Flags of Our Fathers

Somewhere back in my teenage years, I sat down of a Saturday afternoon and watched a black-and-white film about Ira Hayes, the American Indian who was one of the soldiers in that famous flag-raising photo atop Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi. The film was The Outsider, starring Tony Curtis as Hayes and directed by Delbert Mann (Marty, Desire Under the Elms, That Touch of Mink). It was a startling portrait of the dark side of World War II, and of the ill treatment of at least one of our soldiers. Here’s hoping that Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers affects others in the way that The Outsider affected me. I think it was a good thing.

Certainly, the script by William Broyles, Jr., and Oscar-winner Paul Haggis heads the same direction. Based on the memoir that James Bradley wrote of his father (Hayes’ comrade-in-arms and medic “Doc” Bradley), the film tells an alternate history of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima. That is, it tells the “true story” of what “really” happened on that day, and to the six men who raised that flag, rather than the various apocryphal versions that were either invented for publicity purposes or were passed on through poor recollection or whisper-game hearsay.

The story is told mostly from Doc Bradley’s point of view—and from the point of view of his son, James, who is trying to understand what really happened on Iwo Jima and why his father would never talk about it. James does not uncover the real story via TV, as I did, but in letters he finds after his father dies. In those letters, Doc speaks of the dreams and nightmares that haunt him—like the one that opens the movie. The voiceover narration declares, “Every jackass thinks he knows what war is.” Off we go. And Clint Eastwood more than willingly adds himself to that list.

It just so happens that the jackass writing this review is very sympathetic to what Eastwood’s film has to say, particular given my indoctrination at the hands of The Outsider. Right away, Flags’ script affirms that heroes and villains are “not what we think they are,” and Eastwood unfolds the action in such a way that we see the sense in that statement.

First, the film jumps back and forth between James Bradley’s contemporary sleuthing and his father’s recollected war experience. As we work out the relationship between mystery-figure father and son, we are also slowly introduced to Doc’s fellow soldiers—so slowly, in fact, that often we are confused about just who Hank is, and who Harlon is. We don’t exactly know who Iggy is in relation to these men, or where he’s gotten to. We aren’t at all sure what makes Hayes tick, and whether Gagnon is a good egg or a potential backstabber. Yet the confusion, while counterproductive to straightforward narrative, does help communicate Doc’s bewilderment in that final, fatal foxhole.

Next, the film crosscuts between the action on Iwo Jima and the equally disturbing follow-on campaign on the homefront. Gagnon, Bradley, and an extremely reluctant Hayes, as the surviving three members of that squad, are recalled to the States to help the Government wage the financial battle that the struggle in the Pacific represents. Three years into the war, public sentiment for the effort is flagging, and that means empty coffers. There’s no more money to be lent by foreign governments, so the only remaining way to finance Japan’s defeat is through war bonds. That famous photo (plus these three soldiers) is the key to turning the corner. If the latest bond drive fails, the U.S. might simply have to sue for peace and throw in the towel. As photographer Joe Rosenthal observes in the film, “The right picture can win or lose a war.”

So what kind of picture is Flags of Our Fathers, and is it the right kind of picture to sway public sentiment one way or the other?

Well, first, Flags makes the same kinds of points that The Outsider did, and probably just as effectively. It tells us that there are fine lines between heroes and villains, that there are sometimes good reasons that our heroes don’t want to talk about their deeds—that the cruelty of war “is unbelievable.” As Hayes says in this film, “Some of the things I did, I saw… They weren’t things to be proud of.” Or, as Iwo Jima vet and author Bob Allen has remarked, “The Marine I worked most closely with in my squad collected two tobacco sacks of gold teeth on Iwo. I would trust the man with my life, but I did not cotton to his values, and there are others I would trust with my life, but I would not trust them with my sister.” War does strange things to men, and to their souls. But this is not a new message. We’ve heard that story many times before.

Second, I’m not sure if Flags is a strong enough or compelling enough statement to sway anyone’s opinion about anything. The first complicating factor on that score is that Clint Eastwood’s films are always somewhat ambiguous, allowing a viewer to draft a variety of conclusions. The only clear statement I get from the film seems to be, “If a nation has the stomach to start a war, knowing what war does to people, it had darn well better have the stomach to see it through.”

The second complicating factor is that Flags didn’t tell me anything I already didn’t know, or wasn’t convinced of in the first place. It didn’t particularly engage or move me. But given that The Outsider was such vista-opening experience for me in my teens, it’s entirely possible that Flags may do the same for others. As with most Eastwood films, it’s certainly competent enough and well-acted.

But the final question is: Is Eastwood even trying to make that kind of picture, the kind that can make or break public opinion? We won’t really know the full answer on that score until we see part two of this story next February. Letters From Iwo Jima will tell the story from the Japanese point of view. But Eastwood has said, “I just want the people who see the picture to feel how the story happened, how these skinny kids were affected, and how they were a lot tougher than we are today.”

Still, the film’s official website declares, “A single shot can end the war.” That’s an interesting spin, isn’t it? Perhaps Eastwood thinks that the digital treatment of Abu Ghraib has already done the trick. Those have certainly been the definitive images of the Iraq War thus far. So much for ambiguity.

Flags is rated R for “sequences of graphic war violence and carnage, and for language.” Fair warning. Still, I did not find it as graphic or foul-mouthed as Saving Private Ryan, if you’re looking for a benchmark. I also did not find it as propagandistic as Spielberg’s film; but that’s probably because Eastwood’s sensibilities typically appeal to me more than Spielberg’s do.