For a movie with several unfinished stories buried inside it - and running to 3 hours or so - I really wonder why the actual 'military' scenes were not edited out - they didn't really do anything except say Peck was in the war and heard bombs going off etc. He did later uses the specifics of his killing individuals ('apologizing' to Betsy of what he was 'going thru') but those war scenes themselves were really not intrinsic to the film.
(Great film!)
I haven't seen the movie, but--having just read the novel--my hypothesis is that the screenwriter/s were unable to take away the war memories from the film because they're very important in the novel. If you say that they don't do anything, it means that the importance of those memories in the film has not been made evident. Poor screenwriting, I'd say. They should have edited that part out, or they should have made it clear why it was important. In the novel the protagonist, Tom, has successfully removed his war experience for years, but it comes back when he accidentally meets one of his soldiers who is now an elevator operator. The return of traumatic war memories brings back his love story with Maria. In the novel it's quite clear that the author is trying to tell his readers that a soldier like Tom can't be blamed for killing 17 people during the war, but could be blamed for begetting a son with a woman met in Italy--actually both things should be condemned or both should be excused. War memories pop up in several scenes of the novel, I don't know about the film. But their importance in the novel is tied to the complex inner processes in Tom's mind, which bring him from denying what he did in the war to accepting that part of his past. I reckon this is not something that can be easily shown in a film. Or better, it takes a very good screenwriter and a very good director to do that...
shareThanks for the feedback - I haven't read the book - and the answer really may be in the screenwriting - if I trust you and myself.
On just looking at the film once - I just didn't feel the war scenes were very well integrated into the 'film story.' It could well be my not paying attention enough - or not clever enough ;-) - but I somehow think not.
Thanks for your comments robwoods, I just replied to another one here too, saying basically the same thing. Unless you can identify in some way with that generation almost 70 years ago, the story seems pretty dry. The idea that an entire generation got caught up in this cataclysmic event, played an active part,and then came home to try to live normal lives...how do we identify with them today? It is hard to do...might have more.
RSGRE
If for no other reason than to 'remember' when you see these guys, now in their 80's, what they went through to preserve the freedoms you enjoy today. The world was literally at war. The stakes were all or nothing and many of these men went through sheer hell on earth and were then expected to meld right in at home as if nothing happened. I understood how Pecks wife felt about his infidelity but who could ever understand what these men went through ? Many were 99 9/10ths sure they'd never make it home alive. One of the reasons for movies like this is so that you, the audience, might get a sliver of an idea of what it might be like for them - close your eyes for a few minutes and try to put yourself in Pecks ordeals. Think of he horror of living with having done what he was required to do. The war scenes were necessary so as to give you a frame of reference to do so. He took so many lives yet it was the creation of one that caused him and his wife the greatest anguish. Of course, by the ending, all was resolved and his wife came around and accepted the situation. The TV listings I use give this only a 3 star (out of 4) rating. Seemed pretty '4 star' to me !
shareThis was also a big-budget prestige picture for Fox, personally produced by studio head Darryl Zanuck.
The war scenes added scope and opened up the action in a relatively talky drama;
This way of alternating scenes of human drama with scenes of warfare was also present in other Fox war films of the period, movies like Between Heaven and Hell, The Young Lions and In Love and War.
That's very true. My dad was a WWII veteran and was stationed in Australia and the Phillipines and later on Japan during the war. I used to ask him questions about what went on and it was like trying to pull teeth. He did tell me that those Japanese soldiers were not the buckteeth, cross eyed midgets portrayed in so many war movies. They were just as mean as their German allies and maybe even worse because so many of them refused to be taken in as POWs. They would fight to the death. He passed away in 2002 but I remember him saying he would never drive a Toyota or any other Japanese car. Ironically, he had a Volkswagen Beetle he used to go back and forth to work from 1967 until around 1977. I always wondered if any American veterans who were stationed in Europe during WWII refused to drive a German car but settled for a Japanese car.
shareThey were distracting and particularly so the shoddy camera work. For each explosion, it appears as though they jostled the camera or moved it back and forth. What a sore thumb.
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