The people behind the cameras, stunts and special effects on six classic war movies explain their creation
Freshly blessed with six Oscar nominations, Mel Gibson’s new second world war film Hacksaw Ridge doesn’t just raise the bar for combat scenes. – it annihilates it. It may have a gun-shy pacifist as its main character, but the initial 15-minute re-creation of the assault on an Okinawan escarpment is a frenzy of cartwheeling bodies, Boy’s Own satchel charges, bunker demolition and a fetish for physical chastisement that is très Mel: the Passion of GI Joe.
Directors are frequently compared to generals, and war films are among the most logistically complex and demanding things to shoot. Here, key members of the film crew from Hacksaw and five combat classics explain how they stormed the barricades.