15 January 2020

1917

For a change, I went to Sheffield's newest cinema yesterday morning. It's called "The Light". I was there to see the new Sam Mendes film - "1917".

In the promotional image shown above you can see Lance Corporal Will Schofield played by George MacKay. He is the hero of "1917". He has a vital message to take from one part of the western front to a different location some nine miles away.

And what a journey it is! A journey through  mazy trenches and over a nightmarish wasteland where flies and crows feed on the corpses of dead horses as bloated human bodies float in flooded bomb craters. 

The spectacle is very convincing and often breathtaking - made more so by the illusion that we are following Schofield's mission in one long, continuous shot. The attention to detail is phenomenal. You are transported right back to that terrible war and Thomas Newman's occasional music works superbly to enhance the unfolding drama.

If you will pardon the expression, I always want to be blown away by the films I choose to watch. I want to have no reservations, to emerge from the cinema  with five stars in my eyes. However, that feeling of complete satisfaction is very rare and regarding "1917" I have a couple of small criticisms.

Firstly I would ask how, where and how often did soldiers in the trenches shave their faces? Schofield and his companion Lance Corporal Thomas Blake are as clean-shaven as every other soldier we encounter. It is as if they had all been to their local Turkish barber that very morning and what is more when Schofield smiled he had pearly white Hollywood teeth. That's surely not how teeth were in 1917.

Secondly, there's a dramatic scene in which Schofield flees his German pursuers by leaping into a fast flowing river. There are rapids and uprooted trees and he barely manages to survive the scary aquatic ride. However, there are no such rivers in the flat lands where trench warfare happened. There the rivers are wide and sluggish as they make their lazy way to the sea. It was as if he was in a mountain river.

I'm sorry. I shouldn't carp. Instead I should emphasise the big picture by confirming that "1917" is genuinely awesome. It was developed organically over several months and is a wonderful example of what team work can do when everybody is pulling in the same direction towards an ambitious goal. It is a magnificent cinematic memorial to a  tragic and ultimately pointless war in which 22 million died and millions more suffered injuries that plagued them for the rest of their lives.

28 comments:

  1. All over, the movie has and is receiving rave reviews. It is the front-runner for an Oscar for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, and one for Same Mendes as Best Director.

    Only good things have been written and said about the movie here...I look forward to watching it.

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    1. "The Daily Telegraph" over here only gave "1917" three out of five stars, saying this:- "Sam Mendes’s awards front-runner is technically brilliant but emotionally inert" and there have been a few other critical reviews even though the majority of reviewers give it a huge thumbs up.

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  2. I don't usually care for war movies but I think I may watch this one. I have heard so many good reviews about it and it is up there with the Oscar runners. However, I
    understand the negative points you mentioned. I guess I am too detail oriented but I notice things like if they look too neat and clean for their particular situation. As far as shaving, I know the military does not allow beards and men at war have often used their helmets to hold water to shave - even in the trenches.

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    1. I take your point Bonnie. By nature, I am also not a big fan of war films but this one is pretty special.

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  3. I'm guessing the soldiers had to be clean shaven for their gas masks to fit well. My ex husband was a pilot and wasn't allowed to grow a beard for the same reason, oxygen mask fitting.

    It sounds like a good movie but the war was so awful, I don't know if I could watch it. One of my favorite books was "All Quiet on the Western Front" which I think painted a very good picture of trench warfare.

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  4. I've just thought of another very good book about trench warfare, "Three Day Road" written by a Canadian guy about two Cree men who fight in World War 1. Very good read.

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    1. Thanks for the heads up Lily. Given the chaos in those trenches, getting a clean shave would have been almost impossible.

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  5. Those issues wouldn't bother me. I be concentrating too much on the story.

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    1. You are more forgiving than I am Red.

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  6. Like Lilycedar says in her comment, it sounds like a good movie but the war was so awful - and I am definitely not going to watch it. I have read a review about the film that was full of praise; the clean-shaved appearance of the men has been explained by other commenters, but I guess the Hollywood pearly teeth have to be accepted as a small inaccuracy. As for the river, I can not imagine there being any rapid, fast-flowing ones in the area where trench warfare took place, either.

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    1. In most photos I have seen of real WWI soldiers in the trenches they look tired, unkempt and certainly not clean-shaven.

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  7. I could never watch a war film either, but you have given a good description of the film. Paul Nash images float through of smashed trees and mud. As for gleaming white teeth, not sure how to think of that but it would probably spoil it for me as well. Yellow nicotine teeth would be more in order.

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    1. Visually the whole artefact is stunning. In a few places CGI techniques have been employed quite brilliantly to emphasise the sheer size of the confrontation.

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  8. Colourised WW1 footage on TV recently seemed to have very few photogenic soldiers. Their teeth looked particularly revolting to modern viewers. But then some people (like me) get upset when films have the wrong trains and lorries.

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    1. Sam Mendes's film pays great attention to detail in most respects so it was surprising that the points I referred to slipped through the net.

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  9. I have just watched the trailer and it does look a remarkable film. Don't think I could watch it though. Every town and village in England lost young men in the Great War of 1914-1918. Including a lot of great footballers and poets. Lest we forget.

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    1. There were around fifty villages that didn't lose anyone. They are known as "the thankful villages". There was one close to where I grew up called Catwick. "1917" is best seen on a big screen.

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  10. Didn't know that YP. I haven't been to the flicks in twenty years. I watch Netflix sometimes.

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    1. I just checked on Google - Cork City has two noteworthy cimemas - The Gate and Omniplex. Why not give the missus a treat?

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    2. I live near Bantry Cinemax. I will see if she wants to see it YP. Thanks for checking out cinemas for me.

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    3. Bloody hell! A cinema in Bantry! Last time I was there they didn't even have electricity and the priests and nuns rode around on donkeys.

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  11. I may be done with watching any sort of film with war in it. Even watching "Outlander" with its bloody English vs Scots primitive warfare makes me sick. War is one of humankind's most sinful and horrible inventions on every level and the fact that we still engage in it is stupefying. Movies, no matter how realistically they try to portray it somehow always seem to glorify it.
    But that's just my opinion.
    And this movie may not do that at all. Still, I simply cannot.
    I did, however, love your phrase about leaving the movie with "five stars in my eyes." Perfect.

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    1. War is terrible and I am not someone who is especially drawn to war films but war features in human history so I cannot blank it out. Glad you liked that accidental phrase.

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  12. I really dislike war movies. They're just too traumatic. Watching "Saving Private Ryan" nearly killed me and I don't think I've been to one since. (Except Star Wars and that kind of thing -- mostly imaginary wars.)

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    1. Did you see "The War of The Computer Chargers"? That was very traumatic.

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  13. Saw 1917 earlier this week and hardly drew breath throughout. The river in question is the Tees, and it was filmed on the Tees Barrage water course to provide a controlled environment to make it less dangerous for the actor/stuntpersons

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