By Mike Wilmington Wilmington@moviecitynews.com
Wilmington on Movies: War Horse
War is hell, and we better not forget it. (The movie never does.) In France, Captain Nicholls is killed in his first charge riding Joey, and the horse falls into the hands of two horse-loving young German soldier/deserters, Gunther and Michael (David Kress and Leonhard Carow), who are caught and shot — and then into the hands of the same kindly, earthy French farmer who rescued Sarah in Sarah’s Key (played by Niels Arestrup), along with his game but fragile and seemingly ill little daughter Emilie (Celine Buckens) –and then into the hands of the German army again, which yokes Joey and his new horse friend Topthorn to huge armaments wagons, as haulers, a bone-crushing task that will probably break and kill them both before their time. Meanwhile, Albert, too young to legally enlist, finds a way over anyway. He keeps searching for Joey.
It’s a Spielberg type of story. From the very beginning of his career (his teen sci-fi film Firelight), he’s been fond of yarns in which humans (often children), commune with or chase or try to rescue something non-human (sharks, animals, robots, or extraterrestrials) or in which often childlike or boylike protagonists are thrown into historical incidents or dangerous adventures. From that angle, War Horse is one of his most typical films, and, also, I think, one of his best-executed, most ambitious and most moving.
The story is pure melodrama, of course. ( I won’t recount the resolution, but it won’t surprise you, though the setup may.) Yet this is melodrama and a children’s story done with feeling and visual grandeur and with mesmerizing style and assurance by a filmmaker who knows his metier and craft better than almost anyone. And physically, it’s a beauty. War Horse, shot in Devon and simlar countryside settings, was heavily influenced by the styles of the great British cinematographers of the ‘40s and ‘50s — by Jack Cardiff, Robert Krasker, Oswald Morris, Freddie Young and others — and it’s incredibly gorgeous, visually stunning beyond almost anything Spielberg has done.
Disney had a soft spot for British subjects and styles, and Spielberg does as well, and one can tell that he and Kaminski would love to get images as beautiful as the ones Cardiff made in Black Narcissus and The African Queen, or Krasker in The Third Man or Morris in Moby Dick or Young in Lawrence of Arabia. Often they do. Meanhile John Williams pours classic symphonic measures down on the magnificent Devon countryside and on the terrifying war scenes, reminding us at times of the musical vein of Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten. (Almost but not quite. But it‘s a good score.)
I liked War Horse very much and given what it’s trying to be, I had no serious problems with it — though personally, I would have preferred a darker, unhappier ending, which is obviously what the original author, Morpurgo, and these filmmakers didn’t want. (That would be like filming “Hansel and Gretel” and having the witch eat the children, something that might actually please a lot of critics.) That’s my taste though; Spielberg leans more toward his mixture of Disney and Lean.
It’s past time we recognized though that Spielberg will always be at least something of a sentimentalist and melodramatist, as are many moviemakers we love, and that he’ll probably always wear his heart and his art on his sleeve. And so what again? War Horse is the kind of movie he wants to make and that he likes himself, and we‘d be fools to call for something like, say, Robert Bresson’s great austere from-a-donkey’s-eye movie Au Hasard Balthazar instead — or for more here of Paths of Glory and less Lassie Come Home.
One strange or at least interesting thing. Since, according to The Hollywood Reporter, there are no less than 14 horses (and one animatronics creature) playing the part of Joey, and another four playing his friend Topthorn, it’s amazing that we feel as much empathy and attraction for this horse, a composite, as we do. Somehow the personality (and the nobility) of Joey, and the beauty of all the animals who play him, come across even though we don‘t have that sense of easy instant recognition that made stars of some equine and dog actors, like Lassie and Rin Tin Tin and Benji and Jimmy Stewart’s horse Pie. I‘m not sure we need it, but War Horse, for better or worse, is a movie where every technical problem is solved, and everything is seemingly at the director’s disposal. Sometimes that gives a show too much of a sheen and too much a sense of perfection and inevitability.
In any case, War Horse is certainly one of the year’s best movies, at least in my opinion, no matter what anyone says, and it’s the best film Spielberg has done since his underrated A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. It’s one of my favorites of 2011 — along with Hugo and The Tree of Life and In Darkness and The Artist and The Descendants and Source Code and Melancholia and City of Life and Death. That’s a fine list of films, though I suppose, if you dug hard, you could find something to carp about in all of them. I’d rather enjoy and admire them and hope for more of the same, including more Spielberg — and more horses.
The scene where ‘War Horse’ gets so tangled in barb wire is so moving. I think even the men in the theater had tears as we certainly had feelings for this beautiful animal. What a story—and I loved the ending.
What is the name of the horse? I loved the movie and yes I did cry.
I loved the movie and yes I cried. What is the name of the
horse?
Joey
what type of horse, ( breed ), was Joey and the others.
Thoroughbred
Does the horse die in the movie?
—-Over-produced PC moral alibis galore as franchise
slum Hollywood BALKS and RUNS from the awesomely
significant 20th –30th –40th –50th —and NOW
60th Anniversary of the
—————–KOREAN WAR——————.
WAY —WAY ——WAY NOT GOOD.
Great review…agree it’s a terrific film… but one thing: Benedict Cumberbatch didn’t play the “kind-hearted captain,” that was Tom Hiddleston. Cumberbatch played the major who led them into the slaughter. “War Horse” definitely ranks as one of Spielberg’s best.
Even though you listed a number of films which you felt stood out this year, you haven’t (as of today) come out with an official top ten list. Why not? Any plans to do so?