WWII - coming to a cinema near you....
Saints and Soldiers
Saints and Soldiers is a low budget film that tells the story of four American soldiers and one Brit who tries to get back to the Allies, after escaping the massacre of Malmedy. The film was made in 2003, and the aesthetics of the film makes me believe it was very much inspired by Band of Brothers. The fact that it takes place during The Battle of the Bulge intensifies the similarities. There is even a troubled medic as one of the main characters, but this medic is far more cynical than Doc Roe.
The film, as the title suggest, focuses quite a lot on faith and particularly the Mormon faith. The latter is perhaps not so strange since the Excel Entertainment Group that released the film is a Mormon company. That said the film isn't overtly preachy in any way, and the focus on faith is presented in very general terms, with the concept of "do onto others" being very much the film's core.
As with all films there are historical inaccuracies within the narrative, but none that are particularly painful and on the whole the film does a fairly decent job. The small budget means that there are no spectacular battle scenes and instead the focus is on character interaction. That is fine by me, as the characters are believable and the acting is quite good.
Young Lions
Somewhere in Young Lions there is the story of World War II, but it is one of those war films that uses WWII as a backdrop for moral reflection more than a historical re-enactment. At least I think that is the films intention. Sometimes it is hard to say..
Apparently Irwin Shaw, who wrote the book The Young Lions, was not particularly pleased with the film based on his work. In particular he disliked Marlon Brando as the German officer Christian Diestl. I haven't read the book, so I have no idea what changes were made - but I can kind of see where Shaw was coming from when it came to Brando. Brando's German officer is very blond, a bit dim and posseses a softspoken accent that seems to comprise of saying "Jaaa" a lot. "We have machine guns, jaa?", "We have occupied Paris, jaa?" and so forth. It all reminds me of the joke from Snatch about "ze Germans", and it becomes unintentionally funny when Brando, escaping with his superior officer on a motorbike, says to said officer "I know there waz ze good in you, jaa."
A blonde Brando, though you have to imagine the German accent
As the Americans we have Dean Martin, who is okay but with a rather two dimensional role, and Montgomery Clift who plays troubled Jewish soldier Noah Ackerman. If you've seen Clift in From Here to Eternity you know he can suffer and angst with the best of them, and although he does something similar here it all feels less angry and less angsty (and there isn't even a lush, slashy vibe with Burt Lancaster to heighten the tension).
In general Young Lions, though looking great, continuously feel like its reaching for something deep and profound without ever really managing to get there. The film is in black and white, so it would be easier to include original footage as part of the films narrative. A similar device was used in The Longest day two years later and it makes me wonder if the tradition of filming WWII in black and white were directly responsible for the colour saturation in for instance Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers
In Harm's way
In some sense this is "John Wayne does the Pacific", but the saving grace is that he does it well. Directed by Otto Preminger and starring pretty much everyone from Kirk Douglas, Dana Andrews to Henry Fonda, and is one of those solid pictures where you go "oooh..that was an interesting turn of events" or "Where have I seen this guy before?". I like those kind of pictures, and so I really liked In Harm's Way.
I admit I find the movie poster all kinds of cool
The story starts with Pearl Harbour where Rockwell "Rock" Torrey (John Wayne, naturally) together with his XO Eddington (Kirk Douglas) try to fight back the Japanese attack, but without much success. After this dramatic opening the rest of the film becomes one of those sprawling narratives that deals with these people affected by the war, and their various ways of dealing with it. The narrative glue, so to speak, is Wayne and his fight to get back onto a ship after being assigned desk duty after Pearl Harbour.
Wayne's Rock (called "The Rock of Ages" apparently) is just as haunted and honourable as John Wayne at his best. There is even a sub-plot involving an estranged son, and a romance with a no nonsense nurse. But for me the drama and tension in the film comes from Kirk Douglas' character whose manic cheerfulness covers up dark anger, and the film is at its best when it raises the question of whether a morally dubious character like Douglas' Eddington can truly be called a hero. I also loved Dana Andrews' small role as Wayne's superior officer, but then again I've loved Andrews in pretty mich everything since The Best Years of Our Lives
The cinematography is gorgeous, with the used of deep focus scope to create beautifully layered scenes, and despite a running time of nearly three hours the film is never dull.
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Films seen in 2009.