As We Enter The Final
Phase Of The 100th Commemoration Of World War I With Armistice
Day-November 11, 1918-Thoughts On The Film “King Of Hearts” (1966)
DVD Review
By Josh Breslin
King of Hearts, Alan
Bates, Genevieve Bujold, 1966
These days, apparently,
we can no longer just go through our paces and do whatever review or commentary
we were assigned but also have to comment on how and why we received the
assignment from our still fairly new site manager Greg Green. Greg has
encouraged, if not demanded, that we go to genesis, so the reader can be more
informed about how the new field of on-line publication works with the new
technology. These kinds of insights in publishing used to be reserved in the
now old-fashioned hard copy days to insider memoirs by publishers, writers and
editors. Greg has told me he is trying to demystify the whole process and get
the story out while it is “hot” and fresh.
That said, normally
anything of late having to do with commemorating the 100th
anniversary of the end of World War I would be the purview of Seth Garth who
has been running a couple of series the past four years (the duration of that war from August, 1914 on until November,
1918) around the effect that the carnage had on the flower of the European
youth especially the cultural worker, the writers, artists, poets, musicians,
and occasional dancers who were engaged in this conflict along with the rest of
their generation. He worked, is working still, on retrospectives for the
extraordinary number of cultural figured killed or maimed in the war. And of
those who maimed or not survived the war and as a result produced a very
different kind of work, noticeably different than either their own pre-war work
or that of the leading schools and academies in the various disciplines. The
reason I got this review of the classic French film King of Hearts though, even though Seth very much wanted the
assignment as part of his take on World War I, was that way back when, back in
1973 if I recall I had reviewed the film for The East Bay Other. I had actually seen the film in Cambridge where
it played continuously for many years at the now long-gone Central Square
Cinema to usually sold-out crowds and became a local cult classic which people
would have contests over how many times they had seen the film or cite various
lines from the film off the cuff for fun. Greg’s idea was for me to compare
that first review with my recent re-watching (along with Seth and our
respective companions) and do a comparison. Genesis over here goes.
There are many quotes,
many of them by military figures who should know the hard face of war and have
opinions on its futility even if they cannot go the distance and in effect
become conscientious objectors to war after the fact. Famously key Union Army
General U. S. Grant said “war was hell,” bemedaled Marine Corp General Smedley
Butler said “war was a racket,” Colonel James Johnson said after Vietnam that
war was not a fit occupation for human endeavor and those who profess otherwise
should be in an insane asylum, a mental hospital, a nut house is what he
actually said but I wanted to soften the blow for today’s sensibilities about
the mentally challenged. That latter comment gives me a segue into the film
under review where the metaphor, and the reality of that statement meet.
We have all heard about
the inmates running the asylum and in this case not only are they running the
asylum but are running amok, harmlessly running amok during the catastrophe of
war and who is to say that they are not better off for their troubles,
Certainly compared with the inmates who are running the war which has come to
their door. Let’s set the stage (Sam Lowell, good old, what did one young
reviewer here call him, oh yes, wizened, Sam Lowell used to harp on giving the
‘skinny” but Greg Green has frowned on that expression since none of the
younger writers and stringers know what the damn thing means) for this beauty
of an anti-war film which stops everybody in his or her tracks when you see the
very visceral comparison between the mentally ill asylum patients in their
harmless splendor and the mentally ill guys running the rack on French soil
toward the end attempting to kill every last enemy and a few extra if necessary
in the fog of war, October 1918 to be more specific, tidying up the loose ends
of the war machine, of the war that would end all wars if I recall somebody
rashly said in defense of starting the whole thing at all.
The Germans, facing
defeat, facing mutiny in their navy and in some army units and unrest back home
in the factories in dear Berlin, are in the last throes of their military
activities in northern occupied France. As a parting gift they are setting up
enough explosives to blow the whole town to kingdom come. Nice gesture toward
armistice, right. The British who are in front of the town and who have been
there for years it seems in the stalemated trench warfare that defined that
conflict are informed of that provocation and are prepared to take measures to
ensure that when they retake the town for their French brethren they too are
not blown to bits. Fair enough. Those measures, rather that measure is to send
an explosives expert, played by Alan Bates, to disarm the whole munitions dump.
Problem, problem number one, really this private soldier doesn’t know thing
number one about explosives being part of the messenger pigeon unit. From there
it is one escapade after another as he tries, as any “good” soldier would to do
as ordered. No luck, none really since he can’t decode the information
headquarters has received about its location. Don’t worry in the end that dump
will be neutralized. That’s the subplot anyway and would make this film a
snorer with the silly antics around disarming the dump if there wasn’t a stronger
message.
Here is the real deal.
Since the Germans have left as have all sane citizens once they know the place
is ready to blow the only ones who are clueless, who don’t know what is about
to happen are the inmates, are the cuckoos in the insane asylum. Since the good
Sisters in charge have scrammed the inmates open the door and walk into town
where they make the place a playground for fun and amusement. Meanwhile that
earnest private is trying to do his best to disarm the munitions-and is drawn into
their doings-drawn in as their very own king of hearts for whom they have been
waiting. Nice.
To make a long story
short because both the antics of the “simple-minded” who somehow seem very sane
and made me wonder why they were the ones locked up and the soldiery trying to
disarm the dump need not detain us let’s get to the point, points rather which
are drawn from this film. On the war front the Germans find out that the
British have disarmed the munitions dump and march back into town and the
British in turn assuming the coast is clear are ready to march in and do so.
Enemies again they square off-not in the trenches of yore, none are around but
each side going back to some bizarre and arcane 19th century drill
formation set up firing lines against each other. Bang, bang every freaking
soldier is uselessly dead over this pratfall. Except our King of Hearts who was
elsewhere hanging around a beautiful butterfly of a young woman, one of the
inmates, one too delicate for the real world, played by Guineviere Bujold who
many guys, maybe gals too, would lose sleep over. As the townspeople return and
the King of Hearts sullenly goes back to his regiment, or what is left of it,
the inmates seeing that reality is far from what it cracked up to be if what
they witnessed with the combative soldierly was any example return to the
asylum and lock themselves back in. Beautiful. Better, better still the King of
Hearts torn maybe between two duties heads back up the road to the asylum.
Desertion yes, but another beautiful scene.
All Quiet on the Western Front, The Grand Illusion, Johnny Got His
Gun may all be extremely
good examples of cinematic excellence around the madness of World War I. Throw
this one in the mix too and you will not be too far off.
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