George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin (1994)
*** (out of 4)
Entertaining documentary covering director George Stevens as he signed up for WW2 and ended up filming some of the most memorable footage of the war. The director and his crew (known as Stevens' Irregulars) ended up filming, as the title says, the landing on Normandie and the eventual surrender in Berlin. Along the way we also see and hear about the men's journey into a concentration camp, which changed their lives forever. For the most part this is a very fascinating documentary, although there's no denying that it has since been passed by better items. With that said, the color footage here shot by Stevens is the main reason to watch this as we get some incredibly beautiful shots of the battle fields. We also get some very graphic scenes at the camps with bodies piled up on one another and we also see some German soldiers who had their heads beaten open after the prisoners were able to get free. The documentary runs a very quick 46-minutes and for the most part it talks about the various missions that Stevens and his men went on. There's a little talk about the impact of filming this stuff had on the men. For example, Stevens was mainly a comedy director but after the war he felt he couldn't film laughs anymore and turned to darker subject matters. This only gets a very brief mention but more of an examination of this would have been very interesting and especially since the running time was pretty short and could have used some more stuff. With that said, fans of old WW2 footage will certainly want to check this out.
*** (out of 4)
Entertaining documentary covering director George Stevens as he signed up for WW2 and ended up filming some of the most memorable footage of the war. The director and his crew (known as Stevens' Irregulars) ended up filming, as the title says, the landing on Normandie and the eventual surrender in Berlin. Along the way we also see and hear about the men's journey into a concentration camp, which changed their lives forever. For the most part this is a very fascinating documentary, although there's no denying that it has since been passed by better items. With that said, the color footage here shot by Stevens is the main reason to watch this as we get some incredibly beautiful shots of the battle fields. We also get some very graphic scenes at the camps with bodies piled up on one another and we also see some German soldiers who had their heads beaten open after the prisoners were able to get free. The documentary runs a very quick 46-minutes and for the most part it talks about the various missions that Stevens and his men went on. There's a little talk about the impact of filming this stuff had on the men. For example, Stevens was mainly a comedy director but after the war he felt he couldn't film laughs anymore and turned to darker subject matters. This only gets a very brief mention but more of an examination of this would have been very interesting and especially since the running time was pretty short and could have used some more stuff. With that said, fans of old WW2 footage will certainly want to check this out.