World War II and cinema
I very much enjoyed this Sky Arts 3 part series on cinema and World War Two.
They assembled most of their usual film historians – Ian Nathan, Bonnie Greer, Derek Malcolm, but right wing columnist Simon Heffer also contributed.
War films are a genre I like and believe underrated.
At their best they make for exciting films, have performances from some of our best actors (Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson appear in Battle of Britain) and they are shot outside as much as in the studio.
Within the genre of war film there is evolution and gradation.
A popular format in the sixties was the male team movie. Three successful ones were based on novels by Alistair Maclean – The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare and Heroes of Telemark.
I recently watched Guns of Navarone.
There is a popular misconception that one of the stars Anthony Quinn is Greek. This may be because his two best-known roles were set in Greece, Zorba the Greek and Guns of Navarone.
In fact he was Mexican. Guns of Navarone was unusual as it had a romantic interest between Quinn and Irene Papas.
Operation Crossbow, a film about the destruction of the V2 base at Peetemunde on the Baltic, took this romantic element even further.
The producer was Carlo Ponte and he found a role for his wife Sophia Loren as the wife of the persona George Peppard adopts to infiltrate the base.
One of the paradoxical aspects of War films is that the best were made by Germans.
Das Boot (1981) is the best film on naval action and Downfall, a film about the last 10 days of Germany’s war set in Hitler’s Bunker.
Bruno Ganz ‘s performance of Hitler was as good a piece of film acting as I’ve seen.
The dictator that ruled from the Urals to the Atlantic coast became a deflated, deluded madman.
There were glimpses of the old omnipotence just as he depicted his kindness to his young secretary Frau Junge, 22 when he engaged her.
I rewatched it last night totally gripped by Ganz’s performance and the claustrophobia in the bunker, the suicides of Hitler and Eva Braun, Josef and Magda Goebbels and their six sweet children.
Although Hitler was undoubtedly a monster and the Nazis wrought civic destruction right to the end with their V1 an V2 rockets, I did feel a measure of sympathy.
These films lack diversity and parts for women and are unlikely to be made now.
Possibly the last one will be Saving Private Ryan. However it’s a rare bank holiday that does not feature one.
