"The British War Movie America Needs" Topic

"War movies matter. The American military is responsible to the American people, and the American people's image of the experience of war is largely shaped by cinema. To them, winning (and indeed, everything else) looks like what the movies tell them it does. And since our democratic political processes, not the military's own standards, ultimately will judge whether we are "victors" or "losers" in war, it is imperative that we see what that image of victory looks like.

The release of the movie Patton to widespread popular and critical acclaim in 1970 provides us with a postmodern moment at which we might examine the relationship between reel and real life in modern America. General George S. Patton, as played by George C. Scott, was brilliant, swaggering and hard-charging to a fault. In the film he and his men smash through every Nazi between Morocco and Germany, running into only occasional opposition from American generals and soldiers who fail to appreciate Patton's methods. President Richard Nixon named it his favorite film and repeatedly screened it in the White House. "Americans play to win all the time," Patton said in 1944, to be echoed by Scott in 1970, "That's why Americans have never lost, and will never, lose a war: because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans." Scott's portrayal of Patton won him an Academy Award for Best Actor—but, ironically, Scott turned down the thespian laurels offered to him for the very role in which he had defined what American victory spoke and swaggered like. He declared at the time that there was no victory to be had in the "unnatural competitiveness" of the awards.

Obviously, much has changed since 1944. Already by Patton's premier, Americans had stomached a stalemate in Korea. Our soldiers were just then battering the North Vietnamese army while assisting South Vietnam in a complex counterinsurgency campaign, seeking a victory that was meant to look radically different from the fall of the Third Reich. Patton seemed anachronistic. "Christ," the American commander in Saigon, General Creighton Abrams, griped in 1971, "talk about traditionalists… And this movie on Patton, you see—it comes at the wrong time. It just reinforces all that. You've got a war on, [and the traditionalists think conventional war is] about the only way you can run it." The American people needed to stop pining for clear victory, Abrams thought, because it simply wasn't to be had. In the context of the nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union, even hard-charging tanker Abrams couldn't dream of assaulting Hanoi, for fear of unleashing uncontrollable escalation. When communist tanks rolled into Saigon in 1975, it was a traumatic blow, especially because so many Americans had put so much into a counterinsurgency effort that ultimately proved irrelevant…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Thanks Armand, I'll have to see that

It looks stunning

John T

And so the Romans learnt their lesson in humility.

Glad you enjoyed it my friends. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

I'd hate to have to wait for it to show up on YouTube, but this sounds like a film that I very much need to see.

Merci Beaucoups, Mon Ami!

TVAG

There's a good review in The Guardian, plus a trailer. It's on at my local cinema but only one showing a day starting at 22:15; looks like a late night one day this week.
link

Thanks!

A votre service mon cher ami The Virtual…!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand