Two strong dramas open this weekend. One has opened already, IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH from screenwriter/director Paul Haggis. The reviews have all been raves. Three Oscar winners are in the cast. The title refers to the place where David Slew Goliath. The subject of the movie is the Iraq War; but with some very odd exceptions none of the action takes place in Iraq; the power of the drama comes from "Indirection" (says The New Yorker.)
The other begins on TV tomorrow, Sunday. The Ken Burns documentary "WW2." The sum of the episodes is 14 hours. I'll be interested to learn how it will go over with young people. That war was shorter than the Iraq war, and of course that still drags on and on. WW2 required total mobilization and intense home front morale boosting. In view of the Iraq war being still in progress, groan, that rah rah spirit during WW2 might be presently off-putting, if in fact Ken Burns reports that war effort. It was amazing. A movie star was pleaded with to cut or hide her hair because American women in Defense plants were immitating her long hair and getting it stuck in machinery. At the end of the war a great movie opened foretelling the down side of the war, and dealt with the plight of returning soldiers out of step with the America they came home to.**** It'll be interesting to see how Burns deals with all the myriad facts about that dreadful war that killed hundreds of millions of people. Two million died in only one city: what is now St Petersberg, then called Stalingrad. Canibalism broke out. Soviet composer Dmitri Shostikovitch refused to leave the city so the Russians had him taken out by force. He was a National treasure. His work, called the Stalingrad Symphony is one hour and twenty minutes long. Incredibly stirring. At the end of one radio broadcast of that music the announcer, after a long pause, said, "Nothing puny about that work."
The Iraq War: how will it seem years from now when Ken Burns, God bless him, undertakes to document THAT fiasco.
**** The Best Years of Our Lives [1946]
Luv,
Barry
2 comments:
Ooops! I just sent off an email in response to yours, and I asked what the above movie (Valley of 'Elah) is about.... and here you tell it. I hadn't read this entry before I emailed you. Okay, that said, now I will read the rest of this entry. bea
The Best Years of Our Lives is one of my favorite movies! I first saw it as a child and I was so moved by the stories of the returning soldiers and the difficulty that they had adjusting to the civilian world. As a child I had nioghtmares about the unfortunate soldier who lost both hands in the war.--Sheria
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