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Originally Posted by Holden Pike
Yes, that photo was staged. It was recreating a moment that had actually happened, but yes, the most famous photograph of World War II (and one of the most famous images of the 20th Century) was staged.
The book Flags of Our Fathers, as well as Eastwood's film, recount all the details of that image, from the battle, to the staging, to the fates of the young men in that picture. They were trotted around the United States on publicity tours afterward, to boost homefront morale and infuse the war effort. Most of them died in action shortly after returning to the Pacific. What makes the book so interesting, and I'm sure by extension the film, is that it covers all of this ground, not glossing over anything.
So yes, it is staged. No, that's no State secret. And after the movie opens, millions more people from different generations will know the heroism of that battle as well as the manipulation of the image.
Originally Posted by Joe Rosenthal
Ten years after the flag-raising, Rosenthal wrote that he almost didn't go up to the summit when he learned a flag had already been raised. He decided to up anyway, and found servicemen preparing to put up the second, larger flag.
"Out of the corner of my eye, I had seen the men start the flag up. I swung my camera and shot the scene. That is how the picture was taken, and when you take a picture like that, you don't come away saying you got a great shot. You don't know."
"Millions of Americans saw this picture five or six days before I did, and when I first heard about it, I had no idea what picture was meant."
He recalled that days later, when a colleague congratulated him on the picture, he thought he meant another, posed shot he had taken later that day, of Marines waving and cheering at the base of the flag.
He added that if he had posed the flag-raising picture, as some skeptics have suggested over the years, "I would, of course, have ruined it" by choosing fewer men and making sure their faces could be seen."
"Out of the corner of my eye, I had seen the men start the flag up. I swung my camera and shot the scene. That is how the picture was taken, and when you take a picture like that, you don't come away saying you got a great shot. You don't know."
"Millions of Americans saw this picture five or six days before I did, and when I first heard about it, I had no idea what picture was meant."
He recalled that days later, when a colleague congratulated him on the picture, he thought he meant another, posed shot he had taken later that day, of Marines waving and cheering at the base of the flag.
He added that if he had posed the flag-raising picture, as some skeptics have suggested over the years, "I would, of course, have ruined it" by choosing fewer men and making sure their faces could be seen."
