Flags of Our Fathers is a great film. I saw it last night, and it still has me thinking about what happened, what it means, and reading
wikipedia entries on the real people. I'll probably end up reading the book, too.
Unforgiven marked Clint Eastwood's move into a new phase of his career, one in which he seems to be reassessing both his own films, what we've come to accept in all films, and what we think we know about our culture and the world we live in. Just as
Unforgiven could be seen as examining the consequences of the violence in Eastwood's earlier spaghetti westerns and the
Dirty Harry films, as well as questioning our need to create myths that leave unexamined the dark side of reality, so does
Flags of Our Fathers make one give pause when thinking about
Heartbreak Ridge and numerous other war movies.
Like pretty much everyone, I'm familiar with the famous photo of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima. I've seen the bigger-than-life statue in Arlington Cemetery. My father, a World War II veteran, had told me the story of the flag, how it was actually the second one raised, but he didn't think that took anything away from it. He knew someone who had been on Iwo Jima, someone who never talked about it.
I've probably seen at least one documentary about the battle for Iwo Jima, and I don't think the story told in Eastwood's film could have been better told in a documentary. I can see that some people may have expected a more straighforward retelling of the events of the battle, perhaps followed by the post-battle tour of the flag-raisers, and those people may be disappointed.
When Brian wrote in his
releases rundown that he didn't know what this film was supposed to be about, I was tempted to post then, but I decided to wait until I had seen the film. I had seen the EPK making-of film that aired on HBO, and in it Eastwood hinted at the film examining the corrupting power of celebrity, both on the celebrity and those who make the celebrity, but the film is more complex than that, and I think it clearly states in its finale what it is about: there are no heroes; there are those who do heroic deeds, but heroes are something we create to serve our own purposes, often to the detriment of those we make heroes.
Ira Hayes's story even reminded me of
another famous photograph, that of Buzz Aldrin on the moon during Apollo 11, and how he descended into self-destructive alcoholism while the astronauts did a very lengthy worldwide publicity tour in which he was constantly reminded that he wasn't the first man on the moon and most people misidentified the photograph of him as being of Neil Armstrong (there actually isn't a good still photograph of Neil Armstrong on the moon).
The structure of the film didn't bother me at all, except that the whatever-happened-to-them segment seemed a bit awkward, though necessary, and it was rescued by a good finale. The non-linearity in the flashbacks I thought made the film more compelling. If the month-long grind of Iwo Jima was told more linearly, then we'd probably have something that ends up like
Hamburger Hill, and that can exhaust a viewer rather than keeping us on our toes. In PR material the actors mention that Eastwood didn't exactly rehearse with them what was going to happen in the battle scenes and that he emphasized first takes to get their honest surprised reactions to explosions and mayhem--perhaps the structure of the film was a way of doing the same thing to viewers. But I didn't have any problem following what was going on.
Jackrabbit Slim
wrote: "There are some of the guys who were in the flag picture who aren't really identified until we see them getting killed." I'm not sure I understand this as a criticism. There are three guys in the photo who were killed; that they were in the photo and then died on Iwo Jima is pretty much it. Would you have liked to see their deaths depicted before we see the bond tour, or before others mention their names repeatedly? I'm not sure how that is more satisfying, and I think that by doing it the way it is in the film further highlights the continued misidentification of one of the dead flag-raisers. Everyone keeps saying that the real heroes are those who died, but then they're too afraid to admit to a mistake in the IDs on the photo because then the mistake will become the story rather than the heroes.
And I don't agree with Brian's
comments about Severance and "bad storytelling." I understand what Brian is saying, but to me it was pretty much a non-issue. Having some minor character provide narration over someone else's flashback is something I've seen done in at least a few fiction films--when is that something to complain about, especially if they may have been quoting a real person who actually said it as depicted in the film? I had a problem with the much more cynically manipulative flashback cheat in the intro to
Saving Private Ryan, and I got over that the second time I saw it.
Speaking of
Saving Private Ryan, I'm so glad that this film didn't use the high shutter speed cameras for its combat scenes, which have been over-compared to those in
Ryan due to Spielberg's producer credit and his presumed involvement (but I think he's named only because he abandoned the project to Eastwood).
Ryan used the effect to mimic some documentary footage, but it has become so cliched now as a way to artificially intensify action scenes (even
Feast did it!).
I enjoyed the reference to
The Searchers when the corpsman stands in the open doorway of the bunker and is warned of the gruesomeness of the scene inside, which we don't see.
I'm looking forward to
Letters from Iwo Jima, and I also think I will like
Flags of Our Fathers even more the second time I see it.
