50 Great War Films: The Thin Red Line

 

Directed by Terrence Malick - 1998 poster

This movie was rather a 'curate's egg' for me. If I was being positive, I would say there were moments of poetry in it; if I was being negative, I would call such scenes pretentious. 

The symbolism was laid on rather thickly. It was immediately apparent from the outset, that the halcyon scenes of the two AWOL American servicemen playing with abandon with Melanesian children and the villagers singing a hymn while walking, was a prelude to horrific bits to follow. Sure enough, towards the end, when Pvt. Robert Witt (Jim Caviezel) visits another village, the locals (including the children) are distrustful. Then there is a crocodile, enjoying a float in a very gungy river in the opening sequence; again, towards the end, the crocodile has been captured and is tied up on the back of a truck. Fauré's Requiem (rather like Mahler's music in Death in Venice) hammers home - if a requiem can 'hammer' - all too obviously what the director is trying to say. Apparently, Malick's vision was that of a Paradise Lost, an Eden, being raped by the green poison of war.

What most rankled, I'm afraid, were the cod or trite thoughts 'overlaying' the shooting of the film: Is there an avenging power in Nature? Not one power, but two?...This great Evil, where did it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Is this darkness in you too?  When a soldier is shot,,,, we see a tree explode and a brightly-coloured bird flies out. The camera's focus often just took off from the fighting and soared up into the sky. Once, fair enough; but it became too staged. One critic said it rambled...with glimpses of what a tighter film it might have been.

The problem is that all the above distracted from what was not a bad movie. The actual battle scenes were good (much of it fought in long grass!) and the taking of the hill from the Japanese reminded me slightly of Sergeant York and the Sands of Iwo Jima. I thought three actors stood out from the rest. Jim Caviezel (the actor credited his role as the turning point in his career) was realistic and one understood his sacrifice towards the end.

'Those about to Die'

I thought Nick Nolte as Lt. Col. Gordon Tall was excellent. Permanently on edge, with neck muscles looking like cords, he unburdened himself when he admitted I've waited all my life for this. You don't know what it's like to be passed over. It's my first war. His insecurity and deep resentment meant that he was willing to sacrifice his men's lives to come out on top - in both senses (the actual hill and be victorious). I also found Elias Koteas' portrayal as Captain James Staros very sympathetic. His character was consistent throughout and his facial expressions very 'human' and believable. 

The Lieut. Col. harangues his men

Above all, Staros and nearly all the men showed fear, desperation and the grim reality of war. Fighting is terrifying. Why George Clooney got a top billing is beyond me - about three minutes' of rather anaemic posturing summed up his part. Sean Penn, Ben Chaplin and Adrien Brody were adequate. The bringing in of the flashbacks of Chaplin's wife - their time together, then her staring out to sea, on a swing, writing a letter saying she wanted a divorce, may well have happened during a war - but, in an overlong film, this could have been cut with no deleterious effect. 

Critics bemoaned the parade of cameos by well-known actors (though, to be fair, the director cut much of their parts); criticised it for being confused and unfinished; and the film's schizophrenia kept it from greatness. It was nominated for 7 Academy Awards but failed to win any. I think a major problem lies in the fact that the director also wrote the script. Never a good idea. Just as a main actor should never direct himself. I enjoyed rather than endured the movie; but I could have jettisoned the 'philosophy' for more action!

2000 DVD

Galt's 'The Provost' revisited

 

First edition - May 1822

I have just re-read my Blog on the book from last June and find I very much in agreement with it! The same two major themes strike you again as you read Provost Pawkie's account of his life and times in Gudetown. It is similar to Balwhidder's narrative, as it is in the first person and there is that same smugness, unconscious or not, attached to their reminiscences. There is more humour, this time both meant and unrecognised by Pawkie; there is more conscious, but always excused or explained, corruption; and there is the same sense of social and economic change happening in the town as there was in Balwhidder's parish (e.g. the gradual mixing of the country gentry among the town's folks). 

There some lovely character cameos throughout the book:

Andrew McLucre - a long spare man, and looting in his gate...was naturally a greedy bodie... Mr (later Rev) Pittle...in reality he was but a weak brother...moreover, he had a sorning way with him...for ever going from house to house about tea-time, to save his ain canister...he had aye the sough and sound of love in his mouth...a vain sort of bodie, and easy to be fleeched. His predecessor, Rev Dr Swapkirk had been long a heavy handful, having been for years but, as it were, a breathing lump of mortality, groosy and oozy and doozy, his faculties being shut up and locked in by a dumb palsy.

Bailie Weezle was a man no overladen with worldly wisdom, and had been chosen into the Council principally on account of being easily managed...an idle man, living on his money. Nabal Smeddum, a tobacconist by calling who...had been regarded but as a droll comical bodie at a coothy crack...in stature, of the lower order of mankind, but endowed with an inclination towards corpulency, by which he had acquired some show of a belly, and his face was round, and his cheeks both red and sleeky. Mr Dravel a genteel man he was, well read in matters of history, though somewhat overportioned with a conceit of himself (Pawkie calling a kettle black!). Mr Hirple a queer and quisitical man, of small stature of body, with an outshot breast...his temper was exceedingly brittle...he was apt to puff and fizz, and go off with a pluff of anger like a pioye. Mr Peevie was, in his person, a stumpy man...the method of his discourse and conversation was very precise, and his words were all set forth in a style of consequence, that took with many for a season, as the pith and marrow of solidity and sense. The bodie, however, was but a pompous trifle.

 

Pawkie outmanouevres them all, through a mixture of sycophancy and being oleagenious, guile and even deceit, but above all by thinking ahead. Nearly all his public spiritedness and plans have the element of self interest in them. I persisted in my resolution to have the causey renewed by contract...but, saving two three carts of stones to big a dyke round the new steading which I had bought a short time before at the town-end, I had no benefit whatever; and, on the Volunteers being formed, it would not do to set myself at the head of a body of soldiers, but that the consequence might be made up to me in the clothing of the men; when his windows are broken by a mob, he not only gets enough compensation from the Lords of the Treasury to replace them, but was able to build up a vacant steading; the same, which I settled last year on my dochter, Marion. Pawkie does admit that I myself partook, in a degree, at the beginning, of the caterpillar nature...to prey upon the leaves and flourishes of the commonwealth. However, he did not think it any shame to a public man, to serve his own interests by those of the community, when he can righteously do so.

Above all, it is Pawkie who dominates proceedings from morn to night. Several times he is just getting into bed when he has to see if he needs to take over: Mrs Pawkie was already in and as sound as a door-nail, and I was just crooking my mouth to blow out the candle, when I heard a rap. 

In the Introduction Pawkie's widow makes reference to the Annals of the Parish of Dailmailing, intimating, that she had a book in the hand-writing of her deceased husband...in her opinion, of far more consequence to the world  - and thus, The Provost emerged in the booksellers' emporiums! A happy result for this reader.

Galt's 'Sir Andrew Wylie' 1822

 

First edition - 1822

I enjoyed this tale of a Scotsman making his way in the world. As J. M. Barrie remarked, There are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make. One can also see the relevance of quoting Samuel Johnson - Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young. By his use of the term 'Our hero' throughout the three volumes John Galt makes it clear where his sympathy lies. In fact, one feels that the young 'Wheelie' from Ayrshire who ends up as Sir Andrew Wylie of that Ilk had very much the life story his creator had wished for but did not achieve. Wylie's very surname suggests wiliness,  but when his eventual patron first sees him he shrewdly sums him up: the oddity of his appearance, and the sly suspicion of his looks, with the simplicity of his manners, diverted the peer. Throughout the story, everyone appears diverted and even the reader cannot quite make up his mind what is the ratio between cunning/sagacity and simplicity/naivety. By the end one can almost regard Wylie as a wunderkind: he patches up the Sandyfords' marriage; he ensures Mordaunt marries his desired; he helps Charles Pierson get a job in India; he makes certain his grandmother is comfortably provided for; he becomes an M.P.; he is feted in the salons of the mighty; he chats on familiar terms to King George III; and he marries his childhood sweetheart.

The nobility are well delineated. They include The Earl of Sandyford - still on the gay side of thirty, and justly considered one oif the most elegant men of the age; his wife, Lady Augusta Spangle,  who was not only endowed with great beauty, but an education, conducted with admirable skill to bring out all the showy portions of her character...she was not witty, nor did she possess any of that sunniness of mind, which beams out in the smiles of good humour...she had, in fact, been educated for the market of fashion...; and her father, The Marquis of Avonside with his sedate pomposity...taken with the conceit of being a statesman.

The minor characters are of interest and well-drawn, such as Wylie's schoolteacher Mr Tannyhill; his school friend Charles Pierston; his London employer, Mr Vellum; the Duchess of Dashingwell; Sir Charles Runnington; Mordaunt - who Wylie helps to catch his belle, Miss Beauchamp; the tragic Mr Ferrers, one of the most eccentric orbs then above the horizon of fashion...already touched with madness; the Dowager of Sandyford; Lord Riversdale; the young barrister Blondell; Lady Clackit; and Sir Hubert  Mowbray. Equally so, the various servants - Nettle, Flounce (not one of those foolish virgins who slumber and sleep at their tasks), Mrs Valence, Servinal and Bell Lampit - all add to the reader's enjoyment. The gipsies also give further colour to the book - Wylie's comment on the gipsy lad in the Tolbooth is wonderful: He's a toozie tyke in the looks, that maun be alloo't; but a rough husk often covers a sweet kernel - and his support of them and, later on, cripple Janet, helps to palliate an image of Wylie's tightness in financial matters. The gipsy grandmother is well fleshed out. Walter Scott would probably have 'gone overboard' with her!

When relevant, descriptions of the landscape and country houses/homes of the participants - Chastington-hall, Elderbower, Castle-Rooksborough, Burisland Abbey, Bretonsbield Castle are well described.

The story abounds in Humour.

Here's the Earl of Sandyford spending the occasional morning at the House of Lords, yawning due to having to listen, it is true, to the tuneless eloquence and metaphysical distinctions of some litigious advocate from the north...

Here is Martha, Wylie's doting grandmother, commenting on King Solomon: man, in his auld days he gaed aften far ajee out o' the strait road in the gloaming, tapping wi' his gowden-headed staff at the harlot's door, and keeking in at her windows with his bald head and his grey haffits, when he should hae been sitting at hame on his throne, reading his Bible to his captains and counsellors in a kingly manner. Brilliant!

Wylie's remark that a gipsey's character, a hachel's slovenliness, and a waster's want, are three things as far beyond remedy, as a blackamoor's face, a club foot, or a short temper,  is not politically correct perhaps, but very droll (Walter Scott might have objected to one of the images!)

The Chapter Love in a Dicey, where Wylie 'rapes' Flounce's basket with its veal pye and bottle of cherry-brandy rather than her, is very funny. The meeting with the King in Windsor Great Park is another comic piece. And what a great start to another Chapter: Neither the east nor the west of Scotland affords the best market for the disposal of beautiful young ladies with large fortunes. We have even some doubts whether those of the south or the north be any better. Shades of Jane Austen?

The passing remark - these characteristics of intellectual superiority which have enabled the possessors to perform such miracles both abroad and at home, we mean mustachoes, had not then been revived in the British Army - had me smiling. As did daft Jamie's favourite haunt being Geenock, for the best possible reasons, because, as he said, "the folk there were just like himsel".

As for Mary Cunningham - all the bright young things in Edinburgh, the beaux of the West of Scotland and the martial delights of the officer class pass her by. 'Wheelie' is the one for her, thanks to his learning of the first 50 Psalms in Stoneyholm's churchyard, whilst sitting next to her. Her father the Laird - set in his ways, hating the incoming pestilence of the cotton Jennies and the reformers baith cleckit at the same time,  arguing that trade and traffic will ruin the country and gentlemen will be no more, but  made more lovable with his inordinate guffaws; and her aunt, Miss Mizy, provide both humour and verismilitude to the tale.

 

I liked the passing references to Galt's The Annals and The Ayrshire Legatees - In some respects, the parish of Stoneyholm was, at the period of Andrew's departure, not so fortunate in its pastor, as its neighbour Dalmailing, of which the meek and pious Mr Balwhidder was then the incumbent, nor could it even be compared with the well-watered vineyard of Garnock, where the much celebrated Doctor Zachariah Pringle had, some years before, been appointed helper and successor. The comment of George III, that Ayr was a fine county - No excisemen shooting Lords now? Bad game, bad game. Poor Lord Eglinton... reminds us again of The Annals.

Galt clearly had no time for the outcome of the French Revolution - horrors of that anarchy, which, under the name of Freedom, committed such crimes for the personal aggrandizement of a few intrepid adventurers; or the Roman Catholic Church - (as Wylie comments on the Catholic Emancipation) my conscience will never consent that I should be art or part to bring in the whore of Babylon among us, riding on the beast with seven heads and ten horns. Did the author give away his true opinion here, too? The triumph of woman lies not in the admiration of her lover, but in the respect of her husband; and it can only be gained by a constant cultivation of those qualities which she knows he most values.

So, I have now re-read The Annals of the Parish and The Ayshire Legatees and have just restarted The Provost. Sir Andrew Wylie of that Ilk, read for the first time, has simply reinforced my delight in reading the Author's works. I am only sorry I had not come across him before; however, there are still many more novels to go, and all in first editions!

50 Great War Films: Platoon

 

Directed by Oliver Stone - 1986 Poster

Having now watched The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now, I was interested to see what Oliver Stone would make of the Vietnam conflict. The first scene is certainly stark: new soldiers are coming off the tail end of a transport plane in Vietnam. They spot a line of black body bags  and one says: "Oh, man! Is that what I think it is?"  Other memorable sentences include: "All right, you cheese-ducks, welcome to the Nam" and "New meat". One feels this is all authentic, particularly after you read that Oliver Stone not only directed the movie but wrote the script, which was based on his own experiences as a US infantryman in Vietnam. It's September 1967, and the whole war is going badly for the Americans. Charlie Sheen, the main lead character (Chris Taylor), has volunteered and he is fresh-faced and, simply, naive. The movie charts his increasing disillusionment (he is, after all, the Oliver Stone figure), as he encounters not only the savagery of warfare but the knowledge that there is downright enmity within the ranks as well as against the enemy. 

Charlie Sheen as  Chris Taylor

This is personified in the hardened and cynical Sergeant Bob Barnes (Tom Berenger) and the more reasonable Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe). Barnes says: "I am reality" and castigates Elias for being "full of shit...a crusader". Barnes even says to one group, "I shit on all of you."  The camera work is excellent, whether focussing on close-ups of the strain and fear in the American faces (although once or twice this was overdone and went on far too long) and of the napalming of villages and forest. The raising of the village and killing of the village elder was horrific (a reference to the notorious My Lai Massacre in 1968).

Berenger and Dafoe

Filming was done chronologically and employed Vietnamese refugees living in the Philippines (where it was filmed). The main actors were put through a 30-day military-style training regimen, with limited food and water. When the actors slept, blanks were fired to force them awake. Forced marches and night-time 'ambushes reinforced a 'reality' for them.

So what's the problem? My major concern was I felt I was too often being preached at. Now, Stone's version of the war is much closer to mine than John Wayne's The Green Berets. But I want the space to think for myself. Dialogue and, especially, Sheen's voice-over comments were bordering on the didactic and often too wordy. "The poor is always being fucked over by the rich. Always have, always will." Of some of the recruits : "Most have got nothing. They're poor. They're the unwanted. Yet they're fighting for our society and our freedom." Stone has every right, particularly as he was a participant, to be anti-war etc., but let's have more nuance. Secondly, there were so many 'fucks', 'fuckings' and 'shits' that I lost count. Okay, it was probably like that - but it's a film, to be seen by a wide range of age groups and temperaments. Even broad-minded me got fed up with the swearing.

Critical responses? Tim Newark, in his 50 Great War Films, talks of a grim vision of an American platoon out of control, torn apart by deadly rivalry and drug taking and says it chimed with the anti-war spirit of the time, but now seems overly melodramatic. Roger Ebert called it the best film of the year, but Pauline Kael remarked that the movie crowds you, it doesn't leave you room for an honest emotion. It was a success at the Box Office grossing $138.5 million domestically against its $6 million budget. It won 4 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Sound and Best Film Editing.      

2006 DVD

50 Great War Films: Come and See

 

Directed by Elem Klimov - 1985 Poster

The last words spoken in Apocalypse Now was The Horror. Well, this could have been the title of this movie. From the first scene to the last, the viewer feels as if he is in a nightmare - of cruelty, sadism, despair. It's 1943 in Belarussia - two boys are digging in a sand-filled trench - looking for, and finding, a rifle. The following day two Belarusian partisans arrive at the boy Flyora's house to conscript him. His mother, with two very young twin daughters, pleads with him not to go. Even though one half knew it was coming, later on in the film Flyora returns home and, after desperately searching for them through a quagmire, has to face up to the fact that they, with other villagers, have been shot dead. In these early days he meets up with a young girl Glasha and they establish a  frightened bond. Horrific scene piles on horrific scene - two of the three men who go with Flyora to look for food are blown up crossing a minefield; the third man, Rubezh a partisan fighter, steals a cow with Flyora but both he and the cow are killed by German machine gun fire. The close-up of the cow's dead eye is unnerving.

Glasha and Flyora

And so it goes on - leading to the most ghastly scene of all. Flyora is taken by a man whose horse and cart he tried to steal, to his Perekhody village. The SS and Ukrainian collaborators surround and occupy the village. Flyora tries to warn them that they are being shunted to their death inside a wooden church. He manages to escape, as does a young woman who is then gang-raped by the Germans. The church is set alight and all inside are burnt to death (shades of Oradour sur Glane in France, which we visited some years back). The Germans, in turn, are ambushed and mostly killed; eleven are captured, including the commander, an SS-Sturnbannfuhrer. They are doused with petrol but are killed before they can be set alight. In what was one of the most powerful sections of the film, Flyora notices a framed portrait of Adolf Hitler in a puddle; as he repeatedly shoots at it, simultaneously there is a montage of original newsreel, showing Hitler's life in reverse, including ghastly scenes of Jews in concentration camps. A title card then informs the viewer that 628 Belarusian villages were burnt to the ground with all their inhabitants by the Nazis. Flyora finally rushes off to join his fellow partisans as they march through the forest.

Aleksei Kravchenko as Flyora

The acting of the fourteen year-old boy was stupendous. Aleksei Kravchenko as Flyora said that he underwent the most debilitating fatigue and hunger. I kept a most severe diet, and after the filming was over I returned to school, not only thin, but grey-haired. His expressive eyes, which held so much pain by the end, as the tear trickled down his increasing lined face, was frightening in their intensity. These events really did happen in Belarus and the actors were not professionals but real peasants. The supporting actors Olga Mironova as Glasha, Liuborimus Laucevicius as Kosach, Vlada Badonas as Rubezh and Tatyana Shestakova as Flyora's mother were also very good. The film was shot in chronological order over a period of nine months, which made it even more effective.

Reviews were positive: Walter Goodman (The New York Times) wrote that the history is harrowing and the presentation is graphic...powerful material, powerfully rendered; Rita Kempley (The Washington Post) said it was directing with an angry eloquence, [Kilimov] taps into that hallucinatory nether world of blood and escalating madness that Francis Ford Coppola found in Apocalypse Now. Roger Ebert described it as one of the most devastating films ever about anything, and, in it, the survivors must envy the dead.

1999 DVD

Scott's 'The Pirate' 1822

 

First edition - 1822

This novel is not one of Scott's best - the weakest point about it lies in the speedy ending, which is far too contrived and lacking in probability.

Strengths? The author visited the Orkneys and the Shetlands in 1814 and both the landscape and its inhabitants, with their archaic customs, made a great impression on him. His descriptions in the early chapters of the rocky seascape are powerful: the ocean also had its mysteries, the effect of which was aided by the dim twilight, through which it was imperfectly seen for more than half the year. Its bottomless depths and secret caves...are backed up with the Norse legends of mermaids, krakens, dwarfs, giants, sorcerers and Sea-kings. Scott uses verse to convey the legendary lore surrounding these creatures. His description of the tempest which batters Mordaunt Mertoun on his way home - these inland waters were now lashed into sheets of tumbling foam...whilst the salt relish of the drift which was pelted against his face...this hideous combustion of the elements -  is matched by the portrait of the foundering of Cleveland's vessel and his subsequent rescue by Mordaunt. Chapter VII in Volume I is, perhaps, the highlight of the whole story. Other well-written sections include the whale hunt, the visit to Norna's fastness and the festivities at Magnus Troil's steading.

Mordaunt rescuing Cleveland

The Scottish factor, Triptolemus Yellowley, - short, clumsy, duck-legged disciple of Ceres, whose bottle-nose, turned up and handsomely coppered at the extremity, seemed to intimate something of an occasional treaty with Bacchus - and his tight-fisted shrew of a sister, Baby, provide elements of humour. It is not hard to imagine the pedlar Bryce Snailsfoot in the avaricious byways and the scene where Cleveland finally lands a punch on him is well described. One can just about accept the stage-struck pirate Bunce who now calls himself Frederick Altamount. He is lively, good-hearted and brave; however, as with Cleveland, a most unlikely corsair and more fitted to be in a Gilbert & Sullivan's operetta.

Weeknesses?  Basil Mertoun (who, as we finally discover, was once Basil Vaughan) has an unhappy past; but he is not an interesting character, rather cold and harsh, bitter in his misanthrope and the reader can spare no sympathy for him. Norna of the Fitful Head has a similarity to Meg Merrilies in Guy Mannering, but is not as compelling; moreover, her whole character is improbable, even unnatural. This stock 'old hag'  - think Magdalen Graeme in The Abbot and Ulrica in Ivanhoe and add the White Lady of Avenel from The Monastery into the mix (but with far worse turgid versifying) - becomes wearysome after a while. John Buchan calls Norna Scott's supreme failure in the genre. Wearysome beyond belief is Claud Hacro - his constant references to, and quoting of, John Dryden is neither amusing or interesting, merely a bore without any redeeming feature for this reader.

There are several unlikely 'holes' in the plotting: the falling out between Cleveland and Mordaunt (who love different sisters) is puzzling; Cleveland as a pirate in charge of such a dastardly crew is hard to swallow; his range of good qualities must have been deeply hidden for many years and his 'repentence' does not make the reader warm to him. Minna's refined modern education and enlightenment, whilst also naively not understanding what pirates behave like, is again impossible. However, Minna is dark-haired, and Scott admits to a certain partiality for the dark Beauty (think Rebecca). How Captain Goffe ever commanded a pirate ship is really beyond belief! Above all, the news that Cleveland is Mertoun and Norma's son is not credible (particularly when Mertoun totally fails to recognise his former wife).

Brenda and Minna

Rather like Alfred Hitchcock always appearing in his own films, Scott has to get in a jibe against Roman Catholicism in every novel. Here he is again: The ruined church of Saint Ninian's had, in its time, enjoyed great celebrity; for that mighty system of superstition, which spread its roots over all Europe, had not failed to extend them even to this remote archipelago...as tending to foster the rooted faith of the simple and rude people around in saint-worship, and other erroneous doctrines of the Romish Church.

A final thought: 

...with the unfailing dexterity peculiar to prosers, he contrived to dribble out his tale to double its usual length, by the exercise of the privilege of unlimited digressions...

Is this a note from the author to himself?!

50 Great War Films: Das Boot

 

Directed by Wolfgang Petersen - 1981 Poster

This is the first of the Great War series of films - the 35th - which I have stopped and watched the last part on the following day.  It was very long! The all-new restoration, with a completely new stereo soundtrack, included one hour of additional footage. One wonders which bits they added. The film certainly achieved what it said on the DVD sleeve - it was a graphic and gripping tale, which clearly showed the life-and-death struggle by the U-96 crew. It skilfully meshed the never-ending claustrophobic environment with the hours of boredom being suddenly broken by the terrors of the depth charges, the straffing from the air and the final catastrophe back at the La Rochelle base.

The story is quite a straightforward one. The opening scenes of the raucous behaviour at a French bordello are swiftly contrasted with the silent and - to me - sinister putting  out to sea. I find both helicopters and submarines intensely sinister and would hate to be in either. Once at sea, the film explores the various characters - the three which stood out for me were the Captain (Jürgen Prochnow), who is openly ant-Nazi and critical of the way the war is being waged; Lieut Werner (Herbert Grȍnemeyer), a naive war correspondent who quickly realises the horrors of submarine life; Chief Mechanic Johann (Erwin Leder), who worships his engines and whose mental breakdown is a marvellous piece of acting.

Tension mounts!

A few reflections on the film. The very first screen shot, fish-pond green, seemingly empty - then a U-boat slowly comes out of the murk toward you; brilliant. The comment by the Captain at the bordello: The old bunch has gone. Look at these new heroes. All wind and smoke. Big mouths. When the sub is 'grounded' on the sea floor in the Gibraltar Straits: To be fearless and alone. The only thing I feel is to be afraid. The knowledge that out of 40,000 serving in the U-Boats, 30,000 never returned.  The steadily mounting level of the water as it pours in through the damaged hull; the destroyer looming out of the sea-mist straight for the surfaced U-Boat; the eerie look of all the various crew wearing oxygen masks; and, the awful final scenes, as 'safe' home, the U-Boat dockyard is attacked by Allied planes, leading to the deaths of several of the main characters - in particular, the Captain, whose last vision is that of his U-Boat sinking.

Surfacing

The production of the movie  took two years (1979-1981) and was the most expensive German film at the time. Scenes were filmed in sequence over a year and this ensured the natural growth of beards and hair and increasing skin pallor (they were forbidden to go outside during the filming!). It is not surprising that the actors showed signs of strain, as, just like real U-Boat sailors, they spent months in the unhealthy and cramped atmosphere. The movie opened in 220 theatres in West Germany and grossed a record $5,176,000 in the first two weeks. Deservedly so.

50 Great War Films: Gallipoli

 

Directed by Peter Weir - 1981 Poster

I approached this movie with caution. I had watched it years ago and remembered there was some bias against the English. This was reinforced by the 'write-up' I read recently. It didn't help that Mel Gibson, whose travesty Braveheart I have never felt inclined to watch, was a major player. However, I found I quite enjoyed the film! Let's get the anti-English bits out of the way first. It is flagged up is early on, when one hears that the English murdered your own grandfather five miles from Dublin - whoops; add an Irish element and we are done for, Another comment follows: I'm not going to fight for the British Empire, I'm going to keep my head down. On the other hand, the attitude of the others in the group, with the background of patriotic Australian/British flag-waving, cancels that out. The two bits which can stick in the craw occur much later on: first in Egypt, when two British officers, one with a mandatory monocle, ride by on horses, with dialogue such as this: Yeah, or we could go and join Dickie and the chaps at 7.00...Are you going to the Governor-General's Ball? Admittedly, the Aussies following on donkeys, turn the scene into a comic one. The main charge against the movie is not it's Australian patriotism - that is not blameworthy - but the accusation that their attack was but a diversion whilst the British soldiers were drinking tea on the beach. That was simply not true. Both scenes could have been cut from the film without ill effect.  The fact that more Frenchmen died in the fighting at Gallipoli than Australians is actually neither here nor there; it was a film about Australian pride and helped to develop such feelings in what was still a relatively 'new' country.

Australia at War

I thought the themes Peter Weir set out to emphasise - loss of innocence in war, mateship and the coming of age of both the soldiers and Australia itself - were well marked out  I liked the first half hour in particular: the training of  the 18 year-old Archy Hamilton (Mark Lee) by his uncle Jack for the sprint race; his race in barefoot against the yob Les McCann, bareback on a horse; the victory against the worldly, unemployed Frank Dunne (Mel Gibson) in the Kimberley Gift Race; the illegal hopping aboard a freight train; the subsequent trek across a dry lake-bed to a cattle station; all these episodes seemed true to the spirit of pre Great War Australia. 

Although Frank fails to get into the glamorous Light Horse, as Archy does, they meet up again at the Training camp in Egypt and Frank is able to join up after all. His fellow infantrymen - three well-played parts, especially 'Snowy' - scoff, but the mateship between the five lasts until the end of the film. The Cairo market scenes are well shot and good fun. Another actor who seemed true-to-life and 'solid' was their officer Major Barton - playing operatic music in his tent while gunshots are heard all around. The Battle of Lone Pine on 6 August 1915, leads to Barney's death and Snowy's almost certain end, lying in hospital in a bad way. If it was true that the Australian were forced to charge the well-defended Turkish lines - fixed bayonets against machine guns - then the ensuing carnage was not only horrific but reprehensible. In reality, it was as much the Australian High Command's incompetence as the British.

I found the symbolic scene of the crosses on the cliff above the bay, with the sun rising on the horizon a little bit too theatrical; the death of Archy, fleet of foot as he charged, then in slow motion, then as a still picture when he was shot, was effective but perhaps too staged. It reminded me of Robert Capa's famous 1936 photograph, The Falling Soldier.

The Australian Falling Soldier

Comments from the accompanying Entrenched: The Making of Gallipoli, which stayed with me, included: The facts make it easy to demonstrate an anti-war theme...naive loyalty...sporting adventure...beginning of an age of cynicism...Mel Gibson described the film as not really a war movie. That's just the backdrop. It's really the story of two young men.

The movie was a Box Office success in Australia but not as successful financially in the international market. Irrespective of the generally positive critical reception, the historical accuracy of the film still engenders historical cultural debates.

2006 DVD

Galt's 'The Ayrshire Legatees' revisited

 

The first edition - 1821

 

Before starting this Blog, I re-read my piece on the book when I first read it last Summer. I haven't changed my opinion, in that I still prefer the Annals to the Ayrshire Legatees. The concept of four different members of the same family writing letters from London back to friends in their home village is a good one, as Galt cleverly puts different angles on the same events being described, whether it be a visit to view King George III's body lying in state at Windsor, or the sea voyage from Leith to London. However, I still found the atrociously spelt missives from Mrs. Pringle more irritating than amusing (although I chuckled at her interest in her daughter's matterormoneal affair). What I can praise Galt for is the juxtaposition of descriptions of London life with the effect on those back in Garnock, really the village gossips. Clearly, a major intention of the author was to highlight the differences in attitudes and social behaviour between the relative 'backwater' of the village and the cosmopolitan Edinburgh and London. Another contrast is between the generations: Andrew and his sister both leave the Garnock world - emphasised by their journeying to France - whilst their parents return to the village. The novel includes commentary on several real characters (including Sir Walter Scott) and feels as if the section on members of the House of Lords, with their strengths and weakness, was Galt's own views.

The call to London is received by the 

Legatees of Colonel Armour

One little humorous cameo I liked was the Sunday morning the Schoolmaster and Session-Clerk, Mr. Micklewham dropped in to see the Rev. Mr. Charles Snodgrass, who had been appointed to officiate during the absence of Dr. Pringle in London: upon being admitted, he found the young helper engaged at breakfast, with a book lying on his table, very like a volume of a new novel called Ivanhoe, in its appearance, but of course it must have been sermons done up in that manner to attract fashionable readers. As soon, however, as Mr. Snodgrass saw his visitor, he hastily removed the book, and put it into the table-drawer. Priceless!

Rev Snodgrass hides Ivanhoe

Dr. Pringle may be likened to an egg - not the curate's but a 'good' one. From first to last he is thinking of others, regularly and quietly sending home directives to help the poor. At the very end, he takes Rev. Snodgrass aside, to support him in his wish to marry Miss Bell Todd - as the Lord has put it in my power to do a good action both to you and my people...

...the gate unclosed, and the doctor came forth...

Galt finishes his tale with a warm appraisal of the good Dr. Pringle: he was of that easy sort of feather-bed corpulency of form that betokens good nature...he has smartened himself up since his London sojourn...his stockings, which were wont to be of worsted, had undergone a translation into silk...he had exchanged the simplicity of his own respectable grey hairs for the cauliflower hoariness of a PARRISH wig, on which he wore a broad brimmed hat, turned up a little at each side behind, indicatory of Episcopalian predilections (and good for him, these harmless minor vanities)...the moment that the doctor made his appearance, his greeting and salutation was quite delightful; it was that of a father returned to his children, and a king to his people. What satire is used with regards Dr. Pringle (in fact, his entire family) is done in a kindly manner by Galt. All in all, an affectionate book, sharing with the reader the mainly endearing foibles of the Pringles, the Argents and the villagers back home.

50 Great War Films: The Big Red One

 

Directed by Samuel Fuller - 1980 poster

I am not certain how to 'rate' this film. It is certainly at the lower end of the thirty-two Great War Films I have watched so far. Perhaps, it is unlucky coming straight after a viewing of Apocalypse Now. After a night's sleep on it, I realise one has to approach the movie as Fuller described it: essentially it is a Diary of a group of men, charting their story across several theatres of war - North Africa in November 1942; Sicily in July 1943; the Omaha D-Day beach in June 1944; Belgium in September 1944; Germany in October 1944; and the horrors of a concentration camp gas chambers in Czechoslovakia in May 1945. Clearly shot on a comparatively low budget, the scenes are focused on the four men, under Lee Marvin as the Sergeant. There are solid performances from Mark Hamill (Private Griff), Robert Carradine (Private Zab), Bobby Di Cicco (Private Vinci) and Kelly Ward (Private Johnson). Apparently, John Wayne was lined up to play the Sergeant - that would have transformed (ruined?) the group ethic, as he would have been too 'big' a character and the audience focus would have had him in the spotlight too much. 

The famous Five

I found the beginning, with its dead-strewn battlefield, grouped around a stark crucifixion cross, surreal. This was further emphasised by the frightened horse trampling Marvin etc. One of the few false 'notes' was when the Sergeant came across the same cross on his way across Europe 26 years later. The sheer unlikelihood cancelled out any poetic imagery.

The battlefield Cross

Moments that stand out from the film include: the tanks rolling over the squad hiding in self-made foxholes; the little Italian boy pulling a cart containing his dead mother, trying desperately to get her buried in a proper cemetery inside a decent coffin; the inmates of the asylum joining in the shooting; the attempts, eventually successful, to help a French woman give birth in a German tank;  the Nazi being shot dead whilst cowering in a holocaust oven; the Jewish boy saved at the same liberated camp by Marvin; the Sicilian farm-worker women viciously stabbing a dead German with their scythes. Memorable phrases included: The creepy thing about battle is you always feel alone; Surviving is the only glory in War; We don't murder, we kill; poussez not pussy! 

There were generally favourable reviews when the film came out in 1980. The story of the film's restoration twenty-odd years later is of interest in itself. Working with 70,000 feet of vault materials and Fuller's original shooting script, a group not only reconstructed the movie but added 47 minutes to bring it closer to Fuller's planned production before the Studio took it away from him. Good old film critic Roger Ebert, hit the nail on the head when he wrote: "A" war movies are about war, but "B" movies are about soldiers. That's exactly what The Big Red One was about.

2004 DVD

Galt's 'Annals of the Parish' revisited

 

First edition - 1821

My first Blog on this John Galt novel - possibly his most well-known - was on 7th June 2020. I remember being quite taken with both the style and content and this re-reading - exactly 200 years to the month since it was first published - has done nothing to change my mind. I think the best tribute I can pay Galt is to to say that I began to believe Balwhidder was a real parson engaged in genuine work over fifty years. I am not alone: William Blackwood, the publisher of the book, told Galt that his mother had read the book, thinking Balwhidder was an upright minister of the Word. She became angry when one of her grandsons told her it was actually a novel! Balwhidder is not a cipher of the author; he appears as a real personality. The revered essayist/critic, V. S. Pritchett, entitles the Chapter on Galt and the Annals in his The Living Novel, A Scottish Documentary.

Rev. Micah Balwhidder with his wife (1st? 2nd? 3rd?!)

A strength of the Annals is that national - even international events - are seamlessly interwoven with local affairs. There is movement and progression throughout: the establishment of Cayenneville mirrors what was really happening at Robert Owen's New Lanark (a great place to visit); the improvement in farming by Balwhidder's second father-in-law, Mr. Kibbock, with his plantation of fir-trees on the bleak and barren tops of the hills of his farm. The effects of improved conditions in his parish, leads Balwhidder to exclaim: The minds of men were excited to new enterprises; a new genius, as it were, had descended upon the earth, and there was an erect and outlying spirit abroad that was not to be satisfied with the taciturn regularity of ancient affairs. Content for so long with just the Scots Magazine for his written news, Balwhidder soon realises the immediacy of the newspapers that arrive, eventually to be had from the new bookshop in Cayenne. 

The tea-drinker

The tea!  At first the pastor disperses a group of women secretly engaged in the new vice of tea drinking. Then, in the very next chapter, tea appears in the Manse. Much later on we find Mrs Balwhidder has bought a silver teapot. Change is all around. Moreover, the availability of sugar from the West Indies leads to the fashion of making jam and jelly, which hitherto had  been only known in the kitchens and confectionaries of the gentry.  The new turn-pike road not only leads to additional house building but to a stage-coach timetable to Glasgow.

The murderer returns

Not all is rosy. There is the murder committed by Patrick O'Neil, a catholic Irish corporal, on Jean Glaikit; a gamekeeper seduces the pastor's parlour maid; the awful death by burning of Miss Grizy/Girzie; the demise of Nanse Birrel, found upside down in a well; the wilful shooting of Lord Eglesham by the exciseman Mungo Argyle.

I commented in some detail in my June 2020 Blog on Galt's wonderful cast of characters, so there is no need to repeat; but I found myself warming even more to the pastor and understood more deeply the powerful Cayenne, with all his faults and virtues, One critic has argued Galt establishes a conspiracy  between himself and the reader. We quickly catch on that Balwhidder is not over-bright and rarely has a sense of proportion. It is a sustained exercise in the "irony of self-delusion" and unconscious self-revelation. There is the marvellous account by the pastor of his preaching to the General Assembly in Edinburgh, where the sure and steadfast earth itself was grown coggly beneath my feet, as I mounted the pulpit and where there was a sough in the kirk over some of his words!

I also made much of the humour in the Annals. I still chuckle at the thought of the first Mrs Balwhidder's headstone settling the wrong way when the second Mrs Balwhidder was laid by her side! V. S. Pritchett writes that Balwhidder belongs to the best dry vintage of Scottish humour, with its strange conflicting tangs of primness and animal  spirits. The courtship of the third Mrs Balwhidder is a masterpiece of comic writing. Of course, one important aspect of the humour is that we feel Balwhidder is probably unconscious as to how comical he is. His sense of self-importance as both a pastor and an annalist is clear. Naive, backward-looking, often self-indulgent, prudent, superstitious, sometimes depressed and lonely, the pastor can still elicit sympathy, even warmth, from the reader.

As P. H. Scott has remarked: Annals of the Parish is a book which can be read in at least three ways: as an evocation of a period, as an illustration of a theory of social change, or quite simply as a highly entertaining comedy. I like to think I read it throughout in 'triplicate'.

Scott's 'Kenilworth' 1821

 

First edition - 1821

Kenilworth is set squarely in 1575, the year that the Earl of Leicester played host to Queen Elizabeth at his magnificent castle. Dudley's father had been given the fortress in 1553 and it was restored to his son by the Queen in 1563. The famous festivities lasted 19 days.`

Cumnor Place, now in Oxfordshire

Walter Scott's novel centres on the secret marriage of the Earl of Leicester to Amy Robshart, daughter of Sir Hugh Robshart. Leicester's ambition (even the chance of marriage to the Queen) means Amy is kept  (really imprisoned) at Cumnor Place, then in Berkshire, by henchmen, including Anthony Foster - Tony Fire-the Faggot - the drunkard Michael Lambourne and, off-and-on, Richard Varney, Dudley's evil squire. Trying first to find Amy, and then extricate her from the villains, is the Cornishman, Tressillian, once Amy's suitor and delegate from her distraught old father. He is joined by Wayland Smith** and, later, by Dickie Sludge (Flibbertigibbet). Amy is spirited away to Kenilworth, but disaster follows, leading to Amy's murder by Lambourne back at Cumnor. He is executed and Foster is found years later - a skeleton in the secret room found at the Place (shades of Francis Lovel and Minster Lovel!).

The Earl of Leicester in 1575

The problem is that, for all the splendid scenes - at Greenwich Palace, at Cumnor Place and in Kenilworth Castle - the basic plot is historical nonsense!

• Amy Robshart had been dead for 15 years in 1575. She was never Countess of Leicester. Far from being a clandestine affair taking place in Elizabeth's Reign, her marriage to Lord Robert Dudley was known to all. It took place at Sheen Palace, in the presence of Edward VI, on 4 June 1550. She was the only child of a substantial Norfolk (not Cornish) gentleman, Sir John Robshart. She broke her neck falling downstairs at Cumnor in September 1560. She may have died from breast cancer, but many thought the death suspicious and not an accident. Dudley was suspended from Court, Elizabeth ordered an enquiry which exonerated him; but few outside his family were convinced. Elizabeth resumed her indiscreet visits to Dudley. The latter was made Earl of Leicester in September 1564. 

Amy Robshart's death

• William Shakespeare, mentioned in the novel as being an adult and as being known at Court, was born in 1564, so would have been an unknown twelve year-old. Elizabeth also quotes from Troilus and Cressida, which was written around 1602.
• Walter Raleigh was not knighted by Elizabeth until 1585. He only settled at Court from 1581.

Raleigh lays down his cloak

** Of interest is the English local tradition, which places Wayland's forge in a Neolithic long barrow mound known as Wayland's Smithy, close to the Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire. If a horse to be shod, or any broken tool, were left with a sixpenny piece at the entrance of the barrow, the repairs would be executed.

Do these major historical inaccuracies matter? Not really. They are no worse than the Americans winning single-handedly every war they fought in. One should enjoy the novel for what it is - fiction and 'poetical fancy'. So, what are its plus sides? The rivalry between Leicester and the Earl of Sussex is well done , with their very different characters delineated; Raleigh is believable, in his first attempts to catch and then keep the queen's eye; the evil of Varney is sustained throughout, always skilfully playing to his master's ambition and weaknesses; Foster has some principles, alien to Varney; Lambourne is more than just a caricature of a drunkard. Scott appears to have eventually got bored (?) with Wayland Smith and, after a mesmerising start, the character loses individuality. Scott's Queen Elizabeth is shrewdly done - here is depicted the true daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, in all her majesty, pomp and circumstance, but also with a woman's heart and longing. The ruler trumps the queen, as it did in real life. 

The fight on the tiltyard - Kenilworth Castle

There is much to admire in the book - both in character drawing and dramatic incidents;  in the claustrophobic, crumbling Cumnor and the magnificent pageantry of Kenilworth. I do feel, though, with John Buchan, that if Scott's understanding was fully engaged in the business, his heart was a little aloof...[it is his] masterpiece in sheer craftsmanship as distinct from inspiration...his learning was more voluminous than exact, and he took bold liberties with history.

Kenilworth Castle

My first edition has been grangerised*, with 133 engravings/copper plates inserted into the three volumes. They are nearly all from the 18th or early 19th centuries.  

* an eponym, commemorating James Granger (vicar of Shiplake in Oxfordshire from 1747 until his death in 1776). He was an early and avid collector of portrait prints, amassing in his lifetime some 14,000 of them. The method was to mount illustrations on sheets of the same size as the book you were grangerising, remove the binding, interpolate the extra sheets and rebind the book. The irony is that Granger himself never grangerised!