A Bridge Too Far

A visual masterpiece

A Bridge Too Far

Date watched- 17th July 2010

Genre; War, Drama
Year; 1977
Running Time; 175 minutes
Director; Richard Attenborough
Written By; William Goldman (Screenplay), Cornelius Ryan (Novel)
Actors; Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Anthony Hopkins, Gene Hackman, Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford and many, many more.
Music; John Addison

Acting 4.5/5
Keeping my attention 2/4
Visuals/Direction 5/5
Story/Plot 4/6
Total 15.5/20

Plot

This movie begins in September 1944, with a few minutes of montage of the events in the Second World War leading up to this time. This movie tells the story of Operation Market Garden. The Allies attempt to break through German lines and seize several bridges, including the bridge in the occupied Arnhem, the Netherlands. But will this operation end in victory or disaster for the allied troops? (Those of you who know your history might well know, or if you have seen this movie yourself).

My Personal Views

So this is the first time I have ever watched this movie! I may have slightly borrowed it for this project from my Dad, the DVD was in his office, but I helped it escape for a while and it is now back on my Dad’s shelf safe and sound once more.

To me (being the age I am, which I’m not going to tell you right now), Richard Attenborough is Kris Kringle from Miracle on 34th Street, or Dr John Hammond from Jurassic Park and the brother of the greatest living Zoologist, David Attenborough. So I was excited to say the least to watch this movie, one that I would never really in my usual course of life have come across, and it was only by chance while writing a list of all the DVDs I could find in my parents’ house that I stumbled across this at all. There is only one word I can use to describe this movie, WOW. This is a visual masterpiece in my opinion and I only hope that my A-Z project will allow me the opportunity to watch more Richard Attenborough movies.

I studied the two world wars for GCSE history, so I know quite a bit about operations during this time, but up until this stage in my life my only war references through film and television have been a few segments of classic movies on TCM, Schindler’s List, Allo Allo and the season 4 double episode entitled ‘The Killing Game’ of Star Trek Voyager. We watched Schindler’s list for the ‘visual element’ of our second world war studies, that and the fact that Steven Spielberg provided every school a copy of the movie, and it is the most harrowing experience of my life, one I will never forget, and maybe that is best in order to stop another human atrocity like the Holocaust from happening. But after 15 minutes of watching A Bridge Too Far, I wondered why we had never watched a movie like this at school to get a feeling of what the war was really like for the soldiers on the ground at this time. The battle sequences in this movie are epic, no CGI, green screen or other jiggery pokey. Just telling it like it is without all the mumbo jumbo.

Throughout the whole movie, even though I saw the opening credits, I surprised when screen icons kept popping up, maybe these days some of these actors are more famous than they were back in 1977 but this is an excellent ensemble cast that shows great believability and depth throughout.

Actors like Gene Hackman, there’s something about his voice that I find so endearing with great depth and emotion in everything he says, I am only glad that the A-Z will allow me to watch other movies starring these great actors (including Mr Hackman who’s movies I have seen I could probably count on one hand).

It’s not a fast paced movie, hence the nearly three hour run time, but there is something to keep you occupied throughout, whether it is the actor spotting (“oow look it’s Elliot Gould/Ross and Monica’s Dad from Friends”), the great visuals and direction or the story itself.

At the end the use of the hymn ‘Abide with Me’ has personal significance for me. When I was 18 I went on tour with the youth String Orchestra I played with, and at the Menin Gate, a War Memorial in Ypres (Belgium) dedicated to the British and Commonwealth forces who were killed in Ypres and who’s graves are unknown, we played the national anthems of Britain and Belgium along with Abide with Me, and this till brings me to tears thinking of that place and its significance to the modern world. It’s hard to believe that the two world wars have both taken place within some people’s life times, my two surviving grandparents are both in their mid to late 80s, and I can only hope that nothing like these wars are seen in the near future.

However I do think I got a little lost in the middle somewhere in the middle of this movie as I had no idea at one point what was going on, and who was fighting and where, at one point I seem to have totally lost Robert Redford’s character. Speaking of Robert Redford; by watching this I have finally seen what my Mum saw in Mr Redford when she was younger. I don’t really know who my equivalent to this is in modern terms, I seem to flit between my ‘favourite actors’ so often, but maybe that is because there are so many these days, whether TV or film actors there are just so many where each is good at something different and all round actors (like Redford) seen to be a dying breed, though don’t get me wrong there are actors still like that around.

In conclusion you can’t really say that this is enjoyable to watch (purely because of the context of the movie) but it is most certainly an informative gem (though personally I don’t know all of the particular details of this operation to say if it is 100% accurate or not). But I would defiantly say that I would watch this again, even if it is just to make sure I have the plot firmly fixed in my mind so I might understand it better, you never know I might even have to change the total score rating of this review.

You might imagine my surprise then when I discovered that this film didn’t win any Oscars, so I looked up the contenders and winners of 1978. Ah that’s why, Annie Hall, Star Wars- A New Hope and Julia were the big winners of the year, but come on people why not even a mention, I don’t know.

And my opinion of David Attenborough now? A living legend. Give him more Oscars.

Outcome

This is definitely staying, amazing direction and an ensemble cast to die for. Also this is my Dad’s DVD so selling it isn’t really an option!!

The Abduction Club

So here we go eventually, the beginning of A-Z of Film. The first movie in my collection alphabetically;

The Abduction Club

Date watched- 11th July 2010

Genre; Romantic, Period Drama
Year; 2002
Running Time; 92 minutes
Director; Stefan Schwartz
Written By; Bill Britton and Richard Crawford
Actors; Alice Evans, Daniel Lapaine, Sophia Myles and Matthew Rhys.

Acting 3/5
Keeping my attention 3/4
Visuals/Direction 3/5
Story/Plot 3/6 Total 12/20

Plot

So the story goes something like this; Ireland 1780 where only the eldest sons of affluent families are entitled to their family fortunes while the younger brothers have to take up a profession in the church and earn their own living or marry a woman of fortune, the result, the Abduction Club where a band of younger sons join together to pursue these women of fortune and persuade them into marriage. This movie focuses on two best friends Byrne (Daniel Lapaine) and Strang (Matthew Rhys), both members of the same Abduction Club, romantically pursuing the Kennedy sisters (Alice Evans and Sophia Myles). The abduction takes place of the elder sister, Catherine Kennedy (Evans) where Byrne hopes to convince her to marry him, while Stang ‘accidentally’ abducts the younger sister Anne (Myles); however Catherine is not impressed and refuses Byrne, and the abduction club is forced to disband in order to save its members from imprisonment as the red coats are called to find them all after this abduction occurs. Byrne, Strang and the Kennedy sisters are pursued across Ireland by the rich, ruthless and power hungry Mr Power (who has intentions of his own to marry Anne Kennedy, though Anne can not even stand the sight of Mr Power). Will love blossom between the two couples or will money divide them even further? The ending is a little predictable, but why not?

My Personal Views

I think it’s fair to say by the fact that it’s taken this long to build up to watching this film that it’s not one of the greatest movies ever made. This is like a great cake that never was; all of the ingredients were there, the oven was set to the right temperature and the cake bake for the right amount of time, but somewhere in all of that it failed to rise. Don’t ask me exactly where but it just misses the spot somewhere.
I originally bought this because I couldn’t find ‘Plunkett and Macleane’ (I was going through a Robert Carlyle phase at the time) and to be honest I think I might have made the right choice; I saw a part of P&M a few months away and was completely lost whereas I know where I am with this.
Alice Evans and Sophia Myles seem to have both mastered the art of looking all doe eyed in many scenes but really bring great warmth to some of the more heart felt scenes, and Myles has the spoilt younger sister down to perfection. Both Lapaine (Australian) and Rhys (Welsh) are quite nice to look at and have the British accents perfected. The supporting actors also help to underpin these four’s performances and add something to this movie in some way; Liam Cunningham (Power) play the villain well.

So before watching this today I was almost certain that this film was destined to end up on EBay; but can I really do that to the film that promoted this whole A-Z venture? In addition I can’t really dislike it that much if I’ve watched it twice in the last 5 months, surely! (I’ve also said a lot of nice thins here, and mean them)

This movie is in some ways predictable, but the combination of the period drama and romance really does make this in some ways a good watch, also when you finish watching this movie you don’t quite believe that you’ve been watching it for an hour and a half, the story happens in a fast paced manner and makes it enjoyable in most places. The back drop of rolling hills adds to it also.

Outcome

For now this is going to stay firmly on my shelf.