Band of Brothers - Breaking Point
Aug. 20th, 2006 02:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxIn general I'm really everything but a war movie fan. In general I'm just not into them. That said, I've adored "Band of Brothers" since the first time I saw the mini-series and I have a tendency to re-watch when it replays on Sunday mornings on The History Channel.
There must be a marathon going on this morning because they've played several episodes in a row, one of which was "The Breaking Point," which, I think, is my favorite episode in the series. It never fails to terrify me and to make me cry. So many of the men that the series followed are maimed, killed, or driven crazy in that episode. Because it's so far along into the series (episode 7), the men were not just faces in the crowd, but men who had carried the weight of the series. For that reason, it bears a tremendous emotional punch every, single time. The horror of Toy realizing that his leg had been blown off and that he's still out in the open during the shelling. Guarnere going after Toy, another barrage hitting, and both Guarnere and Toy hit simultaneously, with Guarnere also having his own leg blown off. Compton, witnessing this, just... losing it, unable to deal with what happened to his friends.
Donnie Wahlberg, as the sergeant given a battle commission and promoted to being an officer in the wake of the Battle of Bastogne, gives a strong performance as the central man in the episode ( 'Band of Brothers' tends to rotate which character is the POV character, and "Breaking Point" is his character's episode. ...And I feel really odd referring to them as characters since they were real men, and those who were still alive at the time of filming were interviewed at the beginning and end of each episode). Still, the episode manages to convey the hell -- physical and emotional-- they were in. Out in the open, trapped in foxholes, and not even allowed fires, they sleep outside in the snow. They are constantly shelled throughout the episode. They can't get away. They can go nowhere, and these is no help. Whether they lived or died was just the luck of where the shell fell, little wonder it emotionally decimated men.
Wahlberg's Lipton is left in the position of having to keep up morale and bolster support for their totally ineffective platoon leader, Lt. Dike, even when he also believes that Dike is a terrible soldier. He even goes to Captain Winters to complain, something he says that he could never imagine doing, even though he knows that Winters can do nothing about Dike. Later in the episode, Dike is so ineffective that he is clearly getting soldiers killed, and Winters, who wishes to take back the company he was promoted out of being in charge of, is desperate to find someone to lead the men, leading to his assigning Speirs as platoon leader. Speirs, in the series is a bit of a shadowy character who may have done some bad things, with the troops constantly spreading rumors (did he really give cigarettes to Nazi POWs then murder them? Was it 5 prisoners? 10? 30? Did he really shoot a subordinate for being drunk on duty?, etc) Soldiers fear Speirs, and yet when he's showing what is either craziness or uncommon valor in fighting (it's debatable which. Spears tells one soldier in the series that the trick is to remember that they're already dead, so his heroism comes from a pretty fatalistic place) inspires respect in the men. He also is shown to be smart in the way he leads men, careful in his battle choices, and not willing to ask a subordinate to do anything that he wouldn't do himself. When, by the end of the episode, Speirs is given Dike's job, it is seen as a good thing. (And when he signs on for another tour of duty at the end of the series, it's also shown as a good thing. He has some shady aspects, but he's eventually shown as an good man and an excellent leader in war).
The worst scene in the episode is the one where, during the shelling, a soldier is caught in the open. Two of his pals are in a fox hole screaming for him to make it to them, to make it to cover. Just when he's made it to within yards of them, a shell falls... killing the pair in the fox hole right in front of his eyes. That was where he had been going to escape the shelling and they had died, and they were his friends. They had been obliterated before his eyes. He stands up and starts running, screaming, as shells fall. . . and it's powerful because it is so very, emotionally true.
Anyway, for all its darkness and horror (and for all that I dislike war movies), I highly recommend "Band of Brothers" and, really, "The Breaking Point" remains my favorite episode of the series.
There must be a marathon going on this morning because they've played several episodes in a row, one of which was "The Breaking Point," which, I think, is my favorite episode in the series. It never fails to terrify me and to make me cry. So many of the men that the series followed are maimed, killed, or driven crazy in that episode. Because it's so far along into the series (episode 7), the men were not just faces in the crowd, but men who had carried the weight of the series. For that reason, it bears a tremendous emotional punch every, single time. The horror of Toy realizing that his leg had been blown off and that he's still out in the open during the shelling. Guarnere going after Toy, another barrage hitting, and both Guarnere and Toy hit simultaneously, with Guarnere also having his own leg blown off. Compton, witnessing this, just... losing it, unable to deal with what happened to his friends.
Donnie Wahlberg, as the sergeant given a battle commission and promoted to being an officer in the wake of the Battle of Bastogne, gives a strong performance as the central man in the episode ( 'Band of Brothers' tends to rotate which character is the POV character, and "Breaking Point" is his character's episode. ...And I feel really odd referring to them as characters since they were real men, and those who were still alive at the time of filming were interviewed at the beginning and end of each episode). Still, the episode manages to convey the hell -- physical and emotional-- they were in. Out in the open, trapped in foxholes, and not even allowed fires, they sleep outside in the snow. They are constantly shelled throughout the episode. They can't get away. They can go nowhere, and these is no help. Whether they lived or died was just the luck of where the shell fell, little wonder it emotionally decimated men.
Wahlberg's Lipton is left in the position of having to keep up morale and bolster support for their totally ineffective platoon leader, Lt. Dike, even when he also believes that Dike is a terrible soldier. He even goes to Captain Winters to complain, something he says that he could never imagine doing, even though he knows that Winters can do nothing about Dike. Later in the episode, Dike is so ineffective that he is clearly getting soldiers killed, and Winters, who wishes to take back the company he was promoted out of being in charge of, is desperate to find someone to lead the men, leading to his assigning Speirs as platoon leader. Speirs, in the series is a bit of a shadowy character who may have done some bad things, with the troops constantly spreading rumors (did he really give cigarettes to Nazi POWs then murder them? Was it 5 prisoners? 10? 30? Did he really shoot a subordinate for being drunk on duty?, etc) Soldiers fear Speirs, and yet when he's showing what is either craziness or uncommon valor in fighting (it's debatable which. Spears tells one soldier in the series that the trick is to remember that they're already dead, so his heroism comes from a pretty fatalistic place) inspires respect in the men. He also is shown to be smart in the way he leads men, careful in his battle choices, and not willing to ask a subordinate to do anything that he wouldn't do himself. When, by the end of the episode, Speirs is given Dike's job, it is seen as a good thing. (And when he signs on for another tour of duty at the end of the series, it's also shown as a good thing. He has some shady aspects, but he's eventually shown as an good man and an excellent leader in war).
The worst scene in the episode is the one where, during the shelling, a soldier is caught in the open. Two of his pals are in a fox hole screaming for him to make it to them, to make it to cover. Just when he's made it to within yards of them, a shell falls... killing the pair in the fox hole right in front of his eyes. That was where he had been going to escape the shelling and they had died, and they were his friends. They had been obliterated before his eyes. He stands up and starts running, screaming, as shells fall. . . and it's powerful because it is so very, emotionally true.
Anyway, for all its darkness and horror (and for all that I dislike war movies), I highly recommend "Band of Brothers" and, really, "The Breaking Point" remains my favorite episode of the series.
