Patton Fought Windmills Too

Rating: Null/10 (19 May 2005)

PATTON is a rich and in ways warm depiction of the WW II life of George Patton that remains loyal to his driving compulsion for victory in war and his uncompromising values toward honor as the mainstay of the battlefield. But what makes the film the great one it is is the focus upon the man's character---for this was no stereotypical war monger who needed to be satirized. George Patton was at heart a complex romantic--about warfare, about history, and about the honor of men dying in battle. He quoted Fredrick the Great, Alcebiades, and possessed a nonpareil understanding of military history.
Who but George C. Scott could have approached this role so powerfully? It is reputed that John Wayne wanted the part badly, but the requirements necessary to portray Old Blood And Guts went far beyond what Wayne represented. Producers wisely realized this in casting Scott and they got even more than they bargained for. And if it wasn't the greatest performance of any military biography in movie history, it certainly ranks in the top three or four.
Watching the movie MacArthur recently, the 1970's film starring Gregory Peck in the title role, I was struck once again by what always seems to be the antagonist of high military command---the politician. In MacArthur's case it centered on the decrees from above to stop short of planned engagements in the Phillipines and in Korea. In Patton's case it was the British one-upsmanship that stuck in his craw that Ike (General Dwight D. Eisenhower) allowed and even fashioned. Moreover, it was also the muzzle that the Supreme Allied Commander kept putting over Patton's mouth after his off-handed remarks mushroomed in the press. Unquestionably, Patton was a loose canon and Ike spent not a little energy dealing with out of control tank commander who could not have cared less about politics. But the personal frustration of political correctness was unpalatable to Patton. After the travail of warfare itself, it becomes one of the movie's central points.
Few remember or know how badly the U.S. had been bloodied in North Africa until Patton arrived. Even fewer understand the nadir to which allied forces had sunk before we took back the upper hand in places like Africa and later in the campaigns that Patton cut across Europe. The general certainly was not responsible for the turnaround alone, but his unprecedented tank conquests became a juggernaut that did as much to win the war as anything MacArthur or Nimitz did in the Pacific. But that is where the similarities end. For unlike MacArthur who allowed his name to be placed in nomination for President, Patton had no political designs. When the war was over, his service was over.
One of the movies most memorable moments is, of course, the "hospital slapping incident" in which the general humiliates a soldier with a bad case of nerves. It certainly did happen and Scott executes it powerfully---we see the veins bulging from his neck as he reaches for his six shooter and states that he will not "subsidize cowardice!" And we see Patton's utter frustration when Ike orders him to apologize. It must have been the supreme act of forbearance for Patton to comply.
General George Patton was one of the last of his kind. Unlike today's commanders who must juggle the horrors of military verities with political correctness, Patton knew only one thing: drive on, drive on to victory. And for those who think he was mentally off-balance or just plain crazy, it needs to be stated that leaders such as Patton were the antitdote for what the free world faced from 1941--1945.
The movie's final scene is a brilliant testimony to all that Patton must have learned by the time he was through. The war is over and the general has completed his service. He walks his dog alone out on the plains and thinks of ancient warriors who knew "that all glory was fleeting." A windmill is significantly cast in the scene. The allusion to Cervantes' Don Qixote is unmistakable--for George Patton, like Don Quixote, fought windmills, too.
Dennis Caracciolo