BLACK HAWK DOWN (2001)

Posted on October 13, 2024 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott

SCREENWRITER: Ken Nolan

FILM STARS: Josh Hartnett, Eric Bana, William Fichtner, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Ioan Gruffudd, Tom Hardy, Orlando Bloom, Sam Shepard, Kim Coates, Željko Ivanek, Jeremy Piven, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Mark Bowden

TYPE: Non-Fiction

PUBLISHER: Corgi

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 2000

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1999

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: War

WORDS: This is a ball tearer of a movie. It is both historically interesting being based on real events) and viscerally exciting.

It is highly manipulative with its siege mentality, but it has to be. It’s a film. Narrative film is all about good guys and bad guys with some occasional shades of grey. Ostensibly a war movie about one battle it is also a men on a mission movie, a escaping from enemy territory movie, a survival movie, a fighting against overwhelming odds movie.

You can see shades of The Dirty Dozen (1967), Too Late the Hero (1970), Zulu (1964), The Warriors (1979), Escape from New York (1981), The Wild Geese (1978), The Alamo (1960).

Many films have exploited the numerical disadvantage scenario. And here is the problem, you always find yourself rooting for the underdog regardless of the nobleness of his cause. Here the cause was noble, but I do recall finding myself hoping the skinheads would evade the overwhelming number of Asian Australians trying to get them in Romper Stomper (1992) and I have zero love for skinheads. That wasn’t the point of the movie but that is how it played. I mean is there any reason to root for the British colonialist army that commits a wholesale slaughter of Zulus at Roarke’s Drift in Zulu (1964)? No, but we do. Film does that. It is natural to go for the few in number, the outnumbered, the out gunned … and, beyond film but in a world dominated by visual media, perhaps that explains in part, some of the support for Hamas over Israel.

The sight of hundreds of black Africans being killed by a largely white army is something you don’t find on screens much nowadays. (Rightly or wrongly) Imperialism and colnialism, once the staple of 1930s action adventure films (The Lost Patrol (1934), Beau Geste (1939), Gunga Din (1939), The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), King Solomon’s Mines (1937), any number of Tarzan movies) aren’t very popular unless there is a noble cause.

Here though the cause is noble.

The movie documents efforts by the Unified Task Force to capture Somali faction leader and warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid in 1993, and the resulting battle in Mogadishu between United States forces and Aidid’s militia. The battle was crucial in securing humanitarian aid to the populace of Somalia. Only the most hardened anti -American like a Noam Chomsky, or John Pilger would find fault here, but then again, they would rather have the populace starve to justify their intellectual viewpoint.

There may be ulterior motives, there may be historical and philosophical inconsistencies, there may be alternative explanations, there may be societal nuances, there may have been with hindsight better solutions, but at the time the mission was a noble one.

And the film can get away with the action and violence against the third world because the cause is noble … much like it is in Tears of the Sun (2003), The Wild Geese (1978), and even The Wild Bunch (1969).

The film is well directed and visceral and impressively Ridley Scott (who runs, hot and cold, but mainly hot, even his failures have merit) keeps the actions flowing, keeps the factual narrative understandable, while keeping the big cast of characters (there are at least five or six central roles the story revolves around) in view at all times. Needless to say, the larger enemy, as is common in films like this are largely anonymous. They are given some time but nothing approximating “their version of the events”.

More impressive is Scott’s success in keeping the cast sounding American. At least four of the leads are English or Welsh, and there is an Australian, a Slovenian and a Dane playing Americans. Generally, as is the style they tend to broad American accents (not all Americans have broad accents) but they all work. Of course, try as they might they can’t sound as authentically American as native speakers with authority like Tom Sizemore and Sam Shepherd. It’s hard to single out anyone but Harnett (always underrated) is great and Bana’s performance rightly solidified his popularity in the US whist Tom Sizemore looks and acts as if was at the battle.

The screenplay but Ken Nolan was his first and he gives all his characters bits of dialogue to link the action set pieces and also to explain the history behind the action and conflict whilst keeping them relatable individuals. I note, apparently, Nolan was one of several writers (including Steven Zaillian, Stephen Gaghan, Eric Roth) who contributed to the final shooting script, though he was the only one to receive on-screen credit.

The film is a rollercoaster and even at almost two and a half hours it never lags. There are the stock heroic situations, but they are deglamourized by Scott who keeps it real and visceral. The action, unrelenting though always, in these kinds of films makes one think the body count should have been a lot higher that it was especially on the ”heroes“ side. 140 US elite soldiers went into battle, 18 were killed, 73 wounded. The Malaysian and Pakistani forces who were involved with the US are sidelined story wise, though here perhaps understandably as the Malaysian forces suffered one death and seven wounded, and Pakistani forces two injuries. Somali casualties were higher; most estimates are between 133 and 700 dead.

The book is one of those (I find) annoying narrative non-fiction books (aka the non-fiction novel, creative non-fiction, literary non-fiction). It is non-fiction that supposedly reads like fiction. By that I don’t mean academic non-fiction that is so well written its page turning and cliff hanging stuff (it does exist) but non-fiction that has stuff going on the author couldn’t possibly know for sure. ie: Where there is fictitious conversations and dialogue between characters (where no recording or notes exist), where the author has articulated the thoughts of the historical people, and where the author uses the storytelling techniques of fiction

It’s a spectrum though. Narrative nonfiction is still meant to be non-fiction. The books are (hopefully) well-researched and factually accurate but the author is trying to tell a compelling narrative or story that is both informational and entertaining.

Imagine the difference between non-fiction and fiction as a lineal spectrum, where on one side is strict academic factual non-fiction and on the other is completely imaginary fiction. Narrative non-fiction would sit as close to the fiction side as you can while still being non-fiction (on the other hand, historical novels are as close to non-fiction as you can while still being fiction – factually correct in dates, places, and sometimes people, but wholly made up otherwise).

And here is my problem. I like to read for knowledge and for entertainment and know that there is crossover. However, the informational side of my brain that relishes non-fiction (and even likes to critique it for accuracy) works so actively that when I read a book that calls itself “non-fiction” albeit narrative non-fiction, I find myself thinking “well how the fark did he know that?”, “He would not have said that”, “How do we know what was going through her mind?”. A non-fiction approach to the same would have said something like “We don’t know what was going through their head but given the events that were unfolding, and the nature of the person in question, it is reasonable to assume X or Y was being thought about”. Not really page turning stuff.

This stuff has been around for years but really rose in the 1960s with people writing for magazines, especially youth oriented magazines. Truman Capote claimed to have invented this genre with his book In Cold Blood (1965). That is a milestone book but I will cut Capote some slack as he sat down and interviewed both the killers central to the story, and took some 8000 pages of notes and even then true-crime writers at the time complained of fabrications made by Capote which distort the historical reality.

And this is ultimately my problem. I have no drama with the non-fiction narrative novel as long as it does not distort what historical fact we know and as long as it allows for other explanations. There is not much opening there but those books do exist. Generally though, I prefer to read a historical novel or a non-fiction book on the events … they make the compartments in my brain happier.

I’m a lot more forgiving when (non-documentary) movies do narrative non-fiction because they are meant to be pure entertainment and don’t purport to be real (and because we are seeing actors, and sets we know it isn’t) and again, they don’t usually explain what is going through a real life historical characters head.”

Author Mark Bowden was a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and wrote for Sports illustrated, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Men’s Journal which perhaps explains the narrative non-fiction style as magazines love that in short story form. He has also written Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw (2001) and Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam (2006).

There is a lot of detail in the book with maps and photos and good descriptions of the battle (though, yes, in the narrative fiction style) but it seems (according to the historians) to get the facts right as well as the mood … there is even a chapter called “the Alamo” where the soldiers dig in around the site of the first Black Hawk helicopter crash site and fend off the larger enemy. And to the authors credit he does credit (sic) at the end of the book where in his notes, written or recorded, the conversations or events come from as well as other articles and books. Like all good non-fiction there is an inddex, as there should be, even in a non-fiction novel. I have less trust if they dont have one.

I have dipped into the book and may read it, but I will definetly watch the film again.

Maps from the book

Well most people know where Africa is (I hope), but Somalia, perhaps not

   

LINKS

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RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983)

Posted on September 22, 2024 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Richard Marquand

SCREENWRITER: Lawrence Kasdan, George Lucas

FILM STARS: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, Sebastian Shaw, Ian McDiarmid, Frank Oz (voice), James Earl Jones (voice), David Prowse, Alec Guinness, Kenny Baker, Michael Pennington, Kenneth Colley, Michael Carter, Denis Lawson, Tim Rose, Dermot Crowley

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: James Kahn

TYPE: novelization

PUBLISHER: Futura

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1983

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1983

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Sci-fi

WORDS: Return of the Jedi (more ponderously known by its new title Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi) was the third in the Star Wars franchise.

I’m not a big Star Wars fan, having, even as a kid in the 1970s and 1980s, lent to Star Trek.

But, like all other kids I went and saw these Star Wars films in the cinema when they came out, and I recall, though perhaps not on the day of watching but shortly thereafter, that this was the worst of the first three Star Wars films. I was not alone in that belief.

Having said that it is better than almost everything that followed it in that increasingly tedious universe. I am in the minority with that belief.

The film is so much fluff surrounded by fluff. I know it’s sci-fi but at the time of Return of the Jedi I wasn’t convinced about the Ewoks fighting prowess or their ability to defeat (or bring to a standstill) the Empire’s crack troops, and i was less impressed with the return of Yoda who I wanted to punch. The film was both too cute by half and too clever by half.

Co-screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan could write this type of action-adventure film regardless of sub-genre (like Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Solo: A Star Wars (2018)), in his sleep, and sometimes did (Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)). But I assume these films paid the bills because his writer-director efforts were better, or more interesting, adult films – Body Heat (1981), The Big Chill (1983), Silverado (1985), Wyatt Earp (1994).

I’m not sure who came up with Ewoks but I think it may have been George Lucas, who like his friend Steven Spielberg had a leaning to “cute” with a dollop of “annoying”. Ewoks were so much so that at th time I wished Canadian hunters would leave seals alone and turn their attention here. Perhaps I was in the minority because they have since appeared in two made-for-television films, The Ewok Adventure (1984) and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985), as well as a 2D animated series, books and games, and briefly in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)). Then again, the sure way to shut down anyone praising Return of the Jedi is to say “Ewok”.

Yoda also makes an annoying return (having first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back (1980)). If anything, he is even more annoying here. His faux mysticism covers a pseudo intellectual pedant who is the Star Wars equivalent of the Hollywood trope of the old wise easterner with their slightly magical ways.

The pre-teens loved both.

Says it all really. Star Wars already had giant market share, but with the pre-teens targeted here producer, George Lucas, found a demographic not catered for before with Star Wars (1977) (the teens) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (the adults).

(Welsh) Director Richard Marquand directs anonymously or rather takes the role of a hand puppet even more that Christian Nyby did for Howard Hawks in The Thing from Another World (1951). Lucas was on the set a lot apparently. Marquand’s short career was spotty but at his best he seems to work well with actors and drama (The Legacy (1978), Eye of the Needle (1981) and Jagged Edge (1985)) which may have helped with this film’s most interesting side story: Luke’s relationship with his father, Darth Vader.

In the face of special effects, puppets and dark villains it’s good to see the actors put in good performances. It’s always good to have Harrison Ford around as Han Solo, Carrie Fisher goes through her paces and Mark Hamill as Luke is perhaps his most convincing in this film of the franchise.

John Williams, as always, puts in a rousing music score (how much does this franchise owe him!)

The novelization is by James Kahn who did a few blockbuster novelization – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Poltergeist (1982), Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986), The Goonies (1985) before writing for television. Among the series he worked on were St Elsewhere, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Xena: Warrior Princess, as well as 4 episodes for the underwhelming Star Trek: Voyager, 20 episodes for Melrose Place and 30 episodes for super soap All My children.

Will I read it … I doubt it.

The novelization was released in May 12, 1983, thirteen days before the film’s release and was based on an earlier script. There are differences between the novelization and the film – read about them here, if you must:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_of_the_Jedi_(novel)

The film grossed $374 million worldwide during its initial theatrical run, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1983.

LINKS

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TRON (1982)

Posted on September 8, 2024 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Steven Liesberger

SCREENWRITER: Steven Liesberger and Bonnie MacBird

FILM STARS: Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan, Barnard Hughes, Dan Shor, Peter Jurasik, Peter Jurasik, Stuart Thomas

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Brian Daley

TYPE: Novelisation

PUBLISHER: New English Library

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1982

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1982

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Sci Fi

WORDS: For a while I championed this film. Well, not championed, but thought it deserved more recognition than it had.

I was not alone. I didn’t realise in pre-internet days there were many out there who thought the same … and some of those would be responsible (in the force of will as well as, no doubt, film makers) for the sequel some 28 years later, Tron: Legacy (2010). Tron (1982) was quite the cult film for a while which was, perhaps, inevitable. It sat in the “intelligent sci fi films”, or, at least, “sci fi films that made you think” space that many cultists hold high.

And it did make me think, or at least it did when I was a teen (and given all the stupidities going on now perhaps i should reviisit those thoughts).

The film was an original live action Disney film (when Disney were going through their ‘serious Disney” or “dark Disney” period from the late 70s to the mid to late 80s – and included amongst other films, The Black Hole (1979), Dragonslayer (1981), Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), Flight of the Navigator (1986)). Disney had tacked difficult subject matter before but always in an uplifting way. Walt Disney had firm views on what entertainment was, and family values, learning through experience, and a positive outlook were central. He died in 1966, and the company continued with his vision, with mixed results. Films made money though they weren’t the blockbusters of earlier times. So, in the late 70s though, they tried to get contemporary and make family films that would also appeal to other people. Generally, the films didn’t do well (no mega blockbusters) but they are an interesting group.

Tron is one of the films they took a chance on.

Here, Kevin Flynn (played by Jeff Bridges) is a brilliant video game maker who hacks into the computer mainframe of his former employer looking for evidence that the video game programs he wrote were stolen by company executive Ed Dillinger (David Warner). Before he can prove his case the Master Control Program of the computer uses an experimental laser to digitize and upload him into the software world of the mainframe computer. His digitised self (his only existence now) aided by Tron (a security programme – Tron is short for electronic) does battle with malevolent software.

Naff it is, but fun it is also.

As computers (and gaming) were breaking into the mainstream as everyday objects films like this and (the charming, and perhaps, unintentionally prophetic) Electric Dreams (1983), WarGames (1983), The Last Starfighter (1984), Weird Science (1985), Prime Risk (1985), Computer Ghosts (1988) were cashing in. never underestimate a contemporary trend to ignite the box office.

Tron delivered though it wasn’t a hit. Looking back at it I still enjoy it though what came after has dated it. The ideas are still there, and there is something pleasant about watching the (now) retro computer animation which was then (1982) cutting edge, much like the retro enjoyment I get when I revisit the Space Wars (1977) video game by Cinematronics which was a regular for me in the arcades of the 80s. Admittedly the graphics in Space Wars are more crude but there is a certain purity and innocence in the simplicity which counters modern computer graphics which have become so much visual noise. Anice touch is the human faces on the digital warriors – to give the film some watchability all the computer programs are living entities appearing in the likeness of the human programmers (characters in the film) who created them

Jeff Bridges I have always had a soft spot for, well before his elevation to “credibility” in The Big Lebowski (1998) and he is fun in this movie. He was still in his loud, over talking acting stage but the loud, hyper persona he utilised works well in this film especially as a contrast to his slightly more solemn computer character later in the film. As a sidebote he was quiet in John Carpenter’s  Starman (1984) a couple of years later and was nominated for a Academy Award for Best Actor, but he otherwise kept yelling till Lebowski. He has been softly spoken or mumbling ever since. Not sure if I prefer that.

David Warner is also excellent, and he was in his “evil” phase which and follows on well from his turn as Jack the Ripper transported into the 20the century in the wonderful Time after Time (1979) and the evil genius of the sci fi fantasy Time Bandits (1981). The rest of the cast are subservient to the graphics.

The story is OK, the visuals are fun but ultimately, what I like is “other world” idea. The film with its “other world” existing at the same time as the “real” world, with its battles and struggles and (digital) star crossed lovers resembles Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) in theme and perhaps even in the mood of the visuals.

The person inside a computer idea was good enough to use again, with variations, in Ghost in the Machine (1993), The Matrix (1999), Gamer (2009), Ex Machina (2014), Ghost in the Shell (2017), Ready Player One (2018) and other movies and did lead to a sequel, the aforesaid, Tron: Legacy which made the serious mistake of becoming more serious.

Tron: Legacy suffers from the same fate as Star Wars (1977), Alien (1979) and other films … they must grow up with their audience. The teens who loved them at the time, can’t love such frivolous childish stuff as they grow up, so they update and “mature’ the stories by adding meanings and concepts that weren’t there in the original, or, if they were there were just background. In doing so they ruin the new films who (unsuccessfully) try to balance the escapism that made the originals successful with the prenotions of being an adult.

Cest la vie.

This was directors Steven Lisberger’s first film and he went on to a spotty infrequent career. He wrote the film with Bonnie MacBird and the novelisation is by sci fi writer Brian Daley (who wrote many Star Wars spin offs). It is simply written but interesting as it is based on an earlier version of the script (a script that went through a lot of hoops). Shall I read it? Nup.

But ….

Since the book was based on an earlier version of the screenplay, it includes several scenes which were omitted from the movie, such as Sark’s jai alai match against a hapless conscript and the much-referenced deleted love scene between Tron and Yori. There are also outright differences, such as Ram’s light cycle being green instead of red and the Bit’s ability to say “yes” or “no” in numerous different languages. The book also delves further than the movie into Flynn’s state of mind and his observations of the basic nature of the computer world and the beings living in it:

“[Flynn] leaned against the door, looking down at his hands. They glowed and pulsed. He was willing to bet that he was no longer seeing in the 3700-to-7000-angstrom range and wasn’t particularly eager to think about the rest of his bodily functions. […] He forced himself to confront the things he’d heard and seen and felt, without self-deception. If reality was the product of mind — if awareness shaped existence — then, might not other intelligences fashion other worlds? Reality’s a matter of opinion, Flynn’s mind pounded at him. We’re all wave fronts on this bus.”

The novel ends with an additional scene set in the computer; it shows Tron and Yori on the Solar Sailor across the Sea of Simulation looking at the grid.
https://tron.fandom.com/wiki/TRON_(novelization)

OTHER

scenes from the book / film …

   

LINKS

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BLEAK HOUSE (1985)

Posted on August 25, 2024 by velebit2

THE FILM (Miniseries)

FILM DIRECTOR: Ross Devenish

SCREENWRITER: Arthur Hopcraft

FILM STARS: Denholm Elliott, Suzanne Burden, Jonathan Moore, Diana Rigg, Lucy Hornak, Philip Franks, Chris Pitt, Sylvia Coleridge, Charlie Drake.

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Charles Dickens

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Pan

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1986

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1853

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Drama

WORDS: “Bleak House”, or a tale of long stay travelling prior to the internet and cable TV.

I first read Charles Dickens in 1994, and it was because of necessity rather than choice. That “necessity” led to a lot of joy.

Australian born and raised I was in Croatia for the better part of a year through 1994 into 1995, staying with relatives (on both sides of the family tree). The summer months were, even then quite busy, though not quite the tourist mecca Croatia has become now.

The winter months, like many tourist destinations, were more normal, if there is a normal. I settled into the rhythm of a local, albeit one that didn’t have to work. In between side trips to neighbouring countries, I spent a lot of time with my older aunts and uncles who were wonderful in their oral histories of the family and vivid in their descriptions of times past. But you can only utilise so much of their time. They had lives, jobs and things to do.

Once I had explored the museums, marvelled at the parks, walked around the antiquities I still had time to kill. Not having a job made that quite a bit of time. What now?

Television wasn’t doing it for me. Quality programming was sparse and even though my conversational Croatian was fine I found it difficult to fully understand what was going on, on Croatian television. Perhaps it is because I was brought up on dialect, perhaps it was because they weren’t in front of me speaking to me, perhaps it was because they spoke at the speed of light. Though most of the English-speaking films were subtitled rather than dubbed there weren’t a lot of movies on.

No TV, no DVD, no video, no cable, no internet.

This was a blessing in many ways, and I spent, accordingly, a lot of down time reading. The problem is my reading in Croatian is painfully slow and I needed a quick diversion. I had exhausted the novels I had bought in Britain on the way over, so I spent much time in Croatian bookstores (in Rijeka) searching for novels in English.

What I found (and read), more often than not, were Penguin issued reprints of classics from the 19th or early 20th centuries. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, Daisy Miller by Henry James, The Sea Wolf by Jack London and Charles Dickens.

Prior to that I was an avid reader, but an avid reader of post-World War 1 novels but these “classics” opened my eyes and I read much that I would not have otherwise read.

Hard Times and Great Expectations by Dickens were magnificent.

I came back to Australia and read more of those newly discovered authors and haven’t been disappointed. The language isn’t that old if you don’t want it to be and the narratives and meanings are complex but, surprisingly, easily readable. There is a reason why those books are classics and no amount of revisionism (if there is any) can take that away from them.

Bleak House is up there with the best of Dickens (though it is perhaps the densest of the Dickens books I have read). It is a satirical story about the British judiciary system (specifically Chancery which was a court of law that oversaw cases of inheritance, wills, and disputed works). The novel has a couple of central characters and many well detailed almost central characters affected by the system and its laws. Like much Dickens his criticism of English public institutions and comment on the social inequalities is, in some ways, only a backdrop (albeit a vivid one) to a family drama and the characters who live and breathe through the same. And this is the joy of Dickens – the successful balancing act between the story and the themes, between emotions and ideas, between people and social mores, between observation and criticism.

I can’t speak to this miniseries as I haven’t seen it. Denholm Elliott is always good but whether you like it or not will depend, I suspect, on your tolerance of BBC miniseries of the 1980s. I find them grungy, shabby, stage bound (even when outside) and ultimately “anti-film”. This one I have read is all the above and though long still doesn’t manage the scope of the novel., though, to be fair, this is a common problem of film and TV adaptions of Dickens.

There is no reason not to read the book.

 

Posted in Mini Series, Novel, Period Drama | Tagged | 1 Comment

WHERE EAGLES DARE (1968)

Posted on August 4, 2024 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Brian G. Hutton

SCREENWRITER: Alistair Maclean

FILM STARS: Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Mary Ure, Patrick Wymark, Michael Hordern, Donald Houston, Peter Barkworth, William Squire, Robert Beatty, Ingrid Pitt, Brook Williams, Neil McCarthy, Vincent Ball, Anton Diffring, Ferdy Mayne, Derren Nesbitt

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Alistair Maclean

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Fawcett Crest

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1969

COUNTRY: USA

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1967

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES GENRE: War

WORDS: Where Eagles Dare, the book and the film are both old fashioned World War 2 action-adventure yarns.

This film is a throwback to the action war films of the 1950s.

By the late 60s war films had to be either historical, character driven and sombre, or antiwar. Perhaps it was the “realities” of the 1960s (Vietnam war, civil unrest, socio-cultural domestic issues) that that made flights of fancy unattractive but there was always a market for action for actions sake, especially if done well.

Perhaps the success of the man on the similar man on a mission film with no messages The Dirty Dozen (1967), was the inspiration for this production, but unlike Dirty Dozen, which is quite modern (1960s modern) in its outlook, Where Eagles Dare is decidedly old fashioned.

Regardless, the film is made well. This is big budget stuff with many big action sequences and stunts and a screenplay that links all the big action sequences with drama and characters happy to emote within the confines of the narrative.

Producer Elliott Kastner approached Alistair MacLean to write a screenplay for a war film “filled with mystery, suspense, and action”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Eagles_Dare

He did, and then he turned it into a novel. So, it’s not quite a novelisation though it does read like one a little. MacLean writes wholly entertaining novels with well detailed heroes (less well detailed bad guys), usually on a mission, with lots of action with a smidge off mystery (usually in the form of a traitor) thrown in. It’s a formula that he likes (Guns of Navarone, Force 10 from Navarone, Ice Station Zebra etc) but one which he manages to make entertaining. Familiar but entertaining and not graphic.

This film is, however, a little more graphic than normal for Maclean. Here, between script (and novel) and film, the biggest difference is tone. The book is more boy’s own adventure with humour. The film is more serious, not sombre, but serious with a lot more violence. Perhaps that is its concession to the 1960s.

Director Brian G. Hutton started out as a none too successful actor in the 1950s though he had some notable small roles – in King Creole (1958) with Elvis, and in Last Train from Gun Hill (1959) as well as the lead in the Roger Corman directed crime quickie Carnival Rock (1957). He turned to directing in the mid-1960s with the intriguing coming of age road film Wild Seed (1965) and was never prolific but, I think, is very underrated. He was 33 when he directed Where Eagle’s Dare and his youth perhaps bring a youthful enthusiasm to the going-ons. All his films have something added to their edges that make whatever mood they are trying to convey heightened, so they stand out from others in their genre groups. The magnificent Kelly’s Heroes (1970) is more anti-authoritarian and chaotic than you would expect, Night Watch (1973) more thriller-ish, X, Y and Zee (1972) more dramatically hysterical, The First Deadly Sin (1980) more sombre and world weary, High Road to China (1983) more robustly a romantic adventure. All his films are worth watching.

Burton is the big star and he plays a straight hero, which is odd for Burton, especially in the 1960s. Burton later said, “I decided to do the picture because Elizabeth’s (Taylor) two sons said they were fed up with me making films they weren’t allowed to see, or in which I get killed. They wanted me to kill a few people instead”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Eagles_Dare

He is wonderful as always. And, to use the old cliché, I could listen to him read the phone book. Eastwood, likewise, is great. He, apparently, was happy for most of his dialogue to go to Burton making him the silent man of action which would evoke the silent “man with no name” action roles which had brought him success in his Italian westerns. The role here, though, was a transition being positioned, both chronologically and in persona, between the silent “man with no name” and the quiet man, but with asides and one liners, that became Dirty Harry. He holds his own against Burton.

The rest of the cast is populated by actors from the Isles, playing allies and Germans with Derren Nesbitt particularly good as the hissable Nazi.

The book is a fun read, and short (unlike the brick sized thrillers we seem to get nowadays) and the film is a lot of fun with location shooting (in Austria) and a rousing musical score (by Ron Goodwin) that help a lot. See it the biggest screen you can get your hands on.

Where Eagles Dare was a huge success at the time – it was the seventh-most popular film at the UK box office in 1969, and 13th in the US.

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Novel, War | Tagged | 1 Comment

FLYNN (1993)

Posted on July 14, 2024 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Brian Kavanagh, Frank Howson

SCREENWRITER: Frank Howson, Alister Webb

FILM STARS: Guy Pearce, Steven Berkoff, Claudia Karvan, John Savage, Wendy Matthews, William Gluth, Nicki Paull, Bruce Venables, Sandi Schultz

COUNTRY: Australia

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Roger McDonald

TYPE: Novelisation

PUBLISHER: Penguin

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1992

COUNTRY: Australia

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1992

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Drama, Biography

WORDS: Errol Flynn is Australia’s greatest acting export. Well, for me, it’s a race between him and Rod Taylor, No offence to Mel Gibson, Jack Thompson, Eric Bana, Anthony La Paglia, Guy Pearce himself or many others. I love Errol because they worked in the “golden years” of Hollywood that I have a fondness for. Of course, there were other Australians at about the same time working in front of the camera – Cecil Kellaway, Ron Randall – but Flynn “blazed the trail” as the first Australian leading man in Hollywood “A” films.

And what a leading man he was. Flynn was criticised for his (lack of) acting ability, which was a little unfair. He could act when pushed though any performance would always run last to his looks, charm and camera presence.  The camera loved him, and he had charisma that appealed to both males and females (albeit for very different reasons).

His off-screen life was notorious. Women, alcohol, bad behaviour, and not all in that order. It was all tolerated (though only just) because he was a box office draw.

Flynn knew he walked a line and occasionally stepped on either side of it. Before he was famous though there was no line. And, it was all, perhaps, inevitable that a bio pic on him would concentrate on the years before fame.

He had hinted at his exploits prior to becoming a movie star in interviews, in “Beam Ends” (1937) a semi-autobiographical novel he wrote (in 2018, the book was adapted into the film In Like Flynn), in “Showdown” (1946) a romantic adventure novel he wrote, and in his autobiography “My Wicked, Wicked Ways” (1959),

Flynn could write (he was well educated even if he didn’t finish his studies) and his roguish charm comes across as does a sometimes brutally honesty (even on himself).

His exploits prior to fame are the stuff of legend. He may not be Indiana Jones (who is?) but he had adventures outside that of the ordinary man of the day.

This film seems to draw largely on “Beams End” and “My Wicked, Wicked Ways” for stories to create the narrative,  and a lot from biography “Errol Flynn: The Untold Story” (1980) by Charles Higham for scandal, gossip and innuendo. Higham’s biography is largely rubbish. And, that is not a value statement but a majority opinion as film historians find a lot of the allegations in the biography to be unfounded, unsubstantiated and otherwise just trash journalism for sensationism and sales. Nevertheless it was a best seller at the time and is still quoted by dullards.

The film’s structure is episodic, based on a narrative that mixes some facts with a lot of rumours (or, rather, rumours of rumours) … events like Flynn killing someone and homosexual encounters are all stretched. As is Flynn the brawling streetfighter – that face would not have gone to Hollywood intact if that was the case. Then there are things that are proven wrong like Flynn was not starving on the streets at the time oof his first film. He was cast in In the Wake of the Bounty (1933) because he was Fletcher Christian’s descendant (and the movie barely a ripple outside of Australia). There is a disregard for Flynn in the script bordering on disdain.

But, even as a warts and all gossip piece it isn’t convincing because it is all over the shop. It can’t figure whether it wants to be a R rated Biggles adventure or a semi serious biography.

It is, also, limited by a small budget. Don’t get me wrong magnificence can be made on a small budget, but the film wants to (as one would expect if about Flynn’s early life) capture (and embellish) the adventure and real life swashbuckling Flynn lived in Australia and the South Pacific … and you can’t do that convincingly on a shoestring. It starts to look like bad Made for TV and not American Made for TV but Australian Made for TV. All flat, and colourless despite the location shooting.

Guy Pearce, in his second or third film (there were reshoots) is okay only which is a pity as Guy Pearce is almost always good or great. He does capture some of the youthful handsome Flynn though perhaps with some personal hesitance I doubt Flynn had. Also, his voice is too high for Flynn. His older deeper voice would have suited better.

Some of the blame on the film as released is a result of its production. The film was directed by Australian editor, sometimes director, Brian Kavanagh in 1989 on a budget of $3.5 million with shooting took place in Melbourne, Cairns and New Guinea. Frank Howson produced and wrote it.

Then:

“At the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, marketing group J and M became interested in distributing the film but thought it needed some re-shooting and some “name” stars. They provided a further $1 million for this to happen.

The film was then largely re-shot with Frank Howson stepping in as director, and some different support actors cast. Guy Pearce returned as Errol Flynn, but Rebecca Rigg, Jeff Truman and Paul Steven were replaced by Claudia Karvan, Steven Berkoff and John Savage. This caused trouble with Australia’s Actors Equity because two Australian actors were replaced with foreign ones. New scenes were shot in Melbourne and Fiji, which stood in for New Guinea.

The Fijian unit was based out of Lase Lase, about 50 km from Nadi. No Fijian women would agree to go topless, so South African actress Sandi Schultz was imported to play the role of the chief’s daughter. The Fijian men were reluctant to take their underwear off to play New Guinea natives. It was estimated about 40% of the film was reshot.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_(film)

The movie was screened at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival under the title My Forgotten Man, by which time Howson had been working on it for 30 or so months. he said:

“It was like a game of Russian roulette. You actually wondered whether you would finish the film before you went broke. I now know what Coppola must have felt like on Apocalypse Now because in the end you just keep throwing money at this thing”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_(film)

With all that effort one would want at the least a bad cult classic and it isn’t even that. It’s dull.

Russell Mulcahy’s In Like Flynn (2018) dealing with Flynn in the same era of his life, is much better though not without flaws either.

I haven’t read the book. I’m not sure if I will given some the (annoying) looseness with facts in the film. If I do I will only because I find Flynn fascinating.

Roger McDonald wrote novels of some (local Australian) note and did a few novelisations … I assume for the extra dollars. I assume it is, as normally would be the case, a novelization of the script though I don’t know which script it is based on, the first, or the revamped one. Do I want to find out? Not really

TRIVIA:

Flynn has been portrayed often in film: Duncan Regehr in My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1985) (Made for TV), Jude Law in The Aviator (2004), Kevin Kline in The Last of Robin Hood (2013) and Thomas Cocquerel in In Like Flynn (2018). Also, Peter O’Toole’s character, Alan Swann, in the 1982 film My Favorite Year (1982) and Timothy Dalton’s Neville Sinclair, in The Rocketeer (1991) are clearly on Flynn.

There is a fascination with Errol which won’t go away. It seems that as Australia rock band Australian Crawl sang in their Australian chart hit “Errol” in 1981 ….

Oh Errol I would give

Everything, just to be like him

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Drama, Novelization | Tagged | 3 Comments

BIG (1988)

Posted on June 30, 2024 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Penny Marshall

SCREENWRITER: Gary Ross, Anne Spielberg

FILM STARS: Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins, Robert Loggia, John Heard, David Moscow, David Moscow, Jared Rushton, Jon Lovitz, Mercedes Ruehl, Harvey Miller

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: B.B. Hiller and Neil W. Hiller

TYPE: Novelisation

PUBLISHER: Star

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1988

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1988

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Comedy

WORDS: It’s hard to dislike Tom Hanks but I think it’s hard to love him as well. He is just there. Despite his Oscars, which came out of the blue, though playing victims and outsiders (a gay lawyer suffering from AIDS in Philadelphia (1993) and a character bullied because of his physical disability and low intelligence in Forrest Gump (1994)) are roles the Academy loves.

He has become good box office, well known but not iconic.

He is the equivalent of Dana Andrews, Van Heflin, Walter Pigeon, (perhaps) Frederic March but with more longevity at the top.

Perhaps, non-film buffs may struggle to recall these actors but in their day they were very popular. And that is my point with Hanks … I’m not convinced a cult or following will develop around him.

What is surprising is that Hanks started out in comedy. He isn’t the first light comedian to leave comedy for drama but he is one that has rarely returned to the broad comedy of his youth.

From his TV sitcom Bosom Buddies (1980-1982) through Bachelor Party (1984), Splash (1984), Volunteers (1985), The Money Pit (1986) his career was unremarkable in that bland 1980s unremarkable way. But, each film made money a lot of money. And then Big (1988) made even more money … it was a big (sic) hit ($151 million return on a $18 million budget). Hanks continued in the broad comedy, broad rom com style until his Oscars and lead in Saving Private Ryan (1998) tuned his career to drama from which he has rarely departed from since.

Fantasyland Hollywood naturally enough likes fantasies and here in Big we have one the ones that crops up regularly every few years or so … that is the supernatural age / body changing plot where an adult enters a child’s body and vice versa, or a woman enters a man’s body and vice versa (recent developments in gender identity may have made that later film redundant).

Here a pre-teen boy makes a wish in front of a magical antique fortune-teller machine that he wants to be big (older) … and he gets his wish.

The Italian film Da grande (1987) has been said to be the inspiration for Big, and seems to be as the stories are virtually identical.  This is likely as Hollywood at the time was going through a stage of adapting European hits for American / English speaking audiences – The Toy (1982), The Man Who Loved Women (1983), The Woman in Red (1984), Crackers (1984), Blame It on Rio (1984), Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), Happy New Year (1987), The Birdcage (1996) were all based on successful European films.

But the story itself is not unusual. Turnabout (1940) was perhaps the first body change fantasy, but  Freaky Friday (1976) and All of Me (1984) were hits in the “genre” later. There was a glut of similar films in the late 80s – Big (1988), Like Father Like Son (1987), 18 Again! (1988), Vice Versa (1988) and 14 Going on 30 (1988), Dream a Little Dream (1989).

And they didn’t stop there Prelude to a Kiss (1992), Freaky Friday (1995), Dating the Enemy (1996), The Hot Chick (2002), Freaky Friday (2003), It’s a Boy Girl Thing (2006), All Screwed Up (2009), The Change-Up (2011), Jumanji: The Next Level” (2019), Freaky (2020), Family Switch (2023) all continued the theme. Never say die, just rehash for new audiences.

You get the picture.

The films can be funny because you get to see a character who don’t suffer a mental illness play split roles whether they be old /young, male / female.

The fun in the former category and in Big is the older viewers get to watch people their age act and behave as kids, which, usually, is a time when life was easier and the world hadn’t cast a shadow over the simple joys in life.

Characters struggle through familiar situations and everyone comes out a little wiser and more sympathetic to their body change by the end.

Screenwriter Gary Ross had the knack for writing pleasant bland films like Dave (1993) and Lassie (1994) before graduating to writing and directing the bland but pleasant, err Pleasantville (1998) as well as the less pleasant but equally bald Seabiscuit (2003), The Hunger Games (2012), Free State of Jones (2012), Ocean’s 8 (2018). Surprised you won’t be. Co-screenwriter Anne Spielberg is the younger sister of film director Steven Spielberg and produced (including Big) more than wrote.

Penny Marshall (Laverne from TV sitcom Laverne and Shirley) directs with a TV sitcom style light touch on a script which misses not opportunities and hits all the obvious targets and gags. The supports are good but they are supports. Hanks is the whole show. And he carries it well – he is self assured and captures the child in an adult’s body very well, though even now some of the romantic set ups are a little cringy.

Big (1988) perhaps anticipates his simple man in a man’s body in Forrest Gump but otherwise there is no indication of the Oscars that were to come … as obvious as they were.

Hanks is often compared to James Stewart which is stupid because Stewart’s range is much wider than Hanks. Having said that Stewart played some wide-eyed young men and could have done Big in the 30s or 40s though he would never have been as broad or as childlike as Hanks’ character. And that is perhaps, because the pre-teen from the 1980s and the preteen from the 1940s have little in common , maturity or otherwise, apart from their ages.

The novelisation was by Neil Hiller who collaborated on it with his wife B.B. Hiller. They also published author of children’s books and young adult books as well as at least one other novelisation (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989)).  B.B. had the more prolific solo career with young adult novels and novelisations for The Karate Kid (1984), The Karate Kid 2 (1986), Superman IV (1987), Ghostbusters II (1989), The Karate Kid 3 (1989), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993), The Next Karate Kid (1994) and others.

No need to read the book.

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Comedy / Satire, Novelization | Tagged | Leave a comment

THE COLDITZ STORY (1955)

Posted on June 2, 2024 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Guy Hamilton

SCREENWRITER: Guy Hamilton, Ivan Foxwell FILM STARS: John Mills, Eric Portman , Frederick Valk, Denis Shaw, Lionel Jeffries, Christopher Rhodes, Richard Wattis, Ian Carmichael , Bryan Forbes, Theodore Bikel, Eugene Deckers, Anton Diffring, Guido Lorraine, Witold Sikorski

COUNTRY: England

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: P.R. Reid

TYPE: Memoir

PUBLISHER: Hodder

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1962

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1952

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: War

WORDS: There were many dreary English “how we won the war” films made in the 1950s. They were the bread and butter of the English film industry at the time, almost (some charming comedies and the “Doctor” films did a lot of the heavy lifting also). They served the same function as westerns in the US … to entertain people with action and adventure within familiar boundaries and accepted mythologies.

However, unlike the western the English war movie boundaries of the 50s were never really pushed into dark or different areas. They stuck to a formula whether the film was about a victory, or a (victory in) defeat.

The films were, inevitably, in black and white (both visually and philosophically), with the English military up against a mightier enemy (the Germans) but with English fortitude seeing the day through.

Perhaps that’s how the English “won” the war … though I suspect American dollars and boots on the ground probably didn’t hurt, nor did the fact that Nazi Germany was under attack from all sides.

The films are largely “us” alone against “them”.

A couple of partisans here, a saboteur there but, generally, other allied combatants, are rarely acknowledged in those films. I get it – people don’t want to see films about outright defeats but they also don’t want to see films about other people’s victories.

And whereas the Americans tended to make “fictional” films about characters in real life war events, the English tended to make films about events where the characters were incidental. There is more “fiction” in American war films of the period but, as a result, more emotion, drama and philosophical questions being asked. The English films played like docudramas.

Every English military event, preferably a victory, was made into a film … Sink The Bismark (1960) (about the sinking of the German battleship Bismark), The Battle of the River Plate (1956) about the pursuit of the German battleship Graf Spee), Malta Story (1953) (the siege of Malta), Dunkirk (1958) (the retreat from Dunkirk), The Dam Busters (1955) (the bombing by the dam busters), Gift Horse (1952) (on the he St Nazaire Raid), The Cockleshell Heroes (1955) (on British Royal Marines Commandos attack on Germans cargo shipping, Operation Frankton), Ill Met by Moonlight (1957) (the Abduction of German General Kreipe).

You get the picture.

They were very different films to the American films which had events as backgrounds to explore issues of:

Class (From Here to Eternity (1953)), duty and personal responsibility in command (Flying Leathernecks (1951), Operation Pacific (1951), Away All Boats (1956)), mental health (The Caine Mutiny (1954)), cowardice and nepotism (Attack! (1956)), gender and societal norms (Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957)), race (Kings Go Forth (1958)), war itself (The Young Lions (1958), Mister Roberts (1955)).

Likewise, the British prisoner of war films like this film and The Wooden Horse (1950), Danger Within (1959), The Password Is Courage (1962) etc tended to be based on real events and about “escaping’ whereas an American variation like Stalag 17 (1953) was wholly fictitious and had little to do with the escape.

Because the films had to stick to the facts they were constrained. Don’t get me wrong they could be exciting within those parameters, but they were rarely surprising.

It was only in the late 1950s with The Bridge of the River Kwai (1957) that the English war film started to look beyond its modest ambitions and budgets. Perhaps it was because of the American money (Columbia studios financed “Bridge” and many other English films of the late 50s and early 60s) demanded story and spectacle which was not parochial and provincial.

The Colditz Story is based on the 1952 memoir written by Pat Reid, a British army officer who was imprisoned in Oflag IV-C, Colditz Castle, in Germany during the Second World War and who was the Escape Officer for British POWs within the castle and one of the few to escape. After the war Reid was a diplomat and administrator before eventually returning to his prewar career in civil engineering. He also wrote other books including another on his Colditz experience (The Latter Days (1953) republished as Latter Days at Colditz, and as Men of Colditz).

Unless you are particularly interested in the story there is no need to read the book. It reads as anecdotal history and is an easy read.

The film has its merits (good photography, no silly subplots) but it is also one of those Boys Own adventure stories you would read in Commando comics as a kid.

It acknowledges the contribution of other allies but in so doing suffers all the English ethnic stereotypes – the plucky Brits, the disorganised French, the stoic Dutch, the enthusiastic Poles, the stupid or nasty Germans with humour at their expense (you could mistake some of it for an episode of Hogan’s Heroes).

Guy Hamilton directs ((also co-writer))and he knew how to balance big action in war (Battle of Britain (1969), Force 10 from Navarone (1978)) with action The Best of Enemies (1961 ), Funeral in Berlin (1966) and four Bond films (Goldfinger (1964), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Live and Let Die (1973), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)).

The cast is good (with all the usual actors playing the usual Germans and other ethnicities) and anything with John Mills is worth watching but, ultimately, it is a little dull and seems like a “how to” lesson.

The film was the fourth most popular film at the British box office in 1955, however the film performed poorly at the US box office, like most British war movies of the time (it’s too parochial).

I also note as an aside, that this film like most English WW2 films of the time are set in the European or North African theatres of war … the English had little to sing about in the pacific war.

TRIVIA

  • The films opening credits: “Every incident in the film you are about to see is true. With the exception of the author, Major P.R.Reid,M.B.E.,M.C., who acted as technical adviser on the film, all names have been changed and certain events have been related out of their historical context. These and only these liberties have been taken with . . . .”
  • A 1972 TV series with David McCallum and Robert Wagner was based on Reid’s books (and was all the rage for kids when I was a kid) and a 1973 board game followed. It is a boardgame I have played …and a very convoluted one).

LINKS

TRAILER

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IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER (1993)

Posted on May 19, 2024 by velebit2

renTHE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Jim Sheridan

SCREENWRITER: Terry George, Jim Sheridan

FILM STARS: Daniel Day-Lewis, Pete Postlethwaite, Emma Thompson, John Lynch, Corin Redgrave, Beatie Edney, John Benfield, Paterson Joseph, Marie Jones, Gerard McSorley, Frank Harper, Mark Sheppard, Don Baker, Tom Wilkinson, Anthony Brophy

COUNTRY: Ireland / United Kingdom

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Gerry Conlon

TYPE: Memoir

PUBLISHER: Plume

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1993

COUNTRY: USA

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1990

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: Proved Innocent: The Story of Gerry Conlon of the Guildford Four

NOTES

GENRE: Drama

WORDS: This is one of those movies that is good but you don’t have to watch more than once, well, not unless, in this case, you are an ardent Irish republican or a moderate one with a masochistic streak.

Inevitably, and, perhaps, because of their need to examine a central event movies that often explore injustices and situations of injustice tend to be a little one note. Some transcend the situations to make universal statements but most offer a docudrama analysis of the situation. Nothing wrong with either though the former resonates more (with me) because you don’t have to have any skin in the game to relate. Often they have crusading journalists (or lawyers) at their core even if the (real) motives for journalists (and lawyers) varied so when they “crusade” I find them often risible.

This film is the latter … a look at an unjust situation in a one sided vacuum much like, but much better than, the similar Spotlight (2015) or Bombshell (2019). It is, perhaps, better because the injustice at the heart of the film is real and palpable and stunningly obvious.

Gerry Conlon, a young Irish man living in London, is wrongly sentenced to life in prison with his father after the IRA bombing of 1974. He spends the next 15 years trying to prove his innocence. His father’s lawyer, Gareth Peirce, who had been investigating the case discovers evidence which was withheld from the defence which leads to an appeal and the original verdicts being set aside as unsafe and unsatisfactory … which exonerates father, son and others convicted.

I note here that the film doesn’t make the lawyer (played by Emma Thompson) the central story though her role is central to the story. The real life lawyer in this story has “reportedly never watched the film and stated in 1995 that she was “an extremely unimportant participant in the story” but was “given a seemingly important status”” in the film.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gareth_Peirce

The film smartly gives context and history and touches on the relationship between Conlon and his father, the British occupation of Ireland, the nature of the IRA, the British judicial system, and the perception of the Irish by the British. Okay the film is manipulative but it will, also, rightly anger you. The injustice is palatable even it’s astounding a liberal democracy (though one not above pointing fingers) could act in such a way in (relatively) recent history. When backs are up against the wall and the State thinks it is acting in the “greater good”  the sharper the injustice. Of course then (as they would be now) the public was, largely, indifferent. The film then can act as a warning about the evils that await when legal procedure is not followed, laws are enacted quickly as a response to an event, accountability is lost and the presumption of innocence is eroded.

And that, is something as relevant today as it was in 1974.

Having said that the film does take liberties with the fact. To some of the Irish involved Conlon was no hero. A false confession of his involved other people who were also subsequently exonerated but Sheridan and George aren’t making a film about the events but people external to the event, here a father and his son. The courtroom scenes are also, to anyone who has seen a trial, a little laughable but a viewing public brough up on television courtroom dramas probably would not notice.

Jim Sheridan, always a strong director (My Left Foot (1989), The Field (1990), In America (2002) ) with a love of all subjects Irish could make this compelling in his sleep. And he does, though, again, do you need to see it twice?

Terry George also a writer ( The Boxer (1997)) and writer director (Some Mother’s Son (1996), Hart’s War (2002), Hotel Rwanda (2004) The Promise (2016) ) also makes straightforward well made thoughtful films often revolving on a “situation”

The lead is played by Daniel Day-Lewis and he is good though you can see him acting. He was going through his Irish period here (in three films with Sheridan – My Left Foot (1989), this film, and The Boxer (1997) as well as Eversmile, New Jersey (1989) ) which led Stephen Frears, the director of one of his first films, My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), to say “I knew Daniel before he was Irish.” (to be fair Day-Lewis’ father was half Irish and half English … though the Irish side was Irish protestant not not Catholic (like all the characters he played) and reasonably well heeled, again, unlike most of the characters he played).

I know it’s only acting but if allegations of cultural appropriation and culturally correct casting are to be maintained – if native Americans should play native Americans , if gay people should play gay roles, then, should Irish actors play Irish roles? I know this film predates the current malarkey but just about all the major Irish roles here are played by English actors (and there are no shortage of Irish actors) …. I don’t think it matters when you have someone as good as Pete Postlethwaite … I’m just saying.

These sort of films like Spotlight (2015) or Bombshell (2019) are geared to Oscars and prestige. In the Name of the Father was nominated for seven Oscars at the 66th Academy Awards, including Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis), Best Supporting Actor (Pete Postlethwaite), Best Supporting Actress (Emma Thompson), Best Director, and Best Picture though it failed to win anything. It was a box office hit.

I’m not sure I need to read the book. I would prefer to read a non-fiction account of the whole injustice rather than a memoir.

See the film, once.

Interestingly as an aside:

After his release from prison, Conlon had problems adjusting to civilian life, suffering two nervous breakdowns, attempting suicide, and becoming addicted to alcohol and other drugs. He eventually recovered and became a campaigner against various miscarriages of justice in the United Kingdom and around the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Conlon

and

Three police officers were charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in the wake of the inquiry, but found not guilty in 1993.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guildford_Four_and_Maguire_Seven

I may not need to watch this film twice, but, clearly, a sequel would be interesting.

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Biography, Drama, Political Thriller | Tagged | 1 Comment

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)

Posted on April 21, 2024 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Stanley Kubrick

SCREENWRITER: Arthur C. Clarke, Stanley Kubrick

FILM STARS: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter, Leonard Rossiter, Margaret Tyzack, Robert Beatty, Sean Sullivan, Douglas Rain, Frank Miller, Edwina Carroll, Penny Brahms, Heather Downham

COUNTRY: UK-USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Arthur C. Clarke

TYPE: Novelisation

PUBLISHER: Arrow

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1973

COUNTRY: Great Britain COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1968

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Sci Fi

WORDS: 2001 A Pretentious Space Boredom.

I speak heresy to some but luckily the generation (which includes some of mine) that were enthralled with this film are shrinking. Now, only film students, pretentious types, want to be intellectuals, pot heads or people who feel the need to “name drop” to show they know something about film, revere this film.

Harsh?

The film has its merits. The leads (Lockwood and Dullea) are good, the visuals (as in most Kubrick films) are stunning, the music is well chosen, the story is potentially interesting and the effects and set design are impressive, but all that is padded out with so much chaff. The filler combined with the weight of highbrow expectations that the film must be loved makes me kick the other way, perhaps more that I would have done otherwise, though the pacing alone, which is (typical of late period Kubrick) slow and deliberate (and more than a little dull) would have been enough of a fault in my mind. I’m not sure why pretentious critics like such ponderous films … there is an assumption that if it moves it can’t be good or serious …. sort of goes against what moving pictures are all about.

Another criticism, and one I didn’t come up with but is readily obvious if you watch enough Kubrick is that none of the humans are remotely human. They are cold and one note. This has always been a Kubrick problem when he is left to his own devices … his characters are marionets. Unfortunately, the lack of humanity in a the characters results in a lack emotional connection between you and the character. You may be impressed intellectually (though even that is debateable) but you are never involved or moved. It was critic Andrew Sarris who once said (in The American Cinema (1968)…one of my favourite books on film … “Kubrick spent five years and ten million dollars on a science fiction project so devoid of life and feeling as to render a computer called Hal the most sympathetic character in a jumbled scenario”.

Which is, perhaps, fitting as the film is about HAL and intelligent almost human computer (though even HAL isn’t as “human” or as interesting as Edgar the computer in Electric Dreams (1984))

As the on-board computer for a mission to Jupiter, HAL controlled everything from electronic systems, weapons, to adjusting an astronaut’s headrest. He boasted of his error-free record, but when he mistakenly declares a piece of equipment to be faulty, the two working astronauts (three others are in suspended animation) discuss the problem and decide to deactivate him (it). He (it), however, reads their lips and tries to terminate them before regressing, like some mentally unbalanced human criminal, into a childlike nature.

The novel by Arthur C. Clarke was developed concurrently with Stanley Kubrick’s film version (they worked on the book together but only Clarke got credit initially) and published it after the release of the film but is based in part on various short stories by Clarke, including “The Sentinel” (first published in 1951 under the title “Sentinel of Eternity”). I don’t really need to read it or the novelization. I like near future sci fi but the film has soured this for me.

Arthur C. Clarke called the eventual emergence of a HAL-like computer inevitable. Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, a detractor of “2001” (but a friend of Clarke’s) dismissed it as speculation and fantasy and said computers were no more than libraries. The whole intelligent sentient machine argument in interesting though not for in depth discussion here. With the way technology has evolved (and with how sci fi has evolved in popular culture – Terminator and the rise of the machines anyone?) it is easy to lean to Clarke though there is something appealing about Bradbury’s position.

I know the film is meant to be thought provoking and intellectual but it’s so much much armchair pop philosophy. I mean it’s like reading Noam Chomsky instead of Aristotle for philosophy. There may be more catchy phrases but you aren’t going to learn much or get passing results.

Andrew Sarris famously panned 2001 when it was released (then reversed himself (apparently) after seeing it under the influence … there are no studies on how many people fell asleep during the film whilst under the influence). At the time he said:

“2001: A Space Odyssey is a thoroughly uninteresting failure and the most damning demonstration yet of Stanley Kubrick’s inability to tell a story coherently and with a consistent point of view. His film is not a film at all, but merely a pretext for a pictorial spread in Life magazine. Kubrick, like Lelouch, is an undeniably competent photographer, but photographers seldom make the best directors. 2001 has little writing or acting to speak of and makes little sense. The first section of the film begins where Planet of the Apes left off at the “Dawn of Man.” Kubrick and science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke employ a bunch of monkey masks and monkey suits to present a very debatable theory of human evolution in terms of force and acquisitiveness. We then suddenly leap into a routine moon voyage described in great brand-name-plug detail (Bell, Pan-Am, Howard Johnson’s, Hilton) with Poverty Row players like William Sylvester and Robert Beatty. A big, black slab figures in each section of the film, but we never find out exactly what it is or what it signifies. The third section, by far the most interesting, features Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood as two automaton astronauts pitted against a computer that speaks in insidiously wheedling tones. Ironically, the computer seems to have more feelings than the humans do, a curiously pessimistic attitude toward a project of this magnitude in predicting scientific “progress.” The ending is a mishmash of psychedelic self-indulgence for the special effects people and an exercise in mystifying abstract fantasy in the open temple of High Art”.

https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/movies/2001-a-space-odyssey-1968-reviews-by-andrew-sarris/

Later Sarris said: “I think the great impact of ‘2001’ is curiously a humanistic impact,” he says. “One thing that was uncanny about the movie and seemed like a shortcoming at the time was that it was boring and overlong. But it prophesied how boring space travel is, how outsized and incommensurate it is compared to human life and human consciousness. No matter how far into outer space we go, we can’t escape ourselves.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1992/01/12/just-for-the-hal-of-it/9baad638-3c6a-4a94-bcee-2f56fb64d4b8/

The defence to the dreariness is usually the film was prophetic about space travel … really?

I haven’t seen it under the influence, so my opinion remains.

And, in any event, 2001 has come and gone and we no nearer to travelling to Jupiter than we are to the rings of Uranus (pun intended). Will we be closer one day? … yes of course but if the timeline is that far out for experts Kubrick and Clarke out then so is the premise of the film, especially in its estimation of our abilities and of all the crap and shit that goes into making us human, which has nothing to do with the intellect.

When it comes to computers out of control, John Carpenter’s first film (as low budget as 2001 is expensive) Dark Star (1974), which was also something of a response to 2001, is far better (it’s a masterpiece). It has everything 2001 doesn’t – humanity, humour, and the acknowledgement of human intellect but with an understanding of our physical limitations. Yes, it is all very well travelling to Jupiter but it becomes a lot more difficult if the toilets don’t work.

It’s clear I’m not a Kubrick devotee but I’m not a hater. His films are all worth watching and well photographed (he was a glossy magazine photographer after all) but the middle-class pretentiousness and lack of humour kills them for me. Rarely do you watch them more than once (well some people do) and if you do you rarely watch them as a whole but find yourself rewatching specific scenes. His best films are his early B&W films (Killer’s Kiss (1955) and The Killing (1956)) when he was constrained by small budgets and which are wonderfully inventive), and his big studio productions which owe more than a little to star / producer Kirk Douglas (Paths of Glory (1957) and Spartacus (1960)). The joys of Lolita (1962), Dr Strangelove (1964), Clockwork Orange (1971), and The Shining (1980) and there are joys, owe more a lot to external factors forces (Lolita owes more to author Nabokov and James mason’s performance, Clockwork Orange to author Burgess and actor Malcolm MacDowell’s performance, The Shining to Stephen King and Jack Nicholson’s performance) though they all seem a little dated. It may be true that Kubrick never made a bad film (and it says something that with his most well-known films you can see the money on the screen) but I’m not sure he made a truly great one.

Ultimately, he is part of the belief cult that the fewer films you make the better director you must be (here 13 films in 47 years) … of course all your films are going to be prima facie good when you don’t have to churn them out. But the directors that did churn them out year after year are ultimately more interesting, especially if they learnt from and transcended the commercial requirement to churn them out.

He (Kubrick), is much like those other great craftsmen (John Huston, Fred Zinnemann, David Lean) who, generally, found it difficult to make something out of nothing but always looked impressive on big budgets based on literary sources with A list actors. Yes, that was a backhanded compliment to all those mentioned.

Apparently, Kubrick continues to be cited as a major influence by many directors, including Christopher Nolan, Guillermo del Toro, Lars von Trier, Bryan Singer, Sam Mendes, the Wachowskis, Darren Aronofsky, and Gaspar Noé. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kubrick

This is perfect and only reinforces my position on Kubrick.

See it once … on the big screen (yes, I saw it on the big screen at a revival). Take stimulants.

LINKS

TRAILER

the reissue trailer

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