Sunday, November 3, 2024

100 BEST WAR MOVIES #33. Patton (1970)

 

        “Patton” was based on the books Patton:  Ordeal and Triumph by Ladislas Farago and A Soldier’s Story by Omar Bradley (who served as a technical adviser).  The screenwriters were Francis Ford Coppola and Edward North (who shared the Academy Award, but had never met before the ceremony).  Coppola wrote the first draft, but was fired partly because the studio did not like the opening speech!  The speech was a composite of remarks Patton made at various times.  The use of words like "bastard", "shit", "sons of bitches", and "Hell" were groundbreaking for a major feature.  Rod Steiger, Lee Marvin, Robert Mitchum, and Burt Lancaster turned down the role and the studio nixed John Wayne.  George C. Scott was reluctant to take the role because he disliked Patton.  He was upset about the positioning of the speech at the beginning feeling it was too powerful and the rest of the film would be a letdown.  The movie was shot in Spain to take advantage of all its circa WWII equipment.  The movie was a huge success and the Patton family loved it.  It won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director (Franklin J. Schaffner), Actor,  Original Screenplay, Editing, Sound, and Art Direction.   It was nominated for Cinematography, Visual Effects, and Score.  It is ranked #89 on AFI’s list of greatest movies and Patton is #29 on the list of heroes.

        The movie opens with the iconic speech.  Patton stands before a huge American flag in full regalia and addresses the audience.  He uses language many viewers had never heard in a movie before.  The speech has many memorable lines including “We are not only going to shoot the bastards , we are going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks.”  Another gem was: “Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”  Hell, virtually every line is dynamic.

        The body of the film opens with the aftermath of the Battle of Kasserine Pass. After the disaster, Patton is given command of the undisciplined and dispirited II Corps.  He arrives with sirens blaring and proceeds to crack the whip. This establishes him as a martinet, but the unit needed it. One of the movies themes is Patton’s adversarial relations with both the American high command and British generals, especially Montgomery (Michael Bates).  The quest for glory is another recurring theme. The movie may be ambiguous about Patton’s personality, but it absolutely idolizes his military genius.  It creates a fictional German staff officer named Steiger to give Patton’s background and to give insight into the German high command’s respect for him. 

        The first combat set piece is the Battle of El Qatar.  Patton lays an ambush for the Afrika Korps.  It is grand scale and very noisy, but not exactly suspenseful.  It also lacks realism and is marred by surprisingly old schoolish deaths.  The deaths are the silly twirling, touchdown-signaling variety.  The campaigning shifts to Sicily and the Monty dueling begins.  Monty is portrayed as an insufferably pompous general as opposed to our sufferably pompous Patton.  Plus Monty has the slows.  Patton goes full megalomaniac on Sicily as he becomes obsessed with beating the Brits to Messina.  Although bereft of combat in the movie, the race is very entertaining and crucial to the character development arc. Unfortunately, the destructive nature of his personality comes through when he slaps a shell-shocked soldier in a military hospital.  This incident has a huge effect on Patton’s career and almost ends it.

After time in the doghouse, he is given command of the Third Army in France, Patton is now under the command of the skeptical Bradley.  The relationship between the two men is a core focus of the movie. Patton leads the breakout from the Normandy beachhead in a dazzling show of aggressive maneuvering that mirrors his personality. The movie builds to the Battle of the Bulge.  A battle that movie audiences would have been familiar with from movies like “Battleground” and “Battle of the Bulge”, but probably not familiar with Patton’s role in it.  The film suspensefully depicts Patton’s tour de force of turning his army to strike the German flank and relief Bastogne (naturally there has to be a reference to “Nuts!”).  After the triumph in the Ardennes, the film jumps to the end of the war in Europe.

ACTING:   A                 

ACTION:   C  (6/10)

ACCURACY:  A-          

PLOT:  A                       

REALISM:   A            

CINEMATOGRAPHY:    A

SCORE:   A               

SCENE:  the speech

QUOTE:   Reporter: Do you actually read the Bible?  Patton:  Every damned day.


HISTORICAL ACCURACY:

        The use of two acclaimed books makes “Patton” above average in historical accuracy.  Plus the hands-on participation of Omar Bradley is a huge plus (although it reflects his point of view in their relationship and perpetuates the myth that he was a good general).  In spite of this there are some Hollywood moments to enhance the plot.  The most important point is that the movie gets Patton’s personality down pat.  He was the multi-layered person that Scott portrays.  He could be profane, sensitive, religious, glory-hungry, charismatic, insufferable, etc. Physically Scott looks like Patton, but Patton had a high voice which obviously would not have worked in the film.  You can’t blame Hollywood for that.

        The screenwriters decided to play around a bit with the Patton – Bradley relationship, but Bradley apparently had no problems with this.  In the movie, Bradley is basically portrayed as shaking his head at Patton’s antics when he is subordinate to Patton and then keeping him on a short leash after their role reversal.  They are depicted as respectful arch-friends.  In actuality, Bradley disliked Patton mostly because of his over the top personality.  Patton’s profanities rattled the moralistic Bradley.

        The movie makes the conscious decision to leave out some significant events in Patton’s career because they would have tampered with the plot themes.  The campaign in Lorraine was a tough slog that would have disrupted the flow and did not have the exhilaration of the Battle of the Bulge segment.  Patton’s disastrous Hammelburg Raid to rescue his son- in-law from a POW camp would have lessened the portrayal of the military genius.  His visits to concentration camps would have suddenly introduced the Holocaust towards the end of the film.

CRITIQUE:

        “Patton” is a significant movie in the canon of war films.  It had a major impact on the development of the VioLingo School (as I call modern as opposed to Old School war movies).  Although it does not push the boundaries of combat violence, it is certainly more realistic in soldier language than Old School movies.  In fact, the opening speech with its profanities was considered to be shocking to an audience weaned on movies like “The Desert Fox”.  1970 was a watershed year with other genre-changing films like "MASH" and "Kelly’s Heroes".  “Patton” was the one that scored 8 Academy Awards and brought tremendous prestige to the genre.  It combined the hero and anti-hero in one person and thus acted as a bridge between Old School heroes and the modern anti-heroes.

        The movie has only one weakness.  Although some laud its combat scenes, they are actually pretty lame and brief.  Since this is a biopic, combat depiction is not crucial.  However, given the big budget nature of the film, the action should have been better.  It is particularly distressing to see the silly deaths that are associated with inferior films.

        The acting makes up for the lack of combat fireworks.  In a sense, Patton supplies the fireworks himself.  Scott’s performance is magnificent.  Only Peter O’Toole’s performance in “Lawrence of Arabia” is comparable.  Scott was one of the most deserving Best Actor winners ever which is ironic because he refused to accept the Oscar.  He totally dominates the movie from opening speech to ending line. (“All glory is fleeting”.)  Karl Malden is very good as Bradley.  Michael Bates does such a wonderful parody of Montgomery that his portrayal has become fixed in the American perception of him.  The rest of the cast is fine.

        The movie is technically sound.  The score by Jerry Goldsmith is very memorable.  Surprisingly, there is only 32 minutes of music in the film.  The sound effects are also well done.  The battles may not be that exhilarating, but they sound amazing.  The cinematography is top notch.  The scenery is nice, but it’s the interiors that are remarkable. They are expansive and baroque, like Patton.  The decisions by the director to subtitle the Germans and use newsreels copiously as background to the war’s events were wise.

        The screenplay is almost perfect for a biography and character study.  Coppola/North did their home work and managed to include Patton’s greatest hits with the exception of incidents like the Hammelburg Raid that just did not fit the narrative.  They earned the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.  The movie could have been either idolizing  or scornful given the subject.  The screenplay skirts the extremes so well that some people criticize the film as hero-worshipping and others insist it besmirches a great American.  The themes are well-developed.  One is that Patton was a man out of his time.  Another is that it is possible to love war and treat it is as a profession.  Patton would not have agreed with Sherman’s “war is Hell”.  A minor subtheme is that Patton was religious (he read the Bible “every God damned day”) and yet reveled in the killing of Germans.

CONCLUSION:

        “Patton” was the perfect movie for its time.  1970 was ripe for a movie that changed the game.  “Patton” reinvigorated the war film because it brought in huge audiences and opened people’s minds to a more realistic depiction of warfare and command in warfare.  The movie cannily tapped in to the country’s Vietnam War psyche.  The hawks saw Patton as the kind of general we needed to win a just cause.  Doves could sneer at the type of mentality that had gotten us into the mess.  You saw what you wanted to see.  Even today it is unclear whether Patton should be seen as a role model.

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

12 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN: 1. Aliens (1986)

 

     “Aliens” was the sequel to “Alien” (1979).  James Cameron was a young 31-year old director who had not yet released “Terminator”.  He was approached to write the screenplay and he decided to make the sequel a combat film with a mix of terror.  That’s straight from the horse’s mouth so I don’t want to hear all the bitching about it not being a war movie or a horror movie. He envisioned it as an allegory about the Vietnam War.  The Colonial Marines exemplified the overconfident American army which had all the firepower, but was thrust into an alien environment against a primitive enemy that was relentless.  He wanted Ripley back to be a feminist hero, but contract problems with Sigourney Weaver almost led to Ripley being written out.  Cameron was given a paltry $18 million budget.  The film was shot in England, but American actors were used.  The movie was a critical and box office smash.  It won Academy Awards for Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects.  It was nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Sigourney Weaver), Art Direction, Original Score (James Horner). and Film Editing.  At the Saturn Awards for science fiction films it won Best Film, Direction, Writing (Cameron), Supporting Actor (Bill Pullman), Supporting Actress (Jenette Goldstein), and Best Performance by a Younger Actor (Carrie Henn).  The aliens’ nest set was a decommissioned power plant. 

            “Aliens” takes place 57 years after “Alien”.  Ripley (and Jonesy the cat) are found drifting is space.  At a meeting with the evil corporation, Ripley is disbelieved (she’s a woman, after all).  She is shocked to learn that a colony has been set up on the planet where the Nostromo encountered the alien.  Communication has ceased with the colony.  A company man named Burke (Paul Reiser) convinces a very reluctant Ripley to join a squad of Colonial Marines on a rescue mission.  An android named Bishop (Lance Henriksen) is along.  Needless to say, Ripley is not enamored with him.  The squad is your typical heterogeneous unit filled with braggadocio and disdain for the potential “bugs” they may have to exterminate.  Their commander is green and will need to gain their respect.  Luckily, they have a gruff sergeant to motivate them.  You know this is a war movie when they arrive to snare drums.  The colony is located on an inhospitable planet and the settlement’s interior is cinematic prison/factory/ghost town.  They encounter one survivor, a little girl named Newt (Henn) and Ripley develops a mother/daughter relationship with her.  In a pulse-pounding and pulse-expending recon, they discover a nest of aliens.  It’s game on, as Hudson (Pullman) might say.

            “Aliens” has been called the greatest sequel ever and it is hard to argue with that assessment.  Cameron’s decision to make the sequel more of an action thriller was brilliant.  He did not take the lame sequel route of trying to recreate the vibe of the original.  Although more comfortably placed in the sci-fi genre, it is certainly a war movie.  It is basically a squad behind-the-lines movie.  Their tactics are realistic and the weaponry is amazing.  What sets it apart from a WWII movie is the strong female character. She has to overcome PTSD along with the misogyny.  Ripley is iconic and set a new standard for a woman who challenges the male-dominated world. (It is a bit depressing to think that in 2179 nothing has changed in this respect.)  in fact, the film has three strong female characters.  Ripley was ranked #8 on AFI’s list of screen heroes in 2003.  The character does not suck all the air out of the room, however.  The movie is blessed with several indelible characters – Hudson (who stands in for the audience), Hicks, Newt, Vasquez, Bishop. Hell, even Paul Reiser’s slimy Burke is a great villain.  The actors are up to the characters with several doing their best work.  And I haven’t yet mentioned the aliens.  There is less left to the imagination than in “Alien” and the queen is a terrifying addition to the xenomorphs introduced in “Alien”.  Special effects wizard Stan Wilson deserves huge credit, along with Cameron.          

                It is hard to imagine how the movie could have been better.  (Other than a cheap scene where Ripley dreams of giving birth to an alien.)  The sound track (amazingly done by Horner in just three weeks) and sound effects are amazing.  The movie takes the commando mission and last stand tropes and puts them in a futuristic monster movie in a haunted house setting.  This hybridization works because all the elements are maxed out.  The movie starts strong and builds consistently to one hell of an ending.  Ripley’s duel with the queen is incredible and includes one of the greatest lines in movie history:  “Get away from her, you bitch!”.  If that does not get you fired up, nothing will.

GRADE  =  A+