In Praise of Band of Brothers

I think I will make my "in praise of" entries a regular thing. I intend to make it a little archive of stuff that I think is just the bee's knees. Since I'm a big fat nerd, I'm sure video games, movies, and books will most likely figure regularly. This week, I am writing in praise of Band Of Brothers, the HBO miniseries. When someone asks me what my favorite movie is, most of the time my answer is "Band of Brothers".

Produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, and based on the bestseller by Stephen E. Ambrose, the epic 10-part miniseries Band of Brothers tells the story of Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army. Drawn from interviews with survivors of Easy Company, as well as soldiers' journals and letters, Band of Brothers chronicles the experiences of these men who knew extraordinary bravery and extraordinary fear. They were an elite rifle company parachuting into France early on D-Day morning, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge and capturing Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. They were also a unit that suffered 150 percent casualties, and whose lives became legend.

Imagine Saving Private Ryan, where the characters are developed fully. It's a completely unique experience to have men you've grown attached to over the course of four or five episodes get killed in a brutal artillery shelling outside of Bastogne. It's also heartrending to realize that this isn't dramatic timing on the part of a director... this is what really happened. On DVD, each "act" is prefaced by clips of interviews of the actual men that we're watching the actors portray. It's amazing to see the an actor portray Richard Winters on screen, then see the actual man himself talking about what he thought and felt at the time.

I know it's not really for everybody, but to me it's great drama, and more than anything Hollywood is making, it's a fully developed story with fully developed characters. I guess it takes 10 hours to do that for me. But then, I prefer the extended versions of Lord Of the Rings. Give it a rent, watch an episode or two a day, and then be prepared to want to watch it all over again.