Letters To Iwo Jima
Academy Awards, USA 2007
| Winner Oscar | Best Achievement in Sound Editing Alan Robert Murray Bub Asman |
| Nominee Oscar | Best Motion Picture of the Year Clint Eastwood Steven Spielberg Robert Lorenz |
| Best Achievement in Directing Clint Eastwood | |
| Best Writing, Original Screenplay Iris Yamashita(screenplay/story) Paul Haggis(story) |
Golden Globes, USA 2007
| Winner Golden Globe | Best Foreign Language Film |
| Nominee Golden Globe | Best Director - Motion Picture Clint Eastwood |
Storyline: The island of Iwo Jima stands between the American military force and the home islands of Japan. Therefore the Imperial Japanese Army is desperate to prevent it from falling into American hands and providing a launching point for an invasion of Japan. Letters from Iwo Jima portrays the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima from the perspective of the Japanese soldiers and is a companion piece to Flags of Our Fathers (2006) (2006), which depicts the same battle from the American viewpoint. Both films are directed by Clint Eastwood. Sep 15, 2012 I DO NOT OWN THIS MOVIE! NOT COPYRIGHTED AND ALL CREDITS TO OWNERS OF THE MOVIE!
AARP Movies for Grownups Awards 2007
| Winner Movies for Grownups Award | Best Director Clint Eastwood For Flags of Our Fathers |
| Nominee Movies for Grownups Award | Best Movie for Grownups |
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA 2007
| Nominee Saturn Award | Best International Film |
AFI Awards, USA 2007
| Winner AFI Award | Movie of the Year LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA is a masterpiece of American film. Clint Eastwood continues to set the .. More LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA is a masterpiece of American film. Clint Eastwood continues to set the standard - telling stories of uncommon sensitivity on a canvas so grand and glorious that his place in America's cultural legacy seems to have no bounds. LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA is a complex examination of duty to one's country - the enemy's country. By presenting the Japanese perspective, the film projects point of view through a prism, reminding us of our common humanity and inspiring us to rise above the past and look forward to a brighter, better future. |
Argentinean Film Critics Association Awards 2008
| Nominee Silver Condor | Best Foreign Film, Not in the Spanish Language (Mejor Película Extranjera) Clint Eastwood |
Awards Circuit Community Awards 2006
| Nominee ACCA | Best Foreign Language Film |
Awards of the Japanese Academy 2008
| Winner Award of the Japanese Academy | Best Foreign Language Film |
Bodil Awards 2008
| Winner Bodil | Best American Film (Bedste amerikanske film) Clint Eastwood |
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2007
| Winner Critics Choice Award | Best Foreign Language Film |
| Nominee Critics Choice Award | Best Picture |
| Best Director Clint Eastwood |
Central Ohio Film Critics Association 2007
| Nominee COFCA Award | Best Foreign Language Film |
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards 2006
Letters To Iwo Jima Movie Review
| Winner CFCA Award | Best Foreign Language Film USA. |
| Nominee CFCA Award | Best Director Clint Eastwood |
| Best Screenplay, Original Iris Yamashita | |
| Best Cinematography Tom Stern | |
| Best Original Score Kyle Eastwood Michael Stevens |
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards 2006
| Winner DFWFCA Award | Best Foreign Language Film |
| Nominee DFWFCA Award | Best Picture |
| Best Director Clint Eastwood |
David di Donatello Awards 2007
| Nominee David | Best Foreign Film (Miglior Film Straniero) Clint Eastwood |
Gold Derby Awards 2007
| Nominee Gold Derby Award | Director Clint Eastwood |
| Cinematography Tom Stern | |
| Foreign Language Film |
Hollywood Film Awards 2006
| Winner Hollywood Film Award | Editor of the Year Joel Cox For Flags of Our Fathers |
International Online Cinema Awards (INOCA) 2007
| Nominee INOCA | Best Non-English Language Film Clint Eastwood United States |
Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists 2007
| Winner Silver Ribbon | Best Non-European Director (Regista del Miglior Film Non-Europeo) Clint Eastwood |
Italian Online Movie Awards (IOMA) 2007
| Nominee IOMA | Best Cinematography (Miglior fotografia) Tom Stern |
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards 2006
Letters To Iwo Jima
| Winner KCFCC Award | Best Foreign Film |
Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards 2006
| Nominee Sierra Award | Best Picture |
London Critics Circle Film Awards 2008
| Nominee ALFS Award | Foreign Language Film of the Year |
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 2006
| Winner LAFCA Award | Best Picture |
| Nominee LAFCA Award | Best Director Clint Eastwood For Flags of Our Fathers |
| Best Cinematography Tom Stern For Flags of Our Fathers |
Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA 2007
| Winner Golden Reel Award | Best Sound Editing in a Feature Film: Dialogue and Automated Dialogue Replacement Alan Robert Murray(supervising sound editor) Bub Asman(supervising sound editor) David A. Arnold(supervising dialogue editor) Juno J. Ellis(supervising adr editor) Lucy Coldsnow-Smith(dialogue editor) Gloria D'Alessandro(dialogue editor) Karen Spangenberg(dialogue editor) Nicholas Korda(adr editor) |
| Best Sound Editing in Sound Effects and Foley for a Feature Film Alan Robert Murray(supervising sound editor) Bub Asman(supervising sound editor) Michael Dressel(supervising foley editor) Jason W. Jennings(sound editor) Jason King(sound editor) Steve Mann(sound editor) Shawn Sykora(sound editor) Christopher Flick(sound editor) Robin Harlan(foley artist) Sarah Monat(foley artist) |
National Board of Review, USA 2006
| Winner NBR Award | Best Film |
| Top Ten Films |
National Society of Film Critics Awards, USA 2007
| Nominee NSFC Award | Best Film |
New York Film Critics Circle Awards 2006
| Nominee NYFCC Award | Best Director Clint Eastwood |
Nikkan Sports Film Awards 2007
| Winner Nikkan Sports Film Award | Best Foreign Film |
North Texas Film Critics Association, US 2007
| Winner NTFCA Award | Best Foreign Language Film Clint Eastwood |
Online Film & Television Association 2007
| Nominee OFTA Film Award | Best Cinematography Tom Stern |
Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards 2006
| Winner PFCS Award | Best Foreign Language Film |
Political Film Society, USA 2007
| Nominee PFS Award | Peace |
San Diego Film Critics Society Awards 2006
| Winner SDFCS Award | Best Picture |
| Best Director Clint Eastwood |
Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards 2006
| Nominee SEFCA Award | Best Picture 2nd place |
St. Louis Film Critics Association, US 2006
| Nominee SLFCA Award | Best Director Clint Eastwood |
| Best Cinematography Tom Stern |
Utah Film Critics Association Awards 2006
| Winner UFCA Award | Best Non-English Language Film |
Vancouver Film Critics Circle 2007
| Nominee VFCC Award | Best Director Clint Eastwood |
Village Voice Film Poll 2006
| Nominee VVFP Award | Best Film 5th place. |
World Stunt Awards 2007
| Winner Taurus Award | Best Fire Stunt Simon Rhee A soldier is completely engulfed in flames when hit by a flamethrower from above. He drops to the .. More A soldier is completely engulfed in flames when hit by a flamethrower from above. He drops to the ground in an attempt to put out the fire. |
| Nominee Taurus Award | Best Fire Stunt Simon Rhee Steven Ito Two soldiers are completely engulfed in flames as they try to escape a pill box. |
(141mins, 15) Directed by Clint Eastwood; starring Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Ryo Kase, Shido Nakamura
Clint Eastwood's account of the 1945 battle for Iwo Jima from the viewpoint of the Japanese defenders complements Flags of Our Fathers, his film about the American invaders and the way the iconic photography of Old Glory being raised on Mount Suribachi was exploited for patriotic ends in the States. It isn't the first movie about the war in the Pacific to be made in Japanese and directed by an American. That was the bizarre Saga of Anatahan, the true story of Japanese sailors shipwrecked in 1944 on a remote island and holding out for seven years, refusing to believe Japan had lost the war. Made in 1953 by Josef von Sternberg on sets in a Japanese studio, it received limited distribution and is rarely revived.
Both Eastwood pictures are masterpieces of humanist cinema, forming a magnificent diptych. They're about glory and heroism and bring into question both concepts, centring on a bloody, costly battle for a barren, waterless island of rock and black volcanic sand that happens to be part of the Japanese empire. Letters is framed by the discovery of a cache of letters hidden in 1945 and exhumed 60 years later. They symbolise the burial and retrieval of the past, one of the film's subjects, and as they float down at the end, slow motion is used for the only time.
Unlike Flags of Our Fathers, which centres on the experience of three US soldiers who participated in the flag-raising, Letters pays equal attention to General Kuribayashi (a towering performance from Ken Watanabe) and his staff and to several lowly conscripts, most notably Private Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), a baker in civilian life. Both men are realists, aware that defeat is imminent. But the general, a concerned leader and professional soldier, knows that honour dictates that he must die, while the private is determined to see his wife and baby daughter again.
The film opens with Kuribayashi's arrival, his disgust at the lack of co-operation between the services, the foolish conduct of zealots and the unimaginative plans of defence. Instead of meeting the inevitable invasion on the beaches, he builds a labyrinth of tunnels in which his army lives like burrowing animals. As a result, the battle is extended from the three days anticipated by the Americans to more than a month.
The movie is doom-laden and non-triumphalist, with a plangent score co-written by Eastwood's son Kyle, and characteristically dark cinematography. Marlboro cigarettes flavors. The flashbacks to Japan involving Saigo and a former military policeman, who's been dispatched to the front line as a punishment for an act of kindness, do not reflect happier times. They show the madness of war fever on the home front.
Kuribayashi's flashbacks to when he studied with the US army in the late 1920s are brightly lit to express his love of the States and the hopes he had for harmonious relations between Japan and America. A major symbol is the pearl-handled 1911 Colt pistol he's given by American colleagues as a farewell present at Fort Bliss, New Mexico. His troops believe he's taken it from a US soldier he's killed and it ends up as a souvenir in the possession of a GI.
The battle scenes are brilliantly handled, and what we best remember are moments of horror: a mass suicide of trapped soldiers killing themselves with hand grenades, for instance, and matching scenes of an injured American being bayoneted by his Japanese captors and two Americans casually killing a pair of Japanese POWs. Yet there are also moments of kindness and dignity as when the general plans for the baker's survival, and a moving encounter between Baron Nishi, the Japanese equestrian star who won a gold medal at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, and a dying marine he saves from his angry men.
The film is based on a scenario by Paul Haggis, who co-scripted Flags of Our Fathers and won an Oscar for Million Dollar Baby, but the carefully organised screenplay is the work of Japanese-American writer Iris Yamashita, a discovery of Haggis's. It is a fine piece of work, though there are inevitably numerous scenes and incidents familiar from other pictures. Indeed the war movie, whatever its setting, is part of a genre that has its roots in the Trojan War. The film it most brings to my mind is John Ford's poetic, beautifully understated They Were Expendable, released just after the end of the Second World War, and also a case of victory in defeat, in that case of US sailors fighting a rearguard action during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1942. Both raise our respect for the human spirit and enhance our understanding of what it means to live and to die.