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 Directed by Sam Mendes, whose directing credits include American Beauty - his first movie and the only one for which he’s won an Oscar - Road to Perdition, Jarhead, Revolutionary Road, Away We Go, Spectre, Skyfall, and some weirdo short film for Louis Vuitton Written by Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairnes, who's done a bunch of short films, worked as a staff writer on Penny Dreadful, and then has two scripts in various stages of production called Last Night in Soho and The Good Nurse Cinematography by Our Lord and Savior Roger Deakins who has eighty loving cinematography credits and so hopefully you know him from works such as Fargo, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, No Country for Old Men, True Grit, Skyfall, Sicario, Blade Runner 2049, and for some reason he is credited as a cinematography consultant on Rango quote:At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers, Schofield (Captain Fantastic’s George MacKay) and Blake (Game of Thrones’ Dean-Charles Chapman) are given a seemingly impossible mission. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers— Blake’s own brother among them. While this movie doesn't come out in wide release until January 10th, I was lucky enough to be in one of the cities they did a limited release in in order to be eligible for Oscar consideration. (Unfortunately, Peter Jackson's superlative WWI documentary, They Shall Not Grow Old, wasn't released in time for last year's Academy Awards, and was inelegible: a tragedy for such an incredible work.) I'm a giant World War One nerd (hence the Siegfried Sassoon quote in the title), and this movie is one of the greatest war movies I've seen, whether WWI-specific or not. I'm by no means a film reviewer, but here's my thoughts. If I had to sum up the film in one word, it'd be naturalistic. There is nothing that feels false or overdone, from the foley work where leather straps creak and the mud sucks at soldiers' boots, to the soft light of a late afternoon sun that then morphs into pitch blackness lit only by the arc of flares. Schofield and Blake's dialogue, and the dialogue of everyone they run into on their journey across the Western Front - at times it feels like a game of 'spot the famous British actor' - feels essentially human (though I admit I sometimes had trouble deciphering the accents). There's no moment where you feel like Mendes is shoving the camera towards some corpse or something and waiting expectantly for you to realize the horrors of war; instead, you're left to slowly realize how much of the background, of the riverbanks and the shellholes, is made up of corpses and rats. Yet unlike a lot of films these days, this movie leaves you room to breathe, and lets you absorb the small moments of surpassing beauty that exist even in war. A man and a woman, holding a child, lit only by firelight. Blossoms floating on the water's surface. Spring light filtering through flower petals. Music. All that to say, it's an incredible movie. Avoid spoilers if you can, and if you have any interest in historical or action films, go see it. Pinball fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Jan 6, 2020 |
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Jan 6, 2020 00:50
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Just saw this last night. I thought it was fantastic. Absolutely unique. It reminded me of Castaway, where the main character is basically onscreen for the entire movie. It’s more of a drama than a war movie but it there’s so much attention to detail and great imagery. I highly recommend seeing it!
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Jan 11, 2020 14:53
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Go see this in imax as soon as you possibly can. One of the best looking movies I’ve ever seen and probably my overall favorite of the year.
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Jan 11, 2020 15:22
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I appreciate the film, but walked away feeling somewhat disconnected from it. The movie being split into two continuous shots--necessitates a few things that gave the movie a sense of artifice that almost made it feel like a video game. I think it's literally the non-stop following a character, often behind the shoulder, just visually reminds me of a video game. But beyond that, while I agree with the OP that the film does slow down at parts, the lack of cuts means a lack of implied mundaneness. A well observed farm or the mentioned moment with the baby will always be moments away from gunfire or a crashed plane. And I do get how that non-stop peril can be justified because, yes, it's World War I. But I think implied action has a power in a film, and I can't help but feeling like I walked away with a sense of artifice. Don't get me wrong, the movie is visually stunning and the end of the first shot might be one of the greatest moments of the year. I think there are also individual scenes like the death scene, the baby, and the song that make it feel like a much more personal film and my engagement is reignited.
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Jan 11, 2020 21:09
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https://www.hurlbutacademy.com/the-look-of-1917-how-deakins-achieved-the-oner/ Great article about how it was shot. The night flares scene will go down as one of the best shots of all time. Deakins is the master. RE: it felt like a videogame, Mendes mentioned that specifically in an interview. He also liked the format for the element of horror it invokes, making you feel like "you don't want to see what's around the corner but you have to go" and that angle and style made it not only feel more intimate but also real because you're in the scene and not just watching it. I agree that I was more attached and emotional than I expected to be. Great performances and moments to tie it all together and elevate it beyond a technical marvel. Ty1990 posted:Go see this in imax as soon as you possibly can. One of the best looking movies I've ever seen and probably my overall favorite of the year. I definitely put it up there with Parasite and Waves in my top three. Not sure how that would shake out in the end, probably Parasite best film overall, this for best directing/technical stuff and Waves somewhere in the middle.
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Jan 11, 2020 21:19
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I haven't seen it yet but I saw the trailer three times before different films and immensely enjoyed it each time, one of the most tense and evocative pieces of promotional material I've ever experienced. I can't wait.
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Jan 11, 2020 21:54
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Just saw it and someone collapsed in the theater right as Blake was dying which was...odd timing. Didn’t hear what he was saying because we were distracted by what was happening. They paused the movie and eventually resumed it once EMTs got the guy out. Anyway, the movie was good and the lack of cuts due to the one shot method left me mentally exhausted in a good way. It definitely works for it as you feel worn down by the end of it. I’ve never had a feeling like that before in a movie and it’s all because my brain couldn’t have a 1ms reprieve of a new image. The final scene was therapeutic not just to the character but to me as a viewer. Really well done.
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Jan 11, 2020 22:31
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I just saw this, it was quite amazing. The only thing I regret was after watching a bunch of "How Does Hollywood Do It?" videos over the holidays I kept getting pulled out of the movie looking for the hidden cuts. I also appreciated that Dean-Charles Chapman's character is named Tom and that his brother is played by Richard Madden .
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Jan 12, 2020 00:40
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George H.W. oval office posted:Just saw it and someone collapsed in the theater right as Blake was dying which was...odd timing. Didn’t hear what he was saying because we were distracted by what was happening. They paused the movie and eventually resumed it once EMTs got the guy out. Haha same thing happened to me. Older lady fell down the stairs, 30mins from the end. Really disrupted the flow the movie. I liked how the lulls between scenes still had a sense of tension. And the flares in the ruins sequence was something from a fever dream. Fantastic stuff.
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Jan 12, 2020 04:54
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Of all the tense stuff in the movie, the thing that got me most was cutting his hand on barbed wire in the first ten minutes. That hand is probably toast in the long run...
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Jan 12, 2020 09:25
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With the ingenuity of the one-shot cinematography, and the hellish war-time setting, perhaps a more apt title for this film would have been Saving Private Birdman
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Jan 12, 2020 11:21
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The scene with the soldier singing as the main character slumps down against that tree exhausted, the camera breaking away and plowing towards the crowd of soldiers around him, subtly curving around as it does.. to then finally stop moving and become a perfect frontal shot of the protagonist between the space of two soldiers standing in the foreground... there's no chefs kiss big enough
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Jan 12, 2020 18:47
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Just got out of the film. Holy hell, what a masterwork of a movie. That captain sobbing as the attack is about to begin is gonna stick with me.
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Jan 12, 2020 22:38
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The pistols the COs were all holding was scary as poo poo too. So many moments like that throughout that were truly terrifying.
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Jan 12, 2020 22:42
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Just saw it today as well. I definitely did not expect that 45 mins into the movie one of the ostensibly 'main' characters would die, but I think the film's sense that nothing is safe really works with the pacing. Roger Deakins is a camera god, and all of the parts where Will is running around in the bombed-out city really work great. I also appreciated the part in the river where he has cherry blossoms fall on him but almost immediately after he runs into the dam made up of dead Germans. Will at the end running through the charging line as the artillery blasts around him is also probably one of the better shots of the year. The only thing I had to look up because I was not clear on was the point where he gets knocked out. I assumed that he actually did get shot but apparently it was a bullet ricochet that knocked him out? It didn't matter that much to me in the film because the pacing is relentless and you rarely get much time to think about what is happening before it keeps moving.
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Jan 13, 2020 00:49
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FlamingLiberal posted:Just saw it today as well. He got winged in the helmet by the Germans pistol. you can see him holding it when he opens the door. It pops the helmet off him and then he falls backwards.
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Jan 13, 2020 00:55
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Yeah it happens incredibly fast so I didn't notice that
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Jan 13, 2020 00:57
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i think it is intentionally meant to be vague. The audience gasped at that part and I think some really thought he might be dead I kind of would have loved to have had an intermission at that point.
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Jan 13, 2020 01:01
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Timeless Appeal posted:i think it is intentionally meant to be vague. The audience gasped at that part and I think some really thought he might be dead
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Jan 13, 2020 01:07
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I thought this was okay. Obviously the cinematography was incredible, and the flare scene was the standout, but I felt that the continuous shot thing made the movie less tense than it would have been otherwise. There were times when I just grew tired of the characters walking and talking, and because of the limitations the format grew repetitive. The camera also always had to maneuver into place to line up the shots and it felt so artificial sometimes. This is all on top of the characters and scenarios being only war tropes, and the setting of WWI didn't feel very novel even though most of these types of films are set in WWII. I dunno, I feel a similar way about the Irishman. Grafting special technology or gimmicks on top of an ordinary movie doesn't always result in it being extraordinary.
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Jan 13, 2020 02:15
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Mullitt posted:I dunno, I feel a similar way about the Irishman. Grafting special technology or gimmicks on top of an ordinary movie doesn't always result in it being extraordinary. I disagree, the single cam shots didn’t seem gimmicky at all, it made the movie lean, focused and far more direct. It almost makes the frenetic modern editing style seem superfluous. I was allowed to focus on the men’s faces in the background, I felt I was allowed to soak in what the protagonist was interacting with.
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Jan 13, 2020 04:02
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I thought it was interesting that Deakins was initially against the one shot approach when he first came on the project.
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Jan 13, 2020 04:07
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Mullitt posted:I thought this was okay. Obviously the cinematography was incredible, and the flare scene was the standout, but I felt that the continuous shot thing made the movie less tense than it would have been otherwise. There were times when I just grew tired of the characters walking and talking, and because of the limitations the format grew repetitive. The camera also always had to maneuver into place to line up the shots and it felt so artificial sometimes. This is all on top of the characters and scenarios being only war tropes, and the setting of WWI didn't feel very novel even though most of these types of films are set in WWII. I completely agree with this post except for the part about the irishman (in my opinion a much better film than this). I think the one shot thing is cool, but when you realize the whole movie is going to be like this, it starts to feel like a gimmick. Watch the peter jackson docu instead imo
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Jan 13, 2020 05:03
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shut up netface posted:I disagree, the single cam shots didn’t seem gimmicky at all, it made the movie lean, focused and far more direct. It almost makes the frenetic modern editing style seem superfluous. I was allowed to focus on the men’s faces in the background, I felt I was allowed to soak in what the protagonist was interacting with. I couldn't write it any better myself. The film gives you time to explore with your eyes in a way that a more heavily edited style doesn't. I also found that I got a bit misty-eyed at a couple of points which is a positive as most films just don't elicit much emotional reaction from me. Best film I've seen in a while and definitely the best shot.
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Jan 13, 2020 06:25
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It's a beautiful movie and worth seeing I think but yeah it felt a little empty to me. I left thinking "that was very impressive" and not "that was good."
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Jan 13, 2020 08:00
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Saw this tonight, good film, and worth it just to see next year's set design oscar winner, holy poo poo they spent so much time on those sets and it pays off. Also from the Peter Jackson documentary  
Toxic Mental fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Jan 13, 2020 |
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Jan 13, 2020 08:21
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I kind of echo the sentiments that this movie was "just ok". The acting, costumes, locations, cinematography, and stuff were great of course. However I think the overall "feel" of the movie was still pretty much just "OK". War movies usually rely on stupendous action, little vignettes about the war, and great human drama to succeed. The fact this movie is shot like a oner means its harder to get the little vignettes since we can't cut to anything the characters can't see. I felt like the strongest pieces of the movie were all the scenes where the characters were travelling through the trenches, both at the start and the end before the attack. As mentioned, the one captain just bawling was very affecting. There was some good stuff when the main characters were alone, like the entire farm house bit, but overall I felt the movie was strongest when there were more people around. Honestly the best part of the movie for me were all the sets, the corpses just buried in various dirt, water, and mud. There was one camera pan that went close by a mound of dirt and an otherwise obscured jaw and nose of a buried dead guy came into full focus on the screen was great in that awful war is hell way. Overall I'm glad I saw it but probably would not hurry to see it again.
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Jan 13, 2020 09:46
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One of the best movies I've ever seen. The negative reviews seem to be that it doesn't glamorize war as much as our flicks typically do, which is one of my favorite things about it. Watch Saving Private Ryan right after this movie and it's incredibly jarring. SPR feels like a recruitment tool/war propaganda by comparison. Saving Private Birdman is hilarious, I'm stealing that. This movie creates some incredible new Degrees of Kevin Bacon, too
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Jan 13, 2020 23:12
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There was an audible groan from the audience when Schofield planted his freshly cut hand into the gaping wound of a dead soldier in a crater. For sure thought that was going to be Chekhov’s Wound or something but obviously the time line didn’t allow for that. Well guess he’ll have some fun infection times in a few days!
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Jan 13, 2020 23:28
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:One of the best movies I've ever seen. Saving Private Ryan was notable for being a particularly gruesome and unglamorous depiction of war, I have no idea what you're even getting at here. Bascially everything in 1917 was taken from that movie. Both of them are very reverent of military service of course, in fact in 1917 the only Germans we see are 100% bad and evil, even in scenarios where it makes little sense.
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Jan 14, 2020 17:45
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Mullitt posted:Saving Private Ryan was notable for being a particularly gruesome and unglamorous depiction of war, I have no idea what you're even getting at here. Bascially everything in 1917 was taken from that movie. "By Comparison", my goon sir Everything SPR does, 1917 does Better
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Jan 14, 2020 20:33
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Yeah, I was hoping for some moment of common humanity between Schofield and a German soldier. Clearly, the German pilot sets up and then subverts this expectation; you think for a minute, after he's pulled from his plane, he might not want to fight anymore. That Blake's humane treatment of him might cut through the conflict they're supposed to have...but nope, sure didn't. I spent the rest of the movie anticipating some similar moment with the opposite result, where Schofield encounters a German who's as tired of killing as he is, and they just put down their guns instead. Crazier poo poo happened in real life. It's interesting to me how different wars cater to such different themes in historical fiction. Because, for sure: Saving Private Ryan is brutal and unforgiving, but it's going to fall on the side of valorizing that conflict. "America defeats the Nazis" is as much an American origin story as the Revolutionary War at this point. It's almost inconceivable to characterize WW2 as an unjust war, and pretty impossible to make an anti-war story and set it during WW2 (Catch-22 notwithstanding.) But WW1 is perfect for that...there are no clear heroes or villains, the reason for the fighting was exceptionally stupid, and the level of human brutality that common soldiers faced was without precedent at the time. Those "war is Hell" themes came through pretty loudly in this movie. The most innocent and optimistic character dies horribly in the first act, and the remainder of the story is his cynical friend's excruciating journey to relay a message that ultimately isn't going to make much of a difference. The movie depicts the soldiers themselves in a positive light, but the conflict itself is all suffering and horror in pursuit of meaningless symbolic victories.
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Jan 14, 2020 21:10
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I have to disagree on the germans being portrayed as evil. My take on the pilot was that he was concussed, traumatized, half burned, and panicking.He also didn'tspeak english and could easily have thought the brit pawing at him was trying to attack or at least loot him. Similarly, The house sniper was just...in a shootout? What's evil about it beyond, you know, the general horror of war. Same for everyone who was running and gunning in the city.
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Jan 14, 2020 21:27
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SPR is a movie about Good Soldiers vs Bad Soldiers, but 1917 is about Innocent Men vs the Horrors of War The antagonists of the movie are a window with a sniper glint, a plane falling out of the sky, a bunker collapsing, etc. The only Germans we see are wounded (a form of innocence), in their own territory, and defending themselves against the Horrors of War as well "The Germans are evil" is such a baffling misread of the film to me.
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Jan 14, 2020 21:53
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That's a good short description, I like that. And I mean, the repeated, in fact nearly constant imagery of The two soldiers (and later one) moving past, over, and even though the bodies of other men who didn't make it, who died attempting to make their own way through the war. That's the heart of the movie for me, that's what's going to stick with me.
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Jan 14, 2020 22:43
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I was a bit annoyed at the "inconsistent" theme of trees at first (Tommen mentions that the chopped-down cherry trees will spring back, better than ever, once the stumps rot) which was at odds with the general themes of rot and decay in the film. But then I realized his naivety was literally what killed him so it totally makes sense that he'd have a Wrong Opinion on "the trees will grow back twice as many/this is the war to end all wars" I'm still piecing together what the cherry blossoms and trees meant but there's something really cool here. -Bigass tree blocking the road, can only be moved by the young masses to the benefit of the insulated elite -Schofield starting and finishing his journey leaning up against a tree -Schofield's journey down the river was full of it. Cherry blossom rain, driftwood raft, a dam made of logs and bloated corpses, and crawling out of the river into a heavily wooded grove Trees, man. Treeees
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Jan 14, 2020 22:54
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:SPR is a movie about Good Soldiers vs Bad Soldiers, but 1917 is about Innocent Men vs the Horrors of War Except almost everything shocking and awful is directly shown to have been deliberately done by the Germans alone. The booby traps, chopped trees, and machine gunned cows draw more ire from the British than anything else, as cowardly or dishonorable act. The German pilot stabs his rescuer. The German sentry that Scofield tries to reason with goes for his weapon. Scofield arrives in the town to find the Germans have set the church ablaze. The reaction from the soldiers tells us this is not business as usual but something new that even trench hardened soldiers find shocking. I think you can claim that the movie is shown from the perspective of a British infantryman and thus biased toward their prejudices but to claim that both sides alike are shown to suffer the depravities of war is, I think, a stretch.
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Jan 15, 2020 00:45
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Also don't let your feeling about Germans in WW2 bleed into a WW1 setting. Yes, they are still overwhelmingly responsible for the conflict and the subsequent deaths of millions, but these we're not in the Holocaust era in this film and all of the heaviness that brings with it. There's a reason why they didn't immediately execute the pilot; a lot of soldiers in WW1 on both sides felt sorry for one another and had a level of camaraderie and respect. They Shall Not Grow Old showed this a lot as well and it was one of the more humanizing parts of the whole documentary.
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Jan 15, 2020 00:55
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Class Warcraft posted:Except almost everything shocking and awful is directly shown to have been deliberately done by the Germans alone. The booby traps, chopped trees, and machine gunned cows draw more ire from the British than anything else, as cowardly or dishonorable act. I don’t think the reaction from the soldiers tells us that at all. I’d say they realize it’s a situation where they would do the exact same thing, it’s just a bummer being on this side of it.
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Jan 15, 2020 01:29
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Bottom Liner posted:Also don't let your feeling about Germans in WW2 bleed into a WW1 setting. Yes, they are still overwhelmingly responsible for the conflict and the subsequent deaths of millions, but these we're not in the Holocaust era in this film and all of the heaviness that brings with it. There's a reason why they didn't immediately execute the pilot; a lot of soldiers in WW1 on both sides felt sorry for one another and had a level of camaraderie and respect. They Shall Not Grow Old showed this a lot as well and it was one of the more humanizing parts of the whole documentary. That's what I'm saying. The British soldiers are seeing a whole new level of fanaticism that is shocking to them. They are used to the slugging match of the trenches, but this is something new entirely. Blake and Scofield are both upset about the booby trap and comment on how it could many of their comrades it would have killed if they hadn't stumbled across it first. Then Scofield, the veteran soldier, turns his back on the German pilot to go get water, because he never thinks the pilot would do something as insane as start stabbing the guys helping you. Shortly after the British troops in the truck lament at the scorched earth tactics of the Germans. Scofield stands in horror looking at the conflagration at the church. Then Scofield tries to reason with a German sentry to avoid killing him, but ends up having to kill the guy anyway. Even Sherlock seems shocked that the Germans would retreat miles just to turn around and lay a trap. The entire movie is the Germans surprising the British over and over again with their ruthlessness. It portrays the British as honorable and fighting fairly while the Germans are literally the skulking Huns from the WW1 propaganda posters. This movie does not portrays both sides as equal victims of events beyond their control. Blake and Scofield go out of their way to avoid killing whenever possible, while literally every single German soldier we see is hellbent on killing the enemy, even if it means losing his own life in the process. Edit: Also, there is a scene in Saving Private Ryan that portrays members of the German Army as victims of circumstance, unlike this movie. It's when the American soldiers get up the beach and are gunning down the fleeing German defenders. Two Germans come out of a trench with their hands raised and are trying to surrender when a couple Americans joke that they can't understand them and shoot them. One American asks the other "What were they saying?". The other guy jokes "Look, I washed for supper!" They're actually speaking Czech and trying to explain that they're not Germans and were conscripted to fight but get shot halfway through. Class Warcraft fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Jan 15, 2020 |
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Jan 15, 2020 01:53
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