Back in 2005, I
was a third year Film, Radio and Television Studies university student, who had
to come up with an idea for my dissertation project. Representing a huge part
of our grades for our final year, this document had to be over 8,000 words, and
had to be on a subject agreed with our senior lecturer. Whilst my friends
agreed subjects were as diverse as ‘The
role of women in horror films’ to ‘The
importance of friendship groups in American sitcoms’, I had a real issue
agreeing an engaging subject with my tutor.
Having looked at
potentially exploring the topic of Teen Movies in the 90s, I decided to
concentrate The Focus of My Attention on something that I had a strong interest
in – the epic WW2 mini-series Band of
Brothers.
I had previously read the Band
of Brothers book many years earlier, and my father had served as a
carpenter on the production of the mini-series, so I had awaited its release
for a long time. Additionally I had been a huge fan of the WW2 movie Saving Private Ryan (1998) and having invested so much time in the
past to watching and learning about the topic, it made sense to use this as my
area of study for my dissertation.
My paper aimed to explore
the ways in which Band of Brothers is
full of ambiguities in telling its complex story. The goal of the paper
was to reveal that, by doing so, Band of
Brothers leaves many key questions unanswered, and chooses what it shows
very carefully. The paper also discusses, the ways in which the programme
makers have altered and dramatised certain events in order to make them more
appealing to a television audience.
Also under
discussion is the way in which the veteran’s accounts add to the realism, which
is one of the key ways in entertaining the audience, with the realism being one
of the driving forces of the series. Finally, I looked closely into the major
flaws in the series, and whether telling this story for a television audience
meant that they had to divert from what really happened in order to achieve a
show suitable for screening on television.
The rest of this post will be that
dissertation. It is not the most formal of posts you will ever read, and certainly isn't the most academic. However If you are a fan of the series, it may make you aware of things
you didn’t know before. Hope you enjoy.
‘Band of Brothers and Visual Storytelling; an analysis of
complexity and ambiguity.’
Chapter 1 - Introduction
When Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks joined
forces again soon after making Saving
Private Ryan, to Executive Produce an epic mini-series alongside HBO, about
one company of soldiers within the whole of world war two, Spielberg famously
said:
 |
| Exec Producers Spielberg & Hanks |
“We will spare no expense, there is no budget in getting this right”
In this essay, I will investigate how the
series - Band of Brothers (2001)- got
things right, yet also managed to get things wrong or totally change things
that actually happened, in order to make these events more appealing for their
way of telling the story visually.
The series was originally planned over 12
episodes, but eventually it became a 10 part series, with different directors
for each hour long episode. Within the series, we are introduced to so many
characters, so much dialogue, so much action, all stemming from the
testimonials of world war two veterans. The veterans all have their stories to
tell, and in bringing these stories together for the screen, the programme
makers risked getting certain things wrong, or have certain facts left out. I
will investigate whether the complexity of a topic like this, with so many
differing opinions, the programme makers jeopardised the authenticity of the
series by knowingly or not, allowing certain ambiguities and contradictions to
be seen on screen.
 |
| Author Stephen Ambrose |
The series is based on the book by
historian Stephen Ambrose, who had interviewed many members of Easy Company
from early 1990 onwards. Ambrose had been drawn to Easy Company in particular
after learning about some of the missions that they had undertaken during
European invasion between 1944 and 1945.
Ambrose had already written various books
regarding WW2, and one in particular ’Pegasus Bridge’
covered the far right flank of the attack. Easy company’s assault is seen as
located on the left flank of the D-Day attack, and Ambrose liked the idea of
seeing how it compared. Like Hanks and Spielberg would later agree, he found
that there was a broad spectrum of things to cover; the units formation in Camp
Toccoa Georgia in 1942, through D-Day, campaigns in Holland (Operation Market
Garden,) Belgium (Battle of the Bulge) and into Germany where they found the
horrors of the Nazi regime.
It would be a huge undertaking. Throughout
the years Ambrose would have sit down conversations with multiple veterans at
one time, who would then talk and reminisce about events and people, bringing
up things that the other may remember differently, each with their own story to
tell, but still being part of the big story that was Easy Company.
There are many events that appear in the
book, yet for one reason or another are either not in the series or have been
radically changed to suit the way that the story is being told. There are
accounts in the book by certain members of the company, who have been left out
of the series totally. These men who have been left out are just a worthy as a
place in the series as the next man, they are veterans of the same events and
battles that men who featured in the series went through, yet they are not even
mentioned. Written out of history, just because the writers claimed that by
introducing too many key characters, the audience would be left confused.
 |
| Winters |
The series is clearly a dramatized version
of the events that actually happened. After researching the programme, you can
quite clearly see that the programme makers have tried to keep the events as
realistic as possible, and have simply put other characters in the place of
people who have not featured in the series. This allows the audience to
recognise and familiarise themselves with certain characters.
Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg had worked
together on the film Saving Private Ryan,
a fictional story told within the factual World War Two environment. This has
served to forever link the two productions. Hanks’ character in Saving Private Ryan (Captain John
Miller) and his men survive the D-Day landings on Omaha Beach, and then get
given a mission to save one man - Private Ryan (Matt Damon), who has received
the right to go home, due to the death of his three brothers.
The coincidental link between Saving
Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, is
that the fictional ‘Private Ryan’ is a member of the 101st Airborne
division that Easy company is a member of. Hanks and Spielberg are both self
confessed WW2 buffs. They share a common interest in the history, the veterans,
the battles, the memories etc. They saw what Ambrose had seen years earlier,
the opportunity to show a full history of a military unit, from its birth to
its death, the highs, the lows, the men and the battles. It would show WW2 to
the contemporary audience, used to seeing blood and guts in war films, but not
actually getting much of a chance to bond with the characters and actually feel
emotionally involved with the film. Ambrose’s work allowed Hanks and Spielberg
to have the whole picture in front of them. The ground work had been done, they
literally needed to turn the book into some kind of script for the screen and
they would have something ready to work with practically straight away.
Alongside HBO, who had helped them produce an earlier series ‘From Earth To the Moon’ and Tony To, who
had also worked on that production, they got to work. Ambrose was impressed.
“What impressed me was how careful they would be to be accurate. They
sent me scripts of each of the episodes. They paid attention to my comments and
suggestions.” -
Band of Brothers - Page 13
The episodes appear in linear order of
when they happened, although certain directors use specific techniques, such as
flashbacks to show us what has happened. Although these techniques are done
carefully, an audience could be easily lost over a ten part series if there are
constant flashback and forwards. By showing the journey of the company
episodically in a linear order, through the different stages of the war, it
gives the series stability, which is vital in order to keep the audience
informed and aware of what is happening within the narrative.
The first episode establishes the company,
its formation in episode 1 - ‘Currahee’ and the last episode shows its finale
towards the end of the war in episode 10 - ’Points’. You obtain a sense of
closure from the way that the series creators concluded. We say a goodbye to
the characters we have invested in for the past ten episodes. The eight
episodes in between, give time to each period of the company’s journey
throughout the war. ’Day of Days’ (2) and ’Carentan’(3) show us the Normandy
period of the war, ’Replacements’(4) and ’Crossroads’(5) show us the campaign in
Holland, the offensive in Belgium is shown in episodes 6 and 7 - ‘Bastogne‘,
and ‘The Breaking Point’. Finally the movement from Belgium into Germany is
shown in ‘The Last Patrol’ (episode 8) and ‘Why We Fight’ (episode 9).
Chapter 2 - Examining the narrative
The soldiers of whom ‘Band of Brothers’ was based on were part of - Easy Company, 2nd
Battalion, 506th PIR (Parachute Infantry Regiment), 101st
Airborne Division. They were real men, and via interviews, memoirs and books, they
told their own unique, but real life stories. The authenticity of the stories
would be verified by other veterans, who would always remember these events,
and discuss their memory of the same event, however told from a different
location. This allowed Ambrose and Band
of Brothers researchers to see greater pictures of the same story. These
pictures transferred to screen allow us to observe different parts of the same
story.
After much collaboration from the
veterans, Ambrose managed to portray the events of the tales from the war, into
one manageable piece. Hanks and Spielberg, alongside HBO started the pre
production of the series by making sure that everything that they had was true
to what the veterans could recall. Major Richard ‘Dick’ Winters alongside
author Stephen Ambrose, were given scripts and told to inform Hanks or
Spielberg of any discrepancies or faults with the way the story would be told
on screen.
The narrative of the series, followed the
formula that Ambrose used in his book. The programme makers had allowed an
extravagant budget of $120m for the production cost and a time span of over
three years. It is evident that the majority of the budget must have been spent
on getting the look of the film, the mes-en-scene, the locations, the props etc
looking authentic. Seventeen million dollars was set aside for construction. At
the time, the series was the most expensive TV series ever produced.
During pre production, the producers were
looking for the right place to base the productions headquarters. England, Ireland
and the Czech Republic were all considered. America was out of the question as
it was not realistic enough amongst other problems.
“On a heavy day, there are as many as 700 cast and crew members on
set, and it would be cost-prohibitive to take that many people for an extended
time to somewhere in Northern California, where the topography and vegetation
vaguely resemble Europe. Also, most of the 1940s equipment tanks, vehicles,
weaponry, etc. is already in Europe, because after the war ended, it was too
expensive to ship it back to America."
Tony To - Co Executive Producer
After some consultation with governments
of the three countries, and a very constructive meeting with British Prime
Minister Tony Blair and Chris Smith (then Secretary of State for Culture, Media
and Sport) UK Parliament passed a change in the law that allowed foreign film
makers easier access to Britain to make more films. This in turn would mean
that a large number of British workers would be on the crew (including my father),
and would offer a huge economic benefit to the country.
England had another advantage over its
rivals for the production.
“The best craftsmen in the industry outside of Los Angeles are there,
and going anywhere else would have meant bringing the entire crew along”
Tony
To - Co Executive Producer
So with the backing of new laws, the best
crew available outside the U.S, and with the Prime Minister’s son along for
work experience, the production headquarters were set up in England.
Most external locations within the series
were constructed in Hatfield, England, on an eleven hundred acre plot of the
land, it was the same land where they had constructed and filmed Saving Private Ryan. The locations of
Aldbourne, Hageneau, and Eindhoven etc were all constructed out of the same
buildings on the same set, just continually modified and made to look
authentic. In total eleven different European locations were constructed by the
crew.
The locations, the props, the special
effects all helped to visually take the audience to 1940s Europe, creating a
sense of realism and identification.
David Leland, the director in episode six
said;
“Every department has the best people you can find, it’s a first rate
production facility”
The
making of BOB Documentary
 |
| Damian Lewis as Winters, reenacting a photo from the war. |
The costume department acquired 1200
authentic civilian costumes from the era, the weapons department had 700 real
weapons and made 400 rubber props. Military insignia and uniforms were either
real or replicated to the finest details. Every little detail such as these
gave the programme makers the satisfaction that they were getting things
correct, that they were recreating a moment in time, and that the veterans
would feel that they were being portrayed correctly in the right environment.
The process of casting the series was done
by various members of the production team, Spielberg, Hanks, alongside other
producers and directors such as Tony To, would set up a video camera and get
the actors to role-play, to see how they bonded and reacted to one another.
Most actors were hired due to the physical resemblance to the man that they
would be playing.
“Most of the men got the part the minute they walked through the door
and opened their mouths” -
Tom
Hanks - The Making Of Band of Brothers
Documentary
A large ensemble cast was a split between
American and British actors, with only a few being recognizable from other film
or television projects. David Schwimmer was probably the most well known at the
time from playing ‘Ross’ in the sit com ‘Friends’
for so many years. Other known cast members included Donnie Wahlberg who was
formerly a member of pop group ‘New kids on the Block’, and Ron Livingston who had a role in the
popular show ‘Sex in the City.’ But
the majority of the actors who were in the series were pretty much unknown
before the series aired. I believe that by using relatively unknown actors,
split from the U.S and the U.K, the programme makers allowed the audience to
start a fresh relationship with the characters on screen, allowing them to feel
that they are watching a real life documentary following the lives of these
real soldiers through their journey during world war two.
*Looking back some twelve years after
writing this paper, it is clear that Band
of Brothers served as a springboard in the early careers of many of the
leading male actors of today. Many of the unknown actors, who I mentioned, have
gone on to become global stars. Damian Lewis (Homeland, Billions), Tom Hardy (The
Revenant, The Dark Knight, Legend), Michael Fassbender (Assassins Creed, XMen, 12 Years a Slave),
James McAvoy (XMen, Split, Last King of
Scotland), Michael Cudlitz (The
Walking Dead), are just a few of the young actors to be part of Band of Brothers.
 |
| Tom Hardy now, and as Private Janovec |
Over ten thousand extras were employed
throughout the series, who all had to look and act the part in their small
roles. It is interesting to see that there were over five hundred speaking
roles during the ten episodes, with each actor having to master the specific
accent for the man that he was playing.
I personally felt that Schwimmer’s
portrayal of ‘Captain Herbert Sobel’ was extremely good. Having spent time reading
Ambrose’s book, and autobiographies of veterans such as Winters, Webster and
Guarnere, you get an understanding of the man. You can easily learn of the
anger and frustration felt towards the man by the men of the company, it was
great to see such a different kind of character being played by the
internationally recognised star of the hit sitcom ‘Friends’.
However one BBC reviewer didn’t share that
same views that I did. It stated:
“Part of the problem with the first episode (that she had previously
in her report called it ‘slow and uneventful’) may have been the ridiculous
fact that Friends favourite David Schwimmer plays the hard and cruel Captain
Herbert Sobel.(She goes on to say) His puppy dog eyes make him appear even more
pitiful”
 |
| David Schwimmer as Captain Sobel |
Whether or not the reviewer was expecting
another Saving Private Ryan, which
she links the programme to quite a lot in her article is unclear. It is also
unknown, whether she even read Ambrose’s book. She just
saw Ross from Friends. She didn’t see the man being portrayed. This was a risk
that the producers took by casting such an established actor. However, if
people were to watch the series in fifty years time, Schwimmer’s portrayal of
Sobel, would educate them to the maximum about the way that Sobel treated Easy
Company.
There have been many attempts to link the
series with Saving Private Ryan
(SPR), what people do not seem to realise that Band of Brother is predominately
a factual series of events, unlike the fictional SPR. The continuous linking of
the two productions is quite annoying when researching BOB, and it is mostly
apparent because of the Hanks and Spielberg factor. I wonder if two other
people had executive produced the series, whether the links would be so strong.
As I stated earlier, throughout the
process of writing the book, Ambrose used veteran’s accounts of what happened
to drive the narrative. That technique was also employed by the programme makers
in the case of the series. They went round and interviewed many of the
veterans, just like Ambrose had done years earlier. They set up their cameras
and left them rolling during the interview, picking up all the emotions that
appeared on the veteran’s faces as they recalled moments when they saw their
buddies get killed, moments when they saw outstanding bravery and courage, and
moments that they didn’t want to talk about. Seeing the grown men get choked
and emotional after so many years, was a key weapon in visual story telling for
the programme makers.
We see certain clips at the beginning of
the episodes to introduce where the men were, and what emotions the men were
feeling at the time. Techniques like this allowed the audience to feel intrigued
by what they were about to see. For example, by seeing a veteran talk about the
events in Bastogne, and their memories of that event, the drama that would be
created would leave the audience anticipating what they would see in the
forthcoming episode. The veteran’s accounts add to the level of realism in the
series. When a viewer watches a programme or film, knowing what the ending will
be already, the way that the ending is reached has to be entertaining, engaging
and interesting, with a mighty sense of realism to keep them occupied.
The actors had lots to do in order to get
ready to play the men of Easy Company. They all spoke of the importance of
getting it right, to honour the man they were playing. First they had to learn
what the man they were portraying was like, they contacted the veterans
personally, and those playing veterans who had passed away, they contacted
friends and family, hoping to find out who the man was, what kind of person he
was, how he moved, how he talked, things he did, the people he associated with
within the company. It was crucial to the actors that they played the man
correctly. Each actor seemed to understand the importance of what they were
doing.
“When I first sat down to watch BOB with Dick and the other veterans
at the world premiere in Normandy it was incredibly nerve wracking. When you
are playing a real life person and he‘s there, you want everyone to react
positively to your portrayal of him. It’s not a question of whether it’s a
credible performance, but whether it’s a credible performance of him. At the
end I was relieved as other veterans came up and said “you have nailed him” and
that took the pressure off”
Damian
Lewis, who plays the part of Major Dick Winters.
Each man felt that they had the honour of
playing their respective roles, each knew what the man that they were playing
was like and what they did and achieved during the war, so then it came to the
stage in pre production where all actors reported for boot camp to become their
specific soldier. For ten days the actors had to live and respond as their
character. They learnt basic military tactics, endured hours of physical
training, they were shouted at, learnt to fire weapons, had guard duty, very
little sleep and culminated with them doing a mock parachute jump from a forty
foot high tower and achieving their ‘wings‘. This boot camp allowed the actors
to not only get into character, but to bond with each other, the relationships
between the actors had to be seen to be realistic in order to show the friendship
and camaraderie that was there between the soldiers during the war. Major Dick Winters describes the bond between
the men as being like twins. Going through and feeling the emotions that the
others are feeling.
“Stephen Ambrose, in his book,
called us a ‘band of brothers.’ Yet in the way we took care of each other,
protected each other and laughed and cried together, we really were even closer
than blood brothers. We were like twins - what happened to one of us, happened
to us all, and we all shared the consequences and the feelings”
Beyond
Band of Brothers - Preface
The boot camp was under the influence of
senior military advisor Captain Dale Dye, who had also advised SPR and other
films such as ‘Platoon’, Dye would
also be playing a character in BOB - Colonel Robert ‘Bob’ Sink, the commander
of the regiment that Easy was in. Dye wanted the men to have experiences that
they could take into filming, so that when the director would say ’you’re
exhausted’ then men would have something that they could physical recall
feeling, he also states that they was no way of doing that apart from putting
the actors in that position. The bonding, the training, the berating, the good
and bad times shared at boot camp, allowed the men to become a company of ‘soldiers’.
They felt a togetherness after going through these things as a group. This
allowed them to have a small slither of an inclination of how the real Easy
Company felt like a unit.
As I have previously said, each episode
has a different director, apart from Danish Director Mikael Saloman and
American David Frankel who each direct two parts each. Each director has
different ideas and reasons for doing certain things. Frankel is stated as
saying he felt that his last episode - ’Why we fight’ (in which Easy Company
locate and liberate a concentration camp, and witness the horrors of the
holocaust) is a way of making sure that people do not forget about what
happened, due to the fact that he is Jewish, he wanted to episode to act as a
memorial to those who died in camps, such as members of his family.
Certain episodes follow specific
characters, as we the audience, get to see everything that the character goes
through during that episode. Not only does this allow the audience to bond with
and feel emotions towards the specific character, for example Winters in
episode two, or Lipton in episode six, but it allows the episode to be a bit
different from the episode before them. Certain episodes just follow the
certain character as the episodes main character, others decide to have the
main character act as a narrator with voice-overs. I personally feel that this
form of narration enhances the narrative, allowing the audience to be informed
of everything that is going on, some times the narrative moves forward in time
and location, and for some viewers, it might be confusing, but by having the
character telling us what is happening and where it is happening, we are being
spoon fed the information that we require.
 |
| James McAvoy |
Each episode moves the narrative towards
the eventual ending, as an audience we know that by the summer of 1945 the war
in Europe would be over. So each episode got us closer to the climax of the end
of the war. The last episode, ‘Points’ was narrated by Major Winters character,
it like the book, gave narrative closure to the series. It tells us how the
company were allegedly the first allied soldiers to enter Hitler’s Eagles Nest
retreat, and how the group disbanded after the surrender of Japan. The
conclusion goes on to inform the audience regarding what each man, who we have
grown to feel fondness towards, did after the war. We learn whether they were
successful in their careers, what they were like after the war. We find out
about the men who had helped win the war, ending with the primary focus characters,
who we had first met in episode 1; Nixon and Winters. It then cuts to more of
the interviews with the veterans, only this time the veterans have their names
on the screen, something that hasn’t been done throughout the series. The
surprise of seeing who these old men actually are helps us identify with them
even more. Over the previous nine episodes we have seen various war veterans
telling their stories, without knowing who they were, at the end of the episode
we find out who they veterans were. We have witnessed their actions during the
episode acted out by the young cast members, yet the juxtaposition of seeing
the old man on screen, who sixty years earlier had been the fearless warriors
depicted in the series. With all of the effects and stunning locations used
throughout the series, it’s the interaction of the men in the series which
really stands out. The interviews at the end of episode ten, help enhance the
feeling of togetherness felt amongst the men. The visual aspect of seeing the
relationships still intact between the veterans, after all these years allow us
as an audience to feel a great deal of satisfaction at the end. Even though many of the veterans were no
longer with us, the men still had the respect and admiration for the men that
they served with.
As I have already stated, the actors felt
that they were doing the soldiers a service, they were showing the world what
the heroes of Easy company did during the war. The real men of easy company
only refer to the men who didn’t come back from the war as heroes, never
themselves. Captain Dale Dye said to the actors at the end of boot camp
“Your familiarity with each other, the way you work together without
even thinking about it, i’ve seen it grow, don’t you think you will be able to
see that on film? The truth will come out through your actions, your movements
and gestures, let it shine, make the world proud of Easy Company, and the world
will celebrate the men who wore this uniform for real. I consider that chance
to be an honour, through your training you have earned the right to call
yourselves Easy Company, and that is a high honour, lets not f**k it up”
Ron
Livingston’s Boot Camp Video Diaries- DVD
With the pre production organised to the
finest detail, with the locations, props, uniforms, special effects all in
place, with the actors who cared so highly about getting things right, with the
hard work in place, why does the series still leave questions unanswered?
Why do the programme makers misplace the
facts about certain events? Why do they fabricate stories or replace real
people with others in order to show the audience more about the characters that
they wish to enhance
There are many instances throughout the
series that the programme makers seriously dramatize the events in order to
make them look more attractive to the viewing audience. The programme makers
however, made a huge effort to give the audience as much information as
possible in an attempt to help the viewers understand; a fully operational
website, with character descriptions and photos would aid people in learning
the who’s who of the company, the book by Ambrose was re-released, information
for teaching and educational purposes was issued.
When researching the series, it’s evident
that only a handful of soldiers played a prominent role in the series, when
compared to the book. There are people who are totally ignored by the series.
Certain men contributed huge amounts of information to the book, and seemed to
be key members of the company, yet are ignored. One such man, Forrest Guth, is
rumoured amongst Band Of Brothers
fans to have been left out of the series because of his name, it sounded to
much like executive producer Tom Hanks’ character - Forrest Gump. In reality
however it turns out that the majority of men who seem to be missing from the
series were members of Easy Company’s 3rd platoon. This platoon is
the one that is the least featured within the series, with key characters of
the show comprising of 1st and 2nd platoon. Until reading
Major Winters’ own book - Beyond Band of Brothers, we learn that throughout the
war, he had a habit of placing 1st and 2nd platoons on
either flank of an attack, with 3rd platoon in reserve, he states
that could be why so many veterans of 3rd platoon lived long lives. He
goes on to state that the soldiers were either ’killers’ or not. 1st
and 2nd were full of ’killers’ and that’s why they were used more
often, and probably the reason why they featured more in the series. This
careful selection, when converting the book data to script form, allowed the
production team to focus carefully on those characters that the viewer would be
introduced to. The Forrest Guth rumour was something which had been discussed
at length online, with people thinking it was a poor reflection of the writers
to leave a man out who had played a significant role; however you can
understand and make the case for the justification of the decision, when there
is only a set number of stories that they need to get across to the audience.
That is not to say one man’s experience is less of another.
Chapter 3 - Case study
“From this day, to the ending of the world, we in it shall be
remembered. We lucky few, we band of brothers, for he who today sheds his blood
with me, shall be my brother”
King
Henry The Fifth - William Shakespeare - 4,3,60
The quote above is taken from William
Shakespeare’s ‘Henry V‘. Henry was talking to his
men, who would later fight a battle they were not expected to win, somehow
against all odds, they did win. The battles are different, but the roles of the
men within them are the same. Easy Company was a group of men who fought for
one another, laying their lives on the line to save their friends. Ambrose used
the section of the speech written by Shakespeare to title his own book, which
later became the series in question.
In this chapter, I will look closely at
two episodes of the series, in close detail in order to establish whether
telling the story for the screen meant that key features of the book were lost,
that the complexities of countless individual’s stories were too much to put
into one series. The two episodes that I have chosen to cover are episodes
three and six.
Episode 3, ‘Carentan’, directed by Danish
director Mikael Saloman, the men of Easy Company are ordered to take the French
town of Carentan for strategic reasons in order for armour to move off of the
beach. It is D-Day+1, and the men are still scattered over Normandy. The
episode is early on in the series and the viewers have not yet learnt too much
about the men. We have seen them become Paratroopers, and seen their brutal
introduced to the battle. In this episode we get more information about certain
characters, and get to learn more about the company as a whole.
The second episode that I will analyse in
more detail is Episode 6, ‘Bastogne’, directed by British director, David
Leland. The episode follows the role of the company medic Eugene ‘Doc’ Roe who
is not mentioned too heavily in the book by Ambrose. We witness the campaign in
Belgium namely the infamous ‘Battle of the Bulge.’ Covered in episodes six and
seven, the time spent in the Belgian forest is where Easy Company really
suffered crucial losses. It is here that they were reported to have bonded and
felt the same emotions as one another, the pain, the loss, the suffering. I aim
to look into whether or not Easy Company did have it that hard. I’m not
doubting the fact that they were in a perilous position, but from research that
I have conducted, there were other companies, not given the attention that Easy
has, who suffered worse than they did.
Although I will state events that have
happened in other episodes, I feel that these episodes chosen in particular
have the most complex narratives and they teach the audience the series’
portrayal of events. And as I have mentioned before, the series isn’t
necessarily a true depiction of what really happened.
Episode 3 - Carentan
After the relatively slow build up of
witnessing their training to become Paratroopers in Episode 1, the viewers who
were expecting a ‘Saving Private Ryan’
style start to the series were left disappointed. Episode2 we observed the
characters jump into Normandy on D-Day, and are then welcomed to the days after
D-Day, where the soldiers are fighting in order to push the Germans back. Episode Three was a key episode in maintaining the audience’s interest. The viewer had now invested two hours into this
mini-series and needed a better understanding of the wider cast. Episode 3 really
allows us as viewers to get to know the men of Easy Company better than we had
done before.
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| Marc Warren as Private Albert Blithe |
Ep3 follows the character of Albert
Blithe, played by the relatively unknown (at the time) British actor Marc
Warren (Hustle, Green Street). Blithe
is a character not mentioned too often in Ambrose’s book and not over prominent
in either of the preceding episodes; many viewers wouldn’t have noticed him at
all until this point, however after multiple viewings, he is in the background
of certain scenes in earlier episodes.
Through Blithe, we see how disorientated
the drops on D-Day really were for the men of Easy, as the episode starts with
him looking aimlessly into the sky. After joining other members of the company
who are just as lost as he is, they finally meet the rest of the company. This
is a crucial scene, where we learn that Lt Meehan (Company Commanding Officer –
aka CO) is still missing, and the fact that his plane was shot down is still
unknown. This was a major part of the story of Easy Company, and it wasn’t
covered in too much detail. The loss of a CO is a major problem to any company,
especially on D-Day. If this hadn’t of happened, Dick Winters wouldn’t have
been made CO, and the story of Easy Company would be drastically different. We
as viewers are also a little disorientated, as we are coming to terms with
characters we are forming bonds with, and trying to establish where they are
fitting into the bigger picture.
In a scene set in a market square, Blithe
and the other troopers are reunited. The shots cut between different groups of
soldiers, talking about the events of war so far. There is one crucial piece of
dialogue, which sets the tone for one character, which would set the tone for
the rest of his involvement in the series, which is there to make one character
appear to be a person of intrigue and somewhat unsettling.
It is reported that on D-Day, Capt Ronald
Speirs, who at the time was in charge of Dog Company, was standing with a group
of German prisoners of war (POW), when he offers them all cigarettes, then
shoots them dead with his Thompson submachine gun. Although mentioned in the
book, and now in the series, the story was never confirmed or denied by anyone
in the company. It was as if he had become an urban legend by set of actions,
which if true, can only be seen as an event of huge significance.
There was also a rumour that the same
soldier shot one of his own men, for repeatedly disobeying direct orders.
Whether the stories were true or not were unknown, but the rumours made him a
legend. The men of the regiments were unnerved around him, but every veteran
who spoke about him agreed on one thing - he was a fine soldier, one of the
bravest during the war. He won medals for bravery and was wounded various
times. He became a legend in his own right for things people could prove as
actually happening.
During this event with Speirs as depicted
in the series, a character called Don Malarkey, (who would later become a key
character), interacts with the German POWS before Speirs arrives. One of the
prisoners speaks with an American accent, and we learn a bit about those
Germans answered the call for all true Aryans to report to Germany in the early
1940s. The story for the series tells us that Malarkey and the German POW were
from the same state, and shared similar jobs before the war, not too far from
one another. This event did actually happen, but not at this place and not in
this point of time. Although the event wasn’t in Ambrose’s book, researchers
found out when re-interviewing the veterans before writing the scripts for the
series and decided to include it here. In the series we see Malarkey pass
Speirs after leaving the American/German POW, with Speirs heading in the
direction of the POWS. Malarkey turns around as he hears the sound of machine
gun fire.
In Ep3, many various men, including
Malarkey are talking about the event, each with their own version of what
happened, of what they have heard from someone who claims to have been there.
It is this scene which I feel the programme makers came unstuck, by putting two
events into one. If Malarkey had really have seen the POWS and then see Speirs
approaching them, then hear the machine gun go off, he would have been close
enough to have seen what really happened. However, he says in this piece, “I
didn’t actually see it”. The actual event is what elevated Speirs into what he
became amongst the men. It is a crucial anomaly within the history of the
company.
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It is one of the most ambiguous events
that occurred, whether or not he did shoot down those prisoners on D-Day, there
is no doubt that such an act today would be dealt with the utmost contempt,
leading to the harshest disciplinary action. In recent months (written in 2005)
there have been many cases of Allied troops mistreating POWS in Iraq, they have
caused much uproar in UK government, imagine an act such as the Speirs incident
happening today, it is unthinkable. In telling the story of what happened on
D-Day for a television audience, the programme makers neither, confirm or deny
the reports of what Speirs allegedly did. They were in no position to say for
sure whether such an act actually happened, it’s better to leave it for the
audience to make up their own minds, which in turn makes Speirs character even
more important in later episodes.
‘Carentan’ follows the men as they take
the town of the same name. We learn more about the leadership qualities and
bravery of characters such as ‘Winters’ and ‘Lipton‘, we see horrific injuries
to certain soldiers, the accurate shooting ability of the ‘Shifty Powers’
character, but most of all we see a clear victory for Easy Company, as they
push the Germans across the swamped fields and out of the town. During the
battle, the shots two and fro from character to character, we see Blithe who we
have followed throughout the episode so far, sunk against a wall during the
battle, frozen. A similar scene is in Spielberg’s ’Saving Private Ryan’, where a terrified soldier cannot face going
upstairs in a building where his comrade is having a knife struggle with a
German. Both instances, we are lead to believe the man is frozen through fear
and cowardice. Blithe slumps down and cries uncontrollably. The next scene in Band of Brothers is in an aid station,
where the main character of the series so far - Winters, is being treated for a
bullet ricochet wound, we learn that Blithe has suffered a black out, known as
hysterical blindness. After some reassuring words from Winters, Blithe can see
again. The reassurance given to him, calmed him down. It is a moving scene,
which really happened in real life, and that is unimaginable really. Winters
acts as a spur for Blithe in the later battle with the German counter attack in
the hedge row. Winters is the senior man in the company, he is not only in
charge, but he is one of the elder members. He has earned the respect of the
men over time, and we as an audience have already seen the courage and
compassion of the leading man. When Blithe starts screaming in a rage of terror
during the battle, Winters orders him to fire his weapon. It helps show the
audience that even the most terrified man can do his duty under fire. It
implies that not the men of the company are the brave heroes depicted, that
some men clearly don’t want to fight. However these events turn Blithe from a
terrified man into a hard soldier, he is no longer afraid of battle.
In an earlier scene Speirs adds to his own
mystery and fear factor when he tells Blithe that in order to function like a
soldier he needs to;
“realise that you’re already dead, that way you will be able to
function like a soldier should, without compassion, without remorse.”
Towards the end of the scene, we see Blithe
volunteering to take point (be the lead man) in approaching a farm house, where
he is shot by a sniper and we witness him fighting for life in a gruesome close
up of his wounds. At the end of the episode, on screen text informs us that
Blithe never recovered from his wounds and died in 1948.
This is untrue. Albert Blithe actually
survived the war, and went on to be a soldier as a career, he fought in Korea,
and was a veteran of over 600 combat jumps before his death in the late 1960’s. His family were shocked when they learnt that the series had
killed him before his time, and made him out to have been somewhat of a coward
initially. Veterans such as Guarnere and Malarkey reported in the years that came
that this was untrue, and that he had been a good soldier. It didn’t sit right
with them that he had been shown in this light.
This major fault on behalf of the series
was due to the fact that they had taken another veterans word as being the
truth, and hadn’t done any further research into the man. This makes the
episode have a major flaw. The fact that they had got a fact as death so wrong,
makes the educated viewer wonder what else they got wrong about characters not
mentioned too heavily in Ambrose’s book.
For a viewer watching the series without
any prior knowledge to events of the company, they believe everything depicted
in the series as being what really happened. But for those who know more about
the series, a flaw such as this leads to think that Spielberg’s speech at sparing
no cost to getting things right, has evaporated by only the third episode. This
alongside the Speirs incident, are two crucial points in showing the complexity
and ambiguities of such a magnitude of individual events in a conflict such as WW2.
Episode 6 - Bastogne
Most of the key characters in the series
played a major part in the book. However as I have stated previously there are
some characters in the book who do not feature in the series whatsoever. The
character we follow in Episode six, is a man who didn’t feature too heavily in
the book, yet gets a whole episode to show the audience to show the different
kinds of soldier within the war. Medic Eugene ‘Doc’ Roe, is a young man who is
depicted as being quite conservative insisting on calling everyone by their
first name, never their nick-name, a man who isn’t part of a group within the
company.
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| The medic - Eugene 'Doc' Roe |
He sits back and watches and thinks,
rather than get involved with the banter amongst the men. He is the character
that the men expect to be there if and when they get hit. After the war, many
veterans have heaped praise on the medics, the medics were unlikely to win many
battle field medals, yet were there to patch up the heroes. Many veterans
recall how the quick thinking of a medic saved their lives. The role of the
medic was a crucial part of any company within the war, and even though ’Doc
Roe’ wasn’t the main medic within Easy Company in real life, he is credited as
being a hero in his own right in the war due to how he is shown in this
episode.
The episode is set in the place where the
company became known as ’the Battered Bastards of Bastogne.’ They were
surrounded by enemy, with no supplies, no ammunition, little or no food, no
winter clothing, and in theory no chance of surviving. They faced constant
bombardment and shelling, living in frozen hastily dug foxholes to keep them
safe. This is where the company is believed to have united and really become ‘a
band of brothers,’ due to the things faced, the hardship, and the suffering of
the things the men went through together.
For an educated viewer, this episode is
flawed in various ways. There are things that the programme makers have added
to this episode to make sensationalised television. We are shown the one and
only positive female character to take action in the series, and give her a slight
moment of romance with one of the members of Easy Company. Renee Lamaire was a
French nurse, who helped in an aid station somewhere along the allied lines.
She was joined by a black nurse from the Congo, who along with army staff would
try to medically save the wounded men. These two women were real stories. The
fact that these two women were the only two positive females in the whole ten
episodes is quite interesting, especially as they were not in the vicinity of
Easy Company, and so the tender moments with Doc Roe could not have happened.
They have been put in the series, as they help give scope to what happened to
men in war. The wounded men would be seen by the nurses, who would give them
alcohol to ease the pain. The ‘Renee’ character, as I stated earlier has a
brief but significant moment of slight romance with ‘Doc Roe.’ There is moment
where the two characters question what God is doing during the war.
Doc Roe - “Your hands, they heal people, and that’s a gift from god”
Renee - “That’s not a gift, because god would not
give such a thing”
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| Michael Fassbender |
We later see Roe back at the church which
was being used as an Aid Station, which Renee was based at in the series. It
has been bombed and Roe looks in the rubble and finds the material which Renee
had been wearing on her head. For that split moment where we see Roe
reflecting, it is as if we see that Hollywood love story has taken over rather
than the reality of what happened.
The whole meeting between Roe and Renee was
fictional, they were not in the same vicinity and therefore never met, however
the chance for a brief romantic storyline convinced the series makers to
include this in the series. It acts a re-enforcer of moral issues, would Roe
dig for Renee and try to find this woman that he has met and grown to respect,
or would he return to his buddies. It showed the love was possible in war
times, but not always guaranteed to be successful.
Another major problem with this episode is
with a few of the lines of dialogue. There is a line said by the main character
of the series - Dick Winters, who is a Captain at this time in the story. He
says to acting General McAuliffe, who asks for a report
“We’ve been taking a lot of hits sir”
Before doing research for this essay, as
an uneducated viewer of this topic, I would have thought that what the Winters
character was saying was true, that these men where having it really tough, and
were having a lot of men getting hit. However, after researching the events, I
learnt that up until the point that this conversation is supposed to have
happened (22nd December 1944), Easy had been in the woods for two
weeks, and in reality had the fewest casualties out of any rifle company in the
506th PIR. Only one man killed and five wounded in two weeks doesn’t
represent huge losses in any part of the war. The next two weeks saw a lot more
casualties for Easy, including many key characters that we have seen in the
series so far, such as Guarnere, Muck, Penkala, Toye and Compton. But overall
they were not the company who suffered the most losses. This is interesting as
the series depicts what the company suffered as being terrible, but in reality
nearly all the other rifle companies suffered worse than they did during that
late December. The 501st PIR suffered a lot more than the 506th
PIR that Easy was a part of.
Another interesting part of this episode
was seeing the medic write ‘M’ (standing for Morphine) on the head of a wounded
man in his own blood. The usual practice was to pin the empty syrette on the
mans jacket so that any other medical personnel would see that he already has
been administered with however much morphine. The writing of ‘M’ on the
forehead is a lot more visually shocking. We get to see the look in the injured
man’s eyes, the look of possible impending death. It is a moment that will
serve as a strategy to visually shock the viewer.
‘Bastogne’ is an episode where we learn
more about the men as a unit, we say goodbye to established and key characters,
we see the eagerness of replacements, the knowledge gained by the veterans, and
the harsh environment the men were in. This could have and should have been
enough to drive the series forward, but still the series makers added fictional
elements to enhance the narrative for television.
Chapter 4 - Conclusion
When Band
of Brothers first aired, the date was September 9th 2001, and the show pulled in 10million
viewers for HBO and critical acclaim. Unbeknown to the programme makers, who
had chosen this date to premiere the show to the American nation, terrorists
would strike on American soil and shock the world, ushering the country into a
war on terror. The effect of ‘9/11’ would mean that the audience obtained
dropped from the shows opening night, the show was even mentioned as being
taken off of the air in light of the military offensive which would be coming.
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| Damian Lewis and Major Dick Winters |
As time passed, the world was ready to see
Band of Brothers in all its glory, it
started in the UK on BBC2, a channel were a riskier type of programme would be
shown within the BBC. A channel, which is considered to be more of a minority
and arts channel. The audience grew, and eventually the show was moved to BBC1.
Lorraine Heggessey who had commissioned the show for the BBC first thought that
it was not suitable for a BBC1 mainstream audience. This was a mistake on her
part.
Steven Spielberg’s response was -
“A tremendous compliment, we tried like hell not to make it
mainstream.”
It
has since had various re-runs in the U.K and the U.S, and to this day can still
be seen on channels such as ’The History
Channel’ and Sky Atlantic from time to time. It has gone on to raise over
$250million in DVD/Blue Ray sales.
After the attacks 9/11 in the U.S and the
attacks in London on July 7th, the allied world had again been in a
period where soldiers have been at battle away from home, representing their
countries. Many viewers have commented that by watching the series and learning
what types of activities soldiers in battle are faced with, alongside films and
programmes showing more contemporary battles, such as ’Black Hawk Down’ and ’Jarhead,’
we can not forget the sacrifice that these men and women are facing. By
watching people go out and fight a battle that they don’t really understand
fully, but doing their best under the harshest of environments, we learn to
appreciate what is happening to allied soldiers in the world today, whether it
be in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere in the world.
*In the years after this paper, Spielberg
and Hanks made another epic mini series – The
Pacific, following a similar way of story telling to Band of Brothers.*
Shows such as Band of Brothers, even with all of the unanswered questions and
ambiguities, encourage the audience to discuss the actions of the men that they
have seen on screen. Reading a book gives an imaginary idea of what happens,
but visual story telling really gets into the mind of the viewer. When reading
that a shell fell directly onto the fox hole, blowing the men into pieces, we
get a picture of something like that happening, but when it is presented on
screen, directly in front of our eyes, the men who we have just seen get
killed, stay in our memory. Unlike the book, the series allows us to actually
see the actor, as being the real man. The book doesn’t give us anything more
than a description of what the men looked like. Seeing the men in the foxhole,
being blown up, is far more shocking than just reading it. We have related with
that character, we have seen his transformation from new recruit going through
training, to be being a battle hardened veteran, willing to do anything for his
comrades and friends, it’s the notion of understanding that the re-enacted
event that you have just witnessed actually happened. The shock of witnessing
an event like that keeps the viewers attached to the series, they want to find
out what happens to the men in the end.
The past decade has seen a revival of
interest in World War Two, many new books have been published, many other
television series have aired, for example in Britain, the BBC four part series ‘Dunkirk.’ Band of Brothers author, Stephen Ambrose believed that this was
down to two factors. Firstly, the veterans themselves. He states;
 |
| Winters and Nixon from Episode 10. |
“Many are realizing that they don’t have much time left in the world,
and many, for the first time, are willing to talk about their experiences. As
young men just back from fighting, they didn’t want to think about the war. But
now, they realize their grandchildren are deeply interested in hearing those
stories, and if they don’t tell them, they’ll go to the grave with them."
And secondly, the fact that in America,
they didn’t seem to have time to reminisce about WW2, they had problems with
Vietnam, Civil rights movements, women’s rights issues etc. Now with the war on
terror, its more like what happened in Pearl Harbour, where the US was attacked
on its on ground, and ordinary men signed up to fight for their country.
“Young people are aware that were living in the freest and richest
nation that ever was, and we owe that to somebody. Where did this wealth and
these liberties come from? Thats the 180-degree turn in attitude about history
in this country. And World War II is the greatest event of the century that we
just passed through, and the answer to some of those questions."
Whether or not the fascination with WW2
will continue in years to come, when the last surviving veterans are no longer
with us, is unknown. But aslong as copies of the great WW2 films are still
available, the members of the public will still be able to get an insight into
what happened during the war, to ordinary people, who were just doing their
duty. Many of the events depicted might have been altered, or dramatised, but
the essence of what the war was about will still be clear for the new
Generation X audiences to see. Whether the events will shock them however is a
totally different question!
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