The Pacific, ep. 8: Iwo Jima
Mar. 13th, 2023 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerRecently I watched episode 8 of The Pacific, a 10-part miniseries about WWII on HBO Max. The episode is entitled "Iwo Jima" and chronicles the major battle there between US Marines and the Japanese Army in 1945. The series originally aired in 2010.
Medal of Honor recipient John Basilone reenters the plot in Iwo Jima. He's tired of hucking war bonds and partying with Hollywood starlets and asks to return to war. "That's the spirit that makes me proud to be a Marine," the general says as he assigns him to train the next wave of marine recruits at Camp Pendleton before deploying with them to the Pacific.
While at Pendleton Basilone meets, woos, and then marries Sgt. Lena Riggi. He and his unit are then sent to Iwo Jima. In the brutal melee at Iwo Jima his guidance helps numerous inexperienced Marines survive and return fire, but as he runs back and forth giving orders to different units he is hit by enemy gunfire and dies on the beach.
Basilone's death is meant to be a major emotional moment in the series. That's obvious from how long they run reaction shots of horrified looks on his men's faces. The thing is, for me, the scene was emotionally a dud. Basilone was out of the story for too many episodes in the series to really feel invested in him now. And getting killed in action was anticlimactic because simply so many soldiers were getting killed. It was kind of like, "We just watched 500 people get mowed down. One had a name."
As with most of the episodes in this miniseries, the fighting depicted in this episode is brutal. The Marines are under nearly constant fire from machine guns, artillery, or both as they struggle to wrest control of this tiny island— "Only 8 square miles," the narrator notes at the beginning— from the Japanese. If you're triggered by watching people get mangled by guns and explosions, don't watch this episode. Actually, don't watch this whole series. 😧
One... odd... thing about Iwo Jima is that the writers don't include a scene of possibly the most iconic thing from that WWII military campaign, the raising of the US flag there. You may not know it by the name Iwo Jima (the full name is Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima) but if you've studied WWII history at all you've probably seen this classic photograph made by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press:
(Link on picture is to Wikipedia page about it.)
A sculpture based on this photograph was commissioned as the US Marine Corps War Memorial and placed in Arlington National Cemetery. Replicas of it are also placed at the entrance to some Marine Corps bases, such as Quantico and Parris Island. The image has been reproduced in countless works of civic art, as well, including commemorative coins and postage stamps.
All I can figure is that as indelible as this image is in 20th century US history, the writers felt it's so overdone that it wouldn't make sense to include it. OTOH, I think it would have made the emotional climax that the writers failed to achieve in the spoiler I mentioned above. I know I would have choked up watching a portrayal of soldiers raising that flag after watching so many of their comrades dying to make it possible.
Medal of Honor recipient John Basilone reenters the plot in Iwo Jima. He's tired of hucking war bonds and partying with Hollywood starlets and asks to return to war. "That's the spirit that makes me proud to be a Marine," the general says as he assigns him to train the next wave of marine recruits at Camp Pendleton before deploying with them to the Pacific.
While at Pendleton Basilone meets, woos, and then marries Sgt. Lena Riggi. He and his unit are then sent to Iwo Jima. In the brutal melee at Iwo Jima his guidance helps numerous inexperienced Marines survive and return fire, but as he runs back and forth giving orders to different units he is hit by enemy gunfire and dies on the beach.
Basilone's death is meant to be a major emotional moment in the series. That's obvious from how long they run reaction shots of horrified looks on his men's faces. The thing is, for me, the scene was emotionally a dud. Basilone was out of the story for too many episodes in the series to really feel invested in him now. And getting killed in action was anticlimactic because simply so many soldiers were getting killed. It was kind of like, "We just watched 500 people get mowed down. One had a name."
As with most of the episodes in this miniseries, the fighting depicted in this episode is brutal. The Marines are under nearly constant fire from machine guns, artillery, or both as they struggle to wrest control of this tiny island— "Only 8 square miles," the narrator notes at the beginning— from the Japanese. If you're triggered by watching people get mangled by guns and explosions, don't watch this episode. Actually, don't watch this whole series. 😧
One... odd... thing about Iwo Jima is that the writers don't include a scene of possibly the most iconic thing from that WWII military campaign, the raising of the US flag there. You may not know it by the name Iwo Jima (the full name is Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima) but if you've studied WWII history at all you've probably seen this classic photograph made by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press:
(Link on picture is to Wikipedia page about it.)
A sculpture based on this photograph was commissioned as the US Marine Corps War Memorial and placed in Arlington National Cemetery. Replicas of it are also placed at the entrance to some Marine Corps bases, such as Quantico and Parris Island. The image has been reproduced in countless works of civic art, as well, including commemorative coins and postage stamps.
All I can figure is that as indelible as this image is in 20th century US history, the writers felt it's so overdone that it wouldn't make sense to include it. OTOH, I think it would have made the emotional climax that the writers failed to achieve in the spoiler I mentioned above. I know I would have choked up watching a portrayal of soldiers raising that flag after watching so many of their comrades dying to make it possible.
