This evening I find myself writing a phrase I've must have written down over a 100 times in the last 10 months:
"I've just seen the most amazing movie".
I've written that sentiment over and over again on this blog, in my paper journals, stammered it and shouted it in conversation with friends, and with a few exceptions, I have yet to eat those words (or any crow, for that matter). The movie I saw tonight, I'm so confident in its greatness, so sure of my bit of hyperbole up there, that I'd put money down on that statement. If Las Vegas had a film critic bookie joint, I'd be tossing Grants and Benjamins all over the place, letting it all ride on Stuart Cooper's "Overlord".
Fuck. What a movie.
Here's the "Overlord 101" class: made in 1975 by director Stuart Cooper (with cinematography by Stan Kubrick camera-man John Alcott), "Overlord" is the poignant, moody story of Thomas, a young British man called into service, who goes into boot camp and prepares for D-Day. What makes the film interesting is how Normandy looms over the story, and yet we never get to see the battle. Its a war film with very little war; its all about the anticipation of war, the sense of impeding doom that seems to swallow the characters whole. Visually, the film looks amazing. Cooper mixes archival WW2 footage into the film in such a way that it often becomes very difficult to tell whether what you're seeing is fictional or actual history caught on celluloid. Cities being bombed, firefighters frantically trying to extinguish burning buildings, bombs raining down from the sky, a rowboat full of soldiers dashed against a cliff wall, British soldiers running through a boot camp obstacle course... extraordinary images, and I'm still not sure how much of it was fake and how much of it was archived material (Alcott gives the fiction scenes a grainy, gray, old look, so it SEEMS as though it could've of been filmed back in the day).
So aside from the visual god-damn-ness of the film, there are many other virtues of the film. "Overlord" is a dreamy, contemplative movie. Tom has a couple of dream sequences that just bowled me over (one of which would definitely raise Freud's eyebrows). Maybe its a British attitude, but the soldiers in the film are remarkably (and refreshingly) devoid of bravado. "Overlord" lacks the macho, chest-beating frat bullshit that makes so many war films seem like football movies with hand grenades and automatic weapons tossed into the mix. Sure, the characters talk about getting tail and what not, but their demeanors, the way they carry themselves... these are people who know they're probably going to die, and just don't feel like raging against the ol' dying of the light. And for a film assisted by British war historians and the Ministry of Defense, it isn't very jingoistic or patriotic (unlike "Saving Private Ryan", with its fucking "American Flag waving majestically" intro and outro scenes). There was ONE scene in the film where a character talks about being a soldier to "do the right thing", but the way he says it, so resigned and weary, its hard to believe that he actually believes it. Yet it isn't an anti-war film, either. It isn't an Oliver Stone/"I Love The Smell Of Napalm In The Morning" war-is-hell film. The film laments the war that will probably snuff these men out, but doesn't pass judgement on the machine that churns them out into the battlefield.
Its funny to think about just how unsettling this film was. There is something about that archive footage that is just beautiful and bone-chilling at the same time. Its not like the D-Day sequence in "Private Ryan"; in many ways, seeing the actual images of real bombs falling through the sky, the real shadows of bomber planes drifting over a city, the way flames can crumble a building like a Jenga tower, that is infinitely more effective in saying "war is hell" than two dozen CGI shots of soldiers stumbling on a beach with missing limbs and their guts hanging out.
If you have a chance to see it (and you're in the right frame of mind at the time), I urge you to give it a look. Or Netflix the motherfucker, because it is too GOOD a film for it not to be seen.
Yeah. I'm going to go for a walk around the block and geek out about a bit more. Its shit like "Overlord" that makes me love movies all over again.
"I've just seen the most amazing movie".
I've written that sentiment over and over again on this blog, in my paper journals, stammered it and shouted it in conversation with friends, and with a few exceptions, I have yet to eat those words (or any crow, for that matter). The movie I saw tonight, I'm so confident in its greatness, so sure of my bit of hyperbole up there, that I'd put money down on that statement. If Las Vegas had a film critic bookie joint, I'd be tossing Grants and Benjamins all over the place, letting it all ride on Stuart Cooper's "Overlord".
Fuck. What a movie.
Here's the "Overlord 101" class: made in 1975 by director Stuart Cooper (with cinematography by Stan Kubrick camera-man John Alcott), "Overlord" is the poignant, moody story of Thomas, a young British man called into service, who goes into boot camp and prepares for D-Day. What makes the film interesting is how Normandy looms over the story, and yet we never get to see the battle. Its a war film with very little war; its all about the anticipation of war, the sense of impeding doom that seems to swallow the characters whole. Visually, the film looks amazing. Cooper mixes archival WW2 footage into the film in such a way that it often becomes very difficult to tell whether what you're seeing is fictional or actual history caught on celluloid. Cities being bombed, firefighters frantically trying to extinguish burning buildings, bombs raining down from the sky, a rowboat full of soldiers dashed against a cliff wall, British soldiers running through a boot camp obstacle course... extraordinary images, and I'm still not sure how much of it was fake and how much of it was archived material (Alcott gives the fiction scenes a grainy, gray, old look, so it SEEMS as though it could've of been filmed back in the day).
So aside from the visual god-damn-ness of the film, there are many other virtues of the film. "Overlord" is a dreamy, contemplative movie. Tom has a couple of dream sequences that just bowled me over (one of which would definitely raise Freud's eyebrows). Maybe its a British attitude, but the soldiers in the film are remarkably (and refreshingly) devoid of bravado. "Overlord" lacks the macho, chest-beating frat bullshit that makes so many war films seem like football movies with hand grenades and automatic weapons tossed into the mix. Sure, the characters talk about getting tail and what not, but their demeanors, the way they carry themselves... these are people who know they're probably going to die, and just don't feel like raging against the ol' dying of the light. And for a film assisted by British war historians and the Ministry of Defense, it isn't very jingoistic or patriotic (unlike "Saving Private Ryan", with its fucking "American Flag waving majestically" intro and outro scenes). There was ONE scene in the film where a character talks about being a soldier to "do the right thing", but the way he says it, so resigned and weary, its hard to believe that he actually believes it. Yet it isn't an anti-war film, either. It isn't an Oliver Stone/"I Love The Smell Of Napalm In The Morning" war-is-hell film. The film laments the war that will probably snuff these men out, but doesn't pass judgement on the machine that churns them out into the battlefield.
Its funny to think about just how unsettling this film was. There is something about that archive footage that is just beautiful and bone-chilling at the same time. Its not like the D-Day sequence in "Private Ryan"; in many ways, seeing the actual images of real bombs falling through the sky, the real shadows of bomber planes drifting over a city, the way flames can crumble a building like a Jenga tower, that is infinitely more effective in saying "war is hell" than two dozen CGI shots of soldiers stumbling on a beach with missing limbs and their guts hanging out.
If you have a chance to see it (and you're in the right frame of mind at the time), I urge you to give it a look. Or Netflix the motherfucker, because it is too GOOD a film for it not to be seen.
Yeah. I'm going to go for a walk around the block and geek out about a bit more. Its shit like "Overlord" that makes me love movies all over again.
signalnoise:
This sounds amazing.
happycherries:
mmmm you really need to be a pen pal. 