Saturday 28 January 2017

Thoughts in Progress

In life sometimes we are torn between using our head or our heart when faced with certain events. Pragmatism may be my default setting, but the romantic in me also takes hold occasionally. Especially when it comes to good art.

One of the more poignant and difficult to watch movie scenes I have seen in my life is the opening of Saving Private Ryan. In its sheer, brutal brevity (almost half an hour of a 169-minute-long film) lie many of the unpalatable elements that make me hate war. Yet, this graphic, unforgettable sequence is a magnet to which my artistic sensibility is drawn like a hapless moth trapped in a spider’s web, watching its hungry host(ess) getting ever so closer, knowing its fateful dénouement and yet, being unable to do anything about it.

Until recently I had never managed to go beyond that opening scene. I usually left the room afterwards. The footage is too real, like war archive material. Were it grainier and more worn-out-looking, it could pass off as a documentary. This was not, however, the only reason why I refused to sit through the almost-three-hour-long film. The artistry of it is too enticing, too alluring. This is not cinema-cinema, but cinema-as-dance. These men are not at the mercy of Ares, but Terpsichore. The only sound we hear at the start comes from the untamed sea, waves crashing on the shore of Omaha Beach. The first sign of human life to which we are exposed is not the myriad helmeted heads bent down on the boats but a trembling hand trying to uncap a bottle of water. The camera pans out slowly, revealing lines of soldiers, a couple of them being sick. This is not a regiment but a corps du ballet and Spielberg is monsieur le choreographer.



Dance carries poetry within and so does Saving Private Ryan. It is hard for me, though, to accept this verse-inspired narrative. To equate the carnage of human beings (even when the motives for the killing are noble) to one of the most beautiful literary genres feels wrong. And yet, as I watched the movie recently I thought of other war-themed works of art that had inspired in me a similar love-hate dichotomy. One of them was also a film, Waltz with Bashir, an animation about the Sabra and Shatila massacre. In a scene I can only describe as surrealistic, one of the Israeli officers grabs a submachine gun and begins dancing a waltz (hence the movie title) in the middle of the road as shots rain down on him from nearby buildings without killing him. The gun in his hands never stops releasing bullet after bullet but the effect of the whole setup is hypnotic. You cannot take your eyes off this daring figure, moving almost en pointe down the street and surviving.

Another example is Picasso’s Guernica. It never grabbed me as much as it did other people. I wanted to see what they saw but all my eyes were able to capture was muddledness. Until one day in my late teens when I saw the picture again and all of a sudden each figure in the composition fell into place like a jigsaw puzzle. I saw chaos, but the chaos provoked by war. In its mouths, fully open and skywards pointing, there was a cry for peace.

Michael Longley’s poem Wounds was also on my mind as I watched Saving Private Ryan. Especially the lines: “Now, with military honours of a kind/With his badges, his medals like rainbows/His spinning compass, I bury beside him/Three teenage soldiers, bellies full of/Bullets and Irish beer, their flies undone.” Go back to Spielberg’s movie and watch how the camera zooms in on the men’s faces as they are about to land. It picks them up, one by one, stopping no longer than two seconds. Two seconds. That’s all it takes to provide the viewer with the real experience of war. War as a killing vehicle. War as an act of defence. War as cinematography. As dance. As art. Even though I hate it, still, war as art.



© 2017

Next Post: “Killer Opening Songs”, to be published on Wednesday 1st February at 6pm (GMT)

19 comments:

  1. I was not particularly impressed with Guernica until I found myself standing before it back when it was at MOMA. I was amazed by its size and power. It's black and white color scheme made it seem like a gigantic, barbaric image taken from a newsreel. Often art can best be appreciated in person.

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  2. Saving Private Ryan is an epic film, and yes it can be difficult to watch. A glowing post and a great read. Warm greetings!

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  3. How lovely to see you back - posting yet another thought provoking post. Call me a coward, but I can't watch 'war films'. My father told me that there are no winners 'losers and other losers', a lesson I have taken to heart.

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  4. I can understand your reluctance to accept the notion of anything as horrendous as war being presented in an artistic manner, but I see movies like "Saving Private Ryan" in a different light. Old movies used to glorify war, which I find even more appalling than depicting them in a more realistic manner. When a movie strips away the veneer of glory to show its raw inglorious reality, it makes a profound anti-war statement.

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  5. Great post, brother, and I like the blog's new look. It's been years, but I do recall being drawn to and repulsed by those opening scenes of "Saving Private Ryan." War will always be the blood-covered muse because we're never going to stop killing each other and we'll always have the damaged survivors driven to tell us their stories.

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  6. Saving Private Ryan" is a powerful experience. I'm sure a lot of people will weep during it. Spielberg knows how to make audiences weep better than any director since Chaplin in "City Lights." But weeping is an incomplete response, letting the audience off the hook. This film embodies ideas. After the immediate experience begins to fade, the implications remain and grow.

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  7. I have seen several war movies and was especially touched by the ones involving the Holocaust. Very sad but very good movies! So nice to see your post, dear friend.

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  8. I too prefer the humanity of Yo Yo Ma to the inhumanity of war

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  9. It sure is a great movie indeed, but yeah, war is anything but.

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  10. La recuerdo como buena, aunque ahora casi he dejado de ver películas de guerra y violencia.
    Un feliz fin de semana.

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  11. War films shake me to the core - especially as it seems we learn nothing from past atrocities.

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  13. Hi ACIL - I can't take War films ... and our film society has the occasional one I need to miss ... they are of the avant-garde sort. Normally I don't 'do' war ... as we see enough of its horrors in our normal life ... personal wars, gang wars, and country or worse 'world' wars ... We had one this past week "A War" - Danish production ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_War - it was very interesting ...

    I only really appreciated art in war - when someone gave a talk on the subject ... and at another event there was talk of Guernica and Picasso - from an English-Spaniard, who had family on both sides. I'd be in the middle terrified, but if one was talented an artist, a writer or in prison a musician - then it'd be a way of forgetting the immediate.

    There are some incredible performances given ... Saving Private Ryan is not a film I've seen, nor normally would do ... but I might take the opportunity if it arose. I learn as I go through life ... and understand and appreciate more ... Dance is another area I need to try and comprehend better ... I admire creative artists who can visualise those experiences enough to bring them to life as a performing art.


    Thanks for this thoughtful post ... cheers Hilary

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  14. I enjoyed reading this post more than I would ever like war films, even if they are well written and acted. I just don't like war. Good to see you back again, oh and I really like your header picture.... how unusual!

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  15. I love war films..I have seen Private Benjamin but..it didtn make so high impressions on my..in fact I barely remember the movie..Ilike documentary films about 2www..and of course The Pacipic and Band of Brothers

    Greatnew header again young man!Its always lovely to visit your blog
    greetings Anita

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  16. seems like I did right never seen that movie.

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  17. Hello Mario, it's lovely to see you back!
    I have never tried to watch the Private Ryan, even though I think all the other family members have seen it. The individual bravery of people touches me to tears, but I don't need to see war scenes to repudiate the war. I don't think seeing violence makes people hate violence, it makes them get used to it.
    In the cold, starry nights I gaze at the sky and want to remember the cold, the fear, the pain the soldiers felt during for example the Winter War. Unfortunately the time to take up arms again may be nearer than we can imagine.
    God help us all! And that's why He gave us Bach! ;)

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  18. I lost any semblance of taste for violent cinema growing up around military folks but I do appreciate Yo Yo Ma. Greetings to you.

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  19. Your writing and this post are as gorgeous as the uncomfortable/unbearable feelings of watching war and seeing art. I love your posts, Cuban.

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