Synopsis

"Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima", a picture taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945 depicts five Marines and one Navy Corpsman raising the U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi. The image served as a counterpoint for one of the most vicious battles of the war: the fight to take Iwo Jima, a desolate island of black sand barely eight square miles that would prove a tipping point in the Pacific campaign. Lasting more than a month, the fight was a bloody, drawn-out conflict that might have turned the American public against the war entirely, had it not been for the photo, which was taken and published five days into the battle. The photograph made heroes of the men in the picture as the three surviving flag-raisers were returned to the U.S. and made into props in the government’s Seventh War Bond Tour. Uncomfortable with their new celebrity, the flag-raisers considered the real heroes to be the men who died on Iwo Jima. Still, the American public held them up as the best America had to offer, the supermen who conquered the Japanese. Then, just as quickly as it had arrived, the glory faded. It had a profound effect on them.

What The Critics Say

"Flags of Our Fathers is a film of awesome power and blistering provocation. An amazing feat, since Eastwood is tied to the nonfiction best seller that James Bradley wrote about his father, John “Doc” Bradley, the last survivor among the six soldiers who raised the flag on Iwo Jima. Eastwood’s film, a fierce attack on wartime hypocrisy and profiteering, is also an indelibly moving salute to the soldiers who don’t deserve to walk alone for following their own sense of duty." Peter Travers ROLLING STONE "It's emotionally stirring in some places, eye-opening in others, and a well-told story all the way through." Eric D Snider ERICDSNIDER.COM "Flags of Our Fathers" is a tremendous film about the very beginning of celebrity worship, and our need to invent and memorialize brave men." Cole Smithey COLESMITHEY.COM "Clint Eastwood's Flags Of Our Fathers seems like a potent piece of revisionist history, boldly examining what heroism really means and how it can be manufactured for the "greater good." Scott Tobias ONION AV CLUB "It's a graphic, shocking, challenging, moving and thoughtful movie that gives you even more respect for the men and women who saved the world." Willie Waffle WAFFLEMOVIES.COM

"The film is patriotic in the truest sense: honoring those who risked their lives in battle and questioning the motives of those in power who sought to use the soldiers as political pawns. Though the film respects the heroes it depicts, it also takes a cynical look at the selling of war to the American people. Flags of Our Fathers is the rare action film that is superbly acted, hauntingly powerful and deeply insightful." Claudia Puig USA TODAY "As the tortured, heavy-drinking Hayes, Beach (Smoke Signals) is an emotional open wound, and his performance gives the movie its soul." Carla Meyer SACRAMENTO BEE "Not only one of the best films of 2006, but it is one of the best war films in years." Robert Roten LARAMIE MOVIE SCOPE "Clint Eastwood's Flags of our Fathers is a powerful condemnation of America's tasteless commercialism and the selling of war." Eric Melin SCENE-STEALERS.com "Flags of Our Fathers honors the young men who fought in the war - kids, really (the average age of the soldiers was 19). In that sense, it can and will be seen as "patriotic," a tribute to the armed forces. But it is also, in its clear-eyed depiction of the chaos and carnage of battle, of the soldiers' quaking fear, and the cruel finality of a bullet or a bomb, very much an antiwar film." Steven Rea PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

The Inside Story "I went to the 60th anniversary up in San Francisco, spent a lot of time with veterans up there," Academy Award winning director Clint Eastwood remembers. “They told a lot of stories. And there was a fellow who is mentioned in the book, a guy named Danny Thomas. He was a Corpsman also, sort of a counterpart to John Bradley. He had never spoken about Iwo Jima, much like John Bradley. He had never spoken about the war. He came back and just lived his life. And when he got older, he decided it was alright to talk about it. I spent a couple of hours talking to him, and he talked about it very emotionally, of what his feelings were at the time. It was an amazing group of people." Eastwood was of course speaking about the living survivors of one of the most strategically important battles of World War II. Iwo Jima, or Sulphur Island as it is known to the Japanese is a small island 1200 km south of Tokyo. It is 21square kilometres (8 square miles) in size and the outstanding feature is the imposing Mount Suribachi (or Suribachisan) which is 166 metres (546 feet) high. It was a bloody battle to take the island which was defended by 22000 Japanese troops. The "Battle of Iwo Jima" took place in February and March 1945. The losses were heavy. The Empire of Japan lost 20917 souls, while the USA lost 6821. At 02:00 on February 19, battleship guns signaled the commencement of D-Day. Soon 100 bombers attacked the island, followed by another volley from the naval guns. At 08:30, the first of an eventual 30,000 Marines of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Marine Divisions, under V Amphibious Corps, landed on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima and a battle for the island commenced. The Marines faced heavy fire from Mount Suribachi at the south of the island, and fought over inhospitable terrain: rough volcanic ash which allowed neither secure footing nor the digging of foxholes. Nevertheless, by that evening the mountain had been surrounded and 30,000 Marines had landed. About 40,000 more would follow. The climb up Suribachi was fought by the yard. Gunfire was ineffective against the Japanese, but flamethrowers and grenades cleared the bunkers. Finally, on February 23, the summit was reached. A US Flag was raised, but was later replaced by a larger flag in order to preserve the original for the battallion. It was there when Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal took the famous photograph "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" of the United States flag being planted on the mountain's summit. The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for photography and one of the most reproduced images in the history of photography, Joe Rosenthal’s picture has inspired postage stamps, posters, the covers of countless magazines and newspapers, and even the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia. Like the surviving men in his picture, Rosenthal became a celebrity. Initially classified 4-F by the Selective Service (and thus not eligible for military duty) because of poor eyesight, Rosenthal was reclassified 2-AF (essential deferment) because, according to a Time magazine article from the time, the picture entitled him "to a classification better than 4-F." Rosenthal met President Truman, received a bonus of a year’s salary in War Bonds from the AP, and won the Pulitzer Prize. Rosenthal died in August 2006 at the age of 94. In an obituary in the New York Times, Richard Goldstein praised the photographer’s most famous work, writing, "The triumphant portrait, representing the first seizure by American troops of territory governed as part of the Japanese homeland, struck a tremendous emotional chord on the home front and resonated deeply as a symbol of the diversity in American life." The fact that it was not the original photo of the raising of the flag has been lost in history. The original flag raised over Iwo Jima was recovered and replaced in the flag raising photgraphed by Rosenthal. This happened because orders from Colonel Chandler Johnson were sent to the top of Mount Suribachi by Marine runner Rene Gagnon that the original flag was to be preserved for the units history. Gagon carried a larger flag, the one seen in Rosenthal's photo. Acclaimed, actor, composer, producer, director and Academy Award winner Clint Eastwood, first came across the story of the flag raising when he read the best-selling book "Flags of Our Fathers" by James Bradley (son of John 'Doc' Bradley) with Ron Powers. "There are a lot of storylines and that’s what makes the book interesting," says Eastwood. "And, of course, the famous photograph that was done by Joe Rosenthal of the AP. There was something about the photograph. Nobody knows quite what it is except that it’s guys doing some work, raising a pole, that may be how the six guys in the picture saw it themselves. But in 1945, it symbolized the war effort. As a counterpoint to one of the bloodiest battles in the war, the picture symbolized what was at stake, what they were fighting for. And then when you find out what happens to the guys and how they are taken out of battle and brought back for bond tours, you’re left with a very complex set of emotions, especially for people who are 19, 20, 22 years old." "I never set out to write a book," comments James Bradley, whose book was published in 2000 spent fourty six weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list, six of those weeks at #1. "I set out to find out why my dad was silent. I decided to write the book when I realized that everyone knows the photo, but nobody knows the story." Keen to make the book into a film, Eastwood discovered another acclaimed Academy Award winning director had taken the rights. That director won an Oscar for another World War II film. The film was "Saving Private Ryan" and the director was, Steven Spielberg. "I mentioned to Steven Spielberg that I liked the property very much, and I just left it hanging in the air like that. Then, a couple of years ago, I ran into Steven at a function and he said, Why don’t you come over and do the project? You direct it and I’ll produce it with you. So I said, OK, I’ll do that." Given the go ahead, Eastwood threw himself into researching the history of the historic "Battle for Iwo Jima", the deadliest engagement in Marine Corps history and the one for which the most Congressional Medals of Honor (twenty seven) were rewarded. Eastwoods research led to not only the production of "Flags of Our Fathers", but a parallel project Eastwood, a Japanese language film which would tell the other side of the story entitled "Letters From Iwo Jima". But why two stories? "In most war pictures I grew up with, there were good guys and bad guys," Eastwood notes. "Life is not like that and war is not like that. These movies are not about winning or losing. They are about this war's effects on human beings and those who lose their lives much before their time." In a way, the three servicemen Marines Gagnon and Hayes and Navy Corpsman Bradley would lose their lives. The surviving three men of the six seen in Rosenthal's photograph were brought back to the States to promote fundraising as part of the Seventh War Loan Drive. "John Bradley isn’t a complicated man," Ryan Phillippe describes. "He is honest, simple, and straightforward. There’s a great freedom in playing a man like that. He doesn’t lie, doesn’t pretend to be something he’s not. He was a great man. I felt a strong responsibility to make sure he was portrayed in the most honest and complete manner possible." "Rene is nineteen when all this happens to him," says the actor who portrays him, Jesse Bradford. "He is something of a 'mama’s boy', maybe not quite cut out for war. On the other hand, he is also a kid trying to make good. He does everything that’s asked of him. It has to be somewhat discombobulating for these young men. Even though they’ve seen a lot on Iwo Jima, they know other people have seen a lot more." The third member was Ira Hayes who was nicknamed Chief Falling Cloud. Ira, who was promoted to the rank of corporal and whose decorations and medals include; the Commendation Ribbon with "V" combat device; Presidential Unit Citation with one star (for Iwo Jima); Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with four stars (for Vella Lavella, Bougainville, Consolidation of the Northern Solomons, and Iwo Jima); American Campaign Medal and, the World War II Victory Medal is played by Adam Beach, who really impressed the iconic Eastwood. "I think Adam succeeded in capturing the essence of Ira Hayes", said Eastwood. "Ira is a classic war hero, in many respects," says Beach. "He was in three of the bloodiest battles in the South Pacific, and survived them all. All he wants is to be back in the field, with his boys, fighting side by side. He can’t reconcile being safe while his friends, his brothers, are still fighting the horrors of war. He doesn’t know how to deal with that." Ira Hayes died at the age of thirty two on January 24, 1955 is buried in the Arlington National Cemetery. At the funeral, fellow flag-raiser Rene Gagnon said of him: "Let's say he had a little dream in his heart that someday the Indian would be like the white man, be able to walk all over the United States." The Verdict "Don't even take into account critics comparing this to previous Eastwood biggies such as "Mystic River" or "Million Dollar Baby". For heavens sake, the previous mentioned films and "Flags Of Our Fathers" are not only different genres, they are light years apart in emotional terms and storytelling. Eastwood is a master, and at 76 years of age he has shown once again what a classy director, musician and producer he is. Cunningly, Eastwood takes "Flags Of Our Fathers" into high moral ground on two levels. One is the deception involved in the 'raising of the flag' on Mount Suribachi high above the island of Iwo Jima; the other is how those who were brought home because of that famous photograph, were used in the propaganda machine which drove fundraising for the US war effort. On the latter point, some have questioned Eastwoods 'bent'. I have no doubt that he, like everyone else, probably realizes that without that effort the war may have turned in favour of the enemy. What I believe Eastwood is highlighting is the misuse of propaganda by the current US government. This is a grand film with a strong cast. The war scenes are brilliantly reconstructed. There are a number of fine performancers including Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford and Barry Pepper. The standout performer is Adam Beach as marine Ira Hayes. Ira soon discovers that those who extol his bravery and laud him as a hero, still see him as a worthless redskin. The credits finish off the film with a poignant memorial to those who took part in the Iwo Jima campaign including shots of the actors and the real life heroes they portrayed. It makes for a sobering reminder as these original photographs, show us what the battle for this significant, tiny island, looked like. Very recommended. 4 STARS." Cast & Crew Bytes "FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS" stars .......
Ryan Phillippe ["Gosford Park", "Igby Goes down", "Crash" and "Chaos"]; Jesse Bradford ["Clockstoppers", "Swimfan" and "Happy Endings"]; Adam Beach ["Windtalkers", "The Big Empty", "Sawtooth" and "Smoke Signals"]; Paul Walker ["2 Fast 2 Furious", "Into The Blue" and "Eight Below"], BAFTA & BIF Best Newcomer Award winner Jamie Bell ["Billy Elliot", "Nicholas Nickleby" and "King Kong"] and Barry Pepper ["The Green Mile", "We Were Soldiers", "25th Hour" and "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada"] as Sgt Mike Strank.
"FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS" was .......
directed by Academy Award ® & Irving Thalberg Memorial Award winner Clint Eastwood ["Heartbreak Ridge", "Unforgiven", "The Bridges of Madison County", "Mytic River" and "Million Dollar Baby"]; screenplay by William Broyles Jr ["Apollo 13", "Cast Away", "Unfaithful", "The Polar Express" and "Jarhead"] and Academy Award ® winner Paul Haggis ["Crash", "Million Dollar Baby", "The Last Kiss" and "Casino Royale"]; director of photography Tom Stern ["Blood Work", "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" and "The Last Kiss"]; original music by Cecil B DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award winner Clint Eastwood ["Heartbreak Ridge", "The Bridges of Madison County" and "Space Cowboys"] production design by Art Directors Guild of America Lifetime Achevement Award winner Two Time Academy Award ® winner Henry Bumstead ["Unforgiven", "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil", "Space Cowboys" and "Mystic River"] and costume design by Deborah Hopper ["Space Cowboys", "Blood Work", "Mystic River" and "Million Dollar Baby"]. Run Time 132 minutes Rated MA15+ [AUST] Copyright ©2006 - Warner Bros - All Rights Reserved Copyright Protected © 2006 - Impact Internet Services - All Rights Reserved