Friday, May 10, 2013
The Pacific: Second Thoughts
Upon second watching on a larger screen with surround -sound system this series is as intimidating as the first time I watched it. In a big screen theatre setting it would feel like those Japanese Fighters were coming off the screen straight for one. The difference between Band of Brothers and The Pacific is the nature of the war that is being fought. In the Pacific the Marines are invading Islands that are either equatorial jungle or desert coral volcanic archipelagos, both are hot and wet, swamp or mud. And the enemy they confront knows no surrender fighting to the death even when mortally wounded with an intimidating ferocity.
The approach here is much more personal introducing us to the marines' families back home and showing us the home front, especially through John Basilone who is sent back to America as a war hero to help the War Bond Drive. In some ways his experience is not unlike that of the soldiers in Flags of Our Fathers. The personal touch is nowhere as evident as in series episode ten which shows the marines returning home. A distinguished officer is picked up at a small whistle stop by a baby brother he barely recognizes and his father in their beat-up farm truck. The assertive Robert Leckie walks into the editor's office at his old newspaper and demands his job back with a $10/week raise, he gets 7. When his mother catches him spying on the neighbour girl across the street at her prompting he dresses up in his never-worn dress blues and sweeps her off her feet in front of her newly-minted West Point Officer Boyfriend.
Joseph Mazello looks equally as vulnerable here as he did years earlier in The Cure but handles his demons well in his own self-contained way during the war. When he comes home he resolves never to don his uniform again at the price of being ignored by the gals who fawned all over his brothers-in-arms. His father, a doctor who served in WW#1, stands outside his bedroom door and then sits listening to his nightmares and cries knowing that to interfere would betray his son's manhood. When his son breaks down and cries when they set out on a Saturday Morning to go hunting his father comforts him quipping that the county's doves will be thankful. If only all sons had fathers as understanding and empathetic. This scene is more poignant and affecting than any battle aftermath we witness up to that point for it is every bit as much a battle aftermath.
The second tableau was played out when John Basilone's Widow, Lena, his wife of only 7 months who learned of his death on her birthday, visits his Italian family. HIs Brother George in uniform, his mother, and his father who speaks no English. The high emotional point is reached when she presents his father with John's Medal of honour. In typical fashion we learn that even after re-upping after 8 years John failed to sign the paperwork for his GI Insurance denying his family the $10,000--a fortune in 1946.
The approach here is much more personal introducing us to the marines' families back home and showing us the home front, especially through John Basilone who is sent back to America as a war hero to help the War Bond Drive. In some ways his experience is not unlike that of the soldiers in Flags of Our Fathers. The personal touch is nowhere as evident as in series episode ten which shows the marines returning home. A distinguished officer is picked up at a small whistle stop by a baby brother he barely recognizes and his father in their beat-up farm truck. The assertive Robert Leckie walks into the editor's office at his old newspaper and demands his job back with a $10/week raise, he gets 7. When his mother catches him spying on the neighbour girl across the street at her prompting he dresses up in his never-worn dress blues and sweeps her off her feet in front of her newly-minted West Point Officer Boyfriend.
Joseph Mazello looks equally as vulnerable here as he did years earlier in The Cure but handles his demons well in his own self-contained way during the war. When he comes home he resolves never to don his uniform again at the price of being ignored by the gals who fawned all over his brothers-in-arms. His father, a doctor who served in WW#1, stands outside his bedroom door and then sits listening to his nightmares and cries knowing that to interfere would betray his son's manhood. When his son breaks down and cries when they set out on a Saturday Morning to go hunting his father comforts him quipping that the county's doves will be thankful. If only all sons had fathers as understanding and empathetic. This scene is more poignant and affecting than any battle aftermath we witness up to that point for it is every bit as much a battle aftermath.
The second tableau was played out when John Basilone's Widow, Lena, his wife of only 7 months who learned of his death on her birthday, visits his Italian family. HIs Brother George in uniform, his mother, and his father who speaks no English. The high emotional point is reached when she presents his father with John's Medal of honour. In typical fashion we learn that even after re-upping after 8 years John failed to sign the paperwork for his GI Insurance denying his family the $10,000--a fortune in 1946.
# posted by garthmailman@gmail.com @ 9:54 am 
