When I was in the Army, myself and my battle buddy invented a game called Butt Darts. The object was relatively simple, if you could sneak up behind a fellow soldier, gyrate three times as if you were violating them from behind and successfully sneak away without them having caught you, then you receive points based on the person's rank and how often they bend over. For instance, an officer doesn't do a lot of work so it is rare to catch them bending over. Meanwhile, a First Sergeant does a lot of work, but doesn't like people standing too close to him, so that is a risky score.
These are the kinds of things you come up with in high-stress situations with no sleep. Nothing says you're comfortable with your manhood like pretending to mount another guy- and I'm sure there were a few of those guys who used that game as their own way of coming out, but I digress.
A crucial aspect of Butt Darts though was the fact that we wouldn't dare try it on someone we didn't respect. If someone Butt Darted you, you were one of the boys. The more we respected you, the higher your point value was, it was a way of showing what kind of regard we held you in. George S. Patton would have been worth about a half a point at best.
One of the most unsatisfying things about biopics up until the late 70's/early 80's was the fact that you just didn't make a film about somebody without canonizing them. In early biopics Babe Ruth never touched a drop of alcohol and the Lincoln County Cattle War would never have been won without John Chisum, who was a fair and just businessman. "Patton" was one of those movies that came out at the twilight of this era in cinema. You can tell the director wanted to show that Patton had some human flaws, but always stops short of pointing them out. Or at least of stops short of actually calling them flaws.
"The absence of war will destroy him." (Capt. Steiger, "Patton")
At one point in the movie, a contemporary lectures Patton about how he is gambling with the lives of troops for his own personal glory, but then even this mild criticism becomes a compliment when the fellow General states that it is just because Patton loves the military so much.
I have to imagine there are two kinds of people who would have admired a man like Patton. The armchair warriors who never had the sack to enlist themselves but still expect "their" military to be superhuman. The second are the people who go into the military because conventional life just does not work for them. People who need to have their lives regimented either because of a lack of discipline or a lack of ability to function in day-to-day society.
When Patton takes charge of a unit in Northern Africa he immediately begin to throw his weight around. Pictures aren't allowed on the barracks walls, fines are instituted for anyone who's uniform is not to Patton's standards and the Army doctors are ordered not to treat anyone with PTSD, even going so far as to slap and berate a shell-shocked private who has just come off the front line. Of course it is easy for anyone who doesn't actually wear the uniform to cheer for this kind of discipline. People who have no individuality or who have no problem succumbing to conformity would probably consider this method of leadership quite the "hell yeah!" moment. Of course, given the attitude Americans had at the time about the stresses of war and the jaded attitudes back home regarding Vietnam it is no surprise "combat fatigue" is so ignorantly and insensitively handled.
"Patton" is not a terrible movie, it just walks a very thin line. It is a daunting and impossible task to polish a turd but this movie attempts to do so by presenting Patton in a positive, even sympathetic light. The cinemascope is incredible, the tank battle scenes are incredibly realistic when shown in the panoramic sense and there is no "filler" in this 3 hour movie. In fact there are a lot of things missing.
I need to know more about Patton's background, his combat street-cred, any incidents that may have made him the way he was, what happened to him after the war. Did he have a family? Did he come from a military background? Yes, I know the answers to all these questions are only a google search away, but first of all nobody had google in 1970 and secondly, I think its a modest request to want this basic information to be in a BIOPIC!
Lastly, but certainly no small gripe: how are we expected to believe strict, draconian leadership is effective from someone who is portrayed as totally insubordinate? At one point in the movie Patton promotes himself to Lieutenant General in the field before Congress has even approved it. Who's to say that any solider on the line who would have questioned or defied his methods wouldn't have been every bit as in the right as Patton himself?
This is just one of too many questions that "Patton" leaves unanswered. This is confusing to say so I can't even imagine how confusing it may be to read, but here goes: Patton was a steaming pile of shit, I just don't know if "Patton" was...
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