Top 50 greatest war films thingy

[redfiona99]

My comments about it, interesting probably only to Lizzie.

Most of these films are very good. Hopelessly sad, due to their goodness and subject matter.
Eee! 'A Matter of Life and Death' is at number 47. Really, watch it. It is a ridiculously beautiful film. Brilliant film.
So many of them have very good scores.
Must see 'The Cruel Sea' one of these days.

Most of them I have no disagreement with and then we hit number one, which is Saving Private Ryan.

Now it's an incredibly well-shot movie. I just happen to despise it. It's such a simplistic view of war - you know, bad things that have to be done, good men despite this.

Which is true, but there's never any hint of doing bad things messes people up. It's what I'd call a psychologically unsatisfying film.

Let's not get onto it's depiction of the Germans. We've gone back to the pre and during the war thing of bad guys bad and don't shave, and would probably kick their dachshunds. (Sorry, bad joke from a book.) No idea that they're going through the same fucking thing as the US troops. (And indeed the same hellish fucking thing that every soldier has to undergo.)

Generally, not happy with the number one. Not because it's not a well made film, it's a beautifully made film, but because of the writing of it.

Comments

[thedevilchicken.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I didn't actually watch the second part. I sort of forgot that it was on tonight (my memory definitely leaves something to be desired) and ended up watching 1) the repeat of Friday's Jonathan Ross (David Hasselhoff cracks me up), and 2) Dirty Pretty Things on some random Skyish movie channel. In which Audrey Tautou is too pretty for words, it has to be said. And I'm annoyed about it now because I'd completely forgotten that the second part of the 100 Greatest War Films thingie was on, and I wanted to watch.

Still, that having been said, I would've been annoyed by Saving Private Ryan being number one. I agree with you completely - it's a very well-made film, beautiful, even has decent actors... it's just a damn shame about the writing. The thing is, I like Saving Priavte Ryan. I have this rather useful ability to turn off and not really care about the screenwriting (unless it's truly awful), so I can sit there quite happily. Which is a good thing, because my brother LOVES that film and because of him, I must've seen it about twenty times. Even though it's my DVD and not his, though that's beside the point. But I'm not going to try to claim that it's the best war film ever made, because it's just NOT. Gah! It's an idealistic sort of film entirely from the point of view of the victors, very clear in its stereotyping, very Hollywood, filmed beautifully. Also a story of such an essentially sentimental nature (omg liek they TOTALLY all died!!1! We should liek, get the other one home for his mom so she won't, y'know, cry and stuff!1 Despite the fact that she knew they were all soldiers and it's always a possibility that soldiers are going to, well, die during wars) that could only come from Hollywood, I feel.

So, yes, I'm sort of glad I didn't watch. And I'm actually glad that you posted about it because otherwise I never would've known. D'oh.

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

The best/worst of it is that the saving of Private Ryan part of it is actually based on US policy. If all but one brother of a large family was killed he was allowed home. I think the famous case that Ryan is most clearly based on was a Private called Niemanen or something similar, possibly Nyman.