Credit: IMDB
Sam Mendes’ baubled war film 1917 throws up the old question, ‘What is cinema for?’ The answer, obviously, is entertainment. But after 20 minutes in the lovely black velvet darkness of the auditorium, fingers scraping the bottom of the popcorn bucket, one sometimes yearns for a bit of art too. An illumination of the human condition. Or at least the human condition at a certain point in time.
Depending on your cultural proclivities, Sir Sam is either the guy who directed the brill Bond movie Skyfall, or the theatre genius from the Donmar Warehouse. Since 1917 is dedicated to, and inspired by, the exploits of Mendes’ own grandfather Alfred in the Great War, all bodes well for 119 celluloid minutes. Action! Light! Truth! The Holy Trinity of film-making.
1917 is a heroic, magnificent failure. A silver screen equivalent of one of those set-piece First World War battles that went wrong. More, the film is trumpeted as an indictment of war. Certainly, it is an indictment. But only of our contemporary flinchy sensibilities.
The premise is simple. On April 6th 1917 on the Western Front, two ordinary British soldiers — Lance corporals Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George MacKay) — are given an impossible mission: deliver a message deep in enemy territory that will prevent 1,600 men, including Blake’s own brother, from walking into a deadly German trap. The boys’ orders come direct from the mouth of a trembling, portentous general — played by the portentous, trembling Colin Firth. (Donmar Mendes elicits an epochal performance from George MacKay, but there is nothing to be done with Firth nowadays.) “If you fail,” they are warned, “it will be a massacre.”
Oh, and the boys, who are friends, as well as comrades, have to beat the clock. The message must be delivered by dawn. “Time is the enemy,” declares the advertising for 1917.
Orders tucked into tunic pocket, Blake and Schofield, in what seems to be a real-time, single flowing shot (as per Hitchcock’s Rope), pass through the British trenches, No-Man’s land, down into abandoned German positions. Skyfall Mendes knows how to deploy big bucks and battalions of crew. The look of 1917 — the re-creation of terrain and trenches — is sumptuous. Immersive. The camera is less a fly on the wall, more a fly buzzing closely around Blake and Schofield. There is a sense of dread, of prey being scoped. Technically, 1917 is a marvel. For a while the covenant seems on, a cinematic promise kept.
Then, inside a cavernous German dug-out, the roof caves in on Schofield. Which was the exact point the lid came off my historian’s cynicism. Of course, 1917 is fiction, not documentary, but even so: messages in the British Army — a highly professional service by 1917 — were invariably conveyed by dedicated runners, not any old Tom, Blake or Schofield. Yes, telephone lines went down, but then there were the canines of Colonel Richardson’s Messenger Dog Service, and the avia of the Carrier Pigeon Service.
Worse, the tickbox mentality becomes, by the ticking minute, too blatant to ignore. Every First World War cliché and icon gets its moment. Cynical, combat-crazed officer? Tick. Dead, bloated horses? Tick. Rotting corpses in rain-filled shell holes? Tick. Rats as big as cats? Tick. Blackened tree stumps in wasteland? Tick. Trench pet dog? Tick. The deliberately posed props go on, and on. French wavy-locked maiden who is a dead-ringer for Marianne? Tick. Cherry blossom to signify healing ability of nature? Tick.
The roof-fall is only the first in a series of improbable events. Tension dissipates. Time drags. The clever illusion of the single-shot is lost definitively with an obvious cut, as Schofield blacks out after being (unmortally) shot by a German sniper in village ruins. Rather than strain every sinew to deliver the vital message, the boys wander mythic scenarios — including a night-time detour to Apocalypse Now, complete with flares and swelling score.
Realisation dawns. This is not a war movie. This is Homer updated. This is Odysseus on the Western Front.
I did almost forgive Mendes everything for the scene in which Odysseus-Schofield beaches on a river bank, is stricken by tears and sets off into the trees — but then Mendes chucks in more improbable obstacles on the mini-Homeric journey, and I recanted. To conclude the movie, Donmar Mendes brings the film full circle, with an end shot mirroring the first tranquil frames. Thus, perfect Greek dramatic structure.
But long before then, the First World War has become backdrop, the camerawork has tarnished into the alienating aesthetic of the first-person-shooter computer game. Call of Duty: 1917.
The film 1917 ends up irredeemably modern. Even the year of the title is a give-away. 1917 is a step away from the heart of the war. It is the year of the Russian Revolution, the date when the new world separated from the old.
This reduction of the Great War to video game backdrop is the signal weakness of Mendes’ epic. Aside from the “mateship” between the two principals — important in the Great War, but important between men in any war — and the sense of duty they hold in their hearts (again a military universal) there is no touching on the mentality of the time.
It is all archetype, and stereotype in 1917. The politics of the piece are peace please — a very now notion. Rather than kill the enemy, Blake/Schofield systematically allow them the chance to live. Schofield indicates his personal distaste for war by declaring he has exchanged his Somme gallantry medal for a bottle of wine from a Frenchman.
We are at the nub of the moral matter. A real hero in 1914-18 was someone who risked his life for others. Or who killed the enemy. Killed them. Killed them on behalf of those overlapping circles, of friends, family, King, school, Country, God, freedom. Killed them to win the war. The only war-minded soldier in 1917 is Benedict Cumberbatch’s stage-villain colonel.
In the real year of 1917, soldiers would have loved him. Just as they loved have-a-go Captain Siegfried Sassoon, winner of the Military Cross. ‘Mad Jack’, they called Sassoon, fondly. This willingness to kill is one reason why Britain won. We do not like it, we cannot put it in a movie, but there it is. The heroism which today dare not speak its name.
John Lewis-Stempel is a farmer and writer on nature and history. His most recent books are The Sheep’s Tale and Nightwalking.
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SubscribeIf TG really “used to think [Harry] left for privacy,” one can probably disregard everything else she thinks about the royals, and human nature in general for that matter. I mean really.
I saw Harry the other day at the INVICTUS GAMES, in The Hague.
He was in his element and it appeared that he couldn’t have been happier. He certainly wasn’t seeking privacy, in any shape or form.
Agreed. What a complete load of tosh. I feel myself aggrieved but I still open my own curtains rather than insisting that one of my minions does so.
It seems as though the author is motivated by some malignant loathing that find its expression in these Tourette style articles
Perhaps she was being facetious- as we all can observe that Harry & his sidekick have crafted a life that is anything but ?
What a truly bitter article, seemingly based on hearsay and the writers republicanism
Sounds like a book review of Tina Brown’s latest. I am listening to it now on audible. Tina Brown reads it in quite a snippy, school-marmish fashion as well, as she reminds her readers (over & over) she’s been covering the royals for years. This review is just a regurgitation. Clearly, Tina isn’t expecting a Royal invite anytime soon.
Speaking as a parent I have to say the task of guiding but not dominating a child is not easy. The Queen has been a perfectly good mother in the context of what was thought the right approach during her life.
The truth is the character of a child is likely to assert itself despite the best endeavours of a parent.
Nature not nurture!
Nature, nurture.
Nelson Mandela was not a particularly good parent either – or husband. But then, you cannot do everything.
As for the rigidity and the suffering – it is a uniquely well-paid job, with palaces and worldwide fame thrown in. Nothing would have prevented Harry from marrying a hairdresser and getting a discreet job as a helicopter pilot in Nome, Alaska. Only that is not what he wanted, is it?
I am guessing it would be hard to parent from prison ?
Indeed. Which is why choosing a ‘career’ that would likely put you in prison – but that would eventually bring down apartheid – was not a very family-friendly choice.
27 years…
What do you mean when you say Mandela was neither a good parent or husband?
I’m astounded this trivial article has been published on Unherd . It has nothing whatsoever to recommend it .
A too harsh appraisal by far. In the fifties, parents of all shades and classes brought up children very differently to the standard child’s upbringing today. Dig into families and their backgrounds and there will often be areas of then practice which do not accord with many contemporary views. Good parents do their best but that often is not enough – such is life. The Queen and the Duke did what they felt was right. Easy to say it wasn’t from a distance of 70 years but not particularly helpful.
“perhaps you can’t mother a nation”
It’s a bit more global than that – it’s The Commonwealth and involves a lot of travel!
We all know the stuff about our own families … and then, one other family – the Royal Family, because of the absurd amount of media attention they’re subjected to. But how much do we believe the media on any other subject?
I think the photo supplied with this article is not flattering and may have been chosen to be unkind.
It’s an old editing trick used by propagandists going all the way back to the Bolsheviks and Goebbels.Choose the most unflattering picture of the subject you dislike to try and influence the reader.
Tbf she is not Harry’s mother and arguably the problem for both Harry and Andrew stems more from delusions of grandeur than it does from lack of parental love.
The behaviour of the Royals (as dysfunctional and varied as any other) has nothing at all to do with ‘Monarchy’ which is a legal and constitutional institution.
It is immaterial what their characters, hopes, fears, jealousies and longings are. These are mere gossip fodder, for people who obviously haven’t got enough to do.
A piece which seeks to excite sympathy for Prince Harry, Princess Margaret and the Duke of Windsor cuts no ice with me.
The author’s first sentence is the only one worth reading: not only is the article unseemly, it’s irrelevant, very poorly timed, and about 50 years too late. Lambasting a 100-year-old for their poor mothering skills really takes the biscuit for bad taste. What a waste of energy.
It’s good to know that UnHerd supports free speech but this piece demonstrates well the peril. And what a mean-spirited piece it is but one that no doubt will gain many upvotes and pile-ons from those that seek out this kind of baloney. Meanwhile, many others get cancelled for expressing their views put out there in the interest of honest discussion.
Tanya Gold is semi-fixated on our British monarchy and its royal family. I have lost count of the number of articles by her on these topics which I have seen.
This suggests to me that, like many Republicans, she is really using that institution and family as proxy for difficulties with her own.
On the topic of aberrant royal persons, I think the giveaway that nullifies most of her argument is the awe-inspiring mediocrity of most of their intelligences.
When the Duke of Windsor arrived with Wallis Simpson for the start of their exile in France, immediately after his Abdication, he asked her ‘What do we do now?’
Pre-marriage, Prince Harry’s only notion of how to spend time – except when he was on duty in the armed forces – was boozing in pubs and clubs, boozing in pubs and clubs, boozing in pubs and clubs. For a while he led his brother down this dead-end road.
A few individuals among them, a very few, are not so mindless. The current Earl of Snowdon (Princess Margaret’s son) has long been a furniture maker.
Yet in the main, confronted by all the furniture of Earth and every means for specialising – as an interest, hobby, spare-time occupation – in any one domain of it, the Royals are at a loss to know what to do with themselves.
I write as a keen supporter of the British monarchy. It is a much better constitutional chieftaincy than any we can elect in what is still a fallen world of sinful human beings.
But I think the inanition of the majority (not all) of royal personages stultifies Ms Gold’s case that they are essentially victims, not willing adherents of the scheme into which they are born. If they had any aspiration – however inarticulate, barely choate – to be un-imprisoned, it would show in their going in for (say) bean-growing or boat-building or any one of thousand other creative activities.
Ouch! Surely it’s the case though that an assessment of the royal parenting would fail by standards applied by our Social Services!
I am not sure what Social Services standards they would fail given that we seem periodically to hear of small children with broken bones and multiple bruises being left with violent unmarried partners who go on to kill them. Do you know something the rest of us don’t about the upbringing of the Queen’s children?
You mean they would probably manifest incorrect ideological opinions? You’re probably right about that.
I remember being shocked to learn that the Queen, as a “young bride” as she was called, moved to Malta to be with her husband. Very romantic but not when you realise she left her two children behind in the UK for years.
It was 1949 to 1951, and we need to understand that it was very common in those days for forces service couples, which was what they were, to leave very young children in the care of family, or in boarding school. Prince Philip was taking a last opportunity to spend time in his previously chosen profession, the Navy. It’s not how parents would deal with things these days, but it was 70 years ago, a whole world away, and it was the custom and practice at that time.
For me I enjoyed reading this article. Nelson Mandela and the queen have been incredible leaders. However, I don’t think it is enough (although understandable) to say that it’s ok that maybe they weren’t the best parents because they were good leaders of a country. I would argue that to be a half decent parent is more important than a great worldwide leader. It seems like the key here is a lack of emotional attachment which was common in that era together with childhoods spent in boarding schools (there is quite a lot of literature about the damage that this causes) and a mother with the incredible responsibility of being the Queen and the perhaps impossible mission of being able to attend to her children.
I am arguing that if the world was full of half decent parents the world would inevitably have a lot more emotionally healthy children and that would surely have a transformative effect on society.
I would also take issue with palaces and worldwide fame being a good thing. An upbringing, maybe without emotional attachment matched with these surroundings, creates a bit of a prison I think. Is it any wonder that Harry would not feel that he can marry anybody he wants or do any job he wants? Although he has talked about living a normal life he seems to be unable to do so. That is no surprise given what he is used to. To break free would surely require a great amount of courage that I don’t think hardly anybody has.
I think that we have it wrong believing that riches equals happiness. To generalise I would argue that a middle class (to have enough so as not to be constantly stressing about where money is coming from) upbringing is the most positive environment and least constricting for children and adults making their way in the world. The constant worshipping of celebrities on tv and glorification and berating of the rich suggests that we should keep aiming higher. Not to do so would be a failure and having enough is not enough. I know that I have been taken in to this way of thinking.
I think we should show some understanding for children who grow up surrounded by great wealth. It rarely seems a healthy environment to live a contented life.
I’d agree with your evaluation of the costs, but you have to agree that being a prince is a pretty well rewarded career. I just get a little impatient with people who refuse to pay the price – but still want to keep the advantages that they did not earn but got for being born to the right parents.
Total tripe. The Royal Family behave in the way they do because they think that they are special. Harry believes that he really has a message for mankind that is worth millions of dollars. Andrew thinks that young women want to have sex with him and that he is so clever he can lie his way out of trouble. Margaret could have had the man she claimed to love but he was not worth renouncing her title and perks. So desperate was she to be treated like a common person, she insisted on being called ‘Princess’ by even her closest friends. Charles feels he has the right to meddle in the democratic process. William seems to agree that politics, read ‘democracy’, is a dangerous practice where the plebs disobey their Royal betters.
Fortunately, our Caribbean brothers and sisters have made it clear that they are sick of being lectured about the evils of slavery by a family that refuses to look at its own history of imperial enrichment. Hopefully, the British will get off their knees soon and take back the land that this German family have stolen.
Great article, hugely enjoyable. Thanks, Tanya.
I guess this remark is satirical…