Battle of San Pietro by Film Review

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"After shots of soldiers' dog tags nailed to rough wooden grave markers, we see survivors smiling wearily, but the voice-over undercuts the relaxed moment: 'Many among those you see alive here have since joined the ranks of their brothers-in-arms who fell at San Pietro.... Ahead lay ... more San Pietros, greater or lesser, a thousand more.'" the shot of the dog tags as grave markets could be interpreted, in their raw form, as a poignant statement about the soldier's sacrifice, but Huston's statement that these dog tags once represented living human beings with camera shots of real soldier's faces is used to remind us that many American soldiers will never again smile or set foot on their native soil. The question as to whether their sacrifice is worthwhile and worthy is left for the viewer to ask him or herself (Schoenherr 2005).


The images of ordinary civilians, poor, dirty, and vulnerable and the images of death undercut the patriotism of the words of the film. The children, crippled old men and women thwart the uncomplicated support of the war and any nobleness of the soldier's sacrifice -- the nobility is in life, not death. Glory is in the old man who has lived in San Pietro his entire life and can still bring himself to hobble around the rubble, or the old woman who sweeps the street in front of her house while the U.S. soldiers look for booby traps. "Children are able to forget quickly" says Huston -- but clearly, he cannot, nor can the soldiers, living and dead, who are the physical and emotional causalities of the war.

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