All genres are equal, but in the eyes of Hollywood, some genres are more equal than others. This becomes particularly apparent during awards season. (This year’s Academy Award nominations have just been announced here.) Hollywood loves its biopics and its big-budget musicals, but if you really want to make sure your film gets those nominations, your safest bet is the WaRomancEpic.
What is a WaRomancEpic? It is any big-budget romance set against the background of some kind of war. D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915) could be cited as the first example and model for all subsequent WaRomancEpics, except - to Griffith’s credit - he was more genuinely interested in the Civil War and issues related to it than in his young lovers. The mark of a true WaRomancEpic is that it foregrounds the romance elements. The war serves mainly as background to the lovers’ tribulations and - occasionally - as a plot device to separate them. 2007's prime example is, of course, Atonement (above) featuring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy as the young lovers and WWII as the War. Here are some more examples:
Gone With the Wind (1939). War - Civil. Lovers - Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable.
Doctor Zhivago (1965). War - Russian Revolution. Lovers - Julie Christie and Omar Sharif.
The English Patient (1996). War - WWII. Lovers - Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas.
Cold Mountain (2003). War - Civil. Lovers - Nicole Kidman and Jude Law.
Get the idea?
4 comments:
Without, I hope, seeming provocative . . . do you really think that the issues Griffith explored in The Birth of a Nation redound to his credit?
Tom - I was tempted to comment on the racism of Birth of a Nation - and of Gone With the Wind - but decided they were topics that could be better explored on some other occasion. I hope my point was clear - that in Birth the war was considerably more than background for a love story.
A good one to add to that list might be "Flower of My Secret" with Leo's husband "using the war (in Sarajevo) as an excuse" not to be with her.
It's a lot of good points you brought up Mr. Kutner, I would say it boils down to the same thing that gets the gray-haired midsection of the academy to vote for Shakespeare in Love, i.e. they want to see a schmaltzy romance (with a little sex in it) but be able to pretend it's Art.. it's got to have meaning or they feel guilty for enjoying it, like advertising "10% less fat" on a box of chocolate.
Its this sort of thing used to dominate the French film industry, and the New Wave was a reaction against it, so it's nothing new. What's sad is that we USED to make great films like From Here to Eternity that would address war and life and Freud and Big Issues head-on, but now we've forgotten... that "good" stuff is weeded out at studio briefings after market research focus groups inform them that audiences drink less pepsi if there's Freud involved... now I'm just ranting... anyway, nice post! Thanks for bringing the news!
It's interesting that you make this point about "WaRomanEpic." I actually watched the 1943 Mark Sandrich "So Proudly We Hail" film that was dedicated to the Army Nurses Corps. for serving during WW2 and thought that as a war film, the romance didn't have to be so important, but it was seemingly more important than the dangers these women faced, overshadowing their heroism--and received 4 Academy Award nominations.
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