Flags of Our Fathers

Produced by DreamWorks and distributed 2006 by Paramount Pictures, budget of $55 million, gross of $33 million, color 35mm negative, 2.35:1 screen ratio, digital sound, 132 mins.

trailer

Adam Beach as Pvt. Ira Hayes, Ryan Phillippe as Navy Pharmacist Mate John Bradley, Jesse Bradford as Pvt. Rene Gagnon

Production:

• Directed by Clint Eastwood
• Screenplay by William Broyles Jr., Paul Haggis, from the book by James Bradley and Ron Powers
• Produced by Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, Robert Lorenz
• Original Music by Clint Eastwood
• Cinematography by Tom Stern
• Film Editing by Joel Cox
• Sound Editing by Bub Asman, Alan Robert Murray
• Production Design by Henry Bumstead
• Art Direction by Jack G. Taylor Jr.
• Set Decoration by Richard C. Goddard
• Costume Design by Deborah Hopper
• Technical Advisor James D. Dever

Cast:

• Ryan Phillippe as John "Doc" Bradley
• Jesse Bradford as Rene Gagnon
• Adam Beach as Ira Hayes
• John Benjamin Hickey as Keyes Beech
• John Slattery as Bud Gerber
• Barry Pepper as Mike Strank
• Jamie Bell as Ralph "Iggy" Ignatowski
• Paul Walker as Hank Hansen
• Robert Patrick as Colonel Chandler Johnson
• Neal McDonough as Captain Severance
• Melanie Lynskey as Pauline Harnois
• Thomas McCarthy as James Bradley
• Chris Bauer as Commandant Vandergrift
• Judith Ivey as Belle Block
• Myra Turley as Madeline Evelley
• Joseph Cross as Franklin Sousley
• Benjamin Walker as Harlon Block
• George Grizzard as John Bradley
• Harve Presnell as Dave Severance
• George Hearn as Walter Gust
• Christopher Curry as Ed Block
• David Patrick Kelly as President Harry S.Truman
• Ned Eisenberg as Joe Rosenthal
• Gordon Clapp as General "Howlin' Mad" Smith
• Brian Kimmet as Sergeant 'Boots' Thomas
• Kirk B.R. Woller as Bill Genaust
• Tom Mason as John Tennack
• Jayma Mays as Nurse in Hawaii
• Yukari Black as Tokyo Rose
• Oliver Davis as Young James Bradley
• Mary Beth Peil as Mrs. Bradley

Notes:

This war narrative tells the story of three survivors of the flag-raising on Mt. Suribachi; it is not a history of the battle of Iwo Jima, of the Marine Fifth Division, nor of the historical context of the Pacific war in 1945. The battle scenes are confusing, the leached color is artificial, and the film wrongly implies that the country would go broke and lose the war without the 7th War Loan.

Links:

• Credits from the IMDB for the title:  Flags of Our Fathers
• Official Site
• Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) trailer and Official Site
• Boot, Max. "Rethinking the Iwo Jima Myth," Los Angeles Times, March 10, 2005, article
• Boot, Max. "Iwo Jima: A Battle of Choice Waged on the Basis of Faulty Intelligence and Bad Planning," HNN March 14, 2005, article
• Burrell, Robert S. "Breaking the Cycle of Iwo Jima Mythology: A Strategic Study of Operation Detachment," Journal of Military History, Oct. 2004, article
• Buruma, Ian. "Eastwood's War," The New York Review of Books, Feb. 15, 2007. article
• Marling, Karal Ann and John Wetenhall. "Patriotic Fervor and the Truth About Iwo Jima," HNN March 4, 2002, article
• McNeill, David. "Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima," HNN Feb. 13, 2006, article
• The Outsider (1961) with Tony Curtis as Ira Hayes
• The Pacific War due in 2009, based in part on the 1995 book Iwo Jima: Red Blood, Black Sand by Charles W. Tatum
• Iwo Jima Flag in WWII Timeline

Books:

• Burrell, Robert S. The Ghosts of Iwo Jima. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2006.
• Marling, Karal Ann and John Wetenhall. Iwo Jima : Monuments, Memories, and the American Hero. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.
• Newcomb, Richard F. Iwo Jima. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston,1965.
• Ross, Bill D. Iwo Jima: Legacy of Valor. New York: Vanguard Press, 1985.
• Shively, John C. The Last Lieutenant: A Foxhole View of the Epic Battle for Iwo Jima. NY: NAL, 2006.

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