The difference is, Crash didn't have any expectations to hurt. TIme and time again people were referring to this as THE frontrunner. That group that has "meh"ed at it could prove fatal (Or near fatal, ala Munich).

'Flags' cheered at academy premiere

It looked like triumphant V-J Day at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences tonight.

The official premiere of "Flags of Our Fathers" was held at Oscar headquarters in Beverly Hills just hours after the first reviews came out — mostly raves so far. At the end of the screening, director/ producer/ music composer Clint Eastwood descended the staircase into the academy lobby like a conquering hero as he mingled with excited pals, colleagues, coworkers and guests at the after-party that's just now winding now. I scooted early so I could get back to The Envelope to give you this report.

And what a fete it was! Adam Beach and costars looked joyous as they partied and ate like hungry soldiers wolfing down lemongrass chicken, tuna tostada and rosemary-skewered jumbo shrimp -- oh, yeah, and whatever liquid delights they desired from the 4 or 5 bars set up to accommodate the 1,000 attendees.

Early word doesn't suggest at all that this will be a film that gets bad enough reviews to not be nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, especially with Letters said to be quality, too. It's not something that I see winning for a variety of reasons. Would have to be considered a UNIVERSAL masterpiece for Clint to get anymore love. The rating at RT is slightly manipulated at 6.8, as Poland looks to have went a little overboard. It's rating would have to be in the 8.5 level for this to pull it off, and I really don't see it being quite that high. It's bound to suffer a bit from unmet expectations that make the viewer grade it harsher than it deserves. There are so many obstacles that would have to be hurdled. Everything would have to go perfect. Maybe they'll give Eastwood something for the score?

Flags Of Our Fathers
Brent Simon in Los Angeles
11 October 2000

Dir: Clint Eastwood. US. 2006. 131mins.

Rarely do words as stark as “heroism” get parsed in film-making - but that’s just what Clint Eastwood’s World War II feature Flags Of Our Fathers does. A diffuse and demanding picture that, as with most Eastwood films, takes a while to find its stride, it should nevertheless see good upscale market business, as well as make a deep critical footprint that will ensure awards consideration.

But mainstream domestic box-office appeal (it opens at home from Oct 20) on a par with Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, Eastwood’s last two directorial films, which each rang up $90-£100m domestically and took several Oscars apiece, is not necessarily a given.

Nominally the film tells of the bloody fight between the US and Japanese forces for the Pacific island of Iwo Jima in 1945, and the events surrounding the iconic image of six soldiers hoisting an American flag. But in many ways Flags Of Our Fathers is also a de facto examination of battle-bred guilt and state-sanctioned manipulation and exploitation of image. Jumping indistinctly to and fro in time, it commingles bloody action and more conjectural passages in a manner that might induce fatigue in more restless multiplex crowds.

Despite the Eastwood name, prospects overseas are additionally hard to fix (it rolls out through October, November and December after opening the Tokyo International Film Festival on Oct 21), given that such a uniquely American image - the inspiration for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia - is at the core of the film’s inquiry into the machinations and complicity of media in war.

It’s also of significant note that Flags Of Our Fathers has a companion piece in the form of the concurrently shot Letters From Iwo Jima — which tells the events of the same siege from the Japanese perspective, and will see domestic release early next year 2007— further suggesting that this is a particularly canted narrative that will see its best returns Stateside.

Regardless, catalogue and ancillary value will be high, as the film continues Eastwood’s measured, thoughtful twilight renaissance.

On the awards front, Eastwood is a beloved figure especially among AMPAS voters and could garner support for another Oscar nod, possibly pitting him again against Martin Scorsese (The Departed), who he beat out two seasons ago for best director.

Cinematographer Tom Stern’s work behind the camera, meanwhile, similarly seems a shoe-in for Academy recognition. Of the cast, Adam Beach is a legitimate runner: other nominations could follow if the film enjoys (likely) early critical support throughout the autumn, smoothing a path for commercial success.

Flags Of Our Fathers opens with what could be construed as a pointed indictment of America’s current geopolitical morass and those that led its charge, as a gruff line of narration explains that “Every jackass thinks he knows what war is - especially those who’ve never been in one.”

It soon becomes clear, though, that Eastwood’s movie is a combat film by only half, and the old “war is hell” drumbeat isn’t necessarily part of the main narrative agenda here.

A mock flag-planting in the middle of a crowded stadium introduces three soldiers before the narrative then flashes back to just before the battle of Iwo Jima. Under the leadership of Sergeant Mike Strank (Pepper), we meet John “Doc” Bradley (Phillippe), a respected Navy corpsman medic; message runner Rene Gagnon (Bradford); and infantryman Ira Hayes (Beach), a stoic Native American with a propensity for freezing up in battle.

The bloody beachhead siege ensues, along with more Stateside scenes of what happens several weeks and months later. With governmental financial strictures much worse than most of the public knows, Doc, Rene and Ira - the only survivors from the six flag raisers - are called upon to take part in a war bond fundraising tour across the US. With Keyes Beech (John Benjamin Hickey) as their handler, they take to the streets, ballparks, ballrooms and town halls of America, even as they resist being labeled heroes.

Their reticence is well founded, it turns out. Though visually ennobling, the famed image is actually a snapshot taken on the fifth day of what would eventually be a 40-day battle; it’s also the second flag to be raised, after the first was taken down at the behest of a general.

Of course, none of that matters to the hard-charging Bud Gerber (Slattery), who presses Doc, Rene and Ira to do their civic duty. It’s weathered, incidental mundanity repackaged as valour, even if the young men are all steadfastly honorable about citing their peers, fallen and still fighting, as the real heroes.

Though not a prima donna, Gagnon embraces these newfound conditions status most readily, while Doc for the most part keeps quiet. Ira, though, regards the proceedings as a farce, and quickly and increasingly uses alcohol as a crutch to get him through events — fundraising dinners where strawberry sauce is dribbled on molded white chocolate delicacies of the flag-raising — and the indignity of the casual racism to which he is nearly constantly subjected.

Eastwood’s characteristic direction — with its unembellished style and perfunctory set-ups — drains affect or overt emotionalism from most of the performances. But Adam Beach manages to really make an impression as Ira, as he convincingly conveys the swallowed weight of the torturous conflict he feels. He’s done and seen things in war of which he’s not proud, but, like Rene and Doc, is told to put on a public face, if only to honor them. Ira’s the least suited to do this, and his self-destructiveness — both in the broader context of his increasing drunkenness and writ more subtly across his pained face — is compellingly rendered.

Eschewing a more straightforward and seductive dramatic arc, co-screenwriters William Broyles Jr and Paul Haggis use author James Bradley’s source book as a wraparound device for the movie, inserting scenes of him (played by Tom McCarthy) interviewing several of his father Doc’s fellow servicemen to learn more about his exploits and the events surrounding the flag raising. But these passages are backloaded and suffused with a timidity at odds with much of the rest of the feature, and they give the audience three discrete time periods with which to deal, which can be a problem for the movie.

Additionally, some of the editing and many of its points of intercutting feel somewhat arbitrary and disrupt its flow. Eastwood and editor Joel Cox seem caught midway between a more traditionally bifurcated tale with flashback elements and a more mosaic, impressionistic style, flush with vignettes of indeterminate time or location.

But technically, Flags Of Our Fathers scores high. The easiest point of comparison for the carnage of the battle sequences is co-producer Steven Spielberg’s storming of the beaches of Normandy in Saving Private Ryan, which had both a more natural order and emotional component to its jumbledness. With these scenes shot on Iceland, cinematographer Tom Stern captures black sand kicking in every direction, and delivers a monochromatic look in which only the occasional punch of blood is allowed to puncture washed-out hues of brown, grey, black and olive.

As a composer, Eastwood’s simple, spare score is not overly plaintive per se, but nevertheless quite evocative.

As a composer, Eastwood’s simple, spare score is not overly plaintive per se, but nevertheless quite evocative.