The absence of war

One of my earliest memories of Memorial Day is standing at the VFW hall in Delhi, Iowa, watching a pair of trumpet players play "Taps"—one echoing the other note for note after a delay. There's something about hearing that song in front of a color guard that gets me every time.

The broadcast networks take this time of year to play every war movie ever made, which given the output of Hollywood in the 40s and 50s, is quite a lot. Currently playing Patton, which is astounding on many levels. Not the least of which was the Dimension 150 process used to film it. (A bit like Cinerama or Super-Panavision, this was intended to beat TV by being wider than everything else. 150 degrees of vision across the screen goes a long way, but because nobody wanted to tell a story in this manner, there were only two D-150 films ever made.) It's a big story. It's got an intermission, something we don't have the attention to deal with these days.

Patton was a complex man, something George C. Scott makes clear with his nuanced performance. His portrayal of the general is of a dedicated believer in war as human endeavor, the kind of guy you want on your side in a fight but somebody you'd back away slowly from if you met him on the street. It's one hell of a performance and one that deserved the Oscar, if there ever was one. (It's also quite telling that Scott refused the award, saying that such contests were "meat markets.")

Patton is also eminently quotable. To wit:

Soldier: Where you goin', General?
Patton: BERLIN! I'm going to personally shoot that paper-hangin' sonofabitch!

I spent today hiking around the woods of Oregon, thinking of the hedgerows of France in WW II and the towns of Iraq right now. There's a moment in the film where they speak of Patton and peace, saying "the absence of war will destroy him." There hasn't been a year in the last century without an armed conflict of some sort, but it would be worthwhile to strive for. (Other things worth striving for include Scarlett Johansson.)