- Condition: New
- Format: DVD
- Anamorphic; Closed-captioned; Color; Dolby; Widescreen; NTSC
Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (summit) Release Date: 01/12/2010 Run time: 110 minutes Rating: RThe remarkable documentary
Brothers at War begins with a simple premise: Jake Rademacher wants to understand the experience of his younger brothers Isaac and Joe, both serving in the American military in Iraq. What unfolds proves amazingly complex, fusing a troubled family history (another Rademacher brother died at home), wrenching interviews with wives and girlfriends left behind, and a startlingly unfiltered portrait of on-the-ground soldiers in the middle of a combat zone. Because the filmmaker is already part of these people's lives, he's able to capture a kind of emotional nakedness you don't often see; when Joe's girlfriend talks about how Joe's military service has changed him, a window! opens into her life that's almost uncomfortably intimate. Because of his relationship to one of their comrades, the soldiers in Iraq accept Jake in a completely different way than they'd respond to a typical journalist. They don't present a manicured image; Jake films them talking about why they're there, how they treat girls, shooting people (one soldier describes nearly shooting a child who was carrying a toy gun), and watching
The O.C. Driven by sibling rivalry, Jake even puts himself in harm's way by going out on combat missions.
Brothers at War doesn't have an ideology. Soldiers in the field defend each other out of personal solidarity, not abstract ideas; the same impulse drives this movie forward. It's unlike any other war documentary and can't be recommended strongly enough.
--Bret FetzerBROTHERS AT WAR is Jerold S. Auerbach's probing and poignant exploration of the tragedy of the Altalena, the doomed ship whose arrival in Israel ignited Jewish! fratricidal conflict only weeks after its declaration of stat! ehood in 1948. The destruction of the Altalena, with sixteen of its fighters killed by Israeli soldiers in a bitter two-day battle, threatened the new nation with civil war. This is the first history of the Altalena by a historian and the first to locate it within the context of ancient Jewish and contemporary Israeli history. The Altalena remains embedded in Israeli memory, Auerbach suggests, still framing unresolved issues of political legitimacy in the Jewish state. Identified as "America's foremost intellectual exponent of right-wing Zionism," Jerold Auerbach is the author of nine books including HEBRON JEWS: MEMORY AND CONFLICT IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL (2009), a history of the world's oldest continuing Jewish community. He is Professor Emeritus of History at Wellesley College.Captain Sam Cahill (Maguire) is embarking on his fourth tour of duty, leaving behind his beloved wife (Portman) and two daughters. When Sam’s Blackhawk helicopter is shot down in the mountains of Afg! hanistan, the worst is presumed, leaving an enormous void in the family. Despite a dark history, Sam’s charismatic younger brother Tommy (Gyllenhaal) steps in to fill the family void.Screenwriter David Benioff (
The 25th Hour) didn't have to do much to relocate
Brothers from Denmark to America. The story remains the same: Captain Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) loves his family, but he's equally devoted to his career. Just as his ne'er-do-well brother, Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), exits prison, where he did time for robbery, the Marines deploy Sam to Afghanistan. Tommy starts looking in on his wary sister-in-law, Grace (Natalie Portman), but then Sam's helicopter crashes in the mountains, and the military informs Grace that her husband has died. Unbeknownst to the Cahill clan, the Taliban has taken Sam hostage and tortures him to elicit information. Sam resists, but his colleague caves, leading to an unthinkable act. Back in New Mexico, Grace and Tommy grow closer! , stopping just short of a full-blown affair (in Susanne Bier'! s origin al, they take the plunge). Even Tommy's disapproving Vietnam vet father, Hank (Sam Shepard), sees his son in a new light after Tommy renovates Grace's kitchen. But when Sam is rescued by his company, he returns a broken man and is convinced that his wife has fallen in love with his brother. Even his daughters are afraid of him (Bailee Madison impresses as the eldest). As in Bier's film, Jim Sheridan (
In America) elevates redemption and forgiveness over tragedy and loss, and his well-meaning remake gets off to a solid start, but it loses steam by the end.
Brothers offers a compelling scenario, but the telling is too overstated to capture the full heartbreak of the situation.
--Kathleen C. Fennessy
Stills from Brothers (Click for larger image) BROTHERS AT WAR, a new book [May 2011] from Quid Pro Books, is Jerold S. Auerbach's probing and poignant exploration of the tragedy of the Altalena, the doomed ship whose arrival in Israel ignited Jewish fratricidal conflict only weeks after its declaration of statehood in 1948. The destructi! on of the Altalena, with sixteen of its fighters killed by Isr! aeli sol diers in a bitter two-day battle, threatened the new nation with civil war.
This is the first history of the Altalena by a historian and the first to locate it within the context of ancient Jewish and contemporary Israeli history. The Altalena remains embedded in Israeli memory, Auerbach suggests, still framing unresolved issues of political legitimacy in the Jewish state.
Identified as "America's foremost intellectual exponent of right-wing Zionism," Jerold Auerbach is the author of nine books including HEBRON JEWS: MEMORY AND CONFLICT IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL (2009), a history of the world's oldest continuing Jewish community. His essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, The New York Times, The Jewish Press, Jerusalem Post, Midstream, and American Thinker.
Auerbach has been a Guggenheim Fellow, Fulbright Lecturer at Tel Aviv University, Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Law School, and recipient of two College Teachers Fello! wships from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is Professor Emeritus of History at Wellesley College.
Also available by Quid Pro Books are republications of two of Jerold Auerbach's previous acclaimed books: RABBIS AND LAWYERS and JACOB'S VOICES. As with these previous books, the digital edition of BROTHERS AT WAR contains true ebook formatting, active Table of Contents, all photographs from the print edition, bibliographical notes, and a full subject-matter Index. The cover photo to BROTHERS AT WAR, recording the actual event, is by the famed war photographer Robert Capa and is licensed from Magnum Photos. The book features eight other fascinating photographs.BROTHERS AT WAR, a new book [May 2011] from Quid Pro Books, is Jerold S. Auerbach's probing and poignant exploration of the tragedy of the Altalena, the doomed ship whose arrival in Israel ignited Jewish fratricidal conflict only weeks after its declaration of statehood in 1948. The destruction o! f the Altalena, with sixteen of its fighters killed by Israeli! soldier s in a bitter two-day battle, threatened the new nation with civil war.
This is the first history of the Altalena by a historian and the first to locate it within the context of ancient Jewish and contemporary Israeli history. The Altalena remains embedded in Israeli memory, Auerbach suggests, still framing unresolved issues of political legitimacy in the Jewish state.
Identified as "America's foremost intellectual exponent of right-wing Zionism," Jerold Auerbach is the author of nine books including HEBRON JEWS: MEMORY AND CONFLICT IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL (2009), a history of the world's oldest continuing Jewish community. His essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, The New York Times, The Jewish Press, Jerusalem Post, Midstream, and American Thinker.
Auerbach has been a Guggenheim Fellow, Fulbright Lecturer at Tel Aviv University, Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Law School, and recipient of two College Teachers Fellowships from the ! National Endowment for the Humanities. He is Professor Emeritus of History at Wellesley College.
Also available by Quid Pro Books are republications of two of Jerold Auerbach's previous acclaimed books: RABBIS AND LAWYERS and JACOB'S VOICES. As with these previous books, the digital edition of BROTHERS AT WAR contains true ebook formatting, active Table of Contents, all photographs from the print edition, bibliographical notes, and a full subject-matter Index. The cover photo to BROTHERS AT WAR, recording the actual event, is by the famed war photographer Robert Capa and is licensed from Magnum Photos. The book features eight other fascinating photographs.BUYSOUNDTRAX Records presents the original soundtrack to BROTHERS AT WAR, featuring music composed and conducted by Lee Holdridge for the 2009 documentary directed by Jake Rademacher and produced by Norman S. Powell and Jake Rademacher. Executive Produced by Gary Sinise and David Scantling.
For BROTHERS AT ! WAR, the producers were looking for a composer who could provi! de music that would compliment this exciting and terrifying journey to the edges of a modern battlefield but could also switch gears and navigate through the terrain of intimate family relationships. They chose Lee Holdridge, a composer with a history of delicately highlighting the emotional moments of his subjects in a subtle manner. For the film, the composer has written a intimate acoustic score, augmented by strings, guitar and piano, including a song written and performed by John Ondrasik of Five For Fighting, inspired by the characters in the film, and based on the main theme.
Lee Holdridge was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1944. He spent his early years in Costa Rica, beginning music studies on the violin at the age of ten with Hugo Mariani, then the conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica. Later, Holdridge moved to New York to continue his music studies and begin his professional career as a composer. Holdridge s successes in New York came to the! attention of Neil Diamond who brought Holdridge to Los Angeles to write arrangements for his forthcoming albums. A string of Gold and Platinum hits followed, which led to Diamond and Holdridge collaborating on the film score for Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Since that time, Holdridge has scored numerous film such as Splash, Big Business, Mr. Mom, Micki & Maude, 16 Days Of Glory, The Beastmaster, Sylvester, A Tigers Tale, El Pueblo Del Sol, Old Gringo and Pastime. His television work includes Moonlighting, Beauty and the Beast, the complete eight hour remake of East of Eden, The Tenth Man, Dreamer of Oz, Hallmark Hall Of Fame s One Against the Wind and The Story Lady. Lee also began a very successful collaboration with Moriah Films, the film division of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, with the Academy Award winning documentary feature film The Long Way Home. In addition to his film career, Mr. Holdridge has had an extensive repertoire of concert works performed and recorded. H! e has also worked with many major recording artists having wri! tten, ar ranged and conducted for Placido Domingo, Barbra Streisand, Brian May of Queen, Stevie Wonder, Neil Diamond, John Denver, Neil Sedaka, Daniel Rodriguez, Al Jarreau, Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross, Natalie Cole, Jane Oliver and many others.Based on the bestseller by Stephen E. Ambrose, the epic 10-part miniseries Band of Brothers tells the story of Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army. Drawn from interviews with survivors of Easy Company, as well as soldiers' journals and letters, Band of Brothers chronicles the experiences of these men who knew extraordinary bravery and extraordinary fear. They were an elete rifle company parachuting into France early on D-Day morning, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge and capturing Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. They were also a unit that suffered 150 percent casualties, and whose lives became legend.An impressively rigorous, unsentimental, and harrowing look at combat during World War II,
Band o! f Brothers follows a company of airborne infantry--Easy Company--from boot camp through the end of the war. The brutality of training takes the audience by increments to the even greater brutality of the war; Easy Company took part in some of the most difficult battles, including the D-Day invasion of Normandy, the failed invasion of Holland, and the Battle of the Bulge, as well as the liberation of a concentration camp and the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest. But what makes these episodes work is not their historical sweep but their emphasis on riveting details (such as the rattle of a plane as the paratroopers wait to leap, or a flower in the buttonhole of a German soldier) and procedures (from military tactics to the workings of bureaucratic hierarchies). The scope of this miniseries (10 episodes, plus an actual documentary filled with interviews with surviving veterans) allows not only a thoroughness impossible in a two-hour movie, but also captures the wide range! of responses to the stress and trauma of war--fear, cynicism,! cruelty , compassion, and all-encompassing confusion. The result is a realism that makes both simplistic judgments and jingoistic enthusiasm impossible; the things these soldiers had to do are both terrible and understandable, and the psychological price they paid is made clear. The writing, directing, and acting are superb throughout. The cast is largely unknown, emphasizing the team of actors as a whole unit, much like the regiment; Damian Lewis and Ron Livingston play the central roles of two officers with grit and intelligence.
Band of Brothers turns a vast historical event into a series of potent personal experiences; it's a deeply engrossing and affecting accomplishment.
--Bret Fetzer![]()
