Flags of Our Fathers

[Dominic]

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Dom, did you read the book? If so, any comparisons?

I loved the book, and from your review, sounds like Clint didn't do it justice. In a way it makes sense because the book spent so much time on the backstory of each soldier who raised the flag. I'm sure some screenwriter latched onto one or two themes and developed a story around it.

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I haven't read the book, but I never make those kind of comparisoins anyway. Film is film, books are books. They are different mediums and when adpating one into the other it is always necessary to make cuts and/or changes. When someone makes a film based on a book, you have to realize it isn't going to be a filmed accounting of that book, page by page. It's going to be intepreted to the best of the filmmaker's abilities into as a good a movie as possible. Whether or not a movie "is better" than the book is a silly argument, IMO.

sorry, I went on a little mini-rant there, didn't I? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Dominic]

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[ QUOTE ]
The Iwo Jima sequences were well done, but it was hard to discern who was who at times.

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I think that was even more true for the soldiers who fought there.


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I agree...but as a member of the audience, it is hard to get fully into the film when you don't know who just died or just survived, or who that guy is making an heoric charge up the hill. If that was one of thepoints Eastwood was making, I don't think he did it very well. You can show confusion on the screen without also confusing the audience.

[nyc999]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Dom, did you read the book? If so, any comparisons?

I loved the book, and from your review, sounds like Clint didn't do it justice. In a way it makes sense because the book spent so much time on the backstory of each soldier who raised the flag. I'm sure some screenwriter latched onto one or two themes and developed a story around it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't read the book, but I never make those kind of comparisoins anyway. Film is film, books are books. They are different mediums and when adpating one into the other it is always necessary to make cuts and/or changes. When someone makes a film based on a book, you have to realize it isn't going to be a filmed accounting of that book, page by page. It's going to be intepreted to the best of the filmmaker's abilities into as a good a movie as possible. Whether or not a movie "is better" than the book is a silly argument, IMO.

sorry, I went on a little mini-rant there, didn't I? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd say a mini-rant.

Yeah, I didn't really mean a comparison as to which was done better, it was more of what approach Eastwood took with the material. The book doesn't really lend itself to a screen adaption - it's kind of like how Scorcese & team took a few paragraphs out of Gangs of New York and developed it into a movie.

[heater]

My roommate who is a huge WWII history geek went and saw this last weekend and said it was pretty meh. I didn't really get any details from him but I was surprised because he seems to enjoy anything that has to do with WWII.

Exsub:

That is a great drinking song. "Call him drunken Ira Hayes, he won't answer anymore" has been sung a capella many, many times in my circle. Of course the rest of the words may or may not have been correct.

[Mickey Brausch]

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It will be interesting to see the movie Clint made (coming out next Spring) of Iwo Jima from a Japanese perspective.

[/ QUOTE ]I have The Battle For Okinawa by Col. Hiromichi Yahara who was the senior staff officer of the island army. It was written in 1945 and is a highly interesting and mostly objective account of the main phase of the battle between the Japanese and the Americans for the strategic island of Okinawa. Japanese nationalists believed that "there can be no Japan without Okinawa" so the Japanese armed forces were determined to defend it to the last. And they almost did.

It shows what the West was up against in World War II. (The following comes near the end of the book.)

* * *

At midnight on June 23 we abandoned any effort to recover the hilltop. Generals Ushijima and Cho scheduled their hara-kiri for the morning. Both were fast asleep. The paymaster had yet to return from General' Cho's room. I stared helplessly at the stalactites [of the cave] - like them devoid of all energy and emotion. Time ticked away.

At 03:00 General Ushijima summoned us to his room. Dressed in full uniform, he was sitting cross legged. General Cho was drinking his favorite King of Kings whisky and was very intoxicated. They were surrounded by familiar faces. I solemnly saluted them but said nothing. Cho offered me whisky and a piece of pineapple that he extended on the tip of his sword. This startled me but I ate it.

Cho said, "General, you took a good rest. I waited patiently for you to waken, for the time is running out."

Ushijima: "I could not sleep well because you snored so loudly. It was like thunder."
Cho: "Who will go first, you or me? Shall I die first and lead you to another world?"
Ushijima: "I will take the lead."
Cho: "Excellency, you will go to paradise. I go to hell. I cannot accompany you to that other world. Our hero, Takamori Saigo, before hara-kiri, played chess with his orderly, and said ‘I will die whenever you are ready’. As for me, I will drink King of Kings while awaiting death”.

He laughed heartily.
…
The two generals exchanged poems back and forth. I could not hear them clearly, but I recall their mention that Japan could not exist without Okinawa. Later I learned their final words.
...
General Ushijima’s last poem:[ QUOTE ]
Green grass of Yukushima
Withered before autumn
Will return in the spring
To Momikoku

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...
General Cho’s last poem[ QUOTE ]
The devil foe tightly grips our southwest land
His aircraft fill the sky
His ships control the sea
Bravely we fought for ninety days
Inside a dream
We have used up our withered lives
But our souls race to heaven

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...
Time was running out. Everyone in the cave formed a line to pay their last respects. Major Ono, a man of innocent face and indomitable spirit, returned and reported that the final message had gone to Imperial General Headquarters. It read[ QUOTE ]
Your loyal army has successfully completed preparations for homeland defense.

[/ QUOTE ]Ono who had been a code clerk for many years laughed bitterly. We have used those same words, he said, ever since the capitulation of Attu island in the North Pacific. General Cho and I nodded agreement.
...
General Ushijima quietly stood up. General Cho removed his field uniform and followed with Paymaster Sato. Led by candlelight the solemn procession headed for the exit with heavy heart and limbs.

When they approached the cave opening, the noon shone on the South Seas. Clouds moved swiftly. The skies were quiet. The morning mist crept slowly up the deep valley.

General Ushijima sat silently in the death seat, ten paces from the cave exit, facing the sea wall. General Cho and Sato sat beside him. The hara-kiri assistant, Captain Sakaguchi, stood behind them. I was a few steps away. Soldiers stood at the exit, awaiting the moment.

On the back of General Cho’s white short, in immaculate brush strokes was the poem:
[ QUOTE ]
With bravery I served my nation
With loyalty I dedicate my life

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By first light I could see this moral code written in his own hand, in large characters.
...
The master swordsman, Sakaguchi, grasped his great sword with both hands, raised it high above the general’s head, then held back in his downward swing, and said: “It is too dark to see your neck. Please wait a few moments.”
…
* * *

[daveT]

If Paul Haggis gets the Oscar 3 times in a row, I am going to puke.

Paul Haggis wrote Million Dollar Baby and Crash, and now Flags of our fathers.

So why am I not interested? Well, because of this particular screen writer. I know that the film will attempt to touch in "an issue," but the problem is that Paul Haggis, or the copy-editor, likes to keep things safe, not shocking, but pretend to be shocking or profound. That is the issue I have with his writing. It is like looking at some strange warped mirror, where nothing feels quite right. That is why I am not going to see this movie.

I think that the over-all impression of this movie is that it is too ABC and typical of what we all expect to see. I think that is why the audience is not going, and sadly, none of the critical reviews has done anything to change this pre-conception.