This review is provided by guest contributor Nat Almirall. You can read more of Nat’s writing at Frothygirlz and The Flickcast.

I recently went through John Huston’s autobiography An Open Book, which provides a lot of details regarding Huston’s troubles with Army censors while making all three of his war documentaries, and while I’m going to try focus mostly on the films, themselves, the stories behind them are almost as compelling. San Pietro was controversial for its depiction of war, and it was only through the intervention of General George Marshall, who said it’d make a good training film, that it was shown. Let There Be Light wasn’t so lucky.

The Battle of San Pietro depicts the eponymous battle between Allied Forces, working with the Italian Royal Army, and the German “Winter Line.” But the actual battle is not the main focus, just as the Aleutians were not the main focus of Report from the Aleutians and the Mason General Hospital was not the main focus in Let There Be Light, as we’ll see. In all three, Huston uses his setting to address a larger theme: the daily life of soldiers, the brutality of battle, and the psychological consequences of war.

Huston once said that he’d be surprised if anyone could outright identify whether they were watching a John Huston movie. That is, his style and subject matter are so diverse that very few common threads run through them–at least not enough to give their director away. That seems about right, because the man who made San Pietro seems to have little in common with the man who made Moulin Rouge or The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean or Annie (yes, that Annie).

Back-to-back, San Pietro doesn’t share much with Aleutians, the film that immediately preceded it, even though it was also a war documentary and, likewise, depicts actual combat. For example, Aleutians is in color whereas San Pietro is black and white. Aleutians looks more like original footage whereas many shots in San Pietro seem like stock (and apparently wasn’t shot by Huston but, rather, by Jules Buck). Unlike Aleutians, we’re not introduced to the soldiers in San Pietro, nor do we hear them speak. The only sound is the fire of the guns, and the report of artillery…and Huston’s voice. His narration is more reserved here. More solemn. There’s none of the humor from Aleutians. The music is also more reserved. Nothing light or triumphant–rather, it’s meant to convey an unrelenting sense of urgency and menace. The only similarity they share is an unflinching relentless attempt to achieve reality on film—no matter how dark, bloody, nasty, or cruel it may be.

This is ground combat, and Huston’s not shy about showing the grittiness. If there is a common thread throughout his work, I think it’s a fearlessness to go places others wouldn’t. And an honesty. To be fair, there’s a lot of melodrama in Huston, but seldom do his films feel condescending and seldom does he seem to not sincerely believe in what he is doing. Reading his autobiography, you see that Huston always seems to be the hero—the best fighter, the best writer, the best lover—and yet, he never comes off as pompous or egotistical. I believe he actually did go head to head with Errol Flynn for over an hour—and won the fight. I believe H.L. Mencken did tell him to quit making movies and write a great novel. I believe he did break his friend’s bed making love. He’ll give credit to those who deserve it, and speak frankly about those who didn’t. He’ll admit his own shortcomings, too. We see in his films his own fearlessness when it comes to telling the truth: he’s not afraid to show the heavy casualties of the first assault. We see a man shot dead, a corpse, a collection of the dead, and, finally, the bodies of the dying and wounded, wrapped up in bags.

The camera shakes, shifts in and out of focus, and at one point loses its balance altogether, spiraling up toward the trees, as though the cameraman himself has just been shot.

During combat, he makes a point of never showing the soldiers’ faces. Their backs are almost always to us when we see them fire a rifle, lob a grenade, or charge a hill, only to be mowed down by enemy guns. When we do see their faces, it’s after the battle, and it’s the faces of the dead. This is how I imagine combat looks. There are few, if any, aerial shots. The camera stays at eye level, putting the viewer right in the thick of it, but when the town of San Pietro is finally taken, the victors are shot with the camera looking up. The shot makes a point—to show the soldiers as heroes, and you could criticize it for being too cinematic, but after their grueling battle, it’s earned.

Not a lot of time is devoted to showing San Pietro Infine, but Huston makes every moment count. We see how devastated the town truly is: crumbling buildings, debris cluttered everywhere, whole walls blown out, revealing the homes each one used to be. Against this, we see the poor residents of San Pietro: old couples, starving children, and widows. The images seem almost staged: bare-breasted mothers are seen suckling their young; other women carry a coffin on their heads. The only personalities we see are in the children rescued: a trio of three smiling kids cheering through the debris; a girl tending to her infant brother, pausing for a moment to glance up at the camera with twinkling eyes; a malnourished boy with tiny legs and a large head, whose broken-down gait and avoidance of the camera announces his own personal losses. A chorus underscores these scenes, but it doesn’t feel manipulative: That was the feeling, and Huston captured it.
– Nat