"War Horse’"Brings Tears For Its Deep Feelings

Is Steven Spielberg’s ‘War Horse’ another beautiful and moving period drama from the critically-acclaimed director? 

Only days after releasing the kid-friendly film, The Adventures of TinTin, Steven Spielberg returns with a heavier (and very much NOT kid-friendly) dramatic offering, War Horse - a World War I drama based on a children’s book by Michael Morpurgo (which also inspired a stage play from Nick Stafford).

While many film fans tend to most fondly remember Spielberg’s lighthearted sci-fi and action-adventure titles (such as E.T. and the Indiana Jones series), many of the Oscar-winner’s most celebrated works have been hard-hitting period dramas. Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List were recognized by the Academy as well as other awards organizations and, despite violent historical narratives, also drew tremendous numbers at the box office. Has Spielberg managed to once again blend evocative and entertaining period drama in War Horse? Or is the film too dismal and emotionally manipulative to actually move audiences?

Only days after releasing the kid-friendly film, The Adventures of TinTin, Steven Spielberg returns with a heavier (and very much NOT kid-friendly) dramatic offering, War Horse - a World War I drama based on a children’s book by Michael Morpurgo (which also inspired a stage play from Nick Stafford).

While many film fans tend to most fondly remember Spielberg’s lighthearted sci-fi and action-adventure titles (such as E.T. and the Indiana Jones series), many of the Oscar-winner’s most celebrated works have been hard-hitting period dramas. Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List were recognized by the Academy as well as other awards organizations and, despite violent historical narratives, also drew tremendous numbers at the box office. Has Spielberg managed to once again blend evocative and entertaining period drama in War Horse? Or is the film too dismal and emotionally manipulative to actually move audiences?

That said, the marketing for the film (coupled with the children’s book source material) might lead some moviegoers to think that War Horse is a mostly lighthearted and inspiring adventure suitable for older children – which, for anyone familiar with the stage adaptation that inspired Spielberg’s movie, would be a mistake. There is a huge difference between having scenes of animals and people in peril in a children’s book (or portrayed by puppets in a stage play) – and having live human and animal actors in the same situations in a very realistic-looking film. For casual audiences, War Horse may actually be one of the heavier and more challenging films of the year – as the World War seemingly destroys everything in its wake (soldiers, innocents, and animals alike). The heavy tone and heart-wrenching moments don’t detract from the overall success of the film, but for sensitive viewers, it’s important to note that the War Horse marketing definitely makes the movie look significantly lighter than what actually plays out onscreen.

The unrelenting tone is almost certainly intentional and actually helps to ground audiences in the horrors of World War I. However, there’s no doubt that each of the vignettes can be exceptionally draining – especially because the terrible deeds of man far outweigh any moments of levity. The director does manage to imbue a number of the characters with enjoyable and lively personalities (even in the face of the dangers at hand); however, even the most hopeful and cheerful of the War Horse personalities are ultimately overrun by the overarching war machine. As a result, the film can at times come across as a continuous descent into increasingly horrifying human experiences.

That’s not to say that there aren’t a number of lighthearted moments as well – mainly due to the success of the equine actors coupled with some inspired performances from their human counterparts. Joey exudes a tremendous amount of personality, especially considering the character is actually a composite of fourteen different horse performers, and provides interesting and believable reactions to the various scenarios portrayed onscreen. Unsurprisingly, Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski make use of the horses to great effect – whether to showcase the majesty and beauty of the animals at play or to juxtapose the horror that befell working animals in the early days of mechanized war machines.

Despite featuring an equine protagonist, the War Horse story is still largely about the human condition in World War I, and Spielberg lined up a compelling roster of talent to play off of the Joey character in a myriad of different dramatic opportunities (detestable and sympathetic alike). Jeremy Irvine is competent in the lead role as Albert – even in spite of a few hammy and overly eager moments in his performance. There’s no doubt the actor had a stiff challenge ahead of him in selling the emotional bond between Albert and Joey – and Irvine does his best with what he’s been given, even if Albert is still the least interesting character that Joey interacts with throughout the film.

Once the film gets rolling, War Horse moves at a brisk pace as Joey collides with a one intriguing character, and subsequently talented performer, after another – most notably Tom Hiddleston’s Captain Nicholls. It’s an especially intriguing opportunity for fans who don’t remember Hiddleston from any of his pre-Loki work (which included a lot of TV movie roles) – since Nicholls allows the actor another opportunity (next to Midnight in Paris) to showcase his dramatic chops as a compassionate, charming, and emotive character. Spielberg also rounded-up a stable of international talent, young and old, to headline roles in each of the subsequent vignettes including French thespian Niels Arestrup and German actor David Kross, among countless others.

War Horse offers a number of memorable moments both tragic and profound. However, even the most inspiring moments are wrought with the horror of the war at hand, and as mentioned before, the movie is not a particularly cheerful onscreen experience and we would not recommend it for children.

That said, for anyone who is willing to invest in another rich and evocative Spielberg historical drama, there’s no doubt that War Horse is sure to deliver one of the most compelling film experiences of the year.

Classic Movie Review: The Godfather

Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather is regarded as such an important cinematic classic that it’s easy to forget what a bold undertaking it was and how unconventional Coppola decided to make it. Here is  adramatic and violent story, epic in scope, that begins with a thirty minute wedding celebration that has very little plot advancement, no action, and introduces about twenty key characters. The payoff comes later when we feel like we know these people like our own family.

I had the great pleasure of seeing The Godfather in the cinema for its 25th anniversary re-release. Up to that point I’d seen the film a few times, but I was never as mesmerized as I was that day. I’m interested to know what it was like to see it in 1972. What did people think as Vito, Sonny, Michael, Kay, Fredo, Tessio, Clemenza, and all the others are presented, sometimes for fleeting moments in those opening moments? The plot is only set up in a cursory way as the Corleone patriarch Vito takes meetings in his darkened study, plotting sinister deeds behind closed doors while hundreds of guests celebrate his daughter Connie’s (Talia Shire) wedding in the bright sunshine outside. So much information is thrown at the audience during the opening that I can’t imagine anyone retaining it all the first time. At this point the movie is so ingrained in me that I don’t even think of the actors when I’m watching the movie. When I see Marlon Brando on the screen, I’m thinking about Vito Corleone. I don’t see James Caan. I see Sonny. I was hardly surprised many years ago when Roger Ebert wrote his Great Movie review for this film and noted the same feeling.

The Godfather is pure cinematic brilliance at every possible level. From the marvelous acting in every role right on down to the costume design that helps set Michael and Kay apart as outsiders in the opening wedding. Can we now imagine anyone else in the lead roles? Could anyone but James Caan have captured the explosiveness and exuberance that is Sonny Corleone? It’s as if Marlon Brando was born to play Vito. Who but John Cazale could have made so much of Fredo’s limited role in the first film? He is a natural sad-sack, impotent in the face of assassins after his father and completely lacking in imagination while working under Moe Green in Las Vegas. Robert Duvall is Tom Hagen through and through. And Al Pacino was the great revelation as Michael, the youngest son who was never supposed to get involved in the family business and then dives in head first. The studio famously wanted a known star like Jack Nicholson, Ryan O’Neal, or Robert Redford for Michael – all of whom would have been profoundly wrong.

The plot, as it is finally set in motion about 25 minutes in, is mostly about a mafia crime family whose boss wants to hold fast to a proud tradition and refuses to offer protection and investment cash to the other families who are interested in expanding their spheres of influence from gambling and prostitution to include narcotics. Although Vito knows it stands to be a lucrative business venture, he also recognizes the inherent dangers involved and the almost certain possibility that the politicians and police he has in his pocket will distance themselves from him as a result. It is a man named Solozzo who propositions him. Solozzo (Al Lettieri) works for the Tattaglia family and in order for them to continue in their business, Vito has to be removed. And in a famous sequence, Corleone is gunned down on the streets of Little Italy.

The turning point of the film, however, comes later when Michael visits his father in the hospital and discovers that the body guards have been called off. In a first hint of the smarts that will put Michael in power later, he immediately senses something is wrong and he makes all the right decisions to protect Vito. This precisely edited scene in the hospital is both beautiful and sad as Michael tells his father, “I’m with you now.” Are Vito’s tears from joy or sadness?

The story moves in a different direction shortly after this as Michael orchestrates the assassination of Solozzo and a police captain and is forced to flee into hiding in Sicily, leaving behind Kay (Diane Keaton), the woman he loves. The narrative spends a great deal of time in the gorgeous landscapes of the Mediterranean island, with Gordon Willis’s cinematography demonstrating that he can do expansive landscapes as pristinely as he does dimly lit interiors.

The screenplay by Coppola and Puzo distills the sprawling novel to the essential drama that takes place over a roughly five year period beginning in August 1945. Puzo’s novel encompasses Vito’s rise to power in the 1920s, but they wisely left the back story out of the first film. It tightens the focus and allows us to sympathize a great deal with Vito without having to see that he, too, murdered and stole to achieve greatness. Together, they crafted a story that was little more than a lurid pulp novel into a story of great, almost Shakespearean heft with notes of Greek tragedy.

Ultimately The Godfather is a story of a family. More precisely than that, it’s about Vito and Michael. The title readily refers to both men. As a young director, Coppola still had the courage to take the time out to show familial relationships and build characters. One of the family’s caporegimes (a kind of lieutenant), Peter Clemenza played by the great Richard Castellano, takes the time to demonstrate for Michael how to make a proper tomato sauce. In the closing moments, as someone close to the Corleone family is revealed to have betrayed them, Coppola makes the right decision in keeping his murder off screen. We are supposed to feel melancholy at the choices these men make. When you’ve seen the second film (or read the book) and understand the full extent of that man’s history with the Corleone’s, his betrayal is even more profound.

The whole movie is crammed with great scenes. The great director Howard Hawks famously remarked that what constitutes a great movie is three great scenes and no bad ones. By that standard, The Godfather should be held aloft in the stratosphere. There’s not a single bad scene to be spoken of and I could easily rattle off half a dozen great ones: the opening scene with Bonasera asking a favor; the horse head scene; Vito gunned down; Michael saves his father; Michael’s makes his bones; the montage that wraps up the action and the plot intercut with the baptism of a child. It was reportedly Pacino’s performance in the scene where he kills Solozzo that saved him from being cut from the film. All the tension and emotion in that entire scene is written on Pacino’s face – in his expressive eyes, his tightened jaw, his stiff upper body.

What continues to resonate so deeply for me every time I see the film is the power of Nino Rota’s haunting and beautiful score, in particular the main theme. I nearly always have to choke back a lump in my throat when I hear it, especially in the closing moments of the film as Kay looks on as Michael becomes the new Godfather and the door shuts her out. It makes me think of the sadness I feel when, after delivering the story of Luca Brasi holding a gun to a man’s head at Vito’s behest, Michael says to Kay, “That’s my family. It’s not me.” We know what he will become when we hear him say that. We also know that to some extent he falls into power after doing what any son would do to protect his father. After all, Michael is a Corleone. He’s unable to deny that. After all, it’s all in the family.

Roman Holiday Is Immortal Classic Movie

Roman Holiday (1953) Directed by William Wyler. Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert (119 min).

A valentine to Rome, as a princess eludes her minders for a few hours of freedom, a Vespa ride, some gelato, a really cool haircut and the promise of amore with reporter Gregory Peck. “Audrey Hepburn gives the popular old romantic nonsense a reality which it seldom had before. Amid the rhinestone glitter of Roman Holiday’s make-believe, Paramount’s new star sparkles and glows with the fire of a finely cut diamond” (Time Magazine).

Few actresses made a splash the way Audrey Hepburn did in Roman Holiday. Meltingly beautiful, poised and playful, with one film she instantly became one of classic Hollywood’s most beloved stars. The bittersweet tone has kept the film modern, challenging the saccharine sweetness of many 1950s romances.
Roman Holiday took a long time to get to the screen. Dalton Trumbo, one of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten, wrote the original story in 1948, and had writer Ian McLellan Hunter front it for a sale to Frank Capra’s Liberty Pictures. Capra’s independent producing era, in partnership with William Wyler and George Stevens, did not last long, (one of the great financial disappointments was It’s a Wonderful Life) and the assets of the company were sold to Paramount. The studio had some money that could only be used abroad, so filming using Italian lire had a financial incentive. This would be the first American film shot in its entirety in Europe since World War II. Hunter received screenplay credit, although both Ben Hecht and Preston Sturges may have worked as script doctors, and it was Hunter who would receive an Oscar for his writing. In 1993, the Academy acknowledged Trumbo’s contribution, and awarded his wife and children his posthumous Academy Award for Roman Holiday's screenplay.

Capra’s originally planned to cast Elizabeth Taylor and Cary Grant as the princess and the reporter, a deal which never came to fruition. After the film became a Paramount property, many auditioned for the role until Hepburn, a young actress who had played bits in several films and starred on stage in Gigi was tested. She was interviewed about her experience for a while and then, believing the camera was shut off, showed a more playful side to her nature by stretching, hugging her knees and asking how she’d done. The actor who read with her took a more cynical view, “This little doe-eyed charmer is a very smart cookie. She knows perfectly well that the camera is still running and giving it the works.” (Paris). Wyler said, “She completely looked the part of a princess. A real, live bona fide princess. And when she opened her mouth, you were even sure you found a princess. The one variable was, could she act like a princess?" (Maychick).

Filming had its challenges. The Roman summer was stiflingly hot, the outside temperature was in the 90s and inside the buildings it was even hotter. Crowds swarmed over all the locations, making huge impromptu audiences for the actors. Clashes between political parties resulted in strikes and other unrest that threatened to disrupt production. Wyler had wanted to shoot in color, but the budget couldn’t accommodate the added expense.

The Embassy Ball sequence included real Italian nobility, slumming and donating their salaries to charity, and the reporters at the end were real reporters, 38 international correspondents. The script capitalized on the worldwide gossip about British Princess Margaret’s romance with a commoner, RAF Group Captain Peter Townsend, an entanglement scuttled by Queen Elizabeth, herself.

Eldred Gregory Peck (his mother found the name in a phone book) grew up with his maternal grandmother in rural La Jolla, California after his parents’ divorce. Majoring in medicine at UC Berkeley, he discovered acting only when asked to try out for a play in his senior year because he was tall (6’3”) but found he preferred the stage. He went to NYC to try the actor’s life with little success at first, and occasionally slept in Central Park. Winning a scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse, his acting career began in earnest. Classified 4-F because of a bad back (Martha Graham pressed her knee into his back during a class in an attempt to improve his flexibility and ruptured a disc) he quickly found a niche in Hollywood where many leading men were in the service. He was nominated 4 times for an Oscar in the 1940s without winning, and throughout his life devoted much of his time to the arts and liberal political causes, even making Nixon’s enemies list.

Peck had first worried that his part was secondary to the Princess, in fact, many leading men had turned the part down for that reason. He had never done a comedy before, and this relaxed performance shows him at his most charming. Or, as Wyler put it, “Peck used to be a somber sort of a fellow. In Roman Holiday he simply learned to put his hands in his pockets.” He warmed to the experience, and even insisted that Hepburn’s name be above the title. His agent protested saying that such a privilege was the result of many years of work. But Peck insisted, “If I don’t I’m going to make a fool of myself because that girl is going to win the Oscar in her very first performance.” He may also have been in a romantic frame of mind. On the way to Rome, he had been interviewed in Paris by a young reporter, Veronique Passani. When filming was completed, he returned to Paris and renewed his acquaintance with her, and fell in love. They were married nearly 50 years when Peck died in 2003.

William Wyler was a studio director of many important films, Wuthering Heights, Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives among them, and had been nominated for a Best Director Oscar 8 times. He was a perfectionist, sometimes shooting the same scene 60 times. Luckily, this cast did not mind the leisurely pace. The scene where Peck puts his hand in the Mouth of Truth contains a gag that was a surprise to Hepburn, and you can see her spontaneous reaction. Only that scene was done in a single take. Hepburn despaired at her inability to cry in one scene after many retakes, a problem Wyler resolved by yelling at her until she was reduced to tears. He was not above borrowing from another director; some of the “putting the princess to bed” routine is lifted from Buster Keaton’s last silent film.

One reason for the enormous success and influence of this film was the way Audrey Hepburn looked on screen. In an age where a more voluptuous figure was the ideal, Hepburn’s slender grace and dazzling appearance in Edith Head’s chic wardrobe is still being imitated today. In her autobiography, Head spoke of Princess Anne’s first appearance in a stiff and formal brocade gown, and how important to contrast with her “run-away” clothes. “To create the contrast, I put her in funny little flat shoes, a gathered cotton skirt, and a plain blouse with the sleeves rolled up. She even goes to the barber and has her regal crown of hair chopped off. Suddenly, she is the kind of girl you wouldn’t look at twice. It sounds easy to do, but it wasn’t. Trying to make Audrey, who has so much hauteur, look anything but chic is very difficult. I had to adjust the length of the skirt, for instance, making it too long so that she looked somewhat dowdy. I used fabric that was limp to create the impression that she just didn’t care what she wore. The costuming was very important in this film—it told the story. First she was a fairy tale princess, then she because a sporty, wild, happy, very real person who had no regard for her appearance.”

At first, Head thought that her major job as costumer would be to disguise Hepburn’s so-called “figure flaws” her long neck, prominent collarbone, thin arms and strong dancer’s legs, not to mention her flat chest. Nobody at Paramount thought their new star would be setting standards for a new kind of beauty. The New York Times wrote recently, “Thanks to their first glimpse of Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, half a generation of young females stopped stuffing their bras and teetering on stiletto heels.” (Keogh). One of the three Oscars the film won (out of 10 nominations) was for Edith Head’s costumes, her fifth, the others were for Hepburn and the screenplay.

Her director said, “Audrey was the spirit of youth—and I knew that very soon the entire world would fall in love with her, as all of us on the picture did.” Peck said of his co-star, “It was my good luck during that wonderful summer in Rome to be the first of her screen fellows, to hold out my hand, and help her keep her balance as she did her spins and pirouettes. Those months were probably the happiest experience I ever had making movies.”

European 3D Horror Film "Provence Psycho"

Europe's first 3D horror film <<Provence Psycho>> have been identified in the domestic release. The film has remained a mysterious gesture, the story of the film, starring and other tight-lipped, only one exposure of the film concept maps, all distributed atmosphere of terror and suspense of reverie, causing the fans and friends a great curiosity.

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Not only is the background of the story, which itself is like a hero, with the film characters for the control and anti-control of the confrontation. That bloody typewriter, the crunching sound of the door, the flickering kerosene lamp, middle of the night came the little girl cry from the music, sound to color, props, everywhere terror and exudes a clear, cross-mixing madness and reason, seems to be the person referred to in the film 'Hell's border.' plus the film's 3D effects to create a a three-dimensional sense of authenticity, a sense of terror to achieve the ultimate creepy.

Hot concept map cited more suspense scenes photos

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European-style suspense one kind of fear Audition

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