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Mrs Miniver
I really didn't know anything about this going in, other than it was from the 1940s and about a woman named Mrs Miniver. Even as it started, I wasn't quite sure how it was going to pan out.
One of the odd things about this film is that it is set in Britain, about a British family, but it's also very obviously an American Hollywood movie in feel. Greer Garson, in the title role, is (thankfully) British, although some of her family members struggle with their accents at times.
I really liked how it showed the changes in their lives over the course of the war - or rather the war so far. This was released in 1942, so the war was only half way through and of course at the time they wouldn't have known how long it would go on. I liked how we follow the changes in the lives of the same characters and their relationships, and how even the minor characters are woven in so well that we get to know and care about their fates.
There's more than a little of the propaganda film about it. Reading about it subsequently it seems it was designed to make Americans feel more well disposed to joining the war in Europe. It also tends towards the melodramatic and schmaltzy at times - not all the time, and it works much better when it's more understated. Some scenes and speeches are just stretched out a little too long to make their point. There are also a few liberties taken with plausibility, with major events happening all at the same time and the idea that Vin could make his engine make a particular noise just as he flew over their house. In the blackout.
I remember having a discussion thread on here ages ago about films with one scene that encapsulates the entire movie and I think there's one of those here, in the bomb shelter scene. It starts with Mrs Miniver and her husband being quite jokey with each other, moves on to a sort of keep-calm-and-carry-on attitude while she knits and pretends that everything is fine, and then finally to terror as the bombs drop nearer and nearer. I really liked how that scene was constructed to mirror the movie as a whole.
There's a (fairly simplistic) attempt at showing the war as a kind of leveller for class barriers. The Minivers are described at the start as ordinary, and they are - they aren't leaders or war heroes or famous scientists or anything - although financially of course they are really quite well off. In a fairly amusing scene near the start, Mrs Miniver's eldest son is lecturing his neighbour's granddaughter about her being a member of the aristocracy while being completely oblivious of his own casual imperiousness towards the family's maid. Later, after the flower show and in the church there is much more of a sense that everyone is in it together.
The church scene at the end was interesting. It's clear that the church has been bombed and that huge wooden supports have been put in place; just behind the altar the supports form the shape of a cross - it's not referred to but it's a fairly powerful image. In real life, in 1940 the cathedral in Coventry was bombed and when people went to clear the rubble they found two pieces of wood that had just fallen in the shape of a cross near the altar and that cross is still kept in the rebuilt cathedral today.
One interesting piece of trivia is that Greer Garson married the actor who played her eldest son in Mrs Miniver (who was 12 years her junior) shortly after the film was made. Which makes all their scenes together slightly uncomfortable. (She was definitely better at acting than he was.)
Good choice, I think it's probably my favourite so far. No idea who picked this but I'm going to guess Ed.
I really didn't know anything about this going in, other than it was from the 1940s and about a woman named Mrs Miniver. Even as it started, I wasn't quite sure how it was going to pan out.
One of the odd things about this film is that it is set in Britain, about a British family, but it's also very obviously an American Hollywood movie in feel. Greer Garson, in the title role, is (thankfully) British, although some of her family members struggle with their accents at times.
I really liked how it showed the changes in their lives over the course of the war - or rather the war so far. This was released in 1942, so the war was only half way through and of course at the time they wouldn't have known how long it would go on. I liked how we follow the changes in the lives of the same characters and their relationships, and how even the minor characters are woven in so well that we get to know and care about their fates.
There's more than a little of the propaganda film about it. Reading about it subsequently it seems it was designed to make Americans feel more well disposed to joining the war in Europe. It also tends towards the melodramatic and schmaltzy at times - not all the time, and it works much better when it's more understated. Some scenes and speeches are just stretched out a little too long to make their point. There are also a few liberties taken with plausibility, with major events happening all at the same time and the idea that Vin could make his engine make a particular noise just as he flew over their house. In the blackout.
I remember having a discussion thread on here ages ago about films with one scene that encapsulates the entire movie and I think there's one of those here, in the bomb shelter scene. It starts with Mrs Miniver and her husband being quite jokey with each other, moves on to a sort of keep-calm-and-carry-on attitude while she knits and pretends that everything is fine, and then finally to terror as the bombs drop nearer and nearer. I really liked how that scene was constructed to mirror the movie as a whole.
There's a (fairly simplistic) attempt at showing the war as a kind of leveller for class barriers. The Minivers are described at the start as ordinary, and they are - they aren't leaders or war heroes or famous scientists or anything - although financially of course they are really quite well off. In a fairly amusing scene near the start, Mrs Miniver's eldest son is lecturing his neighbour's granddaughter about her being a member of the aristocracy while being completely oblivious of his own casual imperiousness towards the family's maid. Later, after the flower show and in the church there is much more of a sense that everyone is in it together.
The church scene at the end was interesting. It's clear that the church has been bombed and that huge wooden supports have been put in place; just behind the altar the supports form the shape of a cross - it's not referred to but it's a fairly powerful image. In real life, in 1940 the cathedral in Coventry was bombed and when people went to clear the rubble they found two pieces of wood that had just fallen in the shape of a cross near the altar and that cross is still kept in the rebuilt cathedral today.
One interesting piece of trivia is that Greer Garson married the actor who played her eldest son in Mrs Miniver (who was 12 years her junior) shortly after the film was made. Which makes all their scenes together slightly uncomfortable. (She was definitely better at acting than he was.)
Good choice, I think it's probably my favourite so far. No idea who picked this but I'm going to guess Ed.
...and that happens to me all the time, in fact it just happened. I just read your review of Seconds and I know I seen it and I know it stars Rock Hudson but that's all I can remember of it. Luckily for me I wrote a review of it in The 2nd Science Fiction HoF hosted by Cosmic. Here's a link to the members reviews including mine:
