CH: A Realistic WW2 Movie

This. Very few people would want to watch what an actual war is like. Long stretches of it would be incredibly boring and then parts of it would be completely traumatic.

So more or less like the Thin Red Line? (But with less cinematic post-war buddhism obviously).
 
What you are looking for is basically a documentary, with history driving in place of a plot.
 
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sharlin

Banned
I'll have to find that Come and See. never heard of it. My now dead grandad (dads side) was a Desert Rat and he and a few of his surviving friends who he met at reunions went to see Saving Private Ryan and he said that the Normandy sequence was very realistic. One of his friends he said, went pale and was shivering. The poor chap had been there and was probably having flashbacks.
 
There would be one be problem with making a film like you ask. This is were would the money come from. Hollywood? Yes lots of money, big stars, inaccurate and it has to have a happy ending. Britian? Not enough money but accurate and everone dies.
If you were to make a pan European film it may work. Still a good number of those who were there are still alive. Something about the Fall of France? Dunkirk has been done on film (the John Mills one) and on telly a number of times. Watch the BBC doc/drama, called, well, Dunkirk. Very good.
The one biggest problem is what is the film? Enteriment or a history lesson? Make in without any US forces in it, it fails. No one in the states will go and see it no matter how good it is. With US forces, the Yanks win it all by themsevles and nobody else matters and it makes lots of money. Also for the sake of the PC A holes there must be a black actor in a lead role. History is not PC.
A pan European film will be the way to go, each country has it own actors and it is subtitled.
 
The most realistic WW2 movies from Hollywood i have seen was the older movies like:
Battle of Britain
Battle of Midway
Tora Tora Tora
The longsest day
A bridge to far

BUT there are also other fine movies
Das Boot(the miniseries is even better than the movie)
Stalingrad
Der Untergang(parodied en masse) aka Downfall

I know about Katyn, but i havent seen it. I dont know how accurate Enigma is btw, but it was good.

I think that to make a realistic WW2 movie as possible Hollywood shouldnt get involved since they will make it like the US did it all alone. Joint Russian-German-UK production would be a start.

One of the best resistancemovies i have seen is a movie about a Norwegian resistance leader.

There are tons of partisanmovies made by Yugoslavia, but they are dubbed in English
 
Hmm, you know, this could be a very interesting direction for the horror genre. Perhaps someone comes up with the bright idea of making military horror movies off the Eastern Front?

Also, you really show how the Eastern Front really has almost perfect material for making movies from for all the wrong reasons.:eek:

Who needs vampires and zombies when you have the bloody SS (and the NKVD) and deathcamps. It takes tough minds to liberate one of those camps (or just callous ones) and still be able to function normally in life.

Actually, a movie about the NKVD prewar, or the Holomdour, would make for a nasty psychological horror movie.
 
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Who needs vampires and zombies when you have the bloody SS (and the NKVD) and deathcamps. It takes tough minds to liberate one of those camps (or just callous ones) and still be able to function normally in life.

Actually, a movie about the NKVD prewar, or the Holomdour, would make for a nasty psychological horror movie.

It wouldn't though, horror as a film genre is driven by fiction. What we would be looking at is a drama, if we are going for realism, horror doesn't fly well.
 
A truly realistic depiction of war becomes anti-war by nature. I don't know who first said that but its true. Any script writer would run aground on this. I doubt anyone besides Spielberg could have gotten Saving Pvt Ryan with the opening sequence made.
 
A lot of people hate subtitles so it won't sell. You could do it but your going to lose seats so very few companies will produce it.

I honestly don't see the problem.

However, I am speaking as someone who lives in a country(Netherlands) where people generally are not only used to subtitles, but expect them when watching a foreign film.

Dubbed films are just plain rancid and excruciating and unbearable to watch for me.
 
If you want a truly unwatchable film, Japan's invasion of China and the Pacific Rim is that. If you were to take every Cannibal Holocaust-style slasher ever produced and mash them all together, the result would be about 50% as gruesome as what actually happened.
 
In terms of realistic procedures, I've heard it said that anything beyond relatively small scale infantry warfare would be impossible as the audience would have no idea what anyone was doing. This probably makes it quite difficult to mix any kind of story with, say, a dramatic recreation of the Battle of Kursk down to the last Evolution in Soviet Military Tactics, or some such thing. This would require kicking the History Channel up the backside and having a good quality series of documentarie. The problem with history nerds getting anal about accuracy is that it would be impossible to be that accurate within the remit of a piece of entertainment around 2 hours long and still have a decent story.

I'd say that a few films of some of the memoirs could be pretty effective. I'd argue that Quartered Safe Out Here by George Macdonald Fraser (if one removes his off topic asides about the modern world and the nuclear bomb) would be a good, accurate film that doesn't immediately get driven into X-Rating levels of gore and misery.
 
Who needs vampires and zombies when you have the bloody SS (and the NKVD) and deathcamps. It takes tough minds to liberate one of those camps (or just callous ones) and still be able to function normally in life.

Actually, a movie about the NKVD prewar, or the Holomdour, would make for a nasty psychological horror movie.

Exactly. Add in the factors of what we know this war led to (the Cold War) and the mixture of callousness, brutality, and incompetence that could and did prevail on both sides at times and you get a horror film that happens to be 100% historically accurate. Sometimes you don't need fiction to make horror because reality is oversupplied with it. Hell, *Stalingrad* would be horrific enough if done with 100% veracity.

It wouldn't though, horror as a film genre is driven by fiction. What we would be looking at is a drama, if we are going for realism, horror doesn't fly well.

In the Eastern Front? Horror was the order of the day. At least part of the element with the fighting would be in the sheer scale of the battles that the soldiers on both sides are essentially meaningless bit players in gigantic dramas. While in Leningrad you get the small unit drama interspaced with the nightmare that is the Siege behind it. It in a sense would probably create a new genre of horror based on real-life events. If it were ever made.

In terms of realistic procedures, I've heard it said that anything beyond relatively small scale infantry warfare would be impossible as the audience would have no idea what anyone was doing. This probably makes it quite difficult to mix any kind of story with, say, a dramatic recreation of the Battle of Kursk down to the last Evolution in Soviet Military Tactics, or some such thing. This would require kicking the History Channel up the backside and having a good quality series of documentarie. The problem with history nerds getting anal about accuracy is that it would be impossible to be that accurate within the remit of a piece of entertainment around 2 hours long and still have a decent story.

I'd say that a few films of some of the memoirs could be pretty effective. I'd argue that Quartered Safe Out Here by George Macdonald Fraser (if one removes his off topic asides about the modern world and the nuclear bomb) would be a good, accurate film that doesn't immediately get driven into X-Rating levels of gore and misery.

Which is why I'm focusing on Leningrad, where you see sustained fighting in an area where small-unit tactics predominate, and where at least aspects of the Siege are somewhat well-known in terms of general histories of WWII. Interspersing the Siege in Leningrad with the fighting outside of it and the establishment of the Road of Life would provide Hollywood with its Happy Ending (of sorts) while retaining the full horrors in Leningrad and the fighting around it.
 
About subtitles: In my country (Romania) we also subtitle all foreign movies, but that's because they are foreign to begin with. I find it bizarre that one would purposefully make a movie for the domestic market that is spoken in a foreign language. Except for the case in which the characters speak different languages and these differences need to be highlighted.

About war being boring: the producers of a war movie have the choice of where and when to set their movie, so they can simply choose one of the more "action-packed" moments. That's why we have a ton of movies about D-day and no movies about the long months of buildup. It's not unrealistic, after all, the battle did happen

About other technical difficulties: many could be solved by collaborating with established reenactment groups. it seems like reenactment is a popular hobby these days and some groups seem to be quite professional and have historically accurate gear, and I bet they would happily collaborate with any film project just for the bragging rights and publicity they get. And if they are not deemed interesting enough to attract viewers, you could make a compromise: you can have a movie about a typical Hollywood hero and have scenes of him bedding girls and spouting one-liners and doing other hero-y stuff (to attract the "dumb masses") combined with scenes of realistic combat done by the reenactors (for the history fans).
 
There is a Russian film about the German occupation of Byelorussia called Come and See. It is incredibly real and incredibly disturbing, although I wouldn't consider it a typical war film. At least not like Saving Private Ryan or even Battle of Algiers, which are both outstanding films. There are no "battle scenes" per se, so it does not fit the OP's request of historically accurate military formations, but it is realistic according to the people who lived through it.

If you are looking for a movie that captures the horror of what happened in the East, Come and See is it. Although it is not in any way a "horror" movie, it horrified me much more than any of that genre could. If you are willing to take my word for it, I recommend watching it without reading too much about it or watching any trailers (I just looked at one hoping to share it, but IMO it reveals way too much). It tells the story of a boy in a village in Belarus who joins the partisan movement. It is very shocking. It also has a surreal quality and can be slow in parts (I saw it was compared to Apocalypse Now, which is one of my favourite films and shares these qualities) so if thats not your thing I wouldn't see it. But if you are looking for a film that feels real and shows the horror of the German occupation of the USSR then check it out.

EDIT: [Keep in mind, it was made in the USSR in '85, so it is decidedly one-sided. But one-sided doesn't equal inaccurate when the other side is the Nazis. I also never figured out if the main characters are Jewish (If they are, it is very downplayed). Anyone else seen it?]

I have it on DVD and watched it again recently, it's probably one of best war movies I have ever seen. It can usually be found on lists of the best movies ever made, not just in the war movie genre.
 
In terms of realistic procedures, I've heard it said that anything beyond relatively small scale infantry warfare would be impossible as the audience would have no idea what anyone was doing. This probably makes it quite difficult to mix any kind of story with, say, a dramatic recreation of the Battle of Kursk down to the last Evolution in Soviet Military Tactics, or some such thing. This would require kicking the History Channel up the backside and having a good quality series of documentarie. The problem with history nerds getting anal about accuracy is that it would be impossible to be that accurate within the remit of a piece of entertainment around 2 hours long and still have a decent story.

While I can't stand gory movies, I was drawn to this topic to see if anyone caught onto this problem. Easterling's comments about re-enactors are quite good. However, I would add a caveat. While it was possible to have oodles of extras in a movie like The Ten Commandments, they weren't engaging in battle (well, God did it for them:)) - it's true that re-enactors would be very helpful but from what I understand, re-enactors don't have enough members int heir clubs to do the whole battle. So, when they re-do Gettysburg, for instance, you don't have the same number of people there; I think I read you might get a third at the most, but I wouldn't quote myself on that. (My Yogi Berra way of saying I'm not totally sure.:D)


So, it's hard fior me to understand what is meant by real tactics becasue there is so much witht he big armies that 's hard to capture on film. The idea fo Leningrad is good, but instead of a horror movie, I would suggest instead that the problem be solved through CGI and have something like the Battle of Britain.

The Battle of Britain would not require massive amounts of troops movements. It would allow for quite a few extras in the bomb shelters with focus on a few. instead of blowing up everything in sight you could actually keep costs down by showing that the number of bombs falling was actually pretty low compared to what we think of today, and the targetting was nothing like with today's smart bombs.

Meanwhile, the CGI part could be used to show the number of planes int he sky at once, however many they were. It would be possible to show dogfights without having the immense blood and gore, and with CGI you wouldn't be wasting money on models and such. If you need to show *which* character's plane is going down, well, talk before could show who is fighting.

So, intersperse the scenes on the ground and in the air. Have it take place over the weeks that it occurred. And voila, "Their Finest Hour" (an allusion to Churchill's comment) could be done.

It would solve a lot of the problems mentioned here - not as much horror as Leningrad, no need for thousands of ground troops in armies so big you can't see what individuals are doing, and so on. And, the CGi is such you won't have the danger of seeing the strings on the model airplanes.:)
 
While I can't stand gory movies, I was drawn to this topic to see if anyone caught onto this problem. Easterling's comments about re-enactors are quite good. However, I would add a caveat. While it was possible to have oodles of extras in a movie like The Ten Commandments, they weren't engaging in battle (well, God did it for them:)) - it's true that re-enactors would be very helpful but from what I understand, re-enactors don't have enough members int heir clubs to do the whole battle. So, when they re-do Gettysburg, for instance, you don't have the same number of people there; I think I read you might get a third at the most, but I wouldn't quote myself on that. (My Yogi Berra way of saying I'm not totally sure.:D)
You don't need that many people to film a large battle scene. Witness the wonders of modern technology: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRS9cpOMYv0
 
I have seen a movie about the siege of Leningrad. It was a straight to DVD movie about a english journalist left behind on a trip and her struggle to remain alive during the winter of 41. It wasnt good
 
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