Posted on 02/23/2007 6:06:59 AM PST by libstripper
Clint Eastwood's, "Letters From Iwo Jima," is a brilliantly made film that is up for Best Picture at the Academy Awards this Sunday. It has already won the Golden Globe for Best Picture. Nonetheless, it is a terribly misleading film.
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
In any month in the first half of 1945, upwards of a quarter-of-a-million Asian men, women, and children were dying at the hands of the Japanese. Many women were gang raped by Japanese troops before they were butchered. That's really no longer war. It's genocide.
But in September of 1945, the Asian death rate drops to zero … and stays at zero. When Japan is finally forced to halt its ambitions of conquest and when its army goes home, the entire orgy of death stops. It's that simple.
And why, children, did this wonderful thing happen? The eeevil U.S., its immoral military, and the hideous ATOM BOMB!!
Good article.
Although it's true that the Japanese are just as human as Americans - and in fact, many ethnic Japanese are Americans :-) - there's no equivalence between our military and theirs in World War II.
To say nothing of the Rape of Nanking.
Or their keeping native Formosans and other Pacific islanders as food animals.
I really don't get this angle. It's like saying Das Boot (IMHO one of the best war movies ever made) was propaganda because it didn't show anything about the Holocaust.
Is is just me, or is there a relationship between the ideological leanings of films, articles, pictures, or songs (even notwithstanding factual inaccuracy) and the winning of awards in certain press, movie, music, and writing circles?
Dixie Chicks, Walter Duranty, Bowling for Columbine, Inconvenient Truths, the Fauxtography of Palestine...
the ending was absolutely the saddest.... I liked the black and white version... it made the movie seem "wetter" for some reason.
Have you seen 08/15? A series of anti war movies made up from Hans Helmut Kirst's books "Revolt of Gunner Asch", "Forward, Gunner Asch" and "The Return of Gunner Asch".
08/15 refers to the water cooled Maxim machinegun of WWII, which was notorious for being hard to get to work properly (during WWII) though it was called "The Devil's Paintbrush" during WWI, and is probably more responsible for more military deaths than any other weapon.
In WWII it was thought wonderful, but it ran using a spring which was hard to get set properly. The British Vickers was an improvement of it, and the Browning .50 cal Heavy Barrel M2 calles it Great Grandfather.
Eastwood honored French President Jacques Chirac pins the medal of the Legion of Honor on the lapel of actor and director Clint Eastwood during a ceremony in Paris on Saturday. (AP photo by Remy de la Mauviniere) Feb 17, 2007
Eastwood was always a liberal. Where did people ever get the idea he was anything else?
It's not just you, I think it's obvious.
The Japanese started the war, and they lost it, at a great cost to many innocent people.
Maybe someday they'll make "Letters from Al Qaeda".
ping
Fat Man and Little Boy in the end saved millions of Japanese lives.
Funny thing is that the Germans, who have a massive amount of WWII guilt, didn't like the sailors being portrayed in a positive light. The producers were worried how it would be received by the audiences of their WWII enemy, but American audiences loved it. It appears we've lost the ability to humanize the soldiers we previously fought.
I look at the Letters movie in a different way, as the other side of Flags of our Fathers.
BTW, the movie is not kind to abusive behavior such as this. The officer in charge, contrary to common practice, stops the abuse of Japanese soldiers by their superiors and orders medical aid for a captured American despite supplies being short. He also opposed war with America, but had to do his duty. It helps that he was probably somewhat Westernized due to a partly Canadian education and a couple years of work and travel in the US.
He supported Nixon in the 60s and was elected to office as a Republican 20 years ago, that naturally led people to think is was conservative by Hollywood standards.
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