A couple of weeks ago The Guns of Navarone was aired on telly for the zillionth time. Watching the 1961 film based on Alistair Maclean’s 1957 novel of the same name, was an excuse to gawp at the vast canvas and be immensely chuffed at the derring-do of an Allied forces commando team taking out an indestructible German fortress during World War II. One could unashamedly root for Gregory Peck as an officer and gentlemen, Keith Mallory, David Niven as the prickly corporal Miller and Anthony Quinn as Andrea with revenge burning coldly in his heart. The movie was part of the big budget, multi-starrer war movies of the time and like the others, took a black-and-white view of the World War. Fury , released this week, is a gorier throwback on war movies of yore.
There have been war movies that drew a different picture of combat from the uber realistic— Apocalypse Now, Platoon and Saving Private Ryan to the savagely satirical — Catch 22 . Here is a look at recent World War movies that tell different stories.
The Enemy at the Gates (2001)A love story set against the backdrop of the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II, The Enemy at the Gates also is the tale of two snipers and the power of propaganda. Based on a non-fiction book on the battle of Stalingrad by William Craig, the film directed by Jean Jacques Annaud tells of an ace sniper, Vassili Zaitsev who is used as icon in the Army papers to boost troop morale by Commissar Danilov. A German Major, Erwin König, decides to kill Vassili and thus crush the morale of the troops. Jude Law as Vassili, Joseph Fiennes as Danilov, Ed Harris as König and Rachel Weisz as Tania who both Vassili and Danilov are romantically interested in, add to the terrible beauty of the film.
The Good German (2006)Based on a Joseph Kanon novel, Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German is set in Berlin following the end of WWII. The movie starts off as a murder mystery but soon reveals the mandatory can of worms. The poster and ending are homage to the classic, Casablanca . While the movie is in black and white and evokes the look and feel of 1940s’ noir, the sex and the swearing place it very firmly in the new millennium. Gorgeous George Clooney plays Jake Geismar, an American war correspondent covering the Potsdam negotiations. Tobey Maguire plays Jake’s wheeler dealer driver who ends up getting murdered. Cate Blanchett plays Lena Brandt, the wife of the good German who was in a relationship with Jake before the war. Slinky, stylish and supremely gripping, The Good German shows the causalities of war beyond broken bodies and minds.
Inglourious Basterds (2009)Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film was a wild, whacky ride through alternate history. Featuring two assassination plots converging at a film premiere, a team of bloodthirsty Jewish-American soldiers and an evil SS colonel, the film was all one has come to expect from a Tarantino film. There is conversation as character, quirky chapter headings, oddball moments, almost unbearable tension, jingly, jangly music, contra-casting and horrific, casual violence. While Brad Pitt as Aldo Raine, the leader of the Inglourious Basterds, Diane Kruger as the double agent Bridget von Hammersmark and Mélanie Laurent, the cinema proprietor are good, Christoph Waltz is beyond brilliant as Hans Landa the suavely cruel SS colonel.
The Monuments Men (2014)The movie written, directed and co-produced by George Clooney plays straight but it is the concept that is so hatke that earns The Monuments Men a place in this list. Based on Robert M. Edsel’s non-fiction book, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History , the film tells the story of a group of seven men tasked with saving works of art and culturally important artefacts.
Crinkly-eyed Clooney as the leader of the team, Matt Damon as the curator of the Met, Bill Murray as proud grandpa and Hugh Bonneville as the barely-sober aristocrat make up the motley crew while Cate Blanchett lends her icy fire as Claire, the curator keeping a ledger of the Nazi looting.
The Monuments Men might not seem like they are blowing up bridges or destroying anti-aircrafts gun nests, but the work they do is equally important and finding the stash of Nazi gold goes a long way in winning the day.
