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"From this day to the ending of the world we in it shall be remembered. We lucky few, we band of brothers. For he who today sheds his blood with me shall be my brother."

2001 TV / War Miniseries Directed by: David Frankel, Tom Hanks Starring: Damian Lewis, Donnie Wahlberg, Ron Livingston

Tagline

They depended on each other. And the world depended on them.

Summary Capsule

Truth is not just stranger than fiction, it's far more inspiring. Case in point, Easy Company.

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Amazon.com: DVD | Amazon.com: Soundtrack

Justin's Rating: Atten-HUP! Salute!
Justin's Review: Some people — some, as in a LOT — aren't big fans of history.  I think this can be safely blamed on dry, date-regurgitating high school history classes, where the past is sucked clean of its juice and preserved in terse, meaningless textbooks.  History jerky.  If you're a brave man or woman to get past that prejudice, like me (I'm brave!), then you can discover the truth: history is utterly fascinating, often more so than the best fiction on the market.  Real history is real people, real events, real impact made on the world, real battles, real mistakes, and (going for the seventh mention of this word in this sentence) real groovy.  For me, exploring past events is key in opening my eyes to where we are now — history provides the context for the world at large.

"I think this can be safely blamed on dry, date-regurgitating high school history classes, where the past is sucked clean of its juice and preserved in terse, meaningless textbooks.  History jerky."

So when I'm stepping back through history, I avoid looking at it from a current, detached perspective, but instead imagine what it'd be like if I was actually there.  What time period would I hate living in?  What would I do for a living in the 1800's or the 600's?  How would I stand living in cities in an era before underarm deodorant?

Looking back at World War II, it's a much deeper experience to revisit this time by imagining what it was like to be there (versus just sitting in a modern-era observation booth calmly watching events).  To many, to most, the world must've felt like it was ending, that everything turned upside-down and the future was more uncertain than ever.  Despite what we know now, victory for the Allies was not certain at the time, and five years of war brought many countries down to their knees.

The acclaimed (and justly so) HBO miniseries Band of Brothers is all about yanking you back in time, and plopping you down in the middle of a group of people who honestly didn't know how the whole war was going to turn out... or whether they'd be there in the end to see it.

Unlike conventional TV shows, where the writers have to plan for the possibility of many future seasons and thus keep plot lines open, the treasure that Band of Brothers offers us is in the mini-series format: a contained story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  It doesn't play to stereotypical Hollywood playbook, because the story is from real life, and real life doesn't always have a half-mechanical Adolf Hitler in the final minutes shooting rockets at our invincible heroes.  No, Band of Brothers almost begins and ends anti-climactically, with quiet, character-building moments, but along the way we journey along with a paratrooper company that saw more action in WWII than pretty much any other US company.

Produced as a labor of love from Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, and most definitely influenced by their previous Saving Private Ryan, this ten-part mini-series is more about a larger unit of mixed characters (101st Airborne, Easy Company) than one or two high-billing actors.  Easy Company was one of the first of the untested Allied paratrooper programs, trained to be elite soldiers who would jump behind enemy lines and accomplish the near-impossible.  In real life, that's pretty much what they did.

Part one, "Currahee", we are introduced to most of our main Easy Company vets as they go through the rigors of boot camp in the early 40's.  Quickly likable, for the most part, Easy Company is constructed of guys you'd love to have at your back: the responsible, if goody-two-shoes Lt. Winters (Damian Lewis, in a stellar role); quiet squad leader Lipton (Donnie Whalberg); the drinking, congenial Capt. Nixon (Office Space's Ron Livingston); the "buddy buddy" Lt. Compton (Neal McDonough); and a couple dozen more.  The only sour apple in the group is their spiteful and incompetent leader Capt. Sobel (David Schwimmer), who might be a great boot camp instructor but a lousy field commander.

By part two, "Day of Days", Band of Brothers jumps into the thick of the war: the pre-D-Day massive paratrooper drop into Normandy.  From then on, Easy Company stomps all over Europe, taking one of the highest in casualty rates of any U.S. company in the war, as they fight through Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, Operation Market Garden, and the eventual capture of Hitler's private fortress/retreat, Eagle's Nest.  While each episode might highlight a character or two to lavish special focus upon, the whole of the series is on the company.  We see men grow, change, despair, die, and survive.  By the end, as the war dies down, these guys have gone from brave recruits to grizzled veterans who just want the whole thing to be over and done with.

I could say enough about Band of Brothers, but it'd take me at least forty more paragraphs to do things properly.  As it is, the series is not just exciting, action-packed and interesting... but the real story it follows makes this for history that can almost be felt.  One of the genius moves that the makers did were starting out each episode with brief interview clips from the actual surviving members of Easy Company — but they don't tell you who they are until the end of the series, lest you get too comfy knowing which soldiers are safe from getting killed.

This was a huge, bold production that paid off spectacularly.  This is World War II in a way that movies can't summarize in a brief two hours; this is real history, presented not just for our entertainment, but also for our enlightenment and for their honor.

Normandy Ardennes Landsberg

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• By the third episode of shooting, the special effects department had used more pyrotechnics than were used in the entire production of Saving Private Ryan.
• In "Day Of Days" when the company first attacks the German gun position at Brecourt, there appears to be some kind of cimematic error when it looks as though an American soldier throws a grenade and it explodes upon hitting a fleeing German soldier. Grenades don't explode on contact; they have timed fuses. However, this actually happened: Buck Compton had been an All-American catcher for UCLA and threw that grenade at the enemy with no arc and it exploded as soon as it struck.

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

No.

History & Hollywood [some sources: Wikipedia]

The regiment was initially formed at Camp Toccoa, Georgia in 1942 where it earned its nickname, "the Currahees", after the Currahee Mountain they trained on inside the camp. The Cherokee word, which translates to "Stands Alone", also became the unit's motto. During World War II, the only commander of the regiment was Colonel Robert F. Sink. As such, the 506th was sometimes referred to as the "Five-Oh-Sink". On June 10th, 1942, the 506th became part of the 101st Airborne Division. The 506th would participate in three major battles during the war: D-Day, Operation Market Garden, and the Battle of the Bulge. Of about 2000 men who jumped into France, 231 were killed in action, 183 were missing or POWs, and 569 were wounded — about 50% casualties for the Normandy campaign. After WWII, the 506th was de-activated in 1945

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

Almost all the main actors were cast because of their close physical resemblance to the real-life soldiers they were portraying.

The book was written by Stephen Ambrose, and he, along with Hanks and Spielberg, showed each of the scripts around to real-life soldiers of Easy Company to guarantee authenticity.

More than 2,000 extras and 500 speaking roles worked on the miniseries, using 700 authentic weapons and almost 400 rubber prop weapons. A heavy day of filming required up to 14,000 rounds of ammunition.

The actors endured a grueling two-week boot camp where they learned the basics, from how to wear a uniform and stand at attention, to sophisticated field tactics and parachute jump training.

The village (Carentan), which became 11 different European cities and villages, was 12 acres - the size of nine American football fields.

The forest set, recreating the Bois Jacques in Bastogne, was built in an airplane hanger using real trees, as well as 250 trees created by the special effects department. One-third of a million pounds of recycled paper were used to create the snow for the forest set.

One important special effects innovation was the use of human dummies on electromagnetic bases, which could be posed in any position, holding weapons and gear. The dummies were modeled after auto crash test dummies, so they had the proper weight and dimensions, and their joints behaved like human joints. When the dummy took a hit, the electromagnet was released and the dummy crumpled as a human would.

The series was nominated for 19 Emmy Awards, and won six.

Groovy Quotes

Winters: We're paratroopers, Lieutenant, we're supposed to be surrounded.

Lipton: [real life interview with Lipton where he recites a quote from William Shakespeare] From this day to the ending of the world we in it shall be remembered. We lucky few, we band of brothers. For he who today sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.

Winters: I treasure my remark to a grandson who asked, "Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?" "No", I answered, "But I served in a company of heroes".

Speirs: We're all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there's still hope. But Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function. Without mercy. Without compassion. Without remorse. All war depends on it.

Perconte: Kind of remind ya of Bastogne?
Luz: Yeah, now that you mention it... Except, of course, there's no snow, we got warm grub in our bellies, and the trees aren't f**kin' exploding from Kraut artillery, but yeah... Frank... other than that, it's a lot like Bastogne.

Winters: Harry. Fire's not a good idea.
Welsh: Just a couple of minutes. We're in a dell.
Winters: A dell? Like where fairies and gnomes live?
Nixon: I swear I thought I could smell a fire. I did smell a fire. Are you out of your mind?
Winters: Well, we're in a dell.
Nixon: Huh?

Winters: That night, I thanked God for seeing me through that day of days and prayed I would make it through D plus 1. I also promised that if some way I could get home again, I would find a nice peaceful town and spend the rest of my life in peace.

Perconte: Okay, genius. Answer me this, then. How come Easy Company is the only company who's either at the front of an advance, or, like now, exposed at the far edge of the line?

Winters: These men have been through the toughest training the Army has to offer, under the worst possible circumstances, and they volunteered for it.

Perconte: Do you know why no one remembers your name? Its cause no one wants to remember your name! There are too many Smiths, Dimattos, and O'Keefes and O'Briens who show up here replacing Toccoa men that you dumb replacements got killed in the first place. And they're all like you. They're all piss and vinegar. "Where the Krauts at? Let me at 'em. When do I get to jump into Berlin?" Two days later there they are with their blood and guts hanging out. Screaming for a medic, begging for their g**damn mother. You dumb kids don't even know you're dead yet. Hey, you listening to me? Don't you know this is the best part of frickin' war I've seen? I've got hot chow, hot showers, a warm bed. The way I see it, Germany is almost as good as being home. I even got to wipe my ass with real toilet paper today. So quit asking when you're gonna see some action, will ya? And stop with the frickin' love songs!

Winters: We're not lost, Private, we're in Normandy.

Lipton: [narrating as Captain Speirs runs across the battlefield] They didn't shoot, probably because they couldn't believe their eyes from what they saw. But the most amazing thing was, after he made contact with I company, he came back.

Winters: Lieutenant Sobel does not hate Easy Company, Private Randleman. He just hates you.

Winters: Let me know if you run into any trouble.
Nixon: Yeah, and you let me know if you run into any bacon sandwich.

Webster: "They got me". You believe that? You believe I said that?

Soundtrack Review

There's actually a moving score underlying all of this, starting with the (long) theme. Nothing to dance to, but nice nonetheless.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Saving Private Ryan
• The Grey Zone
• Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War