Patton           

By Jeff Shannon

One of the greatest screen biographies ever produced, this monumental film runs nearly three hours, won seven Academy Awards, and gave George C. Scott the greatest role of his career. It was released in 1970 when protest against the Vietnam War still raged at home and abroad, and many critics and moviegoers struggled to reconcile current events with the movie's glorification of Gen. George S. Patton as a crazy-brave genius of World War II.

How could a movie so huge in scope and so fascinated by its subject be considered an anti-war film? The simple truth is that it's not--Patton is less about World War II than about the rise and fall of a man whose life was literally defined by war, and who felt lost and lonely without the grand-scale pursuit of an enemy. George C. Scott embodies his role so fully, so convincingly, that we can't help but be drawn to and fascinated by Patton as a man who is simultaneously bound for hell and glory. The film's opening monologue alone is a masterful display of acting and character analysis, and everything that follows is sheer brilliance on the part of Scott and director Franklin J. Schaffner.

Filmed on an epic scale at literally dozens of European locations, Patton does not embrace war as a noble pursuit, nor does it deny the reality of war as a breeding ground for heroes. Through the awesome achievement of Scott's performance and the film's grand ambition, Patton shows all the complexities of a man who accepted his role in life and (like Scott) played it to the hilt.

Academy Awards

Patton received Academy Awards for Best Picture (Frank McCarthy - Producer), Actor (George C. Scott), Directing (Franklin J. Schaffner), Writing (Best Story and Screenplay based on factual material or material not previously published or produced; Francis Ford Coppola, Edmund H. North); Art Direction/Set Decoration (Urie McCleary - Art Direction, Gil Parrondo - Art Direction, Antonio Mateos - Set Decoration, Pierre-Louis Thevenet - Set Decoration). Patton also received Academy Awards nominations for Cinematography (Fred J. Koenekamp), Film Editing (Hugh S. Fowler), Best Original Score (Jerry Goldsmith), Sound (Douglas Williams, Don Bassman) and Special Visual Effects (Alex Weldon).

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"This movie defined my impressions about General George Patton and the second World War for years. However, since reading Carlo D'Este's wonderful biography about General Patton, which also touches upon the movie from time to time, (Patton: A Genius For War) I find it hard to think about this movie without thinking about D'Este's massive biography, which appeared almost 25 years after the movie. This situation doesn't diminish the impact of the movie--it just proves that the movie has been rendered obsolete by later scholarship and popular historical works such as D'Este's." --Anonymous