Letters From Iwo Jima
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DVD details
Actor: Ken WatanabeBrand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Japanese (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.77:1
Running Time: 140 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-05-20
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of Letters From Iwo Jima
DVD Review: "Because it is right": Honor in Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima
Summary: 4 Stars
CONTAINS SPOILERS
Caitlin Swinford
4-6th-2010 T
"Because it is right": Honor in Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima
Japanese culture values honor greatly. Honor represents the skeleton to the rest of the body, the foundation to the rest of the house. However, defining honor can pose a difficulty. Does it involve dying for one's country? Or does thinking for one's self suffice? Perhaps the key consists of obeying superior officers? Honor breaks down into five levels: honor for self, honor for family, honor for clan, honor for nation, and honor for humanity. Deciding which takes precedence over the other proves challenging. Clint Eastwood addresses the questions on honor directly in his film Letters from Iwo Jima. One can tell immediately what he believes constitutes honor. Eastwood presents both a common soldier named Saigo and General Kuribayashi as honorable men. On the other hand, Captain Tashida and most other officers seem dishonorable, though they claim to act for the honor of their country. In Letters from Iwo Jima, Eastwood portrays honor to humanity as the most important kind of honor.
Letters from Iwo Jima shows World War II from the point of view of the Japanese. Japanese culture promotes honor for one's self, one's family, and one's country. Because Letters from Iwo Jima focuses on war and defending one's country, the characters would logically concentrate on honor to country rather than honor to family or clan. However, this view point makes honor to humanity take a back seat. According to a New York Times article by Ian Buruma, most war films "lack visible enemies. [...] What is missing, with rare exceptions, is any sense of individual difference, of character, of humanity in the enemy" (par. 1). However, unlike some war movies, Letters from Iwo Jima portrays both the Japanese and the Americans participating in honorable and dishonorable acts. It shows that race does not matter because all are human. It shows that certain beliefs are universal. Honor may vary from place to place, but honor exists everywhere. It is what is right. In Letters from Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood shows the audience that what is right does not differ much between Japan and America. Honor is about humanity.
Japanese culture emphasizes obeying and sacrificing for one's family and one's country. The idea of feeling honored to die for one's country repeats throughout the film. General Kuribayashi writes to his family saying he is "determined to serve and die" for Japan (Letters from Iwo Jima). However, he disapproves of killing soldiers who retreat. In fact, he orders the retreat. Many officers see this as weakness and a disgrace to the emperor; they would rather that the soldiers die honorable deaths by American slaughter or by suicide. Either of these deaths would align with the ideas of self honor and honor to country. In one particular scene, Saigo and another soldier have retreated to the northern caves. The rest of the company had committed suicide instead of following General Kuribayashi's orders. A lieutenant discovers Saigo and Shizumi and attempts to kill them for retreating, which he sees as dishonorable because he equates this act with cowardice. General Kuribayashi prevents the lieutenant from killing the two soldiers "needlessly" (Letters from Iwo Jima). Kuribayashi's actions demonstrate honor for humanity rather than for country. He also strives to prevent suicides, further emphasizing honor to humanity by forbidding a cultural tradition for the sake of lives. Baruma writes, "Although he was quite aware of the ultimate fate of his army, he saw no merit in wanton self-destruction" (par. 19). He would rather have someone die for their country than for personal honor.
Letters from Iwo Jima demonstrates some of the dishonorable actions that the Japanese performed. One scene depicts several Japanese soldiers brutally beating and stabbing an American soldier to death. The brutality of the American's death goes against the idea of honor to humanity. In war, people will be killed. However, these soldiers go beyond protecting themselves and their comrades; they murder. In another scene, an officer attempts to kill Saigo and another soldier because they retreated. Both these instances shock viewers and cause them to think about what constitutes right and honor. These scenes depict the Doctrine of Double Effect, a principle that explains whether or not violence is alright if it occurs "as a side effect of promoting some good end" (McIntyre, par. 1). Eastwood uses these scenes to lead the viewers to believe that, even in wartime, a line exists between defense and murder. The viewer senses that the Japanese soldiers and the officer do not follow the doctrine, which promotes humanity.
Unlike most war movies, Letters from Iwo Jima depicts an enemy as moral as the protagonists, capable of good and bad. "Most war movies have been about heroes, our heroes, and individual differences among the enemies were irrelevant, since their villainy could be taken for granted" (Buruma, par. 4). A scene on par with Buruma's idea of an enemy's villainy occurs when an American soldier shoots two Japanese prisoners because he does not want to guard them for an entire night. One would think that the director would show only Japanese doing right and only Americans doing wrong because of the film's Japanese perspective. This is not the case. Most movies do not show "recognizable human qualities" because it would "inject the murderousness of our heroes with a moral ambiguity that we would not wish to see" (par. 4); but Letters from Iwo Jima shows Americans with good qualities. For instance, American marines give water to Japanese prisoners. Later, an American lieutenant orders his men not to shoot Saigo, though he frantically attacks them with a shovel. In the last scene of the film, the Americans place Saigo in a line of wounded American soldiers awaiting treatment. These scenes demonstrate the honor of the enemy in the film in which the enemy respects humanity.
Both countries hold similar views. While Americans are often absent in the film, the viewer still sees that both sides have similar views. Lieutenant Colonel Nishi treats a wounded American soldier to no avail; after the soldier's death, Nishi finds a letter from the soldier's mother. He reads it aloud to his squad; the expressions of the soldiers tell that they had not thought of the Americans as people before the letter. One phrase in particular resonates with the soldiers: "Always do what's right because it is right," (Letters from Iwo Jima). Nishi uses this in his motivational speech to the soldiers, proving that he believes the same as his enemy's mother. Later Shizumi tells Saigo that, before meeting the American soldier and hearing the letter, he had thought of the Americans as "cowards" and "savages," and he admits to his ignorance concerning the Americans (Letters from Iwo Jima). He says, "That American soldier. His mother's words were the same as my mother's" (Letters from Iwo Jima). This phrase strikes the hearts of viewers and Japanese soldiers as something true and honorable. Through this realization, Eastwood demonstrates that the two countries have similar views and that humanity trumps enmity between people.
Letters from Iwo Jima exhibits that, no matter which side of the war, everyone can commit honorable and dishonorable acts. We are human before we belong to a certain race or country. While the "right thing" to do may prove difficult to decide, the importance lies in righteousness (Letters from Iwo Jima). Clint Eastwood demonstrates honor for humanity by showing both the Japanese and their enemies doing good. He shows that honor lies in treating enemy wounds and in giving them water. He defines honor as serving one's country, as well as surviving in order to serve. Honor is fairness, integrity and, most of all, respecting humanity. One achieves honor for one's self and one's country by displaying honor for humanity.
Works Cited
Buruma, Ian. "Eastwood's War." New York Times. 54.2 (2007): Web.
Letters from Iwo Jima. Dir. Clint Eastwood. Perf. Ken Wantanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, and Ryo Kase. COMPANY, 2006. DVD.
McIntyre, Alison, "Doctrine of Double Effect", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <[...]>
Description of Letters From Iwo Jima
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 05/20/2008 Run time: 140 minutes Rating: RBestsellers in DVD
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