Whoa, yeah, I’m writing again. As some of you know, I’ve written blogs for film reviews in the past, but when I started a film podcast a few months ago (a lot of work), my urges to write were initially squelched. I have to come to find out, however, that no matter how much I talk about films, that doesn’t totally replace writing about films, especially with as many as I see, and especially especially based on personal projects.
For those of you who have read any of my reviews previously, you may know that I am a believer in auteur theory and I enjoy watching a filmmaker’s entire (or near-entire) canon. Currently, I have been watching the films of William A. Wellman, a filmmaker I was familiar with previously, but who I had a lot of holes with. For the most part, Wellman was best known for working in as many genres as he possibly could — making an auteur argument more difficult, but watching his films has certainly been worthwhile. At this point, I’ve actually covered most of his career, from his starts with James Cagney to his raunchy pre-code films to potentially his best film, The Ox-Bow Incident.
His 1949 war film Battleground follows the true-ish story of the 101st airborne division corps as they embark on a secret mission in a small town in France and are surrounded by German soldiers.
I wouldn’t call the film great in any way, but a solid war film, and a particularly interesting one in one specific respect. Near the end of the film, a character literally asks “Should we be here?” and gives his best answer to that question. There are many (great) films that are able to answer this question without literally addressing the question, so this tactic seems like something that could/would be eye-roll-inducingly cheesy, but it holds up as a touching and powerful moment. Here is the actual speech from the film:
Now it’s nearly Christmas… and here we are in beautiful Bastogne enjoying the winter sports. And the $64 question is: “Was this trip necessary?” I’ll try to answer that. But my sermons, like everything else in the army… depend on the situation and the terrain. So I assure you this is going to be a quickie. Was this trip necessary? Let’s look at the facts. Nobody wanted this war but the Nazis. A great many people tried to deal with them, and a lot of them are dead. Millions have died… for no other reason except that the Nazis wanted them dead. So, in the final showdown, there was nothing left to do except fight. There’s a great lesson in this. Those of us who’ve learned it the hard way aren’t going to forget it. We must never again let any force dedicated to a super-race… or a super-idea, or super-anything… become strong enough to impose itself upon a free world. We must be smart enough and tough enough in the beginning… to put out the fire before it starts spreading. My answer to the sixty-four dollar question is yes, this trip was necessary. As the years go by, a lot of people are going to forget. But you won’t. And don’t ever let anybody tell you you were a sucker to fight in the war against fascism. And now, Jerry permitting, let us pray. Almighty God…
I find this an interesting moment because although I would consider myself aggressively anti-war, I feel like it’s a hard stance to argue against. The speech works because it feels heart-felt, not just for the character but for all those involved. Ever since WWII, we have been mired in so many wars that have been so split, so it is difficult to remember that the European WWII was a war fought for maybe honorable reasons. WWII in Japan, probably a different story.
Moreover, even though this film would be considered on the “pro-war” side of the argument, it is much more of a pro-WWII sentiment than an overall pro-war one — an idea that I feel in so many John Wayne war films.
Outside of this, the film is a fairly stock entry into the war genre. We have a training scene; we see our men in times of monotonous peace before battle; we then see these men in battle, dealing with issues of families at home and their own mortality. Because of this, for the most part, the film doesn’t feel incredibly important or memorable. There aren’t any particularly stand-out performances, even with a stable of respected actors. And although the film is able to stray away from the general problem of the war collective (blending the characters and actors together, making them nearly unidentifiable) I never found any of the characters particularly interesting.
Another big problem I had with the film is that I never felt the soldiers were in any real danger. Especially coming from a seemingly gripping true story, I feel is something that should be important to capture. In fact, I totally forgot the Germans as Nazis (and by that, mythical monsters) until the speech from the Chaplin calling them so. None of the battle scenes had much tension and the American soldiers seemed to be in complete control of their situations. They seemed to be much more bothered by the fact that it was snowing and cold than the soldiers they were encountering.
My overall sense of Battleground is that it raises one interesting question, but outside of that, fails to live up to other great war films — even Wellman’s overly melodramatic Wings (yes, the one that won the first Oscar) had more to offer in terms of battle scenes and tension. For a director who strove to master ever film genre, I feel Wellman hasn’t quite succeeded with war films, even if he has made great stabs with gangster and western pictures.
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