Easy Company Medic Eugene Roe

The Times October 8, 2001

Easy Company Medic Eugene Roe: Band Of Brothers in the News: The Times October 8, 2001

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By Derek D. Tircuit (Dtircuit) (216.78.134.127 - 216.78.134.127) on Wednesday, October 24, 2001 - 10:17 am:

BY PAUL HOGGART

British soldier dressed in German uniform: “Feast yer mince pies on that.” US paratrooper, accepting his Luger pistol: “Boy, she sure is a Duizy!” Cockney Tommy dressed as a “Herman”: “It’s pukka, innit? (Paratrooper walks off with gun) Eh, mate! You’re ’avin’ a bath if yer think yer ’alf inchin’ that!” This ludicrous exchange, presumably designed to show two nations divided by their uncommon language, was without doubt the worst moment on Band of Brothers (BBC2, Friday). It was inevitable that this series would have to fly in through some heavy flak. The title alone is enough to set off the sirens in the mistrustful British soul, with its unabashed promise of comradely love between fighting men.
The critical night-fighters were swooping through the stream of Dakotas long before the paratroopers of Easy Company began their drop, a whole channel away from their original target, BBC1, heralding the most expensive military operation ever televised.

Much of this pre-emptive criticism merely continues the reaction to Saving Private Ryan. It presumes the same level of sentimentality, the same mythologising of the regular guy as hero and the same failure to acknowledge that there was anyone in Normandy except Americans, Germans and the sporadic French villager.

Fragments of hot critical metal have included claims that the series wallows in a Norman Rockwell vision of pre-multicultural, pre-cynical America. It has been accused of cowardice in the face of a nasty undercurrent of anti-Semitism among the troops, apparent in Stephen E. Ambrose’s original book. (The first episode deals with training and the role of Captain Sobel, an incompetent martinet played by David Schwimmer, but fails to mention that he is Jewish).

Conversely, staying true to a chronicle of real events means it lacks narrative shape and that the characters are insufficiently defined. A romanticisation of war and too close to historical truth! Oh my Gahd, the plane’s going down! Bale out now! Well, I thought it was terrific. Apart from the title itself, the only hints of sentiment were aesthetic. The grainy, washed-out colours, like Forties film-stock, and Michael Kamen’s swelling theme music, lull you into thinking it is going to be slushier than it is. Otherwise, from the appearance of the veterans of Easy Company describing their experiences before the title sequence, to the end credits, the drama positively reeks of honesty.

When Americans get cynical about their own wars, they tend to do so with a macho swagger. Norman Mailer began the trend with The Naked and the Dead. Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 took up the baton, later exploding in a host of ’Nam yarns. Raw truth itself becomes a perverse type of mythology.

But here is a show that scrupulously reconstructs reality, stuffed with telling details: the Italian-American troops’ disgust at army spaghetti; Sobel’s bewildered confusion during manouevres; the steely kindness with which the commanding officer removes him after a near mutiny by his NCOs. Embarking for D-Day, the men’s packs are so heavy that intelligent, reserved Lieutenant Winters, admirably played by the Hearts and Bones actor Damian Lewis, has to take each man’s hand in turn and pull him to his feet. It is moments like this that are genuinely moving.

Spielberg had a simple answer to those of us who resented the national myopia of Saving Private Ryan. It is an American story celebrating the heroism of ordinary Americans. If you want a British story, he implied, make it yourself. A few minor concessions have been made here, though. The first shot of the title sequence shows British ack-ack gunners guarding the American base. Spitfires swoop overhead. British civilians are kindly and good-humoured. The writerco-producer, Tom Hanks, is to put in a guest appearance as a British paratrooper.

But then we always have difficulty with our own history. As a small boy in the Fifties, I devoured People in History by R. J. Unstead. Unstead (yes, I still have a copy) describes Robert Clive as an inspired individualist, the avenger of the “Black Hole of Calcutta”, a genius responsible at the Battle of Plassey, for one of the greatest military victories of all time and the firm but fair ruler of Bengal. This, he implied, was a Good Thing.

Well Unstead clearly hadn’t met Maria Misra, the Anglo-Indian Oxford academic and presenter of Untold: An Indian Affair (C4, Sunday). Clive, it seems, was a corrupt, opportunistic chancer who had cut a deal so that most of the Indian forces at Plassey would not join in the battle. His harsh taxation of Bengali peasants brought mass starvation and he died in disgrace. This would make a terrific film (though probably not a Spielberg) — Saving Private Fortunes, perhaps or Band of Robbers.

By zgrnfpoyakr (193.147.36.221) on Thursday, March 11, 2010 - 09:52 pm: