Flags Of Our Fathers Film Analysis

Should the American government manipulate information to the public in order to help support war efforts? The film Flags of Our Fathers by Clint Eastwood (2006) shows that after a long grueling battle on the island of Iwo Jima in Japan, U.S. troops take control of the island and the American Flag is risen on Mount Suribachi. This symbolizes a massive milestone in the war but it also misguides the American people towards thinking the war was over. This event becomes very controversial because the military ordered the flag to be risen again in order to have a picture taken of the men raising the flag and the photo was staged. The issue with this, is that since the war continued for another month, 3 of the men who originally rose the flag died

and other servicemen replaced them in the picture. In total, there were 6 men in the photo, 5 Marines and 1 Naval Corpsman. Since 3 of these men died and the movie follows the other 3 who survived who were named John Bradley, Rene Gagon and Ira Hayes. The movie is based off of the main character Jack Bradley who had a flashback years later about the story behind this controversial picture. Many of the men who were in the photo did not fight at all in combat during the war and were labeled as heroes for raising the flag. Later, these men returned home from the war and immediately went on a tour to help raise money for war bonds. They were labeled as the “Heroes of Iwo Jima” to the public for raising the flag. Night after night these men were forced to reenact this famous pose in the picture but deep down they knew that they in fact were not heroes but the men who originally rose the flag and died were the real heros at Iwo Jima. The movie continues on with the war bonds tour and it became increasingly harder for the men to do this tour night after night because they suffered from PTSD. They also felt guilty that they survived the war and were taking credit for the photo. After the men returned home, people in their hometown still labeled them as heroes and it bothered them in the years forward. The plot and frame of the movie is driven by Tom Mccarthy, who is one of characters son, interviewing old comrades and friends to see what happened to his father and the flashbacks with combat scenes intertwines with the the soldier's personal stories.
An important scene in the movie is when these three men were introduced at a war bonds ceremony for the first time in Times Square, New York.

This scene occurred about halfway through the film (56:00) and it was the men’s first taste at the fame they would have to endure for many weeks to come. All three of the men in the beginning of the scene are walking through the crowd and are greeted by thousands of men cheering. Then all of a sudden you could hear someone yell out, “I heard the photo is staged, is this true.” The men were forced to either not respond or lie to anyone who asked if the photo was staged. When the men reach the stage, they are formally introduced to the crowd as the “Heroes of Iwo Jima” and the crowd begins to roar. Then, Rene Gagon goes to the microphone and says something very astonishing to the crowd, “As far as us being the heroes of Iwo Jima, that’s just not the case, we really didn’t do much at all, especially me, I was just a runner, that's it, I put up a flag, the pole we attached it to was heavy so it took a number of us and we got our picture taken doing it. The real heroes are dead on that island.” The crowd gasps for a second and then erupts again and nobody else speaks during the scene. Afterwards the film cuts to the men walking out of the rally. While the men were walking out of the rally, Ira and Rene get into an argument over what Rene said on stage. Ira claims that he was a hero on Iwo Jima because he did fire his weapon on the

island so he does not want to be classified as not being a hero on Iwo Jima.
The message Eastwood is conveying about America during World War II is that the military manipulated information in the media in order to sell war bonds and therefore was very corrupt. Originally, the raising of the flag was not documented in any type of photo, but the military decided that they could use a photo of that nature for propaganda posters and promoting the sale of war bonds throughout America. To the American people at the time, the photo taken symbolized a sense of victory in the war. However, this was not the case, combat continued in Japan for another 30 days after the photo was taken. Using the photo to help support the purchase of war bonds seemed effective throughout the film because at every single event these men went to, thousands of people would show up to see the “Heroes of Iwo Jima”. Moreover, these men were forced into going on this war bonds tour and they knew that they were not heroes the entire time. In one scene, Rene Gagon protests the idea of the war bonds tour because it is not honest to the public and Bud Gerber of the Treasury Department says, “Hey you know what? I don’t give a shit. You’re in the picture, you raised the flag, that’s the story we’re selling boys” He also goes onto say Both the soldiers and the government knew the photo was staged but still continued to promote the sale of war bonds. Overall, Eastwood, shows that the military manipulated information to the public in order to promote the sale of bonds and to please the American public.
The message the film shows, that America needs to work together in order to win this war, directly correlates with class texts that we are studying in class. First off, when we watched clips from the Ken Burns “The War” documentary we saw in one of the clips that when the war started, many towns across the country worked together in order to make war supplies for the military. A good example of this was in Mobile Alabama, where people of all races and gender joined the manufacturing effort to build war supplies. Eastwood’s film shows the government trying to get the American people to join the war effort even more by buying war bonds to support the military. The picture of the flag becomes iconic in the film because it shows a sense of patriotism to the American public. Also, after WWI, Americans were opposed to the idea of entering WW2. In the packet, What Was Happening Globally in the 1930’s the packet says, “America’s involvement in the Great War of 1914-1918 had been a terrible mistake.” (336) This made many American families hesitant to join the war effort and the idea of isolationism formed in America during this time. Isolationism occurred before the war but after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, many Americans changed their point of view on the topic. Since the photo of “Heroes of Iwo Jima” was extremely famous, the texts that we are reading in class directly correlates with the film by because the government tried to rally the support of the public to help with the war.
Flags of Our Fathers as a whole does not show the true meaning of WW2, and therefore I would not recommend it to someone who was trying to gain a better understanding about the war.

First off, the movie shows some combat in the beginning of the movie but it lacks a lot of background information regarding these battles. The combat then fast forwards to the end of the war when the flag was risen so there is no space for historical information.Also, most of the movie is zoomed in on the biography of these 6 men who rose the flag the second time, it makes it very difficult for Eastwood to explain the rest of the war in-depth. A lot of the scenes in the movie are from after the war and the men promoting the purchase of war bonds across the country. Since a good majority of this film was based off post war events Eastwood intended to not show many details about the war in order to keep viewers entertained. If you were looking for more information about the war, I would suggest a movie that was more documentary driven and not a movie about a specific group of people's war experience. Before watching this film, I knew a lot of information regarding WW2 and upon completion of the film I really did not learn anything new. Eastwood’s narrative approach at this movie makes it lack details in comparison to a documentary based movie about the war. Overall, the movie was very entertaining to watch, but it was focused more on a war time story and not necessarily facts about the

war.