"1917" Teases
Thursday, August 1, 2019 at 11:42PM by Nathaniel R
Sam Mendes burst on to the movie scene 20 years ago with a surprise blockbuster and Best Picture winner American Beauty as debut. There were diminishing returns thereafter, at least in terms of public opinion. Road to Perdition, Jarhead, Revolutionary Road, and Away We Go followed, each grossing less than their predecessor. A two film detour to the 007 franchise (Skyfall and Spectre) rescued him in the eyes of big picture Hollywood, though it should probably be noted that people rarely think of James Bond movies as belonging to their directors.
Can Mendes return to major auteur acclaim with his World War I epic, 1917 ? If this tease is indication he very well might...
Mendes never lost his mojo onstage where his career began (he's won 5 Tonys over his career as well as honors on the West End). This tease looks intense and thus promising and doesn't give much of the game away. The promo doesn't list the actors but Mendes has always managed impressive casts and guided fine performances, even in his less successful pictures.
1917 features Richard Madden, Mark Strong, and Andrew Scott and a slew of others but the teaser, hyperfocused as it is on the "deliver a message" setup, mainly shows us Colin Firth giving the movie plot (?) orders to George MacKay (the rising actor of Pride and Captain Fantastic fame) and Dean-Charles Chapman (Into the Badlands, Game of Thrones). We'll save a full 'Yes No Maybe So' until the next trailer.
We're still most excited by the non-teaser rumor that some of this (at least) is going to be an epically long continuous shot... a highwire gamble that always makes us horny for MORE CINEMA. MORE. MORE. MORE. CINEMA FOREVER.
Reader Comments (8)
what are your legs?
springs. steel springs.
what are they going to do?
hurl me down the track.
how fast can you run?
as fast as a leopard.
how fast are you going to run?
as fast as a leopard!
ok, let's see you-...
oops, wrong movie.
I was a big YES for this movie soon as I saw Deakins' name attached.
Good call par. I immediately thought of Peter Weir's pacifist masterpiece.
So it's a mirror of Paths of Glory? Yeah...sorry, this concept is a WWII movie. I'm out. The basic concept goes against the entire spirit of WWI. Also: Referring to anyone in WWI as an "enemy", when WWI was grey even by war standards? That's just BAD marketing.
I am onboard with these three facts:
1) Mendes
2) Deakins
3) World War I, the most underrepresented war in films
I can't get enthused for yet another formal, dignified war movie with no female characters.
LOL, Deakins gonna win his second in a walk after taking so bloody long to get his first.
It's not exactly near the top of my list of must sees, but I guess we're going to have to aren't we?
Also, this ain't a teaser. It's a trailer. Why are we calling trailers teasers? THE IRISHMAN did it, too.
I'm not sure the movie will turn out great (the men on a mission thing has been done to death in war movies after all), but I'm guessing Thomas Newman will probably knock it out of the park (as he so often does). I'd say he's the odd-on favourite to finally win an Oscar next year, right? And about damn time too!