Posts about 1917 (movie)
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Summary:
Two young British soldiers during the First World War are given an impossible mission: deliver a message deep in enemy territory that will stop 1,600 men, and one of the soldiers' brothers, from walking straight into a deadly trap.
Director:
Sam Mendes
Writers:
screenplay by Sam Mendes, Krysty Wilson-Cairns
Cast:
George MacKay as Lance Corporal William Schofield
Dean-Charles Chapman as Lance Corporal Tom Blake
Mark Strong as Captain Smith
Andrew Scott as Lieutenant Leslie
Richard Madden as Lieutenant Joseph Blake
Claire Duburcq as Lauri
Colin Firth as General Erinmore
Benedict Cumberbatch as Colonel Mackenzie
Daniel Mays as Sergeant Sanders
Adrian Scarborough as Major Hepburn
Jamie Parker as Lieutenant Richards
Michael Jibson as Lieutenant Hutton
Richard McCabe as Colonel Collins
Nabhaan Rizwan as Sepoy
Michael Cornelius as Private Cornelius
Daniel McMillon as Marksman
Rotten Tomatoes: 89%
Metacritic: 79/100
After Credits Scene? No
Rotten Tomatoes: 93% (27 critics) with a 9.12 average rating
Critics consensus: No consensus yet.
Metacritic: 85/100 (15 critics)
The scores will change as time passes. Meanwhile, Iโll post some short reviews.
1917 is Mendesโs most purely ambitious and passionate picture since his misunderstood and under-appreciated Jarhead of 2005. Itโs bold, thrilling film-making.
Astonishing as his filmmaking can be at times, itโs Mendesโ attention to character, more than the technique, that makes 1917 one of 2019โs most impressive cinematic achievements.
1917 is an expertly crafted and emotionally exhausting thrill-ride behind enemy lines. Gloriously shot, deftly paced, and striking in its gruesome recreation of the time and place, Sam Mendesโ 1917 wisely never loses sight of the smaller, intimate elements in a fast-paced story with immense scale and action.
The film belongs to Chapman and more than anyone, MacKay, a 27-year-old Londoner with the long bones and baleful eyes of a porcelain saint or a lost Caulkin brother. His Lance Corporal Schofield isnโt just a surrogate Everyman; heโs hope and fear personified, and you couldnโt look away if you wanted to.
-Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly
Even if the film is mostly hitting familiar notes in terms of story and theme, it expresses a concise, focused and expertly managed vision with which thereโs little to quibble, and the extraordinary style represents the fruition of a long-imagined dream on the part of many directors and cinematographers. From now on, when the discussion turns to great works of cinematography and camera operating, 1917 will always have to be high on the list.
-Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter
The clock is always ticking in 1917, and even as MacKay is offering a heartbreaking study in restrained emotion, heโs still at least moving towards the end goal of his terrible task. Thereโs no time to pause, even for great beauty, a lesson that even 1917 is often loathe to honor.
Mendes is intent on bringing a sense of breathless derring-do to a war only known for its doomed futility. And he loads onto it a one-take challenge, a rolling-back and slowly-swerving camera, using the sleight of hand which distinguishes the best action cinema of this kind.
-Fionnuala Halligan, Screen International
There are times when the nonstop visual momentum lends 1917 the feel of a virtual-reality installation, and others when the simulation of raw immediacy slips to reveal the calculated construct underneath.
-Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
The movie is more successful as a thriller than as a thoughtful examination of war and its horrors; Mendes seems less interested in bigger ideas about the nightmare of battle and its effects on his characters than he is in Hitchcockian audience manipulation.
Director
Sam Mendes
Writers
Sam Mendes ... (written by) &
Krysty Wilson-Cairns ... (written by)
Cast
Andrew Scott - Lieutenant Leslie
Benedict Cumberbatch - Meg March
Richard Madden - Lieutenant Blake
Mark Strong
Dean-Charles Chapman
Colin Firth
George MacKay - Schofield
Teresa Mahoney - Lt & Pte Blake's Mother
John Hollingworth - Sergeant Guthrie
Director of photography: Roger Deakins
Production designer: Dennis Gassner
Costume designer: Jacqueline Durran
Editor: Lee Smith
Music: Thomas Newman
