Film Review: What happened in 1917?

WHAT HAPPENED IN 1917?

What are the stories we choose to tell?

Every one of us grew up surrounded by stories. Some, we were told were stories. Others, we thought we knew to be the truth, until time revealed they, too, were stories of a kind. Still others were stories we told ourselves, one way or another. And sometimes these stories were embellished, and sometimes they were honest, and sometimes they were important to the world, and sometimes they were important to us, more than anyone else, but the ones we remember best are the ones that were our stories, and those were the once we wanted to tell.

In 1917, Sam Mendes tells a story, but…it’s not quite the story we might have expected.

After all, the ‘War Film’ is not new; from All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), through The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) to Patton (1970), Coming Home (1978), Apocalypse Now (1979), Saving Private Ryan (1998), and last year’s Dunkirk, we have seen a number of films that dealt with war and its aftermath. Some of them follow a person, some an event, some take a more macro-level view of the ‘theatre’ of war, and the best ones have always shown up the futility of it, even in the midst of acts of great personal heroism. Hell, even Wonder Woman, that glorious, campy, charming World War I film, makes it a point to show Diana’s artless optimism wither away in the face of the realities she is facing.

But 1917, in a sense, is not about that. Or not as much as you think it would be.

The film begins and ends with a near-identical shot of a soldier relaxing against a tree. The story is what happens in-between, a saga that begins in a bunker in a trench and ends just outside a hospital-tent. It’s a heart-stopping, heart-rending, breath-taking, awe-inspiring saga of a mission to get a message across and through enemy lines to call off an attack, and through the use of a simulated single-shot, we are thrust into the story as though it were happening to us. We see the desperation of the men in the trenches, the rotting bodies and the pecking crows, the gnawing rats and the clouds of dust, the murky, blood-stained water, the senseless violence and gruesome deaths, the heavy, brutal reality checks, and the moments of tenderness that seem to redeem us as much as the characters.

Through long stretches of silence punctuated by loud noise, pitch darkness and vibrant light, silhouettes and close-ups, frantic chases and a memorable, melancholy moment of rest, 1917  tells a story that is utterly riveting; an experience that only Indian theatre-owners and their insistence on an ‘Intermission’ to sell overpriced popcorn can harm, though even so, not ruin.

George MacKay and Dean Charles Chapman are the lead actors in this drama, tasked with delivering a message to a regiment deeper in German-held France that is on the verge of walking into a trap. One of the soldiers in that regiment is the elder brother of Chapman’s Lieutenant Blake, giving him the personal interest in the mission’s success that the higher-ups seem to think is essential. He and his friend, an initially-resentful Schofield (MacKay), set off, through the trenches on their front, full of weary, irritable soldiers, past the men holding the frontline, past No Man’s Land, into the German trench, and beyond. 

Mendes paints scenes—or rather, given the whole film is simulated as one scene, let us call them moments—that stick in the viewer’s consciousness. 

There is the moment we realise that the General did not even know that the Colonel he referred the men to, had been dead for two days; when a Lieutenant administers them their final rites as they prepare to climb out of their trench; when Schofield’s hand goes into a dead man’s gaping, open, chest wound. Many, many moments when all hope is lost, moments when we see in the background a futility to their efforts that does not render them any less noble, moments of incredible beauty, as a village is lit up with blazing lights that are almost festive in their deadly, destructive dazzle.

And the climax, the rousing, distressing, stand-up-in-your-seat eye-popping climax…followed by the inevitable low of the realisation of how temporary victories are in a war such as this, of knowing that the war would not end till another year had passed, only to be followed by another.

1917 is all this, an achievement of technical brilliance, a thing of awesome beauty that leaves a lasting impression.

But it is, still, a story. The sort of story; perhaps a specific one, that Sam Mendes’ grandfather may have told him. A story of hope, with a hero and his journey, an Odysseus-like voyage through terror and treachery. In an age where memories of that time fade; when we think of that horrible war as an afterthought, when those who fought in it are long gone, it is an important story to tell, for it speaks to hope, and bravery, without glossing over the trauma that war engenders.

What it is not, is a commentary. As war films go, there have been better; as commentaries go, there have been better; but that—that is judging a fish on its ability to fly.

1917 is a story a man chose to tell, and he told it marvellously well. 

We should not ask for more than that.

Film Review: The Story of 'The Irishman'; or, I hear you like old stuff?

THE STORY OF THE IRISHMAN

OR

I HEAR YOU LIKE OLD STUFF?

What are the stories we will remember? 

As I look at my bookshelf, or at the…ahem…accumulated movie collection, I wonder how many of these will still be ‘popular’, as generations pass. Already, it’s difficult to find anyone who knows about the authors who were literary and commercial giants just a century ago; and even ‘Film Buffs’ couldn’t tell you what ‘pre-Code’ means, or pick out Theda Bara from a line-up.

Theda Bara, in a still from Carmen (1915)

It is a question that is asked in stark, nihilistic terms by Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman. A deconstruction of his own oeuvre, a worthy piece of the mob-film genre, and a stunning period-piece, it manages to be all these things without losing touch with the need to tell a self-contained story.

Which it does—in fact going story-within-a-story for a while, as Robert De Niro’s Frank Sheeran, the titular Irishman, recounts a story from his wheelchair in a nursing-home, of a car journey he and Russell Bufalino, played to perfection by Joe Pesci, undertake to attend a wedding. On the way, they stop for cigarettes near a Gas station where, as Frank recalls, he and Russell first met. 

What follows is a study of how Frank, a former-soldier-turned-union-member truck driver, got involved in the Italian mob, first as a fixer and then as a hit-man. Carrying out a variety of crimes, which he is to later dismiss as ‘eh, some other things’, but which in reality, run the gamut of violence including arson and murder, Frank rises until he is close to not just Russell, but also trusted by several other ‘bosses’ in the seedy, grimy, world of organized crime. This makes him an ideal candidate to ‘help out’ the maverick Union Boss, Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino with spiky hair and exuding charisma), when he needs to deal with a ‘problem’ in Chicago. 

The film then traces the Bufalino-Hoffa association, as Frank becomes something of a go-between for them, to the point of both considering him a close family friend. Of course, Frank’s rise in the mob is not without consequences—a violent outburst against a local grocer leads to an estrangement from his daughter Peggy (portrayed, as an adult, by Anna Paquin) that only gets deeper and wider as time goes on. He himself, while maintaining a cold-blooded, almost amoral approach to his job, finds his loyalties and feelings tested as Hoffa and the mob increasingly find themselves at cross-purposes, culminating in the quiet, anti-climactic climax of the film. 

But it does not end there, and therein lies the true value of The Irishman—it does not let up. It does not provide a ‘big-bang’ exit. Frank and Russell grow old, and the glory days of their brutal reign over the country are not just lost, but increasingly forgotten. 

Where once Frank was a part of Presidential plots (the film works in its references to real-life events of the Kennedy era), he now stands in line in a vain attempt to get his bank-teller daughter to talk to him, at least as a customer.

Where once his feet stamped down on a man’s wrist for the slight of ‘pushing’ Peggy, he now needs crutches to get around. 

Where once he was a feared sight on the streets, now when two Federal Agents try to get him to ‘talk’, they point out that, for all he has done, there is no one left for him to defend, no one to protect—he is all that remains of a time and culture that is no more, and his story has no value to anyone except the families of those he wronged. He doesn’t talk. Like another Scorsese character in another film, he prefers to stick with a code that no longer exists.

In its way, The Irishman also serves as a capstone to the universe of the ‘mob film’, of which Goodfellas and Casino are also such fine examples. One could even see them as a trilogy:—

Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) in Goodfellas is a gangster who seems blissfully unaware that his actions are repugnant, revelling in the lifestyle his depravity allows him to live and bitter about it all coming to an end. 

Sam Rothstein (Robert De Niro) in Casino, is a man duly aware of not just the danger, but the horrors of the world he is involved in, who tries to rationalize to himself that what he is doing is not, still, as ‘bad’ as what those around him (Nicky Santoro, played by Joe Pesci), are.

Frank Sheeran, in The Irishman, a man who’s perfectly aware of what he’s doing, how evil it is, but who doesn’t really think it’s very ‘important’ that he’s done the things he has; and by the end, realizing that no one cares about the people he did it for either.

Scorsese once said that The Age of Innocence, with its refined dialogue and genteel manners, was the most violent film he ever made. I would say that The Irishman, with its unrestrained ruthlessness and savagery, is the most gentle. Almost meditative in its content and structure, the violence shown on screen is not destructive, but instructive; a reminder that a life spent in trying to become the ‘big man’ is no solace when it nears its inevitable end. It’s a lesson that other storytellers might seek to tell through heavy-handed allegory that involves monks and Ferraris; Scorsese chooses to tell it through an expletive-punctuated, blood-infused saga of a corrupt union leader, deconstructing the concept of the ‘great man’, tearing down the concept of the ‘hero’.

To talk about the technical aspects of the film seems superfluous, the camerawork, the soundtrack, the acting, the dialogue (from the rambling, Seinfeld-ian discussions on buying fish to Peggy’s seven-word armour-piercing question to Frank) come together as they must. Sure, the de-aging can look spotty at times, and it’s hard to think of De Niro’s ‘young’ Frank Sheeran as being any younger than forty-five at any point, but maybe that’s a part of what we came to see—the inevitable viewing of stories of the past through the lens of what we know about those stories now.

It is telling that no studio chose to pick up the film; that it had to find a home in a streaming service that made its reputation by being willing to cater to niche viewers. 

In the end, Frank shows the nurse doing his check-up (Dascha Polanco, who should be instantly recognisable to fans of OITNB) old photos of his family. Seeing a photo of Peggy with Jimmy Hoffa, the man who once could bring America to a grinding halt with a word, she asks who he is. Frank’s answer has only a vague sort of meaning to her, a memory of something someone might have once said about a guy who disappeared.

The Irishman is a film about stories that are being forgotten, memories that will fade as a generation dies out. 

I look at the yellowing pages of the books on my shelf, recall the time I had to explain to a young friend that Alexandre Dumas was a writer, and wonder whether there will be a time when those stories, too, will crumble like the nitrate film reels on which Theda Bara’s Cleopatra once lived to inflame so many passions.

A still from Cleopatra (1917).
Barring a 20-second clip, stills are all that remain.
A critic said, the producers seemed to have stinted on nothing,
except perhaps Ms Bara's costumes, which were shockingly sparse.

They probably will, but that’s no reason not to celebrate the stories while we do remember them; and if that means relaxing with Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour saga, with maybe a viewing of Goodfellas and Casino on the previous day to build the mood, well, may I live long enough to do exactly that!

Available on Netflix

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THE GIRL WITH GOLDEN HAIR

This little bit of November balladeering came about from a dream of Ingmar Bergman's work.

THE GIRL WITH GOLDEN HAIR

The forest folk, they sing a song,

As they watch the wild trees grow,

They sing of a girl with golden hair,

Deep in the dungeons below.

Yes, far below ground is her abode,

Under the castle Kilahenny,

Thick are the walls surrounding her,

And the men standing guard are many,

Deep is the moat a-encircling,

Filled with many a beast,

And were she to venture an escape,

They would make of her a feast.

But no walls, nor men, nor beasts,

No King’s bravado and boasts,

Can quiet her voice, nor dull her feet,

As she sings and dances with her Ghosts.

She has hair of spun gold, they say,

And a face like dawn’s awakening,

Like polished marble is her skin,

Her eyes are green and gleaming.

E’en in her straits so dire,

No man can look upon her, and be,

Unchanged, unmarked, unscarred,

By the vision that he has seen.

And yet, they do, tis said,

Those men standing at the post,

They look in upon her dungeon cell,

As she sings and dances with her Ghosts.

‘Tis said by those self-same Forest folk,

That she once was but a mummer,

With her father she sailed from port to port,

He, who was a poor excuse for a conjuror.

He purveyed tricks with smoke and mirrors,

But ‘twas her beauty that was prized,

And the boys who watched her despair’d,

Their wits, their senses hypnotised.

For her favour they swore to fight, to die,

Each swore he loved her the most,

They called her the Girl with Golden Hair

She who now only sings and dances with Ghosts.

She learned the mummer’s craft, all too well,

She could smile and cry at a word,

Her arts did make the small-folk gasp,

For not one, from their places could stir.

But when the curtain had fallen,

When the applause had quietened

She sang to the Goddesses; she sang to the Tides,

And they blessed her with skills unparalleled. 

The most powerful wielder of magical arts,

Became she, in all the known lands of Mithos,

A creature, a sorceress, of awesome power,

She who now but sings and dances with ghosts.

She fought for justice, ‘tis said,

She fought for pride that was lost

She strove to take what fate denied,

And she was ready to pay the cost.

And so, little by little, and day by day,

The ghosts did rise up in her wake,

Many died who were evil and corrupt,

Many did she kill in her rage.

She gave justice where it was deserved,

She was more merciful, indeed, than most,

But now she has naught, 

Nothing to do, but sing and dance with ghosts.

There came a man o’er the sea,

Bringing with him an army to tear,

Apart her beloved city, but he knew not,

Of the Girl with the Golden Hair.

For though of her he had heard, 

He thought of her as little more,

Than a pretender with no claim other,

Than the ancient name she bore.

His ships lie still, at the bottom of the bay,

Off the bright blue coast,

His men, like him, are among those,

She sings and dances with—her ghosts.

Many were those who after her did lust,

But none could say he was her lover,

For though she smiled and sang with them all,

None could truly know her.

For no man nor woman could she trust,

Not even those who loved her most,

And now she has nothing and no one,

Naught to do but sing and dance with her ghosts.

Dark were her thoughts, and deep her secrets,

‘Tis written that she consorted with beasts,

Partaking in their unholy rituals,

Satiating herself with unholy feasts.

Until in an act of madness,

She did defy the Goddess’ will,

The ramifications of her choices,

Shape our world, still.

Death and destruction were never far,

Weighing and dragging upon her heart,,

And then came a War where fate had decreed,

She could take no part.

She watched them die, her friends, her lovers,

She watched warcraft overcome means unfair,

But though armies fell and heroes died,

Powerless was the Girl with Golden Hair.

Until they broke her silence, 

Until they took her who she loved the most,

Terrible was her vengeance then, for she was ready,

She was ready to sing and dance with her ghosts.

The ground trembled, the skies came apart,

Forests and mountains were ripped wide,

And cities fell like breaking toys,

Before the fury that could not be denied.

A civilisation died at her hands, that day,

But the damage was innermost,

In the loss, in the madness, of she who could have saved us,

She who now only sings and dances with her ghosts. 

Book Review: The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE

I could tell you what happens in Edith Wharton’s 1920 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (the first one written by a woman to win, incidentally) in a single, long sentence—New York’s High Society steps out to the Opera, a wealthy young lawyer announces his engagement at a ball, invitations to a dinner are declined, invitations to another are accepted, the lawyer advises his client regarding some family matters, High Society vacations in Florida, a wedding takes place, High Society vacations in Rhode Island, a young woman stands at the end of a pier, an old woman falls sick, a young woman throws a farewell party for her cousin, a wife becomes pregnant, and an old man walks away from a closed window. 

That would tell you the events depicted in the 300-odd pages in the book, and may even pass for an adequate review if I added in a few lines about how I inherited the book from my uncle’s library well over a decade ago, how it came back to my consciousness while watching an episode of Gossip Girl on Netflix, and end by asking whether you, dear reader, have read it as well.

Except that, if I did leave it there, I would fail to point out that within the exquisite elegance of these rather mundane actions lies a story of devastating brutality.

The Age of Innocence, published in 1920, does not contain a hint of physical violence. Not so much as a slap. It is set among the elite of 1870’s New York, among a people ensconced in privilege, lineage and wealth, committed to appearance and manners, ruled by overt politeness and genteel behaviour. Through their polished words and grand homes, their eminently predictable habits and cold respectability, Edith Wharton shows how pain can be inflicted and hopes crushed just as effectively as through the most stark, gory prose that another author might write.

We see the world through the eyes of Newland Archer, a young blue-blooded New Yorker who has just gotten engaged to the lovely ingenue May Welland, a member of the numerous and prestigious Mingott family. The arrival from Europe of May’s cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, fleeing her abusive husband, upends the quiet order of High Society, for rather than hiding her under a proverbial rock, as such fallen women should be, the Mingotts, led by their formidable matriarch, Catherine Mingott, choose instead to parade Ellen at the favourite haunts of the city elite. Archer, who fancies himself a progressive man, questions why Ellen must be ostracised for leaving a husband who was clearly a brute, and announces his engagement to May publicly at a ball hosted by Julius and Regina Beaufort, making sure his family is seen as firmly on the side of the Mingotts. Despite this, when the Mingotts decide to host a formal dinner to re-introduce her grand-daughter to New York, the invitation is declined by every family it is sent to. In response, Archer enlists the ‘big guns’—his aristocratic elderly cousins, the Van Der Luydens—who agree that such an insult should not be tolerated, and host a dinner where Ellen is personally invited. As a Van Der Luyden invitation cannot possibly be declined, the rehabilitation of May’s cousin into New York Society seems to be complete.

However, Ellen Olenska proves to be rather square peg, unwilling to fit neatly into the Upper East Side of Manhattan and its round holes. Vivacious and charming, far too interested in proletarian pursuits, far too disinterested in the shallowness of New York’s prestige-obsessed, anti-intellectual society, shaped by the intellectualism of European courts and boudoirs, she chafes in the shallow, stifling confines of what New York deems ‘proper’ even as she takes solace in its comforting politeness and predictability after the nightmare that was her marriage. As a woman living separated from her husband, she also occupies a precarious position—she cannot marry, but she is too interesting and beautiful to be left alone; and she becomes a target for the attentions of several men, among them the rich but somewhat disreputable Julius Beaufort. 

Archer finds himself drawn to Ellen; her apparent freedom from the conventions and hypocrisies that he is so familiar with, and so tired of; her appreciation for a world beyond the vapid and superficial one he lives in; as well as the mystery surrounding her past makes him question his feelings for May, who represents precisely the vacuous, hypocritical, convention-bound New York Society that he has begun to hate being a part of.

As the novel progresses, we see Archer, Ellen and May each play out their parts, riding conflicts within themselves, their allegiance to society, to conscience and to their own feelings. Jealousy and passion, honour and deceit, play a role, but it is all buried under the veneer of gentle conversation and propriety, whitened out under a blaze of opulence, concealed beneath the ordinariness of the daily routine of the life of the wealthy.

With a soft touch and deft hands, Edith Wharton sinks the knife into the reader’s hearts, spinning and twisting it as she spins and twists this poignant story of love and duty. The emotionally-draining climax, the moving epilogue, all speak to the human condition in ways that resonate across the ages from the time it is set in, to when it was written, to the present day, a century later.

The Age of Innocence is a novel that operates at many levels, and not just because its characters almost never actually say what they mean. A love story it is, and a family drama as well, but it manages to go well beyond that. It shines a harsh light on the injustice perpetrated on men and even more, upon women, in the name of being ‘proper’ in upper-class society, upon the hypocrisy and vacillation of even ‘good’ men like Newland Archer, the indecision and cowardice of women like Ellen Olenska, the vapid cunning of women like May Welland, and the role of High Society women in institutionalising patriarchy upon themselves. 

But it also, somehow, simultaneously, induces a latent sympathy for that same crusty upper-class society, struggling to hold on to the world they had established over so many years even as it crumbled around them in the construction of high-rises and raced past them in trains and shouted over them in the raucous dance of democracy. It makes us sympathise for poor Newland, struggling between the frightening solace of comfort without love and the frightening perils of love with disgrace; for Ellen who keeps reaching for a happiness that she always knew was not hers to achieve, or lacks the capacity to reach for the happiness she wants; and for May, innocence raised to a shallow saintliness and dragged into deviousness.

Edith Wharton’s writing blends Victorian convention with a more modern, conversational style that makes it easy enough to read. That does not mean it is easy to grasp, however. A certain degree of familiarity with the times and conventions of the time it is set in would help, but the most important factor a reader needs to bring to it is a desire and ability to delve into the world created by the author, else one is in danger of coming away having read nothing more than a story about an Opera, a Ball, a Wedding, a couple of vacations and a couple of parties. 

In his 1993 film of the same title, Martin Scorsese adapts the novel more or less faithfully, and perhaps the definite proof that he knew exactly what he was doing lies in his assertion that it was the most violent film he ever made. What I found fascinating was that he made it at all, though—Scorsese’s versatility is indisputable, but adapting a costume-period drama in 1993 would seem like an odd choice for someone whose previous films were Goodfellas and Cape Fear, and whose next was Casino—except that it is not. In it’s true essence, The Age of Innocence is a story with striking relevance, for you see, there is a reason some stories stand the test of time, and it goes beyond narrative excellence or memorable characters; it has to do with the universality of themes. That’s why we continue to make and re-make films based on the classics, that’s why we continue to read and love them, generation to generation—because they do still speak to us. 

Have you felt suffocated by the pressures of conventional morality? Have you struggled to keep a smiling face while your heart broke inside? Have you found yourself devastated by the luxury of comfort, frightened by the unending changelessness of your predictable life? Have you walked away from something, convinced yourself that it was not what you wanted, though it was everything you ever did? If you have, you have lived through The Age of Innocence.

Maybe you still are. 

Maybe you will again, one day.

And maybe you will, one day, shudder at the ruthlessness of Catherine Mingott when she tells her niece, 

“It was Beaufort when he covered you with jewels, and it's got to stay Beaufort now that he's covered you with shame.”

at the magisterial death sentence Sillerton Jackson pronounces when he says,

“I didn’t think the Mingotts would have tried it on.”

at the jealousy and hatred contained in Newland Archer’s,

“Hallo, Beaufort, this way! Madame Olenska was expecting you,”

at the unfathomable sense of helplessness expressed when he says, with a smile,

“Tell her I am old-fashioned: that’s enough.”

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