July 13 movie: A Bridge Too Far. Another movie I rented on Kevin's recommendation. It was really good! The story of Operation Market Garden, the Allied mission to capture a series of bridges in German territory, focusing on the bridge at Arnhem in the Netherlands. Do I have to worry about spoilers when it's a true story that everyone familiar with war history probably knows about? I'll just say that the title is "a bridge too far" and leave it at that.
The cast is spectacular. Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Dirk Bogarde, Robert Redford, Elliot Gould, Maximilian Schell, James Caan, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Ryan O'Neal, and Liv Ullman for starters. I even saw John Ratzenberger in a small part! He has one line: "Major, have we got any more information about those boats?"
Redford's part is not huge, but it reminded me why he's considered such a great actor. He has one incredible scene (one of many, many incredible scenes in the movie) where he has to lead a group of soldiers trying to cross a river in small open boats, under heavy fire, in broad daylight. They're paddling and they don't have enough oars, so some of the men are using their rifles to paddle. As they head out he starts muttering "Hail Mary, full of grace" repeatedly. Not the whole prayer, just the first line over and over. As he keeps saying it, it starts to mean all kinds of things: a plea, a curse, a battle cry, all in the repetition. Through it all you can hear him using the words to hold himself together, and desperately hoping it works. Almost pleading with himself to keep going. It's really pretty amazing that he could communicate so much with just five words.
Goldman's discussion of writing the screenplay in Adventures in the Screen Business is great--it's what made me want to see the film. The whole sequence with James Caan is only credible because it's true--if it weren't based very closely on a real incident, it would be complete Hollywood bullshit.
There's one moment of Hopkins being lead into captivity that is burned on my brain--just all the weight of the war on one man's back. I should see this again.
That rescue sequence with James Caan was true? Wow. My DVD had a bad spot right in the middle of that, so I missed several minutes from the point where he's in his jeep and he spots the Nazis walking around nearby. Luckily the DVD went back to normal just before he got to the hospital.