05-07-2013, 06:21 PM
Thanks Anthony.
The stuff about Hanks that I unearthed was almost as interesting as the stuff on Bugliosi.
This is where the McBride book on Spielberg came in handy.
See, these two guys were really outsiders growing up. From Joseph's book, in Spielberg's case it was because he felt ashamed to be Jewish, and Hanks because of his fractured family.
When they became successful, they wanted to be insiders. And they did.
I mean, everyone, like Bugliosi, pummels Stone for using too much dramatic license in JFK.
But how many people know that Saving Private Ryan is demonstrably 95% bullshit. The character played by Hanks, who is really the protagonist, never even existed. And there was no platoon organized to search for Ryan, and his name was not Ryan.
Did Bugliosi ever attack that film? Did George Lardner? Did the NY Times and LA Times and Time and Newsweek ever scream, "Why Spielberg's film cannot be trusted?"
Nope. Because Hanks and Spielberg play the game well. And their film is in the good old war picture genre that glorifies American efforts in Europe to liberate the continent from the Nazis.
See, someone like Stone doesn't see it that way. In his series The Untold History of the United States, he tells the truth: It was not America that defeated the Nazis and rolled back their European empire. It was the Russians. It wasn't Eisenhower who should be the hero of WW 2, its Zhukov, the brilliant Russian general who organized the defense of Moscow and defeated the Nazis at Stalingrad. That battle, begun 2 years before Spielberg's D Day, was the real turning point of the war. And that is why France was so weakly defended in 1944. Because Hitler lost so many men and tanks on the Russian front, where over 80% of the Wehrmacht was located. So not only is the Hanks-Spielberg film BS unto itself, its also not the truth in the gestalt.
I will have a lot more to say about this in the book.
The stuff about Hanks that I unearthed was almost as interesting as the stuff on Bugliosi.
This is where the McBride book on Spielberg came in handy.
See, these two guys were really outsiders growing up. From Joseph's book, in Spielberg's case it was because he felt ashamed to be Jewish, and Hanks because of his fractured family.
When they became successful, they wanted to be insiders. And they did.
I mean, everyone, like Bugliosi, pummels Stone for using too much dramatic license in JFK.
But how many people know that Saving Private Ryan is demonstrably 95% bullshit. The character played by Hanks, who is really the protagonist, never even existed. And there was no platoon organized to search for Ryan, and his name was not Ryan.
Did Bugliosi ever attack that film? Did George Lardner? Did the NY Times and LA Times and Time and Newsweek ever scream, "Why Spielberg's film cannot be trusted?"
Nope. Because Hanks and Spielberg play the game well. And their film is in the good old war picture genre that glorifies American efforts in Europe to liberate the continent from the Nazis.
See, someone like Stone doesn't see it that way. In his series The Untold History of the United States, he tells the truth: It was not America that defeated the Nazis and rolled back their European empire. It was the Russians. It wasn't Eisenhower who should be the hero of WW 2, its Zhukov, the brilliant Russian general who organized the defense of Moscow and defeated the Nazis at Stalingrad. That battle, begun 2 years before Spielberg's D Day, was the real turning point of the war. And that is why France was so weakly defended in 1944. Because Hitler lost so many men and tanks on the Russian front, where over 80% of the Wehrmacht was located. So not only is the Hanks-Spielberg film BS unto itself, its also not the truth in the gestalt.
I will have a lot more to say about this in the book.