The Post (2017)

It took awhile to get going and work out who’s who and who each of the characters works for, but of course it could be me! But once you get past this rather frustrating obstruction Steven Spielberg's movie turns out to be an entertaining political journey. Its story covers the trials and tribulations of how The Washington Post, and various members of its board and staff, got to publish classified documents with regard to the Vietnam War.

Bridge of Spies.

The bridge of the title in the latest film directed by Steven Spielberg is The Glienicke Bridge that connects Berlin to Potsdam and was one of many border crossings between the West and the East during the cold war that followed World War 2 and the annexing of Germany.  The eastern part of the bridge is in the West and the western part is in the East, the border between the Socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Capitalist Federal Republic of Germany (DDR)runs through the middle of it. In 1961 following the GDR’s attempt to secure their border the bridge could only be used as a border crossing point for Allied military personnel or if special permission was granted.

 

Colonel Rudolf Ivanovich Abel.

Glienicke Bridge gained fame because it was where ‘agent’ exchanges took place between the USA and the Soviet Union. The most famous of these exchanges was on the 10^th February 1962 between the US U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers, the all American boy who could not follow orders, who was shot down on the 1^st May 1960 and the Soviet Intelligence Officer Colonel Rudolf Ivanovich Abel who was put on trial and accused of spying on the USA from an apartment in New York for a nine year period. Abel whose real name was Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher was born in the United Kingdom in Newcastle upon Tyne he was the son of Russian émigré’s and whose father Heinrich was a Bolshevik freedom fighter.  

 

James B Donovan.

Although it’s this true story that forms the backbone of Bridge of Spies (2015) Spielberg’s movie mainly concentrates on the American insurance lawyer James B Donovan who in 1945 had assisted at the Nuremberg war trials and was tasked with defending Colonel Abel in 1957 and to broker the subsequent prisoner exchange in 1962. The American actor Tom Hanks ably covers this part, but it’s the British actor Mark Rylance who takes all the plaudits for his role as the very likable Colonel Abel.   

 

Glienicke Bridge 10th February 1962

The same bridge on my last visit in August 2012.

This is a rather enjoyable old-fashioned cold war thriller that brings to mind movies like The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) and is made even better by the script which was co written by Matt Charman and the Coen Brothers. The historical accuracy is obviously stretched – well it is a Hollywood movie – and we get a typical soft US ending just like we did with Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012) but I would still recommend you to see this movie if for no other reason than to spend an enjoyable couple of hours in your local cinema.  

Always.

This movie is a rare animal, a curiosity from a director who is best known for blockbusters. Always (1989) is reputed to be the weakest of Steven Spielberg's body of work! But for some reason has been reported to be the director’s own favourite film!

Described as a romantic adventure drama it's set against the background of the men and women who are contracted to fight forest fires from both the ground and the air. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss as Pete one of the pilots who is tasked with flying a plane which helps the ground based fire fighters with extinguishing out of control fires that burn there way through great sways of dry forest and bush. When Pete’s fellow pilot Al (John Goodman) gets into problems mid-air Pete fly’s in to save him but during this brave rescue attempt the gallant Pete gets himself killed. Dorinda (Holly Hunter) one of the ground-based crew has been in love with the newly deceased pilot and starts her grieving process.

 

Dreyfuss with Hollie Hunter.

Pete is replaced by Ted (Brad Johnson), a handsome young man who immediately fancies Dorinda. The movie now descends into fantasy. Pete's journey to a better place is interrupted when he meets an angel called Hap (Audrey Hepburn her last appearance in a feature film before her death in 1993) who tells him he is to return to earth and mentor Ted in not only his flying skills but also with his intended affair with his ex. She also explains that unless he does this and says a final farewell to Dorinda he wont get though the pearly gates and 'rest in peace'.

 

Fighting Forest Fires.

The film is a remake of Victor Fleming's 1940's movie A Guy Named Joe that starred Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunn with Spielberg changing the timespan to the present day and not the World War 2 backdrop of the original.

 

Audrey Hepburn in her last feature film.

Films that span two worlds, that is the hereafter clashing with the present, if done well, can be very entertaining for example the Powell and Pressburger 1946 movie A Matter of Life and Death which starred David Niven as a 'dead' wartime pilot and even better was the recent BBC television drama River (2015) which starred Stellan Skarsgard as Detective Inspector John River and Nicola Walker as his murdered partner DS Jackie Stevenson whose apparition is repeatedly materialising throughout the investigation into her own death.  Both these are nowhere as weak as Spielberg attempt to cover this re-embodiment genre. Casting Dreyfuss in the lead romantic lover role was not the best move while the eighties time period really dates the movie; some of Hollie Hunters costumes are really dreadful! I think the best way to describe the film is to use the word ‘silly’ in regard to the story line, corny in regard to the script and unbelievable in regard to the actor’s attempts to make an interesting and believable film. It's hard to believe that Steven Spielberg directed this malarkey between Empire of the Sun (1987) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) both far superior pieces of work from this well regarded American director. 

Lincoln

The American Civil War (1861 – 1865) has been the subject of many feature films over the years from Birth of a Nation (1915) to Cold Mountain (2003) via epic movies like Gone with the Wind (1939), Gettysburg (1993), Ride with the Devil (1999) and many more. This week’s Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club, again hosted by Mr Stephan Pickering standing in for his wife Pat who unfortunately was suffering from a bout of the flu, was screening Lincoln (2012) an absorbing, performance driven film that invites you to witness the last four months of Abraham Lincoln’s life right up to his assassination on the 14^th April 1865 by the American stage actor and Confederate sympathiser John Wilkes Booth at the Ford Theatre Washington DC while watching a play accompanied by his wife Mary Todd Lincoln. We see very little of the actual war, the movie focuses on the presidents efforts to have the Thirteenth Amendment to the United Constitution passed by the United States House of Representatives, and the underhanded skulduggery that went on from the President down in a attempts to get this unpopular amendment passed. The text of the 13th amendment read:

Section 1: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2: Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The President and his First Lady Spielberg style.

The movie is directed by Steven Spielberg, his best film since Munich in 2005 and includes a cast of over 100 speaking parts. These actors are really on top of their craft, including Daniel Day Lewis, who won a clutch of Best Actor Awards for his uniquely masterful portrayal of Lincoln, Sally Field outstanding as the First Lady, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Todd Lincoln, David Strathairn, as Secretary of State Seward, Tommy Lee Jones superb as Thaddeus Stevens and John Hawkes as Colonel Robert Latham.  The key source of the screenplay is the biography called Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

The real thing!

My only criticism is in its typical American ending, which yet again tends to add a coating of sickly syrup where its not needed. It should have finished with the President leaving the White House; we all know what happens next so there was no need to extend it to include flickering candles! That apart the movie is a fascinating political drama that I could not recommend more and I’m sure that supplementary viewing’s would only increase the enjoyment.