1917 (Sam Mendes Film - Christmas 2019)

Just back from seeing it. It's a brilliant film. Totally immersive and gripping. One is sucked in and taken on a ride through hell but it's sensitively done and very moving. Technically, it's a stunner. Some of the sweeping circular shots are incredible (the scene with the singer in the woods for example). The environments that they created are fantastic also.
Storywise, it reminded me of that old 80s war movie Gallipoli (with a young Mel Gibson).

Exactly what I felt. The video game influence is very apparent and it works very well. Trudging along a terrain for a couple of hours with unexpected thrill and spills along the way.

 

My take: We've got a lone sniper in a lone building, guarding the bridge. If he doesn't make his first shot, where is he going to displace? He's in one building with nowhere else to go. By the time he displaces, his target is long gone, or perhaps sniffing him out.

If I were the German sniper (and granted I never had sniper training, but I have had urban warfare training), if I missed my first shot, I would have displaced to another position within the building which I had picked out in advance: a place to cover any entrance should someone enter.

Really, it was a lucky shot on our hero's part that he was able to get the sniper through such a small window.

 

Remind me not to go one-on-one with you. Never would have thought of that. Great plan.

 

Although I agree that he should probably have moved I don't think he was a sniper more likely just one of the troops in the town told to watch the bridge, if he was a sniper he would have taken the British soldier out as he crossed the bridge, elevated position, clear field of fire, quite short range, that guy would never have made it across if he was a proper sniper, also I may have missed it, but I didn't notice a scope on his rifle.

I'm more puzzled by how everything made of paper survived the river, were the orders written in pencil? When he sits under the tree everything seems bone dry, it looked like he just put things in his pockets or a book, no sign of an oilskin pouch or am I over thinking things.

 

yeah, I thought that as well. I'd need to see it again, but didn't he have some sort of metal tin in his breast pocket?

re the sniper nitpicking....I also don't remember seeing a scope on the Germans rifle

 

The conflict is close range here, so would a scope be necessary? One question would be, does a sniper need a scope to be engaged in the act of sniping?

 

Well, the minute I put a scope on my Crossman 760 BB gun, it was a whole new world. I still feel bad about the bird I cant believe I hit at that range. where was Atticus Finch when I needed him.?

 

Necessary no, but if he was a sniper then he'd likely have one and use it, if you have a scope you zero it in and keep it mounted, I believe the Germans were way ahead of the British in the quality and deployment of optics so I assume that by 1917 a German sniper would have a decent scope by the standards of the day, Britain was playing catch up throughout the war and issued some pretty poor sights especially early on, we also imported a ton of optics from the States, I have some WWI binoculars which are US made for the British War Department. Three years earlier it was the accuracy of British rifle fire without scopes from the B.E.F. that stopped the Germans in their tracks, likewise there were plenty of crack shots in the German forces whether snipers or not.

 

Snipers in the First World War

 

I don't recall if he had a scope. I thought I saw one in the scene where our boy opened the door on him, but I may be mistaken. It was so quick. And while its true that German snipers had much better optics at the start of the war, by 1917 they were churning them out at a much quicker clip. Training wasn't what it used to be. Moreover, the life expectancy of a sniper was pretty low, much the same as it was in WWII.

Regardless, if our boy in the window wasn't a sniper, only a sentry taking shot at the soldier crossing the bridge, he was a fool not to displace after failing at his first couple of shots. You can't go back and tell your mates that there's a British soldier in if you're dead.

 

As you say, poor training, I'm going to find someone going to see it and ask them to look out for a scope, whilst trying not to give anything away or spoil things for them, maybe I should find someone seeing it for a second time, assuming the rifle is clearly visible we may get an answer before the DVD comes out.

 

Just back from seeing it. Most enjoyable flick I've seen in a theater in 20 years... some of it was indeed breathtaking... end was a tad anticlimactic although I can't honestly tell you how I woulda resolved it... regardless, loved it!

 

I thought the ending was perfect. the usual Hollywood ending would be that he got there just in time - and none of those poor souls would've gone over the top.
obviously, his heroism saved many lives - but those who went in the first wave were sadly doomed and would've been cut to pieces in seconds

 

This is what one might call a spoiler.

 

ah damn, I assumed people reading this thread would've already watched the movie

 

This current generation of moviegoers hasn't seen a film about World War 1, unless they went out to see They Shall Not Grow Old, so this is educational for them. It managed to put you into this situation.

America's main World War 1 museum is in my hometown of Kansas City. When I was a kid, it was all dusty doughboy uniforms and didn't seem like it is it all happened a million years ago and had no impact. Since then, they have refurbished it and they tried to get you the feeling of being in that war.

By the way, I had no problem with the sniper not being particularly talented. Neither of the two main characters were distinguished soldiers - one was picked because his brother was in one of the divisions under peril, and the other was his buddy. Why should the last guy left guarding a blown up bridge be a great sniper?

 

Wow, I knew there were tons and tons of visual effects in the movie, but who knew that 91% of the movie had some form of VFX in it? Or that a lot of the river sequence was entirely CGI? This article reveals quite a bit...

'1917': Inside the War Drama's Seamless VFX Stitchery

It's brilliant work, and I often say, "the best kind of movie visual effects are the one you don't even notice, because it seems absolutely real."

 

I think it’s probably safe to assume it’s 50/50. I wouldn’t beat yourself up too much about it.

 

The german's aim at a stationary target (from such short a distance) suggests he'd never lifted his weapon before, so maybe he was the company's mechanic or nearsighted typist?

 

There had to be some reason they left him behind after the rest of the troops had moved on.

 

Recall, the whole town was occupied by Germans in groups of ones and twos.

I would have to brush up on my history - and admittedly I haven't spent too much time studying the Imperial German army - but it seems to me I've read about classes within the German army, where some regiments would get the crap jobs. Like perhaps guarding the rear of a withdrawal, or the opposite, used as cannon fodder. I believe this practice happened in the French army, and to a lesser extent, the British army (like how the Australians were treated early on), but I'm not quite clear on the details.

It seems to me that this happened in WWII, as well. Of course there were labor battalions, too, but that doesn't always mean poor troops, because the British army had fine able-bodied men in labor battalions, some of which acquitted themselves well during the Spring 1918 German offensive.

I guess I'm saying, perhaps it's looking into the movie too much, but at the very least we see some groups of Germans who weren't expecting the British. The "sentry" seemed inexperienced and some of the Germans were drunk. But that could have been them just letting loose because they weren't at the front. I, for one, thought that the filmmakers were trying to show that at least. That's the way our hero made it through, past a thin rear guard.

It also makes me wonder what the disposition of the lines were, because after the Germans withdrew, it almost seems like the town was situated to the rear of a British line. I'm not sure how the bulk of the German forces made the withdrawal undetected by forward British elements. It took aerial photography to discover that the Boche slipped away.

 

I got out of the theatre a few years ago and absolutely adored this film and had my mind blown over the VFX and cinematography...


With one small caveat: when Schofield jumps out from the platform and into the falls. There was some weird morph / rotoscoped crossfade from the live action to what I assume is CGI and back again. It just looks weird and took me out of the movie for a bit

 

Hours ago*

 

Went with my son (29) to see this and we thought was a remarkable and great film.

Note - the 'well known' main actors don't have that much screen time - the story after all isn't about them.

In the UK, 1917 has just won 7 out of 9 Bafta nominations, including Best Film, Director and Cinematography, and deservedly so.

 

Saw the movie a 2nd time over the weekend. It was so much better the 2nd time! Literally breath-taking in certain moments. An outstanding film!