Spielberg's '1917'

[tocemma]

10 hours ago, Steven Broomfield said:

 

A truly excellent film. It was on TPTV a week or two back; I hadn't seen it for 40 years. What a great movie. Almost a documentary. Certainly shows 1917 for what it is. Or possibly for what it isn't.

I totally agree. It is a tad corny in places, but a fantastic film with a real period feel. I love the scenes of painting and bombing up the vehicles with the late Desmond Llewellyn (The original Q from the Bond films) and the tank charge with Sherman Firefly tanks evident. Also a very early appearance by Christopher Lee. Genuine German afv's used too. 

 

As to '1917' well I guess that has proved that you 'can't polish one, or roll it in glitter'

Well deserved cinematography award though. Costumes were excellent too, probably as good as we'll ever see in a WW1 film, far too many Cruise helmets as I mentioned in my previous post on the movie. Oh well.

[David Filsell]

Un - Oskered . Glad it wont be listed amongst the Great Movies - it means I won't get trapped into watching on Talking Pictures when I'm in nursing home 

My son, a great (modern) film enthusiast  thinks the film will make more people take a serious interest in the Great war - I suspect not

After 5 years of Great War flood of books, films, radio etc.  I suspect those who really want to know more of the conflict will carry like forumistas whilst most will remain blissfully uninterested.

 

[David Filsell]

Spoilers made do not good films destroy!

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

10 minutes ago, David Filsell said:

My son, a great (modern) film enthusiast  thinks the film will make more people take a serious interest in the Great war

I've never bought into this philosophy.

Most people go to watch a film for entertainment.

If they seek a deeper enlightenment, then they will probably know a fair bit about the subject matter already.

People will take no more interest in the Great War after watching 1917, than they did in citrus fruit after the release of Clockwork Orange.

[keithfazzani]

It was a film, a story. I like reading novels, they tell a story, some may have bits that are true some may not. They may or may not rouse my interest in a subject, but I read them because I like story, as humankind has since the beginning, sitting around the hearth listening to storytellers. Does anyone believe that the Greek Myths are true or accurate, of course not. But the story they tell is of humanity, feelings, reactions, courage, fear, love, etc etc. This film, any film is story it is as simple as that. 

[Steven Broomfield]

1 hour ago, David Filsell said:

 

My son, a great (modern) film enthusiast  thinks the film will make more people take a serious interest in the Great war - I suspect not

 

 

 

I'm with you and Dr Dai on this one. You only have to look at the falling numbers of GW books once the centenary had run its course to get the feel that fads and fashions don't include a proper study of 'our' war.

[Chris11]

I saw the film the other night and am still not quite sure what to think. It was good as entertainment and the attention to detail was generally good. But in a sense there-in lies my dilemma. Having gone to great lengths to get so much detail right, I feel disappointed when it doesn't go the whole way and reflect a true representation. I am left with a feeling that there are so many real stories that could have been used for the story line, that a fictitious one disappoints. I guess this is because so many of us have researched so much of the detail of this war, especially regimental involvement in different aspects and places, that there is a certain affront to our facts when confronted with the regiments involved, as plausible and well chosen as they seem to have been. 

 

Still it's a good film and I do think it might spark some people's interest, not necessarily in WW1 but the horror's and pointlessness of war - a message that's probably needed at this point in time. In that regard I am slightly disappointed that it did move on from the mud and barbed wire of the early scenes to the pleasant green pastures  used in most of the film. I accept the technical accuracy of this as the German front line had been moved so far, but I assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that this was fairly untypical and thus a "sort of misrepresentation" brought about by this particular storyline.

 

Aside from the less than credible aspects that I've already seen in this thread (the canal/ravine, the milk, the stabbing of the saviour) there were two aspects that did slightly irritate throughout. Firstly was the total absence of British artillery, a few soft noises in the background wouldn't have brought that horror aspect of the war to life, and the casual viewer is left with no idea that heavy artillery was so much a feature of the war (and the same true of tanks). Secondly, having worked hard to cover ethnic diversity, there was little in the way of diversity of British accents. Until the truck came on the scene, with a few token accents, everybody else came from London. I found this aspect quite unconvincing, though I accept that since it was made for a global audience perhaps to do anything else would have been unhelpful to the majority of viewers.

 

I am left with a few questions.

How close to a real storyline could this have been?

How representative was it that the Devonshire's were in that position at the time?

I am assuming the "Yorks" were the Yorkshire and Lancaster regiment based on the cap badge. Was that representative of their involvement at the time?

Exactly which regiment did Schofield and Blake come from?

I've read they mocked up a real village/town for some of the scenes. Does anyone know what village/town this was modelled on?

 

"I hoped it was going to be a good week. Hope can be a dangerous thing"

[Rob Comber]

7 minutes ago, Chris11 said:

I saw the film the other night and am still not quite sure what to think. It was good as entertainment and the attention to detail was generally good. But in a sense there-in lies my dilemma. Having gone to great lengths to get so much detail right, I feel disappointed when it doesn't go the whole way and reflect a true representation. I am left with a feeling that there are so many real stories that could have been used for the story line, that a fictitious one disappoints. I guess this is because so many of us have researched so much of the detail of this war, especially regimental involvement in different aspects and places, that there is a certain affront to our facts when confronted with the regiments involved, as plausible and well chosen as they seem to have been. 

 

Still it's a good film and I do think it might spark some people's interest, not necessarily in WW1 but the horror's and pointlessness of war - a message that's probably needed at this point in time. In that regard I am slightly disappointed that it did move on from the mud and barbed wire of the early scenes to the pleasant green pastures  used in most of the film. I accept the technical accuracy of this as the German front line had been moved so far, but I assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that this was fairly untypical and thus a "sort of misrepresentation" brought about by this particular storyline.

 

Aside from the less than credible aspects that I've already seen in this thread (the canal/ravine, the milk, the stabbing of the saviour) there were two aspects that did slightly irritate throughout. Firstly was the total absence of British artillery, a few soft noises in the background wouldn't have brought that horror aspect of the war to life, and the casual viewer is left with no idea that heavy artillery was so much a feature of the war (and the same true of tanks). Secondly, having worked hard to cover ethnic diversity, there was little in the way of diversity of British accents. Until the truck came on the scene, with a few token accents, everybody else came from London. I found this aspect quite unconvincing, though I accept that since it was made for a global audience perhaps to do anything else would have been unhelpful to the majority of viewers.

 

I am left with a few questions.

How close to a real storyline could this have been?

How representative was it that the Devonshire's were in that position at the time?

I am assuming the "Yorks" were the Yorkshire and Lancaster regiment based on the cap badge. Was that representative of their involvement at the time?

Exactly which regiment did Schofield and Blake come from?

I've read they mocked up a real village/town for some of the scenes. Does anyone know what village/town this was modelled on?

 

"I hoped it was going to be a good week. Hope can be a dangerous thing"

I was also rritated by the lack of correct British  accents as per the units involved, given that so much care was taken with diversity in other respects.

It is a shame they didn’t simply base the film on a true story. I’m watching Beneath Hill 60. Excellent movie and of course, based on real events 

I had hoped 1917 would be based on the Messiness attack, nevertheless 

I did still enjoy it despite the improbable story line 

[593jones]

3 hours ago, Chris11 said:

 

I am assuming the "Yorks" were the Yorkshire and Lancaster regiment based on the cap badge. 

 

 

 

Just a point, the regiment is the York and Lancaster Regiment, not Yorkshire and Lancaster and properly abbreviated to York and Lancs, not Yorks and Lancs, a not infrequent solecism which does tread on my corns.  The officer was certainly wearing York and Lancs collar badges, so it might have been good to have had some Yorkshire accents audible.

[Chris11]

45 minutes ago, 593jones said:

 

Just a point, the regiment is the York and Lancaster Regiment, not Yorkshire and Lancaster and properly abbreviated to York and Lancs, not Yorks and Lancs, a not infrequent solecism which does tread on my corns.  The officer was certainly wearing York and Lancs collar badges, so it might have been good to have had some Yorkshire accents audible.

My apologies, shoddy transference from my research to my writing. Thanks for pulling me up on it.

Agreed, on the accents in general, though my understanding was that there was much recruitment well outside of regimental areas, my own grandfather was recruited into the West Yorkshire regiment at a recruitment table (for want of a better or more correct term) in New Cross, London. So I didn't expect necessarily for the accent to follow the regiment, I just expected to see a much broader range and proportion of regional accents.

[better ole]

Re accents, I thought that conscription sent troops to wherever replacements were needed?

[Rob Comber]

Definitely and a lot of regiments recruited from London. I know my Great Grandad’s Regiment the Royal Sussex did, especially later in the war 

I still think they missed a trick there 

even a couple of Devon accents in the Devons and a couple of Yorkshire accents in the York and Lancaster’s  would’ve been a nice touch 

[Black Maria]

8 hours ago, Chris11 said:

 

 

Still it's a good film and I do think it might spark some people's interest, not necessarily in WW1 but the horror's and pointlessness of war - a message that's probably needed at this point in time. In that regard I am slightly disappointed that it did move on from the mud and barbed wire of the early scenes to the pleasant green pastures  used in most of the film. I accept the technical accuracy of this as the German front line had been moved so far, but I assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that this was fairly untypical and thus a "sort of misrepresentation" brought about by this particular storyline.

 

 

 

 

I quite enjoyed the fact that they got away from the muddy moonscape of no-man's-land that seems to be the norm in  WW1 films . One of my favourite scenes in 'The Trench'

was when they went over the top on the first day of the Somme and walked across a grass meadow , okay it didn't have any shell holes and the grass was very short but it was

refreshing to see different aspect depicted rather than the usual 'Passchendaele' moonscape . 

[Rob Comber]

I liked the contrast too. The chalk trenches were a different look and of course quite authentic to the area 

I didn’t think they were initially but my dad who is far more knowledgeable than I on the matter set me straight on that score 

[593jones]

4 hours ago, Chris11 said:

My apologies, shoddy transference from my research to my writing. Thanks for pulling me up on it.

Agreed, on the accents in general, though my understanding was that there was much recruitment well outside of regimental areas, my own grandfather was recruited into the West Yorkshire regiment at a recruitment table (for want of a better or more correct term) in New Cross, London. So I didn't expect necessarily for the accent to follow the regiment, I just expected to see a much broader range and proportion of regional accents.

 

No problem, Chris, just me being grumpy!

 

It's interesting that your grandfather was recruited in London for the West Yorkshires, how did that come about?  Did he not have a regimental preference, or did he just join up and go where they sent him?  My own grandfather enlisted in January 1915, in the 14th York and Lancaster Regiment, and in April 1917 was serving in the 6th York and Lancs.  It would be interesting to know how that battalion was composed by then, as, although formed in Pontefract in 1914, by1917 it had served in Gallipoli and the Somme, so possibly replacements were from different parts of the country and the Yorkshire element had become diluted.

[H M Hulme]

On 09/02/2020 at 19:50, seaJane said:

Saluting is not saluting the person but saluting the monarch as represented by the full uniform, which must, therefore, be full, i.e. includes caps on.

 

Protocol is that junior salutes senior and senior acknowledges, within the three services and across services. Right hand: palm out for the Army, RAF and Marines, palm down for the RN and RNAS.

 

Exceptions include having your hands full (tray of food etc) in which case a sharp nod of the head suffices, if I recall correctly.

Thank you. That's very helpful.

[H M Hulme]

48 minutes ago, Rob Comber said:

Definitely and a lot of regiments recruited from London. I know my Great Grandad’s Regiment the Royal Sussex did, especially later in the war 

I still think they missed a trick there 

even a couple of Devon accents in the Devons and a couple of Yorkshire accents in the York and Lancaster’s  would’ve been a nice touch 

 

In similar vein... 

 

I took this photo a month ago in Shrewsbury Abbey. I was interested in the range of units and regiments in which these Shrewsbury men served, some quite far afield. I assume many would have moved away from their home town and thus joined up in (say) Manchester  - and others would have transferred (or been transferred) during the war, on return from sick leave, maybe - or to a newly formed Regiment like the Machine Gun Corps. Does this make sense?

 

Apologises for the unhelpful angle. I was trying not to look like a Wilfred Owen groupie 

 

(PS My maternal grandfather was KSLI. He joined up as in September 1914 in Shrewsbury and made it home in 1919 with only a couple of bouts of toothache.)

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

Regarding the accents..

It's always delightful to watch the Great War interviews with the men who were there.

Almost all of them had very pronounced accents and almost all different, even the soldiers from the South East who had a variety of subtly different accents.

Being force fed Eastenders, Jim Davidson, Bradley Walsh etc on TV, we tend to forget that Estuary English is a relatively new phenomenon, which has caused a significant disappearance of local accents - Essex, Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire and more.

It wasn't really surprising, although extremely disappointing that most of  the accents heard in the film were Estuarine.

[Moonraker]

There appears to be ongoing correspondence in the Daily Telegraph about "how accurate is '1917'?" (I look at the Telegraph only a couple of times a week, and apart from a teaser article it's available on-line only behind a paywall. In the February 11 issue, one Dr Fopp lamented historical inaccuracies, and in today's edition a reader has visited the Prince Consort's Library in Aldershot to lok at trench maps, including one for April 6, 1917, in an attempt to match locations suggested in the film. He points out that "on that fateful day in 1917" the 2nd Devons were in billets 18 miles to the south of where the film suggested.

 

I infer that Dr Fopp criticised the absence of pickets.

 

A retired brigadier points out that no general would entrust such a mission to two young lance-corporals and repeats the observation that the message could have been dropped aircraft.

 

Moonraker

[healdav]

14 hours ago, H M Hulme said:

Thank you. That's very helpful.

There are even rules about how to sit attention in a hospital bed.

[H M Hulme]

9 minutes ago, healdav said:

There are even rules about how to sit attention in a hospital bed.

 

Ooooh! Do you have a source?

[H M Hulme]

53 minutes ago, Moonraker said:

A retired brigadier points out that no general would entrust such a mission to two young lance-corporals and repeats the observation that the message could have been dropped aircraft.

 

 

Well, that would be a very short film, wouldn't it?

 

I'm fascinated by the dedication to detail on this thread - keep it coming! - but, at the end of the day, it's only a story - and a rattling good one. So long as a school kid doesn't actually fail her history exam because she watched 1917...!

Edited 13 February , 2020 by H M Hulme

[Chris11]

15 hours ago, 593jones said:

 

No problem, Chris, just me being grumpy!

 

It's interesting that your grandfather was recruited in London for the West Yorkshires, how did that come about?  Did he not have a regimental preference, or did he just join up and go where they sent him?  My own grandfather enlisted in January 1915, in the 14th York and Lancaster Regiment, and in April 1917 was serving in the 6th York and Lancs.  It would be interesting to know how that battalion was composed by then, as, although formed in Pontefract in 1914, by1917 it had served in Gallipoli and the Somme, so possibly replacements were from different parts of the country and the Yorkshire element had become diluted.

In actual fact he signed up in June 1909, in New Cross. I have no way of knowing how this would have taken place but perhaps Army recruitment offices fed a range of regiments and men were placed according to their skills and regiment needs. There is no other link to Yorkshire, and his own father had been in the Royal Artillery, a natural regiment for men around Woolwich. Interestingly, in reading a document detailing his, and the regiment's experiences I see that on 11th April 1917 (roughly the time of the film) my grandfather's 2nd Battalion was around Nurlu and the weather was said to be bitterly cold including snowstorms. 

[pierssc]

14 minutes ago, Chris11 said:

Interestingly, in reading a document detailing his, and the regiment's experiences I see that on 11th April 1917 (roughly the time of the film) my grandfather's 2nd Battalion was around Nurlu and the weather was said to be bitterly cold including snowstorms. 

Too right.  On 3rd April my grandfather's Squadron was at La Gorgue.  "Got up to find a snow drift inside the tent snow covering certain of our goods and chattels. Snowed most of the forenoon and in the afternoon cleared up."

[kenf48]

1 hour ago, Moonraker said:

A retired brigadier points out that no general would entrust such a mission to two young lance-corporals and repeats the observation that the message could have been dropped aircraft.

Well as we long ago went off topic:- 

This is an extract of an Op Order for operations on the first day of the Arras Offensive.  Why didn't they just use the pigeons? 

(image courtesy Ancestry)

oh I forgot, they already made that movie featuring the immortal Dastardley and Muttley

 

Ken