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I want to find 317th now. It has the French guy from Sorcerer in it.
One brilliant war film is a German film from the '60s called The Bridge.
The Red and the White, I think it's called, is a great Hungarian one.
Come and See a great Russian one.
I ghink I got the countries right.
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Posted: |
May 30, 2018 - 2:05 PM
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By: |
jackfu
(Member)
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I do agree with what you guys have said and thanks, Thomas for posting the article! Jim, you're right, the guy did come off as kinda pretentious.
However, and not to defend the filmmakers, since I know nothing of the art and before I go off waxing an elephant, I was thinking about the subject of making war movies.
What are the expectations of the consumers? The studios? Your own expectations?
I can't help but wonder if the writer/producer/director, etc. have to consider balancing all that stuff.
Historical accuracy is critical, but might be boring to some.
Artistic license can spice things up a bit but can also steer a film the wrong way.
I remember "Battle of the Bulge" was savaged for its inaccuracies - historical, technical, geographic, etc., but it is, I think, a very enjoyable film, just not to be taken literally. And it wasn't marketed as "THE Battle of the Bulge".
My dad, who served on Luzon in the Philipines in WWII was one of those whom almost never spoke of what he saw and did there, except in his last days when due to dementia caused by a fall, he was reliving his time there. He liked "Saving Private Ryan" for its real-looking battles but disliked the constant bickering and stated that one would be shot for disrespecting a Captain on the battlefield.
Maybe a war movie too realistic would be both too boring and too visceral.
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That author sure seems full of himself. I think he's his own favorite subject. Glad he found time to get around to talking about war movies.
His view of Saving Private Ryan isn't exactly groundbreaking, as it's the conclusion most every critic and a fair number of viewers share.
Agreed 100%
Beevor is massively overrated both as a writer and as a historian IMO. I presume his article on war movies is nothing more than part of the promotion for his new book on Arnhem, which I'm about halfway through. Having read several books on Arnhem, I think his adds a little to the overall tapestry but there isn't really a great deal that is new - and indeed, there have been several which are more readable than his.
Like I said, just my opinion.
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I'd like to watch Where Eagles Dare with Beevor. He'd probably break long before the helicopter.
Ryan is a film that is really well directed but the writing isn't great. Not so much the plot, which is fine adventure stuff, but a lot of the dialogue and interactions as others have said above.
Tall Guy I don't want you to come and see the Russozn film now - you don't deserve it!
Oh there's a good Japanese 1959 film called Fires on the Plain, it's quite harrowing.
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Beevor is massively overrated both as a writer and as a historian IMO.
I don't know Beevor from Adam, so I have no personal stake in this, but how exactly can a historian be overrated?
They deal in facts.
So a historian is either accurate, or they are not.
Are you saying he deals in inaccuracies?
They deal in facts and opinions.
Have a look at an 'historian' like David Irving, who seems to polarise opinions.
And I'd be grateful if you didn't try to put words in my mouth, thanks very much. Like I said in the first place, I'm entitled to my opinion.
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Thomas, thanks for posting the article. Reminds me of how Netflix's The Crown lost me in the "Fog" episode, which made up an entire character to humanize Churchill in a way that seemed to me just as silly and wrong as the Underground scene in Darkest Hour.
- On the other hand, I loved the Scientia Potentia Est episode with Elizabeth lecturing Churchill and Lord Salisbury - which I assume is utterly made up but true to the issues and roles, and plausible, so I had no trouble with it. Even made me start reading Bagehot's book on constitutional democracy.
So I guess for me license works when it illuminates important issues and relationships, and bores the crap out of me when it oversimplifies of just makes stuff up for false emotional payoffs - which is the primary goal in too many movies.
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David Irving is scum. He appears in the second half of an excellent documentary called MR DEATH. Him and a few cronies chisel bits of brickwork from Auchwitz, then send them to a lab to be tested for any signs of Zyklon B. They then use the negative results to support their theory of no gas chambers. Despite the gas wouldn't peneyrste the wall that deep, it was 60 years later, it wasn't me necessarily the right brickwork, it was the wrong test anyway as they were so coy what they were testing for they didn't tell the lab, etc etc. the doco is great though about a guy who built execution equipment for prisons.
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