1917

[Erwin]

sorry - just joking...

[arpella72]

4 hours ago, Erwin said:

 

 

I don't say the movie is bad,I actually liked it but I don't think it's a masterpiece.

Edited February 1, 2020 by arpella72

[Erwin]

I liked the movie as well and recommend it.  Was only pointing out that it's not a story that has to be in WW1.  It's a classic type of story that could be set in almost any era or location.  I imagine the filmmakers chose WW1 as the backdrop since WW1 recently became "fashionable".

[Aragorn2002]

9 hours ago, Erwin said:

I liked the movie as well and recommend it.  Was only pointing out that it's not a story that has to be in WW1.  It's a classic type of story that could be set in almost any era or location.  I imagine the filmmakers chose WW1 as the backdrop since WW1 recently became "fashionable".

Not sure about that. How many people have a decent knowledge about what happened in WW1? The fighting at the Eastern front or the Alpine front for example is hardly known anymore. Not even in the German speaking countries. Or the fighting in the Middle East against the Turks?

Most people are so incredibly ignorant about history nowadays. Very frightening.

Edited February 2, 2020 by Aragorn2002

[Erwin]

4 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Most people are so incredibly ignorant about history nowadays. Very frightening.

+1   It does seem like there has been a general "dumbing down" of populations.  Maybe makes people (esp younger folks) more easy to manipulate and to market rubbish to.  

[danfrodo]

There's definitely a dumbing down, but I don't think that's a new thing, I think it's an ongoing process.  Folks 50 and 100 years ago believed lies, today people believe lies.  Folks 50 and 100 years ago were ignorant of basic history, like folks today.  Were war movies more historically accurate 50 years ago?  NO -- look at Battle of the Bulge.  Some of the old movies were better but most were not, like now.  

This forum tends to have folks that know history better than the average person I suspect, considering sometimes there's threads about crazy things called 'books'.

[BornGinger]

I guess that people are ok with the information the media is feeding them. It's ususally the trench war that is discussed when it comes to WW1 and the atrocities commited by the Germans when it comes to WW2. Not many mention all people being killed by the Soviets and how many German POV that died in the Allied prison camps after WW2. When I lived in Estonia and Russia, WW1 was never mentioned but WW2 was mentioned a lot and always with the idea how good the Soviets were.

But it's of course possible that the Eastern front in WW1 is mentioned in Poland, Austria, The former Jugoslavian countries and more in that part of Europe.

Edited February 3, 2020 by BornGinger

[Erwin]

21 minutes ago, BornGinger said:

When I lived in Estonia and Russia, WW1 was never mentioned but WW2 was mentioned a lot and always with the idea how good the Soviets were.

Uh... For the record, much of my family come from there, and their opinion of the Soviets and Soviet occupation was somewhat different.  

[MikeyD]

You look up past conflicts and it becomes apparent that there are 'popular' wars that give the right social messages, wars that were once 'popular' to reference but fell out of favor (the Franco-Prussian was of 1870 for example), and there are wars best forgotten. Nobody outside of China talks much about the Opium wars to force China to import drugs being produced by Britain in India. That conflict arose because the US and Britain didn't have much of anything to trade for valuable Chinese goods. So they hit on a scheme to get China addicted to drugs. But China was naturally averse to the idea. So we went to war, China lost, and the British aristocracy became filthy rich.

[Erwin]

2 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

That conflict arose because the US and Britain didn't have much of anything to trade for valuable Chinese goods. So they hit on a scheme to get China addicted to drugs. But China was naturally averse to the idea. So we went to war, China lost, and the British aristocracy became filthy rich.

Just completed a fascinating and recommended book "The Imperial Cruise" by James Bradley which details (as above) how the US and Brits were involved in SE Asia and how their actions and colonial/racial philosophies directly led to war with Japan.

[Aragorn2002]

2 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

You look up past conflicts and it becomes apparent that there are 'popular' wars that give the right social messages, wars that were once 'popular' to reference but fell out of favor (the Franco-Prussian was of 1870 for example), and there are wars best forgotten. Nobody outside of China talks much about the Opium wars to force China to import drugs being produced by Britain in India. That conflict arose because the US and Britain didn't have much of anything to trade for valuable Chinese goods. So they hit on a scheme to get China addicted to drugs. But China was naturally averse to the idea. So we went to war, China lost, and the British aristocracy became filthy rich.

And yet, you can't understand ww2 without ww1, you can't understand ww1 without the war of 1870, you can't understand the war of 1870 without the napoleonic wars, etc usw

[Erwin]

Very true...  Hence the complications of the Middle East - have to go back thousands of years...  

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, Erwin said:

Very true...  Hence the complications of the Middle East - have to go back thousands of years...  

Absolutely. At the moment I'm reading a book about the fighting between the Austrians/Germans on the one side and the Italians on the other in the Alpine region between Austria and Italy in 1915.How many people know the Allies promised the 100% German speaking Austrian provence of South Tirol to the Italians in exchange for Italy changing sides and attacking already hard pressed Austria-Hungary? After ww1 the Italians annexed the whole area and began to make life hard for the German speaking population. Such injustice made a lot of Austrians ready for another war. Imagine the USA fighting a bloody war against Russia and China, losing it and Mexico attacking and annexing Texas. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't go down well with the American people. Just an example...

Btw the Middle East was mainly Christian before the muslims came and wiped the Christians out. Puts the crusades in a somewhat different light, doesn't it?

Anyway, history is important.

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by Aragorn2002

[BFCElvis]

On 1/10/2020 at 11:26 AM, Vergeltungswaffe said:

Was it truly one uninterrupted shot?

Did you ever see HItchcock's film Rope. Similar "single shot" method. I saw 1917 on Saturday and really enjoyed it...It isn't 2 hours that I want back.....and I didn't know it was a "single shot" movie before I went. Once I realized it I looked for the cuts. I assumed that every time there is nothing moving in the shot it is a cut. With Rope I only noticed it once...The camera was panning and briefly paused on someone's back. I saw a lot more of that kind of stuff in 1917. But it is still a cool affect.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Yeah,  there were a few cuts, in particular him being unconscious until morning, but it was well done.

[BornGinger]

2 hours ago, Erwin said:

Uh... For the record, much of my family come from there, and their opinion of the Soviets and Soviet occupation was somewhat different.  

It depends on where you live. I lived in the Russian part of Estonia and in a little town outside of Tallinn where there were mostly Russians.

But you're correct about the Estonians and their relationship with the Russians. My aunt told me once that she wasn't happy to talk to me in Russian and wanted me to speak Estonian the next time I came for a visit. But as I had the work to live among the Russians learning the Estonian language wasn't in my plans.

I'm pretty sure the Russians weren't much loved in other part of central and eastern Europe.

But the fact is still that I didn't hear nor read much about WW1 in those two countries. They were maybe too much effected by WW2 so there wasn't much place for WW1. It  might be different nowadays, though.

Edited February 3, 2020 by BornGinger

[Aragorn2002]

20 hours ago, Erwin said:

Uh... For the record, much of my family come from there, and their opinion of the Soviets and Soviet occupation was somewhat different.  

Supported by hundreds of thousands of reasons...

[Erwin]

19 hours ago, BornGinger said:

I lived in the Russian part of Estonia and in a little town outside of Tallinn where there were mostly Russians.

BTW:  Was confused by this as I am very familiar with Tallinn and its surrounds and there is no "Russian part of Estonia" any more than there is the "Islamic part of the UK" or the "Mexican part of the US".  There are parts of Estonia (as well as Latvia and Lithuania) where the SU tried to displace the native ethnic population and replace it with Russian population.  Maybe that is what you are referring to?

[danfrodo]

Back to 1917 movie, I think it's great that Sam Mendes took a story from his grandfather in WW1, fictionalized and expanded it, and made it into a movie.  A movie that will make a lot of folks google "WW1".  That's good, folks learning some history hopefully because some fiction got them interested.  And the amount of detail he put into the uniforms & weapons was fabulous.  I would've paid just to see that.  I want one of those sleeveless leather vests some of the brits wore.

[Erwin]

2 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

sleeveless leather vests some of the brits wore.

I wonder if there are the same ones later worn in WW2 - I think I saw pics of these.

eg:  https://www.ima-usa.com/products/original-british-wwii-leather-machine-gunner-jerkin-vest-dated-1944?variant=26169096069

And you can BUY IT!  (Except it seems to be sold out.) 

 

[BornGinger]

46 minutes ago, Erwin said:

there is no "Russian part of Estonia"

It's much possible things have changed since the '80s and '90s. Maardu outside of Tallinn and Mustamäe (or was it Lasnamäe or both) in Tallinn were mostly inhabited by Russians and Ida-Virumaa county in east Estonia was mostly inhabited by Russians. In Narva, Sillamäe and other towns closer to the Russian border many of the few Estonians who lived there spoke Russian as that was the language you mostly heard on the streets in the '80s and '90s. I remember a little before I left Estonia for Russia that many Russians in those towns complained about the Estonian government requiring from people who wanted an Estonian pasport to also learn the language. It wouldn't surprise me if things have changed and people speak more Estonian in Ida-Viumaa today as those who were kids in the '80s and '90s have learnt Estonian in school.

Edited February 4, 2020 by BornGinger

[danfrodo]

49 minutes ago, Erwin said:

I wonder if there are the same ones later worn in WW2 - I think I saw pics of these.

eg:  https://www.ima-usa.com/products/original-british-wwii-leather-machine-gunner-jerkin-vest-dated-1944?variant=26169096069

And you can BUY IT!  (Except it seems to be sold out.) 

 

Super cool Erwin     I wonder if they make replica ones, an original is sure expensive.  I actually went to a site that supplies re-enactors, they had some great stuff.  US paras, Germans, not much commonwealth.

 

[Erwin]

3 hours ago, BornGinger said:

It's much possible things have changed since the '80s and '90s.

As with most history one has to go back a ways to understand the current situation.  After the Russian Revolution the briefly independent Baltics were crushed by the Soviets during its 1920's foreign vacation.  Many were killed or deported to Siberia under Stalin's rule.  Most welcomed the Germans as liberators in 1941.  But of course were again crushed when the Soviets visited again and decided to again set up shop.  Many more Baltic folk executed and deported and Russians were encouraged to settle in the Baltic nations (with a similar to the Nazis aim of ethnic cleansing by encouraging Germans to settle in newly conquered territory so as to destroy the native culture and language). 

While the Russians are merely a regional nuisance and nowhere near the threat that the Chinese pose with their aggressive world domination plans the Russian enjoyment of foreign vacations and becoming unwelcome long term guests keeps the Baltic nations very nervous - hence the beefed up NATO presence.

[BornGinger]

@Erwin I don't know what the reason was for the last paragraph of your message above. NATO hasn't been on the table in our discussion about Russian  speaking people living in Estonia. But as you mentioned NATO; I knew that USAs promise to Russia (Gorbachev) in the '80s to never have a NATO presence close to Russia's borders wasn't going to last long as the Cold War didn't stop then but merely went into a new phase.

I reckon that it probably is enough with the politics and to allow this thread to be about the film 1917.