Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Emit (i) on July 29, 2000 at 10:24:44:

In Reply to: Re: Thin red line a movie or a novel? posted by Analogon on July 28, 2000 at 14:36:41:

I think your point is very valid.
However, I wouldn't say he is commenting on how bad hollywood movies are, but rather how unrealistic they are... they were more about propaganda than anything else. The product of movies such as these (hollywood movies) are characters like Nolte's character.
Guys who enlist to sacrifice themselves for their country. Look at how Woody Harrelson's (sp) character dies... for nothing. He wanted to go out guns blazing, like Tom Hanks in SPR, but instead he dies from his own grenade. Mallack is saying, even if he died heroically, he would still have died for nothing. Nolte's character is at the end of his career, he realises he has wasted his life serving the army for nothing.
The famous characters are very REAL, I think Mallick is saying that people like them fought in the war because they wanted to die and sacrifice themselves and be heros like some of the characters depicted in hollywood movies, but in reality their sacrifice is tragic, not heroic... basically because war is pointless. There is no way to justify it and the deaths of those who fought.
The best example I see is Bell thinking he is being a hero by not sending his men to their death's, and Nolte's character calling him a coward for not doing so.
So, I don't think he is putting actual "bad" elements in the movie, but putting in products of the bad elements in these movies... the guys who might have watched these movies while growing up and joined the army to sacrifice themselves for their country.