Patton

Patton interested me because it was the story of the famous World War II general George Patton. My friends are huge fans of the general. He is lass vulgar in the film than he was in real life. Other things that I did not like about the film include the setting for the opening. Patton gets up in front of a giant American flag as a slightly low angled camera take just one long shot of Patton addressing a crowd behind the camera. At one point he talks about how he does not want his troops holding their position. My copy of the book the Art of War has that exact quote. “The only goddamn thing you should be holding onto is the enemy’s balls!” However the movie character said “we want to grab the enemy by the nose and kick them in the teeth.” I did not like the director toning down on the cursing even when the movie was already rated R.
One of the best parts of the movie happens in the beginning when Patton has a showdown at high noon with one of Rommel’s tank columns in North Africa. It is suspenseful in the beginning when the shots switch from showing the close-ups of Patton and his officers and the advancing battalion. The long shot of the landscape along with an officer saying “they could be anywhere” builds the suspense by showing just how many different directions the tanks could come from. Then the camera goes back and fourth. Each shot progressively gets closer to the advancing panzers and shows more and more of what they have. The suspense ends when the gunfire starts. The winner of the battle turns out to be… (Why should I take away the suspense?)
The battle of the bulge montage was also interesting. It plays shot ping pong again. The shots go back and forth between Patton in his office “strategerizing” and the Germans starting their last offensive. Patton talks about how it is impossible for the Germans to mount an offensive strike in the winter for a while. Then the camera cuts to the shot of a few panzers rolling into a small town as this intense military overture music plays. Then the camera cuts back to Patton talking about more “strategery.” It switches off like that until Patton finally says, “the Germans have never been able to mount a winter offensive since some medieval guy, and that is why we should expect one now.” I heard that Patton was better prepared for the battle of the bulge and more informed than Ike, so that montage confused me until the end when he said that.
The movie is insanely long. That is my only compliant. It has an intermission, but it is not like in Lord of the Rings where there are parts that still should have been cutout for the extended edition DVD. All of it was entertaining even though it takes three sittings to get through.