Couldn't be more excited about The Pacific, really. Band of Brothers still remains one of the very best television series I've ever viewed--the sort carrying an unforgettable authenticity.
Where Brothers covered specific stories of the European effort during WWII, The Pacific tackles the relatively unknown Pacific conflicts: Guadalcanal, Saipan, Wake Island, Iwo Jima etc. I'm not a history major so I will not bastardize the stories with any summary on my part. Hell, I don't even know where most of these places are on a map.
But I will say that my favorite war film of all time is The Thin Red Line, Terrence Malick's adaptation of James Jones' novel on the Guadalcanal battle. Moreso because of its unflinching examination of how men internalize and rationalize what they do and see in horrifying circumstances than anything else.
But Spielberg has never been good at this sort of introspection. His films always fall into melodrama whenever he tries. I'm curious whether The Pacific will be able to even test those waters.
A lot of the directors from Brothers worked on The Pacific, as well as a slew of A-List directors from the elite shows like The Wire and The Sopranos. Should be grand.
Read Nancy Franklin's Hell on Earth - a thorough analysis of the show in the New Yorker.
1 comments:
Yeah, this looks good. I really liked Band of Brothers, though I thought Private Ryan was a great battle scene tacked on to one of the shoddiest pieces of filmmaking I've ever seen. I've been meaning to rewatch Thin Red Line. All I remember is a lot of poetry and Woody Harrelson blowing his crotch up with a grenade.
Boardwalk Empire is the one I'm looking forward to.
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