I can think of no better way to spit in the eye of the current
PC lineup at the Academy Awards than to turn off the show and
instead watch the newly released DVD of John Dahl’s WWII epic,
The Great Raid.
With authenticity and honesty, director Dahl details the U.S.
Army Rangers’ raid on the Japanese prisoner of war camp,
Cabanatuan, in the Philippines. Some 100 Rangers, with the vital
assistance of Philippine resistance forces, safely released over
500 American POW’s who faced certain execution. All of the 250
Japanese guards were killed, where only two Rangers and 21
Filipinos were killed. Not one of the prisoners died in the action.
(Not even the deaf British prisoner who fell asleep in the latrines
shortly before the raid began, and woke up the next morning to an
empty, corpse-ridden camp). The raid on Cabanatuan is the largest
successful escape raid in American history and is studied in
military schools as a textbook example.
Don’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of The Great
Raid. The film came (eventually) and vanished (quickly) from
the big screen. Originally on track to be released in the Fall of
2004, the finished and potentially patriotism-stirring story was
inexplicably put on the shelf until well after the presidential
election. Hmm…
This marvelous $70 million dollar film was quietly placed on
only 600 screens in late August 2005 for a few weekends. Though the
film had the highest per screen gross of any film in the nation on
its opening weekend, the distributors did nothing to capitalize on
that singular financial fact. Compare that to Brokeback
Mountain, which opened with similar number one in the nation
per screen grosses on but a dozen or so screens in the five cities
with the largest and most politically and culturally active
homosexual populations in the nation. The media and the distributor
played those aberrant and artificially created numbers for all they
were worth.
WHY DID THE GREAT RAID get the great shaft? Perhaps
because it’s a rarity for a Hollywood film: It’s told with an
understated and factual honesty. The Japanese soldiers are shown,
in a matter of fact manner, committing a few of the atrocities they
really did commit. Americans are shown valiantly and selflessly
engaging in courageous and dangerous acts to rescue the
prisoners.
Alas, it’s a sad comment on our expectations of Hollywood films
that part of the dramatic tension in watching The Great
Raid was waiting for the PC moments which never came. Fifteen
minutes into the film and the U.S. still hadn’t been blamed for
provoking Japan into the war. Thirty minutes into the film and
still no vile atrocities committed by Americans. Ninety minutes
into the film and no selfish motivations displayed by any of the
U.S. or Filipino soldiers. Two hours into the film and our guys are
still modestly behaving with integrity, their only purpose being to
do what’s right. When the film was over, the bad guys died bad.
Is this because the ghost of John Wayne produced the movie?
Hardly. It’s because the film was made the way all great art should
be made: With the intent of aesthetically pointing toward a truth.
Dahl used not only American historical experts, but Japanese
military historians. No one disagreed about any of the facts of the
events.
It may well be that a number of the snide reviews of the film
perversely twisted Jesus’ statement “Those who are not with me are
against me.” In other words, if a film is not blatantly PC, it must
therefore be pro-American and conservative and therefore an
artistic failure.
For example, Colonel Henry Mucci (as portrayed with integrity by
Benjamin Bratt) gives a speech to his troops at the onset of the
raid. Various liberal reviewers criticized the speech as “cliched,”
“stereotyped,” and “sentimental.”
But in fact, as we learn from the DVD commentary, the speech is
a verbatim reproduction of the real thing. And in fact, I got a
little choked up listening to the words. And in fact, the Rangers
were inspired by those words of their beloved leader, Mucci, and
over 500 American lives were saved by them.
Mucci’s speech is the very type that is philosophically
abhorrent to the PC crowd. It’s the kind of speech that might make
Americans think good things about their country and, gasp, perhaps
somehow extend that thinking to the Iraq war. Spielberg, Clooney,
Moore, et al. certainly wouldn’t want the public thinking there are
genuinely evil people outside the borders of America (with the
exception of the Israeli Secret Police), or that American soldiers
and leaders are not committing atrocities, but instead trying to do
good.
Mucci to his troops:
“How you acquit yourselves for the next 48 hours will
determine how you are judged for the rest of your lives: Men worthy
of serving in this army, or, an embarrassment that history or time
will eventually forget. You’re the finest, best prepared soldiers
this country has ever sent to war and I expect you to prove it.
“One final thing. I want to see every last one of you in the
chapel after this formation is over. I do not want any damn
atheists on this raid. And no fakers, either. I want you to get
down on your knees and swear before almighty God that you’ll give
your lives before you let any of those prisoners die. That
clear?”
The film cuts immediately to the outdoor prayer service. We hear
the pastor: “…and build an enduring peace, founded upon Thy holy
laws. And upon that unselfish good will to all those who love
justice and peace which Thou hast given unto us through Jesus
Christ Thine only son our lord.”
Next thing you know Hollywood will make a movie portraying the
Founding Fathers as decent, intelligent, well-meaning
gentlemen.
THE DVD OFFERS A NUMBER of extras that truly add to our
appreciation of both the movie and the real story. We learn that
famous Japanese actors refused to play their roles unless they were
allowed to also show forms of insanity: They could think of no
other way to explain the barbarous behavior of their grandfathers.
Dahl was therefore forced to turn to lesser known Japanese actors.
Even then, Japanese historians of the war had to assure them that
WWII Japanese soldiers did indeed regularly commit such atrocities.
The young actors were stunned. Apparently Japanese schools (which
could learn a thing or two in applied self-loathing from the
American public education system) don’t teach these things.
The additional historical information should prove surprising to
most Americans, too. I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t know that the
Japanese government publicly announced its intentions (in 1927) to
eventually invade North America, and at the onset of the war had
plans to occupy both Hawaii and California. Compare that
information to the average high school history textbook, which
devotes more space to blaming the U.S. for cutting off Japan’s oil
supply and thereby “forcing Japan’s entry” into war.
Quite frankly, I’m flabbergasted that such an honest film was
made in the first place, given the political climate in Hollywood.
Especially when the honesty and values prompt you admire the good
things about America.
And at the risk of sounding like a guilt-inducing liberal
myself, I’m also flabbergasted at how little attention The
Great Raid has merited from my circle of conservative friends.
Though they’ve made a point of seeing Syriana,
Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck and
Munich on the murky grounds that they should have
firsthand familiarity with this PC tripe, not a one has taken the
trouble to see The Great Raid, the very type of movie
making (the honest type) that they claim they want Hollywood to
produce.
My suggestion is to buy the “Director’s Cut” DVD of The Great
Raid and watch it on Oscar night.
Or are you more interested in seeing if Ang’s sensitive Wyoming
sheepboys can beat Steven’s mean nasty Israeli secret service
agents out of the Oscar?
