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Episode
1 (of 10): "Currahee"
August 13, 2004
 urprisingly,
Episode 1 of "Band of Brothers", titled "Curahee", is
probably the mini-series' weakest. Not weak in the sense that it's no
good, but weak in the sense that it's the first of a 10-episode
mini-series, and although it has 70 minutes to work with, that's still not
nearly enough time to introduce the show's wealth of characters. The
writing by Tom Hanks (who also produced the series) and Erik Jendresen is
probably too clichéd in spots, and the direction by Phil Alden Robinson
("Field of
Dreams") is decent, with the sequences that opens and closes the
episode being stirring and poetic, while at the same time frightening.
"Curahee" opens in England, with the men of
Easy Company preparing to board their planes and participate in D-Day.
Their job: parachute in behind enemy lines in the dead of night and aid in
the invasion of the French beaches by Navy forces. As it turns out,
weather conditions make the mission impossible, and the men are treated to
a movie to wait out the coming storm. Outside, Easy Company's leaders,
Dick Winters (Damian Lewis) and Lewis Nixon (Ron Livingston), enjoy some
quiet time, and the name Sobel comes up.
Sobel, we learn, is Captain Herbert Sobel
("Friends" alumni David Schwimmer) who was once in charge of
Easy Company while the men were in training back in the States. A shrill,
unlikable, and petty man, Sobel spends much of the episode belittling and
tearing down his own men, working under the impression that the more he
browbeats them the more they'll respect him. In fact, the exact opposite
occurs -- Easy Company does indeed shape up, but only to spite their
commanding officer.
The faces and names blur by, but we do get glimpses
of personality from some of the mini-series' more prominent faces: the
compassionate Carwood Lipton (Donnie Wahlberg); the crass but tough Bill
Guarnere (Frank John Hughs); the disciplined and strict John Martin
(Dexter Fletcher); and the bull of a man, Bull Randleman (Michael
Cudlitz). Although we learn something about these characters, the ones
that stick out are Winters and Nixon, especially since they must find a
way to save the men of Easy Company from their own commanding officer.
When the action switches to England, the trouble with
Sobel comes to a head. Realizing that they cannot go into battle with a
man of Sobel's personality and weak battle acumen, the men decides to
resign their ranks unless Sobel is removed. The gamble works, and a new
leader is assigned. As the episode closes out, the men of Easy Company
gears up once again, and as their planes take off, we see a majestic view
(the result of real, authentic props and lavish CGI) of transport planes
filling the air as, underneath, warships fill the ocean. D-Day has
arrived.
In some ways, opening the mini-series with what
amounts to a "basic training sequence" isn't all that unusual in
war movies; it allows you to know the characters and their personalities,
and see them bond so that when they do likewise in battle, you understand
it. And to be honest, if you haven't seen the rest of the
mini-series, I'm sure "Curahee" won't come across as the
quietest episode of the bunch. After all, you still don't know what's
coming next, and expectations have not yet set in. But having seen the
mini-series through multiple times, I suppose my response to calling
"Curahee" the weakest of the 10 episodes was greatly aided (or
is that mislead?) by hindsight.
FYI: the title "Curahee" refers to the
mountain behind the training camp where Easy Company trained in the
States. As punishment by Sobel, the men are forced to run Curahee multiple
times, thus the word "Curahee" becomes something of a battle cry
for them. By surviving Curahee, they didn't just conquer basic training,
they also conquered Sobel.
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Episode
2 (of 10): "Day of Days"
August 13, 2004
 f
you didn't become hooked on "Band of Brothers" after Episode 2,
"Day of Days", then you weren't cut out for war movies.
With D-Day in full swing, the men of Easy Company are
being ferried to their drop zone in transport planes. It's the dead of
night, and everyone is anxious, scared, and going through emotions they
didn't know they had. And then it happens -- they begin to hear the sounds
of anti-aircraft guns exploding in the air.
Before Dick Winters' plane even has an opportunity to
drop its human cargo, planes are being blown out of the sky all around
them. German guns are obliterating planes like ducks in a pond, picking
them off one by one. It's a hellish sight, made more horrific when we see
a plane get hit and flames ignite, swallowing up the soldiers in the back
like some angry mythical God of fire. Men die by the hundreds even before
they have the chance to drop and fight.
We follow Dick Winters as he takes the plunge. Upon
landing, Winters realizes that he's not only alone and far, far
behind enemy lines, but his weapons are gone, having failed to follow him
down. Locating another lost soldier, Winters seeks out his own men,
finding Lipton and more lost soldiers along the way. The drops were not on
target, and American soldiers are spread out all across the French
countryside in the darkness. Before the night is over, Winters' men have
executed a successful -- albeit contentious -- ambush, and by morning the
men have located a makeshift command center.
With Easy Company's new commanding officer missing,
Winters becomes the de-facto leader. Before they can take a breather,
Winters and Buck Compton ("Walking
Tall's" Neal McDonough) are ordered to take out a battery of
German artillery firing on the beach. Once again proving he is a natural
leader, Winters reveals his mettle as he leads a maddening charge into
German-occupied trenches. Here, director Richard Loncraine elects to shoot
much of the sequence with the camera moving backwards and the lens trained
on Winters' face as he charges through the trenches, firing and taking
fire all the while. There are about three or four amazing sequences, all
of them based on Damian Lewis' hard, focused face as he screams and grunts
his way through the mission.
"Day of Days", besides giving a sampling of
the harrowing war action that the mini-series will become known for, also
introduces us to Captain Ronald Speirs (Matthew Settle), who along with
Winters and Nixon will become the other face that stands out from the
crowd. A hard, stoic professional man of war, Speirs is a man of mystery.
When we first see him, he has just slaughtered a group of unarmed enemy
prisoners. Or did he? We never actually see the confrontation, or if there
was even any. Our only "view" of the "slaughter" is
the reaction by an American soldier. And so begins the infamous legend of
Ronald Speirs.
War has never looked more beautiful and poetic, and
at the same time so destructive and evil, than it does in episode 2. The
episode itself is short, running just barely 50 minutes. Not that it
matters, because the script by John Orloff is crammed with such intensity
and efficient character moments that a longer running time would only have
been a hindrance. The grueling, 15-minute onslaught by Winters and his men
on the German trenches will go down as one of the best war sequence ever
shot, with not a single second passing that the viewer won't be clutching
his armchair. It is that good.
What I said before is absolutely true: if you don't
like the brutal war action in "Day of Days", then you just
weren't made for war movies. If that's the case, I suggest turning away
now, because it's only going to get worst -- or better, from a cinematic
point of view.
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Episode
3 (of 10): "Carentan"
August 14, 2004
f
"Day of Days" was a punch in the face, then "Carentan"
is a repeated kick in the groin. The episode continues to follow Easy
Company in the days after their jump into France, as they are ordered to
take the town of Carentan. But taking it is just the first part -- the
second, and more important part of the mission, is to keep it.
Episode 3 opens with, and follows, the hesitant
adventures of one Private Blithe, played brilliantly by Marc Warren. A
Southern boy (judging by the drawl), Blithe was lost on D-Day, and as he
later confesses to an unsympathetic Speirs, once he realized he was lost,
he made no effort to find his comrades and get into the fight. In fact,
Blithe hasn't fired a shot, and isn't entirely sure if he can. He readily
admits to being a coward, and during the taking of Carentan he suddenly
suffers from "hysterical blindness".
In Blithe, the mini-series focuses on the sudden
shock of getting thrown into war. It is worth remembering that not a
single member of Easy Company has fired a shot at an enemy, or taken a
life, before they were parachuted into France in the dead of night in
"Day of Days". While most of the men have grown accustom to the
killing, and indeed some even revels in it, Blithe represents those still
suffering from prolong shell shock of actually being in a war. A
seemingly easygoing, friendly enough fellow, Marc Warren hides his
character's deepest fears in vulnerable looks and a soft, innocent face.
"Carentan" was directed by Mikael Salomon,
a cinematographer turned TV director. It isn't much of an exaggeration to
say that the filmmakers probably built an entire town just to completely
and utterly tear it to pieces with gunfire and explosions. The breathless
charge on Carentan is amazing, continuing the gritty visual flair that the
mini-series adopted from movies like "Saving
Private Ryan". Salomon choreographs the episode's many small
battles, following individual characters like Carwood Lipton, while
managing to keep the larger battle for the town in focus.
The episode was written by E. Max Frye, who continues
the infamous legend of Ronald Speirs. In the days after Speirs'
maybe-maybe not execution of German prisoners, we learn what rumors have
sprung up around the mysterious Captain. When it comes to Speirs, truth
and fiction are one and the same. As Speirs later tells Blithe, the reason
why he (Blithe) is afraid is that he hasn't yet accepted that they're all
going to die. It's that acceptance of his fate that propels Speirs into
death-defying moves, literally charging into Death without a care in the
world. If Speirs is the ultimate soldier, then Blithe is the antithesis.
"Carentan" is an outstanding episode,
offering the battle for Carentan and then a second battle as Easy and its
brother Companies fight off a German counter-offensive in the outskirts of
the city. It's another brutal battle, this one with exploding trees and
sod instead of cobblestone floors and brick buildings. Like most of the
episodes of "Band of Brothers", "Carentan" opens with
a poetic shot, and closes out with a heart-wrenching scene as one of the
soldiers, having forgotten about the dead, is reminded of those who didn't
return to England with him in the most innocent of circumstances -- a trip
to the laundry.
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Episode
4 (of 10): "Replacements"
August 17, 2004
n
terms of forwarding the progress of Easy Company's core cast, Episode 4,
"Replacements", is the weakest of the bunch. As the title
implies, the episode takes up the topic of replacement soldiers -- the
young, brash boys from America who came to kill Krauts and win the war
single-handedly. But as the episode proves, even the veterans, who were
themselves wide-eyed brash boys just a few months ago, still remember what
it feels like to be scared in battle.
Throughout its run, "Band of Brothers" has
tried to focus on one particular character, while at the same time
wrapping the rest of the cast, and the war itself, around him. The main
face this time around is Michael Cudlitz, whose Sergeant Randleman takes
center stage. The replacements have been placed under Randleman's squad,
and it's through their eyes we see much of the episode.
The episode opens in England, where Easy Company is
ordered to take part in Operation Market Garden. They are dropped into
occupied Holland, said to be held by "old men and boys". There,
they liberate a town without a single shot being fired, much to their
delight. If only that was the end of it. As it turns out, the Germans are
laying an ambush in a town farther up the road, and the resulting combat
does not go well for Easy Company. Forced to retreat, the Company
unwittingly leaves behind Randleman, who must take refuge for the night
and try to survive to see morning.
"Replacements" is probably the weakest
episode in the mini-series. Although Randleman works as an individual
character in a sea of personalities, he doesn't exactly work as the star
of a whole episode. While Randleman's interactions with his replacement
soldiers are endearing and even awkward in the way fathers try to look
after their grown boys, I'm not sure if there's enough of Randleman, as a
character, to center a whole episode around. Randleman always seemed to
work best as a co-star, not as the star.
But of course this is a war mini-series, and the
episode features a fierce battle. Like all battles in "Band of
Brothers", the action in "Replacements" could have been
transplanted into a big-budget major motion picture without missing a
beat. It's well done, with German tanks wiping out American soldiers and
British tanks from hiding. Once more, buildings explode and the ground
implodes in a brilliant choreography of death and violence and fear.
As the Americans flee, we learn that this is, indeed,
the first time Easy Company has been routed in combat, and commanding
officer Dick Winters observes, with a bitter face, that he dislikes the
taste of defeat.
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Episode
5 (of 10): "Crossroads"
August 19, 2004
f
"Replacements" failed to find a worthy hero to center its
episode around, then episode 5, "Crossroads", has more than
enough firepower to sustain its 50 minutes of soulful meditation and
spurts of war action. In "Crossroads", the focus is entirely on
Captain Dick Winters, played brilliantly by Damian Lewis, who has always
been good as the stalwart officer in previous episodes. Now, given the
task of carrying a whole hour by himself, Lewis proves to be more than up
to the task.
"Crossroads" was directed by actor/producer
Tom Hanks, and Hanks' presence behind the camera shows. Not so much in the
action, since by now directors are interchangeable to the series -- you
can stick anyone behind the camera and the action would still look
amazing, owing to the craftsmen behind the scenes. But where Hanks does
make his presence known is with the actors, in particular Damian Lewis. If
"Replacements" failed to show the heart and soul of its central
figure, then "Crossroads" bares Dick Winters with a microscope.
As the episode opens, Winters has already been sent
to Battalion headquarters; although this means a promotion, it also means
he is no longer the commanding officer of Easy Company. Leaving the
Company, men he calls "his men", is not an easy thing for
Winters. As he struggles with life behind a desk, worrying about men he
now can no longer lead in person, you can practically see the turmoil
within the man. When a secret mission by Easy is accomplished without
casualties, Winters celebrates with them from his room, happy without
having to actually be there.
Confined to a typewriter, Winters has to relive his
last combat mission through flashback even as he types the after-action
reports. As Winters painstakingly dictates every sequence of events, one
gets the feeling he's not so much a slow typist, or even a man obsessed
with the little details, as he is trying to hold onto the memory of that
last operation. He doesn't quite want to let it go, and even though Nixon
(Ron Livingston) jokes that he's taking so long he mind as well write a
novel, we know better.
But Winters' promotion isn't the only thing weighing
on his mind. The face of a young German soldier sentry who Winters killed
has been seared into his memory. In a battle that lasts from night to
morning, Winters led 30 men into enemy territory, unwittingly finding
themselves up against two German SS Companies. The battle turns into a
rout, with the Americans picking off the Germans like, as one soldier puts
it, "a turkey shoot". But it's that one, young soldier, barely
old enough to shave, who continues to haunt Winters. Maybe it's no
surprise, then, that the young German SS officer would be the last man,
enemy or otherwise, Winters would ever shoot again in the war.
As the episode ends, the men of Easy Company finds
their rest once again shortchanged when the Germans break through the
Allied ranks in the Ardennes Forest. Sent to replace a ragged army, there
is a great sense of foreboding as the men of Easy sees defeated soldiers
trudging back to base, having taken a tremendous pounding by the Germans.
It's a sight that won't be unique, since the end of "Crossroads"
signals the coming of the mini-series' most dreary two episodes. If war is
Hell, then what is about to come next is Hell up close.
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Episode
6 (of 10): "Bastogne"
August 19, 2004
 aving
been forced into the Ardennes Forest to stop the German counter-offensive
without proper preparations, Easy Company finds itself short on ammo,
food, supplies, and everything else a soldier needs to survive. And while
they do have each other, even that may not be enough, especially with
their replacement Lieutenant's propensity for disappearing into his
foxhole. Cut off from their supply route and with only the war-ravaged
town of Bastogne as their retreat point, things are looking grim for Dick
Winters and Easy Company.
Episode 6, "Bastogne", unfolds through the
eyes of medic Eugene Roe (Shane Taylor), a Louisiana Cajun from a family
of healers. Before, we had only seen Roe in blurs, as he appeared and
disappeared with the casualties. For Roe, his job in the war begins when
someone shouts "Medic!", and ends when they either die or are
taken away from him and to a proper doctor. In-between the call for his
services and when his services are no longer needed, Roe is detached,
alone, and an observer with too much time to think.
If the previous five episodes were rough, they're
nothing compared to the harsh, snow-covered hard grounds of
"Bastogne". Hidden in their foxholes, finding salvation and
warmth wherever they can find it, the men of Easy Company are liable to
lose their life to the elements rather than the enemy. Speaking of which,
the enemy is everywhere. The Allied lines holding the Germans back are so
thin and spread out that enemy soldiers occasionally wonder into Easy
Company's camp and vice versa. In one scene, Winters captures a German
soldier trying to go to the bathroom a few yards from his foxhole; in
another, two American soldiers literally fall into a German foxhole.
Written by Bruce C. McKenna, who also scribed
"Replacements", "Bastogne" earns high marks for its
dreary, doom and gloom atmosphere. But if things look at their worst in
the forest, Roe's trips into Bastogne brings some sunlight into the somber
episode. In town, Roe comes into contact with Renee (Lucie Jeanne), a
pretty local nurse, and a relationship held tenuously by their profession
develops. But this is no ordinary Hollywood romance, and "Band of
Brothers" is no ordinary Hollywood mini-series. There is no sudden
rush to bed, and certainly no blooming lust. What Roe and Renee develop is
mutual friendship and understanding; a meeting of minds that ends when he
returns to the field and she to her patients.
As the episode comes to a close, a number of themes
have begun to show up in preparation for future episodes. Carwood Lipton
(Donnie Wahlberg) has begun to become an important part of Easy Company,
asserting himself more among the ranks, even as Dick Winters continues to
fade further into the background. Also, replacement Lieutenant Norman
Dike's true colors are becoming apparent, as everyone starts to notice,
including the men. As Dick Winters proves, leaders are born, not taught;
and Dike is no leader.
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Episode
7 (of 10): "The Breaking Point"
August 19, 2004
aving
survived the forest of Bastogne, Easy Company now finds itself in the
forest around the town of Foy, waiting for the inevitable order to take
the town itself. But before that time can come, the men are forced to wait
out German artillery. As the shelling begins, one suddenly realizes that
this must be what it's like to see Hell up close. The trees explode, the
grounds crater, and body parts fly. For the men of Easy Company, things
have just gotten a lot worst.
Episode 7, "The Breaking Point", features a
starring turn by Donnie Wahlberg, who proves once and for all that he's
the more talented actor in the family. Brother Mark may have the
high-paying salary, but I haven't seen the ex-underwear model do anything
approaching what the older Wahlberg pulls off here. It's probably one of
the universe's biggest mysteries, then, that Mark continues to make the
big bucks while starring in one bland movie after another, and Donnie has
to rely on TV work to pay the bills. Where's the cosmic justice in that?
Before "The Breaking Point" is over, the
Company's troubles with replacement Lieutenant Dike, nicknamed
"Foxhole Norman" by the men, will have come to a head. Not that
we don't know how the absent Lieutenant, whose greatest talent seems to be
disappearing, will react when forced to actually lead the men. We're not
surprised because it's Carwood Lipton who has carried the load, taking
over where Dick Winters had left off. As a character later says to Lipton,
he's been holding the Company together ever since Winters was promoted --
he just didn't know it.
Also, the legend of Ronald Speirs continues, with the
number of German prisoners he is supposed to have shot in cold blood
growing to 30. Of course we know it wasn't 30 prisoners from "Day of
Days"; then again, when it comes to Speirs, sometimes the hazy legend
is on purpose. When Dike freezes during the bloody charge on Foy, it's
Speirs who rides to the rescue, literally slicing through the German ranks
like knife through butter. Is it bravery, stupidity, or both? As is the
case with all the rumors about Speirs, one can never know.
But "The Breaking Point" belongs to Donnie
Wahlberg, as his Carwood Lipton glues the men together even as the Germans
unleash Hell itself on the forest. Directed by David Frankel, Episode 7 is
probably one of the bloodiest episode, not to mention the most harrowing,
of the entire mini-series. By the time the episode has run its course,
more than half the regular faces are gone -- either killed, wounded, or
given in to their humanity. The episode's coda says it all: what Easy
Company endured at Bastogne and Foy scarred everyone, even those who
weren't wounded.
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Episode
8 (of 10): "The Last Patrol"
August 20, 2004
aving
miraculously survived the hellish maelstrom of Bastogne and Foy, the
ragged men of Easy Company find themselves in the comparative paradise of
Haguenau, France. With the war winding down, the Americans and Germans are
left to stare at each other across a small river, firing volleys to, one
suspect, break the monotony and nothing else. Suddenly realizing that they
might just make it out of the war alive, the veterans become more
cautious; at the same time, those who had not experienced combat seeks it
out before their chances are gone, along with the war.
Episode 8, "The Last Patrol", is seen
through the eyes of Private David Webster (Eion Bailey), nicknamed
"The Professor" for his Ivy League education. When we last saw
Webster, German shrapnel in "Crossroads" had wounded him; that
minor wound sent him to the hospital, where Webster conveniently missed
Bastogne and Foy. Now just returning to combat, Webster discovers that
he's looked on by his fellow comrades as no more than a replacement, and
that nothing he had done before Bastogne matters.
Realizing, suddenly, that he has lost what fellowship
he once had with Easy Company, Webster seeks out new friendship with the
just-arrived and very young Lieutenant Jones (Colin Hanks, son of producer
Tom Hanks), a recent West Point graduate. A newcomer to the war, Jones has
yet to see combat, and his first day on the job brings him to Haguenau,
where despite his rank he's treated just as shabbily as Webster. To the
men of Easy Company, who have survived Hell, rank on the shoulders of men
who didn't endure Bastogne means nothing.
With the Germans and Americans at a stalemate, and
neither side willing to risk anything with the war on the verge of ending,
Winters is ordered to launch a patrol onto the enemy side and bring back
prisoners. He does so reluctantly, and once again Easy Company is put into
service. None of this sounds very good to Sergeant Malarkey (Scott
Grimes), who has seen his best friends killed, maimed, or shocked out of
the war. Like many others in the Company, Malarkey may have survived
Bastogne, but he carries wounds that aren't visible to the human eye.
In an odd way, "The Last Patrol" actually
makes a better story about replacement soldiers than
"Replacements", which was supposed to be about the topic. Having
missed Bastogne, Webster is relegated back to replacement status, and
forced to prove himself all over again. The scorn, derision, and general
dismissal of him as a human being and as a soldier by the battle-hardened
members of Easy Company are effective, thanks to a terrific and subtle
script by Bruce C. McKenna and Erik Bork.
While lacking a lot of the war action we've come to
expect from the mini-series, "The Last Patrol" is still one of
the better, and smarter, written episodes. You'd have to watch it more
than once to get all the snide attacks on Webster and Jones. As the
episode ends, there is a sense that, indeed, the war is about to be over,
and all these men might just live to see home again. It's a shocking
realization, but more so to the men who lived it.
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Episode
9 (of 10): "Why We Fight"
August 24, 2004
 ith
the war in Europe all but over, Easy Company finds itself pushing further
into Germany. There is no resistance, and any Germans in uniform have fled
the advancing Allied forces. As Episode 9, "Why We Fight",
begins, we learn that Nixon (Ron Livingston) hasn't fired a single shot in
the entire war. Winters is now a Major and running the entire battalion.
In a lot of ways, Episodes 9 and the upcoming 10 are
the epilogues to the mini-series. There is no major combat left, and Easy
Company is left to play military police to the defeated Germans. As the
unit continues to push uncontested into Germany, taking over towns as they
go, we see the massive German army, defeated and unarmed, marching back
home. It is a brilliant sight, the kind of major visual effects that, like
most of "Band of Brothers", is achieved seamlessly.
As life starts to return to the faces of our main
characters, and discussions about what they're going to do when they get
back home surfacing with renewed vigor, Webster wonders out loud why they
were dragged away from their normal lives and sent across half the globe
to fight a war, echoing many of the men's thoughts, but most of all that
of Nixon, whose life back home has completely unraveled. That answer
becomes all too clear to both of them in the episode's second half, when
Easy Company stumbles upon the remains of a Nazi concentration camp.
Dead men litter the place, and those still alive are
walking bags of bones. It's a horrific sight, and director David Frankel
never once flinches from the quiet viciousness of the place; the sheer
brutality inflicted by man upon man. It's a harrowing sight, and a great
dichotomy to the quiet German town nearby, where the civilians claim they
knew nothing about the camp. In an act of vengeance, Allied Command orders
the townspeople to clean up the camp, stacking up the dead bodies in bony
piles, one after another.
As the episode ends, there is no longer any doubt why
being uprooted and shipped half across the globe was worth it.
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Episode
10 (of 10): "Points"
August 24, 2004
n
many ways, Episode 10, "Points", is anti-climactic. After the
devastating combat of previous episodes, and even the emotional impact of
"Why We Fight", there isn't much for "Points" to do
but wrap the mini-series up. And it does that well enough, with Easy
Company now in Austria, doing more military police duty. There are still
problems: men are dying from accidents and carelessness, and the ongoing
war in the Pacific is threatening to once again conscript Easy Company
back into service.
With all these things weighing heavily on his
shoulders, Dick Winters conspires to get as many of his war-weary men home
as possible. But before Winters can get everyone home, the war in the
Pacific comes to a sudden end, and the mini-series closes out with a
5-minute narrative where, in voiceover, Dick Winters tells us what has
since happened to the men of Easy Company.
It's a bittersweet moment, with some old faces
returning, including David Schwimmer's Captain Sobel and the shell-shocked
Buck Compton. As we learn what has happened to the survivors, one can't
help but be affected, especially in light of the fact that not all of them
had happy endings. Most sad is the ending for David Webster, the Ivy
League-educated soldier who simply disappeared off the face of the Earth
one day. Others would go on to live a full life, with some still alive at
the date of the mini-series' airing.
As the episode ends, we see the actual survivors of
Easy Company, performing their final narration. We had seen these men talk
about the war throughout the mini-series, but the show has cleverly never
told us who they were until now. We learn that Dick Winters is alive and
well, and so is Carwood Lipton, Bill Guarnere, and others. As we look at
their eyes, we know the war has changed their lives completely. And it
helps to remind us just how much they had sacrificed, and how much we
still owe them, and will always owe them.
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he HBO original mini-series
"Band of Brothers" is the
kind of filmmaking enterprise that makes the word "epic" seem inadequate.
The series (smartly) takes a myopic view of the war, focusing on a small group
of men instead of giving us a grand tale that encompassed all the different
shades and theaters of the war effort. It is, for all intents and purposes, a
personal story about the trials and tribulations, the victories and defeats, and
the heroism and cowardice of a single company in a war that involved hundreds of
thousands of companies. The company in question is Easy Company, a tiny
fraction of the 101st Airborne Division, the American military's
paratrooper corp. The mini-series, which ran for 10 straight weeks on HBO, was
produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, with Hanks serving as writer and
director on a couple of episodes.