Movie with good d-day sequences

May 20, 2007 9:35 AM

I need a movie or documentary that has good visual shots of the D-Day invasion to show in my 7th grade classroom. PG-13 necessary

I know there are great sequences in the movie Saving Private Ryan, but obviously the gore is a little too much for the classroom.

The kids love the action of a movie like Saving Private Ryan, but I would like something a little toned down, violence wise.

posted by allthewhile to education (13 comments total)

The "original" D-Day movie is The Longest Day from 1962. It's not gory like Private Ryan.
posted by smackfu at 9:41 AM on May 20, 2007

It might be a tad slow for modern kids, but I remember the D-Day episode of the British documentary miniseries The World at War being good. It's been ages since I saw it, but I don't think it would be too graphic. The only thing is that it doesn't shy away from showing pictures of dead bodies, and they're real dead bodies, unlike in fictional accounts. But if you think your kids could handle that, I'd check it out. It's episode 17 of the series, and it's called "Morning." It runs a little under an hour.
posted by craichead at 9:50 AM on May 20, 2007

"What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown"
posted by Kirklander at 10:05 AM on May 20, 2007

I 2nd The Longest Day, especially in terms of showing the scope of the battle-- when the German in the bunker looks out at a thousand ships coming out of the fog.
posted by sharkfu at 10:28 AM on May 20, 2007

The Longest Day is also notable in that they used people who were actually there as technical consultants.

Recently I've been seeing some snippets or images from the actual day, too. I don't know if there is a lot of footage from the day-of, but you might try googling around a bit for it.
posted by rhizome at 10:36 AM on May 20, 2007

The Big Red 1, Band of Brothers episode, Where Eagles Dare.
Don't forget there were many other invasion landings. Patton has good PG13 stuff of the invasion of Sicily.
posted by Gungho at 10:53 AM on May 20, 2007

The Big Red One might be worth checking out, too. I can't remember how gory it is (not as bad as "Ryan," for sure) but I seem to remember it having a decent D-Day sequence.
posted by starman at 10:53 AM on May 20, 2007

"The Big Red One" is a silly waste of time that won't give you an accurate idea of what it was really like. "The Longest Day" is definitely the best choice.

As to real film, there isn't much. There were only a couple photographers who went ashore with the first wave. One of those got a huge number of wonderful pictures -- nearly all of which were destroyed by an overeager film technician during development.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 12:14 PM on May 20, 2007

As a student who was only slightly older than that age when saving private ryan came out (and also as someone who is about to embark on a career teaching high school history), I would argue that showing something that avoids SPRs level of reality does a real disservice to what you are trying to accomplish (assuming you are trying to educate rather than stoke patriotism for the glory of war).

Our high school principal was a former history teacher and he arranged with a local theater so that the entire 600+ students in the 9th grade could go see saving private ryan on the big screen. It was one of the most memorable and affecting moments in my entire high school education. War is not PG-13, and trying to sanitize it as such would be a shame.
posted by teishu at 12:51 PM on May 20, 2007

Seconding Band of Brothers, Part 2 and Part 3, in particular. It's very real, but not quite as graphic as Saving Private Ryan.

Two nice things about Band of Brothers are that it's based on the stories told by the real Easy Company, so what you see on the show really happened, and it tells a lesser known part of the D-Day story. Everybody knows about Omaha Beach, but not so many people know the role that the Airborne played in the invasion.
posted by dseaton at 2:11 PM on May 20, 2007

From D-Day to Berlin. BBC 2005.
posted by acro at 4:07 PM on May 20, 2007

D-Day to Berlin Youtube 1/6
posted by acro at 4:09 PM on May 20, 2007

I haven't seen it (available on youtube though) , also named From D-Day to Berlin this by George Stevens, original footage, colour. "One of the most evocative home movies in history"
posted by acro at 4:16 PM on May 20, 2007