1917: Oscar Contender

Operation Alberich was a German retreat, but it was a strategic retreat. It was conducted about a month and a half before America entered WWI, so there was obviously a lot of fighting left to do. The war seems endless for two lance corporals, but time is decidedly short for the completion of their fateful mission in Sam Mendes’s Golden Globe-winning 1917, which opens nationwide this Friday.

Cpl. Tom Blake has been recruited to send a message from Gen. Erinmore to the Devonshire Regiment near the Hindenburg Line, for very personal reasons. His brother, Lt. Joseph Blake serves with the Devonshires and stands to die alongside his men unless he and his mate, Cpl. William Schofield, can reach them before they charge into a certain German ambush. The General has written orders canceling the doomed attack, but reaching them in time will be no easy feat. First, Blake and his mate Cpl. William Schofield must traverse No Man’s Land, the German front line, and several active battle sights.

Superficially, 1917 might sound similar to Saving Private Ryan, but Mendes and co-screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns quickly break the mold of the prior film and turn audience expectations on their ears. Once the film really shows its true colors, the only real kinship it shares with Spielberg’s film are the equally intense battle scenes. In fact, 1917’s incidents of warfighting are sometimes even more visceral, in ways that will have viewers seeking a tetanus shot afterward.

Frankly, 1917 is not easily pigeon-holed as an anti-war film or a celebration of patriotism. It is really just about two young kids trying to survive a war they do not fully comprehend. Mendes & Wilson-Cairns’ narrative, based on the reminiscences of the former’s grandfather Alfred Mendes, is a case of the epic becoming acutely personal. The tone is almost Homeric, but without any pretentious baggage.

The Great War: The Buffalo Soldiers Behind Enemy Lines

One of the great heroes of ragtime-early jazz music was bandleader James Reese Europe, who as a commissioned Lieutenant in the New York National Guard led his military band in performances and the 369^th Infantry, known as the “Harlem Hellfighters” in combat. Educating the public on Europe’s life, music, and legacy is one of our pet projects. Despite their music and service, the Fighting 369^th is not as well-remembered as the 10^th Cavalry Regiment, better known as the “Buffalo Soldiers,” who deserve all their recognition. They served in combat during the American-Indian, the Johnson County, the Spanish-American, and Philippine-American Wars, and very definitely World War I. A somewhat prejudiced white officer will learn to appreciate his Buffalo Soldiers comrades in screenwriter-director Steven Luke’s The Great War, which opens this Friday in New York.

Armistice is imminent, but for geopolitical reasons, the troops in the trenches are supposed to fight to gain every last inch of ground before it goes into effect. Gen. “Black Jack” Pershing is not happy about it, but he has his orders, just like the soldiers under him. However, when he learns the 10^th Cavalry’s heroic push has left them stranded behind enemy lines, he sends orders down the chain-of-command to dispatch a platoon to escort them to safety.

Captain William Rivers is less than thrilled about his assignment. Even though his best friend was the Buffalo Soldiers’ progressive late Captain, he still harbors rather unenlightened racial notions. Some of his men are even worse. However, orders are orders. Grudgingly, he starts to respect Private John Cain, the messenger from the 10^th temporarily attached to his platoon. He also feels mixed feelings of guilt and respect for the mystery Buffalo Soldier who gave him the slapping he needed when temporarily paralyzed by “shellshock.”

Great War could be cynically dubbed “Saving the Buffalo Soldiers,” or “Glory Fifty Years Later,” but it is important to note the African American soldiers will have ample opportunity to fight like Hell during the third act. In fact, Luke does a pretty credible job giving the soldiers of the 10^th independent agency and largely avoiding the pitfalls of “white savior narratives,” to use the nauseatingly woke term. His real talent seems to be staging scenes of warfighting on a limited budget, especially the rousing climatic battle.

Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero

He put Lassie and the dearly departed dog from The Artist to shame. He even did something neither Trump or Obama could be bothered to do. He served his country in military uniform—and he was just a little terrier, but with a big heart. The documented true story of the 102nd Infantry Regiment’s mascot comes to animated life in Richard Lanni’s Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero (trailer here), which opens this Friday nationwide.

The story of the ferocious little canine hero of WWI might sound like a tall tale, but most of the high points of his chronicle are confirmed by the Smithsonian’s “The Price of Freedom” exhibition, where Sgt. Stubby was one of the stars. Like many war heroes, he came from modest beginnings. In this case, he was a stray, living paw-to-mouth on the streets of New Haven before he attached himself to the 102nd in general and particularly to Private Robert Conroy (eventually promoted to Corporal).

In theory, a military base is no place for a pet, but Stubby (he had yet to receive his “rank”) continued to impress Conroy’s sergeant and the commissioned officers above him with his military discipline and his obvious benefits to morale. They intended to leave him behind for his own safety, but he stowed away on the troop transport, like the dogs in The Incredible Journey. At least, that is how Helena Bonham Carter tells the story, in her voice-overs in the persona of Conroy’s beloved sister Margaret, his only family at the time.

Hats off to Lanni and his co-screenwriter Mike Stokey, because they pull off a rather remarkable feat in this film. They give viewers plenty of endearing canine pluckiness, without ever trivializing the harsh reality of war. Through the eyes of Stubby and Conroy with see the terrors of gas attacks, trench warfare, and heavy artillery bombardments. There is never any doubt how brutal the warfighting conditions were for WWI soldiers, yet is it completely appropriate and accessible for family viewing.

The CGI animation is also far better than you would expect from something produced outside the major studios and prestigious boutique shingles. Sgt. Stubby is expressive, while still being relatively dog-like in his movement. Conroy and his G.I. buddies are also reasonably well-developed characters, with very little reliance on shtick or cliché. His garrulous French comrade, Gaston Baptiste (voiced by Gérard Depardieu, doing his best work probably since Valley of Love) is initially a bit of a joie de vivre-stock character, but he has some surprisingly poignant moments in the third act.

Frankly, Sgt. Stubby is a refreshing film in many ways. It has none of the motor-mouthed hipster sarcasm found in recent studio animation. Instead, it takes time to establish its characters and finds lowkey humor in Sgt. Stubby’s appealing dog antics. In terms of tone, Ethel & Ernest might be the closest comparison. Although it forthrightly addresses the horrors of war, it is also still unabashedly patriotic. There is real heroism in this film, both human and canine.

It is worth re-emphasizing most of Sgt. Stubby’s heroics are legitimately documented. He really did go out into No Man’s Land to find wounded soldiers and provided early warning of incoming shells thanks to his superior canine sense of hearing. Heck, you have to wonder why it took so long for someone to make a film about him, but again, Lanni, Stokey, and their producers deserve credit for recognizing the value of his story. This is a classy production, featuring an era-appropriate score composed by regular Kenneth Branagh collaborator Patrick Doyle. Highly recommended for general audiences, Sgt. Stubby opens across the country this Friday, with considerable Thursday evening (4/12) screenings also scheduled, including at the AMC Empire in New York.

Journey’s End: R.C. Sherriff’s Classic Drama, Back on the Big Screen

R.C. Sherriff’s classic stage play was such a definitive depiction of WWI, Heinz Paul opted to maintain the characters’ Britishness for his 1931 German language film production. Ironically, it would be Aces High, a 1976 Franco-British co-pro that took the most liberties, shifting the drama from the trenches to a fighter squadron. This time around, director Saul Dibb and screenwriter Simon Reade closely follow the original text with their faithful yet still powerful adaptation of Journey’s End (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Hopelessly naïve with respect to the war, 2^nd Lt. Raleigh manages to get himself assigned to the infantry company of Captain Stanhope, his senior at school and his sister’s romantic interest. Unfortunately, the war has taken a drastic emotional toll on Stanhope, who now regularly self-medicates with whiskey. Nevertheless, his is still the best trench-level officer in the British Army.

With the launch of what would be known as the Spring Offensive imminent, Raleigh’s timing is downright perverse. In fact, Stanhope bitterly resents his presence, fearing Raleigh will inform his sister of his post-traumatic condition and that Raleigh’s blind hero-worship will lead to his death. The latter concern becomes especially pressing when Stanhope’s superiors order him to dispatch Raleigh and the beloved second-in-command, Lt. “Uncle” Osborne on a dubious daytime raid.

Dibb opens up the drama just a bit, giving viewers a sense of the intricacies of the trenches, but he retains the feeling of airless claustrophobia. Just being there looks like a miserable experience, so it is easy to see how the added tension of the anticipated German attack would try men’s souls. The film itself feels more than sufficiently realistic, but Dibb is also clearly attuned to the institutionalized class differences between officers and the enlisted.

Sam Claflin is terrific and almost terrifyingly intense as Stanhope. It is an achingly brittle performance that actually pairs up nicely with his work in Their Finest, which is tonally quite different, yet shares some overlapping themes. Likewise, Paul Bettany really gives the film depth and soul with his humanistic portrayal of Osborne. Much like he did in Zoo, Toby Jones finds his opportunities to inject pathos and dignity into Mason the cook, who might otherwise be a stock character cliché in someone else’s hands. Frankly, the maturation and disillusionment of Asa Butterfield’s Raleigh seems a bit slow, but his character is really just there to serve as a foil and mirror to Stanhope.

It is nice to see Dibb finally get another film released in American theaters after the Weinsteins dithered away his quality adaptation of Suite Française. This is an even better film that captures the horrifying futility of war without indulging in graphic gore. Highly recommended, Journey’s End opens today (3/16) in New York, at the Landmark 57.

Testament of Youth: Vera Brittain Witnesses WWI

Fortunately for Vera Brittain, Hitler also had it in for pacifists. News that she was in the National Socialist’s infamous “Black Book” of prominent citizens to be immediately detained on the event of a successful German occupation provided her a lot of cover. It is important to remember she came by her pacifism honestly, witnessing the horrors of the WWI. As a V.A.D. nurse, Brittain will see her generation decimated by war, including all those nearest to her in James Kent’s adaptation of her enduring memoir, Testament of Youth (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

With name like hers, Vera Brittain sounds like the perfect spokesperson for King and Country propaganda. Instead she would become a tireless campaigner for pacifism, feminism, and the failed League of Nations. However, she started on the same page as her contemporaries. In fact, it was she who interceded on behalf of her brother Edward to convince their father to allow his enlistment. She will soon bitterly regret it, but at the time she thought she had to return the favor. After all, Edward had helped convince Mr. Brittain to allow her to study at Oxford, at a time when it was considered rather counter-productive for a socially presentable young woman.

Through her brother, Vera Brittain meets her future fiancé, poet Roland Leighton. This leaves their old chum Victor Richardson as the odd man out, first rejected by Vera (for whom he had long held a torch) and then initially disqualified by the armed forces on physical grounds. Much to her unease, Leighton is readily accepted into service. When the war drags on, just as Mr. Brittain feared, Richardson eventually becomes more than fit enough for duty. Wishing to do her part too, Vera Brittain volunteers as a nurse. She will be spared the trenches, but she will still see a lifetime’s worth of carnage.

Trench warfare was just no way to conduct a war. After watching Testament, Water Diviner, or any film about WWI, viewers will never begrudge the use of drones by coalition forces in Afghanistan ever again. Of course, anyone who knows his Hemingway or Remarque knows the general trajectory of Testament, but seeing the inevitable tragedy play out over the course of the war is quite compelling. The running time of one hundred twenty-nine minutes is a tad long, but Kent (whose extensive television credits include Inside Men and The White Queen) crafts some wonderfully fragile little moments, coaxing deeply felt performances from the accomplished ensemble.

Alicia Vikander is perfectly suited to Kent’s sensitive but restrained approach. We can practically see and feel her internalizing all of Brittain’s guilt, grief, and anguish. Despite his early bluster, Dominic West (who played a shell-shocked WWI veteran in The Awakening) has some quietly devastating moments as Mr. Brittain, who understands war well enough to fear for the worst. The Oxford lads all largely look and sound alike, but Colin Morgan really put in the time and effort researching war blindness to convincingly portray Richardson.

Clearly, his years toiling in TV have honed Kent’s instincts. He nimbly tip toes around potential schmaltz, but still delivers the expected quota of emotion. The scene showcasing Leighton’s celebrated battlefield poem “Villanelle” is a fitting case in point. Dialing down the soaring strings and rending of garments, Kent simply allows viewers to connect with his words and the images of his final war-torn days.

Suddenly more commercial than anyone probably expected thanks to Vikander’s career momentum generated by Ex Machina, Testament should well satisfy fans of classy British costume dramas and historical romances. An elegant production, Testament of Youth is recommended for literate audiences when it opens this Friday (6/5) in New York, at the Angelika Film Center.

Private Peaceful: Brothers in Arms

When two movie brothers go off to war, it is a lead pipe cinch one of them is not coming back. The questions will be which one and under what circumstances. The answers will be revealed in a series of flashbacks throughout Pat O’Connor’s WWI drama, Private Peaceful (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Adapted from the novel by War Horse author Michael Morpurgo, Private will incorporate the themes of Paths of Glory and Saving Private Ryan within trenches of Flanders, but Simon Reade’s screenplay scrupulously takes its time establishing the Peaceful family dynamics before reaching that point. Charlie Peaceful is the older, brasher brother, who always looked out for the shier, more sensitive Thomas “Tommo” Peaceful. Poor Tommo will become increasingly withdrawn, first blaming himself for the death of their gamekeeper father and then watching Charlie marry Molly Monks, the childhood friend they both love, after getting her in a family way.

Initially, Tommo Peaceful volunteers as a way of escaping his broken heart, but he quickly learns the bitter realities of trench fighting and chemical warfare. Soon his brother enlists, despite his parental obligations, in order to keep Tommo alive. Naturally, Charlie Peaceful clashes badly with the gung ho Sgt. Hanley, ultimately leading to the court martial seen in deliberately cagey snippets throughout the film.

The notion that the officers and war boosters were blithely anticipating previous wars is hardly a new insight, but Private adds a clumsy element of class warfare in the person of the corpulent Colonel, who owns the estate employing the Peacefuls’ father and subsequently exploiting the Peaceful mother and brothers. “Guns and horses, that’s how we beat the Boers,” he blusters. As great as the late Richard Griffiths was (we prefer to remember him in Withnail & I rather than Harry Potter), his turn as the Colonel is total caricature.

On the other hand, the fraternal drama is rather honest stuff, quite nicely turned by two of the UK’s fastest rising stars. Private technically predates ’71 and For Those in Peril, clearly showing why Yann Demange picked Jack O’Connell as the young face of war’s chaos in the former, while George MacKay demonstrates an affinity for guilt-tormented brothers that would also manifest in the latter.

In fact, O’Connell is considerably more dynamic here than he is convincingly portraying Demange’s overwhelmed fresh recruit. Indeed, it is the young cast members who carry Private, including the smaller supporting players, such as Eline Powell, who is terrific as Anna, Tommo’s potential French love interest.

While it lacks the tragic sweep of Galipoli, Private is an effectively micro-focused period anti-war film that should be considered a cut or two above standard PBS Masterpiece programming. O’Connor balances the familial drama with the horrors of war well enough in the third act, but tarries somewhat in the mid-section devoted to the difficult days following the senior Peaceful’s death. Earnest and respectable, Peaceful Private is recommended on balance for fans of British literary adaptations when it opens this Friday (10/31) in New York at the AMC Empire.

Restored: All Quiet on the Western Front (Silent)

It might just be the last truly great anti-war film. Nobody begrudged Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front (trailer here) its 1930 Academy Awards for best picture and director, not even in retrospect. Yet, very few saw the picture as Milestone had originally conceived it, because of last minute cuts the studio made to the domestic sound print. However, as was common practice at the time, a silent version was simultaneously shot for the foreign market. Considered much closer to Milestone’s intended cut, the longer silent print has recently been restored and preserved by the Library of Congress, and will play a special one day engagement at Film Forum on August 3rd.

Strictly speaking, the restored silent print of Quiet is not completely silent. In addition to the original score, there are ambient crowd noises and other such effects. Frankly, the nature of Erich Remarque’s story is such that extensive dialogue is not necessary. It simply follows the tragic story arc of Paul Baumer and his fellow students, who are encouraged to enlist by a militaristic professor, only to be disillusioned by the harsh realities of trench warfare.

Nearly eighty years later, Milestone’s film is still probably the most successful cinematic depiction of WWI’s miserable fighting conditions. Its reconstruction of the trenches and tunnels along the front lines has yet to be equaled on film. While nothing explicitly graphic is seen on-screen, the horror of war remains inescapable.

As many have observed, there was only a limited window in which an anti-war film with sympathetic German protagonists could have been filmed before the threat of National Socialism would have rendered it highly distasteful to the general public. Still, Quiet also critiques the warmongering attitudes of the German government, as represented by Baumer’s demagogic professor.

Quiet was Lew Ayres breakout film, and even without dialogue, he is quite compelling as Baumer, expressing his religious piety and basic decency, as well as a growing contempt for the German war machine. In fact, all his brothers-in-arms are played with straight forward effectiveness. Arguably, the film only descends into the realm of melodrama during the civilian scenes.

Ultimately, the silent version holds up remarkably well not just as a historical curiosity but as a film in its own right. Though it was produced during the transitional period between the end of silent pictures and the early days of talkies, Quiet is still an impressive cinematic achievement. It will have three screenings at Film Forum on Monday (8/3).