Category Archives: Movie

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The Big Parade (1925) A Guest Post by nem baj

Today’s review is a Guest Post by one of my regular visitors, nem baj. It’s a post on one of the great war movie classics. I hope you will enjoy it.

The Big Parade (1925), the mother of all war movies?

The biggest hit of american cinema until Gone With the Wind was a war movie. Its commercial success was a surprise: in 1925, so close to World War I, the subject was still considered to be doomed at the U.S. box-office. King Vidor’s The Big Parade definitely reversed the tide, and its later influence on so many filmmakers makes it a must-see for the readers of this blog (1).

The Big Parade follows Jim, a young American man from an upper-class family who, like many others of different backgrounds, enlists in the Infantry and goes fighting in Europe. He will experience military life and love in the French countryside, then the horrors and glories of the Great War. This simple storyline is a perfect vehicle for a very strong theme in the director’s work: that of the individual at grips with society, the pressure of one’s social circles and the collective passions of the time (from The Crowd to The FountainHead).

Between two ‘book-ends’ sequences about Jim’s (John Gilbert) civilian life, the story is two-fold, almost perfectly symmetrical. The first part looks like a ‘military comedy’, young troopers making buddies and flirting with French women despite the language barrier, getting into rows, coping with the oddities of service… It is nicely shot, funny like only silents can be, and full of Vidoresque traits. For instance the scene when Mélisande (Renée Adorée) watches Jim’s buddy naked under their improvised shower – this was of course pre-code – which will find its clothed replica in The FountainHead; the moment when she rubs on her skin a rose she just picked, in order to smell good, and of course the chewing-gum initiation…

At some point the first time viewer might be tempted to wonder where this is going. After all isn’t this depiction of, well, American sex tourists, while so many others were dying, outrageous? Now, if these idyllic moments got to you by their simple poetry and lust for life, you’re in for a dramatic turn right in the middle of the film. In a masterful eight minutes scene – the departure of Jim’s unit for the front, leaving Mélisande behind – your heart should be wrenched, and you’ll start to feel exactly what humans leave behind when a war starts.

Then comes the second part, with its emblematic shots. The symmetry between the column of rookies riding to the front and the column of ambulances bringing back the wounded (Monicelli’s train scene in La Grande Guerra), the claustrophobia of the shell-holes (Milestone’s All Quiet…, Kubrick’s Paths of Glory), the difference between war and murder (Kobayashi’s Human Condition), the ensemble march in the woods (Kubricks’ Full Metal Jacket final shot), the contrast between disciplined fighting and the rage when your friends are killed (too many to list), etc.

Sure, you’ve seen all this in later movies. But this is the original grammar book, and Vidor is at his best: the cinematography, the editing are amazing, constantly switching between very wide shots and intimate ones to compose a lyrical vision of… hell. For war is undoubtedly a man-made hell in this film. Yet, the tour de force of Vidor’s movie is that it is beyond the pacifist debate: « The Big Parade charts a modern progress through a crazy world. Neither picaro nor pilgrim, [Jim] drifts, marches, stumbles upon a landscape he never made »(2).

The last ‘bookend’ sequence, the return to civilian life, might seem quaint. Yet it does not depart from the lyricism of the work, torn between human despair and hopes. The flashback in the mind of Jim’s mother, the ending between Jim and Mélisande (a soft rehearsal for Duel in the Sun‘s finale?) should please any opera lover, and the ‘lost generation’ gaze of John Gilbert when he rides home with his father is probably the best introduction to Scott Fitzgerald ever filmed…

1) No DVD yet, you may watch clips here (click twice on the “play now” links on the right to avoid the ads).
2) Raymond Durgnat & Scott Simon, King Vidor, American, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

Thanks, nem baj, for a great contribution. 

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The Battle of Algiers – La battaglia di Algeri (1966)

People often think that Gillo Pontecorvo’s movie The Battle of Algiers or La battaglia di Algeri is a French movie but the movie is Italian/Algerian, spoken in French and Arabic. It has been commissioned by the Algerian government. The topic – the war in Algeria – is still controversial in France. While it is meanwhile called “a war” and not only a “pacification intervention” – or whatever euphemism was chosen at the time – many of the aspects of the war are still not spoken about openly. One of them being the “interrogation techniques”. Another euphemism. I suppose this was one of the reasons why Pontecorvo’s movie has not been shown in France until recently. Another one may be that it pretends to be very impartial and realistic  and has also said to be exactly that while I feel it is entirely anti-French and one of the most tendentious movies I’ve ever seen. I think it is important to say the truth but it’s equally important to capture complexities.

Many critics think Battle of Algiers is one of the best war movies ever made. It received many prizes and is almost always mentioned on lists. I agree with some of this but I still think it’s a highly problematic and polemic movie.

The movie starts in 1957 with the end of a torture scene. A man has given away information and is now taken along to the hideout of four members of the FLN. From there the movie goes back to 1954 and we see how a young Algerian man Ali La Pointe is arrested. France has been occupying Algeria for far over hundred years now and oppressed the population. Algiers is a divided city with two parts. The Casbah, narrow labyrinthine streets in which the Muslim population lives, and the rest of city in which the French live. Racism and social injustice are habitual.

When Ali gets out of prison he joins the FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) – The National Liberation Front. They are organised in small groups whose identity is unknown to the members. There are only two or three people who know each other.

They start their uprising or revolution with small terrorist acts, shooting individual police men. When the French police start to close off the Casbah with barbed wire and search all the people who enter or exit the perimeter, the tensions rise and new tactics and recruiting methods have to be found. Civilian places like cafés, bars and restaurants are bombed. That’s the time when even women and children join the FLN and plant bombs.

Clearly the police do not have the power to fight the terrorists and that’s when the French Army sends a special unit of paratroopers led by Colonel Mathieu, fresh from Indochina. Mathieu knows that he has to cut off the head of the organisation but since there are only a very few people who know very few others it’s not an easy undertaking. A special “interrogation method” has to be applied. This method consists in torturing systematically every member of the FLN who has been arrested. And probably many others.

At the end of the first wave of uprising, the order is restored but unrest will break out again a few years later until Algeria will be granted independence in 1962.

The movie shows this in gritty black and white pictures which make it look like a documentary. There is no likable character in this whole movie, there is no side that isn’t shown in all of its determined ugliness. Still I found it tendentious because it leaves out that there were a lot of pro-French Algerians in the country, al lot of Algerians in the French army and a lot of pro-Algerian French as well. The so-called pieds noirs, French people, like the writer Camus, born in Algeria, loved their country and were about to lose it. Furthermore by depicting the battle in Algiers only, the film makers avoided to show what was happening in the mountains where all the French soldiers captured by Algerians were tortured and mutilated, Christian nuns were found nailed to crosses and other atrocities were committed.

Now why is this movie considered to be so great? I would say there are two reasons. I was reminded of Rome, Open City when I watched it as it is very close to Italian neo-realism. The way it is filmed is outstanding, We really think we see a documentary and original footage. The faces of the actors are expressive, the torture scenes are very powerful, notably when we see the faces of the men after they have been tortured and see the mixed emotions and shame. The opening scene illustrates this eloquently. What also contributes to the realism is the use of music and sound. Music is used sparingly, we hear drums and ululating sounds made by women which convey a sense of authenticity.

Another reason why I think this movie is so highly rated, especially by US critics, is the topic. I don’t think all that many non-French people are familiar with the war in Algeria. The fact that we see something in this movie with which the US has been confronted on a regular basis since 9/11 may have contributed to the movies’ appreciation. How uncanny to see a movie made in 1966 showing war taking place inside of houses and narrow city streets. An enemy who is hidden among the normal people who uses the attire of religious women, hides guns and bombs under veils. An enemy who recruits even young children and indoctrinates them from an early age on. That’s why the movie has been shown regularly by the Pentagon to officers and experts of the war against terrorism since 2003.

In 2004 a restored version of the movie was shown in US cinema’s and met with a new success. It’s only after this screening that it was also finally shown in France where it was now equally successful. It seems it was never officially forbidden in France but didn’t receive an authorisation to be shown until 1970 and then, through acts of intimidation, cinema owners were kept from showing it.

While the filming reminded me of Rome, Open City, I had to compare it to two much later movies as well. One being Black Hawk Down, the other one Battle for Haditha. I’m sure I will write more about this movie in the future, looking at parallels to other movies and influences.

I think Battle of Algiers is an explosive, topical and very important movie. It’s a must see for people interested in war movies and cinema history. It clearly shows the ugly face of colonialism; the French interrogation techniques which were a breach of Human Rights, as well as the acts of terrorism of the FLN against innocent civilians. Still, I find it’s a biased movie. It had to be, I suppose.

While considered by many to be great, others think that nowadays it’s thought to be great because it can be instrumentalized and used by both parties, terrorists and the army alike.

Just a final word on my ambivalent feelings towards this movie. I am not saying that I think the presence of France in Algeria was justified. I think that colonialism is a plague, an atrocity for which we still pay and will keep on paying. But I think that once a country has been present in another country for many generations it’s not as simple as good versus bad anymore. It’s much more complex than that and those of colonialist origin born in those countries will suffer too, not only the indigenous people. I think this side of the human drama has been left out as well as the human drama of the drafted French soldiers who had to fight in Algeria. Colonel Mathieu who is based on a real life officer, General Jacques Massu was one side of the medal, a right-wing General whose only aim was to keep French territory at any cost. There were many others dragged into this conflict against their will.

For these reason I still think when it comes to the war in Algeria L’ennemi intime aka Intimate enemies is by far more balanced. If you are going to watch it, pair it with Days of Glory – Indigènes, they go together very well.

For those interested here are a few names of Pieds-Noirs celebrities.

Albert Camus, Claudia Cardinale, Daniel Auteuil, Yves St.Laurent, Jacques Derrida and many more.

If you understand French, here’s an interesting mini-documentary on the history of The Battle of Algiers.

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A Matter of Life and Death aka Stairway to Heaven (1946)

After having watched and loved The Archers’ (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, I decided that I will watch all of their movies sooner or later. I’m not sure I would have taken the same decision if I had seen A Matter of Life and Death aka Stairway to Heaven (the US title) first. It was too… Hmmm… Not sure what word I’m looking for here. It seems it is on position 20 of the BFI’s Top 100 list (yes, another list but one I like). Surprising.

The story is pretty simple. The RAF pilot and squadron leader Peter Carter (David Niven) tries to fly back to England in a burning Lancaster bomber. His crew has bailed out, one of his men is lying dead in the aircraft. Before deciding that he will bail out as well, despite the fact that he has no parachute, he manages to contact June (Kim Hunter), an American radio operator, based in England. They talk for a while and immediately feel a very strong connection.

Lucky for Carter, his Other World guide misses him in the thick English fog and instead of being guided to heaven, Carter wakes up on a beach. He thinks at first he’s dead but then realizes that he has somehow survived and only minutes later he sees a girl on a bicycle riding along the beach. He runs after her and – what a coincidence – finds out it’s June. When it dawns on them that they had been speaking to each other just a while ago and that he should actually be dead, they fall in love immediately.

Although Carter seems unharmed, he has hallucinations in which he meets his guide who wants him to come to heaven with him. Carter refuses and wants to appeal before the superior court in heaven in order to be granted to stay alive. While Carter thinks he is visited by someone from the other world, June asks a friend, Doctor Reeves (Robert Livesey), for help. Reeves thinks that Carter suffers from a rare condition and needs surgery.

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when our two main characters fall in love so speedily and call each other “darling” only moments after having met. Still, it’s an amusing movie but the appeal for me was not in the story.

I liked that the real life scenes were shot in Technicolor, while the afterlife scenes were shot in black and white (reversing the effect in The Wizard of Oz) . The Archers’ use of color is quite special and I think they did a really great job here.

What was also interesting is the American-British theme. We all know that the British called the American soldiers “overpaid, oversexed and over here” and there was a lot of resentment going hand in hand with this expression. The Americans joined the war late and were fresh and crispy and had a lot of money and managed to seduce quite a lot of British girls, while the Brits had already fought for several years, were tired and worn out. The movie tried to reverse this in choosing to depict an American girl falling in love with a British officer. The heavenly court also plays heavily on this theme.

There is one sequence which is quite funny. The first heavenly jury has to be dismissed as the members are all from countries which had been wronged by the British at some point during history. The prosecutor is an American as well, Abraham Farlan, the first victim of the American Revolutionary war.

If you are a fan of The Archers or interested in British cinema and cinema of the 40s, don’t miss it. I think it’s interesting from the point of view of cinema history and amusing enough but I can’t say it was my cup of tea. As far as war romances go, I’ve seen movies I liked much more.

I couldn’t find  a trailer but you can watch the whole movie on YouTube. Here is Part I

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Nordwand – North Face (2008)

Maybe the German/Austrian/Swiss co-production Nordwand – North Face isn’t strictly speaking a war movie but it contains one of my favourite subjects, Nazi ideology and propaganda and therefore still qualifies. Plus it’s a stunning movie which had me glued to the screen until the end.

Before I start the summary, let me share a little anecdote. I remember when I was a kid we stayed at the holiday house of my parent’s friends in the Alps. The house was facing the Eiger. I was just 8 years old and scared. I found the mountain to look as if it was looming. I had the feeling it was moving towards me and just about to swallow me. I had no idea at the time that Eiger means ogre. Funny enough, my father, a typical big city person, had a similar reaction. He wasn’t scared but admitted to feeling uncomfortable. My mother who had been living in Switzerland much longer, didn’t mind that much but she didn’t enjoy it either.

When I saw North Face I was catapulted back to this holiday. I’ve hardly ever seen a movie capture how scary those mountains are. The Eiger’s North Face (Nordwand) was called “Mordwand” (murder wall) for a reason.

The movie is set in 1936. Until then nobody had managed to climb the north face of the Swiss massif the Eiger. Athletism was an important pillar of Nazi ideology and propaganda. Athletes incorporated the Nazi ideal to perfection so naturally there was a lot of interest in Germans being the first to manage what nobody else had managed before. At the same time as Germany was about to annex Austria and the Olympics were imminent, a win on the Eiger would be good for the reputation of the Nazis.

Luise Fellner is a young woman trying to become a journalist. She grew up with Toni Kurz and Andi Hinterstoisser who are some of the best climbers at the time. When her boss, an eager journalist, finds out about the connection he sends her to her home village to try to persuade them to climb the North Face and give her the chance to prove herself as a photojournalist. Despite Andi’s efforts to convince his friend, Toni, the more thoughtful of the two, is reluctant. He thinks climbing the Eiger is by far too dangerous. Only when Andi finally decides to do it on his own, he follows him.

Luise and her boss travel to Switzerland and stay at the hotel in front of the Eiger. Meanwhile it has become a real competition. There are climbing teams from Italy, France and Austria. In the end only two teams, the German and the Austrian team, will start the climb.

Nordwand is an amazing movie. The cinematography is stunning. This is as close to climbing as you can get without actually doing it. It’s also a love story and the story of an emancipation as Luise faces a lot of prejudice and sexism in her profession. Furthermore it is a story of a unique friendship and one of the most tragic true stories I’ve ever seen.

The movie also shows nicely how the media contributed to the success of nazism, how people already then were keen on sensationalism, how they were hungry for drama and tragedy without thinking of the human pain and loss this meant. There are some interesting secondary characters who illustrate this well.

Another aspect which certainly contributes to the movie’s success are the actors. They  are outstanding, Ulrich Tukur plays the overeager older journalist, Johanna Wolkalek stars as the young photojournalist and the two mountaineers are played by Benno Fürmann as Toni Kurz and as Florian Lukas as Andi Hinterstoisser.

North Face is one of the best mountaineering movies, certainly a great war themed movie but most of all an incredible and really tragic true story.

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Movies on the American Civil War: A List

Quite a long time ago I have written a post with a list on the American Indian Wars, now is finally the turn of the American Civil War. In a few weeks you can expect a list of movies on the war of Independence. Like with most of my earlier lists, I haven’t seen all of he movies and I may very well have forgotten some. Do, as always, tell me which are the ones you like best and add those I have forgotten. I still need to review Ride With the Devil, which is together with Glory my favourite. I had a hard time watching Gettysburg and really needed the subtitles. I could hardly understand the accents. Gone with the Wind is an epic I’ve seen more than once as a child. It was one of those movies that was always on TV around Christmas. I’m curious to know whether Gods and Generals and Andersonville are any good. If you have seen them, let me know.

  • The Battle of Gettysburg (US 1913) directed by Charles Giblyn, starring Willard Mack, Charles K. French, Herschel Mayall
  • Birth Of A Nation (US 1915) directed by David W. Griffith, starring Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall
  • The General (US 1926) directed by Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, starring Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Charles Henry Smith
  • Gone With The Wind (US 1939) directed by Victor Fleming, starring Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Olivia de Havilland
  • They Died with Their Boots On (US 1941) directed by Raoul Wals, starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Anthony Quinn
  • The Red Badge Of Courage (US 1951), directed by John Huston, starring Audie Murphy, Bill Mauldin
  • The Great Locomotive Chase aka Andrews’ Raiders (US 1956) starring Fess Parker, Jeffrey Hunter
  • Friendly Persuasion (US 1956) directed by William Wyler, starring Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire, Anthony Perkins
  • The Horse Soldiers (US 1959) directed by John Ford, starring John Wayne, William Holden, Constance Towers
  • Major Dundee (US 1965) directed by Sam Peckinpah, starring Charlton Heston, James Coburn, Richard Harris
  • Shenandoah (US 1965) directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, starring James Stewart, Doug McClure
  • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (US/IT/SP 1966) directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach, John Bartha
  • Alvarez Kelly (US 1966) directed by Edward Dmytryk, starring William Holden, Richard Widmark, Janice Rule, Patrick O’Neal
  • The Undefeated (US 1966) directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, starring John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Antonio Aguilar
  • The Andersonville Trial (US 1970, TV) directed by George C. Scott, starring William Shatner, Cameron Mitchell
  • The Beguiled (US 1971) directed by Don Siegel, starring  Clint Eastwood, Geraldine Page, Elizabeth Hartman, Jo Ann Harris
  • The Outlaw Josey Wales (US 1976) directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Clint Eastwood, Chief Dan George, Sondra Locke
  • The Blue and the Gray (US 1982, TV mini-series) directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, starring  Stacy Keach, Lloyd Bridges, John Hammond, Rip Torn, Warren Oates, Gregory Peck
  • North and South (US 1985–1986 mini-series)  starring Patrick Swayze, James Read, Kirstie Alley
  • Glory (US 1989) directed by Edward Zwick, starring Matthew Broderick, Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington
  • Dances with Wolves (US 1990) directed by Kevin Costner, starring Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnel, Graham Greene
  • Ironclads (US 1991, TV) directed by Delbert Mann, starring Virginia Madsen, Alex Hyde-White, Reed Diamond, Philip Casnoff
  • Gettysburg (US 1993) directed by F. Maxwell, starring Tom Berenger, Jeff Daniels, Martin Sheen, Stephen Lang
  • Heaven & Hell: North & South, Book III (US 1994 TV mini-series) directed by Larry Peerce, starring Philip Casnoff, Kyle Chandler, Terri Garber, Lesley-Anne Down, Jonathan Frakes, Genie Francis, Terri Garber, Mariette Hartley
  • Andersonville (US 1996, TV) directed by John Frankenheimer, starring Jarrod Emick, Frederic Forrest, Ted Marcoux
  • The Hunley (US 1997, TV) directed by John Gray, starring Armand Assante, Donald Sutherland
  • Ride with the Devil (US 1999) directed by Ang Lee, starring Tobey Maguire, Skeet Ulrich, James Caviezel
  • Gods and Generals (US 2003) directed by Ronald F. Maxwell, starring Stephen Lang, Robert Duvall, Jeff Daniels
  • Cold Mountain (US 2003) directed by Anthony Minghella, starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger, Ray Winstone, Brendan Gleeson, Natalie Portman
  • The Battle of Gettysburg (US 2008, TV) directed by Michael S. Ojeda, starring Allen Brenner, Michael L. Colosimo

Something which really surprised me when I linked the titles to the IMDb page was the fact that none of these movies has a rating which is lower than 7+. That’s quite amazing. Most movies are rated 7.5 – 8.2. Usually when I compile such lists I have quite a few with 5* ratings. Are they really all that good or were some die-hard Civil War fans voting?