It's Memorial Day in the States . . . always a difficult day to commemorate when a country is at war. the most people know about war is through the cinema. war films generally range from the absurd to the pornographic.
One film that does get it right, in so many ways, is Samuel Fuller's epic The Big Red One. "The real glory of war is surviving", Fuller said. More of a pastiche collecting Fuller's own memories of World War 2, The Big Red One contemplates war as murder, heroism, duty, futility, madness and justice. Most importantly though --and Fuller, the former crime beat reporter, always seems to distill things to a truthful essence in his films-- war is about surviving.
Sam Fuller is a simple hard boiled story teller who manages to remember that cinema is about action/movment/images rather than talking. Situated somewhere between Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (one of the greatest 'war' films ever made) and Saving Private Ryan (a total rip-off of Fuller's greatest moements shot in pornographic realism) Fuller manages to make a war movie without turning it into an action flick. "Everyone is a hero and a coward", Fuller says in an interview, "what matters is what you do in the moment." Most revealing is Fuller's casting of Lee Marvin (gaunt and wizened like death) over John Wayne. Marvin delivers one his finest performances as a World War 1 vet who has seen too many winters, knows that killing is the only way to survive in war and longs for life . . .
The war film is always a difficult thing . . . every great war film is actually an anti-war film. the choice of war over peace should never be confused with valuing heroism over cowardice or giving ones life so another may live. Heroism and Self-emptying sacrifice are virtues that shine despite the hellish inbreaking that is war. In the end, these virtues are not to be set apart but are to be valued because they reveal the most important 'glory of war' . . . life.
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