> {quote:title=rohanaka wrote:}{quote}Hello there Miss Jackie!
Hello! Sorry for typing over your reply. I am a big blabbermouth here this week.
> Me too, little darlin'. It really is a film that just has so many different layers to it.. each of the characters gives you something to think about. AndI think they all are pretty representaitive of different "types" of people in how they behave in a situation like the one in this film.
I think Renoir was very interested, like a lot of the french artists of that time, in the nature of collaboration and survival, and how it eats at people in different ways. Just what you brought up - how a person under the worst pressure will behave - will they crack or will they stay strong? Do they even know what they will do until it happens to them? And then there are all those gradations of collaboration (or staying alive) in between... I think he was interested in the in between. And I think he was interested in the nature of guilt. If you stay alive and another dies, what does it do to you?
> *THIS SPOILER IS MINE*
>
> Really.. if you think about it. the only that are what they SEEM to be.. are Maureen and Walter Slezak. (and even he "pretends" at being nice.) She really is the only one who is on the level. (in terms of acting and behaving in a way that is genuinely representative of who she was.) The headmaster of the school would maybe be another charcter who pretty much was who you think he'll be.. but then again, he sort of catches you by surprise in that you don't really expect him to be as deeply involved in things as he ends up being. So I guess in that way, even he would be more typical of the other characters and so again.. I think Maureen sort of stands alone as being someone who is exactly who you think she is.
That's very interesting! They each have something to hide in regular life, some of them before the Nazis even came. But it's all brought out more clearly by the Nazis invasion. You might expect people to crack under force, or starvation, but the way each character goes is symptomatic of their station in life, the way they handle every day occurrences, and whether they are honest with themselves in general. Character. It doesn't take so very much to get them to knuckle under "for the sake of the town", or "to protect my son" or "to just get along till this is over".
> Everyone else in the cast has so much more to them than meets the eye.. OR they are some weak excuse for what they SHOULD be or could be, but are not. (even Albert's mother.. who never comes off as anything but awful (at least to the viewer) only ACTED weak and helpless around others so Albert would feel sorry for her and stay with her. But in reality.. she was tougher than the Nazi's. And every bit as meanspirited.You are so right about her.. I have never seen her in that sort of role before.)
I LOVED the way Laughton pointed out not just the people, like the mayor, who were at fault - but why. That the butcher selling meat at black market prices contributed to the Nazi regime, but he did it for the money, so he could stay alive. And Albert's mom who bought the meat out of love for Albert, or Albert eating the meat because he was hungry and wanted it. He never berated them for their decisions, as he was among them, doing the same thing. But to be so very honest, well that takes a lot of courage. I just loved that their implicit collaboration came down to the very food on their table. So simple to make a decision NOT to take it, but so hard to stand up for beliefs when you are HUNGRY. If it's a question of belief or starving, I think most of us would chuck those beliefs out the window. Or worse, if my daughter was hungry, and I had to explain to her that we would likely starve for my ideals, well that would kill me.
> And if you think about it.. he was even freed BY them.. his fears sort of brought out who he really was.. eventually.
Yes. that's it! Perfect!
> He was definitely a good example of one of those "greatness thrust upon him' kinda guys. He got to a place where he really had nothing else to lose.. and he understood it. And that gave him a freedom in the way he was able to express himself that he most likely NEVER would have had othewise.
Again, you hit it perfectly.
> I like how he came to see his smoking as a rite of passage almost. (though I will insert that I am no fan of smoking) I just thought it was a well used "device" in the film. The bolder he got.. the better he smoked. And when he and Slezak got to chatting.. you could tell that he was becoming a "new man" just by the way he began to change with the cigarette and how he smoked it.
You know, I never noticed it, but you are right! I was going to bring up the smoking, just because I thought it was funny, the way he choked and strangled on it, those times when the Nazis were looking for Paul, and again when he was offered the ciggie by Slezak. It's funny too, just as Slezak offered him the cigarette, so too he actually gave him the insight into himself to be free of them! Wouldn't Slezak be burned if he knew that his words were the ones that freed Albert? What a slip up.
> I think that is what made it so successful.. it was just what you say... quiet and rational. And yet he fairly SHOUTED just by the words he spoke and the calm and unassuming way he spoke them. Real.. almost too real in terms of it's openess and honestness. If you think about the time the film was made.. I wonder if some of the emotion came from the way Laughton really felt. (I have no idea.. but it certainly could seem that way if I stop and imagine it)
I believe that's specifically Renoir talking through Laughton, myself. But Laughton was such a great actor that he could find it inside himself too, and relate it with absolute truth. I wouldn't be surprised if he understood those thoughts of Renoirs from somewhere deep within him, as we understand them coming off the screen, they echo something within us. Few actors ever have it in them to speak simply, with no flamboyance, but Laughton does it here, better than anyone I can think of. He does it also in Rembrandt, a movie I always thought was his best performance till I saw This Land is Mine. Laughton makes you feel as though he were just thinking those thoughts he says, off the cuff. I don't know how he does it. And at the end he quickly says thank you and turns away, I just love it, the way he hurriedly finishes his speech and becomes unassuming again. It's wonderful.
> If nothing else, I would say that even if we have never lived in actual fear (of that sort of tyranny) the way he expressed himself makes it hard NOT to think "what would I do?" if we WERE ever in that sort of situation? He had been offered a "free pass" as it were.. all he had to do was shut up. And yet seeing the men out in the yard, especially his mentor and the man he loved and cared about a lot, meet their fate so well (just before he went back into testify) led him to choose a different path than he MIGHT have taken othewise.
Yes, I suppose that had a lot to do with it, the way his mentor looked up at him and waved, as if it were nothing to die. He said he knew what he had to do after that, as if a little of the spirit of that man went in to him. And I think in fact he even says that, that the spirit of freedom is contagious.
> Albert would have had to hold his "manhood cheap" if he was at home and warm in his bed.. after witnessing something like that.. and not joining in the fight himself.
I love that speech! Especially in the context of the play - where they are few going against many. It really fits this movie well.
> You are exactly right. This may not be totally the same.. but in a way it is.. because I have always wondered (thinking of my Old Testament here) what it must have been like for Daniel.. heading into the Lion's Den. Knowing that JUST on the other side of that door was a whole pack of HUNGRY angry.. vicious lions. (and really.. not knowing for sure what the end result would be.. but trusting in the one who does) Still.. would I go quietly and meet my fate (whatever it happened to be) with the confidence I was doing the right thing for the right reason?? Or would they have to drag me screaming and kicking.. and whining and crying all that way??? It is EASY to SAY what you think you would do (even for someone who is pretty sure in their convictions) but oh me.. it is a whole other thing to actually have to do it while the lions are growling and licking their chops at you.
I would be screaming all the way, I bet. But you know, it's weird. My MIL has a friend who was always a worry wart, a woman who was always a hypochodriac, nervous about any little thing. And she was confronted with cancer, and you know she faced it with such grace, she never talked about her health or anything after that, spent her time making sure her husband didn't worry too much about her, that he was taken care of. She ended up getting better, by the way, thank goodness. But it's funny how someone's personality can be so changed by seeing the black hole of death in their path. Maybe not changed, but brought out, the little fears gotten rid of finally, replaced by strength.
> Would I be able to find that sort of courage?? And then when I think back over the movie, I start to wonder, WHICH character would I play... if I were in that story? It can be very easy to say.. "yes.. like Albert (or even Paul) I would rise to that occassion. But the REAL proof would be in what would happen if the "Nazi's" ever came knocking on your door.
I was thinking that too. I wonder who I would be. Would I be the mayor, or George Sanders, or Albert? Or would I be in jeopardy because of a big mouth, a talker-back-to like Maureen?
> He does give a victory to the "average guy" in the way that he is NO Tlike a Flynn or a Gable.. or a Duke,even, ha. Just a guy.. and not a very "good" one.. at least not in terms of having any really oustanding evidence of depth of character. But oh me.. those waters ran much deeper than they appeared, afterall.
I'll say. It gives me hope.
> Flawless.. you are right on. I don't think I have ever seen this side of him.. so dispicable, and yet so entirely sympathetic and understandable. You WANTED better for him.. and eventually he wanted better for himself. He saw that there really ARE some things more valuable than one's own skin.. but he saw it too late. Guess he could not take the "St. Crispin's Day challenge, :-) so he took the "easy way out instead. Very tragic.
That way they show him with the little dove that's supposed to be for his dinner, oh it chokes me up! What a symbol.
It really is. And as wonderful as Slezak is in this one.. Smith is amazing too. I had to look him up to figure out why I recognized his face (as he was not one I am as familiar with) He was another one that took my breath away. Letting himself appear "dumb" and underachieving.. meanwhile KNEE DEEP in the trenches.. giving up everything for the sake of others.. oh golly.. break out the Kleenex once again. :-)
I can never say Kent Smith is a bad actor again. He was marvelous in this movie! I especially loved his reaction to George's character at the train yard, absolving him of his guilt by telling him what his deepest motivations in coming to find him were.
