Letters From Iwo Jima

[pzrmeyer2]

Anyone seen it yet?

Opinions of it as a war film and/or its message?

Comparisons to its companion, Flags of our Fathers?

[Wally]

I saw it yesterday. Excellent Movie, one of the best War movies I have seen. I thought it was better than "Flags of Our Fathers". There wasn't a lot of flashbacks like "Flags", the storyline flowed better. I thought it would be a problem trying to read the English captions at bottom of screen, but dialog was in short sentences. Its too bad the Academy didn't vote it for Best Picture this year, but they usually have an agenda and glorifying war is not one of their priorities. I can't wait until its out on DVD.

Wally

[Marc Binazzi]

I would not say that "Letters from Iwo Jima" glorifies war, much the opposite. What I found interesting was the couple of flash-backs showing how the Japanese population was terrified and brainwashed by a military regime ready to eradicate the slightest trace of doubt. Ken Watanabe is great as general Kuribayashi and the guy who plays Nishi is fantastic too. The scene where the Japanese officer reads aloud to his soldiers the Mom letter found on a dead American soldier looks like it has been inspired by Spielberg, the coproducer. Clint, you're the best!

[pzrmeyer2]

Thanks for your replies. I'm hard at work adapting that screenplay to make my own film. I'm calling it "Letters from the Reichstag". It sympathetically follows a group of Waffen SS volunteers who , caught in an unwinnable struggle, and while they don't wish to die, do their duty and fight for what they beleive in with bravery and dignity.

Which Hollywood production studio do you think will pick it up?

I guess my thought here is one could barely foresee such a film being made, yet now we see the two comparison films "Flags" and "Letters". The former shows the US/west to be ruthless exploiters of bravery interested only in deceptive marketing to win an unpopular war while the other portrays the enemy which subjected, China, Korea, Allied POWs, et al to immense brutality as noble and brave. Virtues that filmmakers used to portray our own forces with.

Now this is not so much a comment on the Japanese (or the Germans) but on the motives of those today who made these films.

[Tom Houlihan]

Which Hollywood production studio do you think will pick it up?

My, but you must be feeling optimistic this morning! I'm never that lucky, but if I put $5 down on you, the odds would probably give me a pretty return!

[David N]

One review I saw said, "This movie makes you root against the Americans." The reviewer loved the film, as most all film critics did. Below is a thread for a different review by Spencer Warren, critical and to the point.

http://acuf.org/issues/issue78/070216med.asp

[Richard Hargreaves]

Root against the Americans? I hope not. I saw it last week and thought it humanised the enemy... which is what we should all do after the battle.

I thought it excellent - and much better than Flags of our Fathers (which I found very good).

I hope that finally we're getting away from almost "comedy" Nazis and Japs in war films and presenting a more realistic picture...

[phylo_roadking]

Now this is not so much a comment on the Japanese (or the Germans) but on the motives of those today who made these films

Not the filmmakers - the studio system and distribution companies. In the 1950s and 1960s plenty of anti-war fims were made...but had distribution "difficulties" or just stayed in the can.

What huge multiplex did YOU ever go and see "Dr. Strangelove" or "Failsafe" in? Ever notice how few times films like these were syndicated on primetime tv in the 1970s and '80s?

[Marc Binazzi]

I guess you could add "Attack" which showed a US army officer suffering cowardice.

Going back to Clint's movie I read the link above. My, this is more than Dirty Harry could take! But, who would expect a film, even that long, to show a specific episode of the war and still refer to the atrocities committed by the Japanese?

[pzrmeyer2]

I should add, I don't necessarily have a problem with the film's portrayal of the Japanese (or of a notional accounting like I described) of Germans. I think if more people, especially us Americans learned a little bit more about the nature of our "enemies" and the motives of the "hawks" bck then, the would find that "the good war" may not have been as pure a fight as they have been led to beleive.

[JägerMarty]

Very impressive film, sooo much better than "Flags" thank god.
The destruction there was terrible. I wonder if there were letters found like that in the caves like shown? Was there factual basis at all?

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Spencer Warren's criticism of the film, IMHO, depends too much on the ancient thought that the enemy was more malicious than the homefolk. That Japanese atrocites were worse than American atrocities. Moreover, it totally ignores the role America had in starting the war.

I hardly think that America went to war due to the suffering of the Chinese People. Both Japan and America were, at that time, Imperialistic States. One lost on the issue of China, one won, but, ultimately, it was the Chinese that determined their destiny.

So, if the Nanking and Bataan atrocities, indeed the entire Pacific War, are seen in the larger picture, the two Imperialist powers lost, while China and Southeast Asia gained their independence and freedom. The Americans, the Dutch, the English and the Japanese wanted to exploit China and the Southeast Pacific nations--it is that simple!

All people suffer in a war and all people want to glorify their dead, but let us not lose sight of the fact that the Pacific war was fought over who could carve up the corpse of China and exploit the resources of Indochina and Indonesia.

Best,
~Akira, Servant of the Emperor

[D.W.]

One review I saw said, "This movie makes you root against the Americans." The reviewer loved the film, as most all film critics did. Below is a thread for a different review by Spencer Warren, critical and to the point.

http://acuf.org/issues/issue78/070216med.asp

With all due respect to Mr. Warren's ability to level a literary critique of this film, his "review" is little more than a right wing rant that has little to do with the film itself, and more to do with how we seemingly did not inflict enough suffering on the Japanese. I take his "review" of this film very lightly. What other films has this person reviewed?

Eastwood was not making a film to portray the vicious brutality that was Iwo Jima. He did not need to portray the bestial torture inflicted on Ralph Ignatowski (readers of the book know about this) and his intent was not to demonize the Japanese, it was to show that for all the suicidally brave defenders on this atoll there were also a handful of soldiers pressed into service that likely did not want to die. Most would regardless.

I think Eastwood achieved something very important in the making of this film, he allowed the nation of Japan to view a movie on a subject largely taboo to be discussed openly. If these memories are not allowed to surface, if these stories are buried under the intervening years then new generations will remain willfully ignorant of what happened, and perhaps this movie will break through to a new audience. I have not heard very much about the movies popularity in Japan and would like to know what Japan thinks of this film, and whether it has sparked any debate.

I listened to Eastwood discuss the making of the film. Turns out the mayor of Tokyo is an amatuer film maker himself and fan of Eastwood's and went to great lengths to ensure Eastwood could have permission to film on the island of Iwo Jima itself (in addition to California, where much of the film was shot, the Mojave desert area of So. Cal. )

[pzrmeyer2]

Eastwood was not making a film to portray the vicious brutality that was Iwo Jima. He did not need to portray the bestial torture inflicted on Ralph Ignatowski (readers of the book know about this) and his intent was not to demonize the Japanese, it was to show that for all the suicidally brave defenders on this atoll there were also a handful of soldiers pressed into service that likely did not want to die. Most would regardless.

I think Eastwood achieved something very important in the making of this film, he allowed the nation of Japan to view a movie on a subject largely taboo to be discussed openly. If these memories are not allowed to surface, if these stories are buried under the intervening years then new generations will remain willfully ignorant of what happened, and perhaps this movie will break through to a new audience. I have not heard very much about the movies popularity in Japan and would like to know what Japan thinks of this film, and whether it has sparked any debate.

thanks DW. I don't neccessarily disagree with your post. In fact, I like a lot of what you say. One of the reasons I asked the original question was to also provoke thought about how views of the so called "good war", how "we" view our enemies and ourselves, are changing.

My thoughts are this: Japan did commit some bestial atrocities on her enemies in that fight, as did Germany. In a way, this film mitigates that in a way I don't believe we'll ever see Germans treated. Allied atrocities notwithstanding, can anyone envision Germany's soldiers receiving a similar cinematic treatment? Especially given the fact of who some of the dominent players are in hollywood?

The 1993 movie Stalingrad may be highlighted as an example, but I don't think it comes close to Letters. Stalingrad is to me still way too PC, in that the real enemies are fellow Germans who hoard food, etc, while the heroes are the deserters, shirkers, etc. Never the Russians, portrayed as a kind-of neutral third party.

Was Das Boot the film that comes closest to doing that?

Will the (allegedly) forthcoming Forgotten Soldier project be able to pull it off?

Again, i'd love to see anyone elses opinions.

[Paddy Keating]

I think Warren is missing the point. Leaving national allegiances and the issue of whether or not the direction pleased the critic out of it, surely it counts as progress to have movies that no longer insult our intelligence by presenting the Japanese as sub-human stereotypes.

Warren should buy and read "Flyboys" for a beginner introduction to how young Japanese soldiers were brainwashed into behaving like savages and treating people atrociously. But then, he would probably see such an intellectual exercise as some kind of endorsement of Japanese behaviour or betrayal of his fervent patriotic ideals.

In this, he reminds one a bit of Claude Lanzmann, who screams blue murder if anyone "legitimises" the Nazis by writing or producing anything that doesn't toe the imposed line, like Downfall, which dared to suggest that Adolf Hitler was a human being. I find something grimly amusing in this. As Panzermeyer remarked, would Hollywood be so quick to make a movie about the heroic defence of Berlin? Or the siege of Dunkirk in 1944 and 1945?

PK