Battleground (1949)

Directed by William Wellman

What was it like, to be an ordinary enlisted man at war, knowing that you might never come home, but longing for it all the same, with other men at your side, some friendly, some surly, all scared at times, all brave at times, and all too human?

That’s what I think William Wellman asked himself when he made the film Battleground. It follows the fortunes of a platoon of men in the 101st Airborne, as they endure a bitter winter in the region of Bastogne, caught by the last desperate Nazi thrust in World War II. The movie is not candy. We don’t have a lineup of he-men with dash and daring, stealing the show from the war, as in the edge-of-the-seat thriller The Great Escape (1963). We don’t get the archetypal warrior and general, as in Patton (1970).

No one higher than a sergeant plays any important role in the film. What moves that man? What does he talk about? What does he think about? What does he long for? Who are his friends? What does it mean for him to fight? Why is he there at all, …