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Paths of Glory and Thin Red Line. Paths is for me the apotheosis of war films, with Thin Red Line not far behind.
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The Thin Red Line... It's greatness is in it's soundtrack which gets lost in the movie. Get the disk and check it out. Paul
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Share a bowl of grits with someone you love tonight.
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Life is too short.
Another no-watch for me is the terribly unfunny show MASH. A comedy with a realistic setting of military patch me up hospital in the middle of a war zone. I'm in stiches!
The series was pablum for the masses, but in its early years created some charming characters. Makes me wonder what HBO could do with it now.
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Personally, I like "Paths of Glory," though it does border on being too preachy. I would be interested in a Bluray copy of that film, though I wonder how much a top quality print would matter for a film like that.
For highminded war films, I would also nominate "Grand Illusion," "Breaker Morant," and "Bridge on the River Kwai."
For harrowing films, I would include "Fires on the Plain" and "idi i smotri" as among the top war films.
For being gloriously bad that it belongs among the best, I would nominate "The Green Berets."
I think Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan must be added to that list for the recreation and realism of the battle scenes, if nothing else.
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We must be the change we wish to see in the world. -Gandhi
I will say this. The first 20 minutes were perhaps the most thrilling and realistic I have ever seen on film. So much so that I bought a second ticket a few days later and left after the first 20 minutes. The rest of the film was very good, but not good enough to venture into the elite category of war films. Matt Damon did not help matters. I would put BHD in the elite category.
Damon played a very small part, and the other battle scenes (French town, charging the hilltop bunker and guarding the bridge) were enough to push it into elite category for me. I'm even more critical of Hanks than I am of Damon, but the rest of the supporting cast was very good. And that subplot of taking mercy on the nazi captured during the charge only to have him come back and drive a knife slowly into the heart of private Mellish was for me the key message of the film. If that had been the focal point instead of Hank's words to Damon that his life needed to be worth the sacrifice, it would have been a much better movie. And that way, you wouldn't have the old Ryan at the cemetary to bookend the entire film.
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We must be the change we wish to see in the world. -Gandhi
and that Matt Damon's acting is hardly a deal breaker. My problem with the movie has to do with Spielberg having to give it a big ole Hollywood type ending. The movie asks a very interesting question: How important is the life of one person in the conflict; was it worth a mission that would claim many other lives? The big ending battle, which results in an important military victory (hold a very strategic bridge), completely abandons any consideration of that question; I guess we dumb viewers just have to have that big cavalry charge (P 51 mustangs) and American heroes doing big things!!
The camera work, setup of battle scenes, use of sound, etc. were fantastic. That silence at the end, where Hanks goes temporarily deaf, reminded me of the GREAT Russian war film "idi i smotri" (Come and See).
The silence after the explosion bit is done to death. It was done better in BHD. It was also done well in Clear and Present Danger when Harrison Ford's convoy was attacked by rooftop hostiles with RPGs.
I disagree strongly about whether it's worth lives to save a life being an interesting thrust. There's nothing to explore in the question because any soldier could die in any moment in war. Spielberg really missed the boat. Our soldiers have a commitment to leave no man behind--that's what BHD was about. The idea that soldiers would be disgruntled to go save the last remaining child of a mother who had sacrificed all her other boys to the war...that just didn't ring true to me.
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We must be the change we wish to see in the world. -Gandhi
DO you recall all the programs of the author and participant's on cable when it was released? The damn film was exactly what they were talking about. There was a mighty amount of heroism on the part of those involved.
The "Moge" was one of the last "noble" operations we were involved in.
Share a bowl of grits with someone you love tonight.
This is not a trick question, it is real. Where is the line between realism and suspense than the art is not supposed to cross?
comes to gratuitous cinema and the rape scene was, to me, much overwrought but no more than the "friend" caving in the face of one of the perpetrators with the fire extinguisher.
I'm sure the "overwrought" part of the film was part of the selling of tickets.
Share a bowl of grits with someone you love tonight.
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and we all know of you Monica Thing. 8^) Oh yes, wasn't it made backwards like Memento?
Share a bowl of grits with someone you love tonight.
***backwards
You can say that in more than one way... yes.
fd
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The rape scene when the soldier's johnson was...well, you know. Do you think that crossed the line?
fds
TRL, Apocalypse Now, and others don't necessarily speak directly to reality but convey a spiritual sense to the event.
Then you have small films like "The Battle for Haditha" that speak directly to the event and issue of cause and result that offend or go over viewers heads -- I felt "The Hurt Locker" was nearly in this small film category.
Share a bowl of grits with someone you love tonight.
Made it about 1/3 of the way though it in the theater had to leave and never have been able to watch the whole thing. Darn good movie.
They got many of the small details so correct it was like being there.
I have and I find APOCALYPSE NOW a masterpiece. It's not realistic but it sure as hell gave me the feeling that I was back in uniform. It's the psychic/spiritual side that so few war films can't/don't capture that AN and a few others (going back to 1932's ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT) do that makes the difference.
I think the THIN RED LINE is a good war film but misses greatness. I'll take something like THEY WERE EXPENDABLE or BATTLEGROUND over most newer films, especially jingoistic crap like PEARL HARBOR or TOP GUN.
A wee bit harsh Tinear. No, it is not on the level of P of G, but there are scenes in TRL that are mind boggling.
The Forbidden Games?
Gotta agree on the TRL...
the marauding SS infantry was every bit as insane as Apocalypse Now. I feel sure the picture conveyed the lunacy of that particular time with the disjointed insanity of troops killing without provocation or cause being reduced to barely identifiable humans.
Whether it were Germans or Japanese or Russians or Lt. Calley, it all has ugly and insanity all over it.
Share a bowl of grits with someone you love tonight.
***Whether it were Germans or Japanese or Russians or Lt. Calley, it all has ugly and insanity all over it.
For each individual victim it is all the same, for the mankind there are differences.
de Sica's, "The Children are Watching Us?"
For some reason, that one always is brought to mind when I hear, "Forbidden Games."
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nt
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from 1952.
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nt
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Share a bowl of grits with someone you love tonight.
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Share a bowl of grits with someone you love tonight.
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