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| Neal McDonough on this poster for Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's Band of Brothers |
QUICK REVIEW:
Most episodes in this HBO-miniseries begin with clips from interviews of real soldiers from the 101st Airborne Easy company that is the subject of the series. They tell their memories to the eternal vacuum of posterity, enveloped in black space, to an unmoving, observing camera and are often quite moving. It gives Brothers the right spirit and sets the appropriate mood for this great WWII-show. A mood of importance, of the vast wingspans of history and of great sacrifice.
Band of Brothers is a series about sacrifice and unity during terrible trials.
In spite of the men's differences and strives, they always have each others backs, and that is what is so fantastically uplifting about Band of Brothers.
We have to praise ourselves very lucky that two of the very few people on earth who could make such an incredibly ambitious and expensive project with the required skill and integrity here actually have: Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips (2013)) and Steven Spielberg (Shindler's List (1993)), who had previously collaborated on Saving Private Ryan (1998), along with a vast team of very talented writers and directors. Brothers was the most expensive mini-series ever made at the time.
Episode 1 is about the training in Currahee, Georgia, where the newly formed regiment are trained under the incompetent lieutenant Sobel (David Schwimmer (Friends (1994-2004)) does well), and after this, the group are thrown off to Normandy and D-day.
The episodes of Brothers distinguish themselves by being different from one another; they tell different stories and therefore do not drown in the same dreary pot of awful war.
Episode 3 concerns itself with private Blithe (perfectly played by Marc Warren (Shine (1996))), who suffers a frightening hysterical blindness.
The soldiers' experiences and traumas are taken seriously, and the horrors of war are portrayed with impressive precision.
We follow regiment-leader Winters and his colleague-friend Nixon throughout the series, played by Damian Lewis (Homeland (2011-13)) and Ron Livingston (The Conjuring (2013)), and they form a good core for Brothers. Midway through, the series loses a bit of pace, but it is soon picked up again in episode 6, Bastogne, where we see the atrocities of the icy-cold forest in the Ardennes. We are taken through the unbearable waiting days of war, experience Winters' brave decisions before episode 9, Why We Fight, an exceptionally moving, lump-in-your-throat look at the brothers' discovery of a concentration camp. The horrors are indescribable; the recreation admirable and one of the finest hours in the series.
In the last episode, Points, Easy company takes the Nazi headquarter known as the Eagle's Nest, and we glimpse into the futures of the men. Their reverence towards each other is both striking, gripping and beautiful.
All of this happens to the stunning music of Michael Kamen (Open Range (2003)) and powerful images and effects, making Band of Brothers a strong experience and a prized accompany to the catalog of shared human history recreated in the cinema annals.
Bravo.
The series was followed in 2010 by The Pacific, which focuses on the Marine Corp's operations in the Pacific in WWII.
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Tom Hanks: Philadelphia (1993) - AIDS and homosexuality acknowledged in great drama
Ron Livingston: The Conjuring (2013) - Best horror film in 7 years
Steven Spielberg: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) - A robot fairy tale with both heart and mind
Twilight Zone The Movie (1983) - Fear takes many forms in tragedy-struck anthology
1941 (1979) - Spielberg's bizarre 'comedy spectacular' sinks like a rock
Watch the series' trailer here
Budget: 125 mil. $
How do you find Band of Brothers?
Is there any better war series in existence?
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