(no subject)
Nov. 2nd, 2010 12:30 pm( If World War I was a bar fight... )
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her iights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
- Rupert Brooke, The Soldier
I am definitely more of the Wilfred Owen mindset to war and bloodshed, and screw patriotism, but at least the eleventh of November can be used to remember the human cost of war and the ultimate sacrifice given by so many millions of people, whether justified or not. Rest in peace.
ETA: English pome only chosen because I couldn't think of any non-bitter war poem that didn't focus on England. Er, yeah.
I caught Downfall on television last night-- that controversial German film about the last days of Hitler's life, as he spiralled into further delusion whilst the Russians marched on Berlin. It was dark, depressing viewing, as expected, but in humanising Hitler a little (something this film has been criticised for) it actually brought out the sheer horror of this man's regime and twisted viewpoints. It was stringently researched, and scenes and quotes were taken directly from accounts of those with him in those final days, particularly Hitler's secretary, Trudl.
Hitler demonstrated callous disregard for his own people while acting tenderly towards the women in his life. Berlin was torn apart by infighting amongst the troops, some of whom slaughtered shellshocked German people who could no longer struggle on. And yet, despite this, some people still followed him blindly as he passed the death sentence on all those around him, as Frau Goebbels poisoned her own children and took her own life after staying with the dictator. I think it was one of the most effective films I've seen about that terrible period, conveying suffering and the best and worst of human nature succinctly in a film that never patronised nor judged and that was for me more effective in some ways than many other films I've seen about the Second World War.
At the end of the film, the real Trudl (who died in 2002) expressed bitter regret that she was ever foolish and naive enough to take up with such a ruthless regime. She said that she had always told herself that she had been young, she hadn't known about the concentration camps, the widespread slaughter across Europe. And then she said that one day, she came across a plaque dedicated to Sophie Scholl, the young German woman who was executed by the Nazis for drawing attention to the slaughter going on in Germany at the time. Trudl pointed out that Sophie had been born in the same year as her, and was executed in the same year that Trudl began to work for Hitler-- if she had wanted to find out the truth, then she could have. Like a lot of people, she chose to ignore it and the full horror of what had been happening only came out towards the end of Hitler's reign and the dark postwar period. Very sobering.
Last night, I stayed up to watch a pretty innovative documentary on BBC2 about George Orwell. They used fake footage with an actor speaking his words, giving already powerful or amusing thoughts on everything from the death penalty to the Spanish civil war to patriotism to making a cup of tea.
One part of the documentary focused on his days spent with the British police in India when it was controlled by the Empire. He mused at one point that it struck him how inherently wrong, and how hypocritical it is, for a power to force itself on another country and then presume to police it with force and expect the inhabitants to be grateful.
I wish we had a writer as powerful as Orwell around to record the events of today.