Speculative
thoughts on a film: 1917 (2019)
Granted, I haven't seen 1917
(2019), the Sam Mendes directed WWI epic currently generating much discussion
following the film's innumerable Academy Award nominations, so this post is
pure conjecture; a kind of hypothetical dialog that functions on a level similar
to that of thinking out loud.
At the time of writing, critics
have praised Mendes's film for its technical proficiency and "event
movie" status, as well as its worthy and historically significant depiction
of the First World War. However, there's one specific aspect of the film's
construction that has really dominated the discourse surrounding the work and
its supposed claim to greatness. In short, 1917 is made up of several
increasingly long takes, which, when creatively edited to disguise the moment
of 'the cut', give the impression of the entire film taking place in
"real-time", over the duration of a single, continuous shot.
As an experiment, this is
reminiscent of two earlier films released almost twenty years ago: Timecode
(2000), conceived and directed by Mike Figgis - which upped the ante by filming
not one but four continuous sequences in single shots that played out
simultaneously on-screen - and Russian Ark (2002), co-written and directed by Alexander Sokurov.
Timecode [Mike Figgis,
2000]:
Russian Ark [Alexander
Sokurov, 2002]:
Timecode and Russian Ark
were two films that took full advantage of the digital revolution that occurred
at the beginning of the current century. The move towards high-profile
directors like Lars von Trier, Hal Hartley, Bernard Rose, Spike Lee, Danny
Boyle and others shooting acclaimed films on consumer-quality digital video was
an act of liberation; not only freeing up the filmmaking process from the more
cumbersome necessities of shooting on 35mm film, but resulting in pacing and imagery
that would've been impossible to achieve with more conventional filmmaking
methods.
This period was one of the most
bold and experimental periods since the beginning of cinema itself, with
directors, cinematographers and camera operators taking up the challenge to
rediscover the language of film using these new tools. Tools that were considered
primitive - in the sense of being accessible (and as such apparently lesser
in quality) - but also ultra-modern. The disparity between the two forms
completely apparent in that first wave of digital cinema, from Festen (1998) to
Dancer in the Dark (2000), from Bamboozled (2000) to Hotel (2001), from 28 Days
Later (2002) to Topspot (2004), where the divides between professional and
unprofessional, mainstream and experimental, old and new, blurred into
insignificance.
It would be tempting to say
that 1917 has taken up the baton passed from Timecode to Russian Ark, to films
such as Victoria (2015) and Lost in London (2017), but this would be untrue.
While critics have zeroed in on the apparently single-take, fully immersive
aesthetic that Mendes has adopted, it would be more accurate to say that his
film has instead taken up the baton passed from Rope (1948) to Birdman (2014).
In other words, it's a film that gives the impression of having been filmed
in a single continuous shot, but was in fact pieced together from several
different ones. The distinction is important.
1917 review [Peter Bradshaw/The
Guardian, 2019]:
"And it's filmed in one
extraordinary single take by cinematographer Roger Deakins, a continuous fluid
travelling shot (with digital edits sneaked in...)" Arguably Britain's
worst high-profile film critic Peter Bradshaw contradicting himself as he pushes
the false narrative of the film having been done in a single-shot. Also, wouldn't
it have been more appropriate to turn a single-shot masterpiece into a western
front horror, and not the other way around? Bradshaw's take elevates formalism above
historical atrocity.
Rope [Alfred Hitchcock,
1948]:
The construction of Rope,
like the titular cord of death, is a continues strand, tight and unbroken. The
beginning and end – isolated elements there to be "tied up" in the
sense of narrative exposition – eventually becomes entwined at the precise moment
of James Stewart's third act reveal, creating a twist, or should that be a noose?
Behind the scenes on Rope
[photo credit: https://cinephiliabeyond.org/alfred-hitchcocks-rope/]
Rope was one of the earliest
films to attempt to create the impression of a single continuous take. On one level
it could be read as an experiment in recorded theatre, but that's not the case.
Hitchcock was a filmmaker who revelled in the artificiality of the film medium
and in the introduction of intentional creative restrictions. For Hitchcock,
creating the impression of a single take was more important than shooting a film
in an actual single take, and being able to achieve such a feat with the cumbersome
camera equipment available in 1948 was part of the challenge.
So, what do we make of
Mendes's decision to adopt this approach and to marry it to a film about
survival and The First World War? It would be impossible to say without seeing
the film for myself, but being an inherent cynic, I have my reservations,
specifically in regards to the way the "form" is being pushed as a
unique selling point to the extent of trivialising (or further trivialising)
the notion of the war film, as a genre. Characters and even plot are not part
of the cultural discussion here; the film has instead been reduced to its
subject and method of delivery.
For those that have already seen
1917, I'd be tempted to ask: does making the film look as if it were shot in a
single take add anything to the commentary on war, or is it simply a formalist
gimmick? I can see the appeal of trying to make the experience more immersive;
however, making combat immersive is kind of counterproductive if you want to
express war as the horror it truly is.
1917 [Sam Mendes, 2019]:
Watching footage put out by
the studio to further promote the massive technical achievement of Mendes and
his crew set alarm bells ringing for me. The side-by-side comparison between
how the film was made and the resulting image of a shell-shocked soldier
fleeing across a battlefield as militias storm the trenches and bombs erupt
like anxious tremors of the unconscious, signalling fears of destruction and
death. The footage is visceral, epic in scope and succeeds in propelling the
audience along on the soldier's journey, where the bombs and the bloodshed are
designed to elicit an emotional response from the audience equivalent to that
of a big-budget Hollywood action movie.
This is problematic for me
for several reasons. In presenting war as a series of action set-pieces, the
film, intentionally or accidentally, succeeds in making war, for lack of a
better word, "thrilling." No matter how persuasively the film works
to push an anti-war commentary, there will always be large factions of the
audience who find the combat - and the filmmaking as illustrated in the above
shots - exciting; the explosions and the gun fire, and the intensity of the
performances, turning the battle scenes into something exhilarating. Without
wishing to invoke Martin Scorsese and his infamous 2019 commentary on the
modern superhero movie, the approach turns the spectacle of war into something
closer to a theme-park ride, or even a video game.
This seems dishonest to me
as it shows only the valour of war and combat and not the reality of what war
is. A film like Come and See (1985) for example is immersive, but it immerses
the audience in the muck and bloodshed of war and the prolonged state of horror
that comes with it. Not soldiers storming trenches or trying to outrun bullets,
but families rounded up and burned alive in barns, or corpses piled high alongside
villages.
Come and See [Elem Klimov, 1985]:
The horror of Come and See,
and why it works as an anti-war statement, comes from the film's evocation of
the occupation and the unending nightmare of what it must have been like for
normal people just trying to live from day to day. Not soldiers or lieutenants,
but farmers, labourers, teenagers, all caught up in an unwanted intrusion that
robs people of their dignity, their morality, and even their lives.
From the trailers and
promotional materials, 1917 seems to fall into the same trap as Steven
Spielberg's similarly acclaimed war movie Saving Private Ryan (1998). There,
Spielberg worked to throw the audience headlong into the chaos and the horror of
the Normandy invasion by using the cinematic form to immerse us in the
experience.
Spielberg uses handheld
cameras that seem to shake uncontrollably as they react to every explosion or
bullet hit, disjointed cutting that turns the melee into a free-for-all, shots
that are intentionally out of focus or obscured by seawater or bursts of arterial
spray. He also experimented with the sound in much the same way that Klimov and
his sound-designers did in Come and See, letting the explosions boom in
deafening crescendos of noise and then whistling through the perforated
eardrums of his characters rendered subjectively for the audience as the sound
becomes muted and disorienting. Violence occurs as something surreal, something
that we can barely believe, capturing the senselessness of it all.
Saving Private Ryan [Steven
Spielberg, 1998]:
The sequence is astounding.
If you need clarification that Spielberg is one of the great technical
filmmakers, then look no further. However, despite the aesthetic brilliance of
its presentation, the sequence sits uneasily within the context of the film
itself. Presenting a highly manipulative and melodramatic narrative that
refuses to engage with the realities of war in favour of a generic men on a
mission adventure story, Saving Private Ryan is ultimately one-sided,
jingoistic and effectively works to show the nobility of war-time sacrifice,
and the invented valour of men killing and dying for "the greater good."
By aiming for the subjective
and immersive, and by refusing to contextualise the scenes of action and
violence with a stronger political and intellectual commentary on war and the
impact that war has on societies, culture and humanity, Saving Private Ryan
turns its combat into cinematic spectacle. So persuasive and immersive were these
sequences in their stylisation they worked against the supposed anti-war
commentary of the filmmakers and instead led to the further fetishizing of war
and military manoeuvres in popular culture through things like the TV series Band
of Brothers (2001) and video games, like the "Call of Duty" and
"Medal of Honour" franchises.
Medal of Honour: Allied
Assault [2015, inc., 2002]:
Know your enemy. Medal of
Honour: Allied Assault carries a writing credit for Steven Spielberg. The general
gameplay and historical detail are heavily modelled on Saving Private Ryan, but
it's the unbroken, fully immersive, single-shot aesthetic that predicts the
subsequent approach of 1917. In forcing the player to identify with these
soldiers in a first-person format, the games compel the player to not only
adopt a pro-war mindset, but to trivialise war atrocity by carrying out unthinking
murder in the name of valour and heroism.
It's this aspect that has me
concerned about Mendes's film; the presentation of war, not as a period of
occupation that destroys communities, cultures and perspectives, but as
something thrilling or "epic" in nature. At a time when the world and
its politics is already divided and hostile to outsiders, we need war films
that are defiantly "anti-war"; something that isn't reducing a
historical atrocity to a formalist gimmick; something that refuses to show
scenes of combat or heroism; something like Jean-Luc Godard's Notre Musique
(2004), which picks the scab of the atrocities of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were still raging, and shows the struggle of
people to continue on when the scars of war remain from generation to
generation.
Again, I haven't seen
Mendes's film, so this is all just an obscure line of thought on my part and
I'm happy to be proven wrong. I just wonder what this particular visual
aesthetic is meant to communicate about war, as both a reality and an ideology.
Doesn't this approach turn war into an aesthetic fetish that dehumanises and
depoliticises the true historical significance of the event and the profound
impact it had on people? Time will tell.
