Flags of Our Fathers Movie Download

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The Iwo Jima Photo Op
Very few films have impressed me lately as much as Flags of Our Fathers about the real story concerning the famous photograph of the flag raising at Iwo Jima.

Iwo Jima was the bloodiest battle of the Pacific war with Japan. The island was important because of the Japanese air base it held. Take it, repair it, and it becomes your base for American B-29s to raid Japan. It’s also Japanese soil so these people will defend it.

Defend it they did, the battle took 29 days with casualties to the U.S. Marines in the thousands, too many of those casualties leaving in body bags. And the number of prisoners taken you could count on both hands.

Everybody was a hero on Iwo Jima, including the men who raised the flag, but not for raising the flag. Mount Suribachi, the dead volcano at the western end cape of the island, was taken on the fifth day with 24 more days to go of the battle. A flag got raised on the site, but as it happened Navy Secretary James Forrestal was in a ship observing the whole thing and saw the flag waving. He thought the flag itself would make a great piece of public relations for the Marines and asked for it.

The guys who ran up under no fire at all and replaced the flag was the picture that Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal took. Three of those men were later killed on Iwo Jima and the three who survived became symbols used by the Marines for their appropriations efforts and to sell war bonds.

Flags of our Fathers concerns Joseph Bradley, Rene Gagnon, and Ira Hayes how the sudden fame and the sudden obscurity afterwards affected them. Ira Hayes’s story of course has been well documented and portrayed in a fine film starring Tony Curtis.

The key thing to remember here is that these are three of the most ordinary people you would ever want to meet, thrust by circumstance that was none of their doing to the status of icon. All three of them handle it quite differently. They all know nothing extraordinary was accomplished with the flag raising itself, but that’s show business and politics which were always kind of the same thing.

There might be some Oscars next year for Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, and Adam Beach. Would be a nice tribute once again to our greatest generation.

Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood should be commended for producing and directing this epic film, another great tribute to our greatest generation.Read More