Sunday, December 16, 2012
The Pacific
Produced by the same team that shot Band of Brothers but without the
backing of HBO it did not get the same exposure. The lavish supplemental
features on DVD are missing here as well.
Once more the memoirs of soldiers who served were used in writing the
scripts but with Stephen Ambrose dead his son Hugh is the principle
screen writer. We follow a group of marines concentrating on three in
particular whose experience of the war and their return home after make
the story personal. We also get to meet their families back home and see
the war through their eyes. The term post-traumatic stress disorder had
not been coined back in 1946 but modern thinking on the subject informs
the storyline. The heroes of the war may lie dead on some forgotten
island in the Pacific but the surviving veterans brought those horrors
home with them for the rest of their lives.
The soldiers in the Pacific Theatre fought a fanatic enemy to whom
surrender meant dishonor to the point that even the wounded sabotaged
the medics who would treat them. The tropical jungle became an enemy as
potent and debilitating as any human counterpart. The battle scenes are
graphic and disorienting; the injuries, the wounded and dead, the mud
and filth, the heat and lack of food and water, the insects, rats and
other critters; all serve to make the film the stuff of nightmares. Once
more the bad decisions and lack of intel on the part of superior
officers is alluded to; lives squandered capturing non-strategic
objectives and squads sent to attack vastly superior forces. The costs
in terms of dead and wounded are staggering.
The production values are beyond reproach. Tom Hanks provides narration
throughout. Jon Seda portraits John Basilone the only featured soldier
who did not survive the war and therefore wrote no memoirs. As the first
Marine Medal of Honour winner his life is well documented. Unfortunately
my first memory of Jon Seda is of the opening scene in I Like it Like
That in which he glories in the length of time he can maintain an
erection in bed. This present role is far more substantial and mature. I
know Joseph Mazzello who plays Sledge as the child dying of a fatal
illness in The Cure and as Tim in Jurassic Park, he has grown up in the
intervening 15 years. James Badge Dale, who plays Leckie is new to me.
Both Sledge and Leckie wrote memoirs which inform the present
production. Leckie was a reporter before and after the war; Sledge, a
doctor's son, came to writing as a means of exorcising his demons. Chuck
Tatum, the other writer who gets credit for his memoirs was a minor
character in this piece.
In spite of all the personal details provided in this series there is a
feeling of detachment and aloofness about the men in this unit. Perhaps
this was the effect of having 300 land on a beach and only 35 walk away
whole in body. They just couldn't afford to get attached to one another.
In their attempts to make the battle scenes authentic the
cinematographers leave the viewer feeling numb, much as the men there
must have felt. There is an episode devoted to John Basilone's Victory
Bond Tour that echoes the feeling of the men depicted in Clint
Eastwood's Flags of Fathers. The final episode sees the men return home
and attempt to readjust to civilian life. The most poignant scenes are
those between Eugene Sledge and his father, the doctor. Everyone should
have a father as caring and compassionate.
backing of HBO it did not get the same exposure. The lavish supplemental
features on DVD are missing here as well.
Once more the memoirs of soldiers who served were used in writing the
scripts but with Stephen Ambrose dead his son Hugh is the principle
screen writer. We follow a group of marines concentrating on three in
particular whose experience of the war and their return home after make
the story personal. We also get to meet their families back home and see
the war through their eyes. The term post-traumatic stress disorder had
not been coined back in 1946 but modern thinking on the subject informs
the storyline. The heroes of the war may lie dead on some forgotten
island in the Pacific but the surviving veterans brought those horrors
home with them for the rest of their lives.
The soldiers in the Pacific Theatre fought a fanatic enemy to whom
surrender meant dishonor to the point that even the wounded sabotaged
the medics who would treat them. The tropical jungle became an enemy as
potent and debilitating as any human counterpart. The battle scenes are
graphic and disorienting; the injuries, the wounded and dead, the mud
and filth, the heat and lack of food and water, the insects, rats and
other critters; all serve to make the film the stuff of nightmares. Once
more the bad decisions and lack of intel on the part of superior
officers is alluded to; lives squandered capturing non-strategic
objectives and squads sent to attack vastly superior forces. The costs
in terms of dead and wounded are staggering.
The production values are beyond reproach. Tom Hanks provides narration
throughout. Jon Seda portraits John Basilone the only featured soldier
who did not survive the war and therefore wrote no memoirs. As the first
Marine Medal of Honour winner his life is well documented. Unfortunately
my first memory of Jon Seda is of the opening scene in I Like it Like
That in which he glories in the length of time he can maintain an
erection in bed. This present role is far more substantial and mature. I
know Joseph Mazzello who plays Sledge as the child dying of a fatal
illness in The Cure and as Tim in Jurassic Park, he has grown up in the
intervening 15 years. James Badge Dale, who plays Leckie is new to me.
Both Sledge and Leckie wrote memoirs which inform the present
production. Leckie was a reporter before and after the war; Sledge, a
doctor's son, came to writing as a means of exorcising his demons. Chuck
Tatum, the other writer who gets credit for his memoirs was a minor
character in this piece.
In spite of all the personal details provided in this series there is a
feeling of detachment and aloofness about the men in this unit. Perhaps
this was the effect of having 300 land on a beach and only 35 walk away
whole in body. They just couldn't afford to get attached to one another.
In their attempts to make the battle scenes authentic the
cinematographers leave the viewer feeling numb, much as the men there
must have felt. There is an episode devoted to John Basilone's Victory
Bond Tour that echoes the feeling of the men depicted in Clint
Eastwood's Flags of Fathers. The final episode sees the men return home
and attempt to readjust to civilian life. The most poignant scenes are
those between Eugene Sledge and his father, the doctor. Everyone should
have a father as caring and compassionate.
