Too American?

Rating: 9/10 (3 October 2012)

The critics who dismiss this film as bad primarily because it is pro-American seem blinded to the probability that it's the most complex and artful film representation of the fierce pride and nagging problems that come with commanding any army of a democracy in a great war. (Perhaps their ancestors who served in that democratic army, or who were liberated in their millions by 20th century American soldiers, would be less inclined to condemn this portrayal of those soldiers and their leaders.) In any case, Patton, the poet, the historian, the bully, the sentimentalist, the great tactician and embarrassing propagandist, is shown in this haunting film to be the ultimate representative of type: the tyrant we call on to ensure defeat of the Great Tyrant. Of course, "democratic army" is an implied contradiction, and it is exactly this paradox that is examined and illustrated so brilliantly in Patton. The General knew enough about history to realize he would be harshly judged by some historians, the latter day advocates of political correctness, as he had been in his own lifetime. Of course, there is ambiguity in his character and ambivalence in people's feelings about him. (An old Warrant Officer told me he was in a military hospital in occupied German and when Patton's death was announced, half the soldiers there cried and the other half cheered.) He is hardly painted with untainted glory in this film, which captures well his self-awareness. Contrast Scott's perfectly delivered profane-glorious speech in the first innovative moments of the film with his message in the final scene when the resigned old warhorse, walking away from us into history, reminds himself and us: "All glory is fleeting." This is impeccably balanced work by writers North and Coppola, with superb directing by Schaffner, backed throughout by Goldsmith's alternately triumphant and plaintive score. Listen to the recurring "distant trumpets" (echoed in Saving Private Ryan). Patton is a classic.