Unlike Lee’s film, Cimino’s film succeeded because it did not attempt to take specific historical fact and mix it into a fictional tale. While it was viscerally upsetting, the torture scenes using Russion Roulette are pure fantasy yet believable given the film’s backdrop of war. Lee’s films deserves criticism because of how it is presented to viewers. It is a fictional story presented to viewers that contains specific dates and locations which include a documented historical massacre. Awkardly, both he and McBride try to present false events as a precedant to a historical event and they were called on it.

Perhaps the real blood sacrifice of the 92nd Negro Division during the Winter,1944 in Sommacolonia was not sufficiently violent enough for Lee’s taste, or perhaps McBride did not have the vision to take the humble upbringing of someone like John Fox and tell his story of selflessness and personal heroics in the waning days of a long forgotten battle line. (Or both). For me Lee’s feeble revelation of the black soldier’s plight during a period of racial division falls far short of what should have been.

Whatever the case, Italians are angry, the critics are disappointed and the American filmgoers have been cheated again.”