Wow, Sovay. Even before you said you were focused on Brand, I could feel my sympathies already aligning with him as the person caught in the middle, the person denied glory, the person trying to save lives and yet do what he must. And then that's what the movie turns out to be about! Marvelous. I will definitely find a way to see this.
The fact that it's not the man caught in the middle, the fact that it's shadowy commanders further up, or perhaps just War itself, cut free of the humans waging it, that's responsible, reminds me of this, from Grapes of Wrath:
We're sorry. It's not us. It's the monster. The bank isn't like a man.
Yes, but the bank is only made of men.
No, you're wrong there—quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it.
And then the correspondences with Basil Rathbone's own life--amazing.
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The fact that it's not the man caught in the middle, the fact that it's shadowy commanders further up, or perhaps just War itself, cut free of the humans waging it, that's responsible, reminds me of this, from Grapes of Wrath:
We're sorry. It's not us. It's the monster. The bank isn't like a man.
Yes, but the bank is only made of men.
No, you're wrong there—quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It
happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it.
And then the correspondences with Basil Rathbone's own life--amazing.