Band of Brothers

If you've seen Stephen Spielberg's fictional World War II epic Saving Private Ryan, you already have some inkling of the horror and constant peril accompanying the allies' assault on Fortress Europe in 1944. Ambrose's true account of the remarkable soldiers of the 101st Airborne will leave you wondering how any of these fellows survived at all. That they not only survived but achieved victory is a tribute to their training and their hardihood, but most of all their devotion to one another. The title is based on Henry Plantagenet's battlefield oration to his outnumbered and beleaguered men on St. Crispian's Day in Shakespeare's Henry V:

"He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named, and rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, and say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:' Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars and say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day....'This story shall the good man teach his son; and Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remember'd - we few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother...."

Band of Brothers is permeated by that same sense of comradeship through shared danger - of glory based not on conquest but on the loyalty of ordinary men one to another. Saving Private Ryan alumni Spielberg and Tom Hanks are the Executive Producers of the 11-episode HBO series, and Hanks is the Executive Director as well (in which capacity he directed one episode, co-wrote another, and closely oversaw the whole production). Spielberg's influence is evident in the look and feel of the work; but where Saving Private Ryan is austere and ultimately repelling, Band of Brothers is warmer, more accessible - more personal. One of the most successful features of the series is that each episode begins with reminiscences of one or more survivors. As the series progresses, you come to know these old guys and like them enormously. When the whole thing is over, you feel you really have seen the war through their eyes.

"We sweated bullets in order to achieve authenticity," Hanks said in an interview with the BBC. "There are two types of authenticity. What's relatively easy to accomplish are things like making sure the buttons on the uniforms are right, the ammunition is correct and the locations look like they looked in the photograph. The thing that's much harder is the motivation and the nature of the interplay between the characters. So we were always forcing every moment of every page of the script through this sieve of authenticity. We said, 'look, if we can't be sure what they said and did at any given moment, we must at least capture the emotional reality of being there."

Successful acting in a miniseries, especially one as long as this one, is really a different enterprise than in a two-hour production at the cineplex. Dynamism and inventiveness are less important to a performance than subtlety and sustained character development. (Do you really want to watch a dozen hours of Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth? Didn't think so.) Judged by that standard, the performances in Band of Brothers are very fine indeed. Damian Lewis, the young British actor who stars as Captain (later Major) Richard Winters, painstakingly reveals a new facet of Winters' adamantine character with each successive episode. In the role of battalion intelligence officer Lewis Nixon, Ron Livingston beautifully portrays Nixon's gradual descent into despair and alcoholism. Supporting performances of note include Donnie Wahlberg as Carwood Lipton, Frank John Hughes as Bill Guarnere, and Rick Gomez as George Luz. The miniseries' other production values - soundtrack, effects, cinematography, constumes, etc. - are likewise top notch.

There are a few flaws in the series. The earlier episodes in particular sometimes drag a bit. There is also a tendency from time to time to toss in a little melodrama, some small "moment" that is the war movie equivalent to the rising organ notes at the end of a 60s soap opera. Generally, though, the filmmakers resist such temptations to yank on the heartstrings. That is especially appreciated in parts like episode 9, "Why We Fight," in which Easy Company stumbles across a concentration camp for the first time. The encounter is handled with a degree of restraint that makes the shock and enormity of the discovery all the more affecting...