Do the mountains and the blue Bavarian
twilight cause the drum march to rattle into existence—is the music an
emanation of the mountains?—or are the peaks and valleys hauled into
view by the march of drums? Are these Heideggerian questions, or is it
just that the Teutonic opening credits—as red as the background of a
Nazi flag—could not be any redder against the mountainous blue of
snow-clad mountains and the deep blue sky passing for night? The wind is
blowing through the mountain peaks, howling in that snowy, Alpiney way,
and the drums are more strident, more martial, and there are possibly
even more of them than there were a few moments earlier, marching in
formation, flying.
“We were over Germany, and a blacker, less inviting piece of land I never saw,” writes Martha Gellhorn in The Face of War.
“It was covered with snow, there was no light and no sign of human
life, but the land itself looked actively hostile.” We feel the same,
even if the hostile land is not black—but if it was “covered with snow”
then it probably wouldn’t have been black when she soared over it in
1945—so the point that needs to be made is that active hostility can
look rather scenic too.
An aerial view from a plane becomes a scenic view of the plane, flying in lone formation: seen and heard,
propelled by full Brucknerian orchestra now, with a howling tailwind
and drums marching so powerfully they could invade the soundtrack of a
neighboring cinema. Then it’s a view from the plane again, peak-surfing
over the snow-scored mountains, tilting and gliding through the mountain
passes, affording Panavision views of . . . Where are we exactly?
Font-wise, as the credits continue to
roll, there’s a hint of Castle Dracula and Transylvania—of Christopher
Lee and Hammer horror—but the plane is a German plane, a Junkers Ju-52,
and it’s giving a very persuasive demonstration of not only its
maneuverability but also the excellence of its camouflage as it blends
in with the motives for doing a picture like this, which will bring in
fabulous amounts of money: so that he can buy his modern-day Cleopatra
(“money for old rope” was her verdict on this caper) things like a jet
with burnished gold thrones instead of seats. ... [mehr] https://lithub.com/geoff-dyer-goes-deep-on-wwii-classic-where-eagles-dare/
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