The saying goes that there's always two sides to a story. Whereas last Mondays marathon covered the American side of several major events in world war ll such as the battle at Iwo Jima, The Doolittle Raid which dealt with America's response to the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the battle of Normandy, today's marathon shows both the American and Japanese perspective on events such as the planning of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the battle at Guadacanal, a young athlete and pilots struggle in a prisoner of war camp under Japanese imprisonment, the Japanese side of the battle at Iwo Jima, and a young high school romance between a white and Japanese teenager that ends in tragedy due to societies prejudices at the time. Tonight's marathon is aimed at focusing on the side of the Japanese for two reasons: The first is to show their motivations for attacking Pearl Harbor and cover their side of the story in the battle of Iwo Jima, and the second is to show them as being human like everyone else and not deserving the discrimination many Japanese Americans faced during World War ll and after it. For tonight's marathon we have on the powerful menu for this evening:
Tora Tora Tora 1970, The Thin Red Line 1998, Unbroken 2014, Letters From Iwo Jima 2006, and Snow Falling on Cedars 1999
This feels like a worthy follow up to a triumphant Memorial Day marathon of
The Patriot, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Flags of Our Fathers, Saving Private Ryan, and American Sniper. It is very important when going into a marathon revolving around the theme of war to get all sides of the story, and not just settle for the American side. The truth about war is that both sides have good and bad people involved in them and both share different beliefs and ideals but in the end, everyone remains human. Questions that these two marathons ask is could the attack on Pearl Harbor have been prevented? Was it right to put so many Japanese Americans away in internment camps, breaking many families apart and in the process, getting in the way of true love during a war time full of racial tensions? Another one that
Unbroken brings up is should you forgive your enemies for the horrific treatment they put you through? Groundbreaking cinematography drives this marathon with amazing scenery and images coming from films like
Thin Red Line, Unbroken, Letters from Iwo Jima, and
Snow Falling on Cedars. The first movie of the night was nominated for five academy awards in 1970. The film
Tora Tora Tora was the first Hollywood film to reenact the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor covering both the Japanese and American points of view. Unlike Michael Bay's
Pearl Harbor which used a love story as the general storyline of the film,
Tora Tora Tora sticks strictly to the facts. The film was a box office flop upon it's release but is considered to be more historically accurate and better in terms of narrative structure than Michael Bay's 2001 critically panned blockbuster. The second movie of the lineup is Terrence Malick's 1998 7 Oscar nominated epic titled
The Thin Red Line. Boasting an all star cast among the likes of
Passion of the Christ's Jim Cazievel, Sean Penn, Elias Koteas, George Clooney, John Travolta, Nick Nolte, and Woody Harrelson,
The Thin Red Line focuses on the battle at Guadalcanal during World War ll, focusing on the American side of it. The film is visually striking and relentless in it's depiction of the brutality of war, giving the marathon a poetic feel to it. The soul of the film lies within it's quiet moments where you look into the characters hearts and see what they feel. The next film in the lineup is the Angelina Jolie 2014 epic war drama titled
Unbroken. The epic true story directed by Jolie centers around a plane crash in World War ll where Olympian Louis Zamperini spends a horrific total of 47 days in a raft with two fellow crewman before becoming prisoner to the Japanese navy and ending up in a prisoner-of-war camp. Nominated for three academy awards including best cinematography,
Unbroken effectively tells the story of one man's triumph over treatment and brutality that comes off as being inhuman. The fourth film in the lineup is part ll of the epic retelling of the battle at
Iwo Jima with Clint Eastwood's war epic
Letters from Iwo Jima. Generally considered to be one of the finest war films ever made and superior to
Flags Of Our Fathers, Letters received four academy award nominations including best picture for it's powerful depiction of the Imperial Japanese side of the war at Iwo Jima. Much like the filmmakers of
Tora Tora Tora, Eastwood chose to show both sides of the conflict and makes a powerful statement with both movies that there were good men on both sides of the front who left everything behind to go to war in defense of what they upheld the most which was the love for their country and their loved ones. The final movie of the night brings it all home with a love that's true, but couldn't survive due to societies prejudice against the Japanese in war time.
Snow Falling On Cedars is a powerful story about a U.S. Japanese fisherman being accused of killing his neighbor at sea, and being put on trial for it in the 1950's. This trial is significant in the marathon because it's completely race related and discriminan factors into the case from all sides. The twist in this romantic war tale is the American reporter that's helping the fisherman is the ex lover of the fishermans wife, who both shared a High School romance in their early teen years but had that romance severed when the young American named Ishmael went off to war, and the Japanese girls family forces her to end the romance due to societies discrimination towards the Japanese at the time. The two are reunited through the court case and both are forced to recollect on their true feelings for each other and to work together to save the life of the fisherman on trial.
Snow Falling on Cedars steps away from the battlefront to show America at a time period where it too made mistakes of it's own against it's own people such as the placement of Japanese Americans in internment camps. This single act will continue to be looked upon as one of America's most controversial and shameful moments in history.
So what are all of these movies trying to say? Much like how Clint Eastwood wanted to show all sides of the war and drive the point home that there are no real enemis at war but two sides with different beliefs in
Flags Of Our Fathers and
Letters From Iwo Jima, these movies when put together basically say that war comes with a great deal of sacrifice and loss of life, losses that we shouldn't really be trying to endure. There are good people on both sides of the war who went into it believing that what they are fighting for is right, and in war, there are never any true winners.
Our soldiers for this evening:
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