Category: Historical epic

Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)

Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson are the feuding queens in Mary, Queen of Scots

Director: Charles Jarrott

Cast: Vanessa Redgrave (Mary, Queen of Scots), Glenda Jackson (Elizabeth I), Patrick McGoohan (James Stuart, Earl of Moray), Timothy Dalton (Lord Henry Darnley), Nigel Davenport (Earl of Bothwell), Trevor Howard (Sir William Cecil), Daniel Massey (Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester), Ian Holm (David Rizzio), Andrew Keir (Ruthven), Robert James (John Knox), Katherine Kath (Catherine d’Medici), Frances White (Mary Fleming), Vernon Dobtcheff (Duke of Guise)

So here we are, back in the Tudor history craze of late 1960s Hollywood. Charles Jarrott directed, following up his efforts in Anne of the Thousand Days with this professionally mounted, handsome and rather personality-free film adaptation. It occasionally falls a bit too much in love with its luscious romanticism – and it falls hard for Mary herself, surely one of the worst queens ever – but despite all that, it has an entertaining quality that never lets you down.

The film picks up with the recently widowed Mary (Vanessa Redgrave) essentially being chucked out of France after the death of her husband the King, and swiftly being sent back to Scotland to take up the throne there. Problem is: the very Catholic Mary isn’t exactly the choice of the lords of Scotland – led by her bastard brother James Stuart (Patrick McGoohan). Mary’s Catholicism also threatens to destabilise the relationship with Protestant England – particularly because she is the nearest successor to Elizabeth I (Glenda Jackson). But Mary lacks Elizabeth’s tactical understanding of ruling and is guided by her heart – leading her into a disastrous marriage with feckless alcoholic Henry Darnley (Timothy Dalton).

Mary Queen of Scots is a stately picture, which uses its location shots, costumes and production design to tell its familiar story with a sweep and relish that effectively hides the lack of inspiration in its film-making. Just as in Anne of the Thousand Days, Charles Jarrott shows he’s a fine producer of middle-brow entertainment, safe costume dramas that aren’t going to challenge anyone’s perceptions or give you any real wow moments of filming. He’s happy to set the camera up and let the actors do their thing, with the script ticking off the great events.

That’s what you get here. It’s a film that could have been a lot more of an exploration of the rivalries and different life philosophies of its feuding queens. But it doesn’t quite connect with that. This is partly because it can’t quite bring itself to engage with the reality of Mary herself, preferring the popular romantic image. The film doesn’t want to admit that many of Mary’s decisions were, to put it bluntly, completely misguided bordering on wrong. It is in love with her romantic image – and not as enamoured with Elizabeth’s wiser, more pragmatic, manipulative rule. It’s this rule by heart rather than head the film finally holds up for praise.

It doesn’t help that Vanessa Redgrave feels miscast in the lead role. Redgrave is too sharp an actor to convince as someone as easily led and foolish as Mary. She looks too shrewd, she feels too smart. Redgrave compensates by speaking softly and giving a lot of love-struck eyes to various male actors (principally Nigel Davenport’s bluff, masculine Bothwell), but it doesn’t quite work. It’s like she’s struggling to find the character – and to find the balance in a film that doesn’t want her to be seen as too stupid, while the viewer is left slapping their foreheads at every action she carries out.

This feeling stands out all the more with Glenda Jackson’s casting as Elizabeth. Having just finished playing the same role in a landmark six-part TV series, Elizabeth R(which covered a lot of the same ground), Jackson here confirms that she was the definitive Elizabeth. As smart and shrewd an actress as Redgrave, Jackson’s natural firmness marries up very well with these qualities to make the perfect Virgin Queen. There have been so many others who have taken on the role, but Jackson is simply perfect in this role – she becomes Elizabeth. Her Elizabeth is clever, manipulative, cunning but also quick tempered, capable of great wisdom but prone to moments of passionate lashing out.

The rest of the cast is a familiar parade of character actors – British actors of this generation made a living from films like this! Timothy Dalton stands out as a foppish, clearly useless Darnley (here reimagined as a syphilitic bisexual with anger management issues), as does Ian Holm as a cool-headed, would-be power behind the throne David Riccio, who meets a tragic end. Daniel Massey does a decent job as Leicester (though I can’t shake memories of Robert Hardy in the same role in Elizabeth R – was he busy at the time?), Trevor Howard gets saddled with a lot of plot as Burghley. Up in Scotland, Patrick McGoohan has a lot of fun as a scheming Earl of Moray.

All of these actors fit comfortably into the slightly browned, grainy photography style of films of this type, and the screenwriters hammer together plenty of incident alongside dramatic invention. The focus on the soap opera of Mary’s three marriages (she’s widowed in the opening moments of the film) leaves plenty of scope for invention, from Darnley and Riccio’s affair to the inevitable non-historical meeting between Mary and Elizabeth – it seems like every drama going from Schiller onwards has invented a meeting between these two as a dramatic highpoint.

This final scene captures the lack of thematic depth to the film. In a film that had focused more on really comparing the differences between the two, this could have been the culmination of a debate running through the film (can you rule with a brain but not a heart?). Instead it misses the trick, and becomes a final game of one-up-man-ship, which the film allows Mary to win because she is the more romantic figure.

It’s well mounted and assembled like many other films like this – but it’s not the best of its genre, and you do sometimes wish for something that had a little more meat on its bones.

Excalibur (1981)

Nigel Terry gets a special gift in John Boorman’s crazily OTT Arthurian epic Excalibur

Director: John Boorman

Cast: Nigel Terry (King Arthur), Nicol Williamson (Merlin), Helen Mirren (Morgana Le Fay), Nicholas Clay (Sir Lancelot), Cherie Lunghi (Guenevere), Paul Geoffrey (Sir Perceval), Gabriel Byrne (King Uther Pendragon), Corin Redgrave (Duke of Cornwall), Patrick Stewart (King Leondegrance), Keith Buckley (Sir Uryens), Clive Swift (Sir Ector), Liam Neeson (Sir Gawain), Robert Addie (Mordred), Niall O’Brien (Sir Kay), Ciarán Hinds (King Lot), Charley Boorman (Young Mordred), Katrine Boorman (Igrayne)

John Boorman had wanted to make a film about King Arthur for over a decade, but it only came into being after his plans for an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings fell through (the suits were convinced the film couldn’t be a hit – good call). So, with a lot of prep work for Tolkien in place, Boorman moved a lot of his ideas for LOTR over to Excalibur. In doing so he created something probably truly unique – a bonkers version of the Arthurian legend, so consistently Wagnerian (often literally), high-falutin’ and overblown that it has a strange integrity in its operatic silliness.

The film begins with Arthur’s conception, a result of King Uther’s (Gabriel Byrne) lust for his ally’s wife, Igrayne (the director’s daughter Katrine). Merlin (Nicol Williamson) agrees to magically disguise Uther as Igrayne’s husband for one night, and in return spirits away the resulting child to be reared ignorant of his heritage. Years later, with a leaderless kingdom in chaos, Arthur (Nigel Terry) draws the magical sword Excalibur from the stone, and proves himself as king. He marries Guenevere (Cherie Lunghi) and brings Sir Lancelot (Nicholas Clay) to Camelot – oblivious of their love for each other. Slowly this love destroys the peace of the land – encouraged by the schemes of Arthur’s vengeful half-sister Morgana (Helen Mirren).

Excalibur is a film set in a completely heightened middle-ages dreamworld, as if it’s a series of drawings from an illustrated edition of King Arthur brought to life. The design of the film is dialled up to eleven: the armour the characters wear is ridiculously elaborate, shiny and eye catching. The characters never seem to take it off: Uther even has sex wearing it (poor Igrayne is completely naked – that can’t have been comfortable for her). Full armour is worn at meals, wedding, social events, everything: at the same time it’s brilliantly ineffective, punctured with ease by axes and spears.

The rest of the design of the film is equally overblown. Camelot seems to have been literally made from silver and gold. Lancelot kips in the forest and sleeps in the nude. Battle scenes are filmed on moody, misty nights, with horses and knights riding with insane riskiness at each other. Excalibur itself is almost impossibly shiny and unblemished and occasionally glows green. Everything has a high-artistic feel to it, like a Romantic painting. Nothing looks real – it uses a “rule of cool” aesthetic, anything that looks good from anything approaching medievalism is used.

The acting itself follows this operatic style. Half the dialogue is delivered shouting: Patrick Stewart in particular must have lost his voice while filming this one. Filmed in Ireland (it practically kickstarted the Irish film industry), many Irish actors got their first film break here, not least Gabriel Byrne (a furiously lusty Uther), Liam Neeson (a drunken oafish Gawain) and Ciarán Hinds (growling in the background). Each roars through their dialogue, perhaps none more so than Corin Redgrave who screams his with such flemmy passion it’s often hard to work out what exactly he’s saying.

There are quieter moments from the three leads, even if all three of them don’t really have the charisma to impose themselves on sketchily drawn characters. Cherie Lunghi adopts an odd, part-time Irish accent as a bland Guenevere. Nicholas Clay is an upright Lancelot who simmers with guilt but is just a wee bit dull. Nigel Terry’s performance as Arthur (from young yokel to tortured king) gets better the more times I see it, but it lacks a certain star quality. But then in Boorman’s design, these three characters are just tools of fate rather than real characters – and the film has so much story to cover it often has very little time for character development.

The real stars of this film are Nicol Williamson and Helen Mirren. The two actors had a long-standing animosity – Boorman deliberately cast them to get an extra spark out of their scenes. But both actors seize their colourful characters – and have the time to add some depth to their bombastic, larger-than-life moments. Mirren gets to express bitterness and fury under simmering sexuality, as well as a genuine love for her son. Williamson is fantastic: playful, half nutty professor, half vengeful force of mystic power, he turns Merlin into an eccentric but somehow sinister old man. Williamson finds bizarro and unique line readings of even the simplest lines, stretching the material in the way only a really great actor can. He’s such an electric and interesting character, that he makes a performance that’s basically well over the top, hugely enjoyable and also even rather sweet.

As such, Williamson is perfect for Boorman’s overblown, crazy film. The score uses Wagner and Carmina Burana to great effect, and the closing moments are shot before a giant blood red sky. Boorman’s shiny, colourful world effectively melts down in the second half of the film into musty, moody greys: his concept of Arthur losing his way and the kingdom disintegrating works extremely well, and means we get a real sense of things falling apart. The Grail Quest is like a creepy fever dream – with knights we have known dying in gruesome ways, freezing in chapels or hanging in a tree with their corpses picked clean by crows (of course one crow eats an eye!).

In many ways Excalibur is a very silly film: it’s hard to believe it was made six years after Monty Python and the Holy Grail, as much of its design and action is more than a little reminiscent of that film (it’s probably the only parody you could argue was made before the film it best sends-up). You probably need to see it at a certain age or enter into it with the right mindset for something that walks a difficult line between fairy tale and earthy campness. But I still love it.

Because Boorman really goes for it here. You know from the early sequence of Uther and Igrayne having sex against a background of actual fire, in full plate armour, intercut with a lingering death of Cornwall impaled on a series of spears in Uther’s camp (his death and Uther’s climax are of course cut together) what sort of film you are going to get. Everything is OTT. The drama leaves nothing behind, and Boorman wisely removes any sense of restraint from this telling of the legend. It looks gorgeous – even if dated moments like the Lady of the Lake are more likely to raise sniggers than not – and it really, really goes for it. Not many other films could get away with something so over-the-top and bizarre: but this sort of does.

Silence (2016)

Andrew Garfield struggles with questions of faith in Martin Scorsese’s Silence

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Andrew Garfield (Father Sebastião Rodrigues), Adam Driver (Father Francisco Garupe), Shinya Tsukamoto (Mokichi), Liam Neeson (Father Cristóvão Ferreira), Tadanobu Asano (The Interpreter), Ciarán Hinds (Father Alessandro Valignano), Issey Ogata (Inoue Masashige), Yoshi Oida (Ichizo), Yōsuke Kubozuka (Kichijuri), Nana Komatsu (Monica/Haru), Ryo Kase (João/Chokichi)

Martin Scorsese is well known as the director of the finest gangster and crime films ever made. But interestingly, he also has quite the sideline in searching religious epics – and in fact many of his films, not least Mean Streets and The Departed, dwell on feelings of Catholic duty and guilt, questions of doubt and faith. Silence, a book published in 1971, zeroes in on these questions by placing priests in impossible situations and seeing how their faith is tested.

In the 1630s, Japan begins a campaign of persecution against Christian converts. Jesuit priest Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson) witnesses his flock undergoing torture for their faith. Word reaches the Catholic church that Ferreira has committed apostasy. A few years later, Fathers Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garupe (Adam Driver) volunteer to head to Japan to continue the mission of spreading the world, and to find out the truth about Ferreira, who had been their mentor. In Japan, they find a dangerous and violent world where Christians face gruelling persecution. Both men find their faith tested – and God’s silence deafening.

Silence is a film that received a slightly sniffy review on release – but what were people expecting? This is a quiet, meditative, beautifully made film that raises profound questions around faith, identity and Christianity – and is brave enough to let people develop their own answers. It’s a slow-paced, thoughtful and (for such a dynamic film-maker) very calmly filmed work, that feels like it carries a great deal of personal investment – Scorsese’s interests in the effort and struggle required by faith, and about how few clear-cut answers there are in our understanding of religion.

On those terms, I found myself both engrossed by it – much more than I was anticipating. Scorsese combines astounding visuals and use of sound (and silence) to create a hypnotic film. The mists of Japan have rarely looked so beautiful, and the film’s astounding cinematography uses it to maximum effect to create a series of stunning images. One marvellous shot of a crucified man removed from his cross and carried to his funeral pyre is very moving in its simplicity and echoes Caravaggio’s Deposition from the Cross. At other times, silence is skilfully introduced, just as moments of seeming quiet are never truly silent. It’s a marvellously made film.

Within this beautiful framework, Scorsese explores ideas of faith and apostasy. How does faith work? How much is our communication with God private and how much does it need to be made public? Would you renounce your calling to save others – even if it meant turning your back on God? How much of all this is God listening into? How much is the act of conversion a selfish one, spreading your own glory? How many sacrifices are worth the celebration of faith – and what is the ultimate aim and reward of martyrdom? How can we even define martyrdom – and does it always revolve around death, or a can it be a private death of the spirit?

These are fascinating ideas, and the film presents a series of viewpoints on each of these, while never offering a definitive answer. While this is a film about men who question their faith, it is not a film asking the viewer to question theirs. If you hold faith, different solutions and answers will present themselves, and your own personal beliefs will guide what you feel is right and what is not. Some people you may find unforgiveable – others you may find foolish or even conceited in their faith, while others will find the same men brave and principled.

Scorsese directs all this with an astonishing sense of control and quiet reflection, letting the film breathe and never allowing melodrama to overwhelm reflection, or the character story. The film is unflinching in watching the matter-of-fact drowning, crucifiying and other killings of Christians, but it never feels like its making cheap points, strange as it is to see such visual beauty given to horror. It’s asking us how much of this we could sit and watch without agreeing to abandon something we believe passionately in as the ultimate truth.

Andrew Garfield performs with a passionate earnestness and absolute commitment. In many ways, as the reactive centre of the film, he has the least interesting part (and therefore fewer opportunities to shine than the rest of the cast) but he is very good in a difficult internalised role, and makes us invest in every step of Rodrigues’ tortured journey of increasing doubts and fears.

Driver has a flashier part, but does very well as a priest who wears his heart on his sleeve – and voices doubts, but also flashes of anger. He provides a lot of the initial energy, and demonstrates again what an intelligent and instinctive actor he is. Neeson as the fallen priest is able to invert his own reputation for mentors, while leaving the question open of how much his placidity and co-operation with the authorities is brain-washing or hiding far different feelings.

Scorsese recruits some of the cream of Japanese acting, and they deliver uniformly strong performances. Shinya Tsukamoto is excellent as Rodrigues’ mirror image, a man quick to denounce to save his own skin, but carries a kernel of faith at his centre. Tadanobo Asano is wonderfully controlling as Rodrigues’ interpreter, while Issey Ogata is outstanding as the leading prosecutor of the Japanese government, a man who seems a harmless, wizened old man, but whose eyes (and chamelonic body) are able to rearrange itself swiftly into looks of contempt and loathing.

Silence is a serenely made film, one that really wants to speak to those with Christian faith. Like the works of Carl Dreyer, it engages intelligently with themes around faith. I’d be fascinated to see what those who hold a stronger faith than mine make of it. But I thought this posed a series of compelling, and searching, questions about the unknowability of God – of his silence, but that silence not necessarily being indifference. It charts how hope can be found from despair – and how sacrifices we sometimes make for the greater good can also lead to new ways we can understand ourselves. It’s a very mature, brave and compelling piece of film making.

Dances with Wolves (1990)

Kevin Costner finds his inner peace in Dances with Wolves

Director: Kevin Costner

Cast: Kevin Costner (John Dunbar/Dances With Wolves), Mary McDonnell (Stands With A Fist), Graham Greene (Kicking Bird), Rodney A. Grant (Wind In His Hair), Floyd Red Crow Westerman (Chief Ten Bears), Tantoo Cardinal (Black Shawl), Jimmy Herman (Stone Calf), Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse (Smiles A Lot), Michael Spears (Otter), Charles Rocket (Lt Elgin), Robert Pastorelli (Timmins), Tom Everett (Sgt Pepper), Wes Studi (Toughest Pawnee), Maury Chaykin (Major Fambrough)

At the end of the 1980s, Kevin Costner was the biggest film star in the world, with a string of hits behind him. So he did what Hollywood stars before and since have done: cashed in all his chips and made the film he had to make. It would be long, it would be mostly in a foreign language, it would have no stars (other than himself) and – most poisonous of all at the time – it would be a Western. When the funding started to dry up, Costner even paid for the overtime out of his own pocket. Not for no reason was the project dubbed “Kevin’s Gate” by the sceptical media, eagerly expecting Hollywood’s golden boy to land on his face.

How wrong they were. Dances with Wolves not only made almost 20 times its budget at the box office, it changed many Americans’ perceptions of Native Americans – oh yes and it also won seven Oscars, including Best Director for Costner and Best Picture. Costner plays Lt. John Dunbar, a civil war veteran who (after an act of suicidal death-seeking foolishness to avoid having his leg amputated) chooses a posting to an abandoned fort in the middle of Sioux country. Forgotten by the army, Dunbar forages alone and comes to the attention of the Sioux. At first cautious around each other, Dunbar eventually befriends healing man Kicking Bird (Graham Greene) and finds himself cautiously welcomed into the Sioux tribe as a guest, finding love with Stands With A Fist (Mary McDonnell), a white woman raised by the Sioux. He begins to find the Sioux as kindred spirits.

Costner’s film is an expansive, heartfelt poem, a film in love with sweeping vistas and with an endearing, humanitarian view of the world, beautifully shot by Dean Semler and helped immensely by a wonderful, swelling lyrical score by John Barry – one of the best scores you are likely to hear. Costner dispels any doubts about his abilities to direct by throwing himself into a truly epic canvas – and some of the ideas here are reminiscent of Lean, in their beautiful use of the American plains. Within this large canvas, Costner tells an actually fairly simple, but also sweetly touching, story of the disillusioned man who finds himself in the wilderness.

If there is a flaw with Dances with Wolves it is that its story is so traditional and (in many ways) predictable. It’s understandable that the story introduces a white man to be our surrogate when encountering the Sioux. But it’s hard to shake the feeling of all that all-too familiar trope, the White Saviour. The primary good the Sioux serve in the film is to help Dunbar discover himself, to come to peace with himself. In turn, it’s Dunbar who increasingly becomes the tribe’s protector – helping them to find the buffalo, giving them guns and leading the defence against a Pawnee tribe attack, increasingly recognised as a “celebrity” in the tribe.

On top of that, Dunbar’s love interest becomes the only other prominent white character in the film. Again I understand that the film needed someone who was able to serve as a cultural and language bridge between Dunbar and the Sioux. But could there not have been some sort of narrative invention to make this female character a Sioux who had learned some English? It seems as if the film can only go so far – and showing a multi-racial relationship was probably that. Saying that, McDonnell is very good as the gentle Stands With A Fist, but it feels like a cop-out.

Costner’s own central performance gives everything the film requires. It’s a fairly simple role: the disillusioned soldier finding inner peace. The film plays very much into the attraction of the “noble savage” – the simplicity and honesty of the Sioux lifestyle being so much purer than the corruption of the “modern” world (needless to say, nearly all the white men in the film are truly awful people). But Costner brings his considerable charm to bear, delivering many of his lines with that slightly cocksure, shy grin he uses so well. The film suffers from its narration being delivered by Costner’s flat and unmodulated voice, but he’s perfectly fine in the role.

He plays it with an entirely straight honesty – and, for all its faults, this honesty makes the film work. The film goes overboard to humanise and provide empathy for the Sioux, as if wanting to correct generations of films that have cast Native Americans as dangerous savages. The Sioux are humane, generous, welcoming and dignified. Graham Greene has to carry much of this as medicine man Kicking Bird, and he gives a stirring, sympathetic performance, with equally fine performances from Rodney A. Grant and Tantoo Cardinal in particular.

The film delivers all its tropes and traditional structure with a straightforward, heart-warming simplicity – it really means that you go with the picture, and find yourself as drawn to the Sioux lifestyle as Dunbar is. Also, for all the criticism of the film’s narrative, it shouldn’t be forgotten what a warm reception it had from Native American groups, delighted to see their ancestors presented in such an empathetic light (the Sioux Nation later adopted Costner). And the film sensitively and brilliantly stages this way of life, with a series of beautifully done vignettes ranging from marriage to simple cooking and spending time around the fire.

The most stunningly filmed of these is the buffalo hunt, a soaring marvel of camera work, editing and horseback adventure. The film doesn’t let you forget the sequence before either, where the Sioux come across a series of buffalo killed for their hides by white hunters – in comparison to the complete use of the carcass (and limited numbers killed) by the Sioux. The buffalo hunt sequence is an exciting triumph – it’s probably responsible for several of the technical Oscars the film received – and it’s a tribute to Costner’s mastery of the visuals of the American West (even if, rumour has it, chunks of it were actually filmed by Kevin Reynolds).

Dances with Wolves is a very heartfelt and honest film – and its sincerity means it kind of gets away with its obvious flaws (and its great length). Costner wanted to make an important film and he does to a certain extent – but one which wears its importance fairly lightly, and makes a series of enriching humanitarian arguments that carry real weight. It’s in many ways an extremely accomplished retelling of a familiar story. But I found myself genuinely moved by the story it wanted to tell, and the questions it asks of its audiences. Is it a great film? Probably not, but it is a good one.

Apocalypto (2006)

Rudy Youngblood is on the run in Mel Gibson’s Mayan experience epic

Director: Mel Gibson

Cast: Rudy Youngblood (Jaguar Paw), Dalia Hernández (Seven), Jonathan Brewer (Blunted), Morris Birdyellowhead (Flint Sky), Gerardo Taracena (Middle Eye), Raoul Trujiilo (Zero Wolf)

In the early 1500s, the Mayan civilisation is at its final peak before its collapse. However, it is a civilisation built on human sacrifice and exploitation. A peaceful village is brutally attacked by Mayan soldiers, who take the women to be sold into slavery and the men to be sacrificed to the sun. Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) manages to save his wife and child, but is captured and taken to the Mayan capital where he struggles to survive, escape and find his family.

Setting a film in the long gone Mayan civilisation, in an entirely dead language, with no stars is a brave choice for any film-maker. So you have to tip your hat to Mel Gibson, for all his undoubted unpleasantness, that he was brave enough (or powerful enough) to put the project together. It could have been a grand folly but, thanks largely to Gibson’s undoubted prowess as a film-maker, it’s a relentless experience movie, with moments of horror expertly mixed with terrifying edge-of-the-seat tension. It’s a clear sign that, for all his personal issues, Gibson is a very fine director.

The chase, when it comes in the final third is unrelenting, and brilliantly shot and edited. Gibson uses a range of different cameras, from those mounted on Youngblood, to tracking shots, to aerial shots to throw us into the middle of the action. Trees blur by, the soundtrack pounds, the camera doesn’t let up. Gibson also knows to throw in quieter moments – pause points, moments to take breath for both the pursuers and the pursued. Jaguar Paw carries a dreadful wound – and runs on the same level of adrenalin as the film provokes in its audience.

Of course, it’s also, as per a Gibson film, very bloody stuff. Faces are bludgeoned. Bodies are cut to pieces. A jaguar literally rips a man’s head apart. The film wants us to experience this bloody world first hand. As a piece of film-making, it’s addictive in its unremitting violence and tension. It’s also compelling how the odds slowly change throughout the chase – like a Die Hard in the jungle, the further the pursuit heads into the jungle, the greater confidence Jaguar Paw possesses, and the more he is able to turn the tables on his pursuers. This also highlights the savage danger of nature itself – the jungle is full of potential dangers, from jaguars to hornets to poisonous animals.

It’s far from perfect of course. The script is dire – the subtitled content we read if often terrible clunky. The opening sequence is a long series of jokes about eating a wild pig’s bollocks. There are strange anachronistic turns of phrase – at one point a collapsing tree nearly takes out the convey of slaves, leading Zero Wolf to shout “I’m walking here!”. If you were in any doubt about the essential crudeness and simplicity of Gibson’s sense of humour, you only really need to read the subtitles.

But because the film is subtitled and feels like a brave piece of film-making, it’s very easy to assign a depth to it that the film doesn’t really have. It is, to all intents and purposes, an 80s action film transposed to an ancient civilisation. It would like to think it has some profound message about the nature of man. But it’s largely an experience movie that throws you into an old civilisation and wants you to vicariously feel the suffering of its central character. It’s Gibson at his most visceral, throwing us into worlds of violence, tapping into elemental feelings of pity and horror.

I guess there are themes in there about the universal corruption and cruelty of great civilisations, with their violence, greed and cruelty – and we know the conquistadors are just round the corner. But other than presenting this as is, the film doesn’t make too much of an effort to draw real contrasts with our world. It is what it is. The audience is there to feel the fear and the horror of the innocent villagers being fed to the Mayan human sacrifice machine. Any pretence to this being a profound movie on top of that is just that: a pretence.

But Gibson can shoot the hell out of a film, and this is tense, engrossing viewing – largely because you’ve not really seen anything else really like this. The scenes at the Mayan sacrifice temple are horrifyingly hypnotic in their orgy of death. Our villagers have a chilling powerlessness in the face of this death machine that awakens all our feelings of vulnerability and sympathy. Violence and murder is shown to be central to Mayan civilisation – and it might not carry that thematic idea forward too much, but at least it’s an interesting suggestion.

But Gibson’s primary purpose here is to make a high-octane chase movie – an actioner, set in a primitive civilisation, where human beings on foot carry all the energy of the chases, and the stakes feel impossibly high. You have to admire Gibson’s power as an immersive film-maker, and the unique vision he presents, difficult as it can be to watch. It’s something truly unique, often shockingly so. And if it is, at heart, part chase part slasher with slightly more depth, it’s also something you can’t imagine many other directors having the chutzpah to put together.

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Misguided principles are brilliantly mixed with an epic scale in this stunning prison camp film

Director: David Lean

Cast: William Holden (Commander Shears), Alec Guinness (Lt Colonel Nicholson), Jack Hawkins (Major Warden), Sessue Hayakawa (Colonel Saito), James Donald (Major Clipton), Geoffrey Horne (Lt Joyce), André Morell (Colonel Green), Peter Williams (Captain Reeves), John Boxer (Major Hughes)

“Madness! Madness!”Are there many better final lines of films – or any delivered with more emphatic, meaningful gusto than James Donald manages at the close of this David Lean classic? The Bridge on the River Kwai is a constantly reliable, wonderfully assembled classic film, and a never-ending joy to watch. It’s not only a gripping epic, it’s also a wonderful psychological study of a series of men and the impact war has on their psyches. It’s all madness after all.

In 1943, Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) and his men arrive in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Burma. Camp Commander Colonel Saito (Sesse Hayakawa) has been tasked with building a bridge over the river Kwai, and demands officers and men go to work. When Nicholson adamantly refuses to allow officers to do manual labour (as per the Geneva Convention), he and Saito are set for a clash of wills, in which the iron-willed, rigid certainty of Nicholson eventually triumphs. However, once Nicholson is released from solitary confinement, he is so horrified by the decline in discipline of his men, he decides building the bridge is the perfect opportunity to rebuild morale and demonstrate British character=. So he sets upon building a better, stronger bridge than the Japanese had designed. Meanwhile, fellow prisoner American Commander Shears (William Holden) escapes from the camp back to Allied headquarters – only to be forced to return to the jungle on a commando raid to destroy the bridge, led by Major Warden (Jack Hawkins).

Wow this is one hell of a film. It was garlanded with seven Oscars, and totally deserves each and every one of them. Kwai is a deeply engaging, wonderfully structured epic that balances perfectly the sweep of Hollywood cinema with a keen understanding of the complexities of psychologies under pressure. Because like Clipton says, this is a film about madness. Virtually everyone in this is mad in some way. Lean brilliantly positions these psyches in a series of conflicts and clashes: we have Nicholson vs. Saito, Nicholson vs. Shears, Shears vs. Warden – in every relationship in the film there is conflict and disagreement. It makes for extraordinary drama.

Pile on top of that the fact that David Lean is a consummate film maker. Every moment of Kwai is a display of wondrous visual storytelling, from the arrival of the British in the prison camp – a triumph of defiance, pride and hubris – to the final attack on the bridge. The final sequence around the bridge is exquisitely assembled. The editing is flawless, the tension build-up (nearly 20 minutes!) never flags, but carefully establishes the who, what, why and where. The sequence itself builds up both events and problems with daunting skill. In between, every sequence of the film has some masterful work in it.

The heartbeat is Alec Guinness, simply marvellous as Nicholson. It’s hard to believe watching it that he was not the first choice – in a parallel universe Charles Laughton starred opposite Cary Grant’s Commander Shears! – because he is superb in this Oscar-winning role. Guinness’s Nicholson is mad. Not in the cuckoo way or a cruel or arrogant way. He’s blinded by the rule book, by the middle-class values of duty, order and dignity that govern his life. Mad because he takes a task from his Japanese enemies and does it better than they ever could have: “Must we work so well? Must we build them a better bridge than they could have built themselves?” Clipton asks of him. Too true. Nicholson’s response? That one day people will remember the bridge was built not by “a gang of slaves, but soldiers, British soldiers…even in captivity”.

So Nicholson doesn’t see it that way. It doesn’t match his narrow world view of a place for everything and everything in its place. Because he has no vision beyond his own immediate circumstances. The important thing for him is to build the bridge, because it’s his duty to keep his men together, and demonstrate British resolve. So it’s Nicholson who visits Clipton’s sick bay and gently questions the wounded men, encouraging them to go back to work on the bridge so it can be finished on time (they ironically march through the graveyard of the camp on the way). For Nicholson the bridge is everything – and Guinness’ eyes are full of rigid monomania (needless to say, by the end of the film Nicholson himself off-handedly informs Clipton with pride that the officers have volunteered to work on the bridge to make sure it will be finished before the deadline).

His manner contrasts fascinatingly with Sesse Hawakaya’s Colonel Saito. Saito, a bank manager type if ever you saw one, clearly struggles with holding his command together and to deliver the bridge as planned. He has the strength of office, but not the strength of character of Nicholson. Hawakaya plays a weak man – and it’s fascinating how Lean charts the shift in power from Saito to Nicholson. Nicholson stands for principle and simply cannot imagine backing down – and then, with a sense of certainty and natural authority that governs his life, swiftly takes over the entire planning of the bridge from Saito. Poor Saito is a broken, weakened man: and in his own form of madness, is left with Nicholson alone as a confidant (the two of them talk more to each other about their loneliness and uncertainties than they do anyone else – Nicholson in particular gets a marvellous speech about the sad transience of the soldier’s life – “it’s a good life, but still there are times…”).

The madness doesn’t stop there. Jack Hawkins’ Major Warden is as fanatical as Nicholson: the mission is everything. Hawkins is excellent, turning Warden into a sort of over-grown schoolboy, playing at soldiers but with an adolescent aggressive willingness to sacrifice the pieces for the greater good. For Warden, no life in the team is sacred (including his own), and everything must be about the target. Warden’s gung-ho, take-no-prisoners attitude, his lack of empathy for the lives of those around him, makes him as much of an insane danger as Nicholson, perhaps more so.

Holden’s more humane Shears is the counterbalance with these three lunatics. Of course, Shears is sucked even more into the madness than anyone else – who else would escape from a prison camp, only to be forced to head back into the jungle on a fool’s errand? Holden is damned impressive as the naturally anti-authoritarian Shears, a man who never seems to have seen a boss without questioning him, who recognises the insanity of the war around him but when push comes to shove throws himself into the mission he has been given.

He’s the big addition to the original source material – but it’s an idea so good that Pierre Boullé said he wished he had thought of it himself. Boullé won the screenplay Oscar, but the writers of the script were really the black-listed Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman. These two put together a superb script, and the structure contrasting Shears with Nicholson works perfectly. These two are mirror images, but never really antagonists. Their final meeting towards the end of the film has a poetic sadness about it. It adds a whole extra dimension to the film – while one storyline sees the bridge being built, a parallel one prepares for its destruction.

All these threads come together beautifully on the morning of the bridge’s opening, after a triumphant celebration by the prisoners on the completion of the bridge – a moment Nicholson describes to them as “turn[ing] defeat into victory”. He is of course both right and wrong – and the triumph of the film is that you can’t help but share Nicholson’s desire to save this bridge that we have seen so much work, effort and love go into constructing.

“Madness”. That’s how Clipton sees it – James Donald is by the way wonderful as the one sane man – and yes of course he’s right. It’s all part of what is a masterful film made by a master storyteller, beautifully filmed and edited. Alec Guinness gives a performance for the ages as stubborn, small-minded man whom we somehow still end up strangely admiring and respecting. Holden, Hawkins and Hayakara offer intelligent, engaging portrayals. The Bridge on the River Kwaiis a film that you can watch again and again. In fact you should, because Lean here marries an epic scale with a story that feels small, personal and deeply felt – that places the psychology of real people at the centre of an epic stage. It’s simply a classic.

A Bridge Too Far (1977)

Dirk Bogarde, Sean Connery, Ryan O’Neal and Gene Hackman are among the Generals aiming to go A Bridge Too Far

Director: Richard Attenborough

Cast: Dirk Bogarde (Lt-Gen Frederick “Boy” Browning), James Caan (Staff Sgt Eddie Dohun), Michael Caine (Lt-Col J.O.E. Vandeleur), Sean Connery (Maj Gen Roy Urguhart), Edward Fox (Lt Gen Brian Horrocks), Elliot Gould (Col Robert Stout), Gene Hackman (Maj Gen Stanislaw Sosabowski), Anthony Hopkins (Lt Col John Frost), Hardy Krüger (SS Maj Gen Karl Ludwig), Laurence Olivier (Dr. Jan Spaander), Ryan O’Neal (Brig Gen James Gavin), Robert Redford (Major Julian Cook), Maximilian Schell (SS Gen Wilhelm Bittrich), Liv Ullman (Kate ter Horst), Michael Byrne (Lt Col Giles Vandeleur), Denholm Elliott (RAF Officer), Jeremy Kemp (Briefing Officer), Wolfgang Preiss (Feldmarchall Gerd von Rundstedt), Stephen Moore (Maj Robert Steele)

You’ve got to love a good war film. In fact, there are few things more cinematic than the old-school, star laden Hollywood war film. A Bridge Too Far is for me one of the finest examples of this genre, and it’s a film I come back to time and time again. Is it perfect? No of course it isn’t – in fact I probably love this film more than some of the people actually in it do. But it’s a damn fine piece of big-screen, big-budget film-making, and it’s got a cast of stars. And more than perhaps any other film of this genre, it’s a film about how overwhelmingly awful and gut-wrenching war is. This is a film about a defeat – and not the sort of triumphant defeat that Dunkirk feels like. It’s just a gut-punch. The Allies threw the dice big time, and they lost.

The Battle of Arnhem was one of those “end the war by Christmas” plans. The brainchild of British war-hero Field Marshall Montgomery (noticeably absent from the film), Operation Market Garden was a lightning strike into the heart of the Ruhr to capture Germany’s industrial capability. This involved a series of paratrooper drops into towns in the Netherlands, culminating in Arnhem, to cross the Rhine. While the paratroopers seized key bridges, British Tank Division XXX Corp would power through, cross the bridges and into Germany. It was bold, daring and radical. It was a disaster. Arnhem, far from being undefended, was being used as a rest place for a Waffen-SS Panzer division. The British paratroopers found themselves not seizing a lightly defended bridge, but fighting a tank division with machine guns and limited supplies. Meanwhile XXX Corp’s progress became bogged down in traffic jams and higher than expected German resistance.

It’s quite something to make a war film about possibly the biggest military disaster on the Western Front during the Second World War. The entire plan is a misconceived tactical blunder, and the film never shies away from this, demonstrating time and again the numerous errors that led to it: from Generals ignoring reconnaissance that suggests this won’t be a cake walk, to paratroopers failing to seize bridges quickly, to tanks crawling down crowded roads, fighting every step of the way. Alongside all this, the film never loses track of the horrifying impact of war on both soldiers and civilians caught in the crossfire. It’s a huge budget, all-action, anti-war film.

Richard Attenborough is the perfect marshal for this film. He has the experience and understanding of scope to handle the action scenes. At the time, this film was possibly the most expensive film ever made. Not only that, it was independently funded – producer Joseph E. Levine thought the film was so important he pumped millions of pounds of his own money into it. The attention to detail is extraordinary – the film consulted nearly every single surviving commander from the battle on the script – and all the stops were pulled out creating the military features of the film.

This is of course particularly striking now as we know everything in the film is real – no special effects in those days. If you see it in the film, then you know that it was really there. In the sequence showing the planes taking off to deliver the paratroopers to their destinations, there were so many planes in the air that Attenborough could literally claim to command the world’s seventh largest air force. Every military blow of the battle is carefully reconstructed. The tactics are carefully explained and followed. Attenborough can shoot compelling action.

But what makes the film so good (for me anyway) is the way the heart-breaking horror of war never gets lost. In all this action, we are always shown the cost. Attenborough will frequently cut back to the after-effects – several times we hear wounded soldiers whimpering on smoke-filled, body-littered battlefields. Many acts of courage (on both sides) by individual soldiers result only in pointless, gut-wrenching deaths. Arnhem isn’t just damaged by the battle, it’s flattened. The impact on the civilian population is terrible – in a powerful sequence, we see characters we were introduced to earlier mercilessly caught in the crossfire of the German tanks. We return continually to locations increasingly shredded by weapons fire. More and more soldiers are wounded – some horrifically. Near the end, the remaining British paratroopers, encircled and surrendering, sing a deeply moving quiet rendition of Abide With Me. No one could come out of this wanting to go to war.

Attenborough’s humanity is key to the film’s success. It helps as well that he is a brilliant actor’s director. Want to dispel any doubt on the horrors of Arnhem –then train the camera on the Laurence Olivier’s tear-stained face as he drives through the destroyed streets. Want to understand the sacrifices and the courage? Well just let Anthony Hopkins – simply excellent as the commander of the only forces to reach the bridge at Arnhem – with calm, restrained Britishness request support and supplies late in the film as his men are butchered around him. It’s a film full of brilliant moments of acting like that, where Attenborough points the camera at them and lets them act.

The sequences around Arnhem and the British paratroopers there are the heart of the film. Sean Connery is terrific as Major General Roy Urquhart, commander of the British paratroopers. His growing frustration as events spiral far out of his control is a great contrast with his initial professional confidence. Gene Hackman, as commander of the Polish forces (slightly odd casting but good once you tune up to it), gets the role of the “one man talking sense” who can smell disaster early on, but works harder than anyone to get the plan to work. A number of the regular soldiers in Arnhem are faces the film returns to again and again – giving us people to relate to as their numbers are increasingly decimated by the savage, desperate combat. John Addison’s score also helps a huge amount with building the emotion in these scenes.

The Arnhem sequences are so good that the other sequences around the American paratroopers feel like they come from a slightly different movie. It doesn’t help that the likes of Elliot Gould are playing slightly clichéd “Brooklyn Yankee” types, chomping cigars and ribbing the stiff-upper-lip Brits. Ryan O’Neal as General Gavin is slightly dull. The XXX Corp material is a little dry (essentially driving up a road or waiting), although Edward Fox is superb (and BAFTA-winning) as their charismatic commander Lt Gen Brian Horrocks. Attenborough puts together at least one terrific set-piece tank battle on the road – but it’s not quite enough.

The two biggest American stars are also given the feel-good, up-beat material. James Caan gets the best part in what is effectively a stand-alone story of a Staff Sergeant going to impossible lengths to save the life of his Captain (Caan had his choice of part and chose well). Robert Redford is a little too starry (bizarrely in a film full of stars!) as a Major tasked to seize the vital bridge at Nijmagen via a daylight river-crossing. This sequence feels like it’s been put in the film to (a) give us something to cheer and (b) to allow an American victory for the box office. Of course, we need the biggest star in the world at the time to play the most straight-forward heroic part!

The film does have a tendency to shuffle its characters into “good” and “bad”. So after Redford seizes the bridge, the character sent to tell him that XXX Corp won’t be rushing across to Arnhem after all isn’t Caine’s Vandeleur, but a nameless Colonel played by Polanski’s villainous Ross from Macbeth himself, John Stride. The most sympathetic generals and commanders are all (coincidentally) the people who served as military advisors on the film.

On the other hand, the film ends up laying most of the “blame” on Dirk Bogarde’s Lt Gen Browning. Browning’s widow, Daphne du Maurier, threatened to sue the film-makers for the portrayal of Browning here (she got an apology). Browning is portrayed as the ultimate “non-boat rocker” – over-confident and arrogant, he disregards intelligence suggesting the Arnhem plan is dangerous, seems shocked and clueless once the scale of the disaster is revealed, and by the end of the film seems to be most interested in positioning himself as always opposed to the plan in the first place. Bogarde (the only actor in the film who actually served in Market Garden) was similarly angry when he saw the film – and he has a point. It’s grossly unfair.

It’s a problem with this film and it does annoy me. The parts not set in Arnhem are not as memorable or compelling as the rest. But huge chunks of the film are brilliant, and never fail to move or (sometimes) excite me. Its anti-war stance is striking. The acting from the cast is very good across the board – say what you like, cast every part with a star and you never get confused about who is who. Attenborough also draws great performances from the non-stars – Stephen Moore is a particular stand-out as a signals man unwilling to voice his doubts about the equipment (and who pays a heavy price).

I can watch A Bridge Too Far at any time. I always love it. It’s a film of great moments and performances. It carries real emotional weight. Attenborough is a very good director of actors, but also a skilled commander of scale. It’s a film that gets emotion in there. It’s a film that isn’t afraid to present a military disaster. It doesn’t demonise the Germans. Sure it plays goodies and baddies with the Allies, and parts of it to drag on a bit too much or deal with cliché. But at its best is the core of a great film. I love it. It’s a favourite. And always will be.

Rob Roy (1995)

Tim Roth and John Hurt are the villainous aristocrats taking advantage of Liam Neeson’s honour in Rob Roy

Director: Michael Caton-Jones

Cast: Liam Neeson (Rob Roy MacGregor), Jessica Lange (Mary MacGregor), John Hurt (Marquess of Montrose), Tim Roth (Archibald Cunningham), Eric Stoltz (Alan MacDonald), Andrew Kier (Duke of Argyll), Brian Cox (Killearn), Brian McCardie (Alasdair MacGregor), Gilbert Martin (Guthrie), Ewan Stewart (Coll), Jason Flemyng (Gregor), David Hayman (Tam Sibbalt), Shirley Henderson (Morag)

In the mid-1990s there was one of those bizarre Hollywood coincidences that saw two similarly filmed Scottish-based dramas head into production at the same time: Braveheart and Rob Roy. Braveheart stole the headlines, and the Oscars, and turned William Wallace from a footnote in history into an icon of Scottish independence. However, it’s arguable that the over-looked Rob Roy is the better, richer, more involving film.

In 1713, Rob Roy MacGregor (Liam Neeson) is the Chief of the Clan MacGregor, in a loving marriage to Mary (Jessica Lange), and supports his clan through protecting the cattle of the gentry. Knowing that this is not enough to help their poverty, Rob borrows £1,000 from the Marquess of Montrose (John Hurt) to start a cattle trading business. However, on collecting the money, his friend Alan MacDonald (Eric Stoltz) is murdered by Archibald Cunningham (Tim Roth), a foppish playboy and ruthless fencer, who is staying with Montrose and wants the money to clear his debts. Montrose demands Rob falsely testifies that his rival the Duke of Argyll (Andrew Keir) is a Jacobite in return for forgetting the debt – when he refuses, he is named an outlaw and a rebel.

Rob Roy works so damn well because it is thrillingly told, well-scripted, shot with a romantic sweep in some terrific Scottish locations and uniformly excellently acted. It’s perfectly constructed as a classic melodrama, because the heroes are pretty much completely upright, admirable and inspiring (without ever being tiresome or sanctimonious), while the villains are intriguingly shifty and vile, running the gamut from cowardly opportunist to vicious sociopath. Chuck this in with a tightly focused plot, and it works extremely well.

Liam Neeson is perfect casting as the upright Rob. Few people do nobility and decency better than Neeson, and Rob is just about the most stand-up guy you can imagine. You can totally understand why every one of his clan seems to worship the ground he walks on. Neeson’s classical physicality and stance totally sell him as the ultimate highlander, while his kindly eyes and gentle manner make him an obvious fit as an inspiring leader.

Caton-Jones directs the action with zip, even if the film does perhaps go on a fraction too long. He sets Rob’s decency and honour at the centre of the film, and brilliantly builds the thematic story around the shifting world where old-school honour and decency is being left aside for the more ruthless realpolitik of Montrose. Rob’s old-school decency makes him the kind of hero figure you see in a traditional Western – and Caton-Jones is clearly inspired by the scope and sweep of John Ford Westerns, making excellent use of the mist and the hills.

The Scottish highlands are our wild plains, the traditional values are those of the homestead – and the communities Rob protects are presented with a warmth and glow that is never galling. A lot of this is due to Jessica Lange’s excellent performance as Mary, a woman of warmth, tenderness but also hard-hearted realism mixed with a sharp strength of will. Lange (and her lilting accent is quite lovely to listen too) handles the events that occur to her as the wife of a rebel with a dignity, but also a fierce rage just below the surface. If Rob is defending honour, she represents it.

But the real strength the film has is its villains. It has three very different but terrific antagonists, each of them brilliantly brought to life by three very good actors. John Hurt brings Montrose a brilliant sense of slightly perverted corruption, the arrogant insouciance of a man who works out there is more going on than he is being told, but not caring so long as he can turn it to his advantage. Brian Cox is excellent as the cowardly, greedy, shallow and bullying land property manager, snivelling and timid beneath his bluster.

The real swagger through comes from Tim Roth, who is quite superb as the flamboyant sadist and sociopath Archibald Cunningham. Roth marches off with the film, pitching it just right as a man who presents (and lives) a performance to the entire world: a foppish playboy who seems light and disposable, but is in fact a ruthless, dangerous man with no principles and a horrifying capacity for violence. The character has enough humanity to prevent him from becoming a caricature – he’s bitter at being a bastard, he has a strange affection for his mother. He’s aware that he’s the baddie – he just doesn’t care. In fact he loves it. He invites people to underestimate him – and takes a sadistic delight in proving them wrong. He’s a perfect dark reflection to Rob.

The film introduces him demonstrating his terrifying skill with a sword in a sporting duel: and you don’t need a PhD in storytelling to guess that the film is heading towards a second, closing sword duel between our noble hero and his sadistic opposite. When it comes, it’s a belter of a sword fight, brilliantly choreographed, that sums up the whole movie: Rob fights with a broadsword (and the film demonstrates how exhausting swinging one of those can be) and depends on directness and fairness. Cunningham fights with a rapier, is quick, indirect and gleefully delights in inflicting a number of glancing wounds. It’s one of the best sword fights (and uses of combat to communicate character) on film – and it’s engrossing.

Rob Roy is easily overlooked – but it’s a fine film, full of memorable moments and above all stuffed with terrific performances. Caton-Jones shoots the film very well, and works brilliantly with the actors. You’ll remember them all – and you’ll invest in their stories. Yes it is a little too long, and yes sometimes it’s a little too in love with the romance of the highlands – but it’s a smashing, exciting and engrossing film and you’ll certainly find plenty in it to enjoy: not least Roth’s showboating menace.

Troy (2004)

Brad Pitt sails into history and legend as Achilles in the misunderstood Troy

Director: Wolfgang Petersen

Cast: Brad Pitt (Achilles), Eric Bana (Hector), Orlando Bloom (Paris), Diane Kruger (Helen), Brian Cox (Agamemnon), Peter O’Toole (Priam), Rose Byrne (Briseis), Saffron Burrows (Andromache), Brendan Gleeson (Menelaus), Sean Bean (Odysseus), Julian Glover (Triopas), James Cosmo (Glaucus), John Shrapnel (Nestor), Julie Christie (Thetis), Garrett Hedlund (Patroclus), Vincent Regan (Eudorus), Nigel Terry (Archeptolemus), Trevor Eve (Velior), Tyler Mane (Ajax)

VERSION CONTROL: Some films are just vastly superior as Director’s Cuts. Troy is one. The longer cut of Troy,I can assure you, is a richer, deeper, more enjoyable film. So watch that one. I’m also spoiling The Illiad. For those who worry about such things.

When I was younger I loved the Greek myths. I had two or three books of them and I read them over and over again. I practically grew up knowing the whole story of the siege of Troy in intimate detail. This helped feed my love for sweeping epic films, with big casts, spectacle and themes. So it probably won’t surprise you to hear I love Troy. That I’ve seen it dozens of times. It’s the film I wish had existed when I was a kid, because I would have watched it again and again. I know it’s not perfect, but I can forgive it almost anything.

In Ancient Greece, a peace treaty has finally been agreed between Sparta’s King Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson) and Priam (Peter O’Toole) of Troy. Priam’s sons Hector (Eric Bana) and Paris (Orlando Bloom) are in Sparta to seal the treaty – only for Paris to fall in love with Menelaus’ unloved wife Helen (Diane Kruger). When they elope – despite Hector’s fears for the harm it will cause Troy’s people – Menelaus’ ambitious brother Agamemnon (Brian Cox) sees his chance to cement his hold over the last corner of the Mediterranean by conquering Troy. But to do so he’ll need the help of the greatest warrior in Greece, Achilles (Brad Pitt), who cares only for his legend and hates Agamemnon.

Directed with an old-fashioned grandeur by Wolfgang Petersen, mixed with an unflinching look at the blood and guts of war, Troy is a grand, cinematic epic that looks fantastic. The production and costume design are spot-on, and there is a great mixture of the “real” and the “special effect” in what you see on screen. It’s also got some cracking battle and fight choreography. The sword fight choreographers worked overtime on this one. The film embraces the grace and style of Achilles – he’s not the largest or strongest, but he has a pace, speed, intelligence and ruthlessness that allows him to duck, sway and constantly be one step ahead of his opponents. It doesn’t shy away from the brutality of his violence, and the camera never forgets the fallen.

It’s a film that understands the impact of war. It makes us care about many of the characters – and frequently shocks us with senseless, sudden deaths, or devotes time to the grief of those they leave behind. Our hero Hector has an almost tortuous-to-watch lengthy build up to his final fight – and then the camera gives us a moment or two when he is fatally wounded to see the light start to go from his eyes before Achilles delivers the killer blow. It’s a film that moves the viewer, that excites us with action while letting us grieve the cost of war.

The script is also a reasonably decent adaptation of elements of Homer, remixed with a modern (God-free) twist – as if this was the “true” story legend has been spun from. The script is put together by Game of Thrones’ David Benioff, and has his recognisable mix of epic scope and noble principles, clashing with realpolitik.

So why was Troy rejected by so many people? Why was it so misunderstood on release? It’s a mis-sold and partly mis-cut story struggling to embrace its own implications. Maybe I’m reading stuff into it, but I feel like this is a different film than the marketing or filmmakers seem to have understood.

Firstly, Achilles is (at least for the first two thirds) effectively the film’s villain. He has no interest in people, only a sociopathic wish to be remembered as a great warrior. He’s ruthless in combat and slaughters indiscriminately. He’s temperamental and emotionally stunted. Contrast him with Eric Bana’s Hector: a devoted family man, who values the lives of the people of Troy first and foremost. Hector is effectively reimagined from the source material as a very modern man – the audience surrogate, the hero we can relate to, compared to the greedy, rapacious Greeks.

The struggle the film has is its biggest star plays Achilles – and it doesn’t want to compromise his box office appeal. So it tries not to draw too much attention to this contrast, and avoids passing too much judgement on Achilles. So we struggle when Achilles and Hector fight – anyone with any sense is surely rooting for the guy with a wife who just wants to see his kid grow up, rather than the sociopath, even if he is played by a super-star. All the characters hammer home our distress at Hector fighting Achilles, by the fact all of them reckon he’s got no chance. There are moving farewells for Hector with his father, wife and son. Hard to sympathise with Achilles when he slays the film’s most sympathetic character and drags him in the dirt right?

Achilles only starts to develop humanity (and become a modern hero) when he hits rock bottom after killing Hector – and is shamed first by Priam’s humbling, controlled pain (a tour-de-force from Peter O’Toole) then by his slowly developing love for Briseis. From this point , Achilles fights specifically to protect others – and finally puts aside his longing for immortal fame to try and save Briseis from the slaughter of the sack of Troy. The film’s slightly muddled unwillingness to condemn Achilles earlier, and its desire to celebrate him at the end, muddies the water. But there is a clear character arc slowly developing of Achilles becoming a humbler, more humane man.

As Achilles doesn’t look that good opposite Hector, the film turns Agamemnon into a ruthlessly ambitious, vain and greedy tyrant (played with a lip-smacking, roaringly enjoyable style by Brian Cox). Agamemnon (like many of the Greeks) is a modern politician – he wants to fashion the Greek city states into a single nation (sure one under his control, but it’s a more modern idea). The film, however, uses him to make Achilles desire for lasting fame feel more sympathetic. We all hate hypocritical politicians and cowardly bullies, right? And we all prefer the romance of the individual fighter uninterested in worldly affairs, right? Ergo, says the film, if we don’t like Achilles because we prefer Hector, we can also like Achilles a bit more if we don’t like Agamemnon. It’s clever structure in a way – but because the film doesn’t completely commit to it, it gets a bit lost in the telling.

The film’s attitude to Agamemnon is reflected in its favouring of Trojans over Greeks. While the Greek commanders squabble, or engage in political chicanery, the Trojans have an old school nobility. The film is enamoured with Priam. He’s played by Peter O’Toole in his grandest style (and O’Toole, though he can’t resist a bit of ham here and there, is very good). But Priam is in fact a naïve idiot, who makes a mess of everything. He’s incapable of accepting the realities of the world – his decisions lead to disaster at every turn. He may be overtly noble, honest and full of integrity – but like Ned Stark in Game of Throneshe’s completely out of his depth in Agamemnon’s ruthless world. Achilles may call him a “far better king”, but by any modern standard, Priam is in fact a terrible king, who makes all his decisions based on his regard for the Gods, rather than a claim appraisal of the situation.

These two reasons are why the film struggles. The film despises the Greeks but wants us to love Achilles – while at the same time having him kill without compassion, including our main audience surrogate character. It wants us to aspire to the romantic ideals of Priam and the Trojans – even while it demonstrates time and again that these ideas are hopelessly misguided, and completely wrong. It goes part of the way to accepting these contradictions, but it can never quite bring itself to villainise Brad Pitt, or condemn the noble Peter O’Toole.

I like to watch it my own way, balancing these contradictions – and I think if you do that (like watching the TV show The Tudors if you accept what the show can’t: that Henry VIII is the villain) then the film is really rewarding, full of interesting ideas and packed with cracking scenes.

It also allows some wonderful performances. Brad Pitt is, I suppose, an odd choice for Achilles in many ways – and he seems a bit bound in by his 1950s-Hollywood-Epic-Transatlantic accent. But he really looks the part, and I don’t think he’s afraid to let Achilles look bad – and he sells his conversion into a more heroic figure. Eric Bana is terrific as Hector – warm, engaging, hugely admirable. He has a world-weary tiredness to him – while Pitt’s Achilles is as cold as marble, Bana’s Hector looks like he has the cares of the world on his shoulders, tired already of the violence and horror he has had to endure.

There are tonnes of excellent supporting performances. Sean Bean in particular is so good as the wry and infinitely wise Odysseus you will be wishing they had made an Odyssey sequel so you can see more of him. Cox and O’Toole are rather good (bless, they are clearly enjoying themselves) as flip sides of the same coin. Byrne is affecting as gentle Briseis. Brendan Gleeson makes a fiercely bullying Menelaus. I’m not sure Saffron Burrows has ever been better than here. James Cosmo and Nigel Terry shine in smaller roles.

Poor Orlando Bloom struggles with a part that is hugely difficult – Paris is basically a spoilt coward. The film makes great play of Helen (a pretty good Diane Kruger in a near impossible part as the most beautiful woman, like, ever) being attracted to Paris precisely because he’s more of a romantic, and not interested in violence – but he tends to come across more as a thoughtless playboy, who lands everyone in trouble. It’s tricky for Bloom as this is the purpose of the film – and in many ways he’s very good casting for it – but that’s partly because he’s not the most persuasive of actors. He has a slight redemption arc – but I’m not sure Bloom as the presence to really sell it.

I can’t believe how much I’ve actually written about this– but, for all its faults and its confused structure I actually rather deeply love it. Maybe it’s tied in too much with my love for Greek myths. Maybe I love these all-star character actor epics. But I think it’s a film that puts a lot at stake for its characters – and really makes you invest in them – and that draws some fine performances from its cast and frames them all in a brilliant vista. It’s crammed with some terrific scenes. It never fails to entertain me. It’s almost a go-to film. I’ve seen it dozens of times and yet it never tires for me. I love it. In many ways it’s one of my filmic (forgive me) Achilles’ heels.

The Last Samurai (2003)

Ken Watanabe and Tom Cruise. I’ll leave you to guess which one turns out to be The Last Samurai…

Director: Edward Zwick

Cast: Tom Cruise (Nathan Algren), Ken Watanabe (Moritsugo Katsumoto), Timothy Spall (Simon Graham), Tony Goldwyn (Colonel Bagley), Billy Connolly (Zebulon Gant), Hiroyuki Sanada (Ujio), Shin Koyamada (Nobutada), Masato Harada (Omura), Shichinosuke Nakamura (Emperor Meiji), Koyuki (Taka), Seizo Fukumoto (Silent Samurai)

Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is a legendary but traumatised veteran of the US’s war against the Native Americans. In 1877 he is recruited by the Japanese government to train their new modern army. Japan is a country split between the old and the new, with the samurai leading a revolt against modernisation. After the army is defeated by the samurai, Algren is taken captive. He quickly finds himself enamoured with Samurai culture, not least because of the inspiring charisma and nobility of the samurai leader Lord Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe).

The white man in the noble warrior culture: it’s a narrative structure that never fails. The Last Samurai fits very neatly into a familiar pattern: a story about an exotic non-Western culture, with a white Western character placed at the forefront. Of course the samurai culture is portrayed with a romantic longing, with the charms of its honourable life impossible to resist for our hero, all too familiar with the corruption of our culture. It’s been a pretty standard structure ever since Dances with Wolves. And of course, the white man is left standing as the only witness to the brave sacrifices of the noble-savages-who–weren’t-as-savage-as-we-first-thought.

What this structure does is minimise the entire point of the story. This is supposedly a story about a major shift in Japanese culture – from the old feudal world of the samurai to a more mechanised, modern society. In this cultural shift, some people got left behind, unable to let go of the old ways. It’s a tragedy for that old way of life, but this film muddies that water with its redemption structure for Algren. So by the end of the film, we may be looking at the destruction of the samurai culture and the deaths of most of the characters we’ve spent the film (sort of) getting to know – but hey at least the American lead has found peace and contentment.

So the nominal “last samurai” himself, Katsumoto, becomes a supporting character in his own film, a spirit animal to guide Algren towards a better understanding of himself and of the world. Katsumoto is presented romantically, a noble, kindly, principled man who mixes a love of poetry and flowers and a wry wit with a fanatical ruthlessness in battle. It’s the quintessential “noble savage” of Hollywood lore. All of which is not a criticism of Ken Watanabe, who is excellent – a guy whom you find yourself falling in love with, totally believable as the sort of man others would follow to the death. It’s a standard Hollywood cliché, albeit one presented with commitment.

Having said all that, the film does treat Japanese culture with an immense respect, even if it does so through a romantic lens. It’s also pretty unflinching at the more brutal side of the samurai culture – its expectations of suicide on failure, its pride and unwillingness to compromise. Of course, these are also later embraced as part of its nobility, but at least they are there. The film does also touch on some points of disagreement between East and West – Algren has nothing but contempt for Custer’s ego-driven suicidal last stand, while Katsumoto finds the story enchantingly inspired – but doesn’t allow these to get in the way of the romance. And by the end of the film, there is certainly no criticism for the suicidal charge Algren and Katsumoto lead the samurai into.

The modernising Japanese forces are given far less understanding. Of course, historically, if Japan wished to engage with the modern world and trade, it needed to undergo a certain level of progression from its feudal background. Historically this shift may have been too drastic – a rejection of the past rather than a development – but needless to say, here the modernising Japanese characters are uniformly presented as cowardly, selfish and greedy. Not to be outdone, it also introduces a racist American colonel, with a career of brutal campaigns against Native Americans, to serve as Algren’s nemesis (and to provide a small, audience-pleasing victory when he is killed off in the final battle).

I’m being very hard on The Last Samurai, which, within the confines of the Hollywood predictability it inhabits, is in fact a fairly decent film. Cruise is rather good as Algren, even if his drunken self-loathing is sometimes over played. He’s perhaps not completely convincing as a bitter ex-soldier, but he nails the depression and lost-soul nature of Algren. The Japanese actors are all excellent – there is barely a weak link in the cast, with Koyuki particularly soulful as the widow of a man killed by Algren.

The film is brilliantly shot by John Toll and looks wonderful, and even if it is slightly predictable and directed with a mundane lack of imagination (Edward Zwick is a competent but uninspired director and he creates an epic here in that image) it’s still fine and entertaining viewing. Cruise and especially Watanabe create heroes you care for. The final battle sequence does move, with its final triumph of mechanisation over blind courage. Zwick does have an eye for capturing the warmth and simplicity of the samurai village life, and he and screenwriter John Logan deserve a lot of credit for their research, respect and understanding of Japanese culture (the film was well received in Japan). The Last Samuraiis a clichéd and slightly flawed epic, but it has a nobility and honesty to it. With some excellent performances, it is more than entertaining enough.