[ First posted on Facebook 24 May 2015 ]
Some truths are almost too hard to tell.
Mankind (and I mean man-kind) being as fucked up as it (he) is, the obscenity of war shows no sign of abating.
Until modern times, war has been mostly sanitized and mythologized in film.
In reality it is—has always been—a story of horror, defilement, unendurable loss that must be endured.
Yet a story also of lasting bonds formed, perspective gained, meaning found.
HBO’s Spielberg and Hanks Band of Brothers series manages to put some of this across.
It follows a Company of American paratroopers, taking in their training, their D-Day drops and combat, their involvement in Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge, their liberation of a Konzentrationslager, their taking of Berchtesgaden and Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, and on to end of the war in Europe.
Not least among the many moving moments are the voices to camera before each episode of some of those who served and survived.
Impossible to encapsulate the richness of the performances, the gritty faithfulness of the action, the emotion of the whole in just one clip, but here’s a taste from late in the piece—a surrendering German general addresses his troops . . .
If you haven’t already lived this magnificent modern masterpiece, do . . .