"Flags of Our Fathers," a new movie based on the people and the events leading up to Joe Rosenthal's famous photograph of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima in World War II, opens Oct. 20. The Warner Bros. movie, directed by Clint Eastwood, is based on the book of the same name by James Bradley.
Joe Rosenthal’s Associated Press picture is one of the most reproduced images in the history of photography. He won the Pulitzer Prize for photography with this photo in 1945. The iconic image inspired postage stamps, posters, magazines covers, newspapers and even the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va. For many years Rosenthal's photo wasn't credited as being the inspiration for the statue. A few years ago, however, a plaque was placed on the memorial acknowledging that sculptor Felix de Weldon based the sculpture on the famous picture.
The image depicts U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II in February 1945. Rosenthal said about that day, "Out of the corner of my eye, I had seen the men start the flag up. I swung my camera and shot the scene. That is how the picture was taken, and when you take a picture like that, you don't come away saying you got a great shot. You don't know."
Proving the power of still images, there was a film also made that day of the same flag raising, but it's the single image that remains in everyone's mind.
Rosenthal died recently in August 2006. He was 94. In Rosenthal's New York Times obituary, Richard Goldstein praised the photographer’s most famous image. “The triumphant portrait, representing the first seizure by American troops of territory governed as part of the Japanese homeland, struck a tremendous emotional chord on the home front and resonated deeply as a symbol of the diversity in American life.”
Controversy has surrounded this image for many years questioning if it was a real captured moment or posed. Rosenthal also shot a group photo after the flag raising that day. Days later, Rosenthal was asked if he had posed the photo. Thinking the questioner was referring to the group picture, he replied "Sure." This confusion lead to the idea the famous photo was set up. In the decades since, Rosenthal repeatedly and vociferously refuted claims that the flag raising was staged.
What are your opinions of the image and its controversy?
- Dave
2 comments:
I don't go to movies.....this was not staged, it really happened during WWII. This is now 2006 and we are reliving WWII all over again!
I have always been of the opinion that the photo was not stage, but rather, was a "second take" of the event. This is from information I have read over the past 25 years. I would defer to Mr. Bradley's book as his father, the third from the left would have had the best memory as to whether or not a "second take" occurred.
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