Time Traveling to the Trenches: A Blog Post Whose Title Is an Alliterative Masterpiece
January 10th marked 100 years since the official end of World War I. For some reason, British depictions of WWI in film and television have always hit an emotional chord for me. From the hilariously sardonic look at trench life in Blackadder Goes Forth, to the effect that it had on one country as a whole in Downton Abbey, to literally any mention of the Christmas Truce of 1914, it’s hard to not make me - at the very least - well up and - at the most - overwhelmed with emotion to the point of catatonia. There are plenty of stories, films, and series that have tackled this particular period of history, but there are two films that were released recently that were not only emotionally resonant, but also used spectacular technological feats to bring a 100-year-old war to the present in a way I have never seen before.
The first of these films, They Shall Not Grow Old, was directed by Peter Jackson and released in 2018. This movie is comprised of hours of old black-and-white silent archival footage, from the Imperial War Museum, of soldiers on the front. The footage was restored, colorized, speed corrected, and developed into a widescreen spectacle, accompanied by voice-over reflections from veterans of the war who had been interviewed over the years. The speed is key to the success of the film. The distancing effect that typically comes from the sped-up, silent reel footage from the 1910s is completely erased, as these men walk across the frame, not in the quick, jumpy fashion to which we are accustomed to from such footage, but with the natural smoothness, as though they are walking right in front of the audience. The voices in the film were, of course, recorded for the film by actors, but lip readers were hired to determine exactly what is being said in the footage, and research was done to determine the region that each speaking soldier most likely came from, in order to ensure that that accents that were recorded were accurate. It’s an experience that brings the audience back to that place and time, during WWI, like nothing before.
The second film is a more recent and (based on its Golden Globe win and numerous Oscar nominations) probably more well-known. 1917, directed by Sam Mendes, was just released in December, and I was able to catch up with it this past weekend. This film had me at the trailer. WWI? Check. Two soldiers going out on a journey to stop an attack and save over a thousand lives? Check. Colin Firth? I’m so there.
I’m a sucker for a long take, so as I’m sitting there watching the opening scene of 1917 and this single take, as the leads travel through the long, cramped, labyrinthian trenches, I can’t help but be impressed and a bit awed by Mendes’ directing. It feels as though it’s been about twenty minutes, and there hasn’t been a single spot I could see as an opportunity to cut! Then, as the boys go over the top, on to their journey through no man’s land, I realize that Mendes has alluded to an illusion, taking Hitchcock’s long-take trick from one of my favorite films, Rope (1948), and turning it into an elaborate, gripping, immersive, expertly directed and choreographed spectacle. Although the actual longest shot in the film is only 9 minutes long, the entire two hour film is presented as though it were two continuous shots, only broken up by a moment of unconsciousness. (I’m assuming the members of the Academy were unaware that it was far more than two shots... Hence the unbelievable robbery of an editing nomination for the film...)
The stakes have never felt higher, the terrain has never felt more rough, the claustrophobic amount of people, all with their own story that there’s no time to explore (because of the aforementioned stakes) has never seemed so great. There are so many times when you wonder about a certain character, and what led them to their current state in this war. And Colin Firth? Yeah, he’s in about as much of the film as you see in the trailer, and I’m so glad of that. Every little glimpse we get of a new person, who we have to suddenly leave, makes the film all the richer, and, I’m assuming, truer.
If They Shall Not Grow Old is the best documentary delving into the history found in the trenches, 1917 is the best recreation. It’s nearly impossible, especially nowadays, for a film to impress me technologically, and these two films might just be the first ones created in my lifetime to really impress me in this way.
What do you think of these two films? What do you think are the best WWI films and/or series? Let me know in the comments below and stay tuned for more Oscar talk!
Copyright © 2020 Bailey Lizotte
