So it was no surprise that on his return to filmmaking the Hollywood elite would line up to volunteer. Lean casts the conflicts in deep shades of grey, interrogating the notion of heroes and villains in the context of combat, building to a finale that’s both cathartic and crushing.Ĭast: Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, Jim Caviezel, Ben Chaplinīy the time of The Thin Red Line, Terrence Malick had been languishing in self-imposed exile for two decades while his first two films, Badlands and Days of Heaven, grew in stature. Meanwhile, William Holden’s begrudgingly Shears, a US Navy commander and former prisoner, is sent on a mission to destroy the bridge, putting him on a collision course not just with ruthless Japanese commandant Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) but Nicholson as well. Driven by national pride, he gradually becomes obsessed with the project, despite the fact that it’s directly assisting the enemy. Alec Guinness is the movie’s deeply compromised centre as Colonel Nicholson, a British office interned at a remote Japanese POW camp in Thailand and forced to oversee the construction of a bridge meant to ferry munitions between Bangkok and Rangoon. □ The 101 best action movies of all-timeĬast: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue HayakawaĪt once one of cinema’s truest epics and among the most meditative of all large-scale war movies, David Lean’s Oscar-winning classic features little in the way of sweeping battle sequences, yet few films manage to convey the madness of war better – and with greater suspense. □️ The best World War I movies, ranked by historical accuracy Written by Tom Huddleston, Adam Lee Davies, Paul Fairclough, Anna Smith, David Jenkins, Dan Jolin, Phil de Semlyen, Alim Kheraj & Matthew Singer War is hell, and World War II was particularly hellish – but at least we have these films to help make some sense of it. Among the selections, you’ll find towering epics, intimate character studies, intense documentaries, historical revisions and even a few comedies. That’s why, along with polling our well-studied Time Out writers, we also called in an outside expert: Quentin Tarantino, a man who knows a thing or two about making a great WWII film. So many movies have been made about the war, it’s almost a genre unto itself.įor that reason, choosing the best World War II movies is a challenge. No wonder: the sheer scale of the destruction, the atrocities associated with it and its place in human history make it a natural framework for stories of resistance, survival and unimaginable loss. Don't go expecting this to be an out-and-out war movie as apart from a ten-minute sequence, we are only treated to the odd snippet here and there throughout the two hours plus running time.War has long fascinated filmmakers, no conflict more so than World War II. However, with cutting between the battle and the aftermath back home, we know pretty early on who's going to survive and this is a let down. There is a general feeling throughout that Eastwood dropped the ball what he had on his hands was a war film with no big stars, which could have been beautiful - no stars means we don't know who is going to live and who is going to die. The film falls down between two stools, as Eastwood really wants to tell the story of the soldiers back home, but feels impelled to make a war film too. There is a feeling of deja-vu as Eastwood went as far as inserting numerous shots from Spielberg's WWII epic into his film even the bleached out colours is reminiscent of Janus Kaminski's cinematography. Eastwood took elements of TV's Homefront series, Terrance Malick's Thin Red Line, stripped Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and delivered a so-so war film. But the accolades for heroism don't sit well with Beach and Phillippe, who have to lie to cover up the true story behind the photo. With America almost bankrupt, the remaining three men (Phillippe, Beach and Jesse Bradford) are shipped home and escorted around the country in attempt to raise funds for the flagging war finances. The photo symbolises American resilience and victory in the Pacific but in actuality, the fighting on the island went on for another 35 days and half the men in the photo were killed soon after, in the bloodiest battle the U.S encountered during WWII. The story follows the six men who raised the American flag on Iwo Jima - you've all seen the iconic photograph - but it's common knowledge that the photo was staged after the original flag was hoisted, and this is the story that Eastwood and Haggis tackle. With Clint Eastwood directing a Paul Haggis script, Flags Of Our Fathers should have been a lot better.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |