Well, this movie is about the real-life General George Patton (1885-1945) in history (it's the same as saying it), and it's a standard biopic. Moreover, like the promulgated propaganda film of the county party secretary of the celestial dynasty, which tells about a certain person who has worked hard and died, it all promotes a kind of national ideology to some extent.
However, netizens who have read a little bit of film can come to the following conclusion: The main theme films of other American emperors will never make people look like gods, there is no fault at all, and they are all positive, tall and positive images. General Patton in this film, as a four-star general with outstanding military exploits, is also a normal person, with various human weaknesses and even dark sides, and he is not small - he is a bloodthirsty war madman, He likes to insult and even beat soldiers, and he sacrifices soldiers' lives in exchange for his own honor when he is not sure.
In addition, he read the Bible every day, knelt down to pray, but was full of foul-mouthed words, and believed in reincarnation, and believed that he had participated in the Carthaginian War more than 2,000 years ago, and once led troops to fight under Napoleon. He could write poetry, and it was in the romantic style of the 16th century. He was one of the richest officers in the U.S. Army, and his standing order was: always attack, never defend. He believes that there is only one proper way to die for a professional soldier, and that is to die in the last war, the last bullet of the last battle—and he ends up dying in a car accident on December 21, 1945, despite the movie The ending humbly allows him to survive an ox-cart accident. (By contrast, "Lawrence of Arabia," also a World War II biopic, is very objective.)
Alright, let's get to the point now. What is the main contradiction of this film? (The question is instantly reminiscent of high school politics class...) Was it a conflict between Patton and other famous figures of World War II—Eisenhower, Bradley, Montgomery, or Rommel? Is it the contradiction between Patton and the Nazis? Or metaphysically, is it a contradiction between justice and injustice?
I think the main contradiction of "General Patton" is the contradiction between Patton and the whole environment he is in (from this point of view, this film has a deep fit with "Farewell My Concubine"). And, specifically, this contradiction is a contradiction between Patton and the entire media environment in which he lives.
Why the media environment? And, what is the media environment?
World War II was the largest war in human history. From Europe to Asia, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 61 countries and regions have participated in this war with a population of more than 2 billion. In addition to the conditions provided by the rapid development of weapon technology and transportation technology, one of the main reasons why such a large area and such a large population was mobilized into this war was the development of media technology.
In the ancient era of oral communication, warfare was often confined to a few city-states, or between a few nations. This is mainly limited by the backwardness of information dissemination technology and transportation technology. The origin of the marathon is that in the Hippo war in 490 BC, the Athenians finally won the victory. In order to let the people of the hometown know the good news of the victory as soon as possible, the commander sent the Scud warrior Feidi Pitts to run back to the city of Athens by running on foot. Reported the letter, and as a result, Scud was exhausted.
Just imagine, the task of reporting victory news, in modern society, even if the current network technology is not used, even the telegraph technology that was already very mature during World War II, it can be reached in seconds. The time cost of information transmission is greatly shortened, and at the same time, the space limitation is broken. If it weren't for the fact that radio waves could be intercepted by any device, it is estimated that during World War II, it would not have been necessary to spend so much to design and decipher ciphers.
The radio technology that was widely used in World War II greatly shortened the time and the space was greatly compressed. The decision-making of military generals could be made faster and more, which led to the inevitable scale of the war. expand. Just imagine, if there was no radio, the leaders of Germany, Italy, and Japan would have to discuss a trivial matter for several months even if they flew back and forth by plane. With this kind of efficiency, it would take at least a dozen years to launch a vicious world-class war against humanity, and it might be stillborn long ago.
And other media that flourished during World War II, especially newspapers and movies, played a decisive role in mobilizing the general public to participate in the war in various forms. There is a classic example in communication studies. People from several European countries were trapped on an island and lived together for a long time. As a result, suddenly one day a newspaper came to the island, telling the residents that the country they were in had been at war for a long time. So a war far away on the European continent spread to this small island through a newspaper.
Yes, for the vast majority of ordinary people during World War II, in addition to the artillery fire experienced in their own area, the war more existed in newspapers, or in newsreels shown in movie theaters. A farmer in the American West may have never seen a Japanese in his life, but that didn't stop him from gnashing his teeth at the Japanese after Pearl Harbor. War, especially the large-scale war after entering modern society, is more of living in the media environment that ordinary people come into contact with.
In this way, war becomes less pure. As a military general, you not only have to lead troops to fight, but also to international politics, diplomatic language, government public relations, public speaking, dealing with the media...you have to shape your personal image. In the film, we see that the bloody dad Patton is going down step by step. After a hard battle, he slapped a crying soldier, which caused an uproar in the country. Eisenhower sent an order directly to let He apologized to all the soldiers, the media, the people. The ferment of public opinion on this matter actually caused him to be directly overhead in the Normandy landing and became a general with a virtual head. During the period, he gave an informal speech, because he forgot to mention Russia when listing the members of the Allies, which caused another public crusade. Patton's junior and subordinate, Bradley, later became Patton's boss, more because he was better at dealing with people than Patton, rather than because of his military talents.
Yes, war has become less pure. To put it mildly, this is an all-round test of a military general's comprehensive ability in all aspects. To put it uglier, fighting a war is no longer a war.
Aren't other things the same? A is no longer A, and B is no longer B. A superficially becomes A', but actually becomes C or D or even Y. "Entertainment To Die" talked about the influence of television media on the US presidential campaign. Nixon once attributed one of his election defeats to the deliberate sabotage of makeup artists-since voters could see the candidates' appearance on TV, he It doesn't matter what he said in his campaign speech, his looks are more important.
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