NappieB

On the "realistic" theme, but not necessarily relating to blood and guts, check out MICHAEL STROGANOFF (I think that was the title!) (circa 1959-61) about a Russian fighter who manages to get much sought after leave to visit his family... but bureaucracy, delays and screw-ups eat into his precious furlough.

Having been in the military, I can certainly emphasize with this one!!

foha80

I agree with your points and are sympathetic to your arguments, revisionism in academe is the greater enemy .But I think any requirement for artists to be historically accurate could read to accusations of censorship.

Regards

Terry

dylan

Sounds like the Soviet film Ballada o soldate (1959) about a young soldier on the Russian Front who has leave to visit his mother. Michel Stroganoff is the much filmed Jules Verne novel.

D

Ealingfilmfan

Off topic, but I thought I would share this little story with you....

Way back in my youth in 1973 I used to work as a van driver for an electrical wholesaler in Stockport, Cheshire....

One of my usual deliveries was to a small family owned hardware and electrical shop in East Manchester...

When I started the job, I was warned the owner would not entertain ANYTHING Japanese is the shop, as during the war he had worked on the Burma death railway, and the scars ran very deep.....

Anyhow, one day I breezed in, in my usual style carrying a small box containing valves and transistors, etc, but unfortunately the warehouse lads had packed the stuff in a small cardboard box with the logo SHARP electronics on the side....(A Japanese firm of course)...

I had a pleasant chat with this guy, who I liked, in fact he used to usually make me a cup of tea, he signed for the parcel, I was just about to turn around to leave the shop when he must have noticed the logo on the side of the box......

Well, he went berserk, like a madman, taking items off his shelves, transistor radios etc, and throwing them at me, so I did the brave thing and fled the shop in terror.......

When I got back to the warehouse and told them, my manager went mad, and really laid into the packing boys for being so careless........

Well, I was too young to fight in WW2, but I certainly felt the after affects that day, and that was realistic enough for me......:

"Just room for one inside sir"

Ted Holmes

Yes but where does artistic freedom end and propaganda begin? It's a good question. Even artistic freedom should respect truth. If you take Ken Russell's composer films, they contain scenes and events which undoubtedly never happened yet if you know about Tchaikovsky or Mahler from factual sources the films in no way distort the intentions of the composers in question. It's a kind of artistic truth and, for cinematic purposes, quite as valid as literal truth.

George Fry

I've been reading your comments about the "reality" of war films with much interest. I'm not sure what one needs a film to do? There is that thing called "poetic licence" which is about art I think, and it is the "feeling" and "emotion" associated with an experience that is what one asks of a good film. I was a kid during the 2nd War and there are two films, both fairly recent, which talk about war as I felt it. One is that extraordinary recreation "Home and Beauty" was it? The other, not of my experience, but one I found spine chilling was "Empire of the Sun". It worked on so many levels and had so many creative images which stick in your mind i,e the chicken's blood on the car window; the boy running up the slope in fancy dress and seeing the Japanese camp and so on.
And in it's own way our much lauded "Matter of Life and Death" says a great deal about the war.
George.

John Llewellyn Moxey

I do not think you can expect a war film to be entirely realistic ( thank God ). I do think that there have been some brilliant films about the effect of war on people.

John Llewellyn

Steve Crook

I don't think many people complain about some poetic license. And most people wouldn't want to see the real effects of war on their screens. People don't really fly through the air and then lie there all in one piece when they're b lown up.

I think the complaint is more with drastically altering the facts of a real event when the film purports to be about that real event.

At least at the start of A Matter of Life and Death they gave the caveat:
This is the story of two worlds, the one we know and another
which exists only in the mind...
of a young airman whose life and
imagination have been violently shaped by war.
[which then scrolls up to reveal]
Any resemblance to any other world, known or unknown, is
purely coincidental.

Steve

batman

'The Best Years Of Our Lives' is an incredibly moving film. As is 'The Red Badge of Courage', especially as it features real-life veteran Audie Murphy.

"Boom boom a baby .... Banham Zoo .... Banana pants! Hahahaha"