Movies and Films
This is the forum for Movie and Film discussions. Again, our topic is naval warfare in WWII for the most part.
Re: U-571
Posted by:
J.T. McDaniel
()
Date: December 10, 2003 02:46AM
<HTML>Ken,
I'm rather fond of fiction, of course, and naturally recognize your remarkably astute observations and exceptional good taste in that area.
U-571 was essentially a wartime propaganda film released decades too late. It would have fit in just fine in 1943, though they would have had to find something other than the Enigma machine to use as their McGuffin. (As in most Hitchcock films, the "McGuffin" is the device used to get the plot going, though it turns out to be mostly irrelevant to the action.)
Perhaps one problem with current World War II movies is that they are being made by, and for, people who mostly hadn't been born before World War II (and probably Korea) was over. Look at Pearl Harbor -- Michael Bay was born in 1965. I don't have a birthday for the writer, Randall Wallace, but he has no credits before 1984, so probably more or less contemporary. All of the actors are young, but that's inevitable given the ages of the characters they have to play.
Contrast that with Tora, Tora, Tora. Richard Fleisher was born in 1916, and Kinji Fukasaku in 1930. Jason Robards, Jr. was actually at Pearl Harbor during the attack, and earned a Navy Cross during his service. Martin Balsam served in the Army Air Forces during the war, and James Whitmore was a Marine. Can't find much on the Japanese cast, but their ages strongly suggest some military service and, even if they were all civilians, they certainly had first-hand experience of war simply from living in Japan at the time.
The best war movies are usually about people, rather than events, but tacked-on love stories that are mostly intended to pull women into the theater don't really add that much. Despite the gross changes from Ned Beach's book, the Gable-Lancaster "Run Silent, Run Deep" still holds up well as a character study of men at war. The U-boat in U-571 is scrupulously accurate, but the people IN it aren't, while the boat in "The Enemy Below" is so outrageously inauthentic as to be something of a joke, but the people are fascinating and act more like real people and less like charicatures.
The people who fight wars tend to be very much alike, no matter which side they happen to be on. Ideology is often far more of a factor for the politicians who start the wars than it is for the soldiers and sailors who have to fight them. My personal take is that most soldiers have two basic priorities, not dying and getting laid. Mostly, they leave it to others to figure out why they're out there shooting at their contemporaries and hope that their leaders are right. It's not at all unusual for enemies to become friends once the fighting is over and they realize just how alike they really are.
In films, and fiction in general, this is something that needs to be remembered. If you forget it, you wind up with something that, like U-571, is filled with a lot of noise, special effects, bad history and characters that don't really come to life.
J.T. McDaniel</HTML>
I'm rather fond of fiction, of course, and naturally recognize your remarkably astute observations and exceptional good taste in that area.
U-571 was essentially a wartime propaganda film released decades too late. It would have fit in just fine in 1943, though they would have had to find something other than the Enigma machine to use as their McGuffin. (As in most Hitchcock films, the "McGuffin" is the device used to get the plot going, though it turns out to be mostly irrelevant to the action.)
Perhaps one problem with current World War II movies is that they are being made by, and for, people who mostly hadn't been born before World War II (and probably Korea) was over. Look at Pearl Harbor -- Michael Bay was born in 1965. I don't have a birthday for the writer, Randall Wallace, but he has no credits before 1984, so probably more or less contemporary. All of the actors are young, but that's inevitable given the ages of the characters they have to play.
Contrast that with Tora, Tora, Tora. Richard Fleisher was born in 1916, and Kinji Fukasaku in 1930. Jason Robards, Jr. was actually at Pearl Harbor during the attack, and earned a Navy Cross during his service. Martin Balsam served in the Army Air Forces during the war, and James Whitmore was a Marine. Can't find much on the Japanese cast, but their ages strongly suggest some military service and, even if they were all civilians, they certainly had first-hand experience of war simply from living in Japan at the time.
The best war movies are usually about people, rather than events, but tacked-on love stories that are mostly intended to pull women into the theater don't really add that much. Despite the gross changes from Ned Beach's book, the Gable-Lancaster "Run Silent, Run Deep" still holds up well as a character study of men at war. The U-boat in U-571 is scrupulously accurate, but the people IN it aren't, while the boat in "The Enemy Below" is so outrageously inauthentic as to be something of a joke, but the people are fascinating and act more like real people and less like charicatures.
The people who fight wars tend to be very much alike, no matter which side they happen to be on. Ideology is often far more of a factor for the politicians who start the wars than it is for the soldiers and sailors who have to fight them. My personal take is that most soldiers have two basic priorities, not dying and getting laid. Mostly, they leave it to others to figure out why they're out there shooting at their contemporaries and hope that their leaders are right. It's not at all unusual for enemies to become friends once the fighting is over and they realize just how alike they really are.
In films, and fiction in general, this is something that needs to be remembered. If you forget it, you wind up with something that, like U-571, is filled with a lot of noise, special effects, bad history and characters that don't really come to life.
J.T. McDaniel</HTML>
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U-571
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J.T. McDaniel | 12/10/2003 02:46AM |
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ROBERT M. | 12/10/2003 02:52AM |
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Steve Roberts | 12/10/2003 11:55AM |
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kurt | 12/30/2003 09:30PM |
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ROBERT M. | 12/31/2003 05:21AM |
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ROBERT M. | 12/10/2003 02:46AM |
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Paul K. Mengelberg | 12/12/2003 04:28AM |
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J.T. McDaniel | 12/12/2003 11:59PM |
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Paul K. Mengelberg | 12/12/2003 04:28AM |
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tim2 | 12/10/2003 04:39PM |
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Matt Brown | 12/16/2003 11:27AM |
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Matt | 12/19/2003 07:50PM |
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ROBERT M. | 12/10/2003 02:54AM |
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Daryl Carpenter | 12/10/2003 03:14AM |
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tim2 | 12/06/2003 06:35PM |
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Steve Roberts | 12/10/2003 11:57AM |
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Marc Lund | 12/18/2003 01:13AM |
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ROBERT M. | 12/18/2003 01:49AM |
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Re: U-571
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Ken Dunn | 12/18/2003 04:56AM |