They Were Expendable

Saw They Were Expendable, a John Ford film (which therefore stars John Wayne) about the beginning of America's involvement with WW2 in the Philippines.  The film was made in 1945, shot just before the end of the war and released after the surrender of the Japanese and the war was basically over.  It's a very pro-America, pro-soldier, rah-rah film and I found all of that sort of dull, but there was a recurrent theme of the individual vs the collective which kept me sort of awake.

The premise is this: Wayne plays the second-in-command on a small fleet of motor torpedo boats.  The higher-ups in the military don't think these boats are of much use and he's eager to either prove them wrong, or to transfer out of this backwaters to somewhere a bit more fertile for his career.  Then Pearl Harbor is attacked and all of that goes out the window.  His draft letter of request to transfer is literally crumpled up and disposed of.  His individual desires are instantly sublimated when the Higher Duty calls and his ambitions are put on the back-burner, so that he can serve.

Cleverly, this happens once more in the film.  As Wayne fights and fights and becomes more and more personally and emotionally invested in the war, ultimately (no spoiler) he must be reminded to pull back in service of the greater wart effort.  Just as his ego and ambition had to be reigned in at the start of the war, so too must his martyrdom and self-sacrifice at the end of the war.  This is foreshadowed by the title: Wayne is initially one of the expendable milieu.  As the war progresses, he must learn that others are similarly expendable.  The individual must bow to the collective, and in more ways than one.

The plot of the film, once it starts going is fairly complex.  I didn't totally understand the full machinations of the military and the main characters.  At a few points, the characters repeat each other's words to each other in an I-told-you-so kind of way.  Alas, I was too sleepy or stupefied to make any kind of connection to what had been told by whom to whom.  I feel the film suffered for my inattention.

In keeping with the theme, the film contains some absolutely gorgeous and lovely close-ups.  There's a love sub-plot which results in some soft-focus adoration of the love interest, but of course the bureaucracy of war cares little about love and the two love-birds are kept forever just out of reach of each other, losing and finding each other.  Again, the individualism so prized in American culture is in conflict with the nationalism which is also so prized in American culture.

The film was well-made and contained this interesting theme to puzzle over, but I didn't really like it.  I don't really like war films.  The modern attitude towards war, post-Vietnam (and definitely post-Afghanistan,) is much more cynical and jaded.  Seeing John Wayne nobly sacrifice his own ambition for the sake of the war machine seems a little naïve.  On top of this, the plot was complex enough to lose me (which is probably more to do with me than the film however, so grain of salt needed here.)  I dunno.  It was a John Ford/Wayne war film.  Good, but not really my cup of tea.