Flags and flagging

In a nutshell Clint Eastwood's "Flags of our Fathers" is true to James Bradley's book, but anyone looking for a portrayal of the greatest battle in Marine Corps history will be sorely disappointed.

Billed as a revisionist look at combat "heroism", it fails completely by choosing to ignore actual heroism in a month-long battle that produced a significant percentage of all the Medals of Honor earned in World War II; 27 went to five sailors and 22 Marines. Only 13 Recipients made it off the island alive; many, like Jack Lucas, with disabling wounds. Only Lucas, Herschel "Woody" Williams and George Wahlen survive.   

Focusing primarily on three of the six who became famous for raising the second flag on Iwo Jima while ignoring their bravery in that crucible of horror, Eastwood attempts to lecture his audience that heroism is a concept manufactured for consumption on the home front. And this from a man who portrayed "Gunny" Highway, a fictional Marine Medal of Honor Recipient in "Heartbreak Ridge." 

Just the right message for today's cynical populace who believe in very little when it comes to the war on Islamofascists and do not understand a pre-emptive military doctrine.

With the minor exception of one scene in which Marine Sgt. Mike Strank (one of the flag raisers in the Joe Rosenthal photograph) knocks out a Jap machine-gun emplacement in the early moments of the battle, heroism under fire and the troops' "uncommon valor" is given only lip service.

(This colorized image IDs all six flag raisers - Ira Hayes (red), Franklin Sousley (violet), John Bradley (green), Harlon Block (yellow), Michael Strank (brown), Rene Gagnon (teal).)

The central figure in both the book and the film, Navy Corpsman John Bradley, earned a Navy Cross--second only to the Medal of Honor--on Iwo, and even that goes unexplained, relegated to a snippet of a scene in which the distinctive medal is discovered in a box of Bradley's military gear after his death.

Marine Pvt. Rene Gagnon is portrayed two-dimensionally as a crass opportunist who fails at life, unable to parlay his war notoriety into big money and on-going fame, and ends his days as a janitor. This last statement brought a "tsk-tsk-tsk" reaction from my audience, as if being a janitor is pitiable.

It is true that Gagnon did see personal opportunity in his fame but it ignored his honorable service on the island as well, dismissing his assignment as company runner (messenger). Ask anyone who was there...there was not a square inch of safety on the five-mile by two-mile island, especially during the first 10 days.

And the richest character in the film... Marine Pvt. Ira Hayes is allowed little more than the drunken Indian stereotype that plagued the man since his death in the mid-1950s at age 32. In "Flags" Hayes isn't much different than the portrayal by Tony Curtis in the 1961 film 'The Outsider".

The cinematic look of Iwo is damned near perfect as, filmed in washed out colors, grays and blacks of the men and the island... the computer generated special effects create a Mount Suribachi that was as real as any of the Icelandic location's black sand beaches.

The editing was the weakest technical part of the film. So intent was Eastwood on flashing back to the battle and forward to the savings bond drive that those who know little history of the era cannot be blamed for being confused from time to time.

My prediction... Eastwood has created a "companion" film to "Flags"... "Letters from Iwo Jima" is the battle from the Japanese point of view which I believe will portray the fanatical suicidal Japs as simple, young soldiers trapped in an untenable situation, low of food and supplies and abandoned by their country. Much bad poetry written with wooden pens will float around like lotus blossoms as saintly Japanese women back home weep.

Maybe not... but just when we need to be reminded of our heroes and our blood-thirsty enemies... Eastwood delivers the same old, navel-gazing, Utopian faux intellectualism.

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I've never believed that the GOP will lose control of Congress and now two weeks out, I still don't.

The dem-wit strategy this time around was to create successive waves of media attacks designed to suppress the Republican vote. Day after day, week after week, book after book; "October surprises" galore and Mark Foley all of the day and all of the night.

You'll notice this "strategy" contains not a single platform plank, idea, plan, promise or votable concept.

The news coverage and the polls are designed to create not simply doubt, but electoral helplessness... much the way the dem party controls black voters... i.e., "... the GOP is a bunch of racists who hate blacks but we will give you money and preferential treatment." The racist message is clear... you folks can't make it on your own, you need us.

The stock market is literally off the charts, unemployment is its lowest in decades, we have not suffered a domestic terrorist attack since 9/11, we've destroyed the infrastructure of al-Qaeda, and the NoKors have apologized for their little pop-gun nuke (trust but verify).

But all that is buried in the news behind some pervert sending text messages to boy pages. Ooooh, the horror. Besides, anything the dems have to say about morality can be ignored in its totality... (see, Kennedy, Theodore ad nauseum.)

The problem with all this strategy is that it fails to take into account what conservatives will do, what Republicans will do, what the so-called religious right will do in two weeks.

They aren't going to boycott the vote to "teach the GOP a lesson" and they certainly won't vote for a policy of cut and run, higher taxes and even bigger government than we have at the moment.

We'll see come election night... but my cash is still on the common sense of the American voter.

Comments

[Trent]

Hi david! Talking about movies and you pop up heh. Since you remnecmod, I will download unforgiven and perfect world.Btw just watched flags of our fathers. There were some nice scenes during the war, but didn't really feel much from the movie. Expected more intensity towards the end. Perhaps we can't relate as much to it since we've never (and hopefully ever have to) been involved in any war. Cheers and keep watching (your Cat 3 films) =D

[Ninja R]

I'll call it now...Republicans keep both houses, but lose three seats in the Senate and 10 in the House.

Have fun playing catch up. Hope all went well in California.