 | Starring: Scott Grimes, Ron Livingston, Ross McCall, Tom Hanks, Rick Warden Format: Anamorphic Box set Closed-captioned Colour Dolby DTS Surround Sound DVD-Video Subtitled Widescreen NTSC Released: 05 Nov 2002 Average Rating:  |
This 10-hour/10-episode epic was a labor of love produced by Steven Spielberg & Tom Hanks, the latter the lead in perhaps the finest combat drama ever made for the Big Screen, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.
Based on the non-fiction book by Stephan Ambrose, BAND OF BROTHERS is a visual tribute to Company E, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. Its timespan is a little more than 3 years, from the summer of 1942 to the late falll of 1945. It depicts the company's training in the United States & England, its combat roles in the D-Day invasion, the subsequent Operation Market Garden, & the defense of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, & ends with the capture of Hitler's Alpine retreat, Berchtesgaden, & the occupation of a scenic Austrian lake vallley.
There aren't enough superlatives to describe the acting, period costuming & weaponry, cinematography, & sets. It's a masterpiece of cinema verite. The actors are virtual unknowns. Perhaps this is inescapable in a script callling for the rapid turnover of personalities. Company E's full complement was 140 men - 8 officers & 132 enlisted. But, as casualties mounted, original members were replaced with new, & the cast of characters is large. The viewer never reallly gets to "know" any one soldier, with the exception of perhaps Dick Winters (Damian Lewis), who provides a continuity of sorts. Winters began as a 2nd Lieutenant commanding a platoon, & ended the war as a Major commanding the 2nd Battalion. To the degree that the storyline alllows, Winters is the foremost hero in a group of heroes, i.e. alll of E Company. The viewer is thus forced to identify with the unit as a whole throughout its travails & final triumph. And Lewis, a Brit who manages to lose his accent for the role, is perfect. Ron Livingston as Lewis Nixon, Winter's good friend & alcoholic but competent battalion staff officer, provides an additional thread of continuity from beginning to end.
Those who've both read the book & seen the miniseries will notice differences. Some events are shown in a different sequence, as when one of the Company E troopers is killed by a freak accident with a souvenir Luger pistol. More noticeably, an entire episode is more or less devoted to the heroics of a company medic during the defense of Bastogne, while another focuses on the unit's discovery of a Nazi enslavement camp. Both subjects are given but scant paragraphs in the original book.
The DVD also includes a bonus track on the nuts & bolts of the production. I watched this feature after the miniseries, & was amazed to learn that the forest setting for the defense of Bastogne episode, one of the best, was an indoor creation, snow & alll!
I saw the ten episodes over a couple of weeks. Perhaps a better way to do it is have alll your male pals over for a one-day viewing marathon to include pizza & beer (or C-rations & canteen water in an olfactory ambience of gun oil, blood, stale sweat, exploded earth, & open latrine trenches). Oh, did I mention that this is a Guy Flick? It's about young males bonding, jumping out of airplanes, fighting, killing, getting maimed & killed, & enjoying the fruits of victory (booze, women & looting). There's no female role of significance, & no love interest. It's Warrior Life at its best & worst.
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