I recently purchased DvD’s of a couple war movies that I had yet to see. The first being Black Hawk Down, the second one being HBOs mini-series Band of Brothers. I was literally blown away by both of these movies. It’s hard to consider the latter as a television show, because it is so well made and more realistic than most war movies that I have ever seen.
Instead of making my entire post a spoiler tag, I am warning you now that there ARE spoilers ahead. If you have not seen Black Hawk Down or Band of Brothers cease reading this post now.
Black Hawk Down is a terrifying movie. I have read in its own thread that most posters found this movie to be dull, and more than a few posters thought that it was senseless with its use of violence. I disagree with both sentiments. I found this movie treats its characters with respect. There is fear, there is valor, and there is numbness to be seen all around within the range of different characters. I found the performances to be right on cue in regards of people facing an impossible situation. I can only imagine what it would have been like to be under such relentless danger. It’s like being caught up in a nest consisting of thousands of ants that show no fear or consciousness of their own lives. There is a scene where there are three men trapped by their downed helicopter, one of the men has a broken leg. Slowly, and inexorably, they are surrounded in a circle by hundreds of women, men, and children, who share an overwhelming hatred for what these three men personify. They struggle to survive taking dozens upon dozens of these unrelenting militia down, but two of the men that could have still run are eventually killed, the second being taken into the middle of the mob, and literally dissected. Fortunately, Ridley Scott chose to imply this instead of showing it. If he had decided to have it shown, it would have taken away the power of it. Sometimes less is more. The unfortunate soldier with the broken leg is left, and he fires his last bullet. He’s hidden away inside a building and knows that it is only a matter of moments before the mob sees him and does to him the unthinkable. This is easily the most powerful moment of the movie, and really signifies the overall sentiment that the movie is trying to portray. Futility. He sits back and sighs, taking out a picture of his pretty wife and pretty daughter and waits. I felt like wailing for this man. In the end, you know that he survives it, by being taken prisoner and later released. Yet, how can anyone know what this man went through? What he still must be going through. All the carnage that happened in Somalia that day was futile. They went in to capture a warlord with the hopes that it would end a civil war and the hundreds of thousands of starving people might have a chance at mere survival. All that it did do, however, was ensure the deaths of over a thousand Somalians and the deaths of 19 American soldiers. There is a scene within the movie where a Somalian Warlord informs his American captor, that there are hundreds willing to take his place in the eventuality of his deaths. People who sit behind desks decided that they could make a difference, by proxy, using lives that are not their own. Perhaps the people that decide should have to be the ones to risk their own lives, and leave the rest of us alone.
Band of Brothers is now my favorite war film of all time. I watched all 10 hour long episodes yesterday and today and am already anxious to watch them again. I can’t think of another war movie that had better acting than this one. It has a cast of a few people that are recognizable, and many who are not. Regardless, they ALL were perfectly cast. This is definitely a must see if you’re into the war genre.
”Based on the bestseller by Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers tells the story of Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army. Drawn from interviews with survivors of Easy Company, as well as soldier’s journals and letters, Band of Brothers chronicles the experiences of these men who knew extraordinary bravery and extraordinary fear. They were an elite rifle company parachuting into France early on D-Day morning, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge and capturing Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgarden. They were also a unit that suffered 150 percent casualties, and whose lives became legend.”
Episode #1: Currahee
The year is 1942 and the U.S. Army has decided to start training in a newer type of combat unit. The Airborne. Episode #1 takes us through basic training and an introduction to the many men that we will come to know within the series. What I liked initially with this episode is the use of David Schwimmer as the tough Drill instructor. After tiring of his ceaseless nasal whining in Friends, we see that he is indeed capable of playing more manly roles. Hurrah for him. Unfortunately, he is a better instructor than he is a combat leader. This episode ends with his re-assignment to a non-combative role and the men graduating and heading to England. There they will finish their training, and eventually be dropped into Normandy.
Episode #2: Day of Days
The day is June 6th, 1944, D-Day. The allies drop the 101st Airborne’s Easy Company into Axis controlled France. Unfortunately, due to the severe anti-aircraft and severe weather, most of them are dropped sporadically across the countryside. Many die in the aircraft, either being hit by shrapnel, or by being incinerated in an exploding aircraft. The special effect used in this series is phenomenal. It makes movies such as Windtalkers look small and petty (I actually hated that movie) and ridiculous in comparison. The story follows Lt. White as he tries to find the rest of his company, and more importantly, the Captain who is supposed to lead them into battle. Unable to find the latter, he is thrust into the role of acting C.O. We find that he will be one of the most revered leaders that the European campaign had ever seen.
Episode #3: Carentan
What I really liked about this series is how each episode is seen from a different soldier’s perspective. This one in particular is very successful at showing the overwhelming fear that a soldier feels in a combative situation. Pvt. Blithe is the central figure in this episode. He is a man who has built a wall around himself. A wall built of terror. We learn that after he lands at Normandy, Blithe does nothing to find his Company, or do much of anything at all. He lies down, shuts down, and sleeps until he is found. When he is found and regrouped with the rest of the company, they get orders to capture the town of Carentan, France. We follow the ordeal of Blithe not being able to fire his weapon, actually unable to do anything but hide in his foxhole. When he eventually gathers the strength to stand and fight, it is because he accepts the fact that he might not make it out alive, so he had better fight. There is a better chance of surviving if you face your enemy than there is by keeping your eyes closed. Near the end of the film, he has changed. He is the only man to volunteer for point, and is sadly wounded. He never recovers from his wounds and dies two years later.
Episode #4: Replacements
This is the story of the unsuccessful, and little known, operation Market-Garden. It was the allied attempt to enter Germany through Holland and ending the war by Christmas, 1944. Easy Company enters a town in Holland where they are welcomed with open arms as liberators from German occupation. It’s also the story of Sgt. "BULL" Randleman. When Easy enters a nearby town, they find the German’s waiting for them and vastly superior in number. There is no other alternative but to beat a hasty retreat. However Bull is left behind. He has to hide in a barn overnight while a small group of his friends try to go back and rescue him. At one point, Bull is almost discovered, and only avoids capture by having a hand to hand fight with a German soldier. It is very successful at showing the chaos and sloppiness of real life or death fighting. There is no fancy kick, or nearby prop to save his life. Only his determination, and luck of the draw of being a rather large man. Very realistic.
Episode #5: Crossroads
This story is once again centered on Capt. White. Easy Company is sent to the Ardennes Forest to help hold the line against a massive gathering of German Soldiers. There the men find an enemy gun placement and have need to destroy it. Capt. Winters leads the attack and in the process, kills a German soldier who is only a boy. He is forever haunted by this and sees the boy over and over again when he looks at youth everywhere in Paris, where he is sent on a much needed leave. This episode is centered more on the reprocussions of killing and what a man deals with when he has no other choice but to commit this act.
Episode #6: Bastogne
The German Army at Bastogne, Belgium surrounds the 101st Airborne. It’s the Battle of the Bulge shown from a perspective different from the most famous, being Patton’s. It’s always been hyped that Patton actually rescued these men, but they have always said they didn’t need any rescuing. And in this documentation, I tend to agree. This is a medic’s tale. That’s whom this perspective centers with. Soldier after soldier is torn apart with only two medics to help them, and one of them can’t even find a pair of scissors to cut field dressings with. We watch the medic barely hold onto his sanity as he mends men and also watches men die. He is easily one of the best characters in this entire series.
Episode #7: The Breaking Point
The men are in the middle of the woods in sub-zero temperatures. They have little water, and even less food. Only the highest brass has winter clothing and even they are freezing. It is a time of waiting and hiding in foxholes. They have little or no supplies, but keep plugging along. There has never before been a film able to show what real horror artillery is. Hour after hour the men are bombarded by mortar shells, and lose a great number within their ranks because of it. This is the story of a lieutenant who finally reaches the end of his rope, when he watches a mortar tear two of his best friends to shreds. While the lieutenant reaches his breaking point and is crippled by it, the men in question can bear it. It is a terribly sad episode.
Episode #8: The Last Patrol
Colin Hanks makes an appearance in this episode, as a newly graduated West Point Officer. I liked it because he managed to be respected in short order. Easy Company is on one side of the river within a shelled town, while the Germans are on the other side in their own-shelled town. The brass at the top decides they want some prisoners, so a 15-man patrol is sent to get them. It is a ridiculous order given by men away from the action, and when the men are successful, they get orders to do it all over again. It is pointless and made me angry at people like that. Yet, it was also proof that some of that brass isn’t blind, when Major Winters tells them to get a good nights rest instead and creates a false document, saying the men were unsuccessful with the second mission.
Episode #9: Why We Fight
Easy Company finds one of the first concentration camps during their push to Germany. It is profoundly powerful in its depiction of the overwhelming despair of the prisoners, the soldiers, and the German civilians who either didn’t know that this was happening just 10 miles away from town, or chose to ignore it. Not even Schindler’s List was able to capture what it must have been like as well as this series did during this particular episode. I think the most poignant part of this episode is when a translator has to inform all of the newly liberated Jews that they have to stay in the camp for awhile yet. It really is for their own good. When a person is at the point of starvation that these poor suffering souls are, any form of overeating can rupture their stomachs. They needed to be closely monitored in order for them to survive their rehabilitation. Powerful, powerful, powerful. And painful.
Episode #10: Points
The way a soldier got to go home during WWII was either to be wounded in a way that he could not return, or to have been involved in enough engagements to earn 85 points. Some engagements were worth more than others, while getting wounded gave you the most. This is the end of the European Campaign. Hitler is dead and Easy Company has captured Hitler’s home: The Eagle’s Nest, which is situated high up in the Alps. Now these men who have fought hard, have nothing to do. Some of them have fought since Normandy, but are yet a handful of points away from being sent home. The frustration they must have felt could only have been extreme. Especially when they find that they are to go to the Pacific.
__________________
"Today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."
Reply to Topic
WHY??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!? 
), Das Boot depicts the dilemma of being a patriot and loyal to your crew while disagreeing with the leaders at the same time. 
