.)
"What do you expect from Eastwood after movies like "Million Dollar Baby"?"
?? More great work? Is there a problem with Million Dollar Baby?
And now Eastwood is winning best picture awards naturally from the lib critics...
No one will go see this movie. It's for the foreign market and local America-hating libs.
Ping!
Exactly, it will only play the big city at the art houses.
There was the scene where the corpsman looks at the remains of his friend, who he apparently heard calling to him before falling through an opening in a foxhole (which was strange enough). But the camera had the viewpoint of the dead American soldier, so you don't see the gory details. So, the corpsman would hear a similar voice afterwards calling to him. The Japanese liked to disembowel live captured Americans and Australians and even left behind written descriptions as if they were medical records.
Quite honestly I don't understand most of the controversy over Million Dollar Baby since it put me to sleep.
Same with Mystic River. I don't understand why people like Eastwood as a director quite honestly. His movies always seem like he's *trying* just a wee too much.
Bataan Death March
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Not a Savage or WND fan myself, but if this scene is as WND says he described it,
... old Clint has the audacity to show besieged Japanese troops, treating an American prisoner, giving him their last morphine injections
Eastwood has probably earned some abuse.
In war you de-humanize the enemy, in peace humanize them.
"Tokyo Rose would be more of an American patriot than Clint Eastwood in his new propaganda flick."
What propoganda? To what ends? This dork Savage does realize the war has long been over and the Japanese are our allies, right?
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