Movie Reviews
America is screaming for a movie like “Flags of Our Fathers.” Clint Eastwood’s latest film is sweeping in spectacle both in the realms of an epic and a drama. It trusts its audience to weave in and out of a fragmented storyline and into the deepest, darkest emotions of the human spirit, all the while celebrating that very thing. It is a masterpiece.
It seems the story behind “Flags of Our Fathers” is the sort of complicated thing that usually hinders a movie from getting made. Steven Spielberg bought the rights to the book it is based on and had William Broyles, Jr. write a draft of it, hoping that the film’s content would be another forum to continue a similar World War II motif that’s followed Spielberg throughout his career and certainly since “Schindler’s List.” Unsatisfied with the script, and after considering his priorities, Spielberg pitched the film to Clint Eastwood the night his “Mystic River” was an Oscar hopeful. Eastwood gave the script to Paul Haggis – who had just penned “Million Dollar Baby” and directed “Crash” – to polish what Broyles had written. What emerges on screen is a careful study of war, the media, and getting things right.
The film’s central focus centers on the famous photo of the six marines raising a flag on Mount Suribachi during the battle of Iwo Jima at the end of World War II. Mere days after the picture was taken, three of the men featured were dead and one mistaken for a totally different man, who was also dead by that time. One of the obvious goals of “Flags of Our Fathers” is to make known the true story behind a photo that has been used in times of crisis to raise the spirits of a wounded nation.
Eastwood directs with furious confidence, showcasing glorious continuity and providing battle sequences just as frank as “Saving Private Ryan." I was surprised at the similarity in combat scenes between “Flags” and “Private Ryan.” Maybe this is the influence of Spielberg. Either way, I’m concluding that the frankness of both movies is necessary for each story. Both films deal with separate effects of war, so how do we understand without seeing the war?
Of the dozens of strong personalities throughout the film, Adam Beach gives the standout performance as Ira Hayes, an Indian-American fighting in the war, and one of the men who happen to raise the flag that day. The publicity behind the photo results in a press-fueled tour of America, where the three surviving men, including Doc Bradley (Ryan Phillippe) and Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford), speak about their experience in order to promote the sale of war bonds. It is a noble cause, but the men wonder how much it’s really worth.
During the tour, the men are bombarded with sales/advertising pitches and the pressure of saying the right words to thousands of people at a time. At one point, the three are forced to climb a massive paper mâché likeness of Mount Suribachi and raise a flag in front of cheering fans at Soldier Field in Chicago. The resemblance to the real mountain is far from close, but enough to flood memories of that terrible day back into the minds of Doc and Ira.
Ira slips into alcoholism, ashamed that he got to go home simply because he was in the photo. Ashamed that better men died on that beach. He encounters constant racial profiling – whether it’s a congressman thanking him for his service and asking, “Did you use a tomahawk on the Japs?” or a bartender who refuses to serve Indians. But the most painful aspect of his return home is that he’s been labeled a hero.
“Flags of Our Fathers” asks us in turn to question what makes a person a hero. Or perhaps to question if there even are real heroes. What does it really do to call a person a hero?
Ira remembers Mike Strank (Barry Pepper). In one “Flags’” of finest scenes, Ira, just coming out of a hangover and crying relentlessly, explains that he is not a hero. “All I did was try not to get shot,” he says. “But Mike, he was the best marine I ever knew....I think he’d be ashamed of me if he saw the condition I was in.”
“Flags of Our Fathers” resembles Clint Eastwood’s last two films “Mystic River” and “Million Dollar Baby” in how it delves so deep into the nature of regrettable decisions made in the past. Eastwood, unlike any other director in this infant century, can make us feel what his characters are feeling. He’s a classic filmmaker, not interested in intricate camera moves or special effects (although he sometimes utilizes both, and with great success). He likes to tell it like it is. What a wonderful time in our history to be telling it like it is.
And that photo. That excellent, damning photo and others like it. How many dispirited Americans have been given hope because of it? How many American families despaired by the death of a child in war have had their sacrifice confirmed as necessary by it? But what about Ira Hayes? It wasn’t a war that killed him. It was the word hero. ****