GeraldRice Wrote:I used to not like Spike Lee films. There were often too preachy, rife with stereotypical characters and the endings were too long. I've come to realize with "Malcolm X", "Inside Man" and now "Miracle at St. Anna" it's not Spike Lee the director's fault. It's Spike Lee the writer's fault. Just like with Paul W.S. Anderson, he's a fine director, even brilliant at times (though Spike Lee has a tad bit more talent), but he hasn't the ability to be objective to his own material. "Miracle" is the story of a WWII vet who takes revenge after aboput 40 years. He is a few months away from retirement from the post office when an unassuming old man walks up to his window. Recognition dawns on both men's faces before Hector Negron, the American vet, shoots his customer and is promptly arrested. Joseph Gordon Levitt, the child actor from "Third Rock from the Sun" who didn't grow up all freaky looking and short is a obit reporter trying to find his break. He attaches to the story late and somehow gets Negron to speak where the police couldn't. Negron weaves an intricate tale of the plight of the Buffalo soldier after stating he knows who the Sleeping Man is. Fox Company and George Company are both peopled with negro soldiers. After being torn to pieces the remaining soldiers eventually make their way to an Italian village. A bunch of stuff happens (drama, intrigue, action, etc.) and we come to find out how Negron has come to be in possession of a priceless statue's head in his apartment in 1983. Lee still is heavy-handed on the message, but his storytelling ability really blossoms in this film. And he also touches on something I've never seen in a WWII film. The German's humanity. Sure, the bulk of them are monsters, but even the monsters have a human side and even they pray to a God. I won't give away what I think the miracle is in this film, but you should all be pleasantly surprised with it.
Gerald, I gotta ask: after =40= years, are 2 guys gonna =remember=, much less recognize, each other?
Germans in WW2--I'm a first-generation American. All me folks are based in the Old Country, Germany. Now, I don't know if this is a true story, but it's lore among my family.
Onkel Hans was an SS sergeant. (That's Waffen SS, the elite soldiers, not the political SS.) And he found himself, as a guard, on a train bringing Jews from Poland back to the Reich. To be murdered.
His conscience revolted. When the train stopped for water and coal, he took his Mauser pistol and shot the locks off the boxcar doors. "Run! Get off this train! Join the Men of the Forest! Run! This is all I can do for you! RUN!"
That's the story, anyway.