WW II movie

DVD/Stream of the Week: THE IMITATION GAME

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Keira Knightly and Benedict Cumberbatch in THE IMITATION GAME
Keira Knightly and Benedict Cumberbatch in THE IMITATION GAME

So – here’s a pretty good true story: the guy who invented the computer and played a key role in defeating the Nazis was hounded for his homosexuality. And The Imitation Game tells that story very well and is a pretty good movie. Benedict Cumberbatch is excellent as Alan Turing, the mathematical genius who was able to create a proto-computer that could break the codes of the German Enigma cipher machine. To make his character even more interesting, Turing had appalling, almost Asberger-like personal skills and needed to conceal his sexual preference. Cumberbatch nails the role, and will reap an Oscar nomination for his efforts.

It’s a top-to-bottom excellent English cast. Keira Knightley is especially good as Joan Clarke, the real life female codebreaker who overcame sexism and who became, briefly, Turing’s fiance.

The Imitation Game is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

THE IMITATION GAME: the corrosiveness of secrets

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Keira Knightly and Benedict Cumberbatch in THE IMITATION GAME
Keira Knightly and Benedict Cumberbatch in THE IMITATION GAME

So – here’s a pretty good true story: the guy who invented the computer and played a key role in defeating the Nazis was hounded for his homosexuality.  And The Imitation Game tells that story very well and is a pretty good movie.  Benedict Cumberbatch is excellent as Alan Turing, the mathematical genius who was able to create a proto-computer that could break the codes of the German Enigma cipher machine.  To make his character even more interesting, Turing had appalling, almost Asberger-like personal skills and needed to conceal his sexual preference.  Cumberbatch nails the role, and will reap an Oscar nomination for his efforts.

It’s a top-to-bottom excellent English cast.  Keira Knightley is especially good as Joan Clarke, the real life female codebreaker who overcame sexism and who became, briefly, Turing’s fiance.

Emperor: one romance too many

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Completely destroyed by US aerial bombardment and facing nuclear annihilation, Japan has just surrendered.  General Douglas MacArthur has just arrived to lead the American occupation of Japan, with the long-term goal of rebuilding Japan as a modern, democratic, pro-Western and relatively demilitarized country; in the short-term, he has to punish Japan’s WW II war criminals. MacArthur makes a grand strategic decision not to blame the Emperor of Japan for the war, but to enlist the authority of the Emperor in support of MacArthur’s efforts.  Emperor is the story of this moment in world history, with Tommy Lee Jones playing MacArthur.

Tommy Lee Jones is always fun to watch, especially when he is not suffering fools,  and he does an excellent job of portraying MacArthur’s decisiveness, self-promotion and vanity.  But he is is perhaps too sympathetic here, failing to capture MacArthur’s absolute and defining narcissism.

But we only occasionally see MacArthur.  Most of the screen time is reserved for the officer (Matthew Fox of Lost) gathering the evidence that will justify MacArthur’s preferred option (absolving the Emperor).  Unfortunately, Fox’s character is also searching for the Japanese woman who was his pre-war lover.  Unpeeling the onion of the Japanese imperial bureaucracy is more interesting than the sappy love story.

Given that it was directed by Peter Webber (Girl With a Pearl Earring), I had higher hopes for Emperor.  I would recommend it only for those with an interest in WW II and Japanese history.

Lore: das grimness

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As Lore opens, Hitler has just died and the German defeat in WW II is complete.  A Nazi couple are about to be imprisoned for WW II atrocities, leaving their 14- and 12-year-old girls, 8-year-old twin boys and an infant little brother to make their own way through the chaos of post-war Germany.  Lore is the oldest sister who must navigate the band to their grandmother hundreds of miles away.

It’s a very harsh environment.  Cities are bombed out, the economy has crashed and the German people are suffering such deprivations that even the warm-hearted cannot afford to give away food to strangers – and there aren’t many warm hearts around.  Social order has completely broken down, and everyone is suspicious of everyone else.  On top of it all, the German people are shaken by the exposure of the extermination camps.  The occupying forces run the gamut from hard-eyed Americans to homicidal Russians.   The safest route involves hiking through the Black Forest and crossing a major river, all while trying to finagle some morsels to eat and avoid getting killed.

Along the way, they are guided by another refugee, a Holocaust survivor.  Yes, that is ironic and unsettling, and the relationship between this figure and the kids never gets comfortable.

Lore’s strength is its singular viewpoint – that of the innocent children of monstrous people.  The audience’s instinct to root for children is challenged because these kids, while not culpable for their parents’ crimes, have been indoctrinated with some very ugly beliefs.   The arc of the Lore character is particularly dramatic.

However, Lore is very grim.   The intensity is so unrelenting, as the children face danger after danger, that it wearies the audience.  Aussie director and co-writer Cate Shortland has chosen not to include any moments of respite for the audience.  For better movies that mine this subject, see my list of 5 Essential Holocaust Films.

Let There Be Light: groundbreaking look at those who have endured too much

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Let There Be Light is an extraordinary documentary about WW II soldiers being treated for psychological war wounds.  Made in 1946 by fabled director John Huston, Let There Be Light was suppressed by the US military until 1980 and had since been available only in a grainy, almost unintelligible version.  Thankfully, it was restored by the National Film Preservation Foundation in 2011, and now can be viewed for free on its website.

Huston followed a group of soldiers as they entered a hospital and engaged in treatment until their release from the service eight weeks later.  Huston shot 70 hours of film, which he winnowed down to this one-hour documentary.  We see the doctors use individual talk therapy, group therapy, hypnosis and sodium pentathol.  We know the condition as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  At the time, it was popularly known as “shell-shock” or “combat fatigue” and termed “psychoneurosis” or “neuropsychosis” by the doctors.

Modern therapists will find the treatment primitive and the movie too optimistic (there’s a sense that everybody is OK after eight weeks in the hospital), but that shouldn’t obscure the compassion of the doctors and the heartbreaking stories of the men.  This was a moment in medical history when the public still needed to learn that this was a psychiatric condition, not cowardice or weakness – and that the condition was treatable.  The narrator (Huston’s father Walter) repeatedly emphasizes that these men have endured more than any human could be expected to bear.

Watch Let There Be Light HERE.

Coming up on TV: An Anti-war Masterpiece

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James Coburn and James Garner in THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY

Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting the 1964 The Americanization of Emily on November 11.    Set in England just before the D-Day invasion, The Americanization of Emily is a biting satire and one of the great anti-war movies. James Garner plays an admiral’s staff officer charged with locating luxury goods and willing English women for the brass.  Julie Andrews plays an English driver who has lost her husband and other male family members in the War.  She resists emotional entanglements with other servicemen whose lives may be put at risk, but falls for Garner’s “practicing coward”, a man who is under no illusions about the glory of war and is determined to stay as far from combat as possible.

Unfortunately, Garner’s boss (Melvyn Douglas) has fits of derangement and becomes obsessed with the hope that the first American killed on the beach at D-Day be from the Navy.   Accordingly, he orders Garner to lead a suicide mission to land ahead of the D-Day landing, ostensibly to film it.  Fellow officer James Coburn must guarantee Garner’s martyrdom.

It’s a brilliant screenplay from Paddy Chayefsky, who won screenwriting Oscars for Marty, The Hospital and Network.

Today, Americanization holds up as least as well as its contemporary Dr. Strangelove and much better than Failsafe.

Reportedly, both Andrews and Garner have tagged this as their favorite film.

One of the “Three Nameless Broads” bedded by the Coburn character is played by Judy Carne, later of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.

Coming up on TV: An Anti-war Masterpiece

by
James Coburn and James Garner in The Americanization of Emily

Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting the 1964 The Americanization of Emily on April 7.    Set in England just before the D-Day invasion, The Americanization of Emily is a biting satire and one of the great anti-war movies. James Garner plays an admiral’s staff officer charged with locating luxury goods and willing English women for the brass.  Julie Andrews plays an English driver who has lost her husband and other male family members in the War.  She resists emotional entanglements with other servicemen whose lives may be put at risk, but falls for Garner’s “practicing coward”, a man who is under no illusions about the glory of war and is determined to stay as far from combat as possible.

Unfortunately, Garner’s boss (Melvyn Douglas) has fits of derangement and becomes obsessed with the hope that the first American killed on the beach at D-Day be from the Navy.   Accordingly, he orders Garner to lead a suicide mission to land ahead of the D-Day landing, ostensibly to film it.  Fellow officer James Coburn must guarantee Garner’s martyrdom.

It’s a brilliant screenplay from Paddy Chayefsky, who won screenwriting Oscars for Marty, The Hospital and Network.

Today, Americanization holds up as least as well as its contemporary Dr. Strangelove and much better than Failsafe.

Reportedly, both Andrews and Garner have tagged this as their favorite film.

One of the “Three Nameless Broads” bedded by the Coburn character is played by Judy Carne, later of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.