I saw this 1981 flick when it came out, and several times since. Kurasawa was having a hard time financing his films (his film just before this was made in Russia, with Russian backing – Dersu Uzawa. Another film worth watching.) Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas helped him out, and got “Executive Producer” credits on the film.
Well worth the watching. I recently picked up a used copy of the Criterion Collection version, which restored about 18 minutes of footage that had never seen before, and re-translated the subtitles.
Kurasawa’s film is as epic as ever. I’d read about Ieyasu Tokugawa and Oda Nobunaga, but hadn’t heard of Shingen Ikeda, the main subject of the film.
The restored footage features the last screen role of Takashi Shimura, in a scene Kurasawa explicitly wrote for him. He was the leader in The Seven Samurai, the protagonist in Ikiru, the woodcutter in Rashomon. He was also Professor Yamane in the original Gojira. When you worked for Toho, you never knew what role you’d be playing.
I can’t say I liked the new subtitles, though. They managed to ruin a couple of the jokes, and for no good reason they removed the translation of the words written on the pieces of the giant vase that the thief sets aside after breaking into what he thinks is a treasure storage. There’s no dialogue in this scene – but there’s clever filmmaking as the thief carefully removes the pieces and sets them down in such a way that the camera "sees them, one at a time. Why take the subtitles for that out?
All About Eve (1950). I’ve seen it before, but it’s been a while. Iconic; source of many quotable scenes, and famous (IIRC) for holding the record for most Oscar nominations. (Five of those were in acting categories - Bette Davis, Celeste Holm, Thelma Ritter, Anne Baxter, George Sanders – so there’s no way they could have won all 14.). Also has a memorable early performance by Marilyn Monroe.
It’s brilliant and witty. But unless you’re deeply familiar with the history of The Theatuh, a lot of the witty allusions (Beaumont & Fletcher, Mrs Fisk, Stanislavsky, Peck’s Bad Boy…) will go over one’s head. It would be nice if there was an annotated version. :).
I love that idea! Put DVD-like commentary as an option on streaming platforms, like captions are. I read somewhere that 40% of viewers use captions consistently, so it’s something people will find.
I remember not watching this when it came out, because of the Based On A True Story structure, and the Ripped From Three-Year-Old Headlines theme. But based on your review I fired it up on Hulu and watched.
Very powerful, but with an off-flavor from knowing the narrative was likely divergent from the “true story.” Still definitely recommended.
The Wikipedia film summary touches on factual discrepancy very briefly — maybe just two sentences. It quotes Mike Wallace saying the film is about two-thirds accurate.
Roger Ebert’s 3-1/2 star review, delves into the accuracy more extensively, although his take seems based on a single magazine article.
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I wasn’t at all bothered by the deviation from the actual facts. Movies are entertainment in their own right.
The film Argo was a rare example when I was, not just bothered, but genuinely offended by the deviation from the facts. It celebrates an American CIA agent as instrumental in the release of the hostages held by Iranian militants, whereas it was in fact the Canadian government and Canadian diplomats that did virtually all the work. Altering the facts for dramatic effect is one thing, but altering them for nationalistic appeal is quite another.
Anyway, I think a great value of this kind of thread is suggesting good movies to those who otherwise might not have seen them. It’s definitely led me to some fine movies that I might have missed.
I see a big distinction. Neither movie portrayed history accurately but U-571 was pure fiction. There was no correlation between movie characters and real people. Argo was about real people like Tony Mendez and garbled up the details.
Interesting side note to how badly Argo fucked up the facts. As part of the effort to free the hostages during the crisis in Iran, the Government of Canada created fake Canadian passports to aid in the escape of the American diplomats being held hostage. It was unheard of for the rigidly strict passport office to do anything like that. The Prime Minister had to convene a special Cabinet meeting to grant an exceptional authorization for those passports.
There’s a big difference between modifying the story for dramatic effect and changing it so completely that the true heroes are ignored. It’s like if in the movie Dark Waters the DuPont chemical company had been depicted as the great saviour of mankind and the people it was killing as ingrates who were harassing them just because they were dying.
After binging Severance I finally got around to seeing Heart Eyes on Netflix. Hoo boy did I hate it. It’s going for “sassy slasher” ala Scream, but with a Gen Z attitude. Apparently I’m an old codger because I found much of it to be “cringe,” as Gen Z would say.
There weren’t even any fun kills. Two thumbs down, would not recommend.
I saw that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is now on Netflix and thought “well, the original was clever, so why not”. Bad choice. I made it to about 35 minutes and gave up.
I try to analyze myself to figure out why some inaccuracies bother me and some don’t. I have to admit I’m to completely consistent. U-571 doesn’t bother me because it’s a made up story. It doesn’t bother me anymore than inaccuracies in Kelly’s Heroes. Adding Americans to The Great Escape doesn’t bother me because it doesn’t really affect the plot and it gives us Steve McQueen.
I guess what bothers me the most is when the real story is compelling enough but they change things to manipulate the audience. I’m especially annoyed if I fall for it. To take an example from TV, probably the most effective episode of The Crown was when Philip’s mother came to live with them at the end of her life. Princess Alice had a remarkable life worthy of having a spotlight put on her. But in the episode they made up fake drama about Philip being ashamed of her, a reporter being smuggled into the palace and a revelatory article being published about her in the newspaper. None of that happened. Complete fantasy.
Starship Troopers (1997). This was my first rewatch since it came out, and I’d forgotten that the effects are really good given 1997. It was also nice to see Carver from The Wire in a good role.
The satire is laid on with a trowel, but the film also invests in glamorizing all the young, attractive characters, so it feels a little like Verhoeven is having his cake and eating it too.
Get Out. A White woman from an affluent family takes her Black boyfriend home for a weekend to meet her family (race does indeed figure into the story). He, along with the audience, soon catches on that all is not as it seems, and it gets weirder from there. I thought it was reasonably good.
Color Out of Space. Uh, no. A meteorite lands on a guy’s farm (Nic Cage being the guy), and stuff happens, and Tommy Chong is in there for some reason, possibly just to explain stuff to the audience. It seemed to me like a bunch of people just got a movie camera and made up a story as they went along.
Raising Arizona (1987). Early Coen Bros…their 2nd feature, after Blood Simple.
Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter kidnap a baby to raise as their own, and hilarity ensues. Literally …I found it laugh-out-loud funny. And Holly Hunter is a national treasure.
Also with Coen Stock Company members John Goodman and Frances McDormand (in a tiny part).
Make no mistake – there were American POWs at Stalag Luft III. As the movie properly explains (sometimes movies get it right), the Germans hoped that there would be friction between the Brits and the Yanks, preventing them from cooperating in escaping. But the Americans and the British got along too well. So the Germans separated them into different compounds, and it was heartbreakingly close to when the actual escape occurred. That would’ve actually made from some additional drama, id they’d left it in. But, no, they wanted Americans in key roles. So we had an American scrounger (James Garner), whereas his real-life counterpart was British. The raisin hooch bunch and the distillers were British, not American. And Steve McQueen’s character was pretty much made up (although you could make a case that he was cobbled together from bits and pieces of other real-life characters). But the things McQueen’s character does – well, after I re-read the book for the umpteenth time (I read that book to tatters) I saw how wildly improbable they were. Escaping to perform surveillance and getting deliberately re-captured? Outrageous! No POW officer would ask that of another POW. It was hard enough (and life-risking enough) just getting out in the first place. Garroting a motorcycle-riding German soldier and stealing his bike? The assault alone would guarantee a bullet in the head. It’s bad enough he ran into the back of “Piglet” when the guard started aiming at him as he climbed the fence – he should’ve been shot there.
There was a lot of fictionalization of actual incidents, but I won’t go into those, except to say that I wonder what Donald Pleasance thought of all the changes. He’d been an actual WWII Prisoner of War (but in Stalag Luft I, not III).