Like Saving Private Ryan Band of Brothers is primarily aimed at an US market feeding and feeding on US idea's about the war. The US cast is lifelike but all others are stereotypes. Band of Brothers has a more realistic outlook but this doesn't make it more true.
"You should see this." A friend of mine told me, knowing my interest in warfare and in particular World War II. So I did.
I think Band of Brothers is a mixed bag. The episodes range from the great to the indifferent. The attack on the German battery is really great stuff. Some episodes are just plain boring, with long stretches that almost nothing seems to happen, except for the main characters just babbling along. Some are just plain unbelievable:the Ardennes episode has a moment that the main character has an 'almost' love scene. Okay, so there is this really beautiful young single Belgian woman located in Bastogne surrounded by lot's and lot's of young American soldiers and she has a romantic moment with a soldier that just came in from the front? Nice also that she is able to talk English in an area that is French mostly. A bit contrived to say the least.
Some episodes are just plain wrong. There is this scene during the Market Garden episode that an English armored column moves up. Some of the US Airborne warn them that there is tiger-tank hiding behind a building in a haystack. The English tank commander says something like, "I can't see it" and orders his tank forward. The tiger then moves up and whacks the tank. This is the totality of the English role in this episode. I blushed with shame at this scene. This was just a plain lie. First thing: there were no tigers in the area the us airborne operated. The tigers where collected in separate units that where usually at the disposal of a corps. Invariably this was an armored corps. The only unit in Holland that could have possessed them was the II SS panzer-corps which operated between Arnhem and Nijmegen. However this corps had been badly mauled during it's retreat from France. It was therefore ordered to refit and hand over it's assets to other armored unit's including it's remaining tiger tanks.
We can of course assume the movie maker took some liberty to make the scene more interesting and in reality it was another kind of tank. But even then I think you might really think twice to display such a inept move on the part of the English. It might be that an US Airborne told this story, but I doubt that it was true the way it was told. Some disliked the English, so in their idea this dumb move could well have been done by them. Then, after telling and retelling the story, what could have been, had happened because it makes such a nice story to tell.
In addition much of the US airborne where convinced that if they had been dropped at Arnhem, then there would have been a greater change of success. I think this to be a valid point. (the us where more aggressive, more experienced as compared this particular UK airborne unit and more willing to take risks(like dropping nearer to the Arnhem bridge)). The idea that the English were not up to scratch was fueled by this idea and so the idea that English made mistakes(and the US did not). Contrastingly, there is an proved incident of an English tank unit which supported the US airborne in counter attacks with great success during Market Garden(I think the tank-crew got an American award for this). Why was the rumor chosen and the fact not mentioned?
Band of brothers is at it's best when the focus is on the US cast. The same sort of realism as in Saving Private Ryan is also displayed here with drab clothing, more realistic equipment and realistic outlook(people get dirty when lying in the mud). Yet like in Saving Private Ryan this is realism up to a point. The Germans are more historically equipped, but still have the same role as they had in any of the other movies. Displaying the same frontal attacks, bunching tanks and armored units in strange formations, dying like flies. What others there are in the movie are still stereotypes.
Band of Brothers is therefore nice to look at with some great moments, but balanced by boring, unbelievable and shameful bits.
"You should see this." A friend of mine told me, knowing my interest in warfare and in particular World War II. So I did.
I think Band of Brothers is a mixed bag. The episodes range from the great to the indifferent. The attack on the German battery is really great stuff. Some episodes are just plain boring, with long stretches that almost nothing seems to happen, except for the main characters just babbling along. Some are just plain unbelievable:the Ardennes episode has a moment that the main character has an 'almost' love scene. Okay, so there is this really beautiful young single Belgian woman located in Bastogne surrounded by lot's and lot's of young American soldiers and she has a romantic moment with a soldier that just came in from the front? Nice also that she is able to talk English in an area that is French mostly. A bit contrived to say the least.
Some episodes are just plain wrong. There is this scene during the Market Garden episode that an English armored column moves up. Some of the US Airborne warn them that there is tiger-tank hiding behind a building in a haystack. The English tank commander says something like, "I can't see it" and orders his tank forward. The tiger then moves up and whacks the tank. This is the totality of the English role in this episode. I blushed with shame at this scene. This was just a plain lie. First thing: there were no tigers in the area the us airborne operated. The tigers where collected in separate units that where usually at the disposal of a corps. Invariably this was an armored corps. The only unit in Holland that could have possessed them was the II SS panzer-corps which operated between Arnhem and Nijmegen. However this corps had been badly mauled during it's retreat from France. It was therefore ordered to refit and hand over it's assets to other armored unit's including it's remaining tiger tanks.
We can of course assume the movie maker took some liberty to make the scene more interesting and in reality it was another kind of tank. But even then I think you might really think twice to display such a inept move on the part of the English. It might be that an US Airborne told this story, but I doubt that it was true the way it was told. Some disliked the English, so in their idea this dumb move could well have been done by them. Then, after telling and retelling the story, what could have been, had happened because it makes such a nice story to tell.
In addition much of the US airborne where convinced that if they had been dropped at Arnhem, then there would have been a greater change of success. I think this to be a valid point. (the us where more aggressive, more experienced as compared this particular UK airborne unit and more willing to take risks(like dropping nearer to the Arnhem bridge)). The idea that the English were not up to scratch was fueled by this idea and so the idea that English made mistakes(and the US did not). Contrastingly, there is an proved incident of an English tank unit which supported the US airborne in counter attacks with great success during Market Garden(I think the tank-crew got an American award for this). Why was the rumor chosen and the fact not mentioned?
Band of brothers is at it's best when the focus is on the US cast. The same sort of realism as in Saving Private Ryan is also displayed here with drab clothing, more realistic equipment and realistic outlook(people get dirty when lying in the mud). Yet like in Saving Private Ryan this is realism up to a point. The Germans are more historically equipped, but still have the same role as they had in any of the other movies. Displaying the same frontal attacks, bunching tanks and armored units in strange formations, dying like flies. What others there are in the movie are still stereotypes.
Band of Brothers is therefore nice to look at with some great moments, but balanced by boring, unbelievable and shameful bits.