Flags of Our Fathers (Widescreen Edition)
by Clint Eastwood
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Barry Pepper, Christopher Curry, Jesse Bradford, Joseph Cross, Ryan PhillippeDirector: Clint Eastwood
Brand: Paramount
Producer: Clint Eastwood
Producer: Robert Lorenz
Producer: Steven Spielberg
Writer: James Bradley
Writer: Paul Haggis
Writer: Ron Powers
Writer: William Broyles Jr.
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Korean (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 132 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-02-06
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Dreamworks Video
Movie Reviews of Flags of Our Fathers (Widescreen Edition)
Movie Review: The Flag Raising and Afterwards
Summary: 2 Stars
The film begins with a lone soldier looking over the black sand. It is a flashback. Does a single picture win or lose a war? [No!] The famous photo of the flag raising was popular as it stood for victory over the enemy. One medic rescues a wounded soldier, then defends himself with a knife. [Irony?] There is a flashback to Camp Tarawa. The Marines are training for an invasion. Iwo Jima is heavily fortified. Mount Suribachi has the big guns and is an important target. The Navy shells the island with all guns. Can they take the island in three days? The Marines land without enemy fire - until they are exposed in the open. They neutralize a machine gun nest. The wounded are carried back for treatment.
Those who raised the flag in that picture were sent back to the states, if they survived. They were used for publicity to sell war bonds. The need for money is explained. They meet President Truman. Allied armies were then in Germany. [Did people expect the war was about to end?] Another flashback explains the second raising of the bigger flag. There is more drama back in the states during the bond drive. The survivors are encouraged to help in the effort. The capture of Iwo Jima allowed its use as an airfield for bombers. The film then shows their lives after the war. They were yesterday's heroes. The film winds down in a sentimental ending.
This film recreates the invasion of the island. Computer-generated images created realistic backgrounds for this film. The story suffers from too many jumps in continuity or flashbacks. The end of the credits says "dialogue and certain events and characters contained in the film were created for the purpose of dramatization". "The Sands of Iwo Jima" remains the best film about this event and will never be surpassed because of its nearness to the event. And it had a better director, producer, and writers. This film is cynical in treating the flag raising as just a publicity device for fund raising. [Were Americans not buying enough war bonds in 1945 given that rationing and other factors limited what they could do with their money.]
Summary of Flags of Our Fathers (Widescreen Edition)
From Academy Award-winning director Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby, Unforgiven) comes the World Was II epic Flags of Our Fathers, produced by Eastwood, Academy Award winner Steven Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List), and Rob Lorenz (Mystic River), and from a screenplay adapted by William Broyles, Jr. (Cast Away) and Oscar winner Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby, Crash).February 1945. Even as victory in Europe was finally within reach, the war in the Pacific raged on. One of the most crucial and bloodiest battles of the war was the struggle for the island of Iwo Jima, which culminated with what would become one of the most iconic images in history: five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi. The inspiring photo capturing that moment became a symbol of victory to a nation that had grown weary of war and made instant heroes of the six American soldiers at the base of the flag, some of whom would die soon after, never knowing that they had been immortalized. But the surviving flag raisers had no interest in being held up as symbols and did not consider themselves heroes; they wanted only to stay on the front with their brothers in arms who were fighting and dying without fanfare or glory.
Flags of Our Fathers is based on the bestselling book by James Bradley with Ron Powers, which chronicled the battle of Iwo Jima and the fates of the flag raisers and some of their brothers in Easy Company. Bradley's father, John "Doc" Bradley, was one of the soldiers pictured raising the flag, although James never knew the full extent of his father's experiences until after the elder Bradley's death in 1994.
Thematically ambitious and emotionally complex, Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers is an intimate epic with much to say about war and the nature of heroism in America. Based on the non-fiction bestseller by James Bradley (with Ron Powers), and adapted by Million Dollar Baby screenwriter Paul Haggis (Jarhead screenwriter William Broyles Jr. wrote an earlier draft that was abandoned when Eastwood signed on to direct), this isn't so much a conventional war movie as it is a thought-provoking meditation on our collective need for heroes, even at the expense of those we deem heroic. In telling the story of the six men (five Marines, one Navy medic) who raised the American flag of victory on the battle-ravaged Japanese island of Iwo Jima on February 23rd, 1945, Eastwood takes us deep into the horror of war (in painstakingly authentic Iwo Jima battle scenes) while emphasizing how three of the surviving flag-raisers (played by Adam Beach, Ryan Phillippe, and Jesse Bradford) became reluctant celebrities - and resentful pawns in a wartime publicity campaign - after their flag-raising was immortalized by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal in the most famous photograph in military history.
As the surviving flag-raisers reluctantly play their public roles as "the heroes of Iwo Jima" during an exhausting (but clearly necessary) wartime bond rally tour, Flags of Our Fathers evolves into a pointed study of battlefield valor and misplaced idolatry, incorporating subtle comment on the bogus nature of celebrity, the trauma of battle, and the true meaning of heroism in wartime. Wisely avoiding any direct parallels to contemporary history, Eastwood allows us to draw our own conclusions about the Iwo Jima flag-raisers and how their postwar histories (both noble and tragic) simultaneously illustrate the hazards of exploited celebrity and society's genuine need for admirable role models during times of national crisis. Flags of Our Fathers defies the expectations of those seeking a more straightforward war-action drama, but it's richly satisfying, impeccably crafted film that manages to be genuinely patriotic (in celebrating the camaraderie of soldiers in battle) while dramatizing the ultimate futility of war. Eastwood's follow-up film, Letters from Iwo Jima, examines the Iwo Jima conflict from the Japanese perspective. --Jeff Shannon
Beyond Flags of Our Fathers
 Other World War II DVDs |  Essential DVDs by Director Clint Eastwood |  Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley |
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