Easy Company Medic Eugene Roe

BBC online - Oct. 15, 2001 - Interview with Dale Dye

Easy Company Medic Eugene Roe: Band Of Brothers in the News: BBC online - Oct. 15, 2001 - Interview with Dale Dye

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By Chris Langlois (Chrisdfw) (209.244.95.86 - 209.244.95.86) on Saturday, October 20, 2001 - 06:48 pm:

Dale Dye
Part 1 - Realistic Combat in Films

Interviewed by Almar Haflidason

Captain Dale Dye served in the Vietnam conflict, surviving 31 major combat operations. Highly decorated, including three Purple Hearts, he has been the military advisor on such movies as Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Jacob's Ladder, JFK, Saving Private Ryan and now the TV epic Band of Brothers.

Have films like Saving Private Ryan reached a pinnacle in terms of combat realism that movies can achieve?

I think that we raised the bar with Saving Private Ryan, and again with this new series, Band of Brothers. I'm beginning to wonder - until they come up with smell-o-vision - how far we can go. But I tell you this: I'm going to keep pushing the envelope.

How do you reach the balance between sensationalistic gore versus realistic combat action?

It is a balancing act. If we take the example of the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, I did slather on the gore but that was because Omaha Beach was a literal meat grinder. It was a man-killer. That's not revisionist at all. These things happened. We actually talked to the guy that picked up his arm and staggered across the beach. That's the real deal. I've been there, where the gore is slathered on whether you like it or not. If that's the way it was, good, that's the way we'll show it. If it wasn't we will not show it that way.

What would your review of Saving Private Ryan be?

I'm a kinda simplistic guy. I like stories that touch me and that appeal to my emotions. I believe sincerely that the reason that war stories keep getting made into films is because you can run the gamut of human emotions, and it may happen in only 15 minutes. I think we did that in Ryan. I think that Spielberg intentionally and blatantly touched some emotional buttons. I don't mind that, and personally, I think that's good movie-making.

How does the TV series Band of Brothers differ as a project to "Saving Private Ryan"?

We did not make Band of Brothers in the normal television format. It's shot in 1.85:1 and you'll see a big scope, a big spectacle. That's really the key difference. With Ryan, we had two-and-a-half-hours to compress a week-long mission including, of all things, D-Day. With Band of Brothers, we stay with an American unit for 10 and a half-hours. We get to know them, and characters merge and recede. Its scope is huge. It literally goes from the formation of the unit right to the end of the war.

Would you have liked a similar treatment for the unit in "Platoon"?

Boy, would I!" In fact I tried so hard into talking Oliver Stone into doing a sequel in which the surviving kids come home. I couldn't get him to do it.

Have you ever wanted to approach a conflict perhaps from an alternative perspective, like Germany in World War II?

Yeah, I've wanted to do a Saving Private Ryan from a German perspective. It's a tough sell at the studios in LA. I frankly think that I'd like to see a British story because they were in the war a damn sight longer than we were and their jeopardy was much greater than ours.. Hell, the Germans were in France, 80 miles across the Channel. So, I'd like to see a British story done but it needs to be done by the Brits! I mean, they need to get off their butts and do their own Saving Private Ryan.

There was an outcry from some at the lack of British representation in "Saving Private Ryan". What would you say to these people?

We never made any pretence that here's the story of the whole war. In fact, we took one small segment of Omaha Beach, an American beach, and we didn't talk about Utah, the other American beach, or about Gold Sword Juno. The plain fact of the matter is that we made no pretence, and if you flip the coin and you take a look at the British Second World War movie library, I would have to ask, "Were any Americans involved?" So, I don't buy this xenophobia charge. Stop whining at me - go and do your own film!

How do you view the tendency in Hollywood for revisionism in movies like "Pearl Harbor" and "U-571"?

I'm mortified for my own industry and my own country for U-571. It's embarrassing and ludicrous.

How did you feel about the glamour that seemed to exude from "Pearl Harbor"?

It's a smarmy movie. You know I put that in the same category as Apocalypse Now. It has brilliant effects and all that, but is that a look at what really happened in Pearl Harbor or the Second World War? Not at all. It's a smarmy love story with the war as a backdrop! If people go to that movie, some may come away saying, "Wow, wasn't that great". Well it was, but is has nothing to do with the American experience in Pearl Harbor.

Are there other war movies that you think are wrong in their approach?

Well, if we talk about Vietnam, unfortunately I have to give a big thumbs down to Apocalypse Now. That's an absolute blatant allegory. That's Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", set in South East Asia. It is absolutely hallucinogenic and has nothing to do with the actual US experience in Vietnam. Is it a brilliant film? Yeah, from a film maker's standpoint. Is it a brilliant story? Not a bit. I object to it. Films like that and The Deer Hunter are so well made that people come away from them saying, "Oh wow, that must have been what Vietnam was like". Well, it was not what Vietnam was like. If you want to see what Vietnam was like, get the Platoon DVD, flip through it, not only enjoy the movie but connect with us and how we made it and the reasons we made it and then maybe you'll get some idea.

Does Charlie Sheen's character in "Platoon" represent the All-American young male that was caught up in the conflict?

Charlie's character was designed to do two things: to be the 'everyman' of the American male who was drafted into the Vietnam situation, and he was also designed to be Oliver Stone. Oliver wanted the character to be a reflection of who he was: introspective, thoughtful, and philosophical.

Did any of the actors bring demons with them from the involvement of family members in the Vietnam conflict?

One or two mentioned that they had family members that had been involved in the conflict, but had refused to talk to them about it. I think that was a very common experience for people coming home from the war prior to Platoon.

Both you and Stone fought in Vietnam. Was this movie a cleansing exercise for you both?

There were some cathartic and also some very emotional moments. I recall one in particular. It happened during the village scene in which Tom Berenger's character executes one of the Vietnamese villagers. We used real Vietnamese refugees for that scene, and when we brought them onto that village set in the Philippines they began to babble in Vietnamese. That sound, those voices, in that place and in that setting just froze Oliver and I absolutely solid. I remember looking at him and he looking at me and we just wordlessly walked off the set. We went and sat down on a rice paddy dyke. I put my arm around him, nothing was said, nothing needed to be said. It was a connected moment that is forever etched in my mind.

Is there one single message from "Platoon"?

I guess if I had to focus on one I'd say, "Don't confuse the war with the warrior". It was a bad situation, a ground war in South East Asia that was a quagmire where we hadn't paid enough attention to history in terms of the Chinese, the Japanese, and the French experiences. So it was a lousy war, but one that was fought by very, very good men. I think that is the one issue that I would want people to understand when they view Platoon.

Did the release of "Platoon" cause a sea change in US public opinion?

I think that there was a sea change, in that the veterans, who for 20 years had refused to talk about Vietnam, could take their families and their friends and just point to it and say, "Look, I don't have to talk about it. Just look at this". The public began to say, "Oh my God, is that what you've been holding inside? Is that what you haven't told us about?", and as a result, it not only re-kindled an interest in the war which can be good, bad, or indifferent, but it re-kindled an interest in the veterans, their plight and how society treated them. To the extent that we're responsible for that, I'm very proud of Platoon.

Is there another meaningful movie to be made about Vietnam and would it perhaps deal with the aftermath, rather than the conflict itself?

Dealing with the aftermath is one of the stories that needs to be told, along with several other good generic stories. I'd like to see a film that deals with one of the ignored facets of the war, about our combined action platoons that worked right with the Vietnamese. The South Vietnamese and the North Vietnamese lost millions of men and I want to see more of a nod to their effort too.

By yaqkch (115.89.146.79) on Friday, March 12, 2010 - 01:49 am: