The Messenger
Aug. 10th, 2004 05:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerI saw about two thirds of this film just recently (I tuned into it partway through). I'd been interested in seeing it when it came out, but because ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
john_arundel assured me it was totally awful, I didn't make any determined attempt to do so (like going to the store and renting it :-) But since it was there, I thought I'd have a look.
Since then I've looked over bits of Shaw's Saint Joan (to which it bears almost no relation that I can see--I think Besson and Shaw were going in two very different directions, which is hardly surprising); I pulled a number of my medieval history books off the shelf, including David Nicolle's book on the Orleans campaign, and glanced through them; and I've read some of the several highly critical sites about the movie on the Web (one critic seems to have something akin to an idee fixe, as he's copied large chunks of his website text onto discussion boards about the movie without actually responding much to countercomments).
I have to say, on the whole, that I thought it was rather a good movie. I'd like to watch it again sometime, all the way through, preferably a director's cut to see what got snipped out of the film to "fit" it in a three hour slot on Bravo (of which conservatively about two hours was movie). I came across a copy of the script on the Web, and there's much more there than was shown in the version of the film I saw. I don't know how much was shot and then cut, how much was cut by Bravo, and whether the script on the Web is even anything close to their final shooting script. I will say that some things in it that were missing make the film much more comprehensible, while other things are silly.
I understand Peter's frustration about the stupid imaginary anti-siege weapons that form part of the English defenses of Les Tourelles, but those aside I thought the Armour and weapons for the most part looked very much like those in the 15th century illustrations found in Nicolle's book and the modern recreations his artist, Graham Turner, came up with. Filmmakers are going to mess around and do some silly things with clothing and equipment, but I thought the overall impression was pretty good.
Care is taken to show the events of the capture of the Bastille Saint Loup and the Bastille des Augustins and les Tourelles (including Joan's impetuous insistence on rapid and continuous attacks, her sending a message to the English by arrow, their insulting reply, her wounding with an arrow, and her refusal of good luck charms as being black magic, her waking the troops early for the attack, and the violence of the assault--Nicolle calls it "the bloodiest engagement since Agincourt"); the withdrawal of Fastolf's army from the battlefield near Beaugency without combat; the Dauphin's coronation at Reims; his reluctance as king to extend the initial, unsuccessful attack on Paris. Missing here, remarkably, is the crushing French victory over the English at Patay. Besson probably figured that would have been overkill after the storming of Les Tourelles sequence and expensive to film as well (I think the actual number of actors in the French and English armies at Beaugency was probably multiplied several times over by CGI, whihc would have been possible, but more complex to do with an actual battle.) I think they do generally a good job showing the difference between the French clergy trying Joan and the English who wanted to destroy her because of her value to the French.
The religious and psychological aspect of the film is harder to comment on without having seen the beginning scenes. I think Besson does a good job of portraying how imprisonment, especially solitary imprisonment, and mistreatment swiftly degrade a prisoner's presentation and self-control. For those who think that the Joan in the final scenes of the movie is intended to be hysterical, I disagree and suggest they imagine what their mental state would be having been subjected tot eh same conditions, let alone going through a crisis of faith. The character of The Man who speaks to Joan in her cell (and who we are shown--by contrasting perspective shots--is only there in her mind) seems at first to be tormenting her; by the end, however, he's clearly seen to have been testing her. Whether he represents her conscience or a messenger from G*d isn't clear.
Speaking of the end of the film, the version shown on Bravo differs very significantly from the version in the script as to the use of the cross, and that bothered me a great deal even before I saw the script. In the TV version, a group of priests are seen manipulating a long cross on a pole, but it seems only so as to wave it high over Joan as she burns, an act of triumphalism. In fact, a cross like that would be used (and is used, in the script) to give hope to a condemned person, to be brought near them as they are dying so they will be able to pray in their final moments. Now, that may seem a strange or even horrible idea to moderns, but I appreciate that the script got it right and am annoyed that teh (abbreviated) film got it wrong.
But that's what a lot of criticism of historical films boils down to, it seems to me: do they generally do a good job telling the story, making the characters credible, and making an effort to make the images look real? or do they simply take names and place and throw them around without any meaning, rewriting history like any other Hollywood script? Some films are simply laughable on their face.--Braveheart springs to mind--because they make no real effort whatsoever to get the material culture right or to portray the characters realistically. Others, like The Patriot, another historical epic by the detestable Mr Gibson, are in many ways faithful to their historical context, despite their faults. No Hollywood film, as Michael Mann repeatedly reminded his advisors on Last of the Mohicans, is going to be a documentary; but they can make an attempt to give the viewer a glimpse of what past lives were like and how past people thought (as, for its many flaws, Cromwell did) or they can aspire no higher than to be dramatic and entertaining (Elizabeth, a film I love to hate, would fall in that category). I think The Messenger makes a good-faith effort to do the former.
john_arundel assured me it was totally awful, I didn't make any determined attempt to do so (like going to the store and renting it :-) But since it was there, I thought I'd have a look.Since then I've looked over bits of Shaw's Saint Joan (to which it bears almost no relation that I can see--I think Besson and Shaw were going in two very different directions, which is hardly surprising); I pulled a number of my medieval history books off the shelf, including David Nicolle's book on the Orleans campaign, and glanced through them; and I've read some of the several highly critical sites about the movie on the Web (one critic seems to have something akin to an idee fixe, as he's copied large chunks of his website text onto discussion boards about the movie without actually responding much to countercomments).
I have to say, on the whole, that I thought it was rather a good movie. I'd like to watch it again sometime, all the way through, preferably a director's cut to see what got snipped out of the film to "fit" it in a three hour slot on Bravo (of which conservatively about two hours was movie). I came across a copy of the script on the Web, and there's much more there than was shown in the version of the film I saw. I don't know how much was shot and then cut, how much was cut by Bravo, and whether the script on the Web is even anything close to their final shooting script. I will say that some things in it that were missing make the film much more comprehensible, while other things are silly.
I understand Peter's frustration about the stupid imaginary anti-siege weapons that form part of the English defenses of Les Tourelles, but those aside I thought the Armour and weapons for the most part looked very much like those in the 15th century illustrations found in Nicolle's book and the modern recreations his artist, Graham Turner, came up with. Filmmakers are going to mess around and do some silly things with clothing and equipment, but I thought the overall impression was pretty good.
Care is taken to show the events of the capture of the Bastille Saint Loup and the Bastille des Augustins and les Tourelles (including Joan's impetuous insistence on rapid and continuous attacks, her sending a message to the English by arrow, their insulting reply, her wounding with an arrow, and her refusal of good luck charms as being black magic, her waking the troops early for the attack, and the violence of the assault--Nicolle calls it "the bloodiest engagement since Agincourt"); the withdrawal of Fastolf's army from the battlefield near Beaugency without combat; the Dauphin's coronation at Reims; his reluctance as king to extend the initial, unsuccessful attack on Paris. Missing here, remarkably, is the crushing French victory over the English at Patay. Besson probably figured that would have been overkill after the storming of Les Tourelles sequence and expensive to film as well (I think the actual number of actors in the French and English armies at Beaugency was probably multiplied several times over by CGI, whihc would have been possible, but more complex to do with an actual battle.) I think they do generally a good job showing the difference between the French clergy trying Joan and the English who wanted to destroy her because of her value to the French.
The religious and psychological aspect of the film is harder to comment on without having seen the beginning scenes. I think Besson does a good job of portraying how imprisonment, especially solitary imprisonment, and mistreatment swiftly degrade a prisoner's presentation and self-control. For those who think that the Joan in the final scenes of the movie is intended to be hysterical, I disagree and suggest they imagine what their mental state would be having been subjected tot eh same conditions, let alone going through a crisis of faith. The character of The Man who speaks to Joan in her cell (and who we are shown--by contrasting perspective shots--is only there in her mind) seems at first to be tormenting her; by the end, however, he's clearly seen to have been testing her. Whether he represents her conscience or a messenger from G*d isn't clear.
Speaking of the end of the film, the version shown on Bravo differs very significantly from the version in the script as to the use of the cross, and that bothered me a great deal even before I saw the script. In the TV version, a group of priests are seen manipulating a long cross on a pole, but it seems only so as to wave it high over Joan as she burns, an act of triumphalism. In fact, a cross like that would be used (and is used, in the script) to give hope to a condemned person, to be brought near them as they are dying so they will be able to pray in their final moments. Now, that may seem a strange or even horrible idea to moderns, but I appreciate that the script got it right and am annoyed that teh (abbreviated) film got it wrong.
But that's what a lot of criticism of historical films boils down to, it seems to me: do they generally do a good job telling the story, making the characters credible, and making an effort to make the images look real? or do they simply take names and place and throw them around without any meaning, rewriting history like any other Hollywood script? Some films are simply laughable on their face.--Braveheart springs to mind--because they make no real effort whatsoever to get the material culture right or to portray the characters realistically. Others, like The Patriot, another historical epic by the detestable Mr Gibson, are in many ways faithful to their historical context, despite their faults. No Hollywood film, as Michael Mann repeatedly reminded his advisors on Last of the Mohicans, is going to be a documentary; but they can make an attempt to give the viewer a glimpse of what past lives were like and how past people thought (as, for its many flaws, Cromwell did) or they can aspire no higher than to be dramatic and entertaining (Elizabeth, a film I love to hate, would fall in that category). I think The Messenger makes a good-faith effort to do the former.
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 04:20 pm (UTC)As I said, my impressions were formed from seeing only the latter (half? two thirds?) of the film, and that probably didn't include lots of the original. Did the original rally include a scene in which Aulon tries to rescue Jeanne at the very last minute and she refuses to be rescued? That's in the script I found, and it's tiresomely bad history and unnecessary melodrama, IMO.