CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR (2007)

Posted on June 29, 2025 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Mike Nichols

SCREENWRITER: Aaron Sorkin

FILM STARS: Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams,, Emily Blunt, Ned Beatty, Denis O’Hare, John Slattery.

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: George Crile

TYPE: Non Fiction

PUBLISHER: Grove Press

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 2003

COUNTRY: USA

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 2003

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History (later titled Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times)

NOTES

GENRE: Satire

WORDS:  A political satire or a biopic or both? Both.

Hollywood turns out these small sharp political satires often … and, usually, because they are political they will come under scrutiny so they have to be well crafted, well written, with stars, and with satire that is sharp, preferably ambivalent, but if pointed not too sharp, and definitely not soap boxy … Bob Roberts (1992), Primary Colors (1998), Wag the Dog (1997), The Campaign (2012), Vice (2018) and the more difficult Bulworth (1998).

We are not in an era of (movie) soapboxes where films agitated to confront you or change your mind. We are in an era where issues and social mores are not explored. There is just black and white, no soapbox needed.

The world was no less complex or less nuanced in the 1930s and 1940s where you had preachy films but with an 80 year old film you have the comfort of distance from the film, the events, the issues. You are further emotionally from the film. It is easier to treat the world in black and white, or shades thereof. If you watched the film when it came out I suspect your reaction to it would be vastly different to watching it now. Such is time, memory, and life as a person expands or contracts with time. Viewpoints can become diluted or firmer with whatever happens to the person in the intervening years. And different things happen to different people. The fog of time makes everything a little more acceptable.

A film dealing with contemporary issues nowadays has to have all its ducks in a row and inevitably it will still fail with some of the public because a political or social film can never ever address all the issues adequately. There are a thousand viewpoints on the same issue and ones that are clear and firm (as they always are with recent events) to the holder. Putting the input of money lenders to one side do you angle a film to a demographic, to everyone or just not give a shit?

If you make it a satire you negate some of the criticism and limit some of the negative views. It’s a comedy, it’s meant to be irreverent. The viewer who may have found the film offensive is appeased.

If you set film in the past or make the film about past events with some of it’s satire pointing to contemporary events, you further dilute any angry alternative point of view.

This you do when you look for a wide audience.

None of that means you have a bad film but you will have a safe one. And, there is nothing wrong with that. The film can still entertain, make you laugh, make you shake your head in in disbelief at the events shown, but not make one angry at the message the film is selling or make one angry with the received and accepted message.

Charlie Wilson’s War is that film.

The true story of a US Democratic congressman and ladies man, who loved to party, drink and take drugs, who never took things seriously (the press called him “Good Time Charlie”) who teams up with a CIA officer in a covert operation to supply weapons to the Afghan mujahideen for 13 years during the Soviet–Afghan War with very little government oversight, is a story waiting to be made (and a very long sentence).

To make it as comedy or, rather, a satire is necessary. If played as a drama it would be ludicrous. It doesn’t go over the top which would put it in Dr Strangelove (1964) territory but it is broad enough to make one laugh.

Like many Hollywood political satires in our recent era it has a lot going for it though with inbuilt faults. It is:

  • well written, literate and liberal, though a little bland. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin wrote A Few Good Men (1992), The Social Network (210), Steve Jobs (2015), The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020).
  • well directed by Mile Nicholls (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), The Graduate (1967), Catch-22 (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), The Day of the Dolphin (1973), The Fortune (1975), Silkwood (1983), Biloxi Blues (1988), Working Girl (1988), Regarding Henry (1991), The Birdcage (1996), Primary Colors (1998)), whose last film this was, and who is a great director, literate and liberal but defiantly New York middle class.
  • well acted. Tom Hanks can act and his likability means he can play the man caught in unusual circumstances convincingly though he tends to be squidgy and soft in the centre. Julia Roberts is gorgeous, especially when being sultry as she is here and Philp Seymour Hoffman steals scenes as he always does. There is good support from Amy Adams, Ned Beatty, Emily Blunt.

It all works well enough though, still, I wish it was sharper … if Billy Wilder (and I. A. L. Diamond) had directed and written it …. aaahhh.

The film did well with the critics and at the box office.

The book by journalist George Crile (who knew Charlie Wilson) was a best seller when released in 2003. A real life congressman (still alive at the time), a post 9-11 world, with discussion on the middle east, on US defence spending,  on secret CIA operations and on Washington shenanigans it was bound to work. The book is not a satire. The film telescoped and truncated the book, as is always the case, but remained true to events and characters.

The film is fun to watch but, maybe, only once. The book is interesting for those interested n US involvement in the middle east especially on how to get it wrong. One take away is if you help someone liberate themselves from their oppressors it is wise to help them rebuild their country. You would have thought the Americans already knew that following the Marshall Plan, though here if the war was largely covert … how can you help rebuild that which you have, err, not contributed to defeating?

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Historical, Non Fiction | Tagged | 2 Comments

AMERICAN SNIPER (2014)

Posted on June 15, 2025 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Clint Eastwood

SCREENWRITER: Jason Hall

FILM STARS: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Luke Grimes, Jake McDorman, Cory Hardrict

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice

TYPE: Non Fiction

PUBLISHER: William Morrow

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 2014

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 2012

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: American Sniper : The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History

NOTES

GENRE: War Memoir

WORDS: In the 2010s the film and the book were both topical and relevant.

Were.

Less so now despite the fact that the nature of war and the role of this particular type of serviceman, a sniper, has not changed.

The world has changed.

The world expects binary views on good and evil, and those views must fit the dominant paradigm.

Well, then, maybe with it’s straightforward account, both the film and book are still relevant.

The film is based on a book by Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL who completed four tours in Iraq from 1999 to 2009 where his role was that of a sniper. And, he was an effective one with 160 confirmed kills (Kyle claims to have killed roughly 320 enemies). Both film and book look at Kyle’s upbringing in Odessa, Texas, Navy SEAL training, combat experiences in Iraq, and readjustment to domestic life in between and after the tours.

Both the film and book are basically character studies wrapped up in “men in war” tropes.

The book is written in a (as one critic once called it) “humble-brag” manner, a style which minimizes the subject person while acknowledging both his successes on the battlefield and his troubles back home.

In that, it is similar, but a more graphic, version of Audie Murphy’s war memoirs, “To Hell and Back” (1949), about his experiences in WW2 that led to him becoming the most decorated US soldier of the war. Murphy, also from Texas, also suffered (most likely) from PTSD though his autobiography and the film made on his experiences (1955) which starred Audie himself, do not deal with the trauma. There are many points of comparison between Kyle and Murphy (their bravery, their high kill count, their respect for their country, their Texan background, their relationship with firearms, their field promotions, their PTSD) but they also diverge. Kyle was a specialist trained marine, Murphy was an infantryman, Kyle did most of his killing as a sniper, Murphy did most as a soldier in open combat. It is clear the killing weighed somewhat on each of their minds, but how much it weighed must have, I suspect, been informed by how they killed.

In any event the book is written in a straightforward matter of fact manner (much like the Murphy book) by Kyle with couple of professional writers, Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice, to keep it on track. Kyle had retired from the military in 2009 and the book was published in 2013.

The book went on to become a bestseller with a 37-week run on The New York Times bestseller list and brought Kyle national attention

When you put yourself in the spotlight you will have people examining every word you have said and looking for inconsistencies. Some of Kyle’s anecdotes and facts were challenged but the core of his narrative was widely accepted.

A film was inevitable.

And perhaps not surprising Clint Eastwood was chosen to direct. Clint has that old style of film making where he tells a story straight. No post modernism enters his style. His films are like films made in the 30s and 40s he watched as a kid or like ones from the 50s when he had started acting but unlike films that followed with experiments in technique and story which cast shades of grey over character and stories. Sure they have (some) violence and profanity but that is just window dressing.

Eastwood himself was under contract to Universal studios between 1954 and 1955 when Murphy’s To Hell and Back was being made at the same studio. I would be surprised if Clint didn’t recall that film when making this. I’m also surprised he didn’t get Kyle to play himself as Murphy did in his film, and as Clint subsequently did when his real life characters as leads in The 15:17 to Paris (2018)). Clint directs the film well with screentime between characters and action divided well with neither overshadowing the other. Cooper, who spent time with Kyle (apparently) preparing for the role, is excellent though perhaps a bit more philosophical than needed. Sienna Miller, as his wife, is solid but Cooper is the whole show. The film itself sticks close to the book though the book has more on Kyle’s early days growing up in Texas whilst upping the drama in relation to Kyle’s wartime service and “legendary” status amongst his enemies. These don’t affect the tone of the film.

The film does have a postscript, not (obviously) in the book, about what happened to Kyle who was murdered (in Texas) in 2013, by another veteran suffering from PTSD. He was 38 years old. The on-screen subtitle of the event is followed by footage of crowds standing along the highway for his funeral procession.

The film received a wide release January 16, 2015. For his portrayal of Kyle, Cooper received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and the film was also nominated in five other categories, including Best Picture. The film only won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing.

The film was criticised for lack of taking sides by reviewers in Rolling Stone, The Guardian, Salon and other binary requiring, self deluding, middlebrow publications, but they rarely have their finger on the pulse or can see what’s coming. How can you see what’s coming when your head is up your arse?

The film grossed $350.1 million in North America and $197 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $547.1 million, against a budget of around $58 million, making it the second-most profitable film of 2014 behind Transformers: Age of Extinction. It is (apparently) the highest-grossing war film of all time (breaking Saving Private Ryan’s (1998) record).

The book is an easy read, the film is an easy watch. Both have more going on than what you see on the surface. Having said that, you could skim the book but the film is required viewing, if only once.

American Edition (2014)

   

LINKS

TRAILER

Trailer #2

Posted in Biography, War | Tagged | 2 Comments

THE LONGEST DAY (1962)

Posted on June 8, 2025 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki

SCREENWRITER: Cornelius Ryan, Romain Gary, James Jones, David Pursall, Jack Seddon

FILM STARS: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, Richard Burton, Steve Forrest, Red Buttons, Peter Lawford, Eddie Albert, Jeffrey Hunter, Stuart Whitman, Kenneth More, Richard Todd, Tom Tryon, Rod Steiger, Curt Jürgens, George Segal, Robert Wagner, Sean Connery, Paul Anka, Edmond O’Brien, Mel Ferrer, Ray Danton, Richard Beymer, Sal Mineo, Roddy McDowall and many more.

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Cornelius Ryan

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: NEL

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1969

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1959

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: War

WORDS: The story of D-Day, the invasion of continental Europe, at Normandy in France on June 6, 1944 during World War 2, is one of the most important military battles in history. Its scale and significance cannot be underestimated. And, as with many battles, the first day of the battle was crucial.

The Longest Day (1962) depicts that first day and it is one of the great war films.

Its greatness doesn’t lie in the standard indicia of what makes a great war film. Though it touches on all the various tropes that appear in war films it doesn’t concentrate on one or another. It makes no stand on the correctness of war or not but it does hint at the futility and the necessity, it doesn’t really have any dramatic tension though there are emotional scenes, it says nothing about the human condition in war though there is humanity in the film, it’s not character driven though you follow the character’s story arc, however small, and feel for them, it takes sides though it is fair to both sides, it is factual though much of the detail is fictional, its actions scenes are big rather than visceral, though they seem vivid and real.

What it does have is all about being “big”. Big battle scenes done without CGI, big set pieces, a big-name cast (one of the greatest ever assembled), a big cast of extras, a big running time (178 minutes), a big budget, and big ambitions.

Even with all this bigness it is one of the few epic action films that manages to balance the epic with the individual experience, the action of battle with the quiet between battle, the chaos of war with the lack of war kilometres away, the tragic with the comedic, the victory and the loss, the winners and the losers, the faceless many with the recognizable few. And, you can star spot in the meantime. That may sound glib or trivial but it’s a bonus for me. No matter how engrossing or real a film is I always know I’m watching a film, even if it has no stars. So, when it does have stars, and many stars in small roles, part of my enjoyment is in star spotting and watching them interact with other actors.

And The Longest Day has many stars … John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, Richard Burton, Steve Forrest, Red Buttons, Peter Lawford, Eddie Albert, Jeffrey Hunter, Stuart Whitman, Kenneth More, Richard Todd, Tom Tryon, Rod Steiger, Leo Genn, Gert Fröbe, Curd Jürgens, George Segal, Robert Wagner, Sean Connery, Paul Anka, Edmond O’Brien, Mel Ferrer, Ray Danton, Gary Collins, Bob Steele, Richard Beymer, Sal Mineo, Roddy McDowall, Paul Anka, Mark Damon, Tommy Sands, Fabian, Ron Randell, Leslie Phillips, Richard Dawson, Norman Rossington, Victor Maddern, Peter van Eyck, Gert Fröbe, John Meillon, Bourvil, Christian Marquand, Jean Servais, Irina Demick, Wolfgang Preiss and Arletty.

Many of the biggest names of the day (Wayne, Mitchum, Fonda, Burton etc), with solid older stars (Todd, Lawford, More, O’Brien), with established young stars (Hunter, Wagner, Whitman, Danton, etc), with young stars in grooming (Mineo, Beymer, Damon, Tryon etc), with teen idol singing stars (Fabian, Anka, Tommy Sands) and with some future stars (Connery, Segal, Phillips etc).

In roles, big or small, they are noticed, and they all do well. The acting is uniformly fine, it may be secondary to the spectacle, but it is the glue that keeps everything together and makes the film relatable. Many of the characters are real life people and some of the actors (Wayne, Ryan) are much older than the characters they play but it matters little, they bring gravitas or strength of personality to the roles. Everyone tries. Perhaps they knew this was a big film with many stars and they didn’t want to be the odd one out.

The scenes and segments I like the most are the ones that stuck in my mind after I saw the film on TV as a kid (in Australia in the 70s) and still resonate now when I watch the film again on the big screen at home – the parachutists landing in the village of Sainte-Mère-Eglise, General Norma Cota (Robert Mitchum) and his men on Omaha Beach, Richard Burton’s wounded pilot, the cricket clicker scene in the hedgerows. But, there are many great scenes in dispersed with little bits of human story.

The photography is wonderful …wonderful tracking shots, wide shots, close-ups, handheld camera work, and dramatic lighting make the film visually stunning. It was filmed in black and white which works for war films … we are so used to seeing newsreel in black and white that colour in the spectacle sometimes looks fake. Black and white can also hide come of the inconsistencies in uniform and machinery colour military train spotters would pick up on (though I’m sure producer Darryl F. Zanuck wouldn’t have been concerned with that). The filmmakers tried to make the film look as real as possible without the gore that goes with war. To add to the realism the film was (mainly) filmed at the location of the battles though I have read some of the beach landings were filmed in Libya (don’t know for sure).

There were three directors on the film directing the various “sides” : British & French: Ken Annakin, American: Andrew Marton, German: Bernhard Wicki. They are all capable and they all do well though, ultimately this is a producer’s film. Darryl F, Zanuck (former head of production at 20th Century Fox) was the producer and as was his nature he controlled the production. Everything had to be put past him. Producers who are “auteurs” are few but they exist, Irving Thalberg, Val Lewton, David O. Selznick, Ross Hunter, Adrian Scott, Zanuck. Apparently (uncredited) director Gerd Oswald directed (scenes deleted) in some French exterior episodes as well as the parachuting scenes in Sainte-Mère-Église) and Zanuck himself directed several interior scenes.

The book by Irish born journalist Cornelius Ryan is (largely) accurate and readable in a journalist historian way. It was a best seller and remain in print for many years. He went on to write similar military nonfictions, The Last Battle (1966), and A Bridge Too Far (1974). He wrote the script with additions episodes written by Romain Gary, James Jones, David Pursall, Jack Seddon. Gary was a popular and prolific writer in France and had written the novel and the screenplay (for Zanuck) for the film The Roots of Heaven (1958). James Jones was a successful US novelist who had made his name with the war novel From Here to Eternity (1951) as well as Some Came Running (1957), both made into successful films. David Pursall and Jack Seddon worked together often including on The Alphabet Murders (1965), The Blue Max (1966) as well as Carry on England (1976).

There are some liberties with history but there are plenty of accurate details and it stays true to the events.

Many people think Saving Private Ryan (1998) which starts at D-Day is more visceral, real and accurate but for me I will take The Longest Day any day (sic) of the week. Saving Private Ryan spirals off into other subplots whereas The Longest Day is only concerned about the battle. Otherwise, I can’t sit in my armchair and say the beach landings were more real in Saving Private Ryan. I do know veterans were trotted out to say they were more real, but they were trotted out for The Longest Day as well. In any event you only know your portion of the battle and memory is errr memory. There seems to be much debate about D-Day landings accuracy between supporters of each film but I’m not interested, and in any event after the landings the rest “Ryan” is hokum man on a mission stuff. The Longest Day stays, smartly, on the first day. If you need before and after films, its perfect accompanying films would be Blake Edwards’ The Americanization of Emily (1964) as a prequel and Samuel Fuller’s The Big Red One (1980) as a sequel.

The film was a mammoth hit at the time with $30.5 million in worldwide theatrical rentals on a $7.5 million budget. It was the highest-grossing black-and-white movie at the time. It received five Oscar nominations and won two for photography and effects.

It helped usher in an era of historically (trying to be) accurate all-star war movies – The Great Escape (1963), The Battle of the Bulge (1965), Is Paris Burning? (1966), Anzio (1968), The Bridge at Remagen (1969), Battle of Britain (1969), The Battle of Neretva (1969), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), Midway (1976), A Bridge Too Far (1977) and it certainly influenced later war films like Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Dunkirk (2017).

The book is an easy read. The film I could watch over and over again.

Also, there is a great theme song by Paul Anka which is both melancholy and a tribute. I like theme songs.

NOTES

  • Richard Todd actually fought in the battle he acts in in the film. “He was among the first British soldiers to land in Normandy and the first Irishman. His battalion parachuted after glider-borne forces had landed to capture the Pegasus Bridge near Caen. During the operation he met Major John Howard on the bridge and was involved in helping to repulse counter-attacks by the German forces in the area. Five days after D-Day, while still in the bridge defence area, he was promoted to captain. Todd later played Howard in the 1962 film The Longest Day, recreating these events”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Todd
  • The title comes from a comment made by the German field marshal Erwin Rommel to his aide Hauptmann Helmuth Lang on April 22, 1944: “…the first 24 hours of the invasion will be decisive…the fate of Germany depends on the outcome…for the Allies, as well as Germany, it will be the longest day.”

OTHER EDITIONS

1962 US Fawcett film tie-in edition

   

LINKS

THEME SONG

TRAILER

another trailer

 

 

 

Posted in Non Fiction, War | Tagged | 4 Comments

SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS (1999)

Posted on April 13, 2025 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Scott Hicks

SCREENWRITER: David Guterson, Ron Bass, Scott Hicks

FILM STARS: Ethan Hawke, Youki Kudoh, James Cromwell, Max von Sydow, Rick Yune, James Rebhorn, Sam Shepard, Richard Jenkins, Željko Ivanek

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: David Guterson

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1999

COUNTRY: Australia

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1995

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Drama

WORDS:  A big, throaty, rural potboiler.

Both the book and the film.

Author, David Guterson, is a product of the pacific northwest USA and sets most (all?) his novels there. He knows his landscape and his peoples. His books (perhaps, as I haven’t read them all) are carefully crafted and precise.

This book with its small town scandal, various characters from various social classes, look at social mores, with romance, lost or requited love, mystery, courtroom action and harks back to the “big dramas” of the 1950s. Novels written by James Jones (Some Came Running (1958)), Sloan Wilson (A Summer Place (1958)), Robert Traver (Anatomy of a Murder (1957)), Grace Metalious (Peyton Place (1959) and Return to Peyton Place (1959)),
Charles Mergendahl (The Bramble Bush (1958)), J. R. Salamanca (The Lost Country (1958)), Don M. Mankiewicz (Trial (1955)) etc

These are all literate soap operas, some better than others but the people love these books. It is no surprise that most of these novels were best sellers. I can see why though. people love drama others suffer which is no far from what could befall you.

Not surprisingly those 50s drama all became big films, most of them big film hits.

Guterson, perhaps not surprisingly, sets his novel in the 1950s with flashbacks. This story could only, and not because the novel narrative requires references to World War 2, be set in the 1950s because it comes with the mores of the time (though with 90s explicitness – you have to keep the audience happy) and treads much the same ground as best sellers from that era.

It is clear and unfussy storytelling with an awareness of time and place though unlike the 1950s ancestors and despite the fact it is more explicit there is nothing confronting or shocking in the sexual revelations or in the crossing of social mores. The fun comes in reading a updated rehash of a 1950s novel with the safety of time.

And that is also what the film was trying to do. Just as the novel was a rehash of those 50s dramas the film was trying to be a rehash of the film versions of those novels. There is gloss, drama, and a bit of mystery that owes more than a little to film. The whole Japanese angle makes it like a cedar forest version of Bad Day at Black Rock (1955).

The film is slick and (seriously) beautiful to look at but long (2 hours 7 minutes) for its subject matter and perhaps a little dull in getting to the point. One IMDB reviewer referred to it humorously though perhaps harshly as “Eyelids Falling on Viewers”. Screenwriter Ron Bass was famous for writing screenplays which look better than they are. they are always tidy without ragged edges even if the subject matter may be off, so, perfect for reputable Hollywood. He wrote Gardens of Stone (1987), Black Widow (1987), Sleeping with the Enemy (1991), The Joy Luck Club (1993), Rain Man (1988) (for which he won the oscar), Waiting to Exhale (1995), Dangerous Minds (1999), Entrapment (1999) and many others. Australian director, Scott Hicks, had broken through with Shine (1996) directs this with one eye on scenery and the other on the romantic drama … which he did later again in The Boys Are Back (2009),  The Lucky One (2012), Fallen (2016). Between them, no doubt at the producers insistent, they have spent more time on the romantic drama than on the dramatic mystery in the plot. It is very romantically lush at times and lost love after Titanic (1996) was shown to be box worthy. Douglas Sirk would have made the same and upped the drama, hinted at the (human) darkness whilst shortening the running time. The cast is uniformly good, though mostly all they do is stare and act as you would expect them to. Ethan Hawke is, perhaps, too modern to be a 1950s hero, even a anguished 1950s hero but he tries and Max von Sydow is always worth watching as are James Cromwell, Sam Shepherd, and Richard Jenkins. Željko Ivanek, Rick Yune, James Rebhorn provide the support and Youki Kudoh (who was wonderful in Jim Jaramusch’s Mystery Train (1989)) just has to look good, which she does, effortlessly. The film has enough to keep interest though not enough to be great and perhaps that sums up the book as well.

Still, you could do worse on both counts.

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Crime, Domestic Drama, Novel | Tagged | Leave a comment

THE COOLANGATTA GOLD (1984)

Posted on March 30, 2025 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Igor Auzins

SCREENWRITER: Peter Schreck (developed from an idea by Max Oldfield, based on a story by Ted Robinson & Peter Schreck)

FILM STARS: Joss McWilliam, Nick Tate, Colin Friels, Josephine Smulders, Robyn Nevin, Grant Kenny, Melanie Day, Melissa Jaffer, Wilbur Wilde, Kate Mailman

COUNTRY: Australia

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Richard Butler

TYPE: Novelisation

PUBLISHER: Budget Books

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1984

COUNTRY: Australia

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1984

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Sports Drama

WORDS: I’m not sure what to make of this. I recall when this came out. It was a big event. All Australian made films were big events at the time, this one doubly so because it was made in my home State, Queensland..

In Australia, Queensland isn’t the bride, or the bridesmaid, just a guest at  a (remote) table. The insecurity, perhaps, causes the State to do stupid things … like putting their hand up up for the 2032 Olympics, which Brisbane (the capital of Queensland) won by default … no one else was in the race.

I digress, though, my antipathy to marginal sports (ie: those played by only a few nations) is well known and long standing.

So, recalling when this film came out doesn’t mean I took any interest in it. Because it was a “sports” movie I took no notice of it, The fact it was about an “ironman” surf race made it even less interesting to me. I even vaguely recall getting it mixed up with some Australian crime movie at the time, perhaps Goodbye Paradise (1983) also filmed on the Gold Coast.

When I did get around to watching it I was surprised. I’m not saying the film was great but it had enough to keep me (half) interested.

Writer Peter Schreck and director Igor Auzins had worked together successfully on the Australian film We of the Never Never (1982), and no doubt influenced by the critical and commercial success of Chariots of Fire (1981) they decided to collaborate on another project. Why not, both films are about running and competition, and feature on beaches … and other stuff.

Coolangatta Gold, about a big (fictional, at the time) race, injects many subplots into its narrative … failed dreams of parents, toxic masculinity, son proving himself to father, sibling rivalry versus another “plotpack” which almost takes up as much screen time – boy meets girl dancer, girl has dreams of her own, girl must decide between career and boy.

So, it is “East of Eden” meets “Flashdance”.

There is another subplot of the “hero” trying to make it as a band manager, but that one is relegated to the sidelines.

There is a lot going on and not much going on.

The 80s stylings are pure corn but the failed father pushing his sons (a symptom of what is now known as “toxic masculinity” apparently), specifically to win the title he never could win, is well done. The relationship between the kids, and the favouritism the dad, like some of (ste) roided Willy Loman, shows one son is held together by Colin Friels (always good) as the older son and Nick Tate as the father. Though not a world I knew, some of this rings true as these fathers ( I recall) did (and do) exist, especially those who defined “success” as success in sports.

Otherwise, there is 80s music, including a band with Wilbur Wilde of Ol’ 55 and Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons (Australian bands of the 1970s) and television on vocals, 80s fashion, 80s bikinis, some 80s sex and a lot of scenery of Queensland’s Gold Coast which only reminds us how Hicksville it was (it didn’t seem so at the time).

The movie hits all the tropes about sport, training and relationships that may help or hinder the protagonist. There is even a Rocky-esque “working class” training montage with our sportsmen utilising their work on a banana farm to train and push each other on.
It’s watchable though perhaps only enjoyable if you lived through (survived) Australia in the 1980s.

Surprisingly, the film performed disappointingly at the box office which halted the careers of the director, writer and male and female leads. Colin Friels and Nick Tate, and stage darling Robyn Nevin went on to bigger and better.

The book is a straight novelisation. I’m unlikely to read it … why would I when I can read Steinbeck for the angst or the puff piece in the Sunday supplement for the against all odds sport story?

NOTES

  • The film spawned a sporting event. The Coolangatta Gold, which was a fictional event created for the film. it is now one of the premier events in the sport of Ironman (surf lifesaving), organised by Surf Life Saving Australia.  The story goes: “In 1984, Peter Schrek was writing a movie featuring the talents of ironman legend Grant Kenny, about two brothers competing for their father’s love. Needing a dramatic climax for the movie, Schrek was sitting on a Gold Coast beach when he came up with the idea of racing from Surfers Paradise, all the way down to Coolangatta, and back up again. Schrek ran up to someone on the beach, and after explaining the course, asked if he would do it, to which the person replied, “Hell no”. Schreck then asked if he would do it for $20,000 prize money, to which the person replied, “Hell Yeah””. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coolangatta_Gold. For the filming of the race, the producers decided to run The Coolangatta Gold as an actual event, rather than film set up shots. Many well-known ironmen at the time competed, but it was won by 18-year-old Guy Leech, from Manly who on it the following year as well. It then stopped, was revived in 1991 and 1992, then stopped again, but has been run just about every year since 2005.
  • Interestingly, Australian champion ironman, Grant Kenny, plays himself in the film (though he didn’t participate in the Coolangatta Gold race made up for the film). and Nick Tate’s father character is, in part, obsessed with his son beating Kenny as he didn’t beat Kenny’s father, Hayden Kenny, in the early 1960s. Hayden Kenny won the very first Open Ironman Championship of Australia (at Coolangatta) though in 1966 not the early 60s.
  • Josephine Smulders from Victoria was a ballerina from the Victorian College of the Arts School of Dance and in 1983 was accepted into the Australian Ballet Company. While filming a dancing scene for the film in December she suffered a back injury. She continued to feel pain in her back and in November 1984 performed for the Australian Ballet Company for the last time at a performance at the Sydney Opera House. She tried to return to dancing over the next few years but the pain in her back prevented her from doing so. In 1992 she sued the film’s producers for damages because of the injury. At trial, after medical evidence, the trial judge was of the view that the injury was a temporary exacerbation of a degenerative condition which had existed for some time prior to filming and that her continuing symptoms were caused by progressive degeneration. This was her only film.

LINKS

TRAILER

FILM SCENES FROM THE NOVELISATION

   

Posted in Drama, Novelization, Sports | Tagged | 2 Comments

BLOOD ALLEY (1955)

Posted on January 5, 2025 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: William A. Wellman

SCREENWRITER: A.S. Fleischman

FILM STARS: John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Paul Fix, Joy Kim, Berry Kroeger, Mike Mazurki, Anita Ekberg, Henry Nakamura, James Hong, Lowell Gilmore

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: A.S. Fleischman

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Gold Medal Books

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1955

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1955

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Adventure

WORDS: This film is a guilty pleasure. I think it a much underrated film. It’s not panned but it’s not held high. But, like many colour adventure films of the 1950s it’s not made to make you think but entertain. And, that it does, and you don’t’ have to suspend disbelief that much, and, better still, there are enough novelties in it to make it sit above the pack.
Of course any film made in 1955 about a ship’s captain being “busted out” of a communist jail, so that he can skipper a old stolen paddle steamer with all the inhabitants of a small fishing village from communist China to western free British Hong Kong, will have a “anti-red” message but, it’s not as strident as some of the other cold war movies which means it is , ultimately, more entertaining.

Spoilers ahead …

The book’s central (novel) premise (whether it is bases on a real incident or not I don’t know, though I doubt it) details the boat’s flight from Communist China with enough interest to make it readable. Now I’m far from a sea faring man but I do know that flat bottom bats are not ideal on the open sea and that gives the book, if not the film, much of its drama. It reads easily and is quite short, but ultimately, it’s a pulp novel (or just above a pulp), which is odd as author Sid Fleischman was substantial and wrote many (evocative and smart) children’s books, screenplays, novels for adults, and nonfiction books about stage magic. Perhaps he was trying to be immediate or writing with an eye to selling a screenplay (which he wrote for this film). The story is a dressed-up adventure story for contemporary (1950s) times. It doesn’t have the detail that Ernest K. Gann would put into his adventures, or the thrills that Alistair MacLean or Hammond Innes put into theirs, or the pulp realism of Donald Hamilton or Victor Canning, or the there is something deeper going on of Graham Greene, but it has novelty.

The book has, not surprisingly, more narrative and build up to events, the film, inevitably, more colour, more asides, more humour. The book has more obstacles to the success of the escape though the film has more incidental subplots. The film, also, throws in some other spills – the food being poisoned, people giving birth on the boat etc.

The books subplots like Cathy’s concern about whether her Doctor father will return, the decoy boat, the hiding in the fog and marchese, the burring of the village, the Chinese communist family (the elder leader using communism to advance his corrupt latent money greed) taken along to stop them talking, the Chinese reverence for their ancestors are all covered in the film though never enough to get in the way of the escape narrative. The obligatory love story in both is rushed and condensed, though in film that is always the case.

In the film John Wayne’s American boat captain (Captain Wilder in the book, no name mentioned in the film) talk often, in asides, to a imaginary female friend named “Baby’ who, presumably, kept him sane whilst he was locked u the Chinese communists jail after China fell to communism post war. The imaginary “baby”,  though at first odd coming from a John Wayne character, actually works , and helps as short hand to explain the narrative.

The film is big budget – odd for “anti-red” films. The studios satisfied their anti-communist credentials normally by pushing cheap red scare films (cheap doesn’t always mean bad of course). John Wayne was big box office at the time so gets a bigger budget, for his film, with a admiral supporting cast and a A- list director in William Wellman
Wellman excelled in action and adventure films with more brains than – Wings (1927), The Public Enemy (1931), Call of the Wild (1935), Beau Geste (1939), The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), The Iron Curtain (1948), Yellow Sky (1948), Battleground (1949), the magnificent Across the Wide Missouri (1951), Westward the Women (1951) Track of the Cat (1954), Lafayette Escadrille(1958). He was no slacker in the drama and comedy departments either – Night Nurse (1931), Heroes for Sale (1933), Wild Boys of the Road (1933), A Star Is Born (1937), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943).

Wayne clearly got on with Wellman. He had had small roles in two of his 30s films – Central Airport (1933) and College Coach (1933) and in the 50s Wayne’s production company produced three films with Wellman as director and Wayne as star – Island in the Shy (1953), The High and the Mighty (1954) and this in 1955. Batjac also produced another two Wellman non-Wayne films. Wellman’s story usually includes his colourful pre directing past, but his films are always solid entertainments with, as here, more going on than meets the eye. The philosophising will never get in the way of the story, nor should it, but it’s there. Wayne is perfect in the role of the stubborn self (a typical middle age Wayne role but also nature of the character in the book) though, as usual, his character is much younger in the book (a usual problem with books becoming Hollywood features for box office leading men who were usually in their 40s and 50s at their peak). But here it works as one wonders where the younger Captain Wilder of the book got all his experience and knowledge of the Formosa Straits. John Wayne has the obligatory 1950s anti-communist speech and done in the usual John Wayne style (which means his friend, screenwriter, James Edward Grant, might have had a hand in it …Wayne would use him to put dialogue into “Waynespeak”) … it’s very matter of fact, plain speaking an Abe Lincolesque, at least the Abe Lincoln of mythology) but ultimately, despite being anti-communist, it is also quite pro Chinese.

The love story between Wayne and the Anglo doctor’s innocent daughter, Cathy played by Lauren Bacall is a major subplot, though not one dwelt on. Interestingly, the book has him resisting her whereas in the film she resists him more, albeit marginally. Lauren Bacall and Wayne have chemistry (maybe that’s why Bacall’s husband Humphrey Bogart turned up on set for a visit). She, also, is perfect, though, a little old – the character Cathy in the book was 20, Lauren was 31. No matter. She would later play the older love interest for Wayne in The Shootist (1976) and she was perfect there as well. She is sassy and undeniably sexy, at least in 1955.

The film has the usual “Anglos” done up as Chinese Asians are present though Paul Fix (surprisingly) and Mike Mazurka (less surprisingly) and Berry Kroeger also pass. Swedish bombshell Anita Ekberg (with few lines, if any) less so, but who cares, she is enchanting on the screen. The extras are all Asians of some type which helps.

The only fault is the last scene of the boat staggering into Hong Kong harbour is all done with models which look incredibly fake, and which makes you wonder if John Wayne’s aside to “Baby” are part of a delusion, and everything is a dream . surely not in a John Wayne film … Jean Cocteau did not direct this.

Much of the film was filmed at China Camp State Park, a state park at Marin County, California, and it’s surrounding a historic Chinese American shrimp-fishing village and salt marsh (founded by Chinese Americans in the 1880s).

The propaganda in the film is obvious but not in your face. The communist excesses are never shown they are just assumed to have been committed. Ultimately the film is an adventure with a political backdrop (like Soldier of Fortune (1955), The Shanghai Story (1954), Night People (1954), The Journey (1959)) rather than a red scare film and it is also, pleasantly, more of an adult adventure than a kid’s adventure film.

It is often said, for some reason, that the film didn’t do well because it was blatant anti-red propaganda, wasn’t a John Wayne western, or was rushed because a less than committed Wayne was in it (see blow – Robert Mitchum dropped out). I’m not sure if any of that is correct. Lazy armschair assumptions usually aren’t. Sure it wasn’t a big hit but it made more than it cost, and Wayne seems committed enough, and Wayne was a big (very big) box office star in the 1950s and very few of his films were westerns (four of the nineteen films he made in the decade were westerns). Perhaps the audience had enough … his earlier film that year, The Sea Chase (1955), (where he played a German sea captain during World War 2) was the third highest grossing film of the year.

It is well worth watching with a beer (or two), the book if handy is readable.

The big question is, is this film banned in China? Is it even known?

BITS

  • Robert Mitchum was supposed to play Captain Tom Wilder in Blood Alley before he was fired from the movie at the request of director William A. Wellman. Allegedly, after an altercation he shoved the film’s transportation manager into San Francisco Bay(which Mitchum disagrees with). Who knows what went down but, also allegedly, or perhaps apparently, before Mitchum’s firing, he had a fallout with Wellman. Wayne’s daughter, Aissa Wayne, says in her book, John Wayne: My Father (1991) that Wellman and Mitchum’s feud started with the TV show This Is Your Life. According to her, when the show’s producers asked Wellman for a list of people to interview [about his career], Wellman included Mitchum (who he had worked with him twice before, in the role that made Mitchum a star, The Story of G.I. Joe (1945) and in the excellent Track of the Cat (1954)). However, Mitchum apparently said that he “didn’t have time to talk about […] Wellman”. When they worked on Blood Alley, Wellman retaliated by “badgering Mitchum around the clock.” till they could not work with each other. Knowing what I know about Mitchum and Wellman that sounds likely. Because Mitchum was released from the production, Wayne (as the producer) was rushed / forced to take on the role (after first considering Gregory Peck and Humphrey Bogart apparently). There was no ill will I know of between Wayne and Mitchum as they later worked together in El Dorado (1966).

LINKS

TRAILER

A promo by John Wayne for Christmas Seals (Christmas seals are adhesive labels that are similar in appearance to postage stamps that are sold then affixed to mail during the Christmas season to raise funds and awareness for charitable programs …here tuberculosis)

Posted in Adventure, Novel | Tagged | Leave a comment

SEABISCUIT (2003)

Posted on December 22, 2024 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Gary Ross

SCREENWRITER: Gary Ross

FILM STARS: Tobey Maguire, Jeff Bridges, Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Banks, Gary Stevens, William H. Macy, Eddie Jones, Michael O’Neill, Michael Angarano

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Laura Hillenbrand

TYPE: Non Fiction

PUBLISHER: Ballantine Books

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 2002

COUNTRY: USA

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1999

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: Seabiscuit: An American Legend

NOTES

GENRE: Sports Drama

WORDS: If I hadn’t seen the film and knew that Seabiscuit was a real horse I would have thought this was a remake of the Australian film, also about a real horse champion, Phar Lap (1983).

Maybe there were a lot of horses inspiring nations during the Great Depression, but it is uncanny ….

Wikipedia:

Seabiscuit (May 23, 1933 – May 17, 1947) was a champion thoroughbred racehorse in the United States … A small horse, at 15.2 hands high,[1] Seabiscuit had an inauspicious start to his racing career, winning only a quarter of his first 40 races, but became an unlikely champion and a symbol of hope to many Americans during the Great Depression.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabiscuit

Phar Lap (4 October 1926 – 5 April 1932) was a New Zealand-born champion Australian Thoroughbred racehorse. Achieving great success during his distinguished career, his initial underdog status gave people hope during the early years of the Great Depression.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phar_Lap

Both films have the the usual adversity in sports tropes the only difference being the money spent on them.

Seabiscuit (as is Phar Lap) is full of those “we will lift you up” passages about underdog (sic) horses, and the plucky people that believe in them and in doing so change themselves into better people.

The only surprising thing about the films is that they are made in an era well after the Golden Years of Hollywood where this sort of film was prevalent (I don’t want to guess how many horseracing pictures were made).

Both stories are true but whatever “hope” they gave to the populace I don’t know. Sure racing enthusiasts would have been excited. Owners, handlers, and jockeys would have been ecstatic as the money rolled in. But the average person working for less than minimum wage? Both horses were both famous as a result of continually winning races, maybe that gave hope to keep on keeping on, though I’m convinced that the horses knew there was a depression going on.

Call it cynical but I have to look at this sort of mush with some cynicism

This film is based on a book magazine writer Laura Hillenbrand. It is well researched, though not something I would or will read but it (seems to) benefit from the fact that she is not a sports writer (or a historian). (After some spot reading) Her account of the participants, equine and human, are well written, and vivid in that putting you there magazine style. She won a ton of awards.

Without any big moral questions the book was a must for Hollywood. Adversity overcome always makes for feelgood entertainment.

What is real and what is mythologised in the book, I don’t know, but when coming to the screen, even if all is accurate, there is a tendency to write and condense stories making tropes stand out even more, as they do here.

The film has the feel of a prestige picture. You can tell more care was taken with it (there was an eye on the Oscars who lap this up) as it had the right art direction, updated period music (Randy Newman perfect for this), and a story script with some superlight philosophical asides written by the director Gary Ross. Ross would go on to write and direct The Hunger Games (2012) and Free State of Jones (2016) both different to Seabiscuit but both also superficial and glossy. His best film is the intentionally (but not really) superficial and glossy Pleasantville (1998) which co-starred Tobey Maguire. The script never gets any deeper than any number of animated films aimed at kids (Ratatouille (2007) in reverse even) but that’s what makes the bums on seats happy.

Tobey Maguire was still riding high in his career and he makes a better jockey than he does a Spiderman (I thought he was a miscast Spiderman … aren’t they all). The acting is otherwise fine. Jeff Bridges is in his “old man” career phase, the least interesting of his career phases, and then we have the always solid Chris Cooper, William H. Macy, Ed Lauter and Sam Bottoms. Elizabeth Banks is in it as well.

It’s a long movie, 141 minutes (in the Golden Years it would have clicked in at 90 mins), and it feels it. It’s pleasant to watch even if some of the cliches and dialogue are hard to swallow … I mean, McGuire’s closing monologue has something like,  “We didn’t fix Seabiscuit, Seabiscuit fixed us, and in a way we all fixed each other’.

Really? Yes, .. and we all made money whilst getting “fixed”.  Money is never central to the story even though it is (or rather the lack of it is) central to the Depression and central to horseracing. The question you have to ask is would horseracing exist if there wasn’t gambling. There is only one answer.

The direction, like the action, is okay. Though both sit below the look and sound of the film … the art direction, the recreation of the time, the music. Everything is done to evoke time and place. And it does, like an expensive version of the TV show The Waltons (1972-1981).

The Oscars love period films … and Seabiscuit was nominated for seven Oscars all reflecting that (Best Picture, Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing) … though, oddly it won nothing.

Seabiscuit’s story was filmed once before, The Story of Seabiscuit (1949) with (an older) Shirley Temple and Barry Fitzgerald.

I don’t need to see it again and I don need to read the book … if I need a dose of Depression era horseracing I will go to the greatest of them all, the Marx Brothers’ A Day at the Races (1937).

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Non Fiction, Sports | Tagged | Leave a comment

TOWELHEAD (2007)

Posted on December 1, 2024 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Alan Ball

SCREENWRITER: Alan Ball

FILM STARS: Summer Bishil, Aaron Eckhart, Toni Collette, Maria Bellom, Peter Macdissi, Matt Letscher

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Alicia Erian

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Headline

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 2008

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 2005

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Drama

WORDS: The book had some nuance to it as it tells the matter of fact occasionally comedic coming of age story for a 13 year old Lebanese-American girl.

Jasira is sent from her Euro-American mother’s home in Syracuse, New York to live with her strict Lebanese father in Houston, Texas and encounters (sexually) older and young men, and (emotionally) older and young women. Her sexual awakening and emotional growth touches on issues of obsession, love, consent, privacy and race.

The book, written by Alicia Erian, born to an Egyptian father and American mother of Polish descent, is slight. There is some insight though never, despite ethnic slurs, do you feel that the character is Lebanese American.

The book is almost too slight. She is an innocent like Chance the gardener (from Being There) amongst sharks. She is naïve, more naïve than I would have thought but then she will go and do something so illogically out of character for a naïve girl. There are many contradictions without motivations. In other works this may be interesting, but here it just seems to be and excuse to bounce around and inject sex into the story. And, apart from the occasional slur, there is little in the way of ‘race” issues. She seems to be the only Lebanese-American girl in America, or, at least, Houston. But, it’s all window dressing, we don’t really know the girl at the end not as a Lebanese-American nor as a teenager.

But, it’s easily readable and at least looks at a group (children of non Anglo migrants) not overly represented in recent American literature.

I didn’t expect much from director – screenwriter Alan Ball. And he lived up to my expectations.

He was the creator, writer and executive producer of the glossy less than meets the eye TV series Six Feet Under (2001 – 2005) and True Blood (2008 – 2014) and wrote the vastly overrated film American Beauty (1999) a film full of stereotypes with sledge hammers. Towelhead the book might not flesh out the characters but there was attempted nuance. Ball’s film is all characters as middle brow philosophical ciphers who seem to have (at least in the case of the American ones) dropped in out of an American 50s sitcom.  Worse still his (more narrow) American Beauty world view is overlaid over the author’s material … no one is normal (unless they are gay). Taking a position is one thing, but blinkered single mindedness is something altogether different. How anyone could be impressed by Balls’ obvious banality I don’t know. Gidget ends up a more fully formed character.

Even worse is the predictability of actions which turns to boredom. Just like in American Beauty, unless you lived under a rock or in a convent every stereotyped character does as you would expect them to do.

The cast, especially Eckhart are fine under the circumstances and make the film look (just) better than it is.

What Douglas Sirk could have done with this material!

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Comedy / Satire, Drama, Novel | Tagged | Leave a comment

THE KING’S SPEECH (2010)

Posted on November 24, 2024 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Tom Hooper

SCREENWRITER: David Seidler

FILM STARS: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce, Timothy Spall, Derek Jacobi, Jennifer Ehle, Michael Gambon, Claire Bloom, Anthony Andrews

COUNTRY: England

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Mark Logue, Peter Conradi

TYPE: Non Fiction

PUBLISHER: Quercus

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 2010

COUNTRY: Australia

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 2010

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The King’s Speech : How One Man Saved the Monarchy

NOTES

GENRE: Drama

WORDS: One of those films geared to awards. BAFTA awards. The pleasant surprise here is the film was also entertaining and ended up winning Academy Awards.

The Oscars always like English historical dramas (the more pompous the better) with something which occasionally suggests an inferiority complex on their part. Hamlet (1948), Tom Jones (1963), A Man for All Seasons (1966), Chariots of Fire (1981), Gandhi (1982), The Last Emperor (1987) all, UK films, won best picture. There are many others nominated and applauded but such insecurity leads to a blinkered view on the merits of the film or sometimes a blind eye to the faults – A Passage to India (1984), A Room with a View (1985), Howards End (1992), The English Patient (1996), Elizabeth (1998), The Imitation Game (2014).

In the case of The King’s Speech, a modest budgeted drams they got it right though you don’t need to see the film twice.

The Duke of York. the future King George VI of the United Kingdom, who, to cope with a stammer, sees Lionel Logue, an Australian speech and language therapist. As Logue helps George VI the men become friends. After George’s brother, Edward VIII, abdicates the throne, the new king relies on Logue to help him make his first wartime radio broadcast upon Britain’s declaration of war on Germany in 1939.

That’s it in a nutshell.

There is humour, there is drama, there is emotion. It is all restrained, which is a blessing in this type of film.

Ultimately, despite my joy of the film, I am ultimately detached emotionally. Even if I had a stammer like that of George VI, I’m not sure I could relate to his character. This is lifestyles of the rich and famous dealing with themselves … albeit to stir the country patriotically through a speech. Which is a pity because it seems that George VI is the only member of the British royal family (or for that matter any royal family perhaps) of that time (or until recent times) who was quite humble (by royal standards). Having said that I’m not sure he and Logue were as informal as they are depicted in the film.

I should say it is great seeing an Australian speech therapist (who the English establishment at the time wrote off as a “quack” probably as much because he was Australian as anything else) teaching the English how to speak, though it was probably the last time that happened. We seem to relish our broadness of accent.

As a child, screenwriter David Seidler (born 1937) developed a stammer, which he believed was caused by the emotional trauma of World War II and the murder of his grandparents during the Holocaust. As a child during the war his Jewish family relocated to the USA, and he grew up in New York. He worked in television and as a playwright before writing for Hollywood most notably the TV film Onassis: The Richest Man in the World (1988) and Francis Ford Coppola’s wonderful Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988). As a stammerer he had heard of George’s story and during the late 1970s and 1980s he researched the same but found little information on Logue. Eventually he contacted Logue’s son, Valentine Logue, who agreed to discuss his father and make his notebooks available if the Queen Mother gave her permission, but she asked him not to do so in her lifetime, and Seidler halted the project. After the Queen Mother died in 2002 Siedler returned to the project. A script was turned out and Geoffrey Rush became interested in the project and a money was found for the production. Then, two months or so before filming the production team learned of a diary containing Logue’s original notes on his treatment of the George which was in the process of being turned into a non-fiction book by Logue’s grandson Mark Logue and journalist Peter Conradi. They contacted the writers and then reworked the script to include details from the non-fiction work.

It is this detail which gives the film much of its authenticity and richness. The attention to detail is wonderful.

Of course, having said that, it doesn’t mean the film is historically accurate. Churchill did not loom large in the proceedings, Edward VIII appeased and (perhaps) admired the Nazi regime, and, inevitably, events are telescoped and truncated to make the film flow as a narrative.

Still, it picks up, errr the vibe of the time.

The film was filmed on many actual locations and looks good. Director Tom Hooper is into making historical dramas (the miniseries Elizabeth I (2005) and John Adams (2008), the film The Danish Girl (2015) and even the period musical Les Misérables (2012)) so he knows how to utilise a location to add realism to a film. But ultimately, this is an actor’s film. All are good. Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter received critical acclaim, earning them Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress respectively, with Firth winning his category. I was happy for Firth. I’ve always liked him ever since I saw (the great) Another Country (1984) at the cinemas when released though, admittedly I was more engrossed with the character he played. In any event I followed his career for a while (as I did with Rupert Everett, from Another Country, who I was convinced would be the bigger star, and was, for a while) and dutifully watched his films (some hard-to-find way back when) which included leads in small films and supports in bigger films. He was always good though his roles were getting smaller and smaller. It was probably his large support role in the phenomenally successful Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) and its sequels that put him on the map and led to The King’s Speech, not a big film, but quite a showcase especially when playing against or rather with Geoffrey Rush. Guy Pearce as Edward VIII is excellent also, but he always is.

The film made money, a lot of money.

The book is history and will fill in the holes an give background and context to the film if you need the same. I don’t.

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Biography, Drama, Historical, Non Fiction | Tagged | 3 Comments

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

   

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