CROSS OF IRON

UK/West Germany, 1977, 133 minutes. Colour.
James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason, David Warner, Senta Berger.
Directed by Sam Peckinpah.

Cross of Iron is by Sam Peckinpah, the director of violence who moralizes against it by making his audience wallow in it. Exciting perhaps at first, the destructive ugliness (slow motion, blood spurting, incessant deaths) finally tells. A retreating German army in Russia in 1943 is the setting for Peckinpah's unrelieved immersing his audience in the terror, uncertainty and brutality of war. His war sequences are most vividly staged. The ironic collage of war photos and music at the beginning and the even more cynically ironic end laugh and credits with the quotation from Berthold Brecht indicate what Cross of Iron is about: power, politics, cruelty, class clashes, individual heroism, comradeship and war's futilities. Powerful material, grimly presented.

1. Expectations from the title? The juxtaposition of 'Cross' and 'Iron'? Symbol? Particular reference to the German iron Cross and its ambiguity? Indication of German themes, war themes? Harshness and heroism and survival themes? Audience expectations - their fulfilment?

2. A Sam Peckinpah film? His style and its reputation? Strength. masculine, brutal and violent, the use of slow motion, immersing the audience in violence, making them wallow in it in order to experience it and have revulsion for it? How well was this style used in this film? Audience response to violence and war at the end? Brutal situations? His exploration of clashes. the challenge of violence and war? Peckinpah's spelling out the message at the beginning in the collage, in Steiner's laugh at the end and the significance of the quotation from Brecht? The overall impact of the film as anti-war?

3. Why a war film of such magnitude and theme in 1977? The war as being over for thirty years? The value of resurrecting it? Audience interest in the '70's in Germany and the war? The distancing from the war in order to explore war themes? Why did Peckinpah think this was relevant in the '70's?

4. The importance of the locations, the authentic atmosphere of Crimea and Russia, the building up of the atmosphere of the army under fire, narrow locations in the woods. the headquarters, the sorties, the trenches? The contrast with the hospital? How did the audience feel that they were present in these locations. trapped in these locations?

5. The importance of the colour photography. its muted tones, the grim colours of war? The appropriate music for the various moods? The use of slow motion for violence?

6. How well staged were the war sequences? Showing the involvement of the characters, the dangers to be experienced? How was the audience made to share all of this closely? The claustrophobic atmosphere of the trenches. of the huts? The uncertainty of war? The importance of the year. 1943, and the German's retreat? The loss of morale? Deaths, unexpected attack?

7. The effect of the war on the Germans. their losing the war? The good and bad aspects of these German soldiers? Their devotion to duty, their devotion to the cause? How many of them were genuine Nazis? Was Stransky in any way a Nazi? The background of class and class distinction? War and conditions of war making the men classless? The old and the new Germans? The aristocratic Germans and their involvement and wanting glory? Their attitude towards Hitler and the Nazis? The irony of the aristocratic Nazi? The contrast of the Germans with the Russians: the ordinary people. the enemy, the child and the woman? Did the screenplay overload audience reaction to the Germans with sympathy for the Russians?

8. The impact of the initial mission and its great attention to detail, to deaths, to the ruthless skill exercised by the soldiers, Steiner emerging as the leader of the platoon? His attitude towards his platoon and his team. the way he built up morale, the way that he exercised leadership?

9. How well presented was the group in the barracks, their friendship, tensions, rivalries? The scene of the party? The rescue of the young boy and their deciding to keep him alive? Drinking together, singing together? The ordinary soldier and his involvement in a war that he did not understand, in situations he did not understand? How well welded together was this group? Did their deaths cause grief or merely a lessening of the group? Steiner's philosophising and poetic attitudes along with his ruthless and skilful soldiering? The film's comment on Steiner as the ordinary soldier?

10. Brandt and his assistant? Brandt's role as leading, the cynicism of his assistant. Brandt seeing his assistant and Steiner as his two heirs? The importance of the decisions that he had to make in the defeat and the retreating circumstances? His attitude of humanity? His ability to cope, his reacting to each situation? His attempts to speak plainly to Stransky? His relationship with Steiner and straight dealing with him? His bond with his assistant, Kiesel? His decision to stay at the end? For Kiesel to live? What aspects of Germany did these two represent? Their place in war and the effect of war on them?

11. The arrival of Stransky and his being presented as the rival to Steiner? As a person, his aristocratic background, his arrogance, his title? How was it soon clear that he was desperate for the Iron Cross? His explanation of his need? His desire for reputation? His ruthless and arrogant attitudes and ploys -his hold over his homosexual assistant? His pressurizing Steiner to report his leadership whereas he was cowering? His ruthlessness in the shooting of the boy? His cowardice under fire? His using the phone and distancing himself from responsibility? The men's attitude towards him? Class differences, the old and the new, the ordinary and the supposedly extraordinary? How pathetic a man?

12. How did Stransky become more pathetic during the film? His plea to Steiner to help him with the Cross, his lies, his report, his decision to ruin Stransky? His pressurizing his assistant to lie for him? His pressurizing Brandt for a decision? His unwillingness to let Steiner live and his manoeuvres for him to be slaughtered? His wanting Steiner to be killed? The irony of his assistant being slaughtered and his living? The clash with Steiner at the end and their both going out to fight together - as equals?

13. The importance of the character of the boy, the pathos of war. Stransky's dramatics in shooting him, the boy amongst the troops, the irony of Steiner letting him go and his being shot? Some standards of humanity within the film?

14. The build-up of the siege and Stelner's injury?

15. The importance of the convalescence, the distance from the war, the injured men, the hospital and its atmosphere, the Generals and their visitation? Eva as a nurse, the relationship with Steiner? The visualizing of Steiner's fantasy and the contrast with reality? What was the effect of war as he was distanced from it? All that was pent up in him being released? The importance of his going back? How did this episode divide the film and bring it towards final momentum?

16. The build-up to the mission on his return. the danger. the siege, using his wits. being isolated by Stransky. getting his men back? Their moving through the countryside is a blend of lyrical scenery and harsh reality? The brutality of the deaths of the men?

17. Steiner's skill in getting the men back? The set-up in the factory and its brutality? The set-up as they finally reached the front line. Steiner's shooting the assistant, finally confronting Stransky? The end of an odyssey?

18. The importance of the interlude with the Russian women? The brutality, the sexual longings of the men? The women and their fear? Their being soldiers and guarding? The brutality of the rape and the castration revenge? Audience response to this at this stage of the film? what did it say about the desperation of war?

19. How valuable was the plot. an interesting story. the build-up of the incidents? The transition to themes of men, women, war, motivations, involvement, purpose, violence, ambitions, defeat?

20. The tone and meaning of the final decisions, frozen frame, laugh?

21. The framework of the opening collage, the end and Brecht's words?

22. How important for this view of World War II in the '70's?