Sunday, December 28, 2008
A Valkyrie Without Wings
Bryan Singer's Valkyrie is not a bad film, but it is strange to see Tom Cruise Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg lead the attack and plotting to assassinate Adolph Hitler at his Wolf's Lair retreat in 1945 along with a bunch of tony A-List British actors playing German generals looking to try to help end what has become inevitable, i.e. Germany's loss of the war. Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Eddie Izzard, and Terrence Stamp are among the actors playing these officers.
At the heart of the snowstorm last week, I watched Daryl Zanuck's The Longest Day on hulu.com. Location black and white footage from the early sixties has become one of my favorite visual styles lately, and the integration of actual footage with some pretty elaborate stagings is executed quite well in this uber production. The Nazi generals were bumbler and fumblers, but they were actual Germans and they looked great with scars and pock marks. Valkyrie's officers felt like they were doing this as a moonlight job from their various gigs at Convent Garden. Not convincing.
It is a procedural of a relatively recent history, as the pretty successful Downfall with Bruno Ganz as Hitler was a few years back. Downfall was engrossing and engaging. With Valkyrie the fact they actually filmed it in true locations like the Bendlerblock was not a realistic experience. It felt like the whole thing was taking place with plastic soldiers in an aquarium. I don't have any positive or negative things to say about Tom Cruise's performance, but I sigh when I think about how vital and true his performances could feel a couple decades past, particularly when he played Ron Kovic in Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:20 AM
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