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History Forum / General / British History / December 2006Letters From Iwo Jima
Clint Eastwood Scores Again. _Letters From Iwo Jima_ -- A Superior Film. http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/movies/20lett.html?8mu&emc=mu DSH Lux et Veritas et Libertas Vires et Honor On 12/22/06 10:10 PM, in article P%1jh.276$qW.684@eagle.america.net, "D. Spencer Hines" <poguemidden@hotmail.com> wrote: > Clint Eastwood Scores Again. > > _Letters From Iwo Jima_ -- A Superior Film. > > http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/movies/20lett.html?8mu&emc=mu I have read a couple of other reviews that were equally laudatory. I will be there when Letters opens in OKC. I saw Eastwood's woefully underappreciated "Flags of Our Fathers" this fall and liked it a lot. Those who knocked it seemed to mostly fall into one of two categories: either they hadn't seen it and thought it was rah-rah nonsense, or they saw it and were shocked at its uncompromising (although accurate) portrayal of the sometimes ugly US propaganda machine in WW-II. Anyway, it's an outstanding film, too. Grey Satterfield _Letters From Iwo Jima_ is a far, far better film than _Flags of Our Fathers_, Clint Eastwood's other film about the Battle of Iwo Jima. DSH Lux et Veritas et Libertas Veritas Vos Liberabit On 12/23/06 7:31 AM, in article jdajh.279$qW.745@eagle.america.net, "D. Spencer Hines" <poguemidden@hotmail.com> wrote: > _Letters From Iwo Jima_ is a far, far better film than _Flags of Our > Fathers_, Clint Eastwood's other film about the Battle of Iwo Jima. No doubt about it. From all indications, Letters might turn out to be a great film. Flags isn't a great film but it's a damn good one. Grey Satterfield > On 12/23/06 7:31 AM, in article jdajh.279$qW.745@eagle.america.net, "D. > Spencer Hines" <poguemidden@hotmail.com> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Grey Satterfield IFC has been running 'Fires on the Plains' a movie I saw years ago it is a japanese WWII movie, it is set in the philipines in 1945, it starts after the japanese army is defeated and the soldiers are scattered and wandering around the jungle without hope or chance of survival. they are not the crazed die for the emperor fanatics we have been led to think of them being. they are scared, discouraged starving, they are turning on each other and even resorting to cannibalism. another excellent movie {but tough to find} is 'The Band That Went to War' a movie about a military sent to fight in manchuria. how we see the the japanese and how they see themselves is amzing in the gulf between those views. >> On 12/23/06 7:31 AM, in article jdajh.279$qW.745@eagle.america.net, "D. >> Spencer Hines" <poguemidden@hotmail.com> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > how we see the the japanese and how they see themselves is amzing in the > gulf between those views. Hello Ray, interesting. The first is a 1959 movie called "Nobi" in Japanese, excellent indeed. I don't know about the 2nd, but there is a famous book out using a similar theme, in which the commander of a unit in Burma in perhaps 1944 or so keeps up the morale of his men by getting them to perform as a band. They finally survive the war without losses, although one member leaves the group in order to remain in Burma/Malaysia to work for good after all the damage caused by the Japanese during the occupation period.  SignatureGernot Hassenpflug (gernot@rish.kyoto-u.ac.jp) Tel: +81 774 38-3866 JSPS Fellow (Rm.403, RISH, Kyoto Uni.) Fax: +81 774 31-8463 www.rish.kyoto-u.ac.jp/radar-group/members/gernot Mob: +81 90 39493924 > On 12/22/06 10:10 PM, in article P%1jh.276$qW.684@eagle.america.net, "D. > Spencer Hines" <poguemidden@hotmail.com> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > accurate) portrayal of the sometimes ugly US propaganda machine in WW-II. > Anyway, it's an outstanding film, too. I've only seen FOOF so far, and thought it pretty good. It wasn't supposed to be "Saving Private Ryan" nothing-but-combat movie, nor was it. It was what was actually advertised. Anyone who saw it and thought it was rah-rah totally missed the mark, and anyone who was shocked by the portrayal of the US propaganda machine (in effect, of all nations' propaganda machines) is just an ostrich. On the latter point, I thought Eastwood very deftly handled it. He had one of the central characters explain to the Marines and corpsman that for all the stupid papier-mache Mt. Suribachi re-enactments, and the fireworks, and the agonizing they were doing over the fact that they were no greater heroes than anyone else, the fact was that none of that was important - what was important was sustaining national will, national productivity, national purpose, and opening national pocketbooks. And in a very real sense each of the War Bond Drive guys was much more valuable than a battalion of people actually fighting overseas. To my mind this is the "good" propaganda. The "bad" propaganda is the stuff that demonizes the enemy, because down that route lie atrocities. I read some other criticisms of the first film, saying that the CG looked unrealistic. Well, yeah, you could tell it was CG. But it was frigging impressive CG, and it got the point across. What's important is that it was accurate factually. I'm looking forward to viewing the other. AHS |
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