Fabs
Posts: 444
Joined: 6/5/2000
From: London, U.K.
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Kluckenbill said:
"Its been a couple of years since I've seen Stalingrad, but even that movie suffered (IMHO) from having a lot of combatants bunched together. Look how close everyone is and how close together the foxholes are in the scene where they are stopping the Russian tank attack."
Absolutely right. I have always felt that this is one of the least brilliant scenes of an otherwise remarkble movie.
What is at work here is the limitation of the camera lens. You have to bunch people together to make an interesting action scene.
Back to the point of how boring war movies would be to watch if scenes of combat in the open field were constructed realistically.
One would be reduced to shooting mostly from a helicopter, and even then it would be damned hard for the audience to understand what was happening.
It would be like watching a bunch of ants hidden around on the ground.
However, the "Factory storming" scene, the sewer scenes and the "broken truce" scene were IMO well represented.
You can use the camera to give the idea of the drama and horror of close range combat, where it is possible to show an overview including both sides and paste in individual shots of what happens to each side's men and their reactions.
In this sense, plaudits go to SPR for the carnage on the beach, although for the sake of the story line those Rangers get from the wash to the bunkers far too quickly. (In reality, I doubt that the guys that got to the top of the cliffs were among the first to land).
The duel with the MG nest is also well filmed, it is just in an odd context (solitary squad runs into solitary, unsupported MG nest protecting some sort of comms installation in the middle of nowhere?).
The duel between snipers is probably a more realistic scene, although again I suspect that such affairs took longer to play out in real life.
I also wonder whether a good sniper would have chosen such an obvious position, and stuck around in it after making one kill.
Snipers tended to prefer to stay alive, and did so by choosing their positions carefully, making sure they had plenty of escape possibilities and changing to carefully prepared alternative positions as soon as they felt that the current one had possibly been revealed, normally after taking one shot.
The fight for Ramelle (wonderfully portrayed for us in Wild Bill's two excellent scenarios) is, I'm afraid, pure Hollywood.
Great set and great re-creation of fighting vehicles, but not much to do with real combat.
The scenes prior to the fight reminded me of "The A-Team", when they sit in a garage making up the weird contraptions that they are going to use in the coming fight. Good old American ingeniousness at work! 
The attacking Germans once again are shown as moronic suicidal maniacs, running around in the open and falling victims to the cross fires set up by our crafty American heroes.
German grenades are thrown at the Americans with plenty of time for them to pick them up and throw them out again (how brave!!!).
The Germans are represented as SS, when American troops in the early days came up mostly against Wehrmacht or Fallschirmjaeger, until Das Reich and Goetz von Berlichingen showed up. (SS wear more photogenic uniforms and make for more dramatic enemies).
Tigers are involved in the fight, while during the early part of the Normandy battles most Heavy Panzer units were employed against the British and the Canadians.
American fought mostly against infantry in the days immediately following the landings.
They were counterattacked by armor in places, but probably did not see any Tigers until July.
The fight is played out underscoring the "goodies" heroism agains impossible odds until all hope seems lost, at which point the "cavalry" arrives to save the day. How original! 
The characterisation of the SS man that is taken prisoner and released, only to return to fight in the Ramelle assault, is usual Hollywood rubbish.
British and Canadian accounts (the Brits and Canucks fought the bulk of the SS divisions on the Caen front) of SS prisoner behavior don't bear out the movie character.
It is a shame that in a movie where the American men were so well characterized no effort was made to do the same for their German enemies.
Nazism, old European rivalries and German nationalistic militarism are very difficult themes to tackle, and even more difficult would be to superimpose the humanity of the men caught up in these historical circumstances and the various ways in which the combination pans out for different individuals, or groups of men.
If Spielberg had had the courage to explore these themes fairly and fully, he would have made a longer movie, shorter on action but as great a masterpiece as Schindler's list.
As it is, he missed that opportunity by a mile.
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Fabs
[This message has been edited by Fabs (edited October 27, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Fabs (edited October 27, 2000).]
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Fabs
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3) The Tanks are Coming - No name actors. generic tough sergent takes over tank crew after their beloved commander is killed. Leads them to victory by being hard as nails & ignoring the company commander. 
2)The Battle of El Alamein - The "Spaggetti Western" of war movies. Think of the script writer for the "Trinity" westerns of the early '70's with fellow who chose the armour for "Battle of the Bulge", before he developed his fine knowlege of armoured vehicles. 
and the worst of the lot.....
1) Battle of the Last Panzer - 
words fail me. that's all I can say. I'm ashamed to say I have it on tape...even more ashamed to say I PAID for it. Kelly's Heroes is a solid documentary taken entirely from unedited gun-camera footage next to this piece of @%##$&. 'nuff said. Nothing could possibly be worse and exist on tape without erasing itself out of shame. 
On the other hand, I just got "Stalingrad" and "Cross of Iron", neither of which I have seen. Can't wait to see them!
Don
Troma - King of Trash-movies 
Never liked them myself...
[This message has been edited by Peregrine Falcon (edited October 28, 2000).]
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