Patton (1970)

I love it. God help me I do love it so. I love it more than my life. Patton is directed by Franklin J Schaffner and is adapted to screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North from Ladislas Farago's "Patton: Ordeal and Triumph" and Omar N. Bradley's "A Soldier's Story". It stars George C Scott, Karl Malden, Michael Bates, Edward Binns, John Doucette, Stephen Young, Michael Strong and Cary Loftin. Music is by Jerry Goldsmith and cinematography by Fred J. Koenekamp. Pic is a part biography of George S. Patton Jr. which follows his exploits in WWII until his retirement from service. Released at the time of the Vietnam War, there's a certain bravado in the makers choosing this period to release a biopic about one of America's most famous - and controversial - military characters. Led by a tour de force performance by Scott as Patton, Shaffner and his team rightly portray the man as full of flag waving bluster, gigantic egotism and majestic tenderness. The complexity of the man in Scott's hands is what drives the film to greater heights. Schaffner's (Planet of the Apes) shows a smart eye for battle scene construction (shot in 70 millimetre - Dimension 150), this puts us viewers right in amongst the horrors of warfare. The supporting cast do sterling work in the face of Scott's barnstorming show, which when all told as a film leaves us with a war biography of great depth and one that rightly is held up as a marker for such genre ventures. 9/10