By Woodsy.
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Neglected Classics – Attack!
Review by walt.
In post-Vietnam Hollywood, cinema audiences have come to expect war films to tell it like it is. Films such as Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now and Black Hawk Down have examined the morality of modern warfare, giving warts-and-all accounts of the violence and chaos of military conflict. Things used to be simpler. Traditional Hollywood war films were less complex tales of heroism and valour, and the triumph of good over evil. They may have dealt with the tragedy of war, but we were never in doubt as to who the bad guys were. During wartime, Hollywood was part of the propaganda machine, making films to support the war effort, such asSergeant York and Objective Burma! During peacetime patriotic and pro-military films like The Sands of Iwo Jima and The Longest Day helped to enhance the army’s image and boost military recruitment.
Then, in 1956, came Robert Aldrich’s World War II movie Attack! – a film that was not only anti-war, but anti-military and anti-authoritarian to boot. The film’s portrayal of the commanding classes of the US Army was so negative, that the filmmakers were refused any direct help from the Army powers that be. As Aldrich stated, “The Army saw the script and promptly laid down a policy of no co-operation, which not only meant that I couldn’t borrow troops and tanks for my picture – I couldn’t even get a look at Signal Corps combat footage.”
So why the controversy? The film tells the story of Fox Company, an infantry battalion in Europe in 1944, under the leadership of Captain Cooney, played by Eddie Albert. Cooney is not a leader of men – he is a coward and a double crosser. During the opening scene we see a Fox Company assault on a German pillbox end in failure. As the men come under counter-fire, the support and backup promised to them by Cooney never arrives. He becomes gripped by fear and anxiety, and despite the protestations from his subordinates, he leaves the men on the front line to perish under the German counter-attack. Here is a man who has no shame, who’ll watch his own men lose their lives, rather than risk his own.
One of the platoon leaders under Cooney’s command is Lieutenant Costa, played by Jack Palance. Costa’s contempt for his commanding officer is plain for all to see – it’s written all over Palance’s amazingly expressive face. In contrast to Cooney, Costa cares about the welfare of his men, and when he leads an assault, he’s the first in the line of fire, and the last one back from the battle. When Cooney is put in charge of a new mission, he promises Costa that this time backup will be there when needed. In a brilliant scene, Costa openly warns his commanding officer that if the support doesn’t appear, and Cooney chickens out again, he’ll personally see to it that Cooney never sees the States again.
It’s Cooney’s shameful cowardice and complete lack of honour that marks Attack! out from other war films. Normally US Army Captains are portrayed as infallible heroes, but Cooney’s ineptitude shocked and offended some critics at the time of the film’s release, some of whom went so far as to denounce the film as anti-American. There’s no hiding the poor image the film paints of Army leadership. Cooney and his commanding officer, Colonel Bartlett, played by Lee Marvin, are both self-serving men using war as a playground for their own personal aspirations – one is searching for an undeserved military citation, the other for a post-war career in politics.
The original theatrical trailer for the film (included on the DVD release) says it all. “This is war as you’ve never smelled it … tasted it … seen it before … where not everyone is a hero”. We’re used to our war films celebrating heroism, and it’s Cooney and Bartlett’s lack of courage and integrity that has the ability to shock us, some fifty years after the film’s original release. As the credits roll we’re left questioning if there is any place in the US Army for a man of honour. Imagine how shocking this was in 1956, for American audiences in the grip of a post-war boom.
But there are still heroes to celebrate in Aldrich’s film. Lieutenants Costa and Woodruff are the men prepared to stand up to their superior officers for the good of their company. It’s Palance’s portrayal of Costa, all burning intensity and raw emotion, which is the moral core of the film. So powerful is his performance that it makes you wonder why his career never really scaled the heights experienced by other Hollywood tough guys like Lee Marvin or Robert Mitchum.
The screenplay is full of all the barbed comments and witty banter you’d expect from a war film. Robert Strauss as Private Bernstein provides much of the humour, through his cynical one-liners, such as “when you salute Cooney you got to apologise to your arm”. For me the only real weakness in the script and performances stems from Cooney’s descent into psychosis towards the end of the film. We’re asked to believe that Cooney’s weakness is a result of his overbearing father beating him as a child, and it’s this moment of cheap psychology and Eddie Albert’s unconvincing performance that doesn’t ring true.
Joseph L. Biroc’s deep-focus cinematography is simple but exceptional throughout. Biroc employs interesting angles, framing action within windows and doorways, and using shadow and light to create a mood of mistrust amongst the officers. Long takes are employed to allow the scenes to play out, building an atmosphere of tension that drives us towards the inevitable violent conclusion.
At the time of its release the film was an unexpected success, grossing nearly $2 million, which was far above the gross United Artists expected. This was mainly due to the controversy regarding the military’s non-involvement in the production, which UA exploited in their posters and trailers. Despite this success, Attack! is now a film that’s largely unknown. Released one year before Stanley Kubrick’s celebrated anti-war film Paths of Glory, it has nowhere near the critical reputation of Kubrick’s film. Admittedly, Aldrich’s film is the far less sophisticated of the two, with a sense of the melodramatic that at times feels about as subtle as a hard slap to the face. But like a hard slap to the face, it’s shocking and powerful and is packed full of raw emotion, which for my money should guarantee its inclusion in any list of the greatest war films ever made.
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Academy Awards Catchup – The Descendants
Welcome to the first of a two part post belatedly discussing two of the biggest films at this years Academy Awards. Having finally managed to catch them at the end of their, generously extended, cinema run last week, The Descendants and The Artist, have been playing on my mind.
Depending on your views on The Oscars as an accurate or relevant score card for modern cinema, these films and their collective parade of nominations (which are, naturally, not limited to those little golden Oscar statues) could present tricky viewing, particularly when it comes to objectivity. Knowing a film has been critically and publicly lauded beforehand can have several effects on its viewing; you could blindly agree with what others have said or actively depart from collective opinion and find fault where it may, or may not, exist just to be perceived as having your own mind. A logical option is to watch the movie on its merits and try to ignore anything, good or bad, said by anyone else but, whilst that sounds perfectly well reasoned, once other voices have crept into your mind it can be difficult to reconcile them with personal opinion.
The Descendants and The Artist represent for me two polar opposites when it comes to this problem. Both movies received almost unequivocal high praise, with no dissenting critical voices, and so perhaps we’re lead to conclude that both movies are amazing works of cinema. I would contend that this is only a half truth; one of these movies lives up to its praise whilst the other is staggeringly overhyped, forcing me to wonder where I was when everyone else was drinking the Kool-Aid.
The Descendants, from writer and director Alexander Payne, opens with a water skiing accident in Hawaii, one we are thankfully not shown as to do so would have been superfluous. The story follows Matt King, played by George Clooney, coming to terms with the aftermath of this event; his terminally comatose wife (Elizabeth), his family upheaval, the discovery of his wife’s infidelity, and a looming multimillion dollar business deal. For anyone that would be somewhat of a handful, but Matt King has to also contend with the fact he has been seemingly absent from his life. He remains bafflingly clueless as to the goings on within his family and his marriage, not suspecting that his wife was in love with another man (played in a surprisingly fantastic turn by Matthew Lillard) and on the verge of leaving him, or that his daughter wasn’t speaking to his wife0 because she was aware of it all. Even his best friends appear to be complicit, causing me to wonder what the hell he’d been doing with his life up to this point.
Elizabeth’s accident, King’s realisation about her affair, and having to be the active parental figure all force him to reassess his life, presenting him with a wake up call to be present in it. This in turn effects the sort of person he chooses to be. Whilst it might sound like quite a lot happens in this movie it certainly doesn’t feel like it, The Descendants gently carries us along, equally surprised as King as events unfold. I’m a big fan of the fact we never meet Elizabeth, her part in this movie is from a coma-bed, and we see her from the perspective of the other characters. This kind of story telling is highly effective, engaging the viewer into the lives of the characters and allowing them to infer certain details. Successful movies show 2 and 2 and let the audience make 4, if you labour a point, effectively showing someone write on a blackboard 2 + 2 = 4, you’re story won’t be anywhere near as effective.
The relationship that builds between King and his daughter Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) as they work together, both to investigate Elizabeth’s lover and to form a new familial structure for the younger daughter, is well crafted and unfolds beautifully. Clooney, whose style of acting I’m not often a fan of as he is too frequently indistinguishable in his calm aloof swagger, is here nigh on irreproachable. He’s also backed up by a very accomplished supporting cast in Nick Krause, Beau Bridges, Robert Forster, Judy Greer, and Michael Ontkean, whose appearances are carefully woven throughout the narrative.
For a movie set in Hawaii, The Descendants eschews the normal portrayal of a highly saturated island of wonder in favour of a respectably muted, slightly desaturated, palate of colour thus giving the whole movie a distinctive, but not overbearing, visual tone. As Clooney’s character says in the movie, ‘just because you live in Hawaii doesn’t mean you live in paradise’ and we’re certainly not treated to the overblown Hawaii on display in the likes of Lost.
Tinged with comedy, this moving and rewarding film was deserving of the praise that it received in its Academy Awards nominations; shockingly though it only won for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay. Clooney was robbed of a Best Actor award (I’ll qualify this when I discuss The Artist in part 2). The movie isn’t flawless but it’s human, and as such it’s flaws are merely indicative of an imperfect nature. It was great to watch a film that was deserving of its praise, it won’t be for everyone – it’s certainly not fast paced – but having said that, the majority of people should come away having been engaged by the story.
Check back tomorrow for Part 2 in which I discuss the other big hitter at the 2012 Academy Awards, The Artist.
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A Rare Moment Of Serious – The Kony 2012 Mess
As my readers know, I rarely to never post anything serious, but here’s some serious for you, some deadly serious… Because I’m pissed off…
To all those on the Kony 2012 bandwagon out there… I realize that the general idea of the message is good. I get that. That whole situation over there is terrible. But so is Kony 2012 itself.
The fad-video-event thing that everyone is talking about is heavily biased and not based entirely on factual, relevant information. The plight, various plights, but this one specifically has been going on in Africa since the late 60’s. It is not a modern product and Joseph Kony is one of many dozens of men that have come and gone since that time and will continue doing so unless Ugandan policy is changed, by THEIR people (who are, for the most part never going to see this video/thing because they are an impoverished, third world country.) And or the US Foreign policy designated toward helping the situation (which takes votes to achieve, not mouse clicks.) Also…
1. Half the footage they show in the video is nearly 10 years old, the situation in Uganda at present is actually a lot more stable now than what is shown. Perfect? No. Not close. But marginally better? Yes. 2. Joseph Kony isn’t in Uganda anymore at this point. He was run out by Ugandan military forces some time ago. Is he still in power and despicable? Yes. But his numbers have dwindled significantly in the past 7 years making him more of a tyrannical, deplorable nuisance than Satan incarnate. 3. Supporting a cause is NOT talking about or sharing or “liking” or whatevering a video and saying you’re going to attend some online, fake, event. Yes, it spreads awareness, but otherwise it does nothing. Because when informed people look into the matter they see the flaws inherent it; in this case Kony 2012 (and the publicly known-to-be shady/shaky) Invisible Children Organization and don’t actually support/donate to the cause that you’re raving about.
It’s like the internet’s support of Ron Paul. He may or may not be the better man for the job and all that, but in fact based, real world numbers, a SMALL fraction of the people who tout him online so fervently go out and vote for him or anyone for that matter.
I’m in no way Mr. Holier-than-thou. I do a little volunteer work here and there. I help friends and people who are less fortunate when I can because my life is pretty decent and I have the ability to do so (and I don’t report the good deeds I do on Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, etc. to make me look better. I do it because it needs to be done.) But, I can say that when I support a cause or idea I know for sure before support it that it is the right thing to support. And, I make damned sure I know what I’m talking about when I talk about serious subject matter.
In the case of Kony 2012 even a cursory reading (actual reading by the way, not skimming for what you want to see) of Wikipedia would fill you in a little. Some actual research and awareness would do you a mile more than that.
Maudlin sentimentality is not truth, it is the mechanisms of emotional puppetry designed to pull at your heart strings.
Quit. Being. Sheep.
You want to support a cause? Vote, send letters and pleas to people who can make change in policy both here and abroad.
KNOWLEDGE is power, not Youtube hits.
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Friday The 13th Part 2 – An Underrated Sequel!
Review by nil.
C1981
Dir. Steve MinerNo matter what you thought of the recent remake of the original Friday The 13th movie, it’s also worth taking a look back at the originals, particularly Steve Miner’s 1981 sequel.
Its five years after the bloodbath of the first film, and a new bunch of counsellors have arrived at a nearby summer camp to prepare for the holiday season. They’ve been told everything is well and good now that the original killer is dead (who we all know was Mrs Voorhees because we all saw Scream). Whilst the leader of the group, Paul, professes that the main danger for the counsellors is bears, its actually Jason pre-hockey mask and wearing what appears to be a potato sack on his head that is killing off the teenagers one by one.
Though the original is still regarded as the best of the series, it’s worth mentioning that this sequel is not very far behind. It’s more intense, there are far more characters and the music and atmosphere Miner creates combine to give this film a good amount of scares.
What stands out for me is the killer, Jason, who is far weaker, far more human than in any of the other Friday The 13th films. Without the hockey mask, he dons a more sinister ‘sack’, with a small hole for a deranged eye to peer out at his victims.
All in all I thoroughly recommend this beauty of a horror film. There are plenty of killings for all you horror and gore fans out there, however, unlike the rest of the films in the series, the focus is more on suspense than in the actual act of the killing itself.
4 and a half skulls.