Category: Ned Eisenberg

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS

By Marc S. Sanders

Arguably the most famous photograph in American history is that of the six soldiers raising the flag on the island of Iwo Jima while battling Japanese forces during World War II.  I remain fascinated by the image.  

I recall visiting the landmark statue in Washington DC when I was traveling by myself.  I took countless pictures of the piece.  I got close ups, wide lens shots, pictures of the flag and pictures of each sculpted soldier.  It’s heroic in any aspect.  It looks like something out of a Superman comic book.  As it turns out, the famed image was just a happy accident during a violently terrible time in twentieth century history.  Photographer Joe Rosenthal didn’t even realize what his camera captured until his film was later developed.  Turned out this was the second attempt at raising the flag.  Furthermore, this occurred on the fifth day of the conflict – with thirty-five days still to go before the Americans could claim victory over the bloody crisis.

So, while Rosenthal’s image seems to declare American patriotism at its finest, the real story is not as romantic.  In fact, one of the narrators of Clint Eastwood’s film, Flags Of Our Fathers, suggests that there are no heroes to celebrate.  Whoever the men in that picture were, they were not so much fighting for their country as they were trying to stay alive and look after the comrades ahead and behind them.

Flags Of Our Fathers has a very reminiscent feel to producer Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan with unforgiving battle scenes of blood, death, bombings and young soldiers storming a beach while screaming for their buddies.  Spielberg might have impressed me first, but Clint Eastwood masterfully shoots wide landscapes and up-close turmoil with his reliable strategies of shooting in shadows and silohouettes.  Eastwood’s film, scripted by Paul Haggis and William Broyles Jr veers into a unique direction though as Rosenthal’s picture takes on a life of its own back in the states.  It makes the front page of every paper.  Harry Truman stands proud of it along with all the decorated military leaders.

Now that America has entered the war, it is appropriate to ignite a propaganda campaign.  This picture of the Stars and Stripes getting elevated into the sobering, smoky war-torn skies will motivate citizens to buy war bonds to further fund the war effort.  The spokesmen will be the ones believed to be the remaining surviving three of the six in that image.  Ryan Phillipe is Navy enlisted John “Doc” Bradley.  Jesse Bradford is Rene Gagon, and Adam Beach plays Native American Ira Hayes, both of the Marine Corps.

I believe Flags Of Our Fathers embraces what every enlisted person did to serve the efforts of America during the war, and the picture mourns the countless sacrifices and losses that occurred.  However, it frowns upon the domestic response to what really went on overseas.  Those that returned carried terrible and unforgettable trauma based on their experiences.  Yet, the three thought to be part of the flag raising were pushed to celebrate their achievements summed up in a split-second image.  Bradley, Gagon and Hayes were skeptical if they were the ones in that picture.  Government Bureaucrats could care less.   There were others on that hill who cannot speak for themselves, but officials in suits and ties will insist otherwise to uphold a countrywide tour complete with recreations of the hill they ran up on that fateful day.  Even desserts are crafted like the famed image.

Ira Hayes is the one who is especially conflicted with his new responsibilities to the governing body that historically acquired his ancestors’ territory.  Adam Beach portrays a torn individual who is limited in celebration by the United States and certainly patronized.  Who he stems from does not matter.  He represents a false interpretation of the English acceptance of his Native heritage.  His obligation to this machine of propaganda only doubles the exaggeration that his other two peers are coerced to parade with marching bands and fireworks.  All that the ongoing extravagance does is keep him absorbed in the Japanese lives he brutally slaughtered and the bloodshed that surrounded him.  It’s a heartbreaking performance told with an absence of true appreciation for what Hayes gave up on that battlefield.

I learned much from Flags Of Our Fathers, but I had issues with comprehending everything.  While the immense war footage is chaotic with sharp editing and camerawork, it’s challenging to match names with faces in the picture.  There are two elderly men who are recounting what occurred and what happened to these men and their families long after the incident was over.  It was hard for me to line up which older man was who, on top of who they are talking about at times.  Paul Walker is one famous face in the crowd.  So is Barry Pepper but I could not identify the names of their characters until the film was arriving at its conclusion.  It was not until the epilogue of the movie arrives that it became a little clearer.  I also had to later reference what is listed on IMDB.  

The entire design of Eastwood’s movie is authentic from the battles staged for the Iwo Jima conflict to what mid-1940s domestic life looked like back home.  Truly absorbing while both storylines seem so different.  Clint Eastwood also wrote the soundtrack composition, and it is truly sobering.  His son Kyle performs with the orchestra.  

Flags Of Our Fathers partnered with Clint Eastwood’s follow up later in the year, Letters From Iwo Jima, which offered the Japanese perspective of the incident.  Bridge the films together and you get an incredible cinematic experience.  So many war pictures are one sided.  In all fairness, most movies do not have the time, luxury or finances to expand their palettes from one side to the other.  Because these two films are companion pieces, the viewer gets a fair account of how this battle, located on a tiny island, treated the men on the ground while their governing bodies celebrated their stands for patriotism, victory and monetary funding.

Eastwood demonstrates that the war destroyed practically everyone who was engaged in it regardless of the countries these soldiers served.  Many were slaughtered, but the innocence of those that physically survived died with everyone else during this period of time.  Clint Eastwood directed two films that explain this never-ending atrocity.  These men eventually laid down their weapons, but they never left the war.

A CIVIL ACTION

By Marc S. Sanders

In A Civil Action, writer/director Steve Zaillian allows John Travolta to demonstrate the workings of a remorseless ambulance chasing lawyer with a pride for the finest in men’s wear and the title of one of the most eligible bachelors in Boston, Massachusetts.  Then, all of that crumbles apart when a self-effacing acknowledgment breaks through. 

Travolta portrays real-life attorney Jan Schlictmann, who heads a small personal injury law practice with three partners (Tony Shalhoub, William H Macy and Zeljko Ivanec).  They go after the cases that promise large settlements from hospitals, insurance companies and multi-million-dollar corporations.  The best cases are where the mid-30’s breadwinning male of the household has suffered irreparable damages.  The victim is not deceased, but permanently handicapped, unable to work and provide for his family.  A dead victim is not as theatrically attractive.   Better to put the poor soul in the wheelchair on stage for the winning cash settlement. 

When Jan is boxed into a corner to meet with the residents of a small New England town, he dismisses their case as an unwinnable nuisance.  The townsfolk believe that their children have taken ill, with some not surviving, due to locally contaminated drinking water.  Kathleen Quinlan is one mother who wants an apology and explanation from whoever is responsible.  An apology holds no tangible value for Jan though, until he observes who the primary suspects are likely to be; two large corporations that own well known brands like Peter Pan Peanut Butter, Tropicana Orange Juice, and Samonsite Luggage.  Now the pockets to collect from could go on forever, and Jan does not realize until it’s too late how much of a personal gamble he is undertaking with himself and his partners in tow.

A Civil Action has always left me thinking on so many different levels since I first saw it in theaters.  The value of a life, especially a child’s life, is not very significant when corporate America profits on dollar bills.  The priority of environmental protection and its most precious resource, water, is just as minimal, maybe more.  Zaillian uncovered a fantastic character arc from a very frighteningly sad and true story.   Jan Schlictmann proudly dons an appearance of false care for victims of botched surgeries and car accidents to advance his ego and materialistic nature.  However, then he found a conscience, as he realized that money doesn’t win cases for his clients.  Instead, the acceptance of responsibility triumphs.  That surrendering admittance, though, is not expected to come from these companies.  Not when the burden of proof only comes from a measly platoon of four small town attorneys, who could never bear the expenses of proving such gross negligence and wrong doing.  This is a David & Goliath confrontation. 

Beyond a cast of recognizable faces, there are scenes in this film that just stay with you.  Most especially for me is the unforgiving nature of Quinlan’s suffering maternal character.  She no longer has any care in the world for whatever sacrifices are made by the lawyers to reveal the truth of what happened.  I didn’t think that was fair of her, frankly.  Zaillian demonstrates what these four guys endure as the case prolongs itself.  However, people are unfair.  Sometimes they are unreasonable because they have been pushed down to a bottom they’ll never climb up from.  This movie and the circumstances at play are not here to please me and make me feel good with a tidy ending wrapped in a bow, however.  The script is brutally honest in its characterizations.

What’s also disturbing about this case is simply water.  Countless times, Steve Zaillian gets close up shots of glasses and pitchers of clear, crisp water.  Children are drinking water.  Water is spilled on tables.  Jan’s enemies in trial will indulge in a refreshing gulp from a glass as they finish a scene with him.  The movie reminds you time and again that water is the silent killer.

Robert Duvall is the shining talent on the other side of the aisle from Travolta as an attorney in a fifty-dollar suit with a beat up fifty-dollar briefcase representing one of the large companies that is being sued.  Duvall makes his shark of an attorney appear effortless.  He falls asleep in court.  He tucks away in a corner to listen to the Red Sox play on his transistor radio.  Yet, he’s wise enough to know how to derail an opposing counsel’s case with just his quiet, unspoken presence at the table.  He isn’t even so much a villain or an antagonist as he allows the hero of the film ample opportunity to settle rather than charge on.  His urgencies don’t work however because Jan has changed.  Where he once saw money, he now sees something much more valuable that is beyond any variance of negotiation.  The scenes shared between the handsome, fit and well-dressed John Travolta against the older, short, hunched yet astute Robert Duvall play beautifully here.  There is top notch stage performance work happening here.

It amazes me that A Civil Action is not available on Blu Ray or 4K.  Look at this cast and its direction.  It’s magnificent.  Zaillian’s film moves with a fast pace of easy-to-follow courtroom theatrics.  Additional performances from Sydney Pollack, James Gandolfini, Dan Hedaya, and John Lithgow are so engrossing.  William H Macy is very good too, as the desperate man trying to keep Jan’s cause afloat.  Why is this film not being granted the accessibility it deserves?  I actually had to pay for a streaming rental watch.  No matter, it was worth it.  For like Jan Schlictmann, money is not the most important commodity known to man.  Morality and decency will stretch further than money that’s been spent, never to be replenished.  A noble and most human thing you can do is to experience Steve Zaillian’s film, A Civil Action. Then you will understand what an unjust world any one of us could fall victim to.  Then maybe you will understand the loss a loving mother endures far outweighs any financial liability from a grocery food company.