The REEL Addict 

By Allan Tong of Holy Grails

Editor’s Note: The world of books and film often overlap, whether it be movies adapted from works of fiction or non-fiction, or movies being turned into novelizations, “making of” guides, and publishes versions of their blue print – the screenplay. That’s why – in the interest of trying something – different, theREELaddict presents a book review.

Though his latest film is receiving mixed reviews, Spike Lee’s book of Miracle at St. Anna is a handsome, albeit expensive package ($45 in Canada). Not to be confused with the reissue of author James McBride’s novel by the same title, this is largely a picture book accompanied by the shooting script.
Most of this book’s 111 pages are devoted to high-res stills from the film. They are reproduced across the book’s 12 x 9.5-inch dimensions which preserve the film’s cinematic aspect ratio. However, the text is minimal, offering brief introductions by Lee and McBride who also adapted his novel into a screenplay. An essay by an Italian historian offers some needed background, though in a faintly dry, academic tone. Sadly, there is no day-to-day diary of the pre-production, shooting or editing phases as found in so many of Lee’s other books. A period film shot on location in Italy where the director didn’t speak the same language as his cast is begging for more than just the few anecdotes that Lee offers.

The only written gem is a memoir by one of the few surviving Buffalo Soldiers. Riding the box office success of INSIDE MAN, Lee has made a war film about the all-black Buffalo Soldiers U.S. Army regiment who liberated a Tuscan village towards the end of World War Two. Under a redneck Southern commander, the Buffalo Soldiers were never welcomed by their own country, and received worse treatment than white German POWs. Sgt. A. William Perry’s vivid recollections convey the humiliations that he and his comrades endured, such as being served dinner out the back of a Mississippi diner, or seeing German prisoners at an Ohio camp granted more freedoms than he and his fellow American soldiers.

The screenplay is reproduced in slightly scaled-down form. McBride’s adaptation is an exciting, smooth read, though I’ll agree with many film reviewers that the beginning and end of the film are unnecessary. There’s no need to bookend this movie with a drama set
in 1983. The struggle of the Buffalo Soldiers – against the Nazis as
well as their fellow Americans – is enough