War of Words over War Movies

I have long studied World War II (as many males do) and I have tried to educate myself on a lot of the accurate stories to have come from that great conflict. One source of information and knowledge for most people is movies and for good or for bad, a lot of what they see in movies is what they take to be the truth. Now in the case of war films it's fine to see that there are some liberties taken but there are limits to what should and shouldn't be tolerated. And I agree that the participation of minorities in the war is one fact that has been glossed over for a very long time. The fact that Japanese Americans served their country in the 442nd Batallion has been largely ignored other than a passing reference by Mr. Miyagi in the "Karate Kid" movies is something that bothers me.

But what bothers me even more is when some directors and others jump to insult someone who isn't the one to blame. Recently at Cannes Film Festival, noted director Spike Lee made claims that Clint Eastwood should be ashamed of the fact that his two films on Iwo Jima released two years ago, "Flags of our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima" did not depict any African-American soldiers despite the fact that 900 of the nearly 30,000 troops on Iwo Jima were African-American. While that's a valid point, I think Spike Lee fails to acknowledge that the film is on the flag raisers at Iwo Jima and the story surrounding their trials during and after the battle and not the battle as a whole. The story focuses on the fact that a second photo was the one that made headlines as opposed to the actual flag-raising picture and despite knowing that they didn't raise the first flag on Iwo Jima, the men who raised the second were treated as heroes for nothing more than propoganda purposes.

Specifics on the story aside, where then will the depiction of African-Americans in the film come to pass? I seriously doubt that Clint Eastwood would intentionally slight the African-American community in that way. He focussed the movie on those who were focused on in the book. But that's not enough for Spike Lee. Even if Eastwood had scenes focussing on a momentary meeting between the main characters and a group of African American soldiers then he would have protested the fact that they were shown as token participants as opposed to real full-fledged ones as they were in Europe and Africa. What about in "Letters from Iwo Jima"? Perhaps again Lee didn't see the movie and thus doesn't realize that the movie is shown from the perspective of the Japanese. Save for a handful of scenes, there is hardly any English at all in the film so then why would there suddenly be Americans showing up?

I think it's right to demand that minorities be given their fair share of recognition for their efforts but I don't think it's fair to lay the blame on movies that have nothing to do with the subject. I think also that some people complain about things for the sake of complaining. When the film "Gandhi" was made by Sir Richard Attenborough, Indian filmmakers complained that they didn't need an Englishman to make a film on the man... they could have done it themselves. The question then is that why didn't they? Similarly when Eastwood made a film on jazz legend Charlie "Bird" Parker, Lee demanded to know why Eastwood made the film and why a black director didn't do it. Eastwood's response? He basically responded by saying that he did it because no one else was going to. He cast the film true to its requirements with people in the appropriate roles. That of course is not acknowledged. Now that Eastwood is doing a film on Mandela, I'm sure that once again there will be cries of protest from Lee. I just wish he'd either take the initiative and make the film otherwise keep his mouth shut.