Spielberg shows all sides of war in’The Pacific’
The scenes in “Pacific” are as real as they could be - and? director Steven Spielberg seems to understand what no other movie director was able to in all these “rah-rah” war movies of the past. Speilberg shows you not only the gore of war but the plain boredom of it.
Episode 5 Of ” The Pacific ” begins showing Medal of Honor recipient John Basilone selling bonds, a chore he clearly does not relish.
We see Basilone visiting the kitchen of a fancy Hollywood restaurant where a young assistant chef who is due to enter the Marine Corp the next day asks him for advice about combat. “Keep your head down and keep moving,” says Basilone.
With Sgt. Basilone is a luscious looking blond who we’re supposed to gather is a movie star - or, at least, a starlet. We are asked to form our own opinion.
Naturally, he and the doll have a pleasant commune in bed during a realistic scene, just short of being X-rated.
Leaving the lady in the lobby of the hotel, Basilone sees his brother, George, who hasn’t been in combat yet. George asks his hero brother if he was scared while fighting the enemy in Guadalcanal. “I don’t feel like I have to prove anything,” Basilone tells his brother. (Note: George Basilone wound up in my outfit, the 4th Marine Division. I remember him as a shy man who didn’t talk much and didn’t communicate with the rest of the guys in our tent. But, he seemed to like it that way, so we left him alone. After Iwo, we lost track of him, but I heard he came out of the war in good shape.)
The show continues with PFC Robert Leckie returning to his outfit in the 5th Marine Division after being treated successfully for his war trauma.
While waiting for further orders, the Marines are treated to a movie starring Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper. They don’t mention the name but it must be “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” the story by Ernest Hemingway about the Spanish Civil War.
When Bergman and Cooper are locked in an embrace, one Marine being a Marine, yells out, “What are you waiting for. —- her.”
The next morning they are told they’re about to invade Peleliu, a heavily fortified Japanese island. The Marines are given final instructions and wished good luck from the officer in charge.
Now we see platoon after platoon huddled in Higgins boats heading for the beach as enemy guns blast away.
As usual, there is very little talking in those boats.
One after the other, the boats hit the beach and unlikeGuadalcanal, where the Japanese let them land without firing, enemy guns kept blasting at the beached Marines. You hear the screams and eerie noises from wounded Marines, so real that I was ducking the bullets as I watched it.
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