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: What are your most impressive scenes in 'Das B
Posted by:
Meg Rosenfeld
()
Date: January 09, 2004 03:34PM
<HTML>Hi Annox,
Is the scene to which you refer, about the LI's family, the one where the Captian explans to Werner that he and LI are being put off the boat in Vigo? There is also the scene in the TV version, where they officers hear a radio announcement about heavy bombing in Hamburg, and LI leaves the table, looking stricken.
In the book, the Captain explains to Buchheim that LI's wife is in the hospital with a dangerous complication of pregnancy; she has already lost one child.
However you look at it, poor LI has plenty to torment himself about. I'm always glad when I stop to remember that the real Fritz Grade survived the war, as apparently did his wife, and they had children and grandchildren. When the movie came out, he was interviewed and said that his greatest pleasure was making toys for his grandchildren!
Speaking of torment, here are some BAD favorites from the movie (you said you were disappointed that I didn't list them so here they are!):
1) Schwalle hauls off and slugs the Biblerforscher in the mouth, apparently breaking some teeth
2) Pilgrim enjoys himself (!) very much while listening to Frenssen tell dirty stories
3) the guys in the Bugraum ridicule Dufte's choice of fiancee
4) I WO learns he has crabs walking around on his eyebrows
5) Werner starts to vomit as the boat lurches
Plenty here to keep everyone happy!
A propos your experience in Prague: There is a story, which is supposed to be true, about the men in the trenches during WW I calling a voluntary truce during Christmas. English and German soldiers (maybe French too, I don't know) sang carols, shared cigarettes, and played ball. When the war was supposed to start up again the next day, no-one would shoot at the men they'd shared their Christmas with, so those guys had to be replaced.
Stories such as these inspired a group of Quakers, the American Friends Society, to sponsor the foreign-exchange student program, in which American high school students would spend a year in a foreign country and a student from somewhere else would come to America. I was a finalist, but didn't make it to the top, or else I would have spent a year in Germany when I was sixteen. The idea behind this program is, of course, that if you know people personally, you may be less inclined to think of them as a faceless horde of enemies. More recently, there is the musical play "Peace-Child." A society has to take in, and raise as lovingly as if it were their own, the child of an enemy group. This is awfully idealistic, of course, but it's meant to be.
Unfortunately the USA tends to export its very worst aspects. Most Americans are kind-hearted, generous and friendly people. We do tend to be naive about the rest of the world. Most Americans do not have the money or the time to travel abroad. Many Americans get no vacation (holiday) at all, and the majority of American workers have at most two weeks a year. Americans earn fairly large salaries, but we have to pay personally for things which in other countries are provided through tax-supported government programs, such as health care and higher education. There is no such thing as a child allowance or state-supported day-care. Many people choose to take care of their families rather than to travel. Also the country is quite large, and to go anywhere other than by airplane takes a long time. You could start driving north at the border of California and Mexico, and drive for two days before even reaching the state of Oregon, if you stop for the night. (California is roughtly the size of the British Isles, and it's only one state, albeit the third largest.)
SOOOO . . . . there's a good long, rambling posting, at least!
Best regards,
Meg</HTML>
Is the scene to which you refer, about the LI's family, the one where the Captian explans to Werner that he and LI are being put off the boat in Vigo? There is also the scene in the TV version, where they officers hear a radio announcement about heavy bombing in Hamburg, and LI leaves the table, looking stricken.
In the book, the Captain explains to Buchheim that LI's wife is in the hospital with a dangerous complication of pregnancy; she has already lost one child.
However you look at it, poor LI has plenty to torment himself about. I'm always glad when I stop to remember that the real Fritz Grade survived the war, as apparently did his wife, and they had children and grandchildren. When the movie came out, he was interviewed and said that his greatest pleasure was making toys for his grandchildren!
Speaking of torment, here are some BAD favorites from the movie (you said you were disappointed that I didn't list them so here they are!):
1) Schwalle hauls off and slugs the Biblerforscher in the mouth, apparently breaking some teeth
2) Pilgrim enjoys himself (!) very much while listening to Frenssen tell dirty stories
3) the guys in the Bugraum ridicule Dufte's choice of fiancee
4) I WO learns he has crabs walking around on his eyebrows
5) Werner starts to vomit as the boat lurches
Plenty here to keep everyone happy!
A propos your experience in Prague: There is a story, which is supposed to be true, about the men in the trenches during WW I calling a voluntary truce during Christmas. English and German soldiers (maybe French too, I don't know) sang carols, shared cigarettes, and played ball. When the war was supposed to start up again the next day, no-one would shoot at the men they'd shared their Christmas with, so those guys had to be replaced.
Stories such as these inspired a group of Quakers, the American Friends Society, to sponsor the foreign-exchange student program, in which American high school students would spend a year in a foreign country and a student from somewhere else would come to America. I was a finalist, but didn't make it to the top, or else I would have spent a year in Germany when I was sixteen. The idea behind this program is, of course, that if you know people personally, you may be less inclined to think of them as a faceless horde of enemies. More recently, there is the musical play "Peace-Child." A society has to take in, and raise as lovingly as if it were their own, the child of an enemy group. This is awfully idealistic, of course, but it's meant to be.
Unfortunately the USA tends to export its very worst aspects. Most Americans are kind-hearted, generous and friendly people. We do tend to be naive about the rest of the world. Most Americans do not have the money or the time to travel abroad. Many Americans get no vacation (holiday) at all, and the majority of American workers have at most two weeks a year. Americans earn fairly large salaries, but we have to pay personally for things which in other countries are provided through tax-supported government programs, such as health care and higher education. There is no such thing as a child allowance or state-supported day-care. Many people choose to take care of their families rather than to travel. Also the country is quite large, and to go anywhere other than by airplane takes a long time. You could start driving north at the border of California and Mexico, and drive for two days before even reaching the state of Oregon, if you stop for the night. (California is roughtly the size of the British Isles, and it's only one state, albeit the third largest.)
SOOOO . . . . there's a good long, rambling posting, at least!
Best regards,
Meg</HTML>
