MovieChat Forums > Flags of Our Fathers (2006) Discussion > Editing doesn't work

Editing doesn't work

posted 15 years ago by richimorton
8 replies | jump to latest

It's ok for Tarantino to chop about wildly (Pulp Fiction) - but a war film ? No it gets worse actually because this is about one Battle , the landing & taking of a critical Island in the Pacific War . The Battle sequences in this film are completely ruined by the flashbacks/flashforwards. One minute you are experiencing increasing tension , then suddenly you are just not , wondering why you are sitting through a dinner party & what the hell happened to the excitement!

Perhaps this is the point , how difficult it is adjusting to polite society after such full on madness , but I don't want to have to adjust repeatedly during a story . Doesn't work , this is not a great film .

That which does not Kill me makes me Stranger . . .

[–] rainbird131162 15 years ago

No it gets worse actually because this is about one Battle , the landing & taking of a critical Island in the Pacific War .

Flags is not, repeat not, about the battle for Iwo Jima. It's about the iconic flag-raising & the way the men in that photo felt, their feelings of guilt & alienation at being called heroes, for something they regarded as insignificant. That's what the film is principally about. It's not about the battle. It was never intended to be about the battle. The jagged flashback/forward structure is intended to replicate the survivor's sense of disorientation & combat shock - the feeling that these men lived in the shadow of what they endured on that hellish island.

I strongly disagree that the film doesn't work. For me it's a genuinely interesting & thoughtful account of war. It's even handed in its depiction of the need for propaganda to win battles - even if that means concealing mistakes & a propensity to exaggerate - & compassionate towards the Marines who fought & died in their tens of thousands on Iwo. What Eastwood's film opens up is the messiness of war & its aftermath, the gulf that opens up between survivors & their children, the experience of combat that vets can't talk about to anyone except other vets because it's literally incomprehensible, the selling of war using a single image whose meaning to a war-weary public is quite different to that of the Marines involved, the memory of a friend whose death is so horrific that his comrades flatly refuse to talk to his mother about her son's fate. It's these themes that resonate & make Flags of Our Fathers altogether superior fare, indeed, a masterpiece when viewed alongside its companion film, Letters from Iwo Jima.

Mai Yamane! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD83P-vn5JI&feature=related

[–] richimorton 15 years ago

Ok maybe I was thinking of the 2 films together whilst making my point . Flags IS about the flag-raising & subsequent propaganda. I already mentioned the disorientation aspect of it so i get that . Didn't work is what i'm saying , that was the feeling i was left with .

That which does not Kill me makes me Stranger . . .

[–] aGuiltySoul 15 years ago

Well said, rainbird. I absolutely agree with everything you have to say.

"I'd never ask you to trust me. It's the cry of a guilty soul."

[–] travisreininger 14 years ago

Imagine how long the second half of the movie, post flag-raising, would seem if it was shown in chronological order. The editing works good.

[–] flan99 13 years ago

Rich

I agree - the editing made this film a confusing mish mash.

[–] Prismark10 11 years ago

It did seem a mish mash and the out of sequence time narrative which Eastwood did before in the biopic Bird but did not quiet work here. Also the film was about the people raising the flag but then you get sequences that are very much out of Saving Private Ryan.

Its that man again!!

[–] Fashionably_Straight 8 years ago

I agree the editing didn't quite work for me either.

[–] huwdj (4567) 7 years ago

I agree. I think I understand what they were trying to do with the chopping back and forth but I just found it irritating. I wanted to focus on the battle and follow the characters through it but with this editing I lost track of of who was who and my interest slipped away.
I had a similar response to Dunkirk recently so maybe there is a particular technique in use here? Where the interest is supposed to be in the group's general experiences and not the individuals. If this is so then I guess it doesn't work for me.