1917 [Sam Mendes]

pixelburp · 01-08-2019 5:28pm #1

Looks like Mendes is using some of his James Bond, studio clout to make a WW1 epic with a 'high concept' pitch: two British soldiers have to race across enemy territory to deliver a message to cancel an attack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcmZN0Mbl04

cdgalwegian · 01-08-2019 5:36pm

Gallipoli!

cdgalwegian · 01-08-2019 5:39pm

Just duckduckgo'd it; that was 1915-1916. But still, Gallipoli!.

Slydice · 01-08-2019 7:31pm

Felt like they were trying to copy the Dunkirk trailer time ticking sound effect.

otnomart · 01-08-2019 7:48pm

Thanks for heads up
I am partial to War movies, so will watch it

LoughNeagh2017 · 02-08-2019 12:10am

My great grandfathers brother was killed in Gallipoli, he had 3 brothers who died within 6 months of each other. They were more travelled than me, one had been in the Boer war in South Africa too.

cdgalwegian · 02-08-2019 6:50am

Gallipoli was the first video I ever saw, on a friend's classic piano-key style Betamax player. From Rotten Tomatoes:
"Peter Weir's devastating anti-war film features a low-key but emotionally wrenching performance from Mel Gibson as a young soldier fighting in one of World War I's most deadly and horrifying battles."

The clip in the first post had me gripped. With Sam Mendes at the helm this looks like a cinema trip for me.

Agent Coulson · 02-08-2019 7:35am

Yes a total Gallipoli story.

branie2 · 02-08-2019 8:38am

I'd like to see it.

p to the e · 02-08-2019 4:19pm

Good old Tommen getting some work post GOT

Homelander · 05-08-2019 6:14pm

Looks really good. So good in fact I'm not going to watch the trailer properly and go in blind. Trailer these days are often on a mission to spoil as much of the plotline as possible, they're like mini-synopsis rather than classic trailers most of the time.

cdgalwegian · 05-08-2019 9:30pm

"1917 will also mark the Mendes’ screen-writing debut on the big-screen"

https://dankanator.com/22657/all-you-need-know-sam-mendes-upcoming-war-movie-1917/

bnt · 01-10-2019 10:36am

A new behind-the-scenes featurette is out. The action will take place in real time, always following the lead actors. They aren't claiming it was shot that way, of course, but there are some very long tracking shots where the camera is handed off from e.g. crane to handheld to Jeep. Come Oscar time, I won't be surprised to see Roger Deakins nominated again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hSjs2hBa94

El Duda · 01-10-2019 1:03pm

This does look great, but it raises a question for me...

Is it a good thing to put 'making of' featurette material in the promotional material?

Its almost saying that they aren't confident that the film will stand up by itself, we have to be told how difficult and complex the shoot was to further intrigue us. Can we not sit in the cinema wondering how on earth they managed to film this? Then 6 months later we buy the DVD and see the making of and have our minds blown.

The Revenant is a great recent example;

"Did you see The Revenant?"

"Yeah, I thought it was a bit long and boring in places. Bit dissapointed tbh"

"Did you know that they only shot in natural light? Did you know that they had to move the entire shoot of the film from Canada to Argentina cos the snow melted? Did you know that Leo actually suffered in those conditions and ate raw Bison meat?"

"Oh, I didn't know any of that. Allow me to revise my review to 5 stars. What a masterpiece!"

bnt · 02-10-2019 12:23pm

I don't mind admitting that the process is part of the attraction for me. I just listened to this podcast interview with Werner Herzog, who is one of those directors who has been known for going to extremes for his art, and that is part of what attracts viewers to his films. Fitzcarraldo (1982) wasn't just about a mad man so determined to build an opera house in the jungle that he had a ship ported over a steep hill. It was also about a director so determined to tell the story that he had a ship ported over a steep hill during filming, in the jungle, while the leading man (Klaus Kinski) clashed so violently with the director that an extra offered to kill him. :eek:

PS Just to be clear, I don't want to be focused on the production while watching the movie. If done correctly, the story transcends the techniques involved. An example is Michael Mann's Heat, which got a lot of upfront attention for scenes like the Downtown LA shootout with its impressively realistic weapons and tactics, as well as the sound design. None of that mattered while I was watching it: all that attention to detail served the story and the characters.

pixelburp · 02-10-2019 1:34pm

bnt wrote: »

A new behind-the-scenes featurette is out. The action will take place in real time, always following the lead actors. They aren't claiming it was shot that way, of course, but there are some very long tracking shots where the camera is handed off from e.g. crane to handheld to Jeep. Come Oscar time, I won't be surprised to see Roger Deakins nominated again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hSjs2hBa94

Hmm, that feature left me a little confused, if curious: Deakins saying this was shot in "story order" (which aside from being rare, is kinda insane), then mentions of it being a "one shot" movie. But a lot of those locations look quite disparate so presumably there'll be some digital tricky with transitions - in which case why bother with story-order shooting at all?

JP Liz V1 · 03-10-2019 12:30pm

Benedict Cumberbatch and Andrew Scott are in the cast (Sherlock reunion

)

Mr Crispy · 03-10-2019 10:55pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqNYrYUiMfg

silverharp · 26-11-2019 7:48pm

a positive review here, sounds interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5aAcMMSqVs

otnomart · 09-12-2019 7:10pm

1917 just got some nominations at the Golden Globes.
Looking forward to see it now.

bnt · 15-12-2019 2:29pm

Another longer featurette:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQfybDxplPw

It's clearly not a "one take" movie, since the actors talk about multiple takes, but there are long takes with a single camera, shot in story order and mostly outdoors in natural lighting. Roger Deakins talks about being unable to shoot at times because the weather didn't match, e.g if one shot ends in sunlight they can't resume shooting the next day if it's cloudy - so they would rehearse until the Sun came out.

p to the e · 16-12-2019 1:40pm

I took "one shot" to mean it was shot like "Birdman" where it's supposed to look like it was shot in one take and no cuts

expectationlost · 30-12-2019 6:28pm

why isn't this coming out till the tenth surely put it on after xmas when people like me are bored and looking for something to spend an afternoon

NIMAN · 30-12-2019 6:33pm

p to the e wrote: »

I took "one shot" to mean it was shot like "Birdman" where it's supposed to look like it was shot in one take and no cuts

That's how I think it is meant to look.

Will be interesting to see.

ZuluDawn2020 · 30-12-2019 6:45pm

The trailer looks absurd.

The soldier minus helmet kit and rifle running parallel to the parapet of the forward trench as attacking troops pass him and shells land and machine gun and rifle bullets fly.
In reality he would dive on the ground using a fold or depression for cover or jump into a crater or simply leap back into the trench.
Someone would grab him and send him to the rear or shoot him or a German watching from the opposite trench would pick him off.

I saw a clip where the two soldiers are watching a dogfight when a crippled and burning German plane heads to earth RIGHT at them.

The plots seems to revolve around what looks like a General played by what looks like Colin Firth summoning the two soldiers one whose brother is in the battalion out of contact to make contact and stop an attack before they are wiped out.
A General has thousands of men under his command and could direct any other men to do what they are told.
Disobeying a direct order would be a court martial offence so any soldier would do.
A General could give the orders down the chain of command from Colonel to Major to Captain to Lieutenant to Sergeant to the two privates.

So right away this movie is preposterous

Saruwatari · 31-12-2019 12:53am

ZuluDawn2020 wrote: »

The trailer looks absurd.

The soldier minus helmet kit and rifle running parallel to the parapet of the forward trench as attacking troops pass him and shells land and machine gun and rifle bullets fly.
In reality he would dive on the ground using a fold or depression for cover or jump into a crater or simply leap back into the trench.
Someone would grab him and send him to the rear or shoot him or a German watching from the opposite trench would pick him off.

I saw a clip where the two soldiers are watching a dogfight when a crippled and burning German plane heads to earth RIGHT at them.

The plots seems to revolve around what looks like a General played by what looks like Colin Firth summoning the two soldiers one whose brother is in the battalion out of contact to make contact and stop an attack before they are wiped out.
A General has thousands of men under his command and could direct any other men to do what they are told.
Disobeying a direct order would be a court martial offence so any soldier would do.
A General could give the orders down the chain of command from Colonel to Major to Captain to Lieutenant to Sergeant to the two privates.

So right away this movie is preposterous

Good thing a movie's quality doesn't hinge exclusively on historical accuracy then. That's not to say it should stray liberally, but if it serves the story and emotional beats better than I'm okay with a discrepancy here or there.

Dades · 31-12-2019 4:20pm

ZuluDawn2020 wrote: »

So right away this movie is preposterous

Preposterous is thinking you know every nuance from a trailer. You may well be right, but there may also be any number of factors at play in the story to explain it all.

Optimalprimerib · 01-01-2020 10:06am

ZuluDawn2020 wrote: »

The trailer looks absurd.

The soldier minus helmet kit and rifle running parallel to the parapet of the forward trench as attacking troops pass him and shells land and machine gun and rifle bullets fly.
In reality he would dive on the ground using a fold or depression for cover or jump into a crater or simply leap back into the trench.
Someone would grab him and send him to the rear or shoot him or a German watching from the opposite trench would pick him off.

I saw a clip where the two soldiers are watching a dogfight when a crippled and burning German plane heads to earth RIGHT at them.

The plots seems to revolve around what looks like a General played by what looks like Colin Firth summoning the two soldiers one whose brother is in the battalion out of contact to make contact and stop an attack before they are wiped out.
A General has thousands of men under his command and could direct any other men to do what they are told.
Disobeying a direct order would be a court martial offence so any soldier would do.
A General could give the orders down the chain of command from Colonel to Major to Captain to Lieutenant to Sergeant to the two privates.

So right away this movie is preposterous

Thanks for making this point. I am now going to see this on my own now. One of my friends thinks he is a military guru, so he will point out all of these inaccuracies and fcuk it up for the rest of us.

siblers · 01-01-2020 11:51am

ZuluDawn2020 wrote: »

The trailer looks absurd.

The soldier minus helmet kit and rifle running parallel to the parapet of the forward trench as attacking troops pass him and shells land and machine gun and rifle bullets fly.
In reality he would dive on the ground using a fold or depression for cover or jump into a crater or simply leap back into the trench.
Someone would grab him and send him to the rear or shoot him or a German watching from the opposite trench would pick him off.

I saw a clip where the two soldiers are watching a dogfight when a crippled and burning German plane heads to earth RIGHT at them.

The plots seems to revolve around what looks like a General played by what looks like Colin Firth summoning the two soldiers one whose brother is in the battalion out of contact to make contact and stop an attack before they are wiped out.
A General has thousands of men under his command and could direct any other men to do what they are told.
Disobeying a direct order would be a court martial offence so any soldier would do.
A General could give the orders down the chain of command from Colonel to Major to Captain to Lieutenant to Sergeant to the two privates.

So right away this movie is preposterous

The film isn't going for historical accuracy. Would say its fairly obvious that it's not trying to be historically accurate

ZuluDawn2020 · 01-01-2020 12:06pm

siblers wrote: »

The film isn't going for historical accuracy. Would say its fairly obvious that it's not trying to be either

The movie is being pitched as historically accurate - showing a day in the life at the front line. It looks like it is modelled on movies like '71 and Dunkirk that show the realities for the average soldier. Those movies did not sacrifice plausibility by having ludicrous combat scenes that I already described.
World War I has been depicted far better already. e.g. Gallipoli, The Trench, All Quiet On The Western Front, Paths To Glory, The Blue Max and Testament of Youth to name a few

pixelburp · 01-01-2020 12:12pm

Wild idea, how about waiting til the movies out and seen before we go down the "historical accuracy" rabbit hole. Context is important, as is pausing from kneejerk criticism sight unseen.

Not sure it's been modelled on accuracy either, seems like it has been more of a technical exercise in "one shot" cinema, mixed with a standard ticking clock thriller. This looks a big boisterous action film, not Sigfried Sassoon lurking in the trenches writing poetry.

1917 [Sam Mendes]

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