Fun
Five Came Back
Dear Kay,
OK, this is actually a three-for-one multimedia extravaganzapalooza: a radio interview about a documentary series based on a book about filmmakers. It doesn’t get much more layered than that.
I’m sending you to Terry Gross to start your exploration of Five Came Back, because that’s how I came to know about it.
Here’s Terry Gross’s Fresh Air interview with Mark Harris, the author of the book, Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War.
The book has just emerged as a new three-part documentary on Netflix. (The trailer is up top.) Terry Gross’s interview with Mark Harris piqued my curiosity completely about this documentary series, in which five modern-day directors discuss the five film directors who spent World War II making films about the war as it happened.
What a list:
- Francis Ford Coppola on John Huston
- Lawrence Kasdan on George Stevens
- Spielberg (the co-producer of the documentary) on William Wyler
- Paul Greengrass on John Ford
- Guillermo del Toro on Frank Capra
This is all so fascinating—these directors were already famous when they went off to war. During their tenure on the battlefield, they created documentary films, recruitment films—and even evidence, in the case of George Stevens, who had the stunning poise, presence of mind, and ability to document the liberation of Dachau. He filmed evidence that would later be used to prosecute war crimes.
War is in the air, always. How we learn about it today is so different from seventy years ago. I can’t wait to watch this. Have you seen it yet?
Love,
Ann
Thanks for this – on my list it goes!
This sounds fascinating — definitely going on my “to watch” list!
I started the book, but got distracted. The documentary sounds perfect!
Watched it upon release. Terrific. The book is great, too; I read it when it first came out and followed up by adding many of the directors’ movies to my watch list.
Should add that I couldn’t knit during this doc because my attention was riveted to the screen. If you can knit without looking at your work, go for it.
We started watching this a few days ago. It’s fantastic!!
This is going to be my weekend treat. If I may add one dimension to your impressive multi-media approach, Mark Harris has a pretty good twitter feed too.
This sounds intriguing. When I was growing up in the 50’s my friend and i would go into her attic and look at the photographs that her father had taken in the Philippines where he was stationed as a US Army photographer. I was too young to realize the importance of these at the time. I’d love to see them again. All we understood at the time was that our dads had been separated from their girlfriends/wives and families for a lot of years before we were born.
I saw an interview with the author on some news channel. I do want to watch it and may do so tonight.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. What a treasure of a film. And radio interview. And I’m sure the book is good too, but I can’t knit to that!
Thanks! I like to keep a “no brainer” easy baby blanket going just for films that are long and interesting!
As someone who is married to a man who loves any kind of information on WWII, this was a great suggestion for our evening viewing pleasure. He loved it and to think the suggestion came from a knitter!!! See, knitters know stuff.
OK- this sounds amazing. I’ll definitely listen to the Terry Gross, and then I need to find more Knit and Watch Docs time in my life!
I spent the morning watching this. I’m a fan of movies of the 30s and 40s, but have always seen the difference between the films of those two decades. Movies from the 30s tended to be sort of like fairy tales. Even the ones that showed a glimpse of the Depression still had the purpose of distracting the viewer from real life. Movies from the 40s are much grittier, and I think I understand why that is now. Thanks so much for bringing this amazing series to our attention!