I was apartment-sitting for a friend in New York. While I was there at her place, I logged onto Netflix one lazy weekend summer afternoon and watched the 2017 documentary entitled FIVE CAME BACK. Narrated by Meryl Steep, it focuses on classic Hollywood filmmaker history -- but it's about much more than that. It's about how they recognized and realized the red flags invisibly waving in news of their day and how they responded to them,. Similar red flags are waving in society today,
Directors Frank Capra, John Huston, George Stevens, John Ford and William Wyler were men in uniform during World War 2 and documented real life -- and death -- during the war. Discrimination was noted as America fought overseas for freedom and liberty. Our U.S. troops were segregated then.
Keep in mind that this was all occurring in the pre-television era. People got their daily news via newspapers and the radio. As for news footage, they saw newsreels at the movies that preceded the main entertainment features.
Modern-day filmmakers Guillermo del Toro, Francis Ford Cop[pola, Lawrence Kasdan and Steven Spielberg give excellent, insightful commentary. At the beginning of FIVE CAME BACK, one absolutely gripping section comes when we see how director Frank Capra realized the true, massive evil of the growing Nazi Party and Hitler's growing armies in Germany. The evils of this fascism slithered into our American cities before 1940. Democracy was threatened. It's chilling footage. And it's footage that, sadly, is relevant again today.
Click onto the link below to see a trailer:
The wartime footage and documentaries from those five filmmakers heavily influenced the post-war movies that they made.
I was so riveted to and moved by FIVE CAME BACK that summer afternoon in my friend's apartment that I watched it again that same day. FIVE CAME BACK is still available on Netflix.
This fascinating documentary series, perfect for Memorial Day viewing, is based on a book of the same name by Mark Harris. Thank you, Mr, Harris.
The next time you watch 1959's BEN-HUR, directed by William Wyler, think of Jewish Judah Ben-Hur as a Berliner in the 1930s who's witnessing his non-Jewish boyhood friend be seduced by the wicked promises and power of Hitler.
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