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As discussed terminal week, nosotros're going to revisit, in relatively short club, all 10 episodes of HBO's landmark World War II miniseries, "Band of Brothers." I know some of you take seen it a million times, and some of you are watching information technology for the commencement fourth dimension, and then I'm going to do my best to exist vague about what'southward coming (specifically about who's going to live and who's going to die), and I'd inquire yous to practice the same, just at that place are some things we may not exist able to avoid. (Hint: the Allies won the state of war.) Spoilers for the first episode coming up merely every bit soon as I enjoy a prissy spaghetti lunch...

As much as I enjoyed "Band of Brothers" back in 2001, it's a much better projection to re-lookout man than it is to watch the outset time, I recollect. The bandage is so huge, so made up with similar looking skinny white guys with dark hair -- most of whom, at the time, were unknowns -- wearing identical uniforms, grime on their faces and helmets on their heads, that information technology was a real bear to keep rail of who was who, particularly in an early episode similar "Currahee."

Other than Captain Sobel (David Schwimmer), who'south the villain of the episode and played by the most famous actor in the cast, and Lt. Winters (Damian Lewis), who'due south the hero, most of the characters who stand out in the early on going exercise so either considering they've been assigned an obvious graphic symbol trait -- Lewis Nixon (Ron Livingston) is Winters' best friend, Bill Guarnere (Frank John Hughes) is self and loud, Joe Toye (Kirk Acevedo) fights muddy, George Luz (Rick Gomez) does impressions, Joe Liebgott (Ross McCall) is Jewish -- or considering they're a concrete outlier -- Buck Compton (Neal McDonough) has that and then-blonde-it'southward-white hair, Balderdash Randleman (Michael Cudlitz) is a giant, Frank Perconte (James Madio) a shrimp. (Winters, as both the principal character and a tall guy with red hair, has the best of both worlds.)

Merely now, having seen the miniseries a few times -- and having started this particular re-watch out of order -- information technology's not most every bit hard to tell who'due south who. When Hoobler (Peter McCabe) mentions an interest in bringing back a Luger, I remembered him every bit the Luger guy. (Though even that gets disruptive, since the next episode features some other character also obsessed with bringing ane dorsum.) A later episode volition talk most the close friendship betwixt Malarkey (Scott Grimes) and Skip Muck (Richard Speight Jr.), and here I could see them hanging out together.

And with that confusion out of the style, it becomes easier to pay attending to the details of the story that Tom Hanks and visitor are telling, adapted from Stephen Ambrose'southward book virtually the existent-life Easy Company, following them all the manner from training through the finish of the war in Europe. (Easy makes an platonic stand-in for all of the many outstanding companies in the European theater, simply because they were on the line for then many significant battles, and enough key men fabricated it from the beginning of the war to the end.)

In "Currahee," for instance, I wasn't wasting time trying to decipher the sequence where Guarnere finds himself accidentally wearing a coat belonging to Johnny Martin (Dexter Fletcher) that contains the letter of the alphabet virtually Guarnere's blood brother; I understood who both of them were in relationship to each other, and could merely sentry Guarnere's family tragedy unfold.

Fifty-fifty back in 2001, "Currahee" was probably the easiest to follow of all the early episodes(*), with the clear disharmonize between the men of Easy and their original commanding officer, Herbert Sobel.

(*) The miniseries shifted to more of a point-of-view structure in its second half, and I call back those episodes were the stronger for information technology. Only we'll deal with that when we become to "Bastogne."

I've always felt that "Band of Brothers" piles on Sobel a footling too much. I understand that the story is told from the perspective of the men of Like shooting fish in a barrel, and those men didn't like Sobel. And it's entirely possible that they were right to dislike him, and even to distrust him as a gainsay leader. Only in that location's likewise no denying that Easy turned out to be one of the finest companies in the 506th, and, as even Colonel Sink (Dale Dye, who doubled every bit the technical counselor for the miniseries) puts it -- right before reliving Sobel of control and re-assigning him to the jump school -- a lot of the company's success has to owe to Sobel. At present, some of that may accept been the men working harder just to spite Sobel, and the Charlie O. Finley approach may non have been Sobel's intention -- as played by Schwimmer, he seems bewildered and even frustrated when the men start to sing as they climb Currahee, rather than listen to more than of his taunts -- merely an elite unit was created at Toccoa, and Sobel played some kind of role in that. And while I call back Schwimmer is great in the part, I tin can't assistance merely feel like casting him is just more than stacking the deck: Of course this guy's a jackass who has no business concern in command! He's played by Ross from "Friends"! I'm not saying Sobel was a misunderstood genius, a humanitarian who took in stray cats and was fun at parties -- just that the book(**) and miniseries seem to become out of their way to demonize a guy who seems to accept made a legitimate contribution to Easy Company's success.

(**) The miniseries notwithstanding goes easier on Sobel than Stephen Ambrose did. Here, for instance, is Ambrose's concrete clarification of Sobel: "The C.O. was fairly alpine, slim in build, with a full caput of black hair. His optics were slits, his nose large and hooked. His face up was long and his chin receded. He had been a vesture salesman and knew zilch out of the out-of-doors. He was ungainly, uncoordinated, in no way an athlete. Every human being in the visitor was in better physical condition. His mannerisms were 'funny,' he 'talked different.' He exuded airs."

All that said, the scenes of the men slowly coming together, fifty-fifty if only to get back at the martinet giving them orders, are wonderful, every bit is Damian Lewis' functioning as Winters. The brilliance of Lewis in this is that he finds a way to make the ordinary aspects of Dick Winters seem boggling, rather than trying to play him as an overtly extraordinary man. He's not a superhero, he doesn't requite rah-rah speeches or lose his temper or in other ways act larger-than-life; he's just a regular guy who turned out to exist ideally suited to irregular circumstances, and Lewis embraces that aspect of the graphic symbol. Just sentinel how quietly and just Lewis plays the scene where Sobel tries to get Winters to take his assigned punishment rather than face a courtroom-martial. There's never any incertitude that Winters is going to take this all the way if he has to, and yet at that place aren't any theatrics nearly it; he's but certain of the rightness of his position, and of his power to prevail over Sobel, and he's going to run into this thing through.

I particularly love the mode Lewis plays the scene at the end where Winters helps each of his men to their feet as they get ready to board the plane for their mission over Normandy. This idea that the men were and so weighed down by their gear that they had to lie on the tarmac, 1 on top of the other, and exist pulled up -- like a kid being helped off the grass past his male parent -- is i of the series' many "truth is more than interesting/moving than fiction" moments, and the serene, paternal look on Lewis' face is just beautiful. Sobel's contribution to the success of Easy Company is clearly in question, while Winters' was not, and a moment like that, and the way the men expect back at Winters, makes it clear as to why.

Some other thoughts on "Currahee":

• God, everybody looks and then young -- non simply compared to eight years later in the real earth, merely compared to how the survivors will look by the terminate of the miniseries. In that location's a scene in the final episode where two of the survivors study a photograph of themselves back at Toccoa, and it'south startling how youthful and innocent they seem in the pic. Way back in the 24-hour interval, I asked one of the ii actors from that scene (hint: he's the i with the dark hair) about the physical transformation he underwent, and he extolled the virtues of the makeup department for a while. I recall it too speaks to the uniform quality of the performances, though, that everyone could seem then convincingly boyish here, and not at all down the line.

• Lewis obviously went on to other things (notably "Life"), as did a lot of the other pregnant castmembers (McDonough and Donnie Wahlberg segued immediately from this to "Boomtown," created past "Ring of Brothers" writer Graham Yost), but it'south besides fun to come across people I had either forgotten were in the miniseries, or wouldn't have recognized at the time. That's Jason O'Mara, for case, as Sobel's replacement, Lt. Meehan, and Simon Pegg pops upwards as the guy giving Winters the court-martial from Sobel.

• Speaking of Pegg, and Lewis, because the miniseries was filmed in England, a decent amount of the cast is fabricated up of British actors trying, with various degrees of success, to master an American emphasis. Lewis is plainly the all-time at this, and Marc Warren (as Pvt. Animated, who's in the groundwork of a few scenes here and will play a larger function in episode three) is the worst, only the others are all along the continuum. Dexter Fletcher'due south emphasis, for example, tends to come up and become.

• Schwimmer has fun with the scene where Sobel revokes each man'due south weekend laissez passer, one past one, but no scene like that can compare to Gunnery Sgt. Hartman'south intro in "Full Metal Jacket." (Language is NSFW.)

Coming up next (at a engagement and time TBD): "Twenty-four hours of Days," in which the invasion doesn't go exactly according to plan for Easy Company.

Over again, keeping in mind that we're going to try to avoid discussing who lives and who dies (and when), what did everybody else think?

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Source: https://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2009/06/band-of-brothers-rewind-episode-1.html

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