A rich pop cultural archive has acquainted most Americans with the beaches of Normandy, London during the Blitz, the Russian winter and Nazi storm troopers marching on Paris.
From “The Longest Day” to (heaven help us) “Hogan’s Heroes,” the industry has found endless material in the European theater of war during World War II.
Not counting “South Pacific,” we’ve spent less vicarious time in the Pacific theater of war.
Now, the companion piece to HBO’s 2001 epic “Band of Brothers” aims to correct that imbalance.
Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Cape Glouster get their due in “The Pacific,” an ambitious, eagerly awaited 10-part miniseries from the same esteemed producers.
Malaria, jungle rot, torrential rain and horrendous losses in sea, air and ground assaults form the backdrop to the Pacific War. The perspective is narrow: boots on the ground in unimaginably grueling conditions.
The story ventures into romantic territory in later installments, with stories of personal relationships overriding global events. We learn more about a tattered poncho, a scribbled diary within a Bible and the cigarette habits of the men than we do about the “new kind of bomb” dropping on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to end the war.
For a historical overview, viewers will have to look elsewhere.
“The Pacific,” premiering Sunday at 7 p.m. on HBO, chronicles the true stories of WWII Marines who endured key battles.
Based mainly on the books “Helmet for My Pillow,” by Robert Leckie, and “With the Old Breed,” by Eugene B. Sledge, the film follows the intertwined paths of three members of the 1st Marine Division: Leckie (played by James Badge Dale), Sledge (Joe Mazzello) and John Basilone (Jon Seda). From just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor through V-J Day, the epic chronicles the men’s actions and emotions, physical hardships and mental struggles — from fear of the new soldier to amazing feats of bravery in battle to near paralysis afterward.
The cinematography is stunning; the violence difficult to watch. The atrocities of close combat are graphically depicted on-screen.
Through it all, the hero worship of Marines may puzzle some viewers. Check any pacifism at the door. This was “the good war,” the one Americans can feel good about; the one against an enemy that vowed to fight to the last man rather than surrender.
“You can’t dwell on it,” one soldier counsels another after a particularly barbaric battle on Peleliu, in the Palau Islands, in the film’s seventh hour. “You can’t dwell on any of it.”
Meditating on the actions and meaning of those battles and the lasting cultural impact of those moments is the point, of course. The horrors of war are conveyed with stunning clarity, including the blind determination of soldiers “killing Japs,” hating everyone and everything, and losing all sense of humanity.
The dramatic storytelling of the Tom Hanks-Steven Spielberg miniseries conveys both more and less than military history. The mental and emotional fallout of war, the underlying racism of war, the courage required, the need to dehumanize the enemy and the degradations of the soldier in war all accompany insights into specific battles.
The endless nerve-jangling battle scenes, expertly staged and shot, stay with you, unbidden. The booming, whizzing, shrieking sounds and awful explosions of light reverberate beyond the first screening.
Mixed with the cacophony and chaos of war, the individual stories and particularly the epilogue revealing the later histories of those involved, argue for the resilience of the human spirit.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
