Eastwood to Make Two Films About Iwo Jima

Via Ace, Clint Eastwood is in the process of making a movie about Iwo Jima. Seems that there is some concern by him that Eastwood might be waxing PC over this attempt:

Eastwood says he wants to tell the story from "both sides" and apparently views the battle largely through the prism of tragedy. Well, certainly, all those American deaths were tragic (as were those of the Japanese); but again, it seems that this will largely be an anti-war war movie.

That's not really all that surprising, even from Clint Eastwood. Maybe Eastwood is just saying all this because he wants to shoot on location and needs to appease the island's anti-American governor; and of course it's hard to do a movie about a battle which took the lives of 7000 Marines and not sound a mournful note. You really make a movie about the violent deaths of 7000 Marines the feel-good roller-coaster ride of the summer.

I don't know.

Actually, Clint Eastwood is making two films:

"You're probably already a bit familiar with master filmmaker Clint Eastwood's upcoming project, "Flags of Our Fathers," but Time Magazine brings us a fascinating new wrinkle on the story. Seems that Mr. Eastwood is not content with helming just one movie; he now plans to direct "Lamps Before the Wind," which will tell the WWII story from the Japanese point of view, while "Flags" will deal focus on the American perspective.

A rather excellent article by longtime Eastwood colleague Richard Schickel begins like so:

"Sometime this month in Chicago, Clint Eastwood will complete principal photography on his latest movie, Flags of Our Fathers. It's the 26th feature film he has directed since he made Play Misty for Me in 1971. And just as he has done before ("The Bridges of Madison County," "Mystic River"), he is basing it on a best-selling book. But this movie is different from all the others that he or anyone else has directed, for Flags is only half the story he wants to tell.

The book, by James Bradley and Ron Powers, recounts the ultimately tragic tale of six young U.S. Marines who happened to raise a huge American flag atop Mount Suribachi in the midst of the great battle for Iwo Jima during World War II, of how an Associated Press photographer squeezed off what he thought was a routine shot of them doing so that became an iconic image, of what happened to some of those kids (only three survived the next few days of battle) when they were hustled home to be heedlessly exploited by the U.S. government to raise civilian morale and, incidentally, sell billions of dollars' worth of war bonds. That story, rich in darkly ambiguous nuance, would have been more than enough to preoccupy Eastwood's attention for a couple of years.

But when Eastwood tried to buy the rights, he discovered that Steven Spielberg already had them, and so he moved on instead to "Million Dollar Baby." Then, backstage at the 2004 Academy Awards (at which his "Mystic River" was a multiple nominee), Eastwood encountered Spielberg, and before the evening was out, they agreed to a "Flags" co-production, with Eastwood directing. Shortly thereafter, the project began to elicit an uncommon, almost obsessive, interest from its director. He has not often attempted fact-based movies, and he had never undertaken one that contained such huge combat scenes. He began to read more widely and deeply on the subject. And he began talking to both American and Japanese veterans of Iwo Jima, which remains the bloodiest engagement in Marine Corps history and the one for which the most Congressional Medals of Honor were awarded (27). As for the Japanese, only about 200 out of 22,000 defending soldiers survived. At some point in his research, Eastwood realized that he had to find a way to tell both sides of the story--"not in the "Tora! Tora! Tora!" way, where you cut back and forth between the two sides," he says, "but as separate films.""

For the rest of the article (which is definitely worthy of a read), head on over to Time Magazine's website and bask in the warm glow of Clint Eastwood's unstoppable commitment to quality filmmaking. (Hey, I'm a fan.)"

Sounds like Eastwood is doing anything but making a series of PC films.

So why the second film from the Japanese perspective? I'm not sure we know specifically yet, but I think that a movie told from the perspective of the side which only had 200 survivors out of 22,000 is an incredibily interesting story, and if done correctly, could produce an unbelievable film.

Naturally I'd rather Clint do this film than Oliver Stone, who would show the American invaders as the butchers versus the innocent primitives.

But, the first film Flags of Our Fathers, looks to be a Band of Brothers type angle towards the Battle of Iwo Jima, in that it is a narrative told through the perspective of a handful of men.