Today Netflix announced a March 31 premiere date for its newest documentary FIVE CAME BACK.
The film is based on Mark Harris’ book “Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War”. Told over three parts and narrated by Maryl Streep, FIVE CAME BACK is the story of “how Hollywood changed World War II – and how World War II changed Hollywood, [told] through the interwoven experiences of five filmmakers who interrupted their successful careers to serve their country, risk their lives and bring the truth back to the American people: John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra, and George Stevens.”
Five modern-day filmmakers helped tell this tale: Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo Del Toro, Paul Greengrass and Lawrence Kasdan. “Film was an intoxicant from the early days of the silent movies,” says Spielberg in the opening moments of FIVE CAME BACK. “And early on, Hollywood realized that it had a tremendous tool or weapon for change, through cinema.” Adds Coppola, “Cinema in its purest form could be put in the service of propaganda. Hitler and his minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels understood the power of the cinema to move large populations toward your way of thinking.”