Dunkirk - Nolan-style

We saw the new movie directed by Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk, at the weekend. I'd wavered, and wondered, and tossed up whether or not to put ourselves through 1 hour and 47 minutes of cinematic tension and chaos which, from the couple of reviews I'd read seemed to describe what was on offer. Eventually, the chance to exchange the computer screen for a cinema screen, for a while, and to swap home air conditioning for a place even cooler (cold in fact) won the toss. We were two of just eight audience members in a late afternoon showing of the film. Movies about British war efforts are obviously not a big draw in semi-rural Oklahoma, at least not with so many super-hero tales, ape wars, and Despicable Me as alternative options.

My immediate reactions on leaving the theatre, into the car park and 90 degree heat:
"It was flippin' cold in there."
"They had turned the sound up so loud that I [English-born though I am] couldn't understand much of the dialogue."
And, my major criticism - of the movie, rather than of the surrounding discomforts was this:
The key element to the story of Dunkirk, as I have always known it, was the amazing rescue and evacuation effort, a major part of which was carried out by small vessels, fishing boats, yachts, pleasure boats, ferry-type craft, manned by non-military people who sailed into those very dangerous waters. Yes I know this is, obviously, part of the film's story - it has to be. However, the movie's rather "arthouse" arty farty Nolan feel features what I suppose are simply representative examples of the story's components, told in an interwoven, three-strand style, to show how the rescue played out on land, in the air, and by sea. I found that the scale of the soldiers' plight was much better represented than the scale of the small boat-aided rescue. The "sea" segment of the film concentrated on just one small boat and its crew, and those it rescued (on just a single trip). We see just one screen shot of the veritable armada of small boats and ships approaching the beach - from a great distance; later a shot of just a few small boats arriving is included - an almost throw-away shot at that! I came away with the feeling that when the film is seen by those who do not know the full story of Dunkirk - most of the generations much younger than me, and quite a few from all generations in the USA - that they could come away from the film with an unbalanced idea of exactly what went on.

There's plenty of information on the internet as to exact statistics, and detail of the events of the Dunkirk evacuation, what led up to it, and what came after. I shall not repeat such detail here, except to copy this paragraph from Wikipedia's page:

On the first day of the evacuation, only 7,669 men were evacuated, but by the end of the eighth day, 338,226 soldiers had been rescued by a hastily assembled fleet of over 800 boats. Many of the troops were able to embark from the harbour's protective mole [a kind of pier] onto 39 British destroyers of the Royal Navy and civilian merchant ships, while others had to wade out from the beaches, waiting for hours in the shoulder-deep water. Some were ferried from the beaches to the larger ships by what came to be known as the little ships of Dunkirk, a flotilla of hundreds of merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft, yachts, and lifeboats called into service from Britain for the emergency. The B[ritish]E[xpeditionary]F[orce] lost 68,000 soldiers during the French campaign and had to abandon nearly all of its tanks, vehicles, and other equipment.

There are countless reviews of the movie online now. I read through several after seeing the film. They mostly repeat the same points, but fighting my way through multiple sliding and very annoying adverts, into the farther reaches of Google, I found what I consider to be one of the most insightful reviews of Dunkirk, it was written by "Darren" at The Movie Blog. If a passing reader has already seen the movie, or is planning to do so, I'd highly recommend a look at that review.

We were glad to have seen Dunkirk, even though it appeared to me, and to my American husband, who was aware of the events told of in Dunkirk, to be an unbalanced style of telling one of World War 2's most iconic British stories. What was shown was wonderfully atmospheric, affecting and scary, even other-worldly at times. I've read that the best way of seeing this movie is via IMAX huge screen - but our local cinema's screen was quite big enough for our taste, and even its level of sound proved too loud for our delicate ears!

POSTSCRIPT (for any interested in astrology)

Dunkirk's director, Christopher Nolan, was astrologically investigated in my post from 2012 HERE (scroll down to the post's second half).

The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle (1963)
is an alternative history novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. Set in 1962, fifteen years after an alternative ending to World War II, the novel concerns intrigues between the victorious Axis Powers—Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany—as they rule over the former United States, as well as daily life under the resulting totalitarian rule. The Man in the High Castle won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963.

I haven't read the novel, and we had resisted dipping into the TV (Amazon) series loosely based on it, until a few evenings ago. We dipped, but not very deeply. Two hour-long episodes convinced us that we didn't want to waste any more time on such a gloomy, terribly depressing, often disturbing, not to mention gratuitously violent, piece of dystopian fiction. Although there's a resistance community in the story, standing up to two ruthless authoritarian governments, without prior knowledge of outcome, a viewer can feel as hopeless as the film's characters themselves.

I did find many of the events in those first two episodes to be almost carbon copies of events in certain World War 2-type movies and novels I can recall, just changes in location, period and characters' names. In those earlier films, though, I knew that it was always going to be "alright in the end".

Main characters in the TV series: a young woman, probably in her mid-twenties and a couple of young men, also around that age would not have many memories of their world before Nazis and Japan took over. Other, older, characters had needed to adjust. Life had to go on. The terrifying sight of abhorrent iconography on buildings, flags, vehicles, along with such alien ideals being normalized is the central discomfiture.

In the TV series the USA, as we know it, is split. The eastern half, as far west as the Rockies is under rulership of the Nazis, while the west coast, and eastward as far as the Rockies is ruled by Japan. There is a rather unwisely planned (but necessary for plot growth) neutral buffer zone around Colorado and the Rocky Mountains area.

I understand that the series compares to the novel only in its broad original premise, and in names of some of the characters. P.K. Dick's original idea was an interesting concept to explore, and while the novel's style and detail must have needed some modification in order to appeal to a 21st century audience, less of the viewer manipulation I've read about in commentary would have been preferable. Viewer manipulation appears to have become the norm these days!

Though I'm unlikely to continue watching Amazon's version of The Man in the High Castle, I do remain curious as to where it seemed to be going with the plot. Rather than subjecting us to more dystopian discomfort, I spent time reading articles and commentary around the net from those who had watched the whole of season 1 and most of newly released second season. A few hints follow - beware, though - they could spoil it for anyone who plans to watch the series in future.

The I Ching is used, in the TV series by one of the more sympathetic of its characters, a Japanese official: Tagomi, the Trade Minister.

[Philip K. Dick] was enamored of the cleromancy of the “I Ching,” and in addition to having his characters in “Man in the High Castle” utilize it, he used it himself to plot the novel, in a kind of extravagant commitment to the themes of his own story.

From Variety HERE

.... reels of banned film [newsreels etc] circulating around the world, depicting alternate [alternative!] histories of what could have happened or might still happen to the world. It is not so different from movies in general — but these films are widely held to be mystical depictions that are absolutely real, not just clever fiction made by someone in the basement. To be fair, they do have chilling real elements that even Hollywood can’t quite produce. In “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy,” the reel that becomes the Magical MacGuffin of the first season, San Francisco is depicted being razed by an A-bomb, and a few of the characters see themselves and people they know onscreen, either dying or murdering others.

The first season introduced this supernatural device without, apparently, having much of an idea of where it would go.........The second season lays an interesting foundation and builds up quite a head of steam by the final few episodes — but you can feel the projector sputtering with a kind of desperation as the final hours spool out. Season 2 produces more answers and more action than Season 1 — but those answers are curiously flat, following what has been hours and hours of little more than texture. And it ends with a bait-and-switch that is both too expository and too frustrating, the exact kind of twist you hope a show will not pull.

I've read, regarding the end of the second series, that one of the more troubling aspects of the way the finale plays out is the villainization of the Resistance. (See HERE;) though a commenter at that website thought differently:

The villain-ization of the resistance was actually probably the best thing this show did. American exceptionalism almost always has full permeation of entertainment media. The idea that Americans, especially in "rebel mode" could actually be "bad" never gets explored. Yet we take it for granted with almost all other rebellions everywhere else that it can happen.

Postscript
Should any passing reader be interested to see Phlip K. Dick's natal chart and a run-down on another movie adaptation of one of his short stories, take a look at an archived post HERE.

Music and Movie Monday - Remembering 1941

Wednesday of this week marks the anniversary of that "Date Which Will Live in Infamy".

December 7, 1941 - Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; also attack the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, Malaya, Thailand, Shanghai and Midway.
December 8, 1941 - U.S. and Britain declare war on Japan. US enters World War II. Japanese land near Singapore and enter Thailand.

Not fertile ground for musical offerings - though pairing with some favourite movies, books or TV series portraying those dramatic and portentious events, a melody or two do emerge.

There are several movies, books and TV series dedicated exclusively to detail of the attacks, but I prefer those which use the historic events as part of the film's background.

The bombing of Pearl Harbour is part of the From Here to Eternity story, told in novel, film and TV mini-series. The invasion of Singapore and other areas of Asia is background for Nevil Shute's wonderful novel, adapted for film and TV mini-series,
A Town Like Alice.

The Winds of War, originally a novel, then the sprawling story of World War II via a well-loved TV series, had to include events which began the USA's entry into World War II - the TV series has a memorable piece of music as its theme:





From Here to Eternity gave us:



The cricial Japanese attack scene in From Here to Eternity:



And a little background from A Town Like Alice (the TV mini-series) whose story unfolds immediately after Japanese attacks on Singapore.

Self-indulgent Saturday-Sunday #1

Regular commenter "Sonny" suggested I should, occasionally, tell stories of my life. So...

This first episode is longer than most others in future are likely to be, because in a few days' time it'll be

11 November, Remembrance Day - a date when Britain remembers those lost in two horrendous World Wars. This first part of my story relates to one of those wars.

IN THE BEGINNING....

January 27 1939 – Adolf Hitler orders Plan Z, a 5-year naval expansion programme intended to provide for a huge German fleet capable of crushing the Royal Navy by 1944.

January 27 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the sale of U.S. war planes to France.

January 27, 1939 First flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft.

AND...January 27 1939 some time around 3 pm or just before or maybe just after, in a house in a Yorkshire city on the East coast in the North of England, I struggled into this world of ours, almost killing my mother in the process, so much so that she was unable to bear more children.

I couldn't be aware of it at the time, of course, but I made my entrance as the world was gearing up for one of mankind's most horrendous wars: World War II; by September, when I was barely 9 months old, it had begun.

To live in a world totally without war is a dream most people cherish. I've hoped and dreamed to experience this for as long as I can remember, from a very young childhood in wartime England. I may not have appreciated fully what awful risks we faced in Hull, a city port on the northern East coast, where we then lived. In later years I came to understand, and to realise how lucky we had been to survive. Hull had suffered the most significant bomb damage of any city outside London during World War II. The city had spent more than 1,000 hours under air raid alerts, had been the target of the first German daylight raid of the war and the last piloted air raid on Britain. More than 5,000 houses were destroyed along with half of the city centre. Until mid-way through the second world war more women and children in Britain had been killed than soldiers. Over three-quarters of the total housing stock in our city was either destroyed or damaged. Some families were "bombed out" of their homes two or even three times. Like many others of my generation (John Lennon from another port, Liverpool, is a famous example), I grew up hating the very word "war".

We lived in a house attached to a bakery shop. My father was bakery foreman, and later manager of a local bakery chain in the city; my mother managed this particular store, located next to a lovely big park with a boating lake, gardens, fishing ponds, swings, slides, etc and grassy areas. The big boating lake was a mixed blessing during the war. To German pilots entering the area at night the large expanse of water was sometimes mistaken for their target, the city's docks and port area, a mile or two away. Consequently, streets around us were bombed. Miraculously we weren't among the afflicted. The worst we suffered, on one occasion was when I lay asleep in my pram in the living room, a bomb dropped nearby, without the usual warning of an air raid siren. The blast sent soot billowing down our chimney (which had probably not been cleaned for years), covering me and the pram. Later on it seemed funny - a wee me covered in black soot. It wasn't unusual, though, to venture outside in the mornings and find half the houses in one's street had disappeared overnight.

My father, being a craftsman baker was in a "reserved occupation", so wasn't drafted into the forces. He did try to join early on, but was rejected on some health ground. He also tried to obtain a catering or bakery position in the NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes) - cafes for the forces, but was unsuccessful (he blamed the owner of the bakery chain where he was employed for that). So, while my mother was thankful Dad didn't have to leave us, he was recruited into the Home Guard. Several nights a week he donned the army uniform and headed off to a place, not far away, where anti-aircraft guns were located, and did whatever had to be done by the Home Guard there. Another part of the war effort my parents engaged in was taking in "lodgers", men and women who were temporarily seconded to the area for some war-connected reason: engineers, technicians, government workers. My memories on this must come from the last years of the war. I recall several "lodgers" billeted with us for short periods, and one, a young customs and excise officer seconded from Northern Ireland to the city's docks, who stayed for a much longer time, became fast friends with my parents. His own parents were so thankful that their son had found a kindly home-away-from-home that they sent us a ready-dressed goose from their farm every Christmas from then on for many years, until their deaths.

 

We had an air raid shelter in our back yard, similar to the one in the photograph - small, brick built, heavy concrete block for roof, some bunks inside. I'm not sure how much protection such shelters would have afforded. I remember several times being rushed into the shelter with the air raid siren blaring out eerily into the night (the sound still haunts me, even now, when they test the tornado warning siren here in Oklahoma!) On occasions when there was no time to rush to the shelter, we'd hide in the little space under our staircase until the all-clear warning sounded. All family members were provided also with gas masks. Thankfully, those were never needed.

Rationing of all food items, including sweets (candy), and clothing, was severe. Ration books and "clothing coupons" were part of life for many years. Fresh fruit, unless grown in one's own garden, was non-existent. I didn't see my first orange or banana until well after the war had ended.

Horrendous stories were reported, stories of which I was unaware until much later on. One in particular I recall was that an air raid had happened one evening, just after dark, when some 20 or more people were waiting in line to buy tickets outside a city centre cinema, the Dorchester. A bomb dropped nearby, the blast from it killed that queue of people - as they stood - and they remained standing, all dead, but just as they were before.

My Dad's younger brothers were all in the forces, one in the Royal Air Force, one in the Army, one in the Royal Navy, one in the Merchant Navy. My Merchant Navy uncle visited us in Hull during the war a couple of times when on leave or in port. I was very young then, but Mum and Dad told me that he said he'd far rather be on his ship than staying in our city, which had proved to be a more scary experience for him! My mother's younger sister, my Aunt Lil, ran away to join the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service - women's branch of the British Army), much to her mother's horror!

War continued for 5 years. I was evacuated, at some point, to live with my maternal grandparents for a while, out of danger, in a small country village some 22 miles away from the city. No air raid sirens there, though we often heard our own planes taking off and landing from a nearby RAF station. We sometimes saw the sky glowing red in the distance where the city lay, being bombed again. There was a prisoner of war camp in the vicinity of Grandparents' home. It mainly housed Italian prisoners who made wicker baskets to sell to locals. I was bought a small basket made by the prisoners, beautifully made too it was, in very pale wicker, I remember it well.

 Around age 5, I think.

Children of the village could often seen watching the small amount of traffic driving through on the main road to York. They could well have been collecting registration numbers - I tried to do that too, when I could read and write sufficiently, after attending the tiny one-room village school when barely aged 4. Once in a while a "Yankie" troop truck would drive through the village, we children watching knew to call out to the American lads, "Got any gum chum?" On a good day we'd be treated to packs of chewing gum thrown from the back of the truck. On a bad day, maybe just a wave and a "Hi there!"

The war ended at last, at least in Europe. My clearest memory of that exact time is of not having to feel frightened any more. We young schoolchildren were given small Union Jack flags, and for the girls, red white and blue striped hair ribbons.

To be continued.....

Netflixing ~ Off time travelling once more...

I enjoy a bit of "timey-wimey", so when I noticed a recently added movie, titled Flight World War II in Netflix's catalogue, with a hint that time travel is involved, I had to investigate. The movie is a low-budget 2015 release, a tale about a present day 757 on a flight from the USA to the UK. The plane travels through a mysteriously violent storm and afterwards occupants gradually discover that they've travelled through time, to find themselves over France in June 1940. Not a healthy place to be!

In spite of the drawbacks of its low budget, we found it an enjoyable movie. Husband spotted a few flaws, disbelief definitely needs to be suspended. Some anachronisms and "goofs" can be covered by the fact that the 1940 they experience wasn't exactly the same 1940 as the one we know about.

The Doctor, written by Steven Moffat

After reading around a bit, I found that the movie has some similarities to a 1980 film, The Final Countdown. That one was a bigger budget movie with starry cast including Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen. It was a tale of an aircraft carrier in the Pacific... occupants also mysteriously finding themselves transported back to...well you can probably guess the rest. I've ordered a second-hand DVD of The Final Countdown to check it out. I never could resist that old timey-wimey!

Saturday V-Day & Sundrily Mel Brooks & World War II

Let's get V-Day out of the way first ~

Love doesn’t have to be on Valentine’s Day. It doesn’t have to be by the time you turn eighteen or thirty-three or fifty-nine. It doesn’t have to conform to whatever is usual. It doesn’t have to be kismet at once, or rhapsody by the third day.
It just has to be.
In time.
In place.
In spirit.
It just has to be.
~ David Levithan,
"How They Met, and Other Stories"

We've experienced a flurry of Mel Brooks-ness recently. First we saw him as a guest on Bill Maher's Real Time. He had no trouble stealing that show. What struck me, particularly, was the way he acknowledged Maher's three round-table guests, referencing something complimentary about each one - not many of Bill's special guests bother to do more than give t'others a nod. Next, few days later, we saw HBO's presentation Mel Brooks Live at the Geffen - good show! Its star took us through his long and varied career quip by quip. Brooks, born in 1926, still looks well and, as we used to say in Yorkshire, certainly "has all his chairs at home". He's multi-talented, seems like a warm-hearted guy. He acknowledged his pianist, by name, on several occasions throughout the show - another nice, graceful touch, like that during Maher's show, and one that speaks volumes about Brooks' personality.

I ran into Mel Brooks again, a few days later, as I watched this Video at Eschaton blog:

Lots of of LOLth there, it reminded me a lot of Monty Python, but more extravagantly staged.

That video led us to investigate the movie from which it was taken - History of the World Part I. We searched ROKU, but none of the usual suspects, Netflix, Amazon, etc. have it on offer. Strange! Among available movies of Mel Brooks we hadn't already seen, was To Be or Not to Be. We watched it. It's a fun take (who knew there could ever be one?) on the invasion of Poland by Hitler and the Nazis. Mel Brooks stars in the film with his late wife Ann Bancroft.

The theme of To Be or Not to Be coincided with my reading, earlier in the day, an article by Gary Corseri: War is the Failure of Humanity. It's an interesting piece. I wouldn't quibble with its main thrust - that humanity's many failings include its predilection for war and violence. Yet I felt strongly enough about one point to comment.

Corseri's paragraph quoted below rankled:

The destruction of Europe with war enabled the Marshall Plan where US contractors and bankers made billions in profits funding and rebuilding Europe after WWII. England, that escaped invasion by the Nazis, also had a hand in this rebuilding.

England escaped invasion? No it didn't "escape", our Royal Air Force fought the Battle of Britain to prevent it. We didn't escape anything. Our cities were bombed night after night later on! Dang!!

Anyway I commented calmly:

I agree that no war is good, but, as James commented, some wars are necessary - especially World War II. People in the USA might see it differently from people like me; I was born in Britain in the year war was declared. People in parts of Europe over-run by the Nazis will feel the same...we'd all say that WW2 against Germany was absolutely necessary. Hiroshima and Nagasaki - not so much though.

Tom Brokaw tends to be a bit over-enthusiastic about it all, Churchill was right : "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few", referring to the ongoing efforts of the Royal Air Force pilots who were at the time fighting the Battle of Britain, the pivotal air battle with the German Luftwaffe with Britain expecting a German invasion.
I'm as anti-war, anti-drone, anti-violence as anyone yet cannot ever say that WW2 wasn't necessary.

To which the author of the original article, Gary Corseri, responded:

Thanks for your comment, annui.
Historians have argued these matters for centuries--even millennia. (Was the Trojan War "necessary"? For whom? For what?)

I'll go out on a limb here and say that WWII was NOT necessary! WWII, like most wars, was "engineered" by both sides. The Brits, French, and, to a lesser extent (that time!) Americans set the stage with the punitive Versailles Treaty. While Americans were enjoying the "Roaring 20s," German children were starving to death. While Brits lived in relative comfort, the British Empire was committing all manner of sins in India; and the French were equally sinful in "French Indochina." The Europeans and the Americans had surrounded Japan (with "coaling stations" and then with military bases) and the Japanese were seeking advantages in collapsing China. Meantime, the Brits were playing Russia against Germany, trying to figure how to play murderous Commie Stalin against anti-Zionist Hitler. (The long-delayed Normandy invasion was no doubt delayed so that Germany and our "ally" Russia could do as much damage to each other as possible--i.e., millions killed!)

There is an old Life magazine I have seen, a couple of years before the outbreak of war, in which Mr. Churchill is very laudatory of the accomplishments of Herr Hitler and Signore Mussolini!
Should we suppose that controlling the Middle East after WWII was not a major factor in the way alliances were formed and the war prosecuted?

The fact is, average citizens know little or nothing about the machinations of their "leaders" until it's too late. As General Smedley Butler wrote, "War is a racket."

I wrote a fair bit in my article about the American Revolution--because Americans think they have got a good background on that from their high school days. As an antidote to much of that particular nonsense and to the nonsense of "necessary wars" in general, I recommend, "A People's History of the American Revolution" by Ray Raphael.

I responded again also referencing a very good comment from "johndamos" (well worth a read, by the way).

I'd like to thank Messrs Corseri and Damos for their thought-provoking words, which will propel me to further investigation on this topic.
While there's no denying that manipulations went on behind scenes, without which World War 2 could have been avoided - at least on the scale it reached - due to the kind of leader Germany had, Hitler, it still seems to me that war became inevitable. Hitler, initially, might have appeared reasonable, a man even admired by other leaders in his efforts to pull Germany back from the devastations of World War 1, yet he had horrendous plans and aims. Had Germany's leader been of a very different ilk, World War 2 might not have been necessary.

 See HERE

This isn't the first time I've read opinions such as Mr Corseri's regarding World War II. It's easy to review, revise and criticise from a safe, relatively comfortable place in the late 20th or 21st century. Thinking on the topic over the past few days, I've come to the conclusion that Mr Corseri was mixing two ideas. War is certainly a failing of humanity's innate nature - always has been, always will be. Sadly, though arguments can be made against any war, there are times when it has to be acknowledged that dire failings of humanity have to be confronted, especially so when facing a national leader who plainly had aims to rule the world, rid it of any group of which he didn't approve, and by insanely horrendous means; and when that leader had a powerful military and the wherewithal to bring his aims to fruition. Humans of steadier natures could not simply stand by and let it happen - could they? Manipulations had, no doubt, taken place. Manipulations have been with us always (another dark facet of human nature), but once the manipulated aim bears fruit - what...? It's impossible to say that a war, such as the war against Nazi Germany wasn't necessary, it was necessary for nations to defend themselves, manipulated or not.

There's a point here that I've not quite been able to articulate... what is it? Is it that, due to the human predilection for violence, and their other predilection for manipulation, war, though a failure of humanity becomes inevitable and, for those at the sharp end, regrettably necessary. I guess it comes down to what lies behind the word "necessary".

Infamous Date

December 7 ("Date Which Will Live in Infamy” ) fell on a Sunday in 1941 as it will tomorrow, in 2014.

On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941 America's naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was attacked by aircraft and submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy, killing 2,403 American military personnel and civilians and injuring 1,178 others. The attack sank four U.S. Navy battleships and damaged four more. It also damaged or sank three cruisers, three destroyers, and one minelayer. Aircraft losses were 188 destroyed and 159 damaged. (Wikipedia)

That infamous event happened 73 years ago. Since then it has been portrayed and interpreted numerous times in literature and in film, from different perspectives. From Here to Eternity remains, for me, the most memorable movie of that genre. Somehow the unexpectedness of the attack seems more real and perceptible, set against otherwise soap-opera-like, and eventually unimportant, slings and arrows of everyday life inside a US military base near to Honolulu.

I was fortunate enough to spend three weeks in Honolulu, Hawaii, on vacation in 1984. From the UK we took advantage of a "3 weeks for the price of 2" offer. It was an unforgettable vacation, during which we did the Pearl Harbor "thing" created for tourists: a boat trip around Pearl Harbor with narration coming over a loudspeaker, pointing out significant locations and the oil slicks still (since 1941) rising from sunken US naval vessels. The tour culminated with the throwing overboard of a large wreath of white blossoms, in remembrance of all those lost that day in 1941. Not a dry eye on board was there at that point! I did have photographs, but all were lost in the fire that took all our possessions some twelve years later.

Below: “Battleship Row in Flames” a large painting (40 in. x 60 in.) by John Hamilton, widely acknowledged as an accurate and thoroughly researched portrayal of the Sunday morning sneak attack by the Japanese Carrier Striking Task Force. See HERE. Click on image for a clearer, enlarged view.

Astro.com has a chart for the date and time of the attack on Pearl Harbor HERE. I haven't yet found a standard interpretation that satisfies me. The chart is a bit odd considering what it represents - perhaps it'd be better to look at Hawaii's "natal" chart or the US's chart for the same time, and compare. Any thoughts?


LATE ADDITION: natal chart for Hedeki Tojo Japan's military leader at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It's set for 12 noon on his date of birth, according to Wiki: 30 December 1884 in a part of Tokyo.

Note - in the chart linked above for Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack, Saturn and Uranus are in late Taurus at 23 and 27 degrees (close to Fixed Star Algol). In Tojo's natal chart Pluto and Neptune straddle the Taurus/Gemini cusp conjunct Saturn in the Pearl Harbor chart. I don't know whether this is significant, but thought I'd throw it in.

"....With Our Own Feathers..."

A few weeks ago I glanced through a list of what a writer considered the ten best American TV mini-series ever. It contained some of my own longtime favourites, such as Centennial, Lonesome Dove, Rich Man Poor Man. Commenters had added some lesser-known (to me) titles, including one from 1976, Once an Eagle starring Sam Elliott. OOooo--h! Sam Elliott! Gotta get me one of those DVDs! I did, and we've now watched the 7-episode, 9 hour set. It's a younger Sam Elliott than I've been used to, less grizzled, but that voice is still the same. Sam is one star who has truly aged like a good wine - there aren't many like him. (Stop drooling blogger!)

Once an Eagle is also title of the novel by Anton Myrer from which the mini-series was adpated. After the first couple of episodes, while pondering the series' title, I suspected it might have come from a poem, or perhaps from a bible quotation. The title is, indeed, a quote from poetry by Æschylus (525 BC – 456 BC), a playwright of ancient Greece:

So in the Libyan fable it is told
That once an eagle, stricken with a dart,
Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft,
"With our own feathers, not by others' hands,
Are we now smitten."

Frag. 135 (trans. by Plumptre), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

I think, if I'm understanding those words correctly, that Walt Kelly's character Pogo said much the same thing, centuries later:

"We have met the enemy and he is us".

In war, as in peace those words have echoed through the centuries. We truly are our own worst enemies. There are different ways of interpreting this thought though. In a review of the novel (HERE) the reviewer states:

".....I offer the quote from the flyleaf where Myrer found his title. This is a powerful warning to those who would do right by America and her armed forces. There are numerous enemies operating from within. This book gives us a wonderful hero but, it also warns us to look over our shoulders as well. The resurgence of this book should also serve as a reminder to the "perfumed princes" in the officer corps that their oath is to the Constitution, that their duty is to the country and that honor demands that they put the nation above personal consideration. The men and women of the armed forces, who are sworn to obey the orders of the officers appointed over them, deserve no less. The nation deserves no less and Anton Myrer's novel from 1968 reminds us of that even today."

From Once an Eagle, watched in 2014, a somewhat wider message came over for me, in Elliott's sensitively acted facial expressions as enemies closely face one another, as his longtime friends are killed in action, or as suggestion of more insightful plans and methods are trampled upon by those who put self-interest above everything else. What's it all about - war? Sam Damon admitted he didn't know, but did know that "there'll be another" and we should be ready, and he felt the need to be a part of the "being ready".

From our perspective now, post Korea, Vietnam, several minor conflicts, 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, murdering drone attacks...that ancient poetry means, to me, that we are "smiting" ourselves by creating, then inflaming, what we perceive as enemies. Our own metaphorical feathers could come back in a different form one day to harm, or even destroy us, just as the eagle's feathers helped to propel the arrow that eventually killed it.

Although the style of filming in Once an Eagle is more than a tad dated now, it's still an engaging and informing tale of US army life in the early to mid-20th century. This isn't a story of the two World Wars though, it's a story of army people - and a people story in general, how they coped, or didn't, during and between the wars. It's the story of Sam Damon, a Nebraska farm boy who enlisted in the regular army. His story begins in 1916. Two years later, in France, he became an infantry squad leader, excelled in that position and and won a battlefield commission to, eventually, the rank of Major.

Sam Elliott, in some ways, was playing another version of the cowboy in the white hat, while actor Cliff Potts played the cowboy in the black hat, Courtney (Court) Massengale, an ambitious self-absorbed climber through the ranks, of limited skills, climbing in any way he could devise, including judicious choice of well-connected wife. The story takes us through World War I, then the dreary (for some) between-wars period, Sam's and Court's marriages, and their wives' gradual disillusionment, then on to World War II.

There are lots of soapy elements running through the series, of course: wives, families, loyalties, disloyalties, and an interval when Damon, on extended leave, helps out in a relative's factory. There he strikes out against racism, still rampant even in the northern part of the US, and finds he'd be as effective a leader in civilian life as in the military; but he admits to his wife that he loves the army too much to give it up. His wife remains unimpressed, especially when their son enlists in the airforce at the start of World War II, serves in a bomber squadron based in England.....and....you guessed didn't you?

I understand the novel takes the story on past 1945 to the Vietnam conflict, the TV series ends during the second half of World War II, in a very abrupt and unsatisfying fashion. Many loose ends were left dangling. I had to wonder whether, back in 1976, the producers had hoped to make a sequel, but that didn't happen.

A reviewer some years ago (HERE) proposed that Sam Damon is "a metaphor for the U.S. Army itself in the first seven decades of the 20th century. It came of age in World War I, achieved greatness in World War II and withered in Vietnam".

USA's Roller-coaster: Over-reaction -- Apathy

I've stumbled across a couple of articles this week where the writer compares, unfavourably, the attitudes of most people in the USA immediately after 9/11 events, to the attitudes of the British during attacks on their country during World War 2. Y'all cannot possibly compare events and reactions to World War 2 with reactions to the event of 9/11 2001 for goodness sake!!

Now....while the idea has often occurred to me that the people of the USA, in general, over-react - tend towards a communal paranoia on several fronts, and display a definite tendency to hyperbole on all fronts, I'd never categorised this as anything resembling cowardice, as implied in the articles I read. Take Stephen Pizzo's piece at Smirking Chimp, for instance. In referring to The Patriot Act:
Be Ashamed, Americans

Snip:

Who gave them the right to do that? Well, we did. Yes we did.

In the flash, 9/11 turned cocky, self-satisfied Americans into a mob of scared school girls. We went screaming to "Daddy" demanding to be kept safe from "terrorists." Spare us the details, we said, and just get-et done, we demanded.

Stop for a moment and compare that response to how the Brits responded to years of terror weapons raining down on their cities during WW II.

"Starting on 7 September 1940, London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 57 consecutive nights. More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged, and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, almost half of them in London. Ports and industrial centres outside London were also heavily attacked; the major Atlantic sea port of Liverpool was the most heavily bombed city outside London, suffering nearly 4,000 dead."

Americans had never felt such a blow. But, unlike the Brits who, rather than panic, stood up, strapped on a pair, and just kept on keeping on, we freaked out after 9/11. Three jets, a two buildings and 3000 dead, and we went to pieces.

Be ashamed, Americans. Be very ashamed. One attack, tiny by comparison, and our first response is to offer up our freedoms in return for protection.

And so came the Patriot Act; likely the most un-American piece of legislation ever passed by Congress and signed into law by an American president. It was slapped together by panicked government employees, passed by politicians who were far more terrified of their terrified constituents than they were of actual terrorists, and signed into law by the dumbest man ever to serve in the Oval Office.

We did that. Because we let them do that.

An English commenter (L. Harrison) agreed, and adds information about the devastation of the city of Plymouth during WW 2. I'm eligible to add my own views on this. I was born in Hull, a busy east coast port which also came in for blitzing by the Luftwaffe. We never knew from one morning to the next whether we'd still be around, or whether the house next door might be a pile of rubble, especially as we lived near a park with a large boating lake, which was often mistaken by German pilots for the docks, and they sometimes dropped their bombs not far from our doorstep. I was a very young child -just a baby at the start of it all, so have only fragmented memories, but do remember seeing the devastation downtown in the city centre, later on.

Reactions during a World War are something quite different from those following a single event coming out of the blue in peacetime (or what passes for peacetime). During wartime citizens become hardened to the possibility that death is just around the next corner, or will come during the next night. They learn to live with that, little by little. They have to - what else is there? People of the USA would be the same, I believe. 9/11 came out of the blue, a shock to the system, immediate reactions were understandable. What isn't understandable is that people have not demanded during ensuing years, that The Patriot Act be reviewed, rather than renewed. Apathy descended, complacency reigned and there lay the danger. The People can never, ever, afford to become complacent. Apathy isn't cowardice, but apathy of the masses has led to the situation in the USA - on several fronts.

It's as though initial hyperbolic over-reaction and paranoia moves on to dip to the other, more dangerous extreme: apathy.

Arty Farty Friday ~ Oskar Kokoschka

Born this day, 1 March, in 1886 was expressionist artist, poet and playwright Oskar Kokoschka - trips off the tongue rather well! He was born in Pöchlarn on the Danube in Austria, another artist who fought in World War 1, and had to flee from Europe to Britain at the start of World War 2.

Kokoschka was seriously wounded in the First World War, and taken prisoner. He suffered a head injury and a bayonet wound to the lung, spent a period of convalescence in Vienna, but was then sent to the Isonzo Front, where his health, mental and physical, broke down. He went to Stockholm to consult a brain specialist and then to Dresden to try to recover his health.

Events before his military service probably fed into the deterioration from physical injuries. He had carried on a tempestuous love affair with Alma, widow of Gustav Mahler. The affair had ended, but his obsession led him to commission a life-sized doll to replace Alma - complete and life-like in all details, which he treated like a living companion - it has even been said that he escorted it to the opera.

After the end of the war the political situation in Dresden was unstable. Kokoschka formed part of a small, left-wing bohemian group. In the liberal climate of 1919 he was officially appointed Professor at the Dresden Academy.

After teaching at the art academy in Dresden (1919-24), Kokoschka travelled extensively in Europe and N Africa. In 1937 his works were removed from German galleries by the Nazis, who considered his work degenerate. He moved to London in 1938, but wasn't happy there. Subject matter of his paintings at this time became political and often critical of his host country, Britain. After World War II he moved to Switzerland, established an international summer school in Salzburg.
He died in 1980.





The Bride of the Wind or The Tempest (Windsbraut)1913-1914. Kokoschka's best known work, an allegorical picture featuring a self-portrait by the artist, lying alongside his lover Alma Mahler. Kokoschka met Mahler, then recently widowed from Gustav Mahler, in 1912. A passionate romance ensued, with the artist producing numerous drawings and paintings of Mahler. The painting depicts Mahler in a peaceful sleep beside Kokoschka, who is awake and stares into space. The couple's break-up in 1914 had a profound effect on Kokoschka, whose expressive brushwork grew more turbulent.
(See HERE)





Knight Errant In the Vienna of 1914, a woman having an abortion was cause for scandal, even within the confines of the relatively open-minded art world. When such a woman was the widow of a famous composer, unwed, and carrying on two love affairs simultaneously, her decision would alarm even the most sympathetic souls. Thus it is that the agonized knight errant of Oskar Kokoschka’s painting is to this day read as an expression of the artist’s pain over the death of an unborn child and the crumbling of his relationship with the fascinating, and quite unrepentant, Alma Mahler.

The central figure appears to be a self-portrait of Kokoschka, clad in the armor of a medieval knight. He lies errant, or lost, in a stormy landscape, his two attributes—a winged bird-man and a sphinxlike woman—in close proximity. The bird-man has been interpreted either as the figure of death or another self-portrait, while the sphinx-woman has been seen as a stand-in for Mahler. A funereal sky bears the letters “E S,” which probably refer to Christ’s lament, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani” (“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”) As if the self-equivalence with chivalry and the martyred Christ were not enough, the agitated brushwork and disturbing composition convince us of Kokoschka’s spiritual discomfort.
Cornelia Lauf (See HERE)


The Duomo, Florence.







The Loreley (1941/2) title refers to a mythical Rhine maiden, who lured sailors to their death. Kokoschka explained that his painting mocks British claims to maritime supremacy: "Britannia no longer rules the waves; inaction has lasted too long; an octopus swims away with a trident, the emblem of marine power. Queen Victoria, who built up the British fleet into a dominant position, rides a shark and stuffs white, brown and black sailors into its mouth. Only the frog on her hand refuses to accept the same fate: it represents Ireland, where there are no reptiles except frogs". (See HERE)





Marianne-Maquis: 1942 was a year of deadlock during the Second World War. Whilst the Soviet Union was battling the Nazis in the East, there were repeated calls for British and American governments to launch a Second Front in Western Europe. In Marianne-Maquis, Kokoschka vents his criticism of the allies’ delay by showing British war leaders Winston Churchill and General Montgomery drinking tea in the Café de Paris in Soho. The central figure is Marianne, the traditional personification of France, now linked to the ‘Maquis’, the French Resistance. (See HERE)





Anschluss - Alice in Wonderland (1942) addresses the German annexation of Austria; the painting also contains symbolic elements suggested by the second part of the title. In the background, Kokoschka’s former city, Vienna, is engulfed in flames. Wien is inscribed on a building. People are running rampant through the city streets, suggesting that the cultural capital of the former Austrian Empire might soon be reduced to this sort of social destruction. In the right foreground of the painting, a youthful nude with plaited blond hair stands erect. She symbolizes Austria and serves as a visual contrapposto to Hitler’s Aryan ideal. This is not the healthy, robust model seen so often in Nazi propaganda—her figure is disproportionate and her pose is awkward. This is, perhaps, another attempt at satirizing a contemporary, political event. In an attempt at modesty, she reaches with her left arm to cover herself with a fig leaf, alluding to classical statuary and humanist traditions. Kokoschka has placed her inside a pen of barbed wire, separating her from the chaos on the streets. Her right arm is extended outward and she points with one finger directly at the viewer, a warning to Kokoschka’s British audience that this sort of thing could happen to them, as well, if not more careful about their policy-making. (Information from pdf HERE)





What We Are Fighting For : (1943) According to Kokoschka, of all the political allegories completed during his time in London this one was the one he “meant most seriously.” He discusses the iconography of the composition:    A bishop is blessing the troops, and with his free hand is dropping a penny into the Red Cross collecting-box; an endless procession of prisoners file along with hands raised; in a rickshaw pulled by Gandhi sit the Governor of the Bank of England, the President of the Reichsbank, and a Marshal of France; in the foreground lies a starving mother holding an emaciated child who is playing with a rat. The prospering American munitions industry appears as a globe-like monster with two levers for arms, one pulling out a blue rabbit, signifying peace, as an emblem of hope for the future, while the other crams human bones into the armaments machine which turns them into cartridges. In the right foreground stands a bust of Voltaire with the inscription CANDIDE, i.e., ‘the best of all possible worlds’....... we can assume that simply creating something interesting to look at was not Kokoschka’s intent. His goal was to teach.

More paintings HERE and via Google Image.


ASTROLOGY

(12 noon chart shown as no time of birth is available.)
I noticed, somewhere in my searches, a reference to the artist as a "Sensitive Titan", his Sun and Mercury in Pisces reflects sensitivity, but in general he seems to have experienced discomfort rather than joy from his sensitive nature.
I see this discomfort represented by the opposition of Mars to Sun/Mercury; Mars possibly representing "The Titan"? Venus in Aquarius, and Uranus conjunct Jupiter both link to Kokoschka's non-establishment politcally-aware side, and perhaps his rather unruly Aquarian Venus led him into the affair with Alma Mahler which eventually cost him much pain. Moon would have been in Capricorn, whatever his birth time, and it probably is in line to form a Grand Trine in Earth with Neptune and Mars - connecting to both his creativity and "The Titan" in him. It's rather strange he has no planet in a Fire sign.

THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY and Anti-Glorification of War

I bought a tape of the 1964 movie The Americanization of Emily another one I'd missed first time around. It's known among film buffs as an anti-war movie and stars James Garner and Julie Andrews.

It really isn't anti-war - or perhaps I should say that, in the context and setting the story takes place, it ought not to be termed anti-war. More accurately the movie is anti-glorification of war. I found that, on reflection, there's a feeling of "something not quite right" about the movie, even though I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The setting is England during World War II and just before D-Day. To have been anti-war at that juncture would have meant being willing to allow Hitler and his Nazis to overrun Britain as they had already overrun much of Europe. Sometimes war, horrific as it is, becomes inevitable. I'll not natter on further about the general storyline of the movie, but instead use TCM's brief synopsis. A few viewer reviews, positive and negative, can be found at the link too.

In wartime London just before D-Day, Lieut. Comdr. Charlie Madison, an aide to eccentric Rear Admiral Jessup, specializes in supplying the top Navy officers with luxuries such as party girls. Madison is an exponent of cowardice as a virtue because he believes reverence of heroism promotes war. He falls in love with Emily Barham, his British motorpool driver, a young woman who has lost her husband and brother in the war. Admiral Jessup is obsessed with the idea that the Army has a better image than the Navy and is determined that the first dead man on Omaha Beach on D-Day be a sailor. Jessup orders Madison to photograph the D-Day landing, and, despite his protests which alienate Emily, Madison is forced at gunpoint to be the first man to land on Omaha Beach. Running from the bombs, Madison trips a land mine and is reported to be the first man killed in the invasion. Photographs of his supposedly dead body appear in the newspapers, and he becomes a hero, but later he is found alive. Admiral Jessup then organizes a hero's welcome for Madison, but he threatens to confess the true story of his cowardice to the press. Emily, in a reversal of sentiment, promises to marry him if he will keep his secret, and Madison agrees to remain quiet.

The Am of Em was an adaptation of William Bradford Huie's novel, which, according to a comparison at Wikipedia carries no comparable message to that of the movie. The reason isn't hard to find. It was Paddy Chayefsky who developed novel to screenplay - the same Paddy Chayefsky who penned that well-remembered "mad as Hell" speech from the movie Network. For more about him see two archived posts HERE and HERE. I'll simply mention here that he was born 29 January 1923 - Sun in Aquarius!

Chayefski said, it is reported, that he treated the serious-toned novel as satire. His screenplay's theme of cowardice as a virtue, and the wrong-headed glorification and absurdities of war and its heroes, has no parallel in the novel.

The novel briefly mentions that Emily's mother, Mrs.Barham, has been mentally scarred by loss of her husband and son, but she is not a major character. The movie has a long and memorable scene between Charlie Madison (James Garner) and Mrs. Barham (the wonderful Joyce Grenfell), full of eloquent (some say preachy) antiwar rhetoric, in which Charlie breaks down Mrs. Barham's denial of the loss of her husband and son, and reduces her to tears while nevertheless insisting that he has performed an act of kindness. The novel has no parallel to this scene, but it's the key scene of the film. Here it is:



It has to be kept in mind that the movie was released in 1964, in the midst of the USA's war in Vietnam. The sentiments expressed have to be taken in with that in mind, otherwise there'd be a danger of disrespect for those, military and civilian, who died in World War II in opposition to the very real and imminently encroaching scourge of Naziism. The movie shouldn't be seen or described as "anti-war", but as anti-glorification of war, anti- the naming of streets after heroes, anti- the building of statues to Generals and, anti- making war so heroic and noble that young people will feel it their duty to be eager to go to war. I'll add my own anti- here: anti the ubiquitous (in the USA) bumper stickers, declarations on TV at every opportunity, along the lines of: "God bless our troops" "We support our heroic military", "Thank you for your service". In other words, nowadays viewers would be wise to take the message offered by the movie, but be sure to put it into a context relevant to our own times - which is what Chayefski did in 1964.

My husband quickly recognised the film's background music, a piece especially important to him. One of his jazz idols, Paul Desmond, recorded a melody titled Emily, which husband has always loved, but had been unaware it had connection to this movie.

Emily, composed by Johnny Mandel, lyrics by Johnny Mercer. A version with lyrics, sung by Sinatra, below, and jazzy rendition by Stan Getz and Bill Evans (my own favourite version), and a link to Paul Desmond's version too.

Hitler's Britain ~ What ifs & Revisionism

I've recently watched Hitler's Britain on DVD. This was originally a documentary film shown on TV in the UK in 2002, later in Canada, and, I think, on PBS in the USA.

The film, a detailed exercise of the "what if" variety, describes the consequences of a hypothetical German victory over Britain in World War II. The key ingredient is a reversal of the actual British victory in the Battle of Britain. The film has the Germans as victors, allowing them to pursue Operation Sea Lion, a documented plan to invade and occupy Britain. World War II newsreel footage, actual German documentary evidence, modern mock-ups, and interviews with survivors of the war, are combined to present a vision of how life in Britain would have progressed, had a full-scale German invasion occurred.

I usually enjoy "what ifs", but this one was a little too close for comfort. I was a very young baby when World War II broke out, living in one of the country's key east coast ports. I, along with many thousands of others would certainly not have lived the life I have been able to live if this particular "what if" scenario had taken place.

The film covers a lot of ground, ends on a dismal note after revealing much I didn't know about a secret "resistance" army that was in place, at least in the south of England, where much of the attention is focused. The north was to be under the thumb of Lord Halifax, said to have been friendly to the Germans, along with an un-abdicated Edward VIII and his princess Wallis ensconced in Scotland as puppet royals.

Oddly, maybe deliberately, nothing much was said about Britain's powerful Royal Navy, or what remained of the Royal Air Force after Battle of Britain. They would have doubtless put up a strong secondary fight at the time of any attempted German invasion. It was presented as "a piece of cake" - bit too easy; poetic licence I guess. Churchill had been killed. George VI and family had been shunted off to Canada....not that they'd have been of much use in any case. Britain's Jewish residents, and others, brightest and best from Britain's universities, businesses etc. would have been dealt with in much the same manner as their counterparts in German occupied Europe: gotten rid of in the nastiest ways imaginable!

One good thing about watching films like Hitler's Britain: the experience makes one feel thankful for the present, warts and all.

In looking at a few reviews of Hitler's Britain I came across some peculiar revisionist views on World War II. I look on revisionism as the other ugly sister of conspiracy theory - decent sister being honest "what if" exercises. In all cases factors involved are real enough, but have been swivelled and skewed, moulded and twisted to present something different. That's fine if it's purely a creative mental exercise, a result of curiosity, never presented as an alternative truth.

Anything in life is "revision-able", nothing is sacred to revisionists, or to the most determined of conspiracy theorists, especially if the result will sell books and lectures.

I'm not intending to imply that everything we are officially told is always pristine truth. I'm not naive enough to think so. There's always more than enough wiggle room for backroom deals and known unknowns. Even so, Occam's Razor is a fine tool to keep handy.

Arty Farty Friday ~ Otto Dix

Two days ago, 11/11, there was hushed remembrance of the sacrifices of two twentieth century world wars. It's appropriate this Arty Farty Friday to feature an artist who fought in both wars, and showed through his paintings that he was scarred, both physically and mentally, as were so many, on both sides of the conflicts. This artist was German: Otto Dix. We can, through his paintings, take a view of war from one who was, in those dark days, classed as "our enemy".

All art is exorcism. I paint dreams and visions too; the dreams and visions of my time. Painting is the effort to produce order; order in yourself. There is much chaos in me, much chaos in our time.
Otto Dix

Dix aspired to a career in art early on, and in 1910 entered the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. World War One erupted four years later. Dix volunteered, served at the Battle of the Somme, was badly wounded, several times, and almost to the point of death on one occasion.

As a young man you don't notice at all that you were, after all, badly affected. For years afterwards, at least ten years, I kept getting these dreams, in which I had to crawl through ruined houses, along passages I could hardly get through.
Otto Dix

Post- war many of his paintings depicted the darker side of German society, violence, prostitution, depravity, and the forgotten disfigured veterans of the First World War. Many of his paintings were later burned by the Nazis, who also had him dismissed from a post as art teacher at the Dresden Academy.

Along with all other practicing artists, Dix was forced to join the Nazi government's Reich Chamber of Fine Arts , a subdivision of Goebbels' Cultural Ministry. He had to promise to paint only inoffensive landscapes. He still painted an occasional allegorical painting that criticized Nazi ideals.In 1939 he was arrested on a trumped-up charge of being involved in a plot against Hitler but was later released. He was conscripted late in World War 2, captured by Frech troops at the war's end and released early in 1946.
He returned to teaching, in Dresden.
(See Wikipedia)

People were already beginning to forget, what horrible suffering the war had brought them. I did not want to cause fear and panic, but to let people know how dreadful war is and so to stimulate people's powers of resistance.
Otto Dix

ASTROLOGY:
Otto Dix born 2 December 1891 in what is now part of the city of Gera, Germany, at 1.30 am (Astrodatabank).



The first thing that sprang into my mind when I looked at the chart - this guy should never have had to live through what he had to live through! Nor, of course, should anybody else. Dix's four important personal planets all lay in benign, sunny-faced Sagittarius - aka the wise old owl of the zodiac. Sun and Moon close together, blending inner and outer consciousness as one, and Venus/Mercury conjoined bringing together his art (Venus) and communication skills(Mercury). Libra, his rising sign is ruled by Venus, and, again, the feeling comes that this guy was not built for war!
Brave and impetuous as he was - it really was not his "game" in any way at all.
these are his own words on the matter:

I had to experience how someone beside me suddenly falls over and is dead and the bullet has hit him squarely. I had to experience that quite directly. I wanted it. I'm therefore not a pacifist at all - or am I?

I have to experience all the ghastly, bottomless depths for life for myself; it's for that reason that I went to war, and for that reason I volunteered.

Saturn planet of limitation lies very close to his ascending degree and in 12th house, the house of restriction and withdrawal - a portent of future restrictions of one sort or another.

His natal Sun is opposed by Pluto and Neptune, two outer planets exactly conjoined in Gemini. Pluto, planet of transformation and, sometimes, death is blended with Neptune's imagination and creativity. This combination pretty much sums up the content of a lot of Dix's paintings. These two planets lie in opposition to his essence, his Sun and Moon, and certainly his paintings are just about as opposite as one could imagine from what one might expect of a quadruple Sagittarian.

The Nodes of the Moon have relevance here too I think. North Node is at 25 Taurus, conjunct Fixed Star Algol - thought of by ancient astrologers as the most malignant of all stars. There are no planets or points close enough to be termed conjoined the North Node, which was probably a very fortunate thing for Otto Dix. He did live through the horrors, with time to tell the tale in pictures, as a warning to generations who followed. That would be -us!


Triumph of Death


Disabled by war


The Salon


War Tryptych

Storm troops advancing under gas


Trenches


Dance of Death



Night-time encounter with a madman


Tryptych contrasting a disabled veteran's plight with the lifestyles of wealthy war leaders.


The match seller (a Veteran of the war?)