(8/2/07 alone, at Embarcadero Center, 4:00pm)
1) The thing is, it's a very good movie, but it's hard not to wonder why exactly Herzog made it. Somehow, by making it into a well done war/prison/survival/escape movie, the movie becomes less compelling than the story as told in "Little Dieter Needs to Fly."
2) Probably because of "Little Dieter," it was impossible to ever really feel like Bale was actually the character he was portraying, in the way it normally when watching a good movie. Not at all to fault Bale's performance.
3) My favorite pure poetic/Herzog moment from "Little Dieter," was when the slo-mo napalming video was played with the weird bouncy tribal/folk music over it. Herzog uses the same bit of film here, this time zoomed in on specific parts, with more traditional movieclassical music played over it. Again, the result is that it's not as compelling here as it was in "Little Dieter," or at least not in the same way.
4) Is this in some way a kind of indictment of the traditional Hollywood war/prison/survival/escape-type film? Nothing specifically about the movie itself made me think that, but reflection on the differences between this and "Little Dieter" has made me wonder. I need to see "Little Dieter" again. Even if that wasn't Herzog's intention, I think this movie ultimately functions that way. "Indictment" is the wrong word.
5) Yet another. I was way more disturbed by Dengler's recounting of his friend's death in "Little Dieter" than I was by the portrayal of it here. Here it just felt kind of like another in a long line of such events being dramatized in a movie. There it was singularly horrifying. I need to watch both of these movies again.
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