VS.
FINALS
SAVING
PRIVATE RYAN vs. THE LONGEST DAY
This is the third annual finals of the
March Madness War Movies Tournament.
This year’s competition was to determine the best WWII ground combat
movie. Sixteen movies entered the
tournament and after watching all sixteen, reviewing them, and comparing them
in various categories, we are down to the last two. There were some surprises along the way, but
we ended up with the two top seeds in the finals.
It’s a fascinating match-up. One is an Old School battle epic classic with
an all-star cast that was filmed in black and white. The other is from the modern VioLingo School
that uses all the bells and whistles available today. Interestingly, the two finalists are both
about D-Day and they present a macroview (TLD) and a microview (SPR). They make perfect companions for not only
educating and entertaining the audience, but for recognizing the participants
in Operation Overlord.
The
tournament always concludes with a recap of the movies’ past scores. It comes down to the calculator.
TLD SPR
Acting 9 10
Cliches 8 6
Plot 10 8
Combat 9 10
Realism 8 9
Dialogue 8 9
Soldier Behavior 9 8
Entertainment Value 10 10
Technical Advisors 10 Effects 10
Educational Value 10 Characters 8
Balance 10 Deaths 10
Accuracy 8 Implausibilities 6
Total 109 103
COLOR ANALYSIS:
Congratulations
to “The Longest Day” for winning this year’s tournament. The Finals was pretty competitive, but TLD
was the comfortable winner. While TLD
was consistently strong in all the categories, SPR was let down by two areas
where it has gotten a lot of criticism from war movie fans: clichés and plausibility. The spectacular acting and combat makes it
one of the great war movies, but it does have some cringe-inducing elements
(e.g., the evil German) to please the general public.
TLD
has no weaknesses as a war movie. I am
sure there are non-purists that gripe about the black and white, the length,
and the fact that you have to read subtitles!
But from a war movie fan’s standpoint, it is hard to see how it could be
better given when it was made. I am not
even sure a modern remake would be superior.
The combat would be more realistic, but we have SPR to cover that. Watch them together.
Good analysis of the two movies, especially The Longest Day, which deserves its victory. I agree that it holds up very well today.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I was a little surprise it came out on top considering its age. It is #15 on the Military History 100 Greatest list and it will be interesting to see how many of the top 14 are not better than it.
ReplyDeleteTLD is a docudrama, so the black-and-white is appropriate. Its length is not unusual for an epic. And subtitles are better than having the German officers talking to each other in English with Colonel Klink accents (or the French C.O. giving orders to his unit in English with an Inspector Clouseau) accent). A modern remake would have the advantage of CGI technology and more graphic violence, but that would not make it better, just bigger. Odd that TLD actually has fewer cliches than SPR, but that is more a credit to the older movie, rather than a criticism of the newer one.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the input. I especially agree about the subtitles. I have to respectfully disagree about it being a docudrama. It has a documentary feel to it because it is pretty historically accurate and the black and white has a documentary look to it, but I have never seen "A Bridge Too Far" labeled a docudrama and no two movies could be more similar. It is simply a war movie.
ReplyDeleteThere is actually a version of TLD where the German Generals speak English. The subtitled version is better.
ReplyDeleteI prefer subtitles. I like to hear the actual inflections of the actors.
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