Second World War: Not for whites only

MIRACLE AT St. Anna, Spike Lee's new film about Black soldiers in the Second World War, is the type of film that should provide an historic opportunity to discuss the role of race in U.S. history, especially during the much-mythologized "good war."

Instead, it has been greeted by many film reviewers in the U.S. with some of the most unfair and petty criticisms that I have read in a long time. Roger Ebert, the dean of American film critics, recognized the importance of the film, but many of his colleagues have attacked Lee's epic as "meandering," "heavy-handed," "preachy" and "too long."

I think that Miracle at St. Anna is a great movie that everyone should go see.

The film is a fictionalized portrayal of the real events surroundings the massacre of nearly all the residents of an Italian village by the German SS in 1944. James McBride, who wrote the novel and the screenplay, created the Black characters largely on reminiscences of his uncle's combat experiences during the war.

The film revolves around the struggles of a small group of Black American soldiers caught behind the German lines in an Italian village during the approaching winter of 1944, after a botched military operation presided over by their foul-mouthed, incompetent and racist white commanding officer.

They are members of the 92nd Infantry Division (Colored), the so-called "Buffalo Soldiers Division"--the only African American infantry division to see combat in Europe during the Second World War.

Lee avoids making the four leading Black characters into predictable "types," a typical Hollywood formula for war films. All of the leading Black characters are interesting and reflect not only the increasingly urban nature of the Black population (and its ethnic diversity), but the nagging doubts that even the most enthusiastic participants have about being Black and fighting in this alleged great war for "freedom and democracy."

They are led by Staff Sgt. Stamps (Derek Luke), a competent leader who hopes that Black participation in the war effort will bring progress to Blacks back home. Cummings (Michael Ealy) is a preacher who doesn't really believe in God, but clearly believes that Blacks will get nothing from fighting in the "white man's war."

Stamps and Cumming constantly clash over this issue during the course of the film. This seems to have particularly annoyed many films critics who seem unable to believe that soldiers actually think and debate what they are doing.

Negron (Laz Alonso) and Train (Omar Benson Miller) round out the leading Black cast members. Negron is Black and Puerto Rican, and his bilingualism allows him some ability to communicate with the Italian villagers. Train--a huge man from a very religious, isolated and rural area--finds and then carries with him everywhere the head of a statue that he believes makes him invisible and immensely strong.

After nearly getting killed by their cowardly commanding officer, Train and Cummings find an endearing 8-year-old Italian boy, Angelo (Matteo Sciabordi), who we later find out is the sole survivor of the St. Anna massacre and can identify the Italian traitor who precipitated in it. Angelo is ill with a fever and needs care and rest.

Stamps, Cummings, Negron, Train and Angelo seek refuge in a small village, waiting for rescue. The area is a hotbed of partisan activity against the Germans and their Italian fascist collaborators. The hapless fascist mayor of the village has long given up any effort at controlling the villagers. The villagers are wary of the Black American soldiers, not only because they have brought an ill child to their hungry village, but also because the area is vulnerable to a German counterattack.

When the attack comes, it is one of the most gut-wrenching depictions of the chaos of battle that I've ever seen. One of the few saving graces of the overrated Saving Private Ryan was the accurate portrayal of the carnage and slaughter during the Normandy invasion. Miracle at St. Anna easily matches this realism in the close-quarter fighting in the contested village.

THERE ARE many things in Miracle at St Anna that have rarely made it into any feature-length Hollywood film--from a white colonel complaining about Black troops as "Eleanor Roosevelt's n-word" to Stamps declaring that, being outside the U.S., he has never felt so "free," to the humiliation of Stamps and his comrades being denied service in a stateside Southern diner during basic training while, at the same time, the diner is serving white German POWs.

One of the most uncomfortable scenes in the film is the Nazi propaganda broadcasts by "Axis Sally" directed at Black soldiers, as she tries to plant doubts their minds about fighting for a country that cares nothing for them. What makes the scene so uncomfortable is much of what she says rings true.

Some critics have called these scenes "preachy" and "heavy-handed," yet these complaints seem reserved only for serious portrayals of racism in American films, particularly when it comes to the Second World War. This, however, was the real war for African American soldiers.

Earlier this year, Spike Lee criticized Clint Eastwood's Second World War films Flag of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima for being "whites-only" and ignoring the contributions of Black soldiers to the war effort. After all, nearly 1 million African Americans served in all branches of the armed forces during the war.

Eastwood responded by telling Lee to "shut up." Clearly, some leading figures in Hollywood are still not prepared to accept a challenge to the traditional way that the Second World War is portrayed on the big screen. But one only has to think about it for a minute to realize that, with the exception of one small film made in 1949, some of the most popular and classic films about war--From Here to Eternity, The Great Escape, A Bridge on the River Kwai, Midway, Patton, Saving Private Ryan--have literally no Black faces on the screen.

During the war, there was a slogan popularized by Black newspapers in the U.S.--"Double Victory"--victory over fascism abroad and Jim Crow at home. It was not to be. The struggle against Jim Crow was delayed by the postwar red scare for over another decade. And it took another half century for there to be a major film about Black soldiers in the so-called "good war."

Hopefully, Spike Lee's Miracle at St. Anna is just the beginning of correcting that rotten history.

Addendum

As this article was being written, controversy arose in Italy over the historical accuracy of the portrayal of the massacre of civilians in the village of St. Anna. According to Time magazine, a 2005 Italian military tribunal determined that the massacre was in no way provoked by the partisans, but was a premeditated plan by the Germans.

A veteran of the partisan struggle, 82-year-old Moreno Costa, who met with Lee before filming of Miracle began, was quoted as saying, "He talked about commemorating the Buffalo troops, but he didn't say anything about this betrayal. We are indignant about this. I don't understand why he had to open all this up again."

Among those protesting the opening of the film was Giovanni Cipollini, the leader of a pro-resistance association. "When a famous director makes a major movie about a chapter in history, people will believe that his version is the truth," says Cipollini.

Lee responded in an arrogant manner similar to Clint Eastwood's response to Lee's criticism of Eastwood's films. "I am not apologizing for anything," Lee told the Italian press. "I think these questions are evidence that there is still a lot about your history during the war that [Italians] have got to come to grips with."

Italy is a country that is seeing a significant rise in fascist political activity and violent racism. A rehabilitation of the old fascist leader Benito Mussolini and attacks on the anti-Nazi resistance is taking place as part of this shift to the right in Italian politics.

It's sad and disappointing that Spike Lee who has made an important film putting African American soldiers back into their proper in history--that they were denied so long--is playing into the hands of people on the Italian far right who have nothing but disdain for him.