Battleground

William A. Wellman - 1949
What is Wellman great at? One of my favourite things and expressions. 'just hangin' out'. Our soldiers in a way could be anywhere (as a verifiable report of what it's like to be a G.I., I'm not sure why I should trust it), just American men of a certain generation messing around. This involves physicality, jokes, a slightly arm's length relationship to women, little wishes. The action doesn't really seem the focus here. It's the standing and sitting up, slightly pointless patrols and so on.
Wellman has an editing style that likes long-shots and not much mucking about; just get them in front of the camera. And he creates some beautiful images here. The mist lets the light diffuse wonderfully, losing shadows, but with much sort of light sillouhetting. Wellman also strives after depth (this was really noticeable even in a 'soft era' picture, if one can say such a thing, like 'The Public Enemy'), with his rooms and outside patrols.
Wellman shoots his action simply, not gunning up the edit or movement much but just letting us see soldiers, slowly for a war film, fire their guns into, seemingly, a mist in the middle of knowhere. In an odd way, this might be the greatest war film ever. It can flitter at the bounds of the sentimental, it doesn't really know how to portray 'war', as such, but it has real soldiers.