Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#26 Post by Mr Sausage » Tue Feb 14, 2017 7:36 pm

mfunk wrote:Black Hawk Down is probably the worst war film when it comes to the treatment of the fact that there are actual other human beings on the other side of a military conflict that I've ever seen (I remember posting on a forum around the time it came out and the thread title for it was "Let's make a movie about killing black people and call it Black Hawk Down") so mentioning it in the same breath as Hacksaw Ridge feels particularly startling, if only because I feel the contrast is so stark between the two.
It's not even close. The combatants are flattened, but non-descript, and are given some token human moments (the leader has a speaking part and is treated as a person rather than a villain, and then there's that horrible scene where the son accidentally shoots his father), and the film does make it clear early on that it's the army's brutal oppression of its own people that's driving the conflict. So the film makes an elementary distinction between army and civilians, and an inconsistent/under-represented elementary distinction between the values of the leadership and those of the individual fighters.

If you'd like something obviously worse, how about Rambo: First Blood part 2, in which the Vietcong are sneering, sweaty, torture-happy villains without a trace of humanity who are nevertheless the toadies of sneering, sweaty, torture-happy white villains (the Russian army).
tenia wrote:I think the representation issue with Black Hawk Down go already outside any race prejudice. It's a movie that boasts at the end a text panel stating something like a 220 enemies body count, but they're all absolutely totally non-descript. It's almost a "parody turned true" taken from Hot Shots! 2.
The ending of the film is melancholy, so I don't feel that text is a boast. But it's still a problem considering the end of the film is a kind of memorial to the American dead. The movie's still not an egregious version of this problem, to my mind, but it is an emblematic one I think for how well and with what relentless focus it does it.

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#27 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Feb 15, 2017 1:21 am

Mr Sausage wrote:
mfunk wrote:I'd posit that because this is a film about an exceptional person who enlists in a war rather than about a war itself, that it rarely veering away from being something of a narrowly focused character study shouldn't necessarily be looked at as the opposite of a film that is about two three-dimensional armies of fully developed characters. Doss is the only person we know all that much about in this film. I would understand tenia and Birth Movies Death [still can't get over what a turd of a website name that is]'s argument much more if we were getting Orange is the New Black-esque flashbacks or dialogue exposition about a dozen of Doss' fellow soldiers and nothing on the side of the Japanese, but that isn't the aim of Hacksaw Ridge at all.

In fact, I'd say some of the time we do spend with the Japanese army (the fake surrender, the seppuku) felt out of place and excessive, if only because so much of the viewer's time is spent seeing this conflict through Doss' eyes, and those diversions feel shoehorned in.
I haven't seen Hacksaw Ridge, so I can't say where the movie actually falls. But I think I can talk about how you'd go about determining it.

The film can't (and probably doesn't) avoid the problem by focusing only on Doss. If anything, it would have a greater share of the problem since the focus is so strict. Because Doss is on a side, there is no way for him to experience both sides in any egalitarian way: he is committed to helping one side, while the other side is committed to hurting him. So he has to experience one side with care and concern, and the other with fear. It's unavoidable.

So now the question is, to represent that subjective state of fear in battle, does the film emphasize the suffering of the American side to generate horror, and exaggerate the ferocity while deemphasizing the suffering of the Japanese side in order to generate terror? And the corollary to the second part is: does the film use (deliberately or accidentally) unpleasant racial stereotypes in order to exaggerate the ferocity of the Japanese and induce a terror of them in the audience analogous to Doss' terror.

I can't answer that question. I can probably answer the question of the seppuku scene, tho'. If you want to know the filmmaker's motivations behind that, use Gibson's career as a context: he made the purest expression of torture-worship in the history of film.
I think you may want to see the film before making some of these assumptions, even if they're posed as theoreticals. Very little of it is representative of Gibson's aims here, or of the final product, so it's difficult to answer them without sounding weirdly defensive of the actual movie against an inquisition about one that doesn't necessarily exist. And if having a film take place through the perspective of one character is a "problem," well, I think that's a pretty big problem for a hell of a lot of other films, too.

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#28 Post by tenia » Wed Feb 15, 2017 3:41 am

mfunk9786 wrote:mentioning it in the same breath as Hacksaw Ridge feels particularly startling, if only because I feel the contrast is so stark between the two.
It might be my distorted memory of it, but the long combat sequence towards the end of Hacksaw Ridge isn't far away in terms of flattening the enemy. It's sure difficult to do worse than Black Hawk Down in this regards, but most of this combat sequence didn't feel to me much more descriptive of the humans in front of the US troops.

They're not so much sneering sweaty torture-happy villains, but when they're vaguely shown to us a bit more in details, it's to tell us they target medics (boo !) and that they do weird things like seppuku (weird and coward !).

Otherwise, the Japanese are pretty much non descript cannon-fodder in this sequence, and that bothers me.
mfunk9786 wrote:And if having a film take place through the perspective of one character is a "problem," well, I think that's a pretty big problem for a hell of a lot of other films, too.
I'm not sure the issue is so much using this subjective perspective than what is done with it. To me, focusing on Doss shouldn't prevent the movie to be a bit fairer and "deeper" towards the Japanese.
Mr Sausage wrote:The combatants are flattened, but non-descript, and are given some token human moments (the leader has a speaking part and is treated as a person rather than a villain, and then there's that horrible scene where the son accidentally shoots his father), and the film does make it clear early on that it's the army's brutal oppression of its own people that's driving the conflict.
There's still at the end an action which isn't far away from a generic FPS bodycount with non-descript enemies. Out of 225 dead enemies, they gave a few minutes out of a 2h25 min movie to the leader, but otherwise, the 200 other people are nothing more than cannon fodder in the movie.

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#29 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Feb 15, 2017 10:34 am

mfunk wrote:I think you may want to see the film before making some of these assumptions, even if they're posed as theoreticals. Very little of it is representative of Gibson's aims here, or of the final product, so it's difficult to answer them without sounding weirdly defensive of the actual movie against an inquisition about one that doesn't necessarily exist.
Yes, not having seen the film makes my first premises more susceptible to refutation. The shakiest but also largest of my premises is: that Hacksaw Ridge uses the techniques of a typical modern war film (or typical Gibson film). This is the impression I got from all the people who described the film to me, so I'm surprised to hear from you that it is not. But who am I to argue. If you say it doesn't, then I'm refuted and my questions do not need to be answered.
mfunk wrote:And if having a film take place through the perspective of one character is a "problem," well, I think that's a pretty big problem for a hell of a lot of other films, too.
This tells me you haven't understood my posts at all. Here is the argument:

1. presenting the subjective battle experience of one side unavoidably results in a problem of how the other side is represented.

2. focusing on the subjective battle experience of a single soldier of one side does not de facto solve that problem, and may even intensify it.

Hence, your arguments above made no sense to me.
tenia wrote:There's still at the end an action which isn't far away from a generic FPS bodycount with non-descript enemies. Out of 225 dead enemies, they gave a few minutes out of a 2h25 min movie to the leader, but otherwise, the 200 other people are nothing more than cannon fodder in the movie.
Yes, the word "token" was meant to express the disproportion. My argument is not that Black Hawk Down adequately addresses the problem, just that it is not the worst offender like mfunk claimed (it is, for instance, better than any film that has no tokens, and better still than any film that tries very hard to have none).

My feeling is that Black Hawk Down's intensity and relentlessness causes people to feel it is an extreme example of the problem when it is not exceptional in regard to this problem. Nothing about its construction of the enemy is different from Saving Private Ryan's opening battle, or We Were Soldier's many battles, or the battles in The Thin Red Line. The main difference with the Spielberg and Malick is that Black Hawk Down is almost entirely battle, whereas those other two were attempting something more. So they are more rounded films (or try to be), whereas Black Hawk Down by its nature is a limited one. Its limits come with problems, but not special ones.

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#30 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:38 am

Mr Sausage wrote:Yes, not having seen the film makes my first premises more susceptible to refutation. The shakiest but also largest of my premises is: that Hacksaw Ridge uses the techniques of a typical modern war film (or typical Gibson film). This is the impression I got from all the people who described the film to me, so I'm surprised to hear from you that it is not. But who am I to argue. If you say it doesn't, then I'm refuted and my questions do not need to be answered.
I wrote my post in some degree of haste last night, but I still stand by the fact that it's very strange to defend a film against assumptions about its content and intentions when one party has seen it, and I do not mean that as a way of delegitimizing anything you said, I just can't point to specific examples of areas where I disagree without having to frame it with the fact that you haven't seen the film in mind, which makes it unusual for me and much more difficult, but here goes. Hacksaw Ridge is a lot less a modern war film than a very old fashioned faith-based one that does not shy away from the horrors of combat, but I wouldn't say those things should be mutually exclusive, as we're never invited to fist-pump over the murder of US or Japanese soldiers. There are indeed some tense moments where Doss' life is in danger (or the person he is trying to protect/keep alive) but any fear of the Japanese soldiers exists accurately within the context of the plot, and I suppose we diverge on whether or not that's a problem. There is no winking to the audience about how terrible the Japanese soldiers are, and Doss does not pass by wounded soldiers on either side during this sequence, nor does he thrust them in harm's way. He is depicted throughout as someone who did not have any interest in committing violence against anyone, and that seems to hold up upon historical examination as well.
Mr Sausage wrote:
mfunk wrote:And if having a film take place through the perspective of one character is a "problem," well, I think that's a pretty big problem for a hell of a lot of other films, too.
This tells me you haven't understood my posts at all. Here is the argument:

1. presenting the subjective battle experience of one side unavoidably results in a problem of how the other side is represented.

2. focusing on the subjective battle experience of a single soldier of one side does not de facto solve that problem, and may even intensify it.

Hence, your arguments above made no sense to me.
1. I don't consider this a problem, and I'm still perplexed as to why having a subjective point of view in a film is inherently problematic. If you're looking for a film that takes the time and care to represent the other side of a conflict favorably or even understandably, those films exist (though perhaps not to the level of quality or quantity one may hope for).

2. I disagree with the implication that a character study of Desmond Doss needs to take the time to represent any "other side" with much depth, whether it be the Japanese, or his fellow soldiers and superiors (who are often represented as narrow-minded, violent, cruel, and unfeeling to Doss, with few exceptions until the stakes are very high). It's his story, not theirs, and if filmmakers are hedging all of their bets when a story like this is told, everything is going to come out very lukewarm and mediocre.
Mr Sausage wrote:I can't answer that question. I can probably answer the question of the seppuku scene, tho'. If you want to know the filmmaker's motivations behind that, use Gibson's career as a context: he made the purest expression of torture-worship in the history of film.
Merits of Passion of the Christ aside (I've never seen it and never will), the seppuku scene I referenced is filmed around the edges of this act, and while it's depicted within the frame, it is not lingered upon. I would argue that it's superfluous because it's irrelevant to the main thrust of the film, not because it's gratuitous or mean-spirited.

Thematically, this is sober Gibson in every sense of the word - he is careful and neutered and not even particularly patriotic. If anything, his fervor and devotion are directed toward defense of someone expressing the freedom of their religious convictions much more than they are toward the American flag. If this were not a film about a conscientious objector war hero, that could be something much more toxic (God's Not Dead, etc), but this is an admirable subject to direct that sort of energy toward.

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#31 Post by Brian C » Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:00 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:1. I don't consider this a problem, and I'm still perplexed as to why having a subjective point of view in a film is inherently problematic. If you're looking for a film that takes the time and care to represent the other side of a conflict favorably or even understandably, those films exist (though perhaps not to the level of quality or quantity one may hope for).

2. I disagree with the implication that a character study of Desmond Doss needs to take the time to represent any "other side" with much depth, whether it be the Japanese, or his fellow soldiers and superiors (who are often represented as narrow-minded, violent, cruel, and unfeeling to Doss, with few exceptions until the stakes are very high). It's his story, not theirs, and if filmmakers are hedging all of their bets when a story like this is told, everything is going to come out very lukewarm and mediocre.
Sausage can and will speak for himself, obviously, but you seem to be reading his arguments in a different way than he seems to intend, and I wonder if you're not overly hung up on the word "problem". Granted, it's a word that comes with an inherent stigma ... perhaps if you substituted the word "limitation" or something else that is less polemical than "problem", you might understand what he's saying a little more clearly?

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#32 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:09 pm

I would even take issue with the word "limitation," to be honest, because (and this is far from a perfect movie so please don't think this is directed at Hacksaw Ridge in particular) that implies that a film can't be truly great without a democratic plot, pulling in several vantage points and taking extreme care in painting all of its elements sympathetically. So while that certainly softens things, and I objectively know what you both are saying, it isn't something I would consider when evaluating the merits of a film unless it goes out of its way to unfairly dehumanize or demonize (even if it's, say, a particularly badly written female character or ethnic stereotype in a comedy, etc - it doesn't just begin and end with films about international war/conflict).

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#33 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:15 pm

mfunk wrote:I would even take issue with the word "limitation," to be honest, because (and this is far from a perfect movie so please don't think this is directed at Hacksaw Ridge in particular) that implies that a film can't be truly great without a democratic plot, pulling in several vantage points and taking extreme care in painting all of its elements sympathetically. So while that certainly softens things, and I objectively know what you both are saying, it isn't something I would consider when evaluating the merits of a film unless it goes out of its way to unfairly dehumanize or demonize (even if it's, say, a particularly badly written female character or ethnic stereotype in a comedy, etc - it doesn't just begin and end with films about international war/conflict).
But you're just ascribing value judgements to people who have never made them. Who says a film can't be great unless it's not problematic? Some of the greatest works of art the world has ever produced are deeply problematic--some are great because of those problems. Hell, I think Black Hawk Down is a great war film, and we know for sure I think it's problematic.
mfunk wrote:1. I don't consider this a problem, and I'm still perplexed as to why having a subjective point of view in a film is inherently problematic. If you're looking for a film that takes the time and care to represent the other side of a conflict favorably or even understandably, those films exist (though perhaps not to the level of quality or quantity one may hope for).
I can't tell whether or not you understand that it's not subjectivity, but subjective battle experience.

The argument is: to accurately represents what it feels like to be a soldier in the middle of the war, you have to turn the other side into faceless enemies, which robs them of the rounded humanity that's given to the soldiers whose POV we share. Because that's what happens in war: soldiers don't exactly get a chance to know the enemy as individual people. They're just enemies, and it's kill or be killed. We agree on this, right? It's just how war feels to those in it.

This may be accurate, and it may be unavoidable in films concerned only with the subjective experience of one side; but it's still problematic because of all the obvious reasons. This is basic film studies. You can't represent a group of people as all just one aggressive, flattened thing and have that mean nothing. It's problematic, by which I means it's an issue that raises aesthetic, cultural, and political questions that are complicated and hard to resolve.

You're allowed to like problematic things, but not by pretending they are not problematic. I love Black Hawk Down and Rambo: First Blood part II. But they are problematic films (profoundly so in the latter's case--I mean, holy shit, have you seen that thing?).
mfunk wrote:2. I disagree with the implication that a character study of Desmond Doss needs to take the time to represent any "other side" with much depth, whether it be the Japanese, or his fellow soldiers and superiors (who are often represented as narrow-minded, violent, cruel, and unfeeling to Doss, with few exceptions until the stakes are very high). It's his story, not theirs, and if filmmakers are hedging all of their bets when a story like this is told, everything is going to come out very lukewarm and mediocre.
You're disagreeing with an implication that isn't there.

I don't care about what war films 'ought' to do. Only with what they are doing, and what that means.

My only interest in Hacksaw Ridge is whether or not it's any more problematic than the average war from from the last 20 years. And I'm treating claims that it is with a lot of skepticism. There are going to be a lot of people claiming racism simply because this is Mel Gibson.
mfunk wrote:Merits of Passion of the Christ aside (I've never seen it and never will), the seppuku scene I referenced is filmed around the edges of this act, and while it's depicted within the frame, it is not lingered upon. I would argue that it's superfluous because it's irrelevant to the main thrust of the film, not because it's gratuitous or mean-spirited.
I was suggesting it was there not because Gibson wants to demonize the Japanese, but because he just loves torture. The suggestion was only half serious.

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#34 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:39 pm

If it's as black and white as "is this a problematic war film because it's nearly impossible to make one that isn't, or is it the rare exception?" - it's definitely the former. But it's not nearly as egregious in how it goes about this as something like Black Hawk Down. Or Rambo 2, but then I'm also getting into talking about films I haven't seen!

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#35 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:44 pm

mfunk wrote:Or Rambo 2, but then I'm also getting into talking about films I haven't seen!
High probability that all the assumptions you're making about it are 100% correct.

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#36 Post by tenia » Wed Feb 15, 2017 1:20 pm

I think it's just a question of nuances. Some movies are ostensibly bad at picturing the opposite side as anything else than stupid goons acting as cannon fodder, while others are more careful, but again, I don't believe that focusing on a US character should legitimate doing a superficial description of this opposite side. I don't demand it to be a PhD thesis, just a little less superficial.

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#37 Post by davoarid » Thu Feb 16, 2017 5:21 pm

tenia wrote:Retrospectively though, I more and more think Hacksaw Ridge actually only works during the half-hour when it's focusing on his main subject (Doss, the guy who saved 75 soldiers without firing a shot).

The first part is a War Film 101 fest, with all its "paradise-to-hell" structure and then the Full Metal Jacket training camp.

And then, its second half doesn't care one bit about trying not to caracterise in an extremely simplistic way the enemies. For what is sold (and discussed about by its team) as an anti-war movie, it actually mimics... John Rambo's end massacre, which is all but anti-war but rather a blood-and-guts sequence with no other purpose than showing off dozens of gruesome deaths and flying limbs. But Hacksaw Ridge does this not only as an supposedly anti-war movie (but a pretty unfair to the enemy one) but also as a "see, it's extremely accurate !" one thanks to its paraphrasing talking-head bookending interviews.
I'm not sure why we're assuming this is an anti-war (or pro-war) movie at all. War is just the setting; the film is about maintaining belief in God during even the most trying of circumstances. This takes place during WW2, but the enemy isn't the Axis Powers--it's all those who keep Doss from expressing his faith.

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#38 Post by tenia » Thu Feb 16, 2017 5:41 pm

Mel Gibson litterally said so himself.
"It is an anti-war movie. I think all war movies are anti-war movies, but we do have to be compassionate to our warriors."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H93vGr4_SPI" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#39 Post by davoarid » Thu Feb 16, 2017 5:58 pm

tenia wrote:Mel Gibson litterally said so himself.
"It is an anti-war movie. I think all war movies are anti-war movies, but we do have to be compassionate to our warriors."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H93vGr4_SPI" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
This Gibson guy also claimed there was nothing anti-semitic in The Passion of the Christ though, so I don't see much reason to take his analysis particularly seriously here.

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#40 Post by Brian C » Thu Feb 16, 2017 6:03 pm

"I think all movies are anti-war movies" is one of the great empty chinstrokers of our time.

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#41 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Feb 16, 2017 6:23 pm

This isn't an anti-war film, but I would classify it as an argument in favor of pacifism. I don't think those are the same things.

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#42 Post by domino harvey » Thu Feb 16, 2017 6:24 pm

Brian C wrote:"I think all movies are anti-war movies" is one of the great empty chinstrokers of our time.
How Can Our War Movies Be Real If Our Wars Aren't Real

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#43 Post by Roger_Thornhill » Sun Feb 19, 2017 6:28 pm

There's been a lot of discussion in this thread over whether or not the Japanese are portrayed as the 'other' or as one-dimensional American killing machines. I think though if you veer into those territories it does a disservice to the intentions and, indeed, the essential pacifist spirit of the film. At no point does Desmond utter anti-Japanese slurs nor do the members of his platoon sent to battle on the ridge. Before they go there are they warned that the Japanese are 'animals' and a horrific enemy to fight? Yes, they are, by survivors of Hacksaw who, as an aside, will be forced back onto the ridge again(!). This is not a problem for the picture because it establishes anxiety in the viewer that is crucial for the truly horrendous combat sequences to come. Moreover, those comments stand in complete opposite to the point-of-view of Desmond who, when finding wounded Japanese, does his best to save them as well. Desmond doesn't hate the Japanese even after all he goes through on the ridge. He's not like the others. His faith is above that and he is as well.
SpoilerShow
There is a key scene in Hacksaw Ridge where the tension and horror subsides for a brief moment as a terrified Desmond, hiding from Japanese soldiers within one of their underground mazes, takes the time to bandage an equally terrified Japanese soldier suffering a grisly wound. The Japanese soldier is confused at first as Desmond moves to dress his wound and then relaxes his guard when he understands Desmond is not there to kill him. It's a touching moment during the last third of the film that descends into a horror film where human bodies are ripped to pieces by the instruments of destruction we humans unleash upon each other. It also reveals, for me, the soul of the film and what I think Mel Gibson intended to convey that we are all humans and war should be avoided at all costs.

It also hasn't been pointed out that Desmond deliberately and with considerable risk rescues wounded Japanese soldiers as well as American soldiers in real life and the film. In fact, after rescuing one such Japanese soldier in the film an American soldier later comments that the Japanese "didn't make it". It's highly suggested, based upon the tone of voice of the soldier and his cavalier attitude, that the Japanese soldier was killed by the Americans after Desmond went to all that trouble and danger to lower the man hundreds of feet down the ridge by himself only for his men to erase his deed with the man's murder.


I do agree that two thirds of the film are a rather conventional war film (albeit well done) but the sequences on the ridge are amongst the most horrific I've seen filmed and certainly convey the absolute madness, horror, and futility of war. The strategy and tactics of the Battle of Okinawa are not touched upon and for obvious reasons. This film isn't about the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War but, as has been pointed out, the power of pacifism to conquer war on some small, yet significant level. Whatever you think about Mel Gibson's awful comments and behavior over the years, it's a film worth seeing and one with problems and cliches, but for me that last third of Hacksaw Ridge clearly conveys why Gibson deserved that Best Director nomination and perhaps the Best Picture nomination.

One last point, I read a bit on the real Desmond Doss and why Hollywood never filmed his story before. It turns out they never made it because Doss refused to have his life story profited from. It was only in his last years that a deal was made otherwise there'd have been a Hacksaw Ridge out in 1946 starring John Wayne who saves 3,000 Americans without busting a sweat. Quite an interesting man.

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#44 Post by domino harvey » Sat Apr 01, 2017 1:00 pm

Well, this was a basket of cliches so tired and well-worn that you’d think we were back at war with the Axis powers right now. Obviously the film is attempting a kind of Sgt York religious / pacifist fable with the added bonus as in Hawks' film of being “true.” But that film took great pains to explain and bring its protagonist’s views to the forefront. This one elides and glosses over the single most important defining characteristic of both its protagonist and the film, a religious man’s refusal to touch a gun while still wanting to serve, in the moments where it matters and lavishes all over it where it doesn’t. Cheap moments on the battlefield, like a last minute retrieval of a sentimental Bible, are pushing easily digested but comically inconsequential markers of faith. The basic story is a compelling one, and could have made for a good film were the movie not so absurdly violent and gleefully gratuitous in showing the “horrors” of battle. This defense is dubious at best. I would love to know how a film that exploited the violence of war (which I believe this film does, repeatedly) would look any different in its battlefield scenes than this one. The movie often slows down so that we can see the bullets enter/exit heads, especially when the head belongs to a Japanese soldier. A film that wanted to overwhelm us with the brutality of war would make it unstoppable and overwhelming, not indulgent. The film relishes the blood and gore with a disturbing slather, and in a film that attempts to talk out of one side of its mouth about principles and faith, it’s an insulting approach to take for this man’s story.

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#45 Post by gcgiles1dollarbin » Sat Apr 01, 2017 4:06 pm

Roger_Thornhill wrote:This film isn't about the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War but, as has been pointed out, the power of pacifism to conquer war on some small, yet significant level.
I'm curious to hear more about the way in which pacifism is significant in this instance. Significant to whom? Conquering what exactly? (Genuinely curious after reading your thoughtful analysis.)

The real cost to Doss personally seems to have come after the war with his grueling, lifelong medical issues resulting from combat injuries and exposure. That would have been a far more depressing story, however, after depicted scenes of exhilarating, terrifying battle, yet perhaps more meaningful to the themes being discussed here, especially the contrast between the two. Directors enamored of getting battle scenes "right" often ignore the more extensive challenges to veterans and other war victims who persist with equal heroism in life after wars with physical and mental tolls that more continuously call into question the justifications for war. If you're going to make an "anti-war" film--assuming that was Gibson's intention--it doesn't seem like you should extol actions during battle and cap a film with a victorious battle (followed by a perfunctory footnote denouement of awards ceremony and marital felicity), which seem to imply that the war was simply a crucible to test his mettle, a chance to prove to his band of brothers that he isn't a liability on the battlefield without a gun. That the costs of war extend beyond battle isn't news to anyone, of course, and some might say HR isn't that film--quit trying to rewrite the script!--but it still begs the question: What meaningful role does pacifism have in this particular story? It doesn't seem like his heroism depended on his religious convictions--medics variously recognized for their heroism were not necessarily devout Christians or conscientious objectors--and yet Gibson is undoubtedly invested in the religious sentiment of this story (as well as the gore), attempting a Seventh-Day-Adventist stations of the cross. Is Gibson suggesting that Doss's unyielding belief system enabled a kind of savior on steroids; i.e., made him more proficient at saving lives? If so, how does this work, as it is depicted on film?
mfunk9786 wrote:This isn't an anti-war film, but I would classify it as an argument in favor of pacifism. I don't think those are the same things.
Given that pacifism is the belief that violence is unjustified under any circumstances--while war is the attempt to overcome global challenges through extreme violence--I'm not sure you can separate these things out so neatly. How is an argument in favor of pacifism not anti-war? Perhaps this goes back to a slightly different version of my original question: What value does pacifism have in a story in which war is inevitable and violence a rite of passage for the canonization of a saint? I'm willing to accept the possibility that this contradiction is what makes the film interesting, but I'm more tempted to believe that it just strips the film's battle scenes of any value beyond the visual interest of seeing intense violence on screen, because Gibson obviously tries to prioritize and celebrate Doss's religious pacifism without any gesture toward problematizing it in the end.

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Brian C
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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#46 Post by Brian C » Sat Apr 01, 2017 8:41 pm

Good posts.

Thinking about the film more since I saw it, I think the point of the movie is simply that its central character stood his ground in the face of ridicule and pressure. It could have been about an accountant whose bosses wanted him to cook the books, or a cabinet maker who insists on using only one kind of wood, or a pro basketball player who refuses to play games on Tuesdays because that's the day he has custody of his son, whatever. The narrative structure would have been the same; man has unconventional stance, he is mocked for it by his peers, he wins redemption in their eyes by staying true to himself. It's not built around the particulars of this character. Doss never really faces any decisions that test his beliefs in a foundational way, and his pacifism is not doesn't hinder him any more in battle than if he'd have simply lost his gun or run out of ammo or something.

I don't doubt that the character's religiosity added to the appeal to Gibson, or that he found the wartime setting particularly in his wheelhouse. But ultimately, Doss's pacifism is a MacGuffin. It could have been any trait that requires the protagonist to stand his ground in the face of pressure, and looked at through that lens, I guess the emphasis on violence isn't as off-key as it is if it's looked at as a movie about pacifism per se.

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#47 Post by J Adams » Sat Apr 08, 2017 3:40 am

It's sad that in this PC age, people cannot recognize that the Japanese had a different standard with respect to war, surrender, etc. than the USA.

I was interested in this movie because I loved "Passion" even though I am a thorough atheist, and also liked "Apocalypto". Both strange and intriguing films, and WAY off course of Hollywood.

I am frankly confused about the negative reaction to a film depicting a real life person (or hero) who refused to use guns. This film is much blander than other Gibson films, but is saved by his lead character, who is, admittedly, not perfectly portrayed by the ex-Spiderman dude. But, if nothing else, how can you not respond positively to the ending montage of the actual people involved.

What I am tired of regarding WWII films is this constant call to HUMANIZE the Japanese enemy. This was a different culture. Maybe people should recognize and even respect that THERE ARE DIFFERENT CULTURES ON THIS PLANET. Surrender was not an option. Death seemed to be the preferred way out. Why do we need to USA-humanize that attitude. Thin Red Line didn't, nor did Hacksaw. Get over it.

P.S. The Japanese attacking the USA was not really that smart.

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domino harvey
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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#48 Post by domino harvey » Sat Apr 08, 2017 1:02 pm

Today I learned being skeptical of a film's need to show slowed down footage of Japanese soldiers having their heads exploded with bullets makes me PC

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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#49 Post by gcgiles1dollarbin » Sat Apr 08, 2017 3:05 pm

J Adams wrote:What I am tired of regarding WWII films is this constant call to HUMANIZE the Japanese enemy.
It is always emotionally necessary for a soldier to go some way toward dehumanizing the adversary before he can kill them. But you're not an American soldier in WWII, so I'm having trouble reading this comment as more than a weirdly antique version of war propaganda, not unlike Ray Enright's Gung Ho! The Japanese could just as easily (and more justifiably, in my opinion) portray us as two-dimensional monsters--and cowards--for dropping atomic bombs on civilian populations, regardless of the contemporary geopolitical arguments for or against this grave decision 70+ years later. The urge to fairly characterize Japanese characters is not about excusing atrocities; it's about understanding unfamiliar human beings to a greater degree, factually and emotionally (for a more complex, compelling depiction of service in the Japanese army, I would recommend seeing the second part of The Human Condition, e.g.). It makes for better cinema overall.

(By the way, can we just expunge the term "PC" from all discourse forever? It is one of the hoariest, most meaningless putdowns in the English language, rivaling "terrorism" for its amorphous subjectivity.)

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MoonlitKnight
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Re: Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

#50 Post by MoonlitKnight » Sat Apr 08, 2017 10:46 pm

This was a different culture. Maybe people should recognize and even respect that THERE ARE DIFFERENT CULTURES ON THIS PLANET.
Frankly, the act of killing oneself (and only oneself) instead of going out and killing others when experiencing mental turmoil is one aspect of Japanese culture I certainly wouldn't mind seeing the West adopting (fat chance, I know). :|

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