The great war movie you ever saw.. (Page 2) StuckInTheSixties: Schindler's List is as good as a movie can get ... ... but it's not a "war movie."  AFoolLostinParadise: the one that always comes to my mind was a series rather than movie ... Winds of War and its sequel War & Rememberence StuckInTheSixties: Those books, and the TV mini-series of it, were pretty romancey-schmaltzy, but good, nevertheless. The depiction of Aaron Jastrow being gassed with other Jews was particularly riveting and shocking.  davidk14: The following is not a movie. Many of you have seen Schindlers List. No actors here...this is real footage...this is real history. The following is very, very emotional. This is definately M rated materials. I first saw this footage at 12. StuckInTheSixties: David, that is why I have a particular loathing and intolerance for Nazis and those that would deny the holocaust and glorify Hitler. There have been many evil tyrants throughout history. Stalin probably was responsible for a greater number of deaths than Hitler. But there was a particularly cruel and sadistic manner of the Nazi's evil, the almost mechanized assembly-line quality of genocide, the keeping of meticulous records, the piles of gold teeth and eyeglasses, the horrible medical experiments on children, lampshades made of tanned human skin, etc etc ... Krash, Vietnam was, indeed, a war. But the majority of that film is not in a war setting. In fact, little of the film has battle scenes. I guess it depends on how you define "war movie." I think of a war movie as one that predominently depicts combat.  miss gege: Red Badge of Courage was great (the original) Glory was amazing again i mention Gettysburg if you've not seen it...rent it i have to agree with SITS ON winds of war...more soap opera davidk14: gege...Yes...the movie Glory was definately moving. I also think the movie Galipoli was also moving. KrAsH: I liked Letters From Iwo Jima Like to see movies from different point of views (not just a western point of view) Theres an old german world war 2 movie,but the name escapes me StuckInTheSixties: Yes, Gege! The Hurt Locker is a really good one. And yes, Krash! How could I have forgotten Flags Of Our Fathers, and it's counterpart, Letters From Iwo Jima? Flags Of Our Fathers is my favorite book on World War II. When I heard it was going to be made into a film, I was very trepiditious. It's such a beautiful book I was worried about having it defiled. But I was somewhat reassured when I heard that Clint Eastwood was directing. There were some minor details that I had criticism with, but the tone of the movie matched the book perfectly. Both of those films were so well done. davidk14: . STS, I somehow felt a little disappointed with Clint's films. I felt they leaned a little to the left since Clint is a big left wing guy. I didn't see the patriotism on the American side that was actually there. Perhaps if there was just a little more of that, I would have been on board. Perhaps I missed it? . StuckInTheSixties: Perhaps you did, David. I don’t know. There was no lack of patriotism amongst the six "flag raisers" portrayed in the film. The three that survived the battle were pressed into service, as the film showed, to travel around the country, capitalizing on their fame, and helping to raise money for the war effort. It was an agonizing ordeal for those three men, fresh off the battlefield, the tragic mayhem of that horribly vicious combat permeating their day-to-day lives, but they did their duty as best they could. It was particularly hard for Ira Hayes, and eventually, he died an ignominious drunken death from exposure, no less a casualty of the war than any soldier killed on the battlefield. The true-life story shows how events shaped very different lives for those three very different survivors. Those events killed one of them, Ira Hayes, and left the second, Rene Gagnon, with a miserable life. The third, John Bradley, was fortunate to have been able to live a very good life after the war, although he was haunted by his own personal demons, as well. I can only assume that the "lack of patriotism" you perceived was from the depiction of the War Bonds tour, and the toll it took on those men. The author of the book, James Bradley, made a point of explaining how hard this War Bonds tour was how he had been those three men. Something that wasn't able to be included in the film was that as a young man, author James Bradley was critical of the way the US had brought the war to an end with the bomb, and how in retrospect, how patient his father John had been with his young and ignorantly outspoken opinions. His father John never wavered in his patriotism, which he exhibited mostly be living a good, modest, religious life and as a pillar of his community as he went through life. John Bradley was not bombastic and demonstrative in his patriotism, but just by his life, he exemplifies for me how good those people were, and how they saved the world for us, and how much he loved and gave to his country. It was only later in James' life, as he grew older and matured, as he learned some of the horrible details that his father and the others were subjected to on the battlefield, that his views changed. Life is rarely simple, black and white, good and evil. I was very happy with Clint Eastwood's capturing of that complex "tone" of that story. Although the photograph of that flag raising, and the subsequent mythologizing of the event would seem to exemplify this thing called "glory," Bradley's book, his father's view of the war, the grief and misery war causes both on and off the battlefield ... the book, and Eastwood's film, captured the tone of that perfectly. I was particularly pleased with the way that the death of Sergeant Mike Strank was depicted, and how it was true to a critical point the book made. He was the pillar of strength of that group of men. His men relied on him, respected him. He was critical heart and soul to those men and their cohesiveness as a unit of effective fighters. And one moment he was there, the pillar of strength, the next moment, he was struck down, almost for no reason. No heroic, gripping death scene. Just BANG!, a few moments of agony, and then death. Life, otherwise the most precious of commodities, is cheap on the battlefield. War has no glory. It's sometimes necessary, but there is nothing good or glorious about it. That was a point that I thought was made so well in “Saving Private Ryan,” as well. Perhaps it's because I had the benefit of reading the book several times years before the film was produced, but for me, this film exemplifies what patriotism is, and the price that is paid for it, far more then any film John Wayne ever made. As for Letters From Iwo Jima, it was obviously a film purposefully made to see the conflict from the point of view of the Japanese who fought there. So what was “left wing” or “unpatriotic” about any of that? What am I missing?  LiptonCambell: I really liked the "Wind Talkers" movie- they gave it the moral ambiguity that you usually only see in Vietnam movies | Movies Chat Room Similar Conversations |
