Live Action
The Battle of Midway (1942)
directed by John Ford
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Report from the Aleutians (1943)
directed by John Huston
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Restrepo (2010)
directed by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
watched on Netflix Instant
Tim Hetherington, who died in Libya in 2011, was still alive when I first read Sue Halpern's review of Restrepo in 2010. The article made me sad in an ambivalent, directionless way, although my anger is more focused each time I'm asked by a well-meaning volunteer to donate money to the President's re-election campaign over the phone. I think about another President - LBJ - in those situations. It wasn't until I left Texas after high school that I realized my good opinion of the man and his legacy was in the minority, most of the time.
Robert Caro convincingly argues that Johnson stole the 1948 election for Senate. Johnson's later decision to escalate the war in Vietnam was based on fallacies and arrogance. Taken together, those two actions subverted the tenets of democracy and got a lot of kids killed. But Johnson did more that was good for the average American - good that can still be seen today, in spite of Republican efforts to chip it away piecemeal - than any modern President, and remains the public figure I bring to mind when I am at the voting booth, pulling a lever for a Democratic candidate.
US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has been a terrible mistake, and the men and women who died because of it deserved better from our government. I do not believe in an "anti-war" film; as Halpern notes, via Junger, "war is a lot of things and it’s useless to pretend that exciting isn’t one of them." Restrepo is about men more than war, and the movie is an exercise in humility and understanding. I started watching it while ironing shirts, then put the iron and ironing board away and continued on into the early evening, until the pets were restless for dinner.
I believe that I have the right perspective on the US military's overseas operations in my lifetime, but in truth it is one man's opinion. In my mind I cannot imagine the pervasiveness of World War II in daily life seventy years ago. I do not know what it is like to have war be the thing that everyone is talking about, so how can it be anything other than quaint to hear Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell converse in fictional roles in The Battle of Midway?
Ford and Huston were both proud of the wartime documentaries they made. The best moments in The Battle of Midway come when a cadet plays "Red River Valley" on accordion on the beach at sunrise, and later when the narrator, Donald Crisp, counts the long watch of days while the Navy waits to bring in every last man it can find after the battle. "Nine days, ten days..." There are unintentionally funny asides that take some of the air out of Ford's self-importance: a reference to a nurse's "soft hands," or an East Coast dig as Crisp identifies the Pacific as "America's front yard." Report from the Aleutians is longer, and more technical, and like Restrepo, interested in the behavior and routines of soldiers over time. Huston narrates all 48 minutes himself, and taught me a lot I didn't know about a place I've never been.
All three should be seen. Taken together, I do not know if they say more about the movies or men, about bravery or folly, about glory or irrelevance. I know how I feel about war, but I watched them anyway. None of them changed my mind.
directed by John Ford
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Report from the Aleutians (1943)
directed by John Huston
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Restrepo (2010)
directed by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
watched on Netflix Instant
Tim Hetherington, who died in Libya in 2011, was still alive when I first read Sue Halpern's review of Restrepo in 2010. The article made me sad in an ambivalent, directionless way, although my anger is more focused each time I'm asked by a well-meaning volunteer to donate money to the President's re-election campaign over the phone. I think about another President - LBJ - in those situations. It wasn't until I left Texas after high school that I realized my good opinion of the man and his legacy was in the minority, most of the time.
Robert Caro convincingly argues that Johnson stole the 1948 election for Senate. Johnson's later decision to escalate the war in Vietnam was based on fallacies and arrogance. Taken together, those two actions subverted the tenets of democracy and got a lot of kids killed. But Johnson did more that was good for the average American - good that can still be seen today, in spite of Republican efforts to chip it away piecemeal - than any modern President, and remains the public figure I bring to mind when I am at the voting booth, pulling a lever for a Democratic candidate.
US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has been a terrible mistake, and the men and women who died because of it deserved better from our government. I do not believe in an "anti-war" film; as Halpern notes, via Junger, "war is a lot of things and it’s useless to pretend that exciting isn’t one of them." Restrepo is about men more than war, and the movie is an exercise in humility and understanding. I started watching it while ironing shirts, then put the iron and ironing board away and continued on into the early evening, until the pets were restless for dinner.
I believe that I have the right perspective on the US military's overseas operations in my lifetime, but in truth it is one man's opinion. In my mind I cannot imagine the pervasiveness of World War II in daily life seventy years ago. I do not know what it is like to have war be the thing that everyone is talking about, so how can it be anything other than quaint to hear Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell converse in fictional roles in The Battle of Midway?
Ford and Huston were both proud of the wartime documentaries they made. The best moments in The Battle of Midway come when a cadet plays "Red River Valley" on accordion on the beach at sunrise, and later when the narrator, Donald Crisp, counts the long watch of days while the Navy waits to bring in every last man it can find after the battle. "Nine days, ten days..." There are unintentionally funny asides that take some of the air out of Ford's self-importance: a reference to a nurse's "soft hands," or an East Coast dig as Crisp identifies the Pacific as "America's front yard." Report from the Aleutians is longer, and more technical, and like Restrepo, interested in the behavior and routines of soldiers over time. Huston narrates all 48 minutes himself, and taught me a lot I didn't know about a place I've never been.
All three should be seen. Taken together, I do not know if they say more about the movies or men, about bravery or folly, about glory or irrelevance. I know how I feel about war, but I watched them anyway. None of them changed my mind.
posted by NPK at 11:58 AM
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