I do enjoy
most of his reviews, he writes extremely well (as would be expected from a Yale
University grad), and he maintains a very good “cranky” character. But one
review did not sit well with me. Smith reviewed “Fury”, the World War II movie
about a Sherman tank crew fighting through Germany in April of 1945. He called
it “War-Porn”, and I say he has no clue as to what World War II was like. Which
is surprising to me, seeing as though Smith was a lieutenant in the U.S. Army
during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. He must have been a war correspondent…or a
typist…
You may now
be asking yourself, “But, Sworsky, why do YOU think you know more about World
War II history than Kyle Smith?” I’m glad I made you ask that question. I had
four relatives involved in World War II. On my Mother’s side, my Great Great
Uncle was the Commanding Officer of 2nd Ranger Battalion, HQ Company
and landed at Pointe du Hoc on D-Day and lost most of his men, he was also a
Silver Star recipient. On my Father’s side my Grandmother is from Bradford,
England and served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) on anti-strafing balloons in London,
and was responsible for warming up Spitfire and Hurricane fighters. My
Grandfather’s Brother volunteered after Pearl Harbor and served with the 32nd
Infantry Division (Red Arrow) in the Pacific where he was killed in Papua New
Guinea in 1942. My Grandfather was an Army Ranger in the 2nd Ranger
Battalion, HQ Company (His CO was my Great Great Uncle) and was first wave
Omaha Beach on D-Day. He was a gunner for a 75mm cannon on an M-2 half-track
(he received a Bronze Star with valor for his action on June 6th,
1944), he was involved throughout the campaign in Normandy, fought with the
Free French to destroy the U-boat pens in Northern France, and then fought his
way across France to Belgium where he was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge.
So I have some sources about this time in world history.
I will
break down some of Kyle Smith’s critique of the movie “Fury.” All of his quotes
are directly from his review on the New York Post’s website, and posted on
October 16, 2014, and I will link his review at the end.
“Most of Ayer’s
imaginative power goes into orgies of violence – men’s legs being cut off by
machine-gun fire, a sliver of a face lying around like a dirty sock, another
many who has been run over so many times, he has become one with the mud.”
I don’t
know if you were aware Mr. Smith, but war is brutal. Maybe not the war you
served in, but World War II was a nightmare beyond anything you can imagine.
The Germans had what is considered to be the most terrifying weapon of World
War II, the MG-42 machine gun. It fired 1200 rounds a minute…1200 ROUNDS A
MINUTE! I’m not a math genius, but using the power of my calculator, I can
tell you that the MG-42 was able to fire 20 bullets every second. Both my
relatives that landed at Normandy on D-Day had stories about men not just
losing their legs from this weapon, but being completely cut in half. So a man
losing a leg in the movie seems a bit tame by my sources. To give you an idea
at how terrifying the MG-42 was to American soldiers, it was nicknamed “Hitler’s
Zipper”, because it fired so fast you could not hear the individual bullets
being fired, it sounded like someone was tearing paper. Just one continuous
roar.
As to
Smith’s other examples of gore, my Grandfather told me the story about when he
landed on Omaha, how he passed a body floating face down in the water, but the
guys face had been sheared off and was still attached at the forehead and
floating like a sheet of paper and looking up towards the sky. He also told me
that if there did happen to be a dead German soldier in the road, guess what,
they didn’t move him, and they didn’t drive around the body either. My
Grandfather also witnessed dead American, and British soldiers as well as
French civilians crushed on the road by German vehicles. So that door swings
both ways.
Huh? I guess someone doesn’t know
anyone who served in WWII, or lacks the ability to open a high school history
book. If you watch any interviews with American, German, or Russian tankers or
foot soldiers, you will hear just how horrid these battles were. It doesn’t
take much effort, just go on Youtube.
“Pitt plays Wardaddy,
a staff sergeant leading the four surviving members of his platoon deep into
the heart of Germany in April 1945. The comic-book name of the character tells
you a lot: Sarge is absurdly cool under fire, always barking the right order at
the right moment, armed with macho quips and grizzled directices…”
FYI, but a
lot of the nicknames that these guys had were very comic-book-esque. General
George Patton was known as “Ol’ Blood and Guts”, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel
was “The Desert Fox”, Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery was the “Spartan
General”. The G.I.’s gave each other nicknames that referred to hometowns, odd
ticks, religious affiliations, anything really. And the reason was because so
many had died, and many more would die as the war dragged on. It was easier to
say good-bye to “Brooklyn” rather than to say good-bye to your friend who you
had known and trained with for years. It was one way the soldiers coped with
loss.
In terms of
the officers being cool under fire and giving orders, the U.S. Army during this
war had trained it’s CO’s very well, especially to remain calm during battle.
My Great Great Uncle remained calm at Point du Hoc, even as more than half his
men were being killed, because he knew that if the CO panicked, the entire
company would panic, and chaos would ensure. And chaos is a soldier’s worst
enemy in the middle of a firefight. But what would I know, that detail only
came from the mouths of two Army Rangers who were first wave on Omaha Beach.
“Sgt. Hero should
probably be court-martialed for starting a tank battle while leaving many boxes
of ammo sitting outside and drinking booze, yet Ayer treats this, too, as an
occasion for worship: He things it looks so cool to have the star climb out of
the tank in midfirefight to retrieve the rounds.”
I agree
with this. The last scene where the five members of the crew are fighting some
300 Nazi SS troops is a bit exaggerated, and leaving the ammo outside the tank
is something that even a private with any training would instantly recognize as
being needed inside the steel tank because, you know, you may need to reload
your weapon.
“The men are straight
out of Cliché Battalion: There’s a Christian, a guy who is mocked for speaking
“Mexican”, a mean-spirited cynic and the raw recruit who needs to be retrained
to enjoy killin’ – even unarmed, unresisting prisoners of war, in cold blood.
That’s a war crime, not a baptism by fire.”
I already
tackled the nicknames part of Smith’s rant, and now for the stereotypes. These
guys did exist. This war changed a lot of people. Many turned to religion, some
became bitter, some tuned out reality, some ran away, some simply broke. Are
the characters in “Fury” made to suit the needs of Hollywood? Absolutely! But
my Grandfather had several examples of guys he fought with who would constantly
quote Bible verses to retain their sanity, or to comprehend the brutality of war.
So these stereotypes are not far from the truth.
In regards
to the prisoners, the one quote that still burns into my mind from my
Grandfather is this: I asked him about taking prisoners, he looked at me and
said very plainly, “We didn’t take prisoners.” I’m sure if you asked the
German, Russian, Japanese and other American soldiers about taking prisoners
you would get a similar response.
If you want
to know about how viscously brutal and horrifying World War II really was, read
the accounts of German and Russian soldiers during the Battle of Stalingrad or
of any battle on the Eastern Front (there is still bad blood today), or the
accounts of American and German soldiers during the Battle of the Bulge, or
D-Day, or the accounts of American and Japanese soldiers during any battle in
the Pacific Theater of the war.
For all
soldiers involved in the frontlines of fighting during World War II, it was
brutal. Was “Fury” done in a way that glorified war? One could argue that, especially
the end scene. But in a world today dominated by first person shooter video
games, where violence is considered mainstream, where we see war as this heroic
adventure and something that is sanitary (to those that have not experienced it
first had, or those that have no resources to tell them about it), “Fury” does
the job of showing the brutality of war and how people change from it. It shows
just how evil we as human beings were to each other. That’s what my Grandfather
taught me years ago, and apparently, no one ever taught Kyle Smith that war is
a very ugly endeavor for both sides involved.
Kyle Smith’s full “Fury” review can be found here.
No comments:
Post a Comment