Film Review: Churchill, 2015

A friend loaned us this DVD (thanks Pat!), which we watched this evening. About 15 minutes into it I was perplexed. About 30 minutes in I was annoyed. By the end, I was mostly just bemused. The first thing was that we both - Teresa (my wife) and I - remarked how much better Gary Oldman was in Darkest Hour, (a much better film).

I also found myself comparing it with Ike, in which Tom Selleck portrays Eisenhower over the same period - the days running up to D-Day - a film that shares some commonalities in terms of scale of production. Both films were, in Hollywood terms, low-budget affairs. But whereas Selleck's movie, if not entirely devoid of factual mistakes, gets the basic tenor spot on, Churchill is a bizarre ahistorical travesty.

Historian and Churchill biographer Andrew Roberts makes a number of acerbic observations in a review of the film entitled Fake History in Churchill, starring Brian Cox, describing the latter's portrayal as "a depiction that Dr. Goebbels would have been delighted with"! Roberts lays the blame squarely at the feet of Alex von Tunzelmann, who wrote the script/screenplay.

With rather staggering irony, von Tunzelmann authored a column for the Guardian for a period, Reel History, whose subject is the relationship cinema has with historical truth! One has to wonder how and why someone who regularly dissects films to see how accurate they are could then go and commit such blatant calumny. Especially at a time - the 70th anniversary of the war's end - when both the man and the times and events depicted were being celebrated and remembered.

Brian Cox is a decent actor, and he plays his role with, er... well, if not gusto, then something similar. But the Churchill we see here is petulant, contrarian and ill-informed. The issue for me isn't really about how this portrayal undermines the celebrated image of Churchill, which it certainly does. It's about the implausibility of so many moments, from the more personal and mundane level, like his secretaries' emotional outburst over her spouse, to grand strategy; the idea that Monty only let Churchill in on his plans for D-Day the day before the invasion is utterly preposterous.

We did watch the film all the way through; the acting and production made it watchable. But I did find it beyond the pale, in terms of attempting to pass itself off as an exposé of the 'man behind the myth' (a tag-line for the movie was "the icon you know, the man you don't"). In the parlance of our times this might be described as a historical 'reboot'. But that would play down what is, frankly, a shockingly poor, slanderous even, rendering of history.

By all means watch it. But be sure to check it against real history.

Book Review: D-Day, Stephen Ambrose

This is an excellent book. It's a pity it overhypes itself on the cover; as good as it is I don't think it's definitive. I'm not sure any single volume account of D-Day could really achieve that, frankly. It's also both heavily weighted to the U.S. perspective, and within that, the events at Omaha beach. Both latter facts are understandable enough, but mitigitate very heftily against any claims of being definitive. Never mind that the Canadian and British aspects are given very brief coverage, mostly at the end of the book.

A couple of more basic or general points in its favour, leaving aside for the moment the core content, which is excellent, are the glossary - they should be absolutely mandatory in all military history books, in my view - and the excellent maps, which by the looks of them were commissioned specifically for this book.

A fuller view of the Robert Capa photo that appears on the cover.

Ambrose has a very nicely tuned and balanced writing style, it's dry and factual where it needs to be without being dull, and he uses primary sources - a lot of oral history (interviews either he or others have conducted with veterans) - as well as any of the best (or should I say most popular/slickest?) war writers, like Beevor or, going back a bit further, Cornelius Ryan.

Indeed, re the latter point, Ambrose is in a powerful position to be the erudite authority he so clearly is, in that he was (now decesased, I believe?) at the time of writing, deeply involved not only in teaching on this subject, but also as a custodian involved in the fairly recently founded (again, when this was first published) New Orleans D-Day Museum*. And one of the many great things the museum could boast, with Ambrose involved again, was a unique (in its size and scope) 'oral history' collection.

And it's from these sources that this very colourful account gets many of its richer hues.

I believe this may be another of Capa's blurred but highly evocative images.

Whilst he doesn't shy away from the tragedies of war, collateral damage, friendly fire, prisoner executions, and all that, Ambrose does give a decidedly heroic ring to it all, pitting the 'citizen soldiers' (a phrase that's also the title of another book he's written) of an 'aroused democracy', fighting inly to liberate, against the empire-building Nazis, whose troops are - by this stage if the war, and in this particular theatre - either indoctrinated Germans, either docile or fanatical, or unwilling thralls, as per the Ost-truppen.

Whilst it's a all a bit rich - apple-pie 'n' God Bless the U. S. of A, and all that jazz - for a very sceptical chap like me, Ambrose does make pretty solid case in contrasting the sclerotic command malfunctions of the German's, Hitler in bed till noon, his panzers immobile without his personal authority, with the hands-off approach of Ike and Churchill. Gone is the  flexible auftragstaktik that characterised the first blitzkrieg years of the war.

Capa again: Omaha, pinned down on the beach, sheltering behind German obstacles.

One of the things that winds up happening is that things are in exact reverse of how, on paper, they should've been: the Allies were landing against a supposedly extremely well-fortified coast, not using harbours, but beaches. The Germans, with the land and its transportation networks at their backs should've been the easier supplied and maneuovred. But, thanks to the Allies total air and naval superiority, it is the Allies who are free to manoeuvre and resupply more or less at will, with the Germans in Normandy effectively cut off, on a landlocked island.

Whilst D-Day wasn't on the scale, in terms of troop numbers and vehicles, as some of the largest clashes on the Eastern Front, it was the most massive combined operation by land, sea and air ever. Even Stalin freely admitting as much, and suitably relieved/impressed by it. The mind still boggles at the scale of it. And it continues to exercise a deep fascination. It's kind of shocking and surprising how little photographic documentation has come down to us so far.

It's a bit surprising there aren't more photos like this, conveying the enormity of the operations.

Another of Capa's few surviving images.

The fate of Robert Capa's photos [1], one of which is on the cover of this edition, may possibly sum that situation up. Related to all this, yesterday I caught the tail end of a recently produced American TV documentary entitled The Battle of Normandy: 85 Days in Hell, which appears to include lots of 'previously unseen' footage (much of it looking very nicely restored, and a good deal even in colour). So perhaps as time goes on more visual material will emerge? I do hope so!

Anyway, this book is excellent, a suitably rousing document that is also a tribute to the events and the men it brings to life again for us. Superb, and very highly recommended.

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Ambrose as I first saw him, on ITV's superb The World At War.

NOTES:

[1] The story goes that Capa shot 106 photos, but that back in England the excited developer botched his job in his eagerness, only eleven of the photographs surviving. There are also stories going around that suggest Capa 'sexed up' his account. Read more here.

Film Review: Ike, Countdown to D-Day, 2004

I watched this again, for the second time now, and with a friend this time. We both really enjoyed it. Indeed, we both thought it was really very good.

This almost has the feel of a stage play, as it's mostly focussed on just a few characters in just a few locations. Filmed in New Zealand in an incredibly short time for almost no money (by Hollywood standards), this punches well above its weight. And it makes no real concessions at all to trends in modern mainstream cinema. Instead it's a quietly serious and studious depiction of a very interesting period of history, and how a huge amount of responsibility devolves on one man, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Ike himself.

Selleck re-enacts the famous visit to the 101st Airborne, Greenham Common.

Tom Selleck plays Ike very well indeed. Perhaps the overall portrayal is a tad overly reverential? Well, yes, perhaps it is. But it's quite clearly as much a celebration, as well as a dramatic depiction of Eisenhower, in his role as 'Supreme Commander' of the Allied Expeditionary Forces for Overlord. If you've only seen Selleck as Magnum, P.I. this might be something of a revelation.

The roles of the Englishmen in the film are played by New Zealanders, but you wouldn't know it. And they're played very well, from Churchill to Monty, Stagg (the weatherman!), and even the Royal family. Americans play Americans and, aside from Selleck, there are a few faces I recognise from other films, including a much aged Timothy Bottoms (who I first encountered alongside the mesmerising young Cybil Shepherd in The Last Picture Show), as Bedell Smith.

A lot of the 'action' is in conference, like this scene with weather man Stagg.

Ian Mune is great as Churchill.

There are some historical errors here - one I noticed was in reference to DD as if they were LCT - but there's also a lot they got right. The hagiographical aspect means they leave out any reference to Ike's possible relationship with his driver, Kay Summersby. Her character does appear briefly, but is not develop. She went on to be one his personal secretary, and he wangled rank in the US armed forces and US citizenship for her.

But the main drama revolves around Ike's deliberations over giving the go-ahead for D-day, particularly re his desire to have sole command, due not to egotism so much, at least as portrayed here, but a realisation of the need for clarity and simplicity in the chain of comman. And, perhaps most decisively and importantly, his ability to get competing egos to pull together. It's great to see a serious drama handled so well, and characters like Omar Bradley and Leigh Mallory portrayed in some depth, as opposed to the usual suspects, such as Churchill, Monty and Patton.

Gerald McRaney as Patton, reckons he's played Ike 'like a violin'!

Monty's legendary ego needs assuaging. Ike handles him well.

That said, those three are particularly charismatic, as no doubt they were in real life. And their relations with Ike as portrayed by Selleck are very believable. Monty comes off here better than he often does in books on WWII, perhaps especially books by Americans (mind you, Beevor gives him a panning). De Gaulle on the other hand is portrayed as something of a pompous egotist.

Although 'only' a made for TV film, I absolutely love this movie, and will certainly watch it again. It's good enough to bear repeated viewing. Quietly and seriously reverential about both its human and its historical subjects, whilst not a wham-bam action war-film - indeed, far from it - it is both deeply engaging and even moving. Definitely highly recommended.

Book Review: D-Day, The Battle for Normandy, Antony Beevor

This is my third Beevor WWII book (the others were Stalingrad, and Ardennes, 1944), and I have to say that, for my money, he's arguably the best and most seductively exciting author currently writing, in a very crowded field. For once, we have here a book that really does live up to the dust-jacket hype. As Dominic Sandbrook puts it, Beevor undoubtedly is 'a master of narrative, expertly blending the grand sweep with the telling anecdote'.

British troops in action during Operation Goodwood. [1]

The title D-Day is a bit misleading, but is thankfully made good by the subtitle: yes, this book covers the D-Day landings - and does so very well - but it's given over more to the ensuing campaign, the Battle for Normandy, in north-western France. The relationship between the Allies is interesting, and Montgomery doesn't come off too well in Beevor's accounts. There's some tension and communication failures, leading to bogging down, particulalry, it would seem, in Monty's sector, where he often put an overly positive gloss in events, such that the gap between his reports and reality created tension with the American and Canadian allies, and even many of his own British colleagues and subordinates.

A P-47 Thunderbolt...

An RAF pilot scrambles to his Typhoon, during the Normandy campaign.

A pilots eye view, as a Typhoon fired its rocket(s) at what one hopes is a German column.

What an aerial bombardment looks like from above the bombers and their target, in this instance, the unhappy Villers Bocage.

And the devastation wrought by aerial bombing. [2]

Allied aerial dominance is a very strong theme in their victory. But, as ever, bombing proved to be a very inefficient blunt instrument, often causing collateral damage, sometimes aiding the German defenders (although also damaging them materially and traumatising them psychologically) and hampering the Allied advance, and certainly never delivering what it's apologists claimed for it.

With military histories such as this, which cover an immense amount of activity, any one of which myriad elements might merit a sizeable book itself, condensing events into a brief, readable synthesis, it can be bewildering trying to follow the numerous parallel threads. I feel Beevor handles this aspect as well, perhaps better, than most. 

Whilst the Allies feared Tigers and Panthers, Beevor argues the 88mm was one of Germany's most effective weapons.

Yes, despite the numerous maps included, it can be rather confusing. But this is as clear an account in one reasonably sized book as you're likely to find. And the scope is huge, from the landings themselves, to the numerous follow up operations, with such extras as Stauffenberg's bomb plot and attempted coup, and the Paris Uprising, all succinctly and adroitly told in an exciting, compellingly spare prose. 

After covering the landings, beach by beach, we follow the numerous operations, such as the British Epsom and Goodwood (both of which proved to be, as Beevor notes with irony, anything but 'a day at the races'), the Canadian Operation Totalise, and the most vigorous and successful breakthrough and breakout, that of Patton's forces in Operation Cobra.

It's the 'mass of unfamiliar sources, fresh voices and untold anecdotes', as fellow military historian Max Hastings pithily puts it, that really make this such an exciting read. Beevor does this sort of thing with such an easy fluency that it belies the great skill needed to write military (or indeed any) history with such verve. And his sources range from the top brass to the grunts. Beevor has always been notable for his ability to effortlessly shift gear from the higher echelons to the mud and blood of ground level conflict. And I have to say I love his books all the more for it.

A knocked out Cromwell amidst the ruins of Villers Bocage.

Tiger Ace Michael Wittman, Allied Nemesis of Villers Bocage. [3]

Whilst it's definitely good to have author's like Beevor not banging the nationalist drum - indeed, for some native readers he's overly critical of the British part, and Monty in particular - some might suspect him of sucking up to his prospective American readership. All things considered, the more I read Beevor on WWII, the more I admire his skill as an historian and storyteller. If you want military history writing that excites, informs and inspires, his books - and this one is a peach - are a good place to start.

The author.

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NOTES:

[1] Except for the cover image, this is the only photo on this review that also appears in this book. The rest are harvested from the interweb at large, with many sourced from Wikipedia.

[2] I forgot to note where this image depicts, but I don't think it's the same as the one above, which is Villers Bocage.

[3] Veteran 'Tiger Ace' and, for the Germans at least, hero of the Ostfront, Wittman was eventually  ambushed and killed during this campaign, by Shermas such as he had hitherto been so effective in destroying.