His knowledge of World War II is such that if you give him the circumstances, he can tell you what time a GI landed during the June 6, 1944, Normandy invasion. Yet he's never done a movie about World War I - until now.
In December, War Horse, based on the young-adult novel and Tony Award-winning play, comes to the screen, and if Spielberg is true to form, it should be up there with his other historical masterpieces.
"My dad fought in the Second World War, and all of my movies about war had been about that era," Spielberg said in a hotel suite in New York.
"Most of my period movies took place in the 30s and 40s: the Indiana Jones series and certainly my TV work on The Pacific and Band of Brothers. Yet World War I was a fascinating time. I wasn't an authority or even probably knew as much about it as the audience who hopefully will come to see War Horse. But I loved a lot about it quickly."
Spielberg decided to make War Horse after reading Michael Morpurgo's book and seeing the play adaptation by Nick Stafford in London's West End. The film tells the story of Joey - a horse raised in the English countryside, taken by the British army and sent into battle - and Albert, Joey's young owner, who struggles to find his beloved horse.
"I was knowledgeable about what Hollywood had done about that war, but to introduce a horse and a boy searching for him in the middle of this maelstrom was the most compelling journey I took, to try to figure out how to tell both stories," Spielberg said.
The play brings Joey to life by using puppetry with such expertise that playgoers are able to imagine they are watching real, flesh-and-blood horses.
But that wouldn't work for celluloid.
"A movie can automatically do something a stage play can't, and that's use the close-up," Spielberg said.
"When you get to see into the eyes of a horse, and when you get to see into the eyes of a soldier, it's a whole different experience."
Hundreds of horses were used in the making of the movie.
"We also had a number of horses for Joey," Spielberg said.
"We started out with seven, but as it always turns out, there was just one horse that beamed the essence of Joey."
Spielberg puts his heart and soul into his movies, devouring his subject matter in extensive research and focusing on meticulous detail. For War Horse, filmed in various locations in England, he enlisted screenwriters Lee Hall (Billy Elliot) and Richard Curtis (Bridget Jones's Diary) and composer John Williams.
Before filming Spielberg read many books, including Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, about the prelude to the war, and gained access to the backrooms of the Imperial War Museum in London. He also mentions the film All Quiet on the Western Front - which helped him prepare for Saving Private Ryan - as influential.
"For the most part, the kids who got involved in that war thought it was going to be over by Christmas," Spielberg said.
"So they delightfully marched off to war from hamlets and little villages in the countryside and all over Ireland and England and Scotland. That's why there are so many smiles on the faces of the boys as they march off with the band playing and parents happily waving - expecting all of them to come home."
More than 15 million lives were lost and 20 million people were wounded during the four-year war. According to Morpurgo, more than 10 million horses died before "the war to end all wars" was over in 1918. World War I changed forever how war was fought and how war would be seen in the eyes of those who went into battle.
"Look at how many millions of horses died during those four years and how the horse had met its end as the most useful beast of burden after hundreds of years of service all over the world," Spielberg said.
"And World War I was the changing of the guard: horsepower giving way to technology - ugly, angry technology."
Spielberg, who has been commended and unfairly criticised for the optimism in many of his movies - "I'm that glass-half-filled kind of guy, always have been, and that comes from my mom and dad" - brings his humanity into play with War Horse.
"I don't really see War Horse as a World War I movie," he said.
"I think it's a story about courage. And I think the theme of courage informs every inch of this experience. So this, to me, isn't a quintessential war movie or even my statement of the Great War. It really is about courage and tenacity, and in that sense I can expand the heart from some of the other war themes I've dealt with."
No comments:
Post a Comment