The Big Red One (1980)
In World War I, Private Possum (Lee Marvin) kills a German solider and returns to headquarters, where he’s told the war ended “about four hours ago.”
Since the war was over, was it murder when he killed the German? Are the signatures of distant leaders on a piece of paper the only distinction between murder and justifiably killing someone as an act of war? Are the actions themselves morally different because of when they took place?
Twenty four years later, Sgt. Possum leads the Big Red One during World War II. When his squad crosses the field where he killed the German years earlier, they find a memorial.
Johnson: Would you look at how fast they put up the names of all our guys who got killed?
Sgt. Possum: That’s a World War One memorial.
Johnson: But the names are the same.
Sgt. Possum: They always are.
The film ends with Possum once again confronting a German solider in a field and stabbing him. The remainder of his squad arrives to tell him the war ended “about four hours ago,” but, this time, someone notices the German solider is still living; the film ends with the men desperately trying to save his life.
Director Samuel Fuller served in WWII and earned a Purple Heart. This film is a pseudo-autobiographical account of his experiences in the 1st Infantry Division of the US Army.
Lee Marvin was born to play a conflicted man hiding behind a tough, emotionless facade. Without knowing anything else about him, I get the feeling this is who he really was.
In addition to Marvin, this film features a young Mark Hamill in a non-Star Wars role, and Robert Carradine (most famous as Lewis Skolnick) as the narrator / Fuller’s fictional avatar.
In 2004, seven years after Fuller died, the film was restored to his original vision. Fifty minutes longer, the reconstruction is a slightly better movie, but both are worthwhile films grappling with the more subtle moral dimensions of war.