Posted By: VitoC
Patton - 12/31/10 06:03 AM
I was watching "Patton" today. What a fantastic movie! Even though it's almost three hours long, it isn't boring for even a moment.
From all that I've heard, this film is overall historically accurate. Many people who served under Patton have confirmed this. I came away from watching it with deeply mixed feelings about the man. On the one hand, it's hard not to be very fond of someone so wonderfully irreverent, even if you disagree with everything the person says. I recently argued on this website that it would have been sheer insanity for America to attack the Soviet Union after WWII, yet it was still very enjoyable hearing Patton go on a wild diatribe near the end of the movie in which he argued that the U.S. should do just that. Furthermore, many of Patton's antics go beyond being entertaning to being simply hilarious. Perhaps the best of all is when a group of clergymen ask him if he finds time to read the Bible, and he says "Every g*ddamned day"!
Yet "Patton" also contains things which are deeply disturbing, and raise serious questions not only about the conduct of Patton himself, but about military leadership more generally. I'm not talking about the incident with Patton slapping the soldier, even though that nearly cost him his career. I'm mainly talking about the way in which the rivalry between him and Field Marshal Montgomery, and the huge egos of both these men, affected military operations in Sicily. At least as portrayed in the film, Patton orders a major amphibious operation basically in order to beat Monty to Messina. It is one thing for soldiers to die to defeat Nazi Germany. It's quite another for them to die essentially to satisfy the massive egos of their generals. It is frightening to realize that people can be put in positions of power where their personality flaws can result in many others being needlessly killed.
In my opinion, a great movie manages to be both entertaining and thought provoking at the same time. Patton succeeds on both counts.
From all that I've heard, this film is overall historically accurate. Many people who served under Patton have confirmed this. I came away from watching it with deeply mixed feelings about the man. On the one hand, it's hard not to be very fond of someone so wonderfully irreverent, even if you disagree with everything the person says. I recently argued on this website that it would have been sheer insanity for America to attack the Soviet Union after WWII, yet it was still very enjoyable hearing Patton go on a wild diatribe near the end of the movie in which he argued that the U.S. should do just that. Furthermore, many of Patton's antics go beyond being entertaning to being simply hilarious. Perhaps the best of all is when a group of clergymen ask him if he finds time to read the Bible, and he says "Every g*ddamned day"!
Yet "Patton" also contains things which are deeply disturbing, and raise serious questions not only about the conduct of Patton himself, but about military leadership more generally. I'm not talking about the incident with Patton slapping the soldier, even though that nearly cost him his career. I'm mainly talking about the way in which the rivalry between him and Field Marshal Montgomery, and the huge egos of both these men, affected military operations in Sicily. At least as portrayed in the film, Patton orders a major amphibious operation basically in order to beat Monty to Messina. It is one thing for soldiers to die to defeat Nazi Germany. It's quite another for them to die essentially to satisfy the massive egos of their generals. It is frightening to realize that people can be put in positions of power where their personality flaws can result in many others being needlessly killed.
In my opinion, a great movie manages to be both entertaining and thought provoking at the same time. Patton succeeds on both counts.
