1993 - SHADOWLANDS, a love story

This film is a love story between celebrated Christian author C.S Lewis and an American poet Joy Davidman a Jewish woman who had converted to Christianity,  She had been corresponding by mail with Lewis for some time and finally traveled to England to meet him.  Much to his surprise he found himself falling into a relationship with her.

The leads were played by Debra Winger and Anthony Hopkins and they were played very well.  In fact the entire cast performed at a very high level.  Even the young boy playing Winger's son from a first marriage doesn't have any of those annoying overacting tendencies that a lot of these child performers seem to pick up.

 

This film was produced and directed by Richard Attenborough and it's probably the best film he made as a director.  Attenborough had a long career acting with some of the best British directors.  But as a director himself a lot of his pictures were very stodgy and ponderous.  It seemed that Attenborough was only interested in making "important" pictures," so audiences sat throught long dull films like Gandhi, Cry Freedom and Chaplin.  They may have been intended to be of great cinematic significance but they sure were boring. 

 

In Shadowlands he had a good script, good actors and an excellent cinematographer in Roger Pratt.  The end result is a very touching love story which was filmed in the classic film style and worked very well.

The film was well written by William Nicholson, the running time is 131 minutes. 

1969 -OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR-World War I was bad

Apparently Oh What A Lovely War was a piece of experimental theater. The creators used period songs to highlight the tragedy of World War I, a war which was probably as close as the human race came to a self fulfilling Armageddon. This film directed by Richard Attenborough is his version of this horror, a two hour plus horror of a boring slog fest the point of which is that unsurprisingly "war is hell".



 Part of the cast was made up of big name British actors playing the typical silly assed English military types. Even when this movie was made the idea that military leaders were grandstanding incompetent clowns was already a cliche. The other part of the cast is a group of nondescript actors playing the Smith family. The Smith family is a symbol for all of the British working and middle class people who were slaughtered during World War I. The actors are so bland and interchangeable, it was hard to care.

The closing scene  is a pullback helicopter shot showing a a hillside full of white crosses of the war dead, very cool.  However, Gone with the Wind also did that same shot back in 1939.  Gone with the Wind at least had interesting characters. The DVD has the usual making of features and tries to convince the viewer that this was an important project for everyone involved. Attenborough seems sincere about the film and I would almost buy into what he has to say except I watched the film first.

The ridiculous musical sequences have to be seen to be believed. This is after all a musical.