Film: Cross Of Iron
Year of production: 1977
UK Release date: 6th June 2011
Distributor: Optimum
Certificate: 18
Running time: 133 mins
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Starring: James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason, David Warner, Klaus Löwitsch
Genre: Action/Drama/War
Format: Blu-ray
Country of Production: UK/West Germany
Language: English/Russian/German
Review by: Ken Talbot
Sam Peckinpah’s unforgiving depiction of German soldiers struggling to survive on the Russian front remains one of the most potent anti-war films of all time. Now, with a stunning re-mastered print on Blu-ray, newcomers will have a chance to experience the maverick director’s vision of the World War II conflict from the perspective of the downtrodden German infantry.
Captain Stransky is a German aristocrat who requests a transfer to the failing assault on Russian forces, in the hopes that he can obtain the prestigious Iron Cross. Sergeant Steiner is a decorated soldier, whose guerrilla methods and unit of hardened veterans may be turning the tide of the conflict. They meet in the battle worn trenches of the Russian front, as the German forces are on verge of a full retreat.
Steiner takes an instant disliking to the pampered, inexperienced Stransky, as does his commanding officer, Colonel Brandt. After a surprise attack, Steiner spends some time in hospital and, after sparking a short-lived romance with his nurse, he promptly returns to the front. On his return, he discovers that Stransky has lied about leading a counter attack to the surprise Russian assault and has asked Steiner to vouch for him. When Steiner declines, Stransky attempts to dispose of him by any means necessary…
A small boy in uniform is killed amidst a flurry of gunfire, a rapist is left to a pack of bloodthirsty women, and a petulant officer orders the execution of his own countrymen to serve his vanity. Sam Peckinpah’s vision of war from the point of view of German soldiers is bleak and confrontational, presenting a soldiers-eye view of the senseless slaughter.
At its very core, it is a portrait of two very different men, James Coburn’s world weary career soldier, Steiner and Maximilian Schell’s cowardly, yet glory-hungry Stransky. Both are hopelessly flawed human beings, both are cogs in the war machine, separated only by experience and social status.
Coburn excels in his role as a stoic veteran who despises the war, yet refuses to leave it behind, instantly dismissing his promising romance with Sister Eva when the chance to return to the fray appears. Steiner is a man hardened by the horrors of war, yet he still manages to retain some semblance of humanity. Stransky wishes only to make his family proud by obtaining an Iron Cross (Germany’s equivalent of the medal of honour) and he is prepared to obtain this reward by any means necessary, even if it means murdering his own countrymen.
Schell portrays Stransky as a complex villain; he displays menace when goading his subordinates to admit their homosexuality, yet cowers under a table when signs of battle draw near. Schell makes Stransky menacing and pathetic in equal measure and it’s a shame he isn’t given enough screen time to let the role breath. This isn’t just a two-hander, however; solid support comes from the regal James Mason as Brandt and David Warner as the exhausted Captain Keisel.
Cross of Iron’s star is undoubtedly Peckinpah, who took a break from revisionist westerns (and Hollywood) to make his second and last war film (the first being 1965’s Major Dundee). The auteur’s visual signature is all over the film; slow motion, freeze frame and jump cuts - he shoots the battle scenes like devastatingly beautiful ballets of death, and frames his ‘heroes’ with reverence. Yet, crucially, Peckinpah understands the irony of idolising characters like Steiner - men whose glory on the battlefield belies their tainted soul off it.
As with most Peckinpah productions, the film is technically brilliant. Cinematography, editing and sound design create a constant sensory assault. Battles are teeth rattling experiences, replete with haunting imagery (a battalion of Russian tanks emerging from fog is a standout sequence). What little music that is present in the film is often drowned out by persistent explosions or the distant cries of dying infantry. Only ‘Hanschen Klien’, the eerie nursery rhyme that bookends the film, offers any sort of musical signature.
The conclusion is as bleak and nihilistic as one can expect from Peckinpah. Like the ageing outlaws of The Wild Bunch, Steiner and Stransky end their story in the heat of battle. Steiner leads his terrified captain to the place “where the iron crosses grow.” The final freeze frame, as the sound of maniacal laughter bleeds into that unsettling children’s song, is surely the most cheerfully negative conclusion in the history of war films.
Peckinpah’s downbeat war film displays the director’s signature visual flair and penchant for extreme (for the time) violence. A scathing attack on the machinations of war, the film remains an often overlooked masterpiece. KT
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