BRITISH WARS Movie Review

British Wars on Screen

The British war film can trace its roots straight back to Shakespeare. One of the most famous and most honored is Sir Laurence Olivier's version of Henry V, which was made, miraculously, while German bombs were falling on the country. That courageous, ambitious spirit is at the heart of the best of the English efforts. (Since this category is limited to civil and colonial wars, the fine propaganda work done for World War II is covered elsewhere.)

The films that look realistically at the various facets of the British Empire have generally been even-handed. Bruce Beresford's Breaker Morant, for example, questions the morality of tactics when the military and civilians are involved in a guerrilla war, and can find no comfortable answers. Zulu, which could have degenerated into jingoism, is instead a classic combat film because it refuses to demonize the African enemy. It is an apolitical examination of one engagement where a small, well-equipped force defends an outpost against a larger force trying to remove it. The reasons behind the conflict and the race of the combatants are studiously ignored.

Brits also make great villains. In movies, almost every other nationality takes at least one shot at those red-coated rascals. Such a role comes with the empire-building they pursued so energetically for so many centuries. The most obvious recent examples are King Edward I, Longshanks (Patrick McGoohan) in Mel Gibson's Braveheart, and Cunningham (Tim Roth) in Michael Caton-Jones' Rob Roy. Both are morally corrupt, duplicitous Royals who inspire impassioned rebellions.

But the British, either playing themselves or being impersonated by Americans, are at their most entertaining in the light-hearted escapist adventures of the 1930s. The trend begins in '35 when Gary Cooper and Franchot Tone save India for England in Lives of a Bengal Lancer. A year later, Errol Flynn and David Niven would do the same in Charge of the Light Brigade, where most of the action takes place in the province of Suristan, not the Crimea. Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Victor McLaglen, and Sam Jaffee do it a third time in George Stevens's wonderful Gunga Din. It's up to John Clements to subdue the Dervishes in Khartoum and rescue his pals in The Four Feathers. Gary Cooper, Ray Milland and Robert Preston go toe to toe to toe to toe with the sadistic Brian Donleavy in Beau Geste.

Tony Richardson takes a decidedly different approach with his 1968 version of Charge of the Light Brigade. The film wears its anti-war sentiments on its sleeve, but still manages to make the debacle at Balaklava appallingly real.

Finally, Kenneth Branagh goes back to the source for his 1989 Henry V. It is a tribute to the Olivier version that surpasses the original in some regards. Branagh's bloody battle scenes may not be any more realistic in a historical sense, but they are more visceral, and Branagh gives his interpretation of King Harry different shadings, making him a more uncertain monarch. Saying that, though, I do not mean to disparage the Olivier film. I re-watched the films back to back over two days. It was one of the most enjoyable experiences in the creation of this book.