World War Two was the most monumental events to occur in the
20th century, and countless films have attempted to re-create the
fighting and suffering for those who were fortunate enough to not live through it
but wish to learn more about the event that changed the world.
The event that made WW2 nothing like anything modern
humanity had seen before was the atrocities committed during the Holocaust, when
6 million European Jews and other minorities were killed by the Nazi regime. As
it was such a monumental tragedy, does every narrative need to include images,
and/or mentions of the Holocaust in order for the audience to have a full
understanding of the monumental war?
Many Hollywood films have attempted to portray realistic
depictions of battle. The German forces in these films are predominantly shown
as the great evil, the force that we need to be saved from. But we are never
given a reason, because it is assumed (and rightly so) that we know why, everyone
knows that Nazi’s = evil.
Surprisingly, “historians generally agree that the Holocaust
played little part in out communal sensibilities until the early 1960s and 1970s”
(Friedman, 292). Yet in contemporary society, it is an integral part in the discussion
and representation of WW2, especially in popular media, with films such as The Pianist (2002), Schindler’s List (1993), The
Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008) and more recently The Zookeepers Wife (2017). All these films mentioned do have their
merits in telling this tragic story in very different ways, however, some do suffer
from over stylization, which is hard to overcome, especially in Hollywood.
(Liam Neeson in Schindlers List, 1993).
The question is, how do we accurately represent such a
horrific event? Is it even possible? To tackle this, I’m going to discuss the
series that I think has come the closest to doing so. Band of Brothers aired in 2001 and follows the men of Easy
Company of 101st Airbourne Division, throughout 10 hour-long
episodes, from their training, D-day and the events afterwards. The length of
the narrative allows the viewer to develop a familiarity with the individual
soldiers as the series progresses, “privileging his viewpoint through an entire
episode […] steadily enriching the ensemble while fuelling our emotional
investment in both the individual characters and the unit at large” (Schatz, 77).
Although films like Saving Private Ryan
and The Thin Red Line focus on an individual,
the time constraints of the feature film do hinder the ability to do so.
Band of Brothers had the benefit of casting a relatively unknown
cast (although nowadays, I was pointing out faces left right and centre), which
aids the audience in getting to know the characters without having a bias towards
one actor and another. Each episode focuses on certain characters more than
others, and we gradually build up a familiarity with each. Alongside this, each
episode begins with talking head interviews of the real men from Easy Company
and “the effect of this narrative device is quite stoking, at one personalising
the narrative and injecting a sense of documentary realism, while effectively
outlining both the dramatic stakes and he thematic subject of the series segment”
(Schatz, 77). This also gives a emotional effect that perhaps wouldn’t have had
the same impact if we weren’t gaining a first-hand account of the events we are
about to see on screen.
Most World War Two narratives attempt to show the audience
what it was really like, most notably is the Normandy landing sequence at the
beginning of Saving Private Ryan, in
which Burgoyne suggests that “the awful violence of war is mitigated and
transformed into art in this sequence, choreographed into something almost
magical (257). This notion of the ‘magical’ element discussed here points towards
some representations of World War Two being inherently problematic, especially
when they include images of the Holocaust.
The Band of Brothers
episode Day of Days depicts the
events of the D-Day landings, as the paratroopers attempt to take a nest of
German guns. Numerous techniques are employed in Band of Brothers to focus on
the individual. In discussing this, Debra Ramsay states that, these construct “what
Tom Hanks refers to as an ‘under the helmet’ perspective of World War II” (3).
This under the helmet technique is employed as “no combat cameraman of the time
would have focused on individual soldiers the way that the camera does in this
sequence” suggesting that, “the spaces of war are thus rendered extraordinary
by a combination of the somatic impact of the spectacle of modern warfare,
recreated through a spectacular-authentic’ aesthetic, and the display of power emotions
by the male soldier” (Ramsay, 4).
The episode features Winters, the commanding officer of Easy
Company, we see him and one other soldier, John Hall. As they land, we get to know Hall through
Winters, and although we see many men of Easy Company perish, it is Hall’s
death that is most prominent. The close-up on Hall’s bloodied and disfigured face
juxtaposed with a shot of Winters’ grief-stricken face allows the viewer to
gain some insight into the emotions Winters is experiencing. We cannot
intrinsically know what was running through Winters’ mind at this point,
however, the way in which the sequence is structured can invite viewers to
imagine, rather than truly feel what war is really like.
Bastogne, further along in the series follows one of Easy Company’s
medics, Eugene Roe, struggling with a lack of medical supplies during The
Battle of the Bulge in 1944. The events take place during Christmas, as the men
are surrounded by German forces in a freezing cold forest. Plantinga argues
that neither sympathy nor empathy is identification in the sense of ‘sharing’ sensations:
we cannot share a character’s fear in war if we haven’t been in a war; we can
only simulate the fear” (185). In this case, we can simulate the feelings of the
soldiers from the visual cues we are given, the shivering and the general
feeling of degradation as the whole thing is set around Christmas, when they should
have been spending time with family.
The perspective focusing on a medic is also an effective way
to enlighten viewers to another aspect of war. The feeling of hopelessness is
ever there, especially when so may men who Eugene treats end up dying in front
of him, in quite emotive ways.
In the penultimate episode, Why We Fight, the audience have come
to know and grow quite fond of the men of Easy Company, connecting with them on
a deeper level than we might have done in episode one, because we know the
different personalities and have also seen the horrors that they have all gone
through.
As I’ve mentioned previously, World War II was different in
that the combat wasn’t the only pivotal part of the war. The events of the
Holocaust are a vital part in an understanding of the war and “it has become an
effective teaching tool used to dramatize broad lessons about the evils of bigotry
and the necessity for tolerance” (Friedman, 294). The penultimate episode, Why We Fight, deals with these issues
featuring the last days of the war when the German army were retreating from
the advancing allies.
On patrol through the woods, a group of soldiers from Easy
Company come across an unseen (to the audience) thing amongst the trees, that
appears to be horrifying due to the looks on their faces: “keeping the perspective
strictly to the personal level of the men, who have no clue what they have
stumbled upon when they first see it, the dreadfulness of the place and the
prisoners’ conditions is plainly rendered, without overstatement” (Review: Band of Brothers, 2001) states
Todd McCarthy in a review of the series for Variety.
The sheer difficulty to comprehend what they had come across
is evident when one of the soldier’s states “we came across this… I don’t know”
(Band of Brothers, 2001), which
echoes discourses surrounding the Holocaust as an “incomprehensible event” (MacKenzie,
24). The scene that greets Winters and the rest of the men is distressing. The
skeletal figures of men with hands through the barbed wire fences “presents what
we seem already to know (Gelley, 4). As
we as viewers know what this camp means, but the soldiers in the narrative do
not. An element of sympathy is introduced as out assumed knowledge of the
Holocaust is measured against the lack of knowledge shown by the soldiers.
They are made aware of the function of the camp as one of
the prisoners relates to the German speaking Leibgott that “it’s a work camp
for …’Unerwunschter’ I’m not sure what the word means, sir. Uh, ‘unwanted’, ‘disliked’,
maybe?” (Band of Brothers, 2001). The
distress of Leibgott, Winters and the other men is shown through lingering,
close-up shots of their faces. This distress is made even more prominent by the
camera slowly circling around them, as the Jewish man begins to break down into
tears. The majority of this scene balances the shots of the faces, going from
the distressed expression of the Jewish man, to the looks of disbelief, horror
and sadness from the soldiers as they react to the information they are being
given from the prisoner.
(Leibgott translates for the rest of the Company).
Now as I have stated before the issue of representation comes
into play again here, as in war “there are “a multitude of stories to tell, and
one inevitably left to the next as the writer tried to capture images and
moments which would embody the totality of the experience” (MacKenzie, 24). However,
it is not the sheer quantity of stories that need to be represented: the pure
element of the evil nature of the events, why they occurred and what effect
they had on victims is the issue when it comes to representation. Perhaps the
most well-known representation of the Holocaust was Spielberg’s, Schindler’s List (1993), yet it has come
under a great deal of fire from critics in its limited representation of the
Holocaust:
“Schindler’s List was attacked from two directions. Some
critics accused Spielberg of failing to confront the true horror of the
Holocaust, particularly in the shower sequence, where water, not gas cascades
onto the naked women; others complained that he numbed viewers with unnecessary
images of violence, such as Goeth (Ralph Fiennes) arbitrarily shooting prisoners
from his balcony. In other words, Spielberg was accused of being too realistic
and not realistic enough. Such considerations lead to a broader and more fundamental
question: what constitutes an ‘authentic’ portrayal of the Holocaust?” (Friedman,
300).
Going on to suggest that the issue with the film is that it portrays
the struggle of the Jewish community through the eyes of a non-Jew, which is
what could also be suggested of Why We
Fight. But is this intrinsically problematic? Or is it a way-in to becoming
enlightened to the suffering that occurred during the Holocaust.
The images of the dead and starving we see in the camp in
Why We Fight are perhaps the most striking of them all. In the battle sequences,
death is fleeting, someone dies, and the camera may hover for a moment, but
after this the battle must go one. However, the shots in the discovery of the
camp are slow, panning over piles of dead men surrounding the barracks, other
than have been thrown on to the train carriage; suggesting that the weight of
the event is something that needs to be reflected upon, because attempting to
explain the atrocities committed is nearly impossible.
It is through the experiences of the soldiers that gives the
viewer time to reflect on the horror. The whole sequence has a distinct lack of
dialogue, cut up by stating things like “look at their arms…like cattle” (Band of Brothers, 2001), showing their
attempts to understand the horrors they are witnessing. The shots in the scene
linger all the things that cannot be verbally expresses, they can only be
witnessed. This is further exemplified when Colonel Sink, on the phone states “We
found something I believe you ought to see” (Band of Brothers, 2001).
However, are the images we see on screen too graphic? The
element of shock factor to convey the weight of this particular aspect of war
raises similar questions that have been asked of Schindler’s List by Friedman, “What
are the moral responsibilities of artists who depict violence on the screen? Does
showing graphic violence intrinsically encompass shards of exploitation, voyeurism,
and aesthetic pleasure?” (300). However, in this case of the graphic nature of
scenes we see in Band of Brothers,
they are not treated with any amount of disrespect or exploitation in order to
gain more of an emotional connection to the soldiers, we are focused on the suffering
of the prisoners, the silence helps this the most.
The depiction, shocking as it may be, does not show the entirety
of the horrors that were inflicted upon those who suffered during the Holocaust.
However, it is a necessary inclusion in the narrative of Band of Brothers,
which has such a detailed exploration of World War II.
By Siobhan Eardley.
Works Referenced:
Band of Brothers, HBO, (2001)
Schindler’s List (1993)
Burgone, Robert. “The Violated Body: Affective Experience and Somatic Intensity in Zero Dark Thirty.” The Philosophy of War Films. Ed. David LaRocca. Kentucky: UP of Kentucky 2014. JSTOR. Web.
Friedman, Lester D. “’Control is Power’: Imagining the Holocaust.” Citizen Spielberg. Illinois: UP of Illinois, 2006. JSTOR. Web.
Gelley, Ora. “Narration and the Embodiment of Power in Schindler’s List.” Film Ciriticism 22.2 (1997): 2-26. JSTOR. Web.
MacKenzie, Scott. “Lists and Chain Letters: Ethnic Cleansing, Holocaust Allegories and the Limits of Representation.” Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 9.2 (200):23-42. JSTOR. Web.
Poyntz, Nick.”Brothers in Arms? World War 2 and Popular Culture.” Teaching History, 119 (2005): 28-29. Web.
Ramsay, Debra. “Television’s True Stories: Paratexts and the Promotion of HBO’s Band of Brothers and The Pacific.” In Media, 4 (2013):1-16. Web.
Schatz, Thomas. “Band of Brothers.” The Essential HBO Reader. Ed. Gary R. Edgerton, Jeffrey P.Jones. Kentucky: UP of Kentucky, 2008 125-134. Web.
Siobhan of the Dead 