"Sentimentality is the emotional promiscuity of those who have no sentiment." - Norman Mailer
Fred Wilcox directs "Lassie Come Home". The plot: as the Great Depression has left Mr and Mrs Carraclough with little money, they resort to selling Lassie, the adorable dog of their adorable son Joe. Lassie's new owner is a wealthy Duke, who takes Lassie to Scotland, a country several hundred miles away from her previous home in Yorkshire, England. Unfortunately Lassie misses Joe dearly. She thus escapes the grip of her new owner and embarks on an epic cross-country journey rife with danger, peril, spectacular scenery and seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Lassie then arrives back in the hands of Joe, the devoted kid who never stopped loving her.
Though some kind of classic, modern audiences will no doubt have no time for "Lassie". No matter, as Steven Spielberg's recent "War Horse", based on a blockbuster play by Nick Stafford (and novel by Michael Morpurgo), is virtually a scene-for-scene remake. Watching Stafford's play, it's immediately apparent why Spielberg would be interested in turning Morpurgo's material into a film. "War Horse" not only ticks all of Spielberg's usual boxes (brand recognition, carnage, hokey sentimentality, children's book plot, much war, special effects and spectacle), but is a literal retelling of "Lassie Come Home", one of Spielberg's favourite films. It's a "boy loves horse, boy loses horse, boy goes through hell to find horse" trajectory, with "Lassie's" roles reversed. Instead of Lassie finding Joe, we have a horse called Joey (Morpurgo couldn't even bother changing character names) being sought after by a boy, Albert, who bravely treks across war-torn Europe (specifically World War 1) in search of his gigantic pet ("Lassie" was itself remade as "Gypsy Colt" in 1954 with a horse instead of a dog). The play and film then end with a shamelessly extended piece of audience manipulation, in which Albert, blinded by gas, is unknowingly within inches of a wounded Joey, who is about to be shot. And so viewers sit on the edges of their seats: will Joey be shot? Will Albert find his best friend? Will boy and horse be reunited? Will Joey die? Will Albert die? You already know the answer. And of course Lassie made it home as well.
It makes sense that Spielberg would be drawn to "War Horse", as all his films are remakes of a certain type or era of film (call it 1950s schmaltz plus gleeful sadism). He thinks he's Ford plus Kramer plus Capra plus Sturges plus Disney plus Hitchcock, and does his best to channel the films he adored in his youth. So "ET" is "Old Yeller" with an alien instead of dog, the Indie and dinosaur movies channel old adventure serials, his "serious history movies" are all Kramer inspired sermons, his "War of the Worlds" is George Pal/"Invaders from Mars" with shaky-cam and "Private Ryan" is every RKO/Warner/Paramount war B movie he saw as a kid. No surprise too that he recently scrapped a planned remake of "Harvey" (a Capra-toned Jimmy Stewart vehicle and play by Mary Chase) and that Stafford's "War Horse" ends with a scene straight out of Ford's "How Green Was My Valley", a silent, tearful reunion which no doubt brought Spielberg back to his childhood fondness for Ford. Indeed, much of "Lassie's" own cast (Elsa Lanchester, Donald Crisp, Roddy McDowall etc) can be found in Ford's "Valley", another rough-hewn and supposedly uplifting ode to rural working class life.
"War Horse" - both film and play – also captures the kind of hypocrisy typical of both Spielberg and his influences, it's narrative not only cynically calculated to pander to the basest of emotions (the play pushes buttons like a caffeinated monkey with a cash register), but busy salivating over the spectacle of carnage. Killing is bad, you see, but check out them special effects baby. It's Stanley Kramer preaching ("Holocaust bad!", "Slavery bad!") plus Hitchcockian glee ("Murder sells!"). The play's so, not politically correct but politically irrelevant, that it includes a major "cute, good German" role and allows hero horse Albert to "fight on both sides of a war".
But of course it's all about the special effects. Stafford's "War Horse" became a blockbuster not only because of its hokey plot (as Andrew Lloyd Weber has proved, most theatre goers are not theatre goers), but because of its elaborate, eye-popping special effects. The play features complex puppet work by the Handspring Puppet Company – the theatre equivalent of CGI – and its second act is an orgy of explosions, machine gun fire, death, murder, flashing lights, whizzes, bangs, back-lighting and dazzling FX. In short, the play is already your typical Spielberg movie; remove the special effects and there is nothing there. Spectacle is its raison d'etre.
Meanwhile there's "Lassie Come Home", a film that now wishes it had a couple A-bombs to drop on poor Lassie. That's how modern audiences like their sentimentality: bloody. Nothing says I love you more than dodging 1.2 mega-tonnes of TNT.
7.5/10 - Worth one viewing.
Fred Wilcox directs "Lassie Come Home". The plot: as the Great Depression has left Mr and Mrs Carraclough with little money, they resort to selling Lassie, the adorable dog of their adorable son Joe. Lassie's new owner is a wealthy Duke, who takes Lassie to Scotland, a country several hundred miles away from her previous home in Yorkshire, England. Unfortunately Lassie misses Joe dearly. She thus escapes the grip of her new owner and embarks on an epic cross-country journey rife with danger, peril, spectacular scenery and seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Lassie then arrives back in the hands of Joe, the devoted kid who never stopped loving her.
Though some kind of classic, modern audiences will no doubt have no time for "Lassie". No matter, as Steven Spielberg's recent "War Horse", based on a blockbuster play by Nick Stafford (and novel by Michael Morpurgo), is virtually a scene-for-scene remake. Watching Stafford's play, it's immediately apparent why Spielberg would be interested in turning Morpurgo's material into a film. "War Horse" not only ticks all of Spielberg's usual boxes (brand recognition, carnage, hokey sentimentality, children's book plot, much war, special effects and spectacle), but is a literal retelling of "Lassie Come Home", one of Spielberg's favourite films. It's a "boy loves horse, boy loses horse, boy goes through hell to find horse" trajectory, with "Lassie's" roles reversed. Instead of Lassie finding Joe, we have a horse called Joey (Morpurgo couldn't even bother changing character names) being sought after by a boy, Albert, who bravely treks across war-torn Europe (specifically World War 1) in search of his gigantic pet ("Lassie" was itself remade as "Gypsy Colt" in 1954 with a horse instead of a dog). The play and film then end with a shamelessly extended piece of audience manipulation, in which Albert, blinded by gas, is unknowingly within inches of a wounded Joey, who is about to be shot. And so viewers sit on the edges of their seats: will Joey be shot? Will Albert find his best friend? Will boy and horse be reunited? Will Joey die? Will Albert die? You already know the answer. And of course Lassie made it home as well.
It makes sense that Spielberg would be drawn to "War Horse", as all his films are remakes of a certain type or era of film (call it 1950s schmaltz plus gleeful sadism). He thinks he's Ford plus Kramer plus Capra plus Sturges plus Disney plus Hitchcock, and does his best to channel the films he adored in his youth. So "ET" is "Old Yeller" with an alien instead of dog, the Indie and dinosaur movies channel old adventure serials, his "serious history movies" are all Kramer inspired sermons, his "War of the Worlds" is George Pal/"Invaders from Mars" with shaky-cam and "Private Ryan" is every RKO/Warner/Paramount war B movie he saw as a kid. No surprise too that he recently scrapped a planned remake of "Harvey" (a Capra-toned Jimmy Stewart vehicle and play by Mary Chase) and that Stafford's "War Horse" ends with a scene straight out of Ford's "How Green Was My Valley", a silent, tearful reunion which no doubt brought Spielberg back to his childhood fondness for Ford. Indeed, much of "Lassie's" own cast (Elsa Lanchester, Donald Crisp, Roddy McDowall etc) can be found in Ford's "Valley", another rough-hewn and supposedly uplifting ode to rural working class life.
"War Horse" - both film and play – also captures the kind of hypocrisy typical of both Spielberg and his influences, it's narrative not only cynically calculated to pander to the basest of emotions (the play pushes buttons like a caffeinated monkey with a cash register), but busy salivating over the spectacle of carnage. Killing is bad, you see, but check out them special effects baby. It's Stanley Kramer preaching ("Holocaust bad!", "Slavery bad!") plus Hitchcockian glee ("Murder sells!"). The play's so, not politically correct but politically irrelevant, that it includes a major "cute, good German" role and allows hero horse Albert to "fight on both sides of a war".
But of course it's all about the special effects. Stafford's "War Horse" became a blockbuster not only because of its hokey plot (as Andrew Lloyd Weber has proved, most theatre goers are not theatre goers), but because of its elaborate, eye-popping special effects. The play features complex puppet work by the Handspring Puppet Company – the theatre equivalent of CGI – and its second act is an orgy of explosions, machine gun fire, death, murder, flashing lights, whizzes, bangs, back-lighting and dazzling FX. In short, the play is already your typical Spielberg movie; remove the special effects and there is nothing there. Spectacle is its raison d'etre.
Meanwhile there's "Lassie Come Home", a film that now wishes it had a couple A-bombs to drop on poor Lassie. That's how modern audiences like their sentimentality: bloody. Nothing says I love you more than dodging 1.2 mega-tonnes of TNT.
7.5/10 - Worth one viewing.