I keep my father’s mess cup on my desk where he scratched the cities & WWII battles in which he fought: Casablanca…Salerno (sea landing)…San Pietro…Rapido…Monte Cassino…Saint-Raphaël (sea landing)…Frankfurt…His group took 92% casualties and he lived with PTSD until almost 100.
Suggested Military Films:
Paths of Glory (1957, U.S., WWI, Stanley Kubrick) More than being an anti-war film, Paths of Glory is a war film. Critics and Kubrick himself used the film to highlight the contradictions in WWI: Officers’ dinners with fine wines, cigars, dancing and mistresses, while sending terrified, hungry soldiers to enemies' trenches; a tangle of lies and power struggles that result in allied soldiers being executed by firing squad for crimes they did not commit. Do we not think that all wars have these same contradictions of well-fed officers safely behind enemy lines while nameless soldiers die for nothing in the millions?
Une vita difficile (A Difficult Life), Italy, 1961, Dino Risi) A celebrated, hilarious film in Commedia all'italiana, or Italian Comedy-style, about WWII. There is no such thing as a WWII comedy, some say. Yes there is, and this is it. Starring Alberto Sordi, it pulls on every stitch of WWII Italy. When my husband & I turned the corner on Rue Champollion, a tiny street known for three of the best repertory cinemas in Paris, it overflowed with the waiting line. A brilliant film.
Иди и смотри (Come and Look), 1985, Elem Klimov, Soviet Union. One of the most harrowing, disturbing films about war. The plot is based on survivor accounts from villages in Byelorussia razed by Nazis. 15-year-old Aleksei Yevgenyevich Kravchenko gives a stunning performance. The eyes of those that were massacred gleam though the eyes of the actors that are consumed in burning villages on celluloid. Some say the greatest WWII film.
Fury, U.S. 2014, David Ayer. The best US WWII movie made in my view. David Ayer wrote, directed, and produced Fury (cinematography: Roman Vasyanov), the story of a US tank and its crew inside German lines toward the end of the European War. The tank commander is given the order to hold a rural crossroads to protect 2,000 people that are behind the lines in the supply train. The commander never tells the crew why and offers them the option of leaving when a SS battalion approaches. Highlights: 1) Ayer is presented with a dilemma at the beginning of the film. Ayer did not want to start a film about WWII without WWII. The first second the SONY logo appears on screen a barely discernible walkie-talkie starts. By the time 20 seconds passes and the COLUMBIA "Torch Lady" appears like a satellite tower broadcasting a voice on a radio, and the fragmented--as if blown up--"QED International" logo consolidates, the viewer is deep into the desperate immediacy of war. The end credits are perhaps the best ever created. Ayer edits footage from WWII-era documentary film (I recognized many sequences) into the end credits with stunning music that is the soundtrack throughout the film. The end credits are drenched in scarlet. 2) Fury is the best ensemble acting in a WWII film. Brad Pitt, Michal Peña, Jon Bernthal, Logan Lerman, and Shia LaBoeuf. LaBoeuf, who is a method actor, felt he was not sufficiently "tank soldier" and knocked out one of his teeth and didn't bathe for weeks; others asked that he leave because he smelled so bad. In an interview with Peña & Bernthal, they were asked about LaBoeuf. Mr. Bernthal laughed & answered sardonically, "We're all method actors in this film." Their individual American dialects were so brilliant I watched English subtitles to understand some scenes. If you want to see truly great acting and an intelligent script that balances obscenities and biblical references perfectly, this is the movie. (Much better than Private Ryan in my view.) 3) In the midst of the war, they have one day of R&R. There is a "set piece" that takes place in an apartment with two women and eventually the entire tank crew that is like a theatrical play. It is a psychologically lacerating confrontation that reproduces the intensity and horror of war while sitting nicely around a table to eat. The female actors, Anamaria Marinca & Alicia von Rittberg, are brilliant. 3) In the final scene when their tank becomes disabled & they fight a Waffen-SS Battalion alone, some critics question the military realism. I first learned of disabled tanks that become fortresses when watching raw footage of Soviet tanks as they drove the Nazis westward. It is a known military tactic. I cannot recommend this film highly enough.The acting alone is stunning & surpasses any seen in prior war US films.
Anthropoid (2016, England, Sean Ellis). Sean Ellis wrote, directed, and operated the camera. Anthropoid is about the assassination in downtown Prague of Reinhard Heydrich, the main architect of The Final Solution. It is the only assassination of a high-ranking Nazi official during the war. The film is based on fact and is low-key. The principal actors are Cillian Murphy, Jamie Dornan, and a celebrated Czech actress Anna Geislerová. The several parachutists hide in the crypt of the Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral after the murder. They are found and the 7 parachutists hold off the Nazis for many hours. [My mother, a U.S. diplomat, was invited to the Soviet Union and we stopped in Prague when I was 17 before boarding Aeroflot. I visited the Prague Gestapo Museum in the old Gestapo Headquarters where resistance fighters were tortured in this film. I also visited the Cathedral & the small crypt where the assassins took their lives before capture to protect others. There are bullet holes in the walls from the firefight. I kneeled, & my escort encouraged me to touch the bullet holes in remembrance.] A near-documentary cinematic masterpiece. Over 5,000 people were killed in Czechoslovakia in retaliation for the assassination of Heydrich.
(Ph.D. Political Philosophy/Cultural (Text & Film) History. Area speciality: Russia)
It seems like a strange casting choice to me, but I won't lose sleep over it. Mel Gibson has a Finnish Jesus in "Resurrection of the Christ" next year, I think mixing up the ethnicity of the Christ is probably more offensive than doing it to Helen of Troy.
I feel like Circe is a prestige role, especially after the 2018 bestselling novel by Madeline Miller, and when I first saw the partial cast list without roles, I assumed this would be Charlize Theron.
But I am very pleased to see one of my all-time favorites, Samantha Morton, as Circe. No offense to Theron, who's great of course, and should make for a memorable Calypso. But expect Morton, with the darker role, to haunt the screen.
I’ve never known an upper-class racist white-trash cult…Musk et al are in a class of their own.
Who cares what the far right thinks at this point? Stupidity is their go to.
That’s proof they actually do not “own” logic (Aristotle would agree) & none (far right) are equipped to discern/critique any art form—let alone Nolan’s magic adaptation of the “Odyssey.”
Nolan owns his films, & so far. . .brilliantly so!👌🏻
Don't care what denizens of the Boer-boor-bore caste think -- Nolan seems to be going big on Argos and has said the heart-piercing, faithful-unto-death dog story is what first drew him to making The Odyssey.
“… just like their more progressively minded predecessors, these are almost certainly completely contrived outrages, an effort to find something in a movie to get mad about while chasing the endorphin rush they got for screaming online about [stuff they previously got mad about].
“Social media has many customs, some of them positive. But its primary tradition now seems to be fomenting silly outrages to poke the pleasure centers of perpetually unhappy people.”
Brilliant.
Why can’t they get hooked on Phonics, or addicted to love? Instead they’re just rage junkies.
In defense of the progressively minded predecessors, their calls for more diversity were brought on by a real lack of people of color and woman onscreen or behind the camera. USC Annenberg has a bunch of studies on this. Like how over the past 15 years, only 66 of the 1,542 directors hired by studios to direct their marquee blockbusters were women. Or how black female leads make up less than 2% of all television roles. I can understand and Asian actor being pissed Emma Stone was hired to play a HAAPI character in Aloha.
Agreed, and actually I recall reading that Emma Stone herself views taking that role as one of her biggest career regrets. But yes, I agree that the diversification of Hollywood, behind the camera as much as in front of it, was long overdue, I just have some concerns about social media creating a sort of addictive sinkhole for people to yell at each other as though the folks they’re yelling at aren’t real people (which, ha ha, sometimes they’re not, but it’s an unhealthy habit of mind for both individuals and society).
Yes, social media seems built to fuel mass outrage. Everyone seems angry for the sake of being angry. Like, I don't believe all the people who are angry about Timothée Chalamet could name three ballets. There are so many actual things to be angry about. But maybe that's part of it: most problems seem so beyond our control, but for 30 minutes on the internet, I can rage into the void. *sigh*
It is pretty amusing to watch people like Musk cry about “historical accuracy” in a fictional story. Especially amusing considering the Ancient Greeks had a fundamentally different construct of race and ethnicity than we do today. These people don’t actually care anything about “Historical accuracy” they’re just looking for any vessel to attach their racial grievances and resentments to. Grievances and resentments much more in the spirit of Herbert Spencer than Homer.
I am shocked - shocked I tell you - that Helen isn't being played by someone of swan descent. Don't they know a freaky rape victim daughter of Zeus when they see one?
Joking aside, I remember when the new tv Percy Jackson was coming out and they lost their damn minds because Annabeth was being played by a black actress. Rick Riorden had a surprisingly nuanced and gentle statement for his fans explaining that he was consulted and completely agreed she was the best actress - and that their knee jerk assumption that she was cast for any reason besides skill was the literal definition of racism.
"...Racism/colorism isn’t something we have or don’t have. I have it. You have it. We all do. And not just white people like me. All people. It’s either something we recognize and try to work on, or it’s something we deny. Saying “I am not racist!” is simply declaring that you deny your own biases and refuse to work on them."
I keep my father’s mess cup on my desk where he scratched the cities & WWII battles in which he fought: Casablanca…Salerno (sea landing)…San Pietro…Rapido…Monte Cassino…Saint-Raphaël (sea landing)…Frankfurt…His group took 92% casualties and he lived with PTSD until almost 100.
Suggested Military Films:
Paths of Glory (1957, U.S., WWI, Stanley Kubrick) More than being an anti-war film, Paths of Glory is a war film. Critics and Kubrick himself used the film to highlight the contradictions in WWI: Officers’ dinners with fine wines, cigars, dancing and mistresses, while sending terrified, hungry soldiers to enemies' trenches; a tangle of lies and power struggles that result in allied soldiers being executed by firing squad for crimes they did not commit. Do we not think that all wars have these same contradictions of well-fed officers safely behind enemy lines while nameless soldiers die for nothing in the millions?
Une vita difficile (A Difficult Life), Italy, 1961, Dino Risi) A celebrated, hilarious film in Commedia all'italiana, or Italian Comedy-style, about WWII. There is no such thing as a WWII comedy, some say. Yes there is, and this is it. Starring Alberto Sordi, it pulls on every stitch of WWII Italy. When my husband & I turned the corner on Rue Champollion, a tiny street known for three of the best repertory cinemas in Paris, it overflowed with the waiting line. A brilliant film.
Иди и смотри (Come and Look), 1985, Elem Klimov, Soviet Union. One of the most harrowing, disturbing films about war. The plot is based on survivor accounts from villages in Byelorussia razed by Nazis. 15-year-old Aleksei Yevgenyevich Kravchenko gives a stunning performance. The eyes of those that were massacred gleam though the eyes of the actors that are consumed in burning villages on celluloid. Some say the greatest WWII film.
Fury, U.S. 2014, David Ayer. The best US WWII movie made in my view. David Ayer wrote, directed, and produced Fury (cinematography: Roman Vasyanov), the story of a US tank and its crew inside German lines toward the end of the European War. The tank commander is given the order to hold a rural crossroads to protect 2,000 people that are behind the lines in the supply train. The commander never tells the crew why and offers them the option of leaving when a SS battalion approaches. Highlights: 1) Ayer is presented with a dilemma at the beginning of the film. Ayer did not want to start a film about WWII without WWII. The first second the SONY logo appears on screen a barely discernible walkie-talkie starts. By the time 20 seconds passes and the COLUMBIA "Torch Lady" appears like a satellite tower broadcasting a voice on a radio, and the fragmented--as if blown up--"QED International" logo consolidates, the viewer is deep into the desperate immediacy of war. The end credits are perhaps the best ever created. Ayer edits footage from WWII-era documentary film (I recognized many sequences) into the end credits with stunning music that is the soundtrack throughout the film. The end credits are drenched in scarlet. 2) Fury is the best ensemble acting in a WWII film. Brad Pitt, Michal Peña, Jon Bernthal, Logan Lerman, and Shia LaBoeuf. LaBoeuf, who is a method actor, felt he was not sufficiently "tank soldier" and knocked out one of his teeth and didn't bathe for weeks; others asked that he leave because he smelled so bad. In an interview with Peña & Bernthal, they were asked about LaBoeuf. Mr. Bernthal laughed & answered sardonically, "We're all method actors in this film." Their individual American dialects were so brilliant I watched English subtitles to understand some scenes. If you want to see truly great acting and an intelligent script that balances obscenities and biblical references perfectly, this is the movie. (Much better than Private Ryan in my view.) 3) In the midst of the war, they have one day of R&R. There is a "set piece" that takes place in an apartment with two women and eventually the entire tank crew that is like a theatrical play. It is a psychologically lacerating confrontation that reproduces the intensity and horror of war while sitting nicely around a table to eat. The female actors, Anamaria Marinca & Alicia von Rittberg, are brilliant. 3) In the final scene when their tank becomes disabled & they fight a Waffen-SS Battalion alone, some critics question the military realism. I first learned of disabled tanks that become fortresses when watching raw footage of Soviet tanks as they drove the Nazis westward. It is a known military tactic. I cannot recommend this film highly enough.The acting alone is stunning & surpasses any seen in prior war US films.
Anthropoid (2016, England, Sean Ellis). Sean Ellis wrote, directed, and operated the camera. Anthropoid is about the assassination in downtown Prague of Reinhard Heydrich, the main architect of The Final Solution. It is the only assassination of a high-ranking Nazi official during the war. The film is based on fact and is low-key. The principal actors are Cillian Murphy, Jamie Dornan, and a celebrated Czech actress Anna Geislerová. The several parachutists hide in the crypt of the Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral after the murder. They are found and the 7 parachutists hold off the Nazis for many hours. [My mother, a U.S. diplomat, was invited to the Soviet Union and we stopped in Prague when I was 17 before boarding Aeroflot. I visited the Prague Gestapo Museum in the old Gestapo Headquarters where resistance fighters were tortured in this film. I also visited the Cathedral & the small crypt where the assassins took their lives before capture to protect others. There are bullet holes in the walls from the firefight. I kneeled, & my escort encouraged me to touch the bullet holes in remembrance.] A near-documentary cinematic masterpiece. Over 5,000 people were killed in Czechoslovakia in retaliation for the assassination of Heydrich.
(Ph.D. Political Philosophy/Cultural (Text & Film) History. Area speciality: Russia)
What kind of luring melodies will the Sirens be singing? Clearly not inspired by the great lyricist Kid Rock!
Meh, if I threw a tantrum every time a US movie appropriates and rapes European history and culture, I'd be very busy.
Do these people think there were lots of Ancient Greek people walking around who looked like Matt Damon or Charlize Theron?
It seems like a strange casting choice to me, but I won't lose sleep over it. Mel Gibson has a Finnish Jesus in "Resurrection of the Christ" next year, I think mixing up the ethnicity of the Christ is probably more offensive than doing it to Helen of Troy.
I feel like Circe is a prestige role, especially after the 2018 bestselling novel by Madeline Miller, and when I first saw the partial cast list without roles, I assumed this would be Charlize Theron.
But I am very pleased to see one of my all-time favorites, Samantha Morton, as Circe. No offense to Theron, who's great of course, and should make for a memorable Calypso. But expect Morton, with the darker role, to haunt the screen.
Samantha Morton would be unbeatable in this role.
The comments thus far support my meager comment:
I’ve never known an upper-class racist white-trash cult…Musk et al are in a class of their own.
Who cares what the far right thinks at this point? Stupidity is their go to.
That’s proof they actually do not “own” logic (Aristotle would agree) & none (far right) are equipped to discern/critique any art form—let alone Nolan’s magic adaptation of the “Odyssey.”
Nolan owns his films, & so far. . .brilliantly so!👌🏻
The right is wallowing in its racism - short and simple. Perhaps Musk can find an all white country to live in so he can feel comfortable.
Don't care what denizens of the Boer-boor-bore caste think -- Nolan seems to be going big on Argos and has said the heart-piercing, faithful-unto-death dog story is what first drew him to making The Odyssey.
The shot of Argos in the trailer: Niagara Falls, Frankie Angel.
Great article and the last paragraph will hold up for all time as the perfect description of the wacked out right.
The fact that no one has seen the movie is easily the best part.
Some people just like being angry.
It’s why I am a conscientious objector in the culture wars. Life’s too short.
“… just like their more progressively minded predecessors, these are almost certainly completely contrived outrages, an effort to find something in a movie to get mad about while chasing the endorphin rush they got for screaming online about [stuff they previously got mad about].
“Social media has many customs, some of them positive. But its primary tradition now seems to be fomenting silly outrages to poke the pleasure centers of perpetually unhappy people.”
Brilliant.
Why can’t they get hooked on Phonics, or addicted to love? Instead they’re just rage junkies.
In defense of the progressively minded predecessors, their calls for more diversity were brought on by a real lack of people of color and woman onscreen or behind the camera. USC Annenberg has a bunch of studies on this. Like how over the past 15 years, only 66 of the 1,542 directors hired by studios to direct their marquee blockbusters were women. Or how black female leads make up less than 2% of all television roles. I can understand and Asian actor being pissed Emma Stone was hired to play a HAAPI character in Aloha.
Agreed, and actually I recall reading that Emma Stone herself views taking that role as one of her biggest career regrets. But yes, I agree that the diversification of Hollywood, behind the camera as much as in front of it, was long overdue, I just have some concerns about social media creating a sort of addictive sinkhole for people to yell at each other as though the folks they’re yelling at aren’t real people (which, ha ha, sometimes they’re not, but it’s an unhealthy habit of mind for both individuals and society).
Yes, social media seems built to fuel mass outrage. Everyone seems angry for the sake of being angry. Like, I don't believe all the people who are angry about Timothée Chalamet could name three ballets. There are so many actual things to be angry about. But maybe that's part of it: most problems seem so beyond our control, but for 30 minutes on the internet, I can rage into the void. *sigh*
It is pretty amusing to watch people like Musk cry about “historical accuracy” in a fictional story. Especially amusing considering the Ancient Greeks had a fundamentally different construct of race and ethnicity than we do today. These people don’t actually care anything about “Historical accuracy” they’re just looking for any vessel to attach their racial grievances and resentments to. Grievances and resentments much more in the spirit of Herbert Spencer than Homer.
I am shocked - shocked I tell you - that Helen isn't being played by someone of swan descent. Don't they know a freaky rape victim daughter of Zeus when they see one?
Joking aside, I remember when the new tv Percy Jackson was coming out and they lost their damn minds because Annabeth was being played by a black actress. Rick Riorden had a surprisingly nuanced and gentle statement for his fans explaining that he was consulted and completely agreed she was the best actress - and that their knee jerk assumption that she was cast for any reason besides skill was the literal definition of racism.
"...Racism/colorism isn’t something we have or don’t have. I have it. You have it. We all do. And not just white people like me. All people. It’s either something we recognize and try to work on, or it’s something we deny. Saying “I am not racist!” is simply declaring that you deny your own biases and refuse to work on them."
A lot of people with very strong opinions about the Odyssey who've clearly never read the Odyssey.
So, none of MAGA world noticed that Helen's mother was raped by a swan (Zeus disguising himself as a swan)? Raped by a GREEK god disguised as a swan.