Oh! What a Lovely War

Richard Attenborough's debut film is an interesting experiment, if not an entirely successful one. Think Blackadder Goes Forth with musical numbers and an all-star cast, and you're not too far off.

How to try and describe the plot? World War I is presented as a series of musical numbers and baroque sketches, mostly focusing on the extended Smith family, who ultimately sends four sons to fight in the war. While the soldiers suffer and die in the trenches of France, the officers party and scheme for personal glory, the aristocrats bemoan downturns in business, and the civilians wonder what it's all about.

Based on a much-beloved stage musical, Oh! What a Lovely War is an odd film that's very much of its time. Tony Richardson's Charge of the Light Brigade mixes its scornful condemnation of Victorian England with Richard Williams's satirical animation, and the wonderfully bizarre The Ruling Class crams its scathing social satire with slapstick goofiness and off-the-wall musical numbers. War follows suit, adapting WWI period tunes into a left-wing musical revue, to rather odd effect.

As a series of vignettes, Oh! What a Lovely War is decidedly hit-and-miss. The film remains close to its stage roots, with Attenborough opting for an oddly Expressionist film. There's heavy use of sets in dialogue scenes and musical numbers, but the film opens up for some impressive frontline footage. Attenborough uses stagey but effective devices to make his point: the scoreboard measuring yards gained to casualties, Brighton's West Pier as a symbol of the war's effect on British society, the merry-go-round of slaughtered French cavalrymen. For all this Brechtian hooey, the strongest scene is the most straightforward: a brief but affecting depiction of the Christmas Truce of 1914, when British and German troops put aside their differences for a moment of humanity. If you want to make a pacifist statement, you needn't go further than that.

Other ideas are less inspired. The opening with statesmen reciting historical speeches is long, dry and draggy, and the scenes of the military brass and aristocrats play as crude, overemphatic caricature. The arresting image of red poppies on the battlefield is repeated four or five times too many - not surprising given Attenborough's aversion to subtlety. The historical satire isn't particularly insightful or revealing: World War I is the obvious choice for an anti-war film and Attenborough doesn't make any points not already addressed in, say, Paths of Glory. Worst of all, the film never quite connects on a human level: the Smiths get lost in the shuffle of a truly enormous cast, and moments that ought to be affecting (namely the ending) don't really register.

War begins the Attenborough trend of enlisting a galaxy of British stars for cameos and bit parts. The opening scene alone features a gobsmacking array of talent: Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Kenneth More, Ian Holm, John Clemens and Jack Hawkins. John Mills, Laurence Olivier and Michael Redgrave play boneheaded Generals; Jean-Pierre Cassell plays a French cavalryman; Vanessa Redgrave appears as a fiery suffragette; Maggie Smith is a bawdy musical hall madam; Dirk Bogarde and Susannah York have about thirty seconds' screen time as snooty aristocrats. Attentive viewers can also spot Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal), Corin Redgrave (A Man for All Seasons), Isabel Dean (A High Wind in Jamaica), Cecil Parker (The Ladykillers), Michael Bates (Patton), Maurice Roeves (Young Winston) and Gerald Sim (Ryan's Daughter). If you enjoy playing "spot the star," this is the film for you.

On the whole, Oh! What a Lovely War is an interesting film even if it isn't especially good. Buried underneath the excess and heavy-handed pacifist preaching are some good ideas and affecting images.

Young Winston

One of Richard Attenborough's earliest films, Young Winston (1972) is an uneven epic about Winston Churchill's formative years. Unsure if it wants to be a period drama or a rousing adventure, it's not entirely satisfying despite Simon Ward's fine portrayal of Churchill.

Winston Churchill (Simon Ward) is the son of esteemed Lord Randolph Churchill (Robert Shaw) and his American wife Jennie (Anne Bancroft). When Lord Randolph is stricken with syphillis, Winston goes into the Army, hoping to make a name for himself. Churchill serves as a war correspondent in India, the Sudan and finally the Boer War, becoming an international celebrity for his daring escape from captivity in the latter. Finally, Churchill returns back to England a hero, and takes his father's seat in the House of Lords, kickstarting a legendary political career.

Young Winston is primarily sabotaged by a schizophrenic tone. The first half is tasteful if rather stuffy period melodrama; the second half is a rousing Korda-esque imperial adventure. After opening with an exciting colonial battle in India we flashback to Churchill's childhood, with lots of long, talky scenes interspersed with expository narration and tedious "interview" segments that fail in their ostensible goal of exploring Winston's character. Occasionally a fine moment pops up - Lord Randolph's "intimate" conversation with his son - but Carl Foreman's script is mostly flat and dull, leaving the actors at sea and the audience impatient. The transition to adventure in the second half is rather abrupt and doesn't quite work, even if individual scenes are involving.

Surprisingly, Attenborough and Foreman provide a largely adulatory view of Churchill, avoiding their habitual leftist politics. No critique of imperialism, Young Winston lets its colonial battles play out as exciting adventures, with an occasional nod to post-imperial sensibilities: the Battle of Omdurman goes from the heroic dering-do of The Four Feathers to a one-sided slaughter, with the Mahdist dervishes blasted to smithereens by British cannon. Similarly, Churchill's ego and overweening ambition are highlighted, but the overall portrayal is positive, almost reverent: he was a great man, and here's some footage from V-E Day to show you why. Nothing wrong with this, but anyone expecting a deep, revealing portrait of Churchill will be disappointed.

Attenborough's film is pictorally handsome, with lots of sumptuous period detail and beautiful photography of Moroccan locations. The big action scenes are well-handled, especially the thrilling train ambush and prison escape in the Boer War. Alfred Ralston contributes a nice score as well. Unfortunately, the sluggish, uneven pace and flat screenplay make it hard to become deeply engrossed in the film, even when the action picks up post-intermission.

Simon Ward (Zulu Dawn) acquits himself well as Churchill; he's a reasonably-close physical match to the real thing and has the voice down pat, especially in his narration. Ward makes Churchill a compelling character, charismatic, chipper, self-confident and almost absurdly ambitious. Robert Shaw (A Man for All Seasons) is superb, making Lord Randolph a wonderfully tragic character, but Anne Bancroft (7 Women) is onhand mostly for decorative purposes.

Young Winston unfortunately repeats a common failing of Attenborough's oeuvre. Dickie's deep connections in the British film industry always yielded fruit in the casting department, but almost invariably he makes little use of a fine crop of actors. Big names like Anthony Hopkins, John Mills, Jack Hawkins, Ian Holm and Edward Woodward turn up just long enough to be recognized and then vanish. Maybe it's me, but I don't get that much pleasure out of seeing stars trotted out for bit parts; mostly I'd like it if they had something to do worthy of their talents.

Young Winston has its moments but the whole is unsatisfying. I might recommend it as a decent time-waster, but given how hard it is to track down (I lucked out with a TCM showing), I regret to say it's not worth the trouble.

A Bridge Too Far

Richard Attenborough's 1977 adaptation of Cornelius Ryan's book on the disastrous Operation Market-Garden is one of the last of the all-star, huge-scale World War II epics (after The Longest Day, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Battle of the Bulge and Midway, among many others), and arguably the best. As an old-fashioned war film brimming with excellent battle scenes and a star-studded cast, it succeeds in spades. Perhaps more pointedly though, it works as a fascinating study of a military failure - where bad planning, bad thinking and just plain bad luck contributed to one of the greatest Allied disasters of WWII. The movie has more than its share of huge-scale battle scenes, but no amount of heorics by our all-star cast can save the day.

September, 1944. The Allies have broken out of Normandy and liberated most of France; it seems that the war is at an end, with only problems in supply preventing a swift Allied victory. British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery advocates a plan to end the war with a daring coup de main: under the direction of General Browning (Dirk Bogarde), British and American airborne forces will land behind enemy lines and seize three bridges over the Rhine River, while the XXX Tank Corps under General Horrocks (Edward Fox) will launch a simultaneous ground attack - thereby trapping the German Army in Holland and ending the war. The plan quickly goes awry; elements of General Urquhart's (Sean Connery) 1st Airborne are scattered, with Colonel Frost's (Anthony Hopkins) battalion trapped in Arnhem; Horrocks' men meet heavier-than-expected resistance from elite SS troops commanded by Field Marshalls Von Runstedt (Wolfgang Preiss), Bittrich (Maximillian Schell) and Model (Walther Kohut); and American units led by General Gavin (Ryan O'Neal) and Colonel Stout (Elliot Gould) are forced to improvise river crossings after their bridges are destroyed by the Germans. Through fierce fighting and sheer will, the Allies claw within an inch of success - but ironically, the closer the Allies get to success, the more apparent the scope of their failure becomes.

Attenborough depictss Market-Garden showing a combination of overconfidence, poor planning, and just plain bad luck foiling Market-Garden. General Browning in particular comes off very badly, ignoring intelligence from a junior officer (Frank Grimes) indicating that German forces are much stronger than anticipated, and brushing aside the skepticism of Polish General Sosabowski (Gene Hackman). No one in the Allied command thinks the attack will be anything but a success; after the smashing victories of the last three months, who could blame them? The German Army is in retreat; the Allies flushed with victory; the Dutch prematurely celebrating liberation. It seems ludicrous to even imagine that failure could occur at this moment in time, even with such a hairbrained scheme as Monty's.

However, reality intervenes time and again; Browning and company can ignore or silence intelligence officers and skeptical generals, but wishful thinking cannot overcome reality. When German troops turn out to be crack SS Panzer units, everyone present realizes that things are going to be very difficult, expectations aside. Bad communication, bad weather, bad drop zones, bad roads and fierce German resistance all show that Montgomery's plan - difficult even in the best of circumstances - is simply leading to a monumental disaster. The fact that the attack comes within a hair's breadth of success makes failure all the more painful. Allied success would come a few months later, but only at the cost of hundreds of thousand more lives.

Attenborough handles the battle scenes with aplomb, making them both entertaining and gruesome; we're engrossed enough in the spectacle and characters to cheer for the Allies, even if we know the cavalry will not get through in time. Certainly the movie has enough excellent set pieces to keep it going - particularly the jaw-dropping parachute drops, American Sergeant Dohun's (James Caan) unlikely rescue of his badly-wounded Captain (Nicholas Campbell), and Major Gold's (Robert Redford) impromptu amphibious assault on the Nijmegen Bridge. Only a few mawkishly sentimental scenes towards the end (particularly the scene of wounded British soldiers singing on a hospital lawn) go a bit too far. The film can be enjoyed both ways: as a straight battle picture, and as a potent anti-war message.

British stars Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Edward Fox, Dirk Bogarde and Laurence Olivier give strong performances, each having enough time to register. A young Anthony Hopkins more or less steals the show; his restrained, down-to-Earth performance as Colonel Frost, trapped in Arnhem without hope of rescue, manages to standout even amongst such distinguished company. The American cast is less well-used; Robert Redford, James Caan, Gene Hackman and Elliot Gould have glorified cameos, though Redford and Caan at least have a scene or two to shine. Sadly the only American with much screen time is Ryan O'Neal - enough said I hope. Liv Ullman is fine in a small role, and German actors Hardy Kruger, Maximillian Schell, Walter Kohut and Wolfgang Preiss all do fine work.

A Bridge Too Far remains a high watermark for war films. Although it may not entirely succeed as an anti-war statement, it's an engrossing film regardless, and holds up better than most of its peers.

Gandhi

Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982) is an old-fashioned epic biopic with a cast of thousands, an impressive scope and a brilliant lead performance by Ben Kingsley. It tells the story of a truly great man on a scale few films could hope to match. Its only flaw is its perhaps overly-worshipful portrayal of its protagonist, but all things considered, it's fairly forgivable.

The film tells the life story of Mohandis K. Gandhi (Ben Kingsley), the Indian activist who went from small-time lawyer in South Africa to Indian messiah and international icon. Gandhi's protests start small against discrimination of Indian coolies in South Africa, but gradually build to monumental proportions. Using his tactics of nonviolent resistance, Gandhi gradually wears down the befuddled British Raj and makes continued British rule untenable. However, he is unable to prevent the partition of India into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan, and he can only try to prevent the internicine violence from growing into an all-out war.

Gandhi was a life-long obsession for Richard Attenborough. After twenty years of preparation, and the failing of similar projects by David Lean and Fred Zinnemann, Attenborough finally got the chance to put his vision on the screen. Attenborough's left-wing sympathies were made clear in his earlier directorial efforts (Oh! What a Lovely War!, A Bridge Too Far), and the film is resolutely in this mould, never doubting the righteousness of Gandhi's cause or tactics. The film's morality is fairly simple, but also very clear in its condemnation of violence and imperialism, its embrace of humanism, peace, equality and understanding. It's a film that's both accessible and thoughtful, plaintitve and considered.

The film shows Gandhi as a truly unique leader, the antithesis of conventional historical earth-shakers who forged their name in blood. Non-violence as a tactic is shown to be brutally effective, simply because there's no good way to fight back: violence will only make one look bad; imprisoning him only angers the public; killing Gandhi will make him a martyr; and, in this case, argument is hopeless, as Britain's rule in India has not a moral leg to stand on. The British, from General Jan Smuts (Athol Fugard) in South Africa to the various British officials (John Mills, John Gielgud, Nigel Hawthorne) consistently underestimate Gandhi, viewing him as a "half-naked fakir" (in Churchill's words) who will simply go away if ignored or appeased to a degree. But he simply cannot be ignored; his populist appeal to the masses is undeniable, and the righteousness of his cause nigh-impossible to question. Imperialism, even Britain's relatively benign model, is impossible to justify as anything than blatant power-grabbing; Britain's violent reaction to Gandhi's protests only lays bare the lie that the Raj is propagating progress and prosperity. Unfortunately for everyone, the predictable fissures in race and religion rend India apart, leaving the country soaked in blood and Gandhi's dream in tatters.

The film's hagiographic portrayal of Gandhi is to be expected, not only for Attenborough's personal politics but because Gandhi has become an untouchable icon of righteousness few in the 20th Century have matched (eg. Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa). The movie makes Gandhi an almost godly figure, speaking in fortune cookie aphorisms (many of which are, to be fair, real quotes - but surely he spoke in conversational tones on occasion), being an ideal father and husband, virtually without religion, lacking in vanity or selfishness and all-knowing and endlessly wise, sweeping the more unsavory sides of his character - his religious fundamentalism, his indifference towards black South Africans, his tacit support of the Axis in World War II - under the rug. One notes Orwell's admonition that "Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent"; yet Gandhi's image as an avatar of peaceful revolution has endured beyond any criticism.

Don't misunderstand: I certainly see Gandhi as an admirable figure, but also as a human being with faults and foibles. However, for a biopic to worship at the alter of its protagonist is nothing new, and perhaps it's unduly pedantic to complain it - especially considering how compelling a figure he is. Certainly Gandhi was able, for the most part, to put his personal prejudices aside to a degree few people can dream of, and for that alone he deserves his niche as one of modern history's great heroes.

Attenborough's direction is wonderful. His model is clearly his friend and idol David Lean, and marshalls a production even more expansive than any of Lean's films; the opening funeral alone still holds the record for most extras ever used in a film. The film's set pieces are powerfully done; the assassination, the funeral, the bloody and brutal Amritsar Massacre, the triumphant salt march, all expertly staged and marvellously photographed by Ronnie Taylor and Billy Williams, capturing the epochal beauty of India (though somewhat lacking in its squalor). John Briley's script is well-constructed storywise, but for dialogue too often falls back on glancing at Gandhi's page in Bartlet's Quotations. Ravi Shankar's score is wonderful.

Like all biopics, the film succeeds or falls on the strength of its lead performance, and Ben Kingsley is more than up for the task. Kingsley's portrayal is flawless, tackling the character head on and making him human for all his saintliness; he gives the Mahatma a warmth and vitality that the worshipful script is somewhat lacking. A virtual unknown at the time of the film's release, Kingsley became an overnight star with an impressive list of credits: Bugsy, Searching For Bobby Fischer, Schindler's List, Twelfth Night, Sexy Beast (and granted, dross like The Love Guru and Thunderbirds). But he has never topped his impressive feat as Gandhi, and rarely has a Best Actor Oscar been more deserved.

The supporting cast is a mixed bag. The best are the Indian actors: veterans like Roshan Seth (A Passage to India), Saeed Jaffrey (The Man Who Would Be King), Amrish Puri (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), Om Puri (Charlie Wilson's War) and one-time film actor Alyque Padamsee all give wonderful turns as Gandhi's friends and colleagues, and have enough screentime to make an impression. The prestigious Western cast is mostly reduced to cameos: veteran British actors like John Gielgud, Trevor Howard, John Mills, Michael Hordern, Nigel Hawthorne and Michael Bryant have little to do but act indignant towards Gandhi. Ian Charleson and Geraldine Paige as two of Gandhi's British allies make a much better impression; Edward Fox's blood-chilling appearance as General Dyer (responsible for the Amritsar slaughter) is far more memorable than his limited screen-time suggests. American stars Candice Bergen and Martin Sheen get token parts as journalists. A young Daniel Day-Lewis can be seen as a South African street punk. The film is clearly Kingsley's show, however, so Attenborough can be forgiven for giving the supporting cast less to do.

Gandhi achieves what it sets out to do very well. It's not a masterpiece, but it's a fine old-school biopic that has hardly dated in the twenty-seven years since its release.

Rating: 8/10 - Highly Recommended