On nostalgia and nuance in one of our best recent representations of war.
I’ve written before, in this
post on images and representations of World War II, about historian Michael
Kammen’s categories of remembrance
and commemoration: the former an attempt to capture the past with more
accuracy and complexity; the latter a more simplified and celebratory
representation of history. Particularly interesting, I’d say, are the cultural
texts that seem to include both types, and it’s in that category that I’d put
Steven Speilberg’s Saving Private Ryan
(1998)—the film opens with the
famous extended D-Day sequence that is absolutely gripping in its realistic
depictions of the battle in all its chaos and horror, a section that
exemplifies genuine remembrance of such a historic event; but then the film segues
into a larger narrative that, while still featuring realistic battle sequences,
feels far more driven by various war-film cliches and commemorative ideals.
Spielberg’s follow up World War II work, produced along with his film’s
star Tom Hanks, was the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers (2001). From
its title and famous
promotional image on, the miniseries certainly reflects a deeply
commemorative perspective on the men of Easy
Company and, through them, on World War II soldiers and the Greatest Generation
to which they belonged. Like Ryan,
the series is unsparing in its depictions of the violence and horrors of war;
but outside of one peripheral character, the company’s over-the-top and ultimately
unfit-for-battle training officer (played to crazy perfection by David
Schwimmer), its portrayals of the soldiers are overtly and consistently
celebratory. And one of the series’ most unique and effective touches—the choice
to begin each episode with interviews
with the surviving Easy Company veterans whose characters are represented
onscreen—would seem to add one more compelling layer to those celebratory
depictions.
But in fact I would argue the opposite: that the veterans’ interviews tend
to comprise the series’ most nuanced remembrances of the war and its histories.
The men talk openly and frequently, for example, about fear and exhaustion and
apathy and other less-than-ideal emotions, reminding us that these were not Hollywood
heroes but simply average young men thrust into an often horrifying and always
uncertain world. And particularly striking are the group of interviews in which
the veterans talk about Nazi soldiers, recognizing that they were similarly
young and scared and human, and reflecting on what was asked of each group (to
try to kill each other, to put it bluntly). Like the similarly striking choice
to include in the series’ final episode a speech delivered to his men by a surrendering German general,
these veterans’ perspectives complicate the kind of good vs. evil narratives
that are necessary for pure commemoration, and remind us that remembrance of
the war—any war—includes the histories and stories of all the involved nations
and communities.
Next post tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Other
stories or images you’d share for the weekend post?
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