Patton DVD

Visually the movie is in a style that might be described as imperial. It does not really look quite like any other movie, and that in itself is an achievement (though not necessarily an aesthetic one)... The images, typically, are incredibly long, wide shots, taking in vast areas, with the human

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figured dwarfed by the terrain, and with more compositional use of sky than I’ve even before seen in a movie... I’m sure it will be said that the picture is “true” to Patton and to history, but I think it strings us along and holds out on us. If we don’t just want to have our prejudices greased, we’ll find it confusing and unsatisfying, because we aren’t given enough information to evaluate Patton’s actions...

The public-relations designation of this film is Patton: A Salute to a Rebel. Whom does Twentieth Century-Fox think it’s kidding? What was Patton a rebel against except humanitarianism?... One can scarcely blame the movie for the ads, but the movie is also busy trying to outsmart the public, presenting an arch-authoritarian as a rebel, the way one might present Spiro Agnew as a rebel against effete snobs.

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