Band of Brothers
Sep. 9th, 2016 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerMy brother and I just finished watching Band of Brothers, which we've been talking about watching for... oh, six months now... but I guess the news that I'm moving out lit a fire under him, because we've watched the ten episodes in about three weeks.
(This may not sound impressive, but it's very fast for us.)
And it's interesting. It's a good show, although in a very different way than I would call most of the shows that I watch good. When we started watching it, my brother commented, "I've seen this ten times and I still can't pick out all the guys," and I think that's deliberate. The hero of the story is not any of the particular guys (although Dick Winters' story serves as a sort of guidepost for those of us who are used to more individualized storytelling), but the company itself, Easy Company in the 101st Airborne.
Many of the episodes have a particular character who serves as the lens for that episode (I found the episode about Eugene Roe's experience as a medic particularly affecting). But it's not concerned with character arcs in the traditional sense; a character will get an episode and then slip back into the background for the rest of the show, without much follow-up on their personal arc.
I'm not sure I would have watched the whole thing without someone to say "Look! We know that guy, that's Bull Randleman!" (or whoever). But it's very well-made and I'm glad I saw it.
I'm also impressed by the relatively low gore quotient. Here you've got a show set in some pretty bloody fighting, like Bastogne (where the 101st Airborne was encircled by Nazi bombardment), and there is blood, of course, and a couple of really tragic death scenes, but the camera didn't linger lovingly on the gore or seek out every opportunity to wedge some more blood and guts in there. I feel like there's been a definite move in the pro-gore direction in the fifteen years since this was made and I wish we could go back.
This is one of my reservations about watching The Pacific, which Chuck wants us to do next. It was filmed in 2010, well after the Gore Renaissance was underway, so who knows how much blood and guts and intestines there'll be? And also I've heard that The Pacific is less cohesive than Band of Brothers, which is already only cohesive in its own somewhat peculiar way. So we'll see.
(This may not sound impressive, but it's very fast for us.)
And it's interesting. It's a good show, although in a very different way than I would call most of the shows that I watch good. When we started watching it, my brother commented, "I've seen this ten times and I still can't pick out all the guys," and I think that's deliberate. The hero of the story is not any of the particular guys (although Dick Winters' story serves as a sort of guidepost for those of us who are used to more individualized storytelling), but the company itself, Easy Company in the 101st Airborne.
Many of the episodes have a particular character who serves as the lens for that episode (I found the episode about Eugene Roe's experience as a medic particularly affecting). But it's not concerned with character arcs in the traditional sense; a character will get an episode and then slip back into the background for the rest of the show, without much follow-up on their personal arc.
I'm not sure I would have watched the whole thing without someone to say "Look! We know that guy, that's Bull Randleman!" (or whoever). But it's very well-made and I'm glad I saw it.
I'm also impressed by the relatively low gore quotient. Here you've got a show set in some pretty bloody fighting, like Bastogne (where the 101st Airborne was encircled by Nazi bombardment), and there is blood, of course, and a couple of really tragic death scenes, but the camera didn't linger lovingly on the gore or seek out every opportunity to wedge some more blood and guts in there. I feel like there's been a definite move in the pro-gore direction in the fifteen years since this was made and I wish we could go back.
This is one of my reservations about watching The Pacific, which Chuck wants us to do next. It was filmed in 2010, well after the Gore Renaissance was underway, so who knows how much blood and guts and intestines there'll be? And also I've heard that The Pacific is less cohesive than Band of Brothers, which is already only cohesive in its own somewhat peculiar way. So we'll see.
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Date: 2016-09-10 12:37 am (UTC)I haven't seen Band of Brothers, so I can't comment on that, but I'm so glad to hear other people watching things at my speed! I absolutely can't stand more than an hour of TV a day, and even that not every day.
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Date: 2016-09-10 02:07 am (UTC)I also have trouble watching movies all the way through at one time unless I'm watching with someone.
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Date: 2016-09-10 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-09-10 09:36 pm (UTC)I have discovered that I prefer watching movies with other people anyway, so this works out fine most of the time. Although of course there always those times when there's a movie I reeeaaally want to see and I don't know anyone who would be interested.