HOPE AND GLORY
[Spoilers]
Review and Commentary by Manavendra K. Thakur
Copyright 1987 by Manavendra K. Thakur and The Tech.
Reproduced with permission.
1987 112 mins. Great Britain English PG-13 Mono Color 35mm/1.85
Cast: Sebastian Rice Edwards, Geraldine Muir, Sarah Miles, David Hayman, Sammi Davis, Derrick O' Connor, Susan Wooldridge, Jean-Marc Barr, Ian Bannen, Annie Leon, Jill Baker, Amelda Brown, Katrine Boorman, Colin Higgins, Shelagh Fraser, Gerald James, Barbara Pierson, Nicky Taylor, Jodie Andrews, Nicholas Askew, Jamie Bowman, Colin Dale, David Parkin, Carlton Taylor, Sarah Langton, Imogen Cawrse, Susan Brown, Charley Boorman, Peter Hughes, Ann Thornton, Andrew Bicknell, Christine Crowshaw, William Armstrong, and Arthur Cox.
Credits: Written, Produced, and Directed by John Boorman. Co-Producer: Michael Dryhurst. Executive Producers: Jake Eberts and Edgar F. Gross. Director of Photography: Phillippe Rousselot. Production Designer: Anthony Pratt. Costume Designer: Shirley Russell. Editor: Ian Crawford. Sound Editor: Ron Davis. Original Music Composed, Arranged, and Conducted by Peter Martin. Art Director: Don Dossett.
Studio: Nelson Entertainment/Goldcrest
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Columbia Plaza
Burbank, CA 91505
(818) 954-6000
"John Boorman." The name brings back some of his great thrillers from the past: POINT BLANK, DELIVERANCE, EXCALIBUR. The last thing one would expect from a director of such grand mythic adventures would be a cheerful, humorous, and quirky recreation of childhood memories of London during World War II. And yet, that's exactly what John Boorman has done with HOPE AND GLORY. It's a delightful film that is thoroughly entertaining because it draws richly, and quite paradoxically, from its seemingly serious subject matter.
The question that underlies most of HOPE AND GLORY is how to respond to periods of great despair and tribulation. One can take refuge in the banalities of housecleaning like Tevye's wife in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, one can retreat behind a self-created emotional wall like Pink in PINK FLOYD--THE WALL, or one can respond in any of a multitude of other ways. War is perhaps the worse creator of misery, and it directly invokes the question of how the human spirit survives its pressures. Many films have depicted the horror of war as well as grand myths of heroic efforts and noble sacrifices of soldiers who fought them. War has also been examined from a child's perspective in great films such as FORBIDDEN GAMES and THE NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STARS.
Boorman's film transcends all of them through its casual debunking of the sentimental myths surrounding war-torn England in its darkest hour. But while all the other films focused on the tragedy of war, Boorman shows the comedy of it. The beauty of HOPE AND GLORY is that its satire is so deeply submerged beneath the film's truly funny and nostalgic story that it is unapparent on casual viewing. That sort of subtlety is rare in current cinema and is what makes HOPE AND GLORY a true classic.
The film is about 7-year-old Billy Rohan (Sebastian Rice Edwards, in his acting debut) and his family as they weather nightly bomb runs of the Luftwaffe. The very first night of the bombing, Billy and his 16-year-old sister Dawn (Sammi Davis) rush out, surprisingly enough, to dance in their front yard under the bomb flashes. The next day, Billy begins his prized shrapnel collection as he makes his way to school. At school, he and his younger sister Sue (Geraldine Muir) are bombarded with patriotic songs and speeches from the schoolteachers, who are every bit as nasty as the teachers in PINK FLOYD--THE WALL, and indeed portions of Billy's neighborhood resemble the Alien Landscape in which young Pink wanders. But the overpowering tyranny that Pink succumbs to in that film simply bounces off the youthful resiliency of Billy and Sue, even when they are forced to recite multiplication tables while wearing gas masks in a shelter during an air raid.
Their response to the war in general is very much like that of many MIT students last year when Hurricane Gloria brushed Boston: "If it causes damage, I can't do anything about it, so let's have fun!" Billy joins a new gang (he's initiated into it by learning new swear words) which rummages inside the ruins of bombed houses, smashing already broken windows and furniture. When Dawn hears Neville Chamberlain's announcement of war on the radio, she exclaims that the war isn't her fault and that she still needs her stockings that she's looking for. Their attitude is not one of crass materialistic infatuation but one of focus on the immediate relevancy of the here and now. The war simply gives Billy and the other kids new games and toys to play with as they go on living life their own way. Danger is present everywhere around them, yet they recognize it and absorb it in a uniquely childlike manner which few, if any, of the adults possess.
Nonetheless, the characterizations of the adults is just as rich as that of the children. The entire film is a three-dimensional portrait of Billy's family, and each character's screentime is used to the fullest. Billy's mother Grace, his father Clive, his three aunts, his Grandma, and grandfather George are all fully developed human characters, and there is not a single bad performance among the actors who portray them.
More importantly, they all are seen through Billy's eyes as he remembers them, which means that he sees individual eccentricities that he (and therefore the audience) finds most interesting. It's difficult to forget Billy's expression of disgust at being repeatedly kissed on the cheek by his mother and aunts, or his toothy grin as he playfully tells his grandfather, who had just completely missed shooting a field rat, that the rat was limping as it walked away. It is because the characters and plot develop through seemingly banal scenes as these that the film is so disarming. Savage insults worthy of Luis Bunuel or Jonathan Swift are completely absent. In their place is a much more gentle and smooth story that depends as much on what is not shown as well as the scenes that are. The nonstop comedic moments tend to make even that sub-satire virtually unnoticeable, and yet it is there for those who wish to see it.
One particularly good example of that sub-satire occurs early in the first half of the film, which concentrates on Billy and his family's reactions to the initial declaration of war. Billy's father Clive (David Hayman) interrupts his horsing around with Billy to reveal that he has joined the military. After his announcement, he motions for Billy to lean towards him so he can convey an important message. At this moment, the audience inwardly groans because it expects a tiresome speech from Clive about how Billy is now going to be the man in the house, how Billy must now grow up and shoulder more responsibility. But no, that's not what Clive does at all. He instead teaches Billy how to throw a googly to confuse the batter in a game of cricket, and he conveys it as a family secret! Although this is one of the more obvious moments, the film is rife with similar instances where Boorman twists conventional expectations such that the comedic results can be interpreted to whatever depth the viewer chooses. The deeper levels of anti-heroism are there, but the shallower strata of simple action and humor provide more than sufficient satisfaction.
Billy's grandfather George (Ian Bannen) dominates the film's second half, and rightly so because he becomes the most influential person in Billy's life after an ordinary fire (of all things!) burns down Billy's house, forcing the Rohans to move to George's riverside country home far from the turmoil of London. Although he continually comes across as a cantankerous, semi-senile old man -- he is first seen early in the film drunkenly toasting all the women he's ever slept with -- his humanity shines through after Billy's old school is destroyed by a stray bomb. George and Billy laugh all the way back to the countryside, gleeful at Billy's respite from school. George begins to spend a great deal of time with Billy, teaching him how to row, playing cricket with him, and telling stories. Billy is far more endeared to his grandfather's piqued muttering and mean jokes than his aunts' romanticizing or his sister's tears when her newly found Canadian lover is stationed elsewhere.
Although the film's sharp division between the males and the females would be considered sexist today, the film doesn't harp on that because it's not a political film. Boorman simply portrays idyllic country life as he remembers it -- complete with beautiful and lushly green scenery that belies the urgency and tension usually associated with war. Ian Bannen's performance as George is so magnificent that George's personality overpowers and disarms whatever notions the audience takes with it inside the theater. Much like the crusty old men in TRAVELLING NORTH (Leo McKern) and A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT SEX COMEDY (Max Von Sydow), George and his saucy ways are forgivable, especially since the film portrays him not from any current context but as Billy sees him, with his childlike perspective of 1940s England.
That perspective is well depicted through superb technical production values. In one of many similar strokes of genius, the film's editing by Ian Crafford conveys Billy's feelings to the audience by depicting the Rohan's burning house for what seems an eternity, yet only showing the bombed school building for a few fleeting seconds. The creation of the Rohans residence and street by Production Designer Anthony Pratt and Art Director Don Dossett is thoroughly convincing, and Phillippe Rousselot's camerawork demonstrates a perceptive and guiding intelligence, especially when the camera pans in very tightly on the small toy soldiers Billy plays with on his front lawn, making the green grass seem almost like a jungle and the figurines somehow mythically alive. And later in the film when a barrage balloon breaks free, the camera lovingly makes it seem a joyful and wonderous event rather than the accidental mishap it actually is. With the exception of some extremely sappy music by Peter Martin, each individual technical detail -- the costumes, lighting, hair styles, etc. -- coalesce together so well that the crew's work seems completely natural and at ease with themselves, the actors, and the audience.
And in that fusion one must not forget the unifying hand of John Boorman. Children have an uncanny ability to see events unhindered by social and cultural baggage -- to see their immediate importance -- and Boorman's film captures that beautifully, from the wonder and the pity to the tears and humor. The children are not cute little tykes completely oblivious to their surroundings, like the small children in Juzo Itami's THE FUNERAL. Billy and the other children in HOPE AND GLORY are perceptive enough to see the effects of the war, but they are go-happy enough not to be too bothered by it. The depth of Boorman's portrayal of these children, as well as the other characters, is one that can only come from cherished and heartfelt personal memories.
HOPE AND GLORY is Boorman's second film that he has written, produced, and directed (the first was ZARDOZ). This time the results of his efforts represent the maturation of his filmmaking abilities, the extension and completion of John Boorman as film director and auteur. HOPE AND GLORY is his personal masterpiece, and film historians will no doubt add it to the list of films that achieve near artistic perfection through their subtlety, insight, and multi-layered depth -- films like ANNIE HALL, THE SEVEN SAMURAI, RULES OF THE GAME, and THE GENERAL. For filmgoers now, however, it is a sheer joy to see Boorman's work on the screen, with all its humor and intelligence.
Filmography of John Boorman:
CATCH US IF YOU CAN [US Title: HAVING A WILD WEEKEND] 1965 91 mins. POINT BLANK 1967 92 mins. HELL IN THE PACIFIC 1968 104 mins. LEO THE LAST 1970 104 mins. DELIVERANCE 1972 109 mins. ZARDOZ 1974 105 mins. EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC 1977 117 mins. EXCALIBUR 1981 140 mins. THE EMERALD FOREST 1985 115 mins. HOPE AND GLORY 1987 112 mins.
Manavendra K. Thakur
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thakur@eddie.mit.edu
thakur@athena.mit.edu
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