Letters from Iwo Jima

As I am sitting here writing this Glenn Gould is playing in the background. I go to Half Price Books from time to time and buy classical LPs. I have an okay sound system and sometimes you can pick up great LPs for two or three dollars. This particular LP is Glenn Gould playing the first eight prelude and fugues of “The Well Tempered Clavier Book I”. This particular LP was in mint condition, and though I have this already on CD, sometimes I find listening to records to be comforting with all their little pops and such. Even though Gould humming along with his playing can be heard at times I still love listening to Gould play. To listen to Gould play Bach is to have your jaw drop. If you doubt me go buy a CD of the very first record he released which was Bach's “The Goldberg Variations” (he recorded “The Goldberg Variations” twice). His passion and understanding of Bach comes through time and time again. So I just leave the record player on repeat and listen to one side a couple of times, until it is time to put something else on or flip the record. Gould reminds me of Clint Eastwood, in that they were/are both deeply passionate about their craft. If you take a look at Clint Eastwood's growing list of Class A films, it is hard to argue that Clint is seeing deeper and developing.

himself as an artist and director (and succeeding). If you look at his list of 30 films as director you can see that he is at the top of his game. I personally think that Unforgiven was a turning point for him as a director, and a favorite film of mine. I love all that rain.

Flags of Our Fathers was the first installment of two movies about the World War II battle of Iwo Jima . Flags of Our Fathers was told from the viewpoint of the Americans and not only encompassed the battle but also continued on and showed how the soldiers that were in the famous picture of the second flag raising on Iwo Jima were affected by their fame. Letters from Iwo Jima is based on Japan 's General Tadamichi Kuribayashi's book “Picture Letters from Commander in Chief”. I haven't been able to find out much about that particular book. From what I have read, many of the details that are given in the movie do have some basis in fact, and I did not notice any glaring errors (such as pop up in Ron Howard's movies). There are a couple of shots that are included in both movies but only a very few.

In a way Letters from Iwo Jima is a smaller movie than Flag of Our Fathers . Even though there is a framing sequence, the movie deals mainly with the Japanese experience on Iwo Jima , and does not stray too far away from this. Even though there are battle sequences, and some of the scenes are quite gory, the interesting parts of the film are not the battle sequences. The film subject matter is what was going on in the Japanese soldier's minds while going through this experience. And we are not only given a look at the highest officers but also of the everyday soldier. Inside of the film there are several flashbacks, but these are always kept on a short leash and do not interrupt the flow of the film, while at the same time the flashbacks help fill in background information on the soldiers. The sound design of this movie also stands out. When we do get to the battle sequences, we can feel the bullets zipping around us. I wonder if when this finally comes out on DVD if they will try to edit the two movies together into one long four hour movie. It could be done, but they do not appear to have been made with that in mind.

The film does an excellent job of exploring several issues. How did the Japanese handle the fact that they were facing a much larger force? How did the soldiers on the ground approach their duty to their country and the choices that they had to make? This was no small issue since by this time it was becoming apparent that the Japanese were going to lose the war. The film also touches on the specific choices made by the Japanese in the preparation for the American landing on Iwo Jima , which is a very interesting subject. Clint Eastwood, and the actors of the film, do a superb job of highlighting these issues and making them become real to the moviegoer. Can you ask for anything more than that?

You can write James Harper at movielover77061@yahoo.com