either/or: The Thin Red Line or Saving Private Ryan

[jimmy two hands]

I agree with the general thrust of the essay - I found Upham's trajectory quite unambiguously malevolent - but being a sad man who remembers far too many details of films I did get slightly and irrationally annoyed by the writer getting some plot elements quite wrong. The guy who stabs one of the protagonist's to death is not the one saved and shot by Upham, which is a pretty big detail to get wrong in the argument, at least to my sad ass.

I've only seen this movie once, but I remember very well that it was the German prisoner who stabbed the protagonist. They make a very clear point to show him in many different scenes fighting in that battle, with a close up on his face, as if to say, "hey, look what happens when you don't murder war prisoners, you little pointy-headed pussies!" That to me seems like the main point of the movie, other than "war is hell", and seems like a justification of the execution that happens earlier in the movie after the beach scene.

[sparky]

I've seen it three times (twice in the cinema - hey, I was impressionable - and once on TV - hey, I wanted to) and am pretty sure it was a different guy. Wiki not conclusive, did find this link compiled by an even sadder person than me.

[Andrew.]

I agree with the general thrust of the essay - I found Upham's trajectory quite unambiguously malevolent - but being a sad man who remembers far too many details of films I did get slightly and irrationally annoyed by the writer getting some plot elements quite wrong. The guy who stabs one of the protagonist's to death is not the one saved and shot by Upham, which is a pretty big detail to get wrong in the argument, at least to my sad ass.

I've only seen this movie once, but I remember very well that it was the German prisoner who stabbed the protagonist. They make a very clear point to show him in many different scenes fighting in that battle, with a close up on his face, as if to say, "hey, look what happens when you don't murder war prisoners, you little pointy-headed pussies!" That to me seems like the main point of the movie, other than "war is hell", and seems like a justification of the execution that happens earlier in the movie after the beach scene.

It seems to be a common point of confusion/discussion. E.g.

http://forum.ebaumsworld.com/archive/in ... 80269.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120815/faq

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_did_the_ ... ivate_Ryan

[Andrew.]

Thus the movie’s frightening lesson (one that I’ve come to think of as archetypically North American) is: Always choose death, for if you do not, death will come anyway, later, multiplied.

The movie was made in the late 90s, yet this lesson is perfectly scripted for the War on Terror and the Obama Admin's international campaign of drone strikes and assassinations ( which are endorsed by most liberals). As is the seemingly de-politicized "war is hell" aspect of the film. War is hell, so let's blow up the bad guys over there from air-conditioned modular shacks in Nevada.

[alex maiolo]

I did get slightly and irrationally annoyed by the writer getting some plot elements quite wrong. The guy who stabs one of the protagonist's to death is not the one saved and shot by Upham, which is a pretty big detail to get wrong in the argument, at least to my sad ass.

Man, I have argued this many times. The guy they let go ("Betty Grable! Nice gams!") isn't the stabber ("go to sleep"), right? If that's correct, then the very foundation on which the essay is written is shot.

I also don't see what's the big deal that SPR is fictional. A writer took the Sullivan Brothers incident and transposed it to the ETO. While the mission is fictional, the depiction of the war in Europe, and the details I mentioned earlier, are historically correct, and impressive. I don't see it as some sort of jingoistic feel good crap, I see it as a movie about the futility of war. The massive loss of lives and materiel that happens in the blink of an eye, and the idea that a mission could be launched sacrificing many men just to save one.

BoB is for the most part biographical, but that doesn't make it better, just different. I like it more because it's 10 hours long. You can really watch men deteriorate and go into survival mode when you get to know them over many episodes.

I think they are both fantastic, and represented a quantum leap in depicting WWII accurately.

-A

[sparky]

Man, I have argued this many times. The guy they let go ("Betty Grable! Nice gams!") isn't the stabber ("go to sleep"), right? If that's correct, then the very foundation on which the essay is written is shot.

I also don't see what's the big deal that SPR is fictional. A writer took the Sullivan Brothers incident and transposed it to the ETO. While the mission is fictional, the depiction of the war in Europe, and the details I mentioned earlier, are historically correct, and impressive. I don't see it as some sort of jingoistic feel good crap, I see it as a movie about the futility of war. The massive loss of lives and materiel that happens in the blink of an eye, and the idea that a mission could be launched sacrificing many men just to save one.

I think that the essay still holds despite it resting on an apparent misreading (I am fairly sure the stabby chap is different because I wanted to work this out the second time I saw it, and to me he looked pretty different).


Regarding the point that it is fictional, I was more addressing the fact that I think that the film has an awful plot despite it sharing many of the same film-makers as the TV series. Several years ago, when I was a better or worse correspondent depending on the recipient's tolerance for ravings, I wrote two of my good friends called Andrew on this forum some words on this film. At the risk of making both slap their foreheads in frustration for a second time, I'll be lazy and copy and paste it here:

Essentially, I thought that the violence of the opening and ending of the film completely contradicts and negates the slushy, formulaic crap that forms the main part (and the coda). I am certain that Spielberg did not intend this, but the mannered dialogue, character history, and narrative forming the main part are destroyed by the violent parts. The probably unintended message of the latter sections is essentially that of senseless annihilation: no narrative, no morality, no chance in war, just chance death and injury. They make the by-the-numbers character construction and plot development hollow, inconsequential, fake and ultimately depressing. In a weird way, I see parallels with the way in which the shower murder of Psycho effectively murders the measured and well written (in fact, exceptionally well written) story that goes before it, and replaces it with the senseless, mindless world of brute image*. Which is, after all, where Spielberg is most effective: the spectacle. As usual, I am making this up as I go along, but extrapolating from this, you could see the saccharine sentimentality of Spielberg's films as being a subconscious apology for the sheer horror of his immersion in brute spectacle.
Regarding the accusation of glamourisation of violence, well, I feel there is truth to the accusation, but not necessarily in the obvious way ("Let's go to war! War is horrible but makes us manly"). I don't think at any point during the violence, a sane viewer (Zaf - be warned) would see this violence and think, wow, that looks cool, I'd like to do that. It shows men being broken down psychologically and physically, taken to pieces if you wish.

However, it is still titillating - the jerky camera, explosions, insanely intricate sound, wounds and death were, at least to me, pretty exhilarating to go through in the cinema. This is uncomfortable to admit, but the D-Day scene is definitely entertaining, at least to sickos like me. Maybe it is in that rubber-necking, Crash obsessed fashion, but essentially he has turned a real-life horror into an entertainment. Here is where we (and maybe Godard, though I think his Schindler's List argument was different) might say that this is unhealthy, immoral, all-in-all disgusting. But I'm not necessarily sure that this is true. My primary reaction to the scenes on first viewing were nausea and the shock of a rush of unencountered sensation, and I never felt that this was glamorous or appealing.

Besides which, if this potential titillation is the problem, why bother presenting horror at all? I am ignoring the issue of historic misrepresentation, of course.

I don't like the film, I think that it is a flawed film, perhaps even a bad film, but I think that it is interesting.

Remind me to tell you about the story of Joanna Lumley's plastic ass. By way of an apology for this ramble.

Fucking hell that's a lot of words. Whilst most narrative art involves a large degree of manipulation of the audience, Spielberg is particularly gifted in making this bleeding obvious. He's up there with Hitchcock on that front. Unfortunately, he does not have as great a dose of evil as Hitchcock to set off this elaborately obvious manipulation.

He is fucking terrible at symbolism and seems keen to prove it to me by walloping me over the head with dead girls in red dresses (Schindler's List), multiplicative Privates (SPR) and the Twin Towers (Munich).

[Gramsci]

The first 20 mins of Shaving Ryan's Privates is amazing. The following film, meh.

The Thin Red Line is a better film, but that 20 mins of SPR almost trumps it...

[jimmy two hands]

He is fucking terrible at symbolism and seems keen to prove it to me by walloping me over the head with dead girls in red dresses (Schindler's List), multiplicative Privates (SPR) and the Twin Towers (Munich).

I enjoyed Schindler's List, was entertained by Saving Private Ryan, and could not fjucking stand Munich.

[sparky]

fjucking

Jimmy Two Hands, that is simply wonderful. I am trying to pronounce that right now as I type.

Munich

I have a soft spot for this film, or at least parts of it: there are some scenes which I think show Spielberg at his evil best, including the exploding piano room bit, the first assassination and the killing of the ludicrous pretty Dutch assassin girl. There is a lot of silliness in the film, but he shows a frustrating amount of brilliance in his execution of it.

I felt Eric Bana's orgasm juxtaposed against bloody murder to be a little cheap.

As an aside, in writing this post I looked up the film (I forgot Eric Bana's name) and discovered that one of the scriptwriters of Munich seems a decent chap:

Kushner's criticism of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and of the increased religious extremism in Israeli politics and culture has created some controversy in the American Jewish community, including some opposition to his receiving an honorary doctorate at the 2006 commencement of Brandeis University. The Zionist Organization of America unsuccessfully lobbied the university to rescind its invitation to Kushner.[6] During the controversy, quotes critical of Zionism and Israel made by Kushner were circulated. Kushner said at the time that his quotes were "grossly mischaracterized." Kushner told the Jewish Advocate in an interview, "All that anybody seems to be reading is a couple of right-wing Web sites taking things deliberately out of context and excluding anything that would complicate the picture by making me seem like a reasonable person, which I basically think I am." In an interview with the Jewish Independent, Kushner commented, "I want the state of Israel to continue to exist. I've always said that. I've never said anything else. My positions have been lied about and misrepresented in so many ways. People claim that I'm for a one-state solution, which is not true." However, he later stated that he hopes that "there might be a merging of the two countries because [they're] geographically kind of ridiculous looking on a map," although he acknowledged that political realities make this unlikely in the near future.
On May 2, 2011, the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York (CUNY), at their monthly public meeting, voted to remove (by tabling to avoid debate) Kushner's name from the list of people invited to receive honorary degrees, based on a statement by trustee Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld about Kushner's purported statements and beliefs about Zionism and Israel. In response, the CUNY Graduate Center Advocate began a live blog on the "Kushner Crisis" situation, including news coverage and statements of support from faculty and academics. Three days later, CUNY issued a public statement that the Board is independent. On May 6, three previous honorees stated they intended to return their degrees: Barbara Ehrenreich, Michael Cunningham and Ellen Schrecker. Wiesenfeld has said that if Kushner would renounce his anti-Israel statements in front of the board of trustees, he would be willing to vote for him. The same day, the board of trustees moved to reverse its decision.

I quote this slab for the comic ineptitude within these manoeuvres to prohibit argument.

[matthew]

I don't think the goal of a liberal education is to teach people to write sneering essays. I went to a liberal arts university, and we weren't taught to be assholes.

You also, apparently, weren't taught the difference between an argument and an opinion, which ought to be a baseline for any freshman English course, let alone a liberal arts degree.

Here's a simpler lesson to grasp: snip the irrelevant content out of posts you're quoting, especially when there's been a full essay pasted. Otherwise you look like a lazy asshole.

The entire screed was relevant. I was not being lazy.

One can state an opinion with out being an asshole. This guy was being a sneering asshole..especially towards the end with the ranting nonsense. And staking out some province of irony or clever intellectualism doesn't justify it.

Finis.

[alex maiolo]

fjucking

Jimmy Two Hands, that is simply wonderful. I am trying to pronounce that right now as I type.

-A

[jimmy two hands]

fjucking

Jimmy Two Hands, that is simply wonderful. I am trying to pronounce that right now as I type.

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