Filmrecension: Band of Brothers av Stephen Edward Ambrose

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"-Grandpa were you a hero in the war?
-No, but I served in a company of heros (Sic!)."


Band of Brothers - 2001

This is one of the strongest series I have ever seen.
From the first second it really grabs you and that is something war based movies seldom does to me.
It is based on a book written by Stephen Edward Ambrose and many interviews with some of the surviving soldiers from the Easy Company.
Stephen Ambrose and Tom Hanks met during the making of "Saving Private Ryan".

It is a series in 10 episodes and I will give a short résumé of each, one at the time. I will also try to give a short background on some of the persons we meet during the episodes. I will here choose the ones I remember for some reason. There are so many that it is impossible to give them all space.

But first a little background on the people and action behind the cameras.
It is directed by no less than six different people but for once the saying "too many cooks spoil the broth" is not true at all. Actually they sort of took one part each. As producers you find Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and as executive producer they choosed Stephen Ambrose himself. He died the year after due to lung cancer.

It was a huge operation to make this series come true. The actors had a real military training for two weeks. They trained for almost 16 hours a day and it all ended at the Royal Air Force Base where they jumped from the 40-foot jump tower and earned their wings.

The production demanded over 2000 extras, 700 weapons, 14,000 boxes of ammunition and 2000 German and American uniforms!


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Episode 1 - Currahee
Directed by Phil Alden Robinson. Written by Erik Jendresen and Tom Hanks.

From Toccoa, 1942 to some weeks before D-Day
In the first episode you meet a group of young men who all volunteered to go through a very hard military training. They came from very different backgrounds and from all parts of
U.S.A. The one thing that they all had in common was the desire to become Americas first regiment of Paratroopers. Among these men you find some that end up in the same company. Just to name some, you find Jim ''''Mo'''' Alley, Richard Winters, Albert Blithe, Bill Guarnere, Bull Randleman, Robert ''''Popeye'''' Wynn and Darrell ''''Shifty'''' Powers.
Their name becomes Easy Company.

Under the command of Lieutenant Herbert Sobel they are trained harder than all the rest with the result that this became the best company of them all. There is a conflict going on between the men and Lieutenant Sobel though. Especially you see the young Lt. Winters picking up the fight with him.

In the end of this episode the guys are shipped to England.


Episode 2 - Day of days
Directed by Richard Loncrain. Written by John Orloff.

6:th of June, 1944
It''''s D-Day.
The men are dropped in Normandy but due to heavy fire none of the men end up where they expected to.
Lt. Winters links up with some soldiers to find their units.

Winters is chosen to lead the first attack on German artillery and it is here he looses his first man.


Episode 3 - Carentan
Directed by Mikael Salomon. Written by E. Max Frye.

8:th of June, 1944
Two days after D-Day, Easy Company is sent to capture the town of Carentan.
Some of the members from Easy Company are still missing after D-Day. Among the missing is Albert Blithe who finds his unit just in time to help them with the capture of Carentan. They do succeed but with several casualties. Lt. Winters suffers a small leg wound and Blithe suddenly becomes blind. He is diagnosed "Hysterical blindness" but recovers fast. Later in the episode he is however shot and does not recover from the wound.

After three nasty weeks in France they return to England.
Their stay there becomes much shorter than they expected as the news comes out that they got to move again.


Episode 4 - Replacements
Directed by David Nutter. Written by Graham Yost and Bruce McKenna

17:th of September
The first replacement paratroopers join Easy Company.
Because they are new and didn''''t serve during D-Day the others give them a hard time.

Easy Company is now dropped in Holland which is occupied by Germany.
In the first village they met no resistance but Easy and some British tanks had to retreat after a meeting with a superior, German battalion.
The casualties are massive. ''''Bull'''' is left behind but with some help and luck he returns safely after a day.

The Allies original plan was to enter Germany through Holland and end the war just after Christmas.


Episode 5 - Crossroads
Directed by Tom Hanks. Written Erik Jendresen.

October, 1944
In this episode Winters is promoted to Battalion Executive Officer. He is not too pleased with his new, more administrative role and he is very worried about the new leader of Easy Company, Lt. ''''Moose'''' Heyliger. Heyliger is later shot by a nervous sentinel.

This is also where his last shot is fired, a young German soldier ends up in front of him and he shoots. This is something that will haunt him for quite some time.

Winters is sent to Paris for some days off and when he returns the Allied lines are threatened to be broken.
Easy Company takes the lead to see to that it won’t happen.
The companies are not really equipped neither to stand the cold weather, nor the heavy shooting in front of them.


Episode 6 - Bastogne
Directed by David Leland. Written by Bruce C. McKenna

December, 1944
This episode really was scary to see.
The voices of the surviving soldiers in the beginning made everything so real.

Easy Company is desperately trying to hold the line.
Not having clothes that fit the extreme cold they are facing in combination with the scarcity of food, makes the men very vulnerable.
Together they manage to hold the line but the lost of many friends makes this one of the hardest parts of the war.

During this episode the only love story takes place. Eugene Roe, a young medic, meets a Bulgarian nurse. They share some words and chocolate, but it all ends with a big bomb.

The Germans demand that they surrender, a demand that gets one word for reply:
"Nuts!"


Episode 7 - The breaking point
Directed by David Frankel. Written by Graham Yost

After weeks in Bastogne, Easy is now in a town called Foy.
They are tired and the moral is not too high.
Carwood Lipton tries to hold the company together but it is hard. It gets even harder after both Joe Toye and Bill Guarnere, two Easy veterans, loose a leg each. The leader of Easy, Lt. Norman Dike further breaks down the moral due to his incompetence. Lipton tries to warn Capt. Winters but there is nothing he can do. It''''s not until Dike totally freezes up during an attack that Winters sends in someone to relive him. This someone is Lt. Spies who in this episode stands for one of the most incredible actions taken in the whole series. He runs from one side to the other, right trough enemy lines, not taking one shot.


Episode 8 - The patrol
Directed by Tony Tod. Written by Erik Bork.

For the first time in a long time the soldiers actually sleeps pretty well. They have houses, beds, food and a river between them and the Germans.
They are asked to cross the river to take some German prisoners. They do this and loose one more paratrooper.
This lost makes Capt. Winters disobey the order of another patrol the next night.


Episode 9 - Why we fight
Directed by David Frankel. Written by John Orloff.

Easy enters Germany.
The enemy is giving them no resistance at all.
They take the opportunity to relax for the first time since England.

They head out to another German town and Capt. Winters sends out a patrol into the woods.
Here is when they find the first concentration camp. This scene is strong in so many ways. The faces of the soldiers not really understanding what this is and later the faces of the villagers denying any knowledge of the camp.


Episode 10 - Points
Directed by Mikael Salomon. Written by Erik Bork.

The end of the war.
First they take the eagles nest, then they move on to Zell am See.
Until the news of the Japanese surrender, they are waiting for the final order to leave Europe and head for Pacific, but during a baseball game Maj. Winters give the men the happy news.
War is over.

In the end of the episode, we learn what happened to the guys after the war.



My thoughts

I have been thinking about these episodes a lot after seeing them all.
What makes it so great is mainly the lack of romance. So many movies and books about not only World War II but almost all wars try to find heroes and try to make them look better than everybody else. In ''''Band of Brothers'''' (BoB) everybody and no-one is a hero. "We stand alone together" they say. War is something bad and BoB doesn’t try to make it something else. It''''s more of a documentary to show us what happened and above all the friendship among these men. How it after a while is not about "America vs. Germany" but us against them, them being the guys that killed "my friends".
I found it hard to understand that soldiers who were o...