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.
Larry, I read "Flags" and tried to read "Flyboys" but was struck - as you were - by the moral equivocating. Turns out that the author spent many years in Japan and has a Japanese wife. I thought he was a bit of an apologist for Japanese atrocities. That's where "The Great Raid" really shone.
Surely you mean "desegregated" or "integrated"??
Yes I do. Thanks for the correction.
When I think of truly great war movies, the first one that comes to mind is "Zulu," and the second is "Patton." One thing that both of those have in common is there is no moral equivocating over what was right or wrong.
I'm sorry that Japanese cities had to be torched before their ghoulish, insane leaders would surrender, but them's the breaks. Better they fall into our hands than we into theirs.
"Battlegound" and "Stalag 17" are my all-time favorite WWII flicks. Bought both of them on DVD at Wal-Mart about a year ago.
I agree completely. That's the same point I was trying to make - that Holllywood gets caught up in just one level. For some of them, it's because they are propagandists (Oliver Stone,) while for many others, it is because of their artisitc, emotional, tunnel-vision. I have not seen this movie yet, but based on his other movies (Heartbreak Ridge), I would think Eastwood is much more likely to fall into the latter group.
BTW, I agree on Vietnam vets. I have four uncles and a cousin who served there, none of them drafted, and I served with a few Vietnam vets during my time in the Army.
One of the older men, I would guess that he fought on Iwo Jima, said that the actors were too clean to be fighting on Iwo, that the soot and dirt covered everyone so that usually the only way you could tell friend from foe was by their helmets and weapons. But in order for us (the audience) to be able to identify the different characters, some compromises had to be made.
Yes, this is the point I was trying to make in my Post 53, that Hollywood gets too one-dimensional, too caught up in the immediate, personal motivations, ignoring the "big picture," which is a real part of a soldier's motivation - in any war. Thanks for expanding on the point, I agree completely.
I still want to see this movie, and hope it is a good one. I think it is possible for Hollywood to take that narrow approach and still succeed in presenting a respectful treatment of the story.
Get it...if your recipient is at all interested in that sort of thing, it's a "can't put it down" winner; best book I've read in several years.
No doubt!
Exactly - thanks for the correction.
You don't think our government had a hand in the death of JFK ?
You don't think the State Department and other factions in our government have been involved in trying to "destroy" this President currently?
You are stone naive.
Say hello to Patty Fitzgerald for me.
One thing I hate about the current "bumper sticker" mentality of the general public is the tendency to oversimplify.
The reasons men join the military, fight and sacrifice their lives are multilayered. Fighting for your country, for freedom, for your way of life, for your family, and for your buddies next to you in a foxhole are NOT mutually exclusive.
It's worth it if for no other reason than the scene where they finally get the flag up and the entire fleet begins blaring its horns and ringing its bells.
B) Yes, we had to drop the bomb. But what I said was that Japan couldn't win, even if they had won at Midway. Their resources were such that they only built one more fleet carrier in four years (we built 17).
It was a matter of "when," not "if" we beat them, and Yamamoto, among others, knew it.
Kareem Abdul Jabbar has written a book about an African American tank battalion in WWII. I can't remember the name of it, but there are a few books about the black experience in WWII.
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