Spike declares war on Hollywood

... not on Clint Eastwood
By BRUCE KIRKLAND - Sun Media

TORONTO - Hollywood has too long distorted the truth about the combat role of African-Americans during World War II, filmmaker Spike Lee says.
In a rare one-on-one interview, Lee told Sun Media yesterday that is why he spoke out against Clint Eastwood at the Cannes film festival in May, chiding the legendary actor-director for ignoring black characters in both Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, which showed the same Pacific battle from both sides.
The debate escalated after Cannes. Eastwood publicly said of Lee: "A guy like him should shut his face." Lee shot back: "The man is not my father and we're not on a plantation, either."
But the problem is not Eastwood, Lee insisted yesterday, as he clarified his position while preparing for tomorrow's world premiere of his own WWII film, Miracle at St. Anna, at the Toronto film festival.
"Here's the thing," Lee said. "To be honest, I was not speaking out against Clint Eastwood and Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. I said Clint Eastwood is a great filmmaker. But also I was stating a fact: There were no black servicemen in these films. Somebody told me that there was a shot of three in one film. I must have blinked.
"But I'm sorry it sort of escalated to where it did and, as far as I am concerned, it is over and done with."
Lee said he instead wants to focus on "the big picture" about the role of the so-called Buffalo Soldiers, the almost all-black U.S. Army 92nd Division that served in the Italian campaign as a social experiment backed by U.S. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The film depicts a fictional adventure constructed around significant real-life events, including the infamous Nazi massacre of 560 Italian civilians at the tiny mountain town of St. Anna.
"The big picture is that Clint Eastwood was not the director of every single film in Hollywood in the War-Two genre that has belittled or disrespected or omitted the contribution of 1.1 million African-Amercan men and women who fought or participated in World War II," Lee said.
"It's not about Clint Eastwood. It's about Hollywood."
That is why he made Miracle at St. Anna, adapted by James McBride from his own novel. It is important to tell the story of the Buffalo Soldiers, even as drama, Lee said. Miracle shows what the Buffalo Soldiers had to endure, including racism within the ranks of the U.S. Army that meant some black troops were used as cannon fodder, or not given proper strategic support by white commanders.
"I think it's part of history, and these guys were American patriots -- true heroes," Lee said. "Look, I'm not saying that one person is more patriotic than another. But, when you are given the full rights of a citizen, I think it is much easier to pick up a gun and fight for democracy in the red, white and blue.
"But, to do that when you are treated as a second-class citizen, that takes a lot more, I feel, because you've got to get around that. That's what these guys had to do. They were fighting for a country they love which, a lot of the time, didn't love them back the same way."
Lee said many of these men felt that, by fighting for the war and fighting for democracy, somehow that would have an impact once the war was over.
"Of course, many were disappointed when they came back. But I felt that a lot of these cats coming back laid down the foundation for the Civil Rights Movement. Because, when you fought for your country and you became a trained killer and you came back, there are just some things you're not going to take anymore."
Only Duke would do
The key protagonist in Spike Lee's Miracle at St. Anna watches a World War II movie on TV in the opening scenes. Because he was dealing with mythology, Lee knew what he had to put in front of Laz Alonso.
"I knew it has to be John Wayne," Lee told Sun Media yesterday, as he prepared Miracle for its world premiere tomorrow at the Toronto filmfest. "And I knew it has to be The Longest Day and the invasion of Normandy on D-Day."
As the African-American Alonso watches Wayne rally his all-white troops, he mutters, "Pilgrim, we fought in this war, too."
Lee said he hopes he can change Hollywood mythology by showing what some of the thousands of blacks in the U.S. Army 92nd Regiment did in Italy in 1944.
"Here is the thing that Hollywood does better than anyone else in the world: Mythology! When they want to build somebody up, or build America up, they do it better than anybody. You might say it is mythology/propaganda."
Growing up in Brooklyn, Lee said he saw too few Hollywood films that incorporated major black characters in the World War II genre.
"But I was happy as s--- as a little boy seeing Jim Brown in The Dirty Dozen."
Now he wants little boys growing up now to see black actors Alonso, Derek Luke, Michael Ealy and Omar Benson Miller in the four lead roles in Miracle at St. Anna.

Toronto Film Festival 2008

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

What a F-----g D------d spike lee is. "Oh it's not really about Clint Eastwood," how stupid does this idiot think everyone is? Also, since Duke has been gone for almost 30 years, he isn't around to defend himself. For that jerks info, Duke was NOT in charge of making any decisions in: The Longest Day-and who had only agreed to do this film as he was going to donate his earnings to charity. This info is on record and at: JWMB and can easily be checked.

BTW, if John Wayne had not decided to play the role of the American Light Colonel, Charlton Heston wanted the role. Though im glad Duke took the role but, one has to wonder what it would have been like to see Charlton Heston as the Lt.Col? I would have liked it either way.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

when politically correctness is getting trendy , Spike will serve the coctail. I'm glad it's not my cup of (ice)tea

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HMMMMMM...someone sounds a little bitter and paranoid LOL.

SPIKE SAYS CLINT COMMENTS MAY KILL OSCAR HOPES': Plus, director continues Babelgum gig for second year.


(September 11, 2008)

*Spike Lee tells King magazine that his chances of ever receiving an Oscar nomination may have been ruined by his public feud with Clint Eastwood earlier this year.


At the Cannes Film Festival in May, Lee called Eastwood on the carpet for the lack of African-American soldiers depicted in his World War II films "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima." In the war of words that ensued, Eastwood said Lee should "shut his face" – to which Lee responded "we're not on a plantation."

Lee thinks the controversy will taint some members of the Academy when it's time to cast ballots for his new WW II movie "Miracle at St. Anna."
He tells King magazine: "My wife Tonya told me I may have hurt my chances with the Clint Eastwood stuff... They (Oscar voters and Academy bosses) take everything into account with me. They take into account that I like the Knicks or that I'm in New York."

"If you did a survey, the bulk of the people who vote in the Academy are in Los Angeles," he continued. "There's definite bias, considering that my films are typically New York-based."
The director says he still doesn't understand how 1989's "Driving Miss Daisy" could win an Oscar for Best Film over his movie "Do the Right Thing," which was released the same year, but not nominated.
"Nobody is watching motherf**king 'Driving Miss Daisy' today. 'Do The Right Thing' is being taught in classes at major universities and high schools all over the world. That's how you're supposed to test art. Does the work stand up?"

Meanwhile, Lee begins his second year heading the jury of the Babelgum Online Film Festival, which calls for independent filmmakers who upload their entries onto Babelgum's platform for a nationwide vote among Web users.
Last year's inaugural festival included 1,000 entries from 86 countries, according to Babelgum, an Internet company that streams videos online for free. More than 1.5 million viewers voted to select the final cut for the jury.

EURweb.com - SPIKE SAYS CLINT COMMENTS MAY KILL OSCAR HOPES': Plus, director continues Babelgum gig for second year.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

Were there any black soldiers at Iwo?

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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

According to this there were 900 Blacks on Iwo. Though I don't know how accurate it is and how many actually saw combat.


Absent from history: the black soldiers at Iwo Jima

Nearly 900 African-Americans fought on the Japanese island but not one appears in Clint Eastwood's Oscar-tipped film, writes Dan Glaister
The portrayal in Clint Eastwood's film, Flags of Our Fathers, of the raising of the US flag on Iwo Jima.

On February 19 1945 Thomas McPhatter found himself on a landing craft heading toward the beach on Iwo Jima.
"There were bodies bobbing up all around, all these dead men," said the former US marine, now 83 and living in San Diego. "Then we were crawling on our bellies and moving up the beach. I jumped in a foxhole and there was a young white marine holding his family pictures. He had been hit by shrapnel, he was bleeding from the ears, nose and mouth. It frightened me. The only thing I could do was lie there and repeat the Lord's prayer, over and over and over."
Sadly, Sgt McPhatter's experience is not mirrored in Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood's big-budget, Oscar-tipped film of the battle for the Japanese island. While the battle scene's in the film - which opens today in the US - show scores of young soldiers in combat, none of them are African-American. Yet almost 900 African-American troops took part in the battle of Iwo Jima, including Sgt McPhatter.
The film tells the story of the raising of the stars and stripes over Mount Suribachi at the tip of the island. The moment was captured in a photograph that became a symbol of the US war effort. Eastwood's film follows the marines in the picture, including the Native American Ira Hayes, as they were removed from combat operations to promote the sale of government war bonds.
Mr McPhatter, who went on to serve in Vietnam and rose to the rank of lieutenant commander in the US navy, even had a part in the raising of the flag. "The man who put the first flag up on Iwo Jima got a piece of pipe from me to put the flag up on," he says. That, too, is absent from the film.
"Of all the movies that have been made of Iwo Jima, you never see a black face," said Mr McPhatter. "This is the last straw. I feel like I've been denied, I've been insulted, I've been mistreated. But what can you do? We still have a strong underlying force in my country of rabid racism."
Melton McLaurin, author of the forthcoming The Marines of Montford Point and an accompanying documentary to be released in February, says that there were hundreds of black soldiers on Iwo Jima from the first day of the 35-day battle. Although most of the black marine units were assigned ammunition and supply roles, the chaos of the landing soon undermined the battle plan.
"When they first hit the beach the resistance was so fierce that they weren't shifting ammunition, they were firing their rifles," said Dr McLaurin.
The failure to transfer the active role played by African-Americans at Iwo Jima to the big screen does not surprise him. "One of the marines I interviewed said that the people who were filming newsreel footage on Iwo Jima deliberately turned their cameras away when black folks came by. Blacks are not surprised at all when they see movies set where black troops were engaged and never show on the screen. I would like to say that it was from ignorance but anybody can do research and come up with books about African-Americans in world war two. I think it has to do with box office and what producers of movies think Americans really want to see."
He added: "I want to see these guys get their due. They're just so anxious to have their story told and to have it known."
Roland Durden, another black marine, landed on the beach on the third day. "When we hit the shore we were loaded with ammunition and the Japanese hit us with mortar." Private Durden was soon assigned to burial detail, "burying the dead day in, day out. It seemed like endless days. They treated us like workmen rather than marines."
Mr Durden, too, is wearied but unsurprised at the omissions in Eastwood's film. "We're always left out of the films, from John Wayne on," he said. Mr Durden ascribes to both the conspiracy as well as the cock-up theory of history. "They didn't want blacks to be heroes. This was pre-1945, pre civil rights."
A spokesperson for Warner Bros said: "The film is correct based on the book." The omission was first remarked upon in a review by Fox News columnist Roger Friedman, who noted that the history of black involvement at Iwo Jima was recorded in several books, including Christopher Moore's recent Fighting for America: Black Soldiers - the Unsung Heroes of World War II. "They weren't in the background at all," said Moore.
"The people carrying the ammunition were 90% black, so that's an opportunity to show black soldiers. These are our films and very often they become our history, historical documents." Yvonne Latty, a New York University professor and author of We Were There: Voices of African-American Veterans (2004), wrote to Eastwood and the film's producers pleading with them to include the experience of black soldiers. HarperCollins, the book's publishers, sent the director a copy, but never heard back.
"It would take only a couple of extras and everyone would be happy," she said. "No one's asking for them to be the stars of the movies, but at least show that they were there. This is the way a new generation will think about Iwo Jima. Once again it will be that African-American people did not serve, that we were absent. It's a lie." The first chapter to James Bradley's book Flags of Our Fathers, which forms the basis of the movie, opens with a quotation from president Harry Truman. "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know." It would provide a fitting endnote to Eastwood's film.

Absent from history: the black soldiers at Iwo Jima | World news | guardian.co.uk

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

that little man is nuts.

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Scott

I have never really liked him or his films. Not impressed. IMO he is just a malignant hate mongering little dwarf with a big chip on his shoulder.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

Found one picture of Iwo that applies. I also watched a show on the dreaded history channel that interviewed some guy who drove DUKW's back and forth, and others who loaded/unloaded ammunition, ship/beach. Not exactly a safe place to be, as one of the guys had two vehicles blown up on him. No place was safe on Iwo early on.

poor spike,

Attached Images

african-americans-wwii-102.jpg (91.9 KB, 8 views)

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There's one way to find out if a man is honest-ask him. If he says "Yes", you know he's a crook. Groucho Marx