Benedict Cumberbatch ("The Imitation Game," "Doctor Strange"), Colin Firth ("The King's Speech," "Kingsman"), Mark Strong ("The Imitation Game," "Zero Dark Thirty"), and Richard Madden ("Game of Thrones") round out a star-studded cast.
Posted on 10/24/2019 3:19:41 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
This week, Universal Pictures released a behind-the-scenes look at "1917," a story about two young soldiers — played by George MacKay ("Captain Fantastic") and Dean-Charles Chapman ("Game of Thrones") — who embark in a race against time through the apocalyptic hellscapes of the Western Front to deliver a message that could save 1,600 lives.
To make the Great War as immersive and viewer-relatable as possible, Mendes and the Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins opted to shoot the entire film as a continuous shot that never departs from the two main characters.
"From the very beginning I felt this movie should be told in real time," Mendes said in the behind-the-scenes featurette.
"I wanted people to understand how difficult it was for these men ... Every step of the journey, breathing every breath with these men, felt integral. And there is no better way to tell the story than with one continuous shot."
"It's meant to make you feel that you are in the trenches with these characters," said the film producer Pippa Harris...
Because this filming technique requires the use of 360 degrees of each exterior, "1917," like "The Revenant," had to be shot using only natural light, a process that made actors and camera operators dependent on ideal weather conditions.
McKay said the filming process reminded him of acting onstage. "It was like a piece of theater every take. Once you start, you can't stop. If something goes wrong, you just have to keep going."
In some movies, filmmakers "might be able to cut around this or take that scene out," Mendes said. "That's not possible on this film. The dance of the camera and the mechanics all have to be in sync with what the actor is doing."
"When you achieve that, it's really beautiful."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Benedict Cumberbatch ("The Imitation Game," "Doctor Strange"), Colin Firth ("The King's Speech," "Kingsman"), Mark Strong ("The Imitation Game," "Zero Dark Thirty"), and Richard Madden ("Game of Thrones") round out a star-studded cast.
Sounds interesting but as always depends on how well it is done.
I will *definitely* go see this.
It’s hard to believe that war was just a bit over 100 years ago. It looks like it’s going to be an excellent film.
Yes, it is. my late Father, a WWII vet, was born in 1917. I remember meeting a few WWI vets as a child in the 1950s and early '60s.
Spoiler: The plot is where China saves the allied nations in WWI, slays the enemy, and China becomes the hero.
They fly the Communism is your Friend flag, we would never hurt you.
I dunno. WWI is very difficult to read about given the total incompetence of the General Staffs and the pointless human wave charges into machine gun fire. The German and Allied generals should all have been executed as mass murderers. The idiots couldn’t think of any other tactic.
Run King Tommen!
Has anyone else done this since Hitchcock’s “The Rope”?
The trailer looks interesting.
Thank you for sharing the link!
Sounds like Dunkirk which was a bit too artsy for my taste. I’ll probably still go see it, tho.
Spoiler: The plot is where China saves the allied nations in WWI, slays the enemy, and China becomes the hero.
They fly the Communism is your Friend flag, we would never hurt you.
Are you serious or joking?
Whether or not I see it will depend a lot upon its use, or over-use IG CGI and points of view that cater to 21st. Century “wokeness.”
I had high hopes for the forthcoming Midway movie but the tv trailer has turned me off.
I’ll do that, thanks.
I remember the stunningly clueless SJWs complaining about the lack of blacks and women in “Dunkirk.”
“I remember meeting a few WWI vets as a child in the 1950s and early ‘60s.”
My grandfather fought in the trenches in northern France during WWI. His company’s position was overrun by German troops, who walked down the trench line randomly stabbing both dead soldiers and those who may have been “playing possum.” My grandfather was one of the latter group. He survived this incident and the war, and lived the rest of his life with an ear lobe that was severed by a German soldier. He was also gassed during the war, and most likely suffered permanent physical and emotional damage from it.
Yep. Dad was a WW2 vet. My grandad was a vet of the Great War. I remember him well as I was in my 20s when he died at 90 (I think). He was a runner. I once ask why? He figured it must have been his small stature and speed afoot—though no one ever told him.
This is a bit of a distortion of history that all the generals of WWI were incompetent duffers who kept sending men into pointless attacks and where just idiots.
The trouble the generals on both sides faced was that the military technology of the day, heavy fixed machine guns and tele phonic communication lines gave heavy advantages to defenders over attackers.
Eventually they developed new tactics and technologies to mitigate these disadvantages, but they had to learn costly lessons first. Thankfully, my g-grandads battalion in the third division of the British army (13th Kings) benefitted from this learning when his unit attacked Bazentin Ridge in the second week of the Somme Offensive. Unlike the first few days of the campaign, where these costly tactics where found inadequate, and the long preliminary bombardments were not as effective as was assumed, his battalion was slipped into no man’s land during the night and a quick 5 minute bombardment followed by a rapid advance allowed them to over run the germans in the first line before they had chance to react. Unfortunately, the problems with communication meant that they couldn’t exploit that initial success meant and they got bogged down fighting the germans in the support trenches.
Improvements in the targeting of artillery, air reconnaissance, tanks and lighter, mobile machine guns and automatic rifles as well as the introduction of mobile radios meant that defenders had less of an advantage over defenders later in the war, but these had to be developed and the new tactics learnt from bitterly acquired experience, and set the stage for the far more fluid campaigns of world war ii.
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