The Hair of War

Have you seen the trailer for Fury? David Ayer, the guy who wrote Training Day and directed the unexpectedly fun End of Watch, about handsome police, has made a World War II movie. It’s both intense and without context: It is not a movie of the moment, or some sort of long-awaited reassessment. It’s just here.

It will probably be, to some extent, a buddy movie; every Ayers film is. The director/writer also told People that he wanted Fury “the ultimate tank movie”, so I guess we’ll find out what that means. In the meantime, let’s focus on the one thing we know for sure about Fury: Hair.

Poster for Brad Pitt’s next movie “Fury” is out — http://t.co/Pu4oNciRXi Dat hair doe

— fey says hey (@heysayfey) June 25, 2014

Early publicity shots showed Brad Pitt modeling a conspicuously on-trend cut, which struck some people as odd. That’s the haircut from TV, from the mall, from Styles section photos of Brooklyn, from World Cup 2014! But whatever: Movie characters, especially stars, are permitted to have impossible or anachronistic haircuts. Scalps are like mouths in historical drama, in that they can project whatever time or region they want, so long as they gesture at the past.

So, uh, is anyone going to mention the fact that Brad Pitt’s hair in the latest poster for ‘Fury’ is historically inaccurate?

— Stefan (@Railok) June 24, 2014

Also, this is… not quite right. It would have been possible for an American soldier to have this haircut in 1945! A haircut at that location on the whitewall-undercut spectrum might have been considered a little retro, or perhaps a little Wehrmacht-y, and it would have been less common than other haircuts (tapered/parted, butch, high and tight). But it’s a cut that you could ask for and get, approximately, from a barber on base. THIS HAIR IS DEFENSIBLE, if you feel like defending it. Or at least it was, until the trailer came out:

Very good hair in this film “Fury Official Trailer” http://t.co/0S0KIxGxCA

— Tracie Ching (@tracieching) June 25, 2014

Hair.

Mustache.

Hair.

Hair.

Hair.

Hair. Hair! This is not a movie about the history of war, it’s a movie about the now of hair. America’s Supercuts franchises are going to have an interesting November.

Correction: Ayer wrote, but did not direct, Training Day, which was directed by Antoine Fuqua. Thanks, Taj!