Tom Hanks

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Steven Spielberg: Body Snatcher–A Review of the Miniseries “Band of Brothers”

Band of Brothers, the 2001 TV miniseries, was produced  by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.

Episode 9 was directed by David Frankel and written by John Orloff.

Based on the 1992 book by Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers. E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle Nest, Simon and Schuster (reviewed edition by Pocket Books, 2001).

In ten episodes, Band of Brothers depicts how E (“Easy”) Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, trained in America and England and then fought from D-Day through to the end of the European phase of WWII. It is a technically strong and gripping production. The battle scenes are among the most realistic I have seen, though one must allow for the demands of the cinematic medium — emphasis of a few individuals and spatial compression of combat groups. I am reminded of the grim and gritty street battle sequences in Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. This review looks at the ninth episode, which does not depict military conflict but is itself something of a black operation in the culture wars.

As our own Edmund Connelly has repeatedly demonstrated, Jewish interests have frequently been pushed by American television and Hollywood films in various ways, often as a backdrop to stories unrelated to ethnicity, like the omnipresent upper class Anglo twit and the Black genius technical expert. The 9th episode of Band of Brothers, titled “Why We Fight”, represents an unprecedented level of ambition — to claim America’s WWII sacrifices as motivated by the desire to save Jews from Nazi persecution, to make America’s sacrifice in WWII all about the Jews, not about Americans doing their duty in a tragic internecine conflict. Read more