Alexander Nevsky

Sergei Eisenstein, Russia, 1938, bw (8.8*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon Film #22
In 1242, Russia in being invaded by two sides - the Mongols from Asia to the east; and by the Germans Teutonic Knights of the Holy Roman Empire from the west, the European side. Novgorod is the last free, unconquered city in Russia. The population, calls on the Prince Aleksander Nevsky for help in organizing the defense - he had defeated Swedish invaders in a previous battle.

His plan is to lure the Germans onto a giant frozen lake, which is one of the great battles in cinema, shot in beautiful black and white. [see photo below] This movie was made on the eve of a threatened invasion of Russia by Germany, just before the outbreak of WW2. The idea was to obviously make pro-Russian, nationalistic propaganda. Nonetheless, it is an overwhelming, marvelous, stunning powerful masterpiece.

If you can forget the ideology, which is that Russia will always use her winter to her advantage in repelling invaders, and watch it as art, you will witness perhaps Eisenstein's greatest work, and a black-and-white classic.

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Restrepo

Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, 2010 (9.0*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon film #21
Documentary that follows The Men of Battle Company 2nd of the 503rd Infantry Regiment 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, in Afghanistan's deadly Korangal Valley, as they work out of firebase they call Outpost Restrepo, after a fallen comrade, medic Juan Restrepo.

If you're interested about how contemporary American soldiers look in daily combat, this is as good a film as you'll get, shot with superb cinematography, as risk of the filmmakers themselves being shot. (Director Tim Hetherington was in fact killed while filming in Libya in March of this year).

The film is simply a journal, following the platoon with little narrative structure other than their building OP Restrepo, the 15-man outpost on a hill overlooking the entire enemy valley - and a patrol into the civilian population called Operation Rock Avalanche, during which the troops came under heavy fire. Through face-to-face interviews with the soldiers, we can see what this has done to their psyches, and many of the soldiers are just out of high school.

4 awards, including Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Documentary, out of 12 nominations, including an Oscar® nomination for documentary (Inside Job won). Tim Hetherington also won a Pulitzer Prize for a 2007 photo of the soldiers resting at Restrepo.

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The Last of the Mohicans

Michael Mann, 1992 (8.2*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon film #20
Based on the James Fenimoore Cooper novel, this is the definitive version of this American classic.

Daniel-Day Lewis has the title role as Nathanial Poe, known as Hawkeye, who was adopted and raised as a Mohican. Native American Russell Means plays Chingachgook, the title character. Means was an Indian activist who was at the last clash with the FBI at Wounded Knee. Lewis does a pretty good job, but it seems they could have found a real Native American actor for this part as well.

The story is about British and French troops warring in colonial America, with various Native American tribes helping on either side. Hawkeye seems to have his own agenda, which largely involves a British officer's daughter, played by Madeleine Stowe. Hawkeye, Chingachgook and his son rescue Stowe and some others from renegade Hurons and return them safely to a fort.

Unfortunately the film is more about this romance than the actual nation-shaping war. Michael Mann always seems to have more of a 'tv look' to his films (he created Miami Vice), everything is a little too clean, too pretty, but he escapes that for the most part here with a feature film that looks like a big budget adventure. The cinematography and the music are superb.

This finally brought color to Cooper's work, the previous best versions were all in black and white. Some say this was the first chase story in literature. The climactic scenes on a mountain were shot in the beautiful area of Chimney Rock, North Carolina, one of the nicest parts of Appalachia.

An Oscar® winner for sound, a BAFTA for cinematography, two for actor Daniel-Day Lewis. Winner of 6 awards out of 16 nominations

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Empire of the Sun

Steven Spielberg, 1987 (8.3*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon film #19
Based on the autobiographical novel of British science fiction author J.G. Ballard, this is the wartime story of a British boy named Jim, played by a young Christian Bale, caught in Shanghai when the Japanese invade, eventually ending up in a Japanese POW camp, along with some other families and some American deserters, led by John Malkovich. The Americans befriend Jim and he becomes a flunkie, or employee, of them - really more like a hired servant - they are black marketeers and live better than other prisoners.

This has some unforgettable scenes - one a collection of British possessions rotting in a large outdoor field. My favorite is a flyer in a P-38 going past Jim on a watchtower in slow motion as Jim waves at the pilot in the middle of wartime action. Much of this actually happened to author Ballard when he was this age, he spent part of his youth growing up in a Japanese camp for captured Brits.

11 wins out of 24 nominations, incl. 6 Oscar nominations with no wins.. some wins were for cinematography, director, actor Christian Bale..

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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Yves Simoneau, 2007 (8.6*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon Film #18
Tells the true story of the U.S. war against the Lakota Souix tribe, from the book by Dee Brown. We see a lead up of escalating events until there is the banning of the harmless "Snake Dance", and an eventual historical event the U.S. would rather forget - I won't spoil it here for those who don't know or haven't seen the film.

This intermingles the stories of three historical characters: Charles Eastman, aka Ohiyesa, a college-educated Sioux doctor, 'living proof of the success of assimilation'; the proud Sitting Bull, the Lakota chief who refuses to submit to U.S. policies designed to strip his people of their identity, dignity and their sacred land - the gold-laden Black Hills of the Dakotas, promised to them in a treaty, to 'remain untouched'; and Senator Henry Dawes, who was one of the architects of the government policy on Indian affairs.

This film goes even further by showing how we indoctrinated Native American children into our society - by forcing them to drop their Indian names and choose a "Christian" one out of a big book of approved biblical names. They were forced to denounce their heritage and change names and learn Christianity or they were not given an education.

Stars Aiden Quinn, Anna Paquin, Fred D. Thompson, Chevez Ezaneh, and August Schellenberg as Sitting Bull.
won 22 awards out of 42 nominations, including 6 Emmys out of 17 nominations, including best tv movie.

Note: What most historical records won't say it that it was really just a matter of gold, which was discovered on sacred Souix grounds in the Black Hills, home of their sacred ancestors. The U.S. was in one of its regular bankruptcies or depressions, the government having just borrowed 500 million from J.P. Morgan in 1875 - suddenly there was easy gold in land they could just take back from the Souix, conveniently ignoring any prior treaties.

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Gallipoli

Peter Weir, Australia, 1981 (7.8*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon film #17
Two sprinters from Ausralia, played by Mel Gibson and Marc Lee, are sent to the Gallipoli campaign in World War One, as battlefield runners, the speedy who carry messages between military commanders in days before radios and easier communication.

If you don't know the history of this battle, I won't spoil it here, but the battle footage is well done, fairly realistic (and without CGI). The main themes of the film will hit you like a brick wall at the film's conclusion, and they are the universal themes of all wars: on the whole, they are a futile exercise, but in some individual cases, heroes may rise from among average men and attain at least a moment of timeless glory.

Winner of 9 awards, 20 nominations, including 8 Australia Film Institute awards (Film, Director, Actor for Gibson, Supporting actor for Bill Hunter, Screenplay, Cinematography, Sound, Film Editing) - it didn't win any international awards, just Australian.Dur

Another in a line of excellent Peter Weir films, which include Fearless (my favorite), Witness, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, The Mosquito Coast, The Year of Living Dangerously, The Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

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Troy

Wolfgang Petersen, 2004 (7.7*)
Memorial Day War-a-thon film #16
Based on Homer's Iliad, this updating of the story of the Trojan war with Greece over the queen Helen has added CGI effects to finally look as if there are the reputed half a million Greek soldiers on the shores of Troy. (Well they say Helen "launched a thousand ships", so the total men involved may have been as small as 50,000).

Led by King Agamemnon (Brian Cox) the Greeks have united as one large army in order to invade Troy, and the most fierce and undefeatable of their warriors is of course Achilles, played by Brad Pitt. What sparked this war is that Paris (Orlando Bloom), has talked the Queen of Sparta and wife of Menelaus, Helen (Diane Kruger), into going back to Troy with him to be his wife, in spite of protests from future king Hector (Eric Bana). Bana gives the films most complex and interesting performance and a voice of reason from within Troy, that one woman is not worth war for the thousands, while to Paris it's now a question of Trojan honor.

There's a lot of primitive war, much of it mano-a-mano, as the Greeks laid seige to Troy for a couple of years, having brought shiploads of food with them. The war/siege appears to have stalemated, so the Greeks eventually resorted to the infamous Trojan horse scheme.

This was a major blockbuster, like 50's era Hollywood, with an estimated 175 million budget, and grossing around 500 million worldwide. Winner of only 3 awards, with its only Oscar® nomination for costume design

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Kingdom of Heaven

Ridley Scott, 2005 (7.9*)
Memorial Day WAR-a-thon film #15
This is the time of the Crusades in the Middle Ages, a 200-yr period of clashes between Europe and the Middle East (ie, Islam) basically for control of Jerusalem, central to what both sides claim to be Holy Lands.

A blacksmith named Balian (Oliver Bloom) has lost his family and almost his faith as well, yet he still is somehow pulled by destiny. A great knight, Godfrey of Ibelin (Liam Neeson), a Crusader home from fighting, reveals himself as Balian's father, and takes him to the Holy Land to fight for Christianity there.

This is highlighted by some incredible special effects, never has medieval war looked so realistic, as huge balls of flaming oil [see below] are hurled by catapults that explode into airborn fire when they hit. Ridley Scott has used his technical expertise to create another real vision of an ancient world, like he did with Gladiator.

The positive here is there are no good vs evil people, just principled soldiers fighting honorably. Even though Bilian's story of personal journey seems to be sacrificed for the historical battle story, it's still a worthy film for giving us a look at what medieval war must have been.

© 20th Century Fox, for promotional purposes only

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Gettysburg

Ronald F. Maxwell, 1993 (8.1*)
Memorial Day WAR-a-thon film #14
Based on Michael Shaara's excellent novel The Killer Angels, about the leaders of the armies that met at Gettysburg. Actually filmed as a tv miniseries, this gives the three-day battle it's proper cinematic homage at nearly four hours. Even though made for tv, and it looks it at times, it's still probably the finest film treatment of Gettysburg to date.

In spite of some well-known actors in pivotal roles, which usually means "all-star ineffective cast", some manage to turn in remarkable performances, especially Jeff Daniels as Col. Joshua Chamberlain, the ex-teacher from Maine, who held Little Big Top in the battle's early fighting, thus saving the high ground for the Union cannons, and who was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, and later served in Congress.

Martin Sheen turns in a credible performance as Gen. Robert E. Lee, with the proper accent, but without any of Lee's charisma. Some of the beards don't look quite real enough, like the one on Tom Berenger, but his performance is a good one so it's a trifling issue, just one of the many tipoffs of lower-budget, tv-level source of the production. Sam Elliott shines as Gen John Buford, the cavalry commander who initiates the battle, as does Richard Jordan (in one of his last roles) as Gen. Lewis Armistead, facing his best friend from earlier days in this battle. Stephen Lang perhaps chews the scenery a bit as Gen. George Pickett, forced by Lee to send his troops across exposed ground in the face of Union cannons.

It was perhaps a war deciding moment in just one huge battle, one that killed over 53,000 men, more than all of Vietnam. The film does a good job attempting this scale, using the help of a historical war re-enactment group. A war-weary Lee is shown saying "I leave this up to God now", which is often a big mistake, one that sacrifices your own war experience and rationale judgment, which had been used to Lee's advantage up to this point, offsetting the greater numbers and better equipment of the Union.

Gods and Generals
Michael Shaara's son Jeff finished his unfinished sequel novel "Gods and Generals" after Michael's death. It was also filmed, with Robert Duvall as Lee, a better choice than Sheen, and is about all the civil war years leading up to Gettysburg.

Bring the Jubilee
For those interested in Gettysburg, read Ward Moore's excellent alternate-history novel called "Bring the Jubilee", about a scholar who agrees to test a time travel machine if they'll send him back to the beginning of the famous battle, so he can see how the South won the battle, and thus the war, keeping the north and south as two separate nations and thus both second-level world powers, still dominated by European empires.

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The Longest Day

1962, bw (8.0*)
Memorial Day WAR-a-thon film #13
Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, Darryl F. Zanuck (uncredited)
Annakin did the British exteriors, Marton the American exteriors, Wicki the German episodes.

A journalistic, little embellished story of D-Day, beginning with the build up, and the delays caused by weather, the men anxiously rocking with the waves below decks, worried about how much German force will be waiting for them at Normandy. We proceed from waiting troops, to the overnight paratrooper drop that actually began the assault.

This all-star cast is more of a Hollywood who's who than a tight narrative ensemble, but by shooting in black and white the producers tried to give this filmed story of D-Day a documentary look and feel, so in that regard having stars in every part negates the effect, but it's still a rewarding war film overall. From Cornelius Ryan's best-seller, and it has that feel as well.

The cast has some of the biggest names available at the time: John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum, Peter Lawford, Robert Ryan, Sal Mineo, Eddie Albert, Mel Ferrer, with Curt Jurgens and Gert Frobe in the German scenes. Most have little to do however, other than ask questions about maps, or bark out orders. The film is made by the special effects, as it truly does look like "every ship in the world" off the coast of Normany when the invasion begins, as one German observer radios to Berlin.

won 7 awards, 2 Oscars (cinematography, special effects) out of 13 nominations

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