thedrifter
07-23-07, 07:22 AM
‘Rescue Dawn’ dishonors POWs, family members say
By Philip Ewing - pewing@militarytimes.com
Posted : July 30, 2007
Hollywood is known for taking liberties when it adapts true stories and real lives for the movies, but Tinseltown has gone too far in a new action-adventure movie based on the life of a Navy pilot, critics say.
In “Rescue Dawn,” Christian Bale plays Lt. j.g. Dieter Dengler, one of only two naval aviators to escape prisoner-of-war camps during the Vietnam War. On Feb. 1, 1966, Dengler was flying over the Laotian border during his first Vietnam combat mission when anti-aircraft fire hit his A-1 Skyraider. The aircraft went down in Laos, and Dengler was taken captive by Communist Pathet Lao fighters and imprisoned and tortured along with a few other American, Laotian and Chinese prisoners. After five months, they broke out of the prison. Dengler evaded his captors for 23 days until he was rescued by an Air Force helicopter crew.
Dengler was awarded the Navy Cross and several other decorations, and went on to have a civilian career as a test pilot; he died of Lou Gehrig’s disease in 2001.
A group that includes activists and family members of the prisoners wrote a letter of protest about the film, saying that while it tells the story of Dengler’s ordeal in Laos, it “takes liberties that are offensive to anyone who is familiar with the events surrounding the prison break.”
In the letter, the writers say they “despise this movie and condemn those who made it.”
The family members’ objections to “Rescue Dawn” range from what they say are complete misrepresentations of fact to basic oversights.
An example on the one extreme: One of the letter writers, Jerry DeBruin, is the brother of Gene DeBruin, played in “Rescue Dawn” by Jeremy Davies. The movie makes Gene into a “Charles Manson-type,” uncaring and deranged, Jerry DeBruin wrote; the movie’s publicity materials call him “barely sane.” But Jerry DeBruin wrote that, in real life, his brother shared his food and blankets with the other prisoners, taught English to a Chinese cellmate and helped devise the escape plan.
An example on the other extreme: In “Rescue Dawn,” there are six POWs in the Pathet Lao prison, but during the period the movie dramatizes, there were seven, according to the family members.
At least one change seems to have been intended to play up Dengler’s heroism: In 1966, after he and fellow escapee Duane Martin approached a Laotian village, Dengler — weakened from starvation — ran and hid while his friend was hacked to death by a machete-wielding villager, the group says. But in “Rescue Dawn,” when a villager attacks the Martin character, played by Steve Zahn, Bale’s Dengler joins the fight.
Jerry DeBruin and the other advocates say that changing the story devalues the contributions of all POWs who suffered in Laos. They sent messages to director Werner Herzog to inform him of their complaints, but they received no response.
Military Times sent the text of the letter to a spokeswoman for MGM, but she made no comment on it. The spokeswoman said she would forward the letter directly to Herzog, but he did not respond.
Ellie
By Philip Ewing - pewing@militarytimes.com
Posted : July 30, 2007
Hollywood is known for taking liberties when it adapts true stories and real lives for the movies, but Tinseltown has gone too far in a new action-adventure movie based on the life of a Navy pilot, critics say.
In “Rescue Dawn,” Christian Bale plays Lt. j.g. Dieter Dengler, one of only two naval aviators to escape prisoner-of-war camps during the Vietnam War. On Feb. 1, 1966, Dengler was flying over the Laotian border during his first Vietnam combat mission when anti-aircraft fire hit his A-1 Skyraider. The aircraft went down in Laos, and Dengler was taken captive by Communist Pathet Lao fighters and imprisoned and tortured along with a few other American, Laotian and Chinese prisoners. After five months, they broke out of the prison. Dengler evaded his captors for 23 days until he was rescued by an Air Force helicopter crew.
Dengler was awarded the Navy Cross and several other decorations, and went on to have a civilian career as a test pilot; he died of Lou Gehrig’s disease in 2001.
A group that includes activists and family members of the prisoners wrote a letter of protest about the film, saying that while it tells the story of Dengler’s ordeal in Laos, it “takes liberties that are offensive to anyone who is familiar with the events surrounding the prison break.”
In the letter, the writers say they “despise this movie and condemn those who made it.”
The family members’ objections to “Rescue Dawn” range from what they say are complete misrepresentations of fact to basic oversights.
An example on the one extreme: One of the letter writers, Jerry DeBruin, is the brother of Gene DeBruin, played in “Rescue Dawn” by Jeremy Davies. The movie makes Gene into a “Charles Manson-type,” uncaring and deranged, Jerry DeBruin wrote; the movie’s publicity materials call him “barely sane.” But Jerry DeBruin wrote that, in real life, his brother shared his food and blankets with the other prisoners, taught English to a Chinese cellmate and helped devise the escape plan.
An example on the other extreme: In “Rescue Dawn,” there are six POWs in the Pathet Lao prison, but during the period the movie dramatizes, there were seven, according to the family members.
At least one change seems to have been intended to play up Dengler’s heroism: In 1966, after he and fellow escapee Duane Martin approached a Laotian village, Dengler — weakened from starvation — ran and hid while his friend was hacked to death by a machete-wielding villager, the group says. But in “Rescue Dawn,” when a villager attacks the Martin character, played by Steve Zahn, Bale’s Dengler joins the fight.
Jerry DeBruin and the other advocates say that changing the story devalues the contributions of all POWs who suffered in Laos. They sent messages to director Werner Herzog to inform him of their complaints, but they received no response.
Military Times sent the text of the letter to a spokeswoman for MGM, but she made no comment on it. The spokeswoman said she would forward the letter directly to Herzog, but he did not respond.
Ellie