In an odd Netflix mix up, I ended up with a blu ray dvd of Patton. Is it worth the 3 hour watch? I certainly enjoy WW II movies, although I’ve heard Patton is really a negative view of the general. Outside of the scene with the American flag, I haven’t seen the movie.
It’s flawed, but pretty good. What do you mean by “negative”? Do you expect it to be a fawning hagiography?
I don’t recall it being negative at all. As much as it could be, it was positive towards a man who was, in many ways, a son-of-a-bitch*. My impression was that it was an excellent movie, and a well-done, and researched, bio-pic, showing a good deal of Patton’s complexity. It’s not a biography - but as a story based on the man, it works well.
I really can’t imagine, based on what I know of the general, how any reasonably honest treatment of the man could possibly be more positive. It’s been many years since I saw the movie, but IIRC they really down-played some of his more outre beliefs.
*[spoiler]If you think that’s an insult, that was the substance of a toast between Patton and Marshall Zhukov at the end of the war: Here’s to one son-of-a-bitch, from another!
I believe I first encountered that story in Zhukov’s autobiography, and loved seeing it in the movie. [/spoiler]
Most of my knowledge of the movie comes from my high school history teacher who was a marine. He did not like any movie which portrayed a military man in anything less than idol worship.
He hated that All Quiet on the Western Front was assigned reading in English class.
The movie he loved was Taps. The 1980’s movie where the cadets take over a military school to defend their weapons and support their former leader.
[spoiler]Patton was, AIUI, a very aggressive, and effective war leader. He was able to handle the organizational and motivational aspects of being a general. Very well.
But outside his areas of expertise he often let his prejudices run away with him. Often with the best of intentions, but with terrible results. One of the incidents that is made much of in the movie is when Patton tried to deal with a shell-shocked trooper by slapping him back to sanity. There is no way that incident could not be in a film about Patton’s life. It happened in front of the press corps, and was widely reported at the time. The incident nearly cost him his career, and was part of the reason that Patton was assigned to the phantom army being used to spoofe the Germans into expecting an invasion at Calais.
There are a lot of arguments about that incident even today. Some people claim that Patton was trying his best “common sense” method to deal with something he didn’t understand but had seen screw up some of his comrades from WWI. Other people claim it shows his nature as a sadistic bastard.
From what I recall of the movie they offered both explanations, and tried to keep from giving a definitive answer, though it leaned towards the more positive explanation. As any story told through Patton’s viewpoint would have to, I think.
But to modern audiences it’s a downright shocking incident. It’s ugly, in ways that combat isn’t shown to be. And it did damn the General in many people’s eyes when the film came out. Which is only fair. At the time it happened, it did damn Patton is almost as many eyes.
I imagine that is probably the single incident that your teacher would have most despised from the film.
George Patton was many things, but being a simple, easy to describe man is not one of them.[/spoiler]
Put it this way, it’s one of those films that doesn’t seem like the three hour watch.
Yeah. OP, I’d watch it. George C Scott is damn perfect for the role, and the movie (I thought) was very good to great. But I’m former military from a long lineage of military, so my opinion is biased.
Being a sonofabitch was what made Patton such a great general. He was “one of the guys” during combat, a risk-taker, which endeared him to his subordinates.
Watch it, if for no other reason than to understand a ton of cultural references.
What **silenus ** said, plus the fact that it’s an American classic — a film you don’t want to say you haven’t seen.
It is a great movie and has great performances by both George C. Scott and Karl Malden as Gen. Omar N. Bradley.
I am a fan of Patton and felt the movie it no way diminished what he was, it just showed him warts and all. He was still the best field General we ever had.
It is worth watching just for the special weather prayer he had his chaplain make. The prayer and story is 100% accurate at that part.
Jim
Another great movie!
FYI, link goes directly to video file.
BTW, lissener, what do you see as the flaws of Patton? (I’m hoping the OP will allow the hijack)
I knew it would be that before I clicked!
(Two in a row for me today.)
That’s a good point. However, despite the droves of film critics that love Patton and claim it to be among the top ten best movies ever made, et cetera, I was kind of underwhelmed by it. George C. Scott is essentially playing the same role he played in Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, only in Patton he’s playing it straight. It’s worth watching, perhaps, but IMHO not rewatching.
Stranger
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, but as I remember he was framed as someone whose flaws made him hard to get along with as a person, but they were exactly the qualities that made him a great warrior.
You really only have to watch the film’s opening. That scene alone is what makes the film a classic, and it’s really the only part most people seem to remember strongly about it.
The rest is standard war drama in the background, and a portrait of an egotist in the foreground. But the opening is guaranteed to get you hooked on it.
Love the film and consider it a classic, too.
You can argue the politics all day long but the bottom line is that Scott was magnificent (and Malden was no slouch either.)
Watch the movie, enjoy the acting and argue about the sctipt later.