{"id":4858,"date":"2020-03-02T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=4858"},"modified":"2021-03-15T18:29:20","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T18:29:20","slug":"a-vignette-of-a-life-amongst-a-thousand-a-review-of-1917","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2020\/03\/02\/a-vignette-of-a-life-amongst-a-thousand-a-review-of-1917\/","title":{"rendered":"A Vignette of a Life Amongst a Thousand: A Review of 1917"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The last film to bring tears to my eyes was 2017\u2019s\u00a0Dunkirk<\/em>, mostly because I am of a generation of Christopher Nolan fan boys who cannot see him doing any wrong. I\u00a0was\u00a0living\u00a0in Boston\u00a0at the time, working in a campground, and woefully depressed. I needed an escape from my mundane forty-hour week of cleaning fire pits, picking up trash, and being cussed out by \u2018Massholes.\u2019 In that moment of needing a world to jump into for an afternoon, Dunkirk<\/em> filled the void, providing a story I couldn\u2019t tear my eyes from. I\u00a0vividly remember moments in that film that were truly so beautiful I couldn\u2019t help but tear up:\u00a0flames licking a beached warplane, a single admiral standing on a dock, awaiting help that might not come, and the joyous payoff I felt when help indeed came.\u00a0It was a movie viewing experience that I desperately needed, a transportation into the world of World War\u00a02.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of what makes Dunkirk<\/em> special, is that war movies are difficult to make. Sometimes like Dunkirk<\/em>, they bring us such excitement that we cannot contain our joy,\u00a0while others like Avatar<\/em> are so mired in spectacle that we lose all semblance of story.\u00a0Admittedly, upon seeing the first trailer for Sam Mendes\u2019 epic,\u00a01917<\/em>, I did not think it would compare to Dunkirk<\/em>. It seemed devoid of any soul or any of the magnificent spectacle so typical of war films. I dismissed it as another random film that I may or may not pay money to watch. Then,\u00a0I\u00a0read that the whole film was made to appear as if it was one singular shot.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last such film I had seen was\u00a0Birdman<\/em>, by the great Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu, and it floored me. The feat of a seemingly one-shot film is rarely attempted, and even more rarely achieved. Birdman<\/em> is perhaps the best and only example of a film being done in such a way, and the potential execution of a one shot film with 1917<\/em> instantly aggrandized it. Suddenly more interested, I did a little research and found the single shot feat would be executed by Roger Deakins, perhaps the greatest cinematographer working today, leading me to believe that perhaps 1917<\/em> would join Birdman<\/em> in being a shining example of the one-shot technique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1917<\/em>\u00a0is a film set during World War I in France in, you guessed it, the year 1917. It follows two soldiers who are tasked with delivering a message through no man\u2019s land to another company preparing to attack the Germans, an attack that if allowed to continue, will result in the certain massacre of 1600 men, including the brother of one of the two soldiers.\u00a0From the beginning, the stakes are high, yet very simple.\u00a01600 men will die if these two soldiers do not succeed. They will struggle through no man\u2019s land, traverse ravaged French towns,\u00a0and\u00a0dodge crashing planes.\u00a01917<\/em>\u00a0is an adrenaline hit unlike any other, yet, it is filled with a tenderness and heart that is rarely found within a war movie.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t want to leave the theater after 1917 finished, I sat in silence, reviewing what I had just witnessed in my mind. I realized quickly that what made this film special was the feeling I felt once the credits rolled, that I had lived the lead character’s lives, that I had been in the mud with them, bled with them, and ultimately, died with them. <\/strong>George Mackay and Dean-Charles Chapman play characters so believable, so innately human, that when a bunker comes crashing down on them, I feel their claustrophobia. From the first moment, I was hooked. Much of the credit\u00a0for\u00a0this lies\u00a0at the feet of Roger Deakins\u2019\u00a0masterful work with the camera, creating a feeling of being a third person, travelling with these two men through warplanes crashing into barns, and dashing through hollowed out french towns.\u00a0More than the story itself, the technical achievement of\u00a01917<\/em>\u00a0is unique. It could have very easily become a gimmicky film where the creators attempt the one-shot feat in\u00a0a cry\u00a0for attention. Instead, their creation is always in service of the larger story. Creative decisions\u00a0rarely feel contrived. For example, the initial decision to have this film appear as if it is one shot creates a sense that the viewer is a third person following the movie’s two leads and it raises the stakes when these two characters are in trouble. Choices like this create an environment where the viewer cannot peel their eyes from the screen.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1917<\/em>\u00a0is a tour de force in its representation of life’s intimate details. I can recall a specific conversation between the two main characters where one is telling the other about harvesting apples back home. It is a simple conversation and serves no other purpose than to illuminate this man’s life in a way that helps the audience feel an emotional connection with him. Sometimes what is most difficult for a filmmaker to ensure is that the audience cares about his\/her protagonists throughout the film, which is why the above apple picking scene affects the audience so profoundly. It is far easier said than done, and\u00a0far too often spectacle and massive explosions\u2014the \u2018macro\u2019\u2014overshadow the vulnerable character moments which cause us as humans to feel and relate to boys sent off to war.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are reading this to simply gauge whether or not\u00a01917<\/em>\u00a0is worth your $10,\u00a0it is.\u00a0Pay it.\u00a0In my opinion,\u00a0it is\u00a0the best movie released in 2019, and one that can be appreciated by all, not just my clique of nerdy friends who dissect every second of the movies we love and divulge\u00a0our absurd observations\u00a0to anyone who will listen.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u00a0makes\u00a01917<\/em>\u00a0so enjoyable, is the vicarious experience I enjoyed while in the theater. The two main characters are so\u00a0wonderfully relatable and brilliantly written, that I lost myself in\u00a0their\u00a0<\/em>story. This movie struck me not as a war film about two soldiers, but about two men struggling to stay alive. For that reason alone, I cannot recommend it enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my favorite authors, George R.R. Martin, says that a reader lives a thousand lives whilst a man who doesn\u2019t read merely lives one. I think that Martin\u2019s quote extends further to the realm of film, or indeed, any other means of telling stories. Stories are what allows a man to live a thousand lives. For me, one of those lives was spent in the countryside of France in\u00a0the year\u00a01917.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last film to bring tears to my eyes was 2017\u2019s\u00a0Dunkirk, mostly because I am of a generation of Christopher Nolan fan boys who cannot see him doing any wrong. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":4925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[342],"tags":[360],"class_list":["post-4858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media-studies","tag-film-reviews","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4858"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5316,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions\/5316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}