Big Hollywood’s Reverse-Rick-Arc
by John Nolte
In Doug TenNapel’s look at how politics undermine the enjoyment of modern day films, he writes:
…when a new trailer is released that takes place during the Iraq War[,] I turn to my wife and whisper, “Don’t tell me; it’s about a gung-ho soldier who wants to fight for the good cause of America then sees enough friendly fire and slaughtered children to gain a conscience that the whole war is a lie for oil.”
Don’t we all.
It wasn’t always like this. In fact, it was just the opposite. When we meet Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine he’s selfishly all about Rick and using a shattered heart as an excuse to stay cynically neutral in a war against evil.
Then Ingrid Bergman walks in.
But the love story in “Casablanca” is a head feint. At heart, Julius and Philip Epstein’s masterful script isn’t about Rick and Ilsa, it’s about a man getting over himself and realizing there’s something happening in the world more important than him – more important than “the problems of three little people.” Before the fade, Rick loses his cynicism and gives up the thing he loves most to re-join the fight.
In our current war against evil, Big Hollywood has embraced the Reverse-Rick-Arc which strives for an effect much more insidious than just a tired, lazy cliché that gives away most of the plot before it begins. Over the last few years, in most every film involving sand and a firearm, the goal has been to put the audience on the side of the protagonist and as his or her belief in country and the war is undermined so too (Big Hollywood hopes) is ours. The end result has been at least a dozen embarrassingly bad films with a 100% flop rate.
William Wellman’s timeless “Battleground” (1949) is another example of how Classic Hollywood handled themes of country and self-sacrifice in both a much more complicated and creatively interesting way (not to mention, morally defensible).
Set during WWII’s Battle of Bugle, “Battleground” follows a small patrol of soldiers lost in the literal and figurative fog of war. As conditions worsen, food runs out, and the enemy closes in, the men become increasingly bitter and disillusioned. They start to question what it’s all about and accuse the military of abandoning them.
Big Hollywood would close on this note, leaving our heroes angry at their country and cannon fodder for a worthless fight for an America no better than the enemy. Just before the climax, however, “Battleground” handles its characters growing (and realistic) cynicism with this:
Hollywood used to be great.
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15 Comments
Buy the DVD, LOLA – it is worth it.
Growing up, my Dad would always talk about what a great film Battleground was. How realistic.
I never got a chance to see it until years later, after I had joined and left the Army myself.
And I can say without a doubt that my father was right about Battleground.
Underrated, and often ignored, Masterpiece.
There is an old Army saying to keep in mind while watching Battleground; "The time to be worried is when your men stop complaining"
Excellent clip.
The payoff line:
"We must never again let any force dedicated to a super race, or a super idea, or a super anything, become strong enough to impose itself upon a free world. We must be smart enough and tough enough in the beginning, to put out the fire before it starts spreading."
made me think of some "Super Ideas" that are floating around today; most notably health care for everyone, and stopping global warming.
Hollywood is paying the price for their militant stance, fueled by the Marxian tactic of presenting socialist realism in their “art.” People hate it. Liberals hate it, because they just want to be entertained and provided with two sides of a story, too, whether they’d admit it or not. It’s human nature to want that.
I just ordered the film from Amazon. I’ll have it on Tuesday. That clip is amazing. Thanks, John…and Hobbiehawk.
This video also captures the purity and the faith of the army Chaplains. The trust and the comfort that I felt for them was reinforced by how sincerely and respectfully they could administer to all of us even though we knew that they were of a particular church, it was an experience in the unity of the greater message.
For a some men it also is comforting to know that your minister is a man that has been around and knows that your faith lives in a hard, masculine world that challenges you in ways that not all civilian ministers might be able to relate to.
It was nice to to look at a Rabbi with paratrooper wings on his chest for example and know that he was truly a part of your religious leadership that you could depend on in a pinch, even though as a Christian, in civilian life you may not even ever meet a rabbi, much less know him as one of your ministers.
Battleground is a much underrated classic.
I took my family to Ireland 2 summers ago. We made the trip over to Colleville-sur-Mer to see the grave of my great uncle who died in the second wave on June 6th 1944.
Somewhat to my surprise, nearly 13 year old son was awed, (for those of you without children, it is very difficult to “awe” teenagers
.
He and I went to the grave and he laid a buckeye and a red carnation (both symbols of Ohio, where my family is from.) He asked me if I knew much about my great uncle and I told him, sadly, that I didn’t. He was a 19 year old farm kid from southern Ohio, the youngest of 9. 3 of his older brothers served in the military during the WWII, all came home alive.
What prompted me to tell this story here was your comment:
…”and gives up the thing he loves most to re-join the fight”
As I said I didn’t know much about my great uncle. I know that he had a sweetheart at home who he was planning to marry and he loved the Cincinnati Reds. He gave those 2 things, and many more, up to go and die on a cold beach 5000 miles from home.
As I stood on that cliff and looked over the memorials to almost 10,000 Americans who died there in a few days, (compared to the 5000 military who have died in Iraq in 6 years) I wondered then, as I do now, does the United States have the kind of will needed to fight another enemy that wishes our complete and total destruction?
The most profound part of the day for me was as we were leaving, son looked at me and said :” Most of them weren’t much older than me.”
I told him that was true, and asked him what he thought about that. He shrugged his shoulders and said ” Well, America had to do something. Hitler had to be stopped. I guess it’s like that plaque you have on your wall says. ” All evil requires is for good men to do nothing”
My son wears a set of dog tags with his great uncles name on them to this day. He’s expressed interest in going to the Air Force Academy when he graduates college. So,John, at least in this small corner of the Midwest, Big Hollywood continues to fail to persuade that America is the universal bad guy.
SMJ, thanks so much for sharing your experience.
I actually got a bit choked up at that scene. The simple, matter-of-factness, and the knowing acceptance, with which the truth was spoken. Truth which would be derided these days by the Ward Churchills and the rest of the “enlightened” class.
Shared values that are all but gone from our wonderful country.
The thing that got me was the reaction to the “let’s all pray in our own way.” Some knelt, some stood, some took hats off, some kept hats on. But ALL prayed and ALL shared in common the goal of defending freedom from fascism, the notion that America and its values were worth fighting for.
In other societies and times, Lutherans, Catholics, Jews, the irreligious, etc. shunned, persecuted, killed each other. But, in America, they all ‘pray in their own way’ together, in pursuit of a shared goal, in defense of shared values.
Every so often I see something that reminds me to marvel at America, at the idea that is America. Today, this was it.
Can’t say enough God Bless America and the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces.
P.S. When President Obama says “Our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint,” he is speaking a profound untruth which utterly and completely misunderstands evil in this world. Our security emanates from our military and those willing to sacrifice for America – it gives us the luxury of walking justly and of being humble and restrained in the face of tyrants.
The abolition of slavery was a ‘just cause’, but were the slaves secure because their cause was just? Surely, Neville Chamberlain’s “cause was just”, surely he was retrained and humble and was providing a forceful ‘example’ of peace – but did that make Western Europe secure from Hitler? To modify T. Roosevelt, one must speak softly, ‘walk justly’, ‘provide a good example’ and carry a BIG ASS STICK.
Not to worry, there’s hope! (per se)
I just saw a screening of “The Hurt Locker” this week and can gladly report that, besides being the most tense thriller I’ve seen in years, it is entirely free of political commentary. Just a dead-honest portrayal of what our guys overseas have to deal with on a daily basis.
The all-Liberal audience I saw it with even burst into applause at the end.
Dirty Harry –
Part of what makes Hollywood so anti-American and anti-Military is the huge influence of women and gays. if you are either, the military and indeed patriotism hold little appeal to you. War and shared sacrifice take power away from female and gay concerns and channel it into male ones, particularly the men on the front lines doing the fighting, the dying, the killing, and the suffering.
No one needs a feminist critique of the patriarchy during war-time, nor gay rights, nor any of the other things that give considerable social, cultural, and political power.
ANY War will do that, so women and gays as a group oppose ANY depiction of the honor and nobility of the fighting American men who make up the front lines. Instead portraying it as a total lie and con.
Once you understand the cultural shifts in this country as following the pattern of social winners and losers, things become clear. Soldiers are dupes or bigoted killing machines and morons, because to portray them as noble threatens the world of Gray’s Anatomy and Milk.
I heard Richard D. interviewed a few months and honestly, he sounded like he was on his way to senility, I mean he made no sense whatsoever.
Perhaps that explains his forgetting his lines.
That’s Leon Ames, the fine character actor, as the chaplain. His best-known role was as Judy Garland’s dad in in ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’.
Thanks, Mr. N., for the analysis and the clip.
I always thought the Battle of the Bulge episodes of ‘Band of Brothers’ were the best and most moving of the series.
I am wracking my brain trying to remember the last Hollywood film featuring a man of God as something other than a nutty fanatic or a secret pervert. When was the last Hollywood film that portrayed a preacher or priest like the man in this clip, a straight up, thoughtful, decent man?
“At heart, Julius and Philip Epstein’s masterful script isn’t about Rick and Ilsa, it’s about a man getting over himself and realizing there’s something happening in the world more important than him – more important than “the problems of three little people.”
How true!
I highly recommend the less heralded Bogie war movie, “Sahara”, whose main character epitomizes selflessness in the face of bigger things. Guaranteed to make you proud to be an American; absolutely wonderful on every level.
“I am wracking my brain trying to remember the last Hollywood film featuring a man of God as something other than a nutty fanatic or a secret pervert. When was the last Hollywood film that portrayed a preacher or priest like the man in this clip, a straight up, thoughtful, decent man?”
Gran Torino. Certainly not the embodiment of the everyman, nor the solution to all of our problems. But honest, sincere, humble, and respectful.
Your point is well taken. Organized religion has committed many sins. I shutter to think of the sins that would have occurred with it.
I ask myself the same thing about Hollywood’s take on our soldiers.
“We Were Soldiers”
“Tears of the Sun”
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