Flags of Our Fathers
Review by Jeffrey Overstreet | posted 10/20/2006
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Flags of Our Fathers
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MPAA rating: R
(for sequences of graphic war violence and carnage, and for language)
Genre: Drama, Historical, War
Theater release:
October 20, 2006
by Warner Bros.
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Runtime: 2 hours 12 minutes
Cast: Ryan Phillipe (John Bradley), Jesse Bradford (Rene Gagnon), Adam Beach (Ira Hayes), Barry Pepper (Mike Strank), John Benjamin Hickey (Keyes Beech), John Slattery (Bud Gerber), Paul Walker (Hank Hansen), Jamie Bell (Ralph Ignatowski)
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"War is hell," they say. So is war propaganda.
Both of these observations are powerfully illustrated in Clint Eastwood's new film Flags of Our Fathers, which is based on James Bradley's book about the lives of the six U.S. Marines who appear in the ubiquitous photo called "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima."
As the film opens, we watch three servicemen—John Bradley (Ryan Philippe), Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford), and Ira Hayes (Adam Beach)—climb a steep slope. When they reach the peak, they triumphantly lift an American flag.
But this is not the moment in that famous 1945 photo taken by AP reporter Joe Rosenthal atop Mt. Surabachi on a small Japanese island. No, this is a recreation on a peak made of papier-mâché, staged for a cheering crowd.
The Marines are standing in Chicago's Soldier Field, under a sky full of festive fireworks, waving to the Americans who have taken such comfort from that dramatic black-and-white portrait. They're taking part in a vigorous military propaganda effort, persuading patriotic Americans to purchase war bonds. And it works—the cheering people open their wallets to show their support for those troops still fighting against Germany and Japan.
Rosenthal's image captured America's imagination. It inspired us to strive for victory, and brought comfort to the worried families of Marines. Thus, it was printed, imitated, and reenacted to keep spirits high—and to keep the dollars coming in. "The country was tired of war," says a retired captain (Harve Presnell) as he thinks back. "One photo, almost all on its own, turned that around."
Ira Hayes , John 'Doc' Bradley and Rene Gagnon are greeted as heroes upon returning home from the war
Thus, we see Bradley, Gagnon, and Hayes, the three from the photograph who survived, welcomed as heroes for surviving the greatest siege in American military history. But as they wave and smile, they are haunted by the fact that Soldier Field is nothing like Mt. Surabachi at all. Their own flag-raising was not the glorious moment that everyone seems to believe it was. And, in their opinion, the real heroes were killed on the island.
All told, about 26,000 lives—almost 7,000 Americans and over 19,000 Japanese—died on and around Iwo Jima. (The Japanese perspective will be revealed in Eastwood's companion sequel, Letters from Iwo Jima, in February.) And the suffering didn't end when the Marines came home. The horrors continued, playing like a highlight reel in their heads—driving them to silence, depression, and worse.
The subject of violence preoccupies Eastwood in film after film. Having played a heroic gunslinger so many times, the 76-year-old Hollywood legend seems determined to de-glamorize violence and revise our definition of heroes. As in his masterpiece—Unforgiven—his characters often employ violence for the best intentions, but then carry burdens of doubt and damage afterward.
Flags of Our Fathers is ultimately about war heroes—why we need them, how poorly we misunderstand them, and what it's like for Marines branded as heroes. Eastwood shows us that there is often a vast chasm between what happens in combat and what is communicated to the nation via the media and the government.
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