1917 (2019): A Breathless Odyssey Through the Hell of No Man’s Land

In the flickering shadows of World War I, one unbroken thread weaves a tale of desperate brotherhood and unyielding grit.

Sam Mendes’s 1917 plunges viewers into the visceral chaos of the Great War, crafting a cinematic marvel that feels like a single, relentless surge forward. Through its groundbreaking long-take illusion, the film transforms personal survival into a universal pulse-pounder, echoing the raw humanity amid mechanised slaughter.

  • The technical wizardry of the one-shot style immerses audiences in real-time peril, blurring lines between film and lived nightmare.
  • Two lance corporals embody quiet heroism, their bond forged in the furnace of futile orders and fleeting hope.
  • From dawn raids to ruined landscapes, 1917 revives trench warfare’s horror while honouring its unsung toll on the British Expeditionary Force.

The Single Breath That Captivates: Unpacking the Long-Take Mastery

Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins orchestrate 1917 as a faux single take, stitching shots into seamless continuity across nearly two hours. This approach demands precision choreography, with hundreds of extras, practical effects, and Steadicam rigs navigating bombed-out sets built on Hertfordshire farmland. The result grips like a fever dream, forcing spectators to inhabit the soldiers’ disorientation—no cuts for relief, just the grind of mud-slicked advance.

Consider the night sequence in the ruined town: flames lick at collapsing structures as flares illuminate snipers in the rubble. Deakins’s lens glides through windows, over rooftops, capturing the uncanny stillness before violence erupts. This isn’t mere gimmickry; it mirrors the war’s interminable dread, where time stretches in foxholes and contracts in assaults. Production diaries reveal rehearsals spanning months, with actors like George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman running miles daily to embody exhaustion organically.

The technique draws from precedents like Orson Welles’s deep-focus experiments or Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark, yet Mendes infuses it with populist urgency. No intertitles or montages interrupt; instead, wristwatches and fading light mark progression, rooting viewers in 1917’s April 6 timeline. Critics hailed this as immersive evolution, akin to video game first-person perspectives, but grounded in analogue sweat—cranes hidden in trenches, hidden cuts masked by soldier falls or camera dives into grass.

Authenticity permeates every frame: period-accurate uniforms sourced from Imperial War Museum archives, rats bred for scenes, and pyrotechnics timed to perfection. Deakins, fresh from Blade Runner 2049, employs 16mm and 35mm stocks for a grainy tactility, evoking nitrate prints from the era. This fusion elevates 1917 beyond spectacle, into a meditation on perception under duress.

Brothers in the Barrage: Lance Corporals Schofield and Blake

At the story’s core, Dean-Charles Chapman’s Blake draws Will Schofield into a suicide dash across no man’s land. Blake’s farm-boy naivety clashes with Schofield’s haunted pragmatism, their banter a fragile bulwark against atrocity. Chapman, known from Game of Thrones, infuses boyish eagerness that shatters viscerally, while MacKay’s stoic gaze conveys layers of suppressed trauma.

Their mission—to deliver a recall order to the 2nd Devonshires amid a feigned German retreat—unfurls in micro-dramas: a booby-trapped corpse, a milk-lamb’s mercy kill, an airfield inferno. These beats humanise the Western Front’s statistics, where 20,000 Brits fell on July 1, 1916 alone. Mendes, inspired by his grandfather’s Somme dispatches, scripts dialogue sparse yet poignant, letting silence amplify shellshock’s void.

Supporting turns amplify the ensemble: Colin Firth’s brusque general, Andrew Scott’s whisky-soaked cynic, and Benedict Cumberbatch’s rallying colonel. Each cameo etches command’s callousness, from top-down gambles to frontline forfeit. The film’s score, Thomas Newman’s percussive thrum, underscores this hierarchy, swelling with strings only in rare respite.

Gender dynamics subtly intrude via a Frenchwoman (Claire Duburcq) sheltering an orphaned babe—echoing war’s orphaning of innocence. Schofield’s lullaby moment pierces armour, a nod to soldiers’ domestic anchors amid desolation.

No Man’s Land Labyrinth: Landscapes of Despair

The traverse from British trenches to German-held Écoust evolves through hellscapes: corpse-strewn craters, cherry blossoms mocking carnage, Éerie flares over skeletal woods. Production designer Nathan Crowley recreated these from 1917 photos, burying telegraph poles and seeding flax for authenticity. This topography isn’t backdrop but antagonist, slowing protagonists with sucking mire and wire entanglements.

Deakins’s lighting mastery shines here—dawn’s golden haze yields to twilight’s Stygian gloom, flares casting hellish glows. Sound design by Scott Millan layers the assault: distant thuds crescendo to whiplash cracks, muffled by helmets. Immersion peaks in the tunnel crawl, bioluminescent rats the sole light, evoking primordial fear.

Environmental storytelling rivals Apocalypse Now‘s riverine decay, but Mendes roots it in Passchendaele’s 1917 sludge. Collector’s lore prizes props like Schofield’s Lee-Enfield rifle, replicated with firing mechanisms for blanks. These details reward rewatches, unveiling hidden dog tags or ration tins etched with lore.

Climactic charges blend slow-motion poetry with staccato horror, plane dogfights overhead a balletic counterpoint to ground meat-grinder. Victory’s pyrrhic cost lingers, Schofield collapsing amid cheers—a survivor’s hollow triumph.

From Grandfather’s Letters: Personal Stakes in Epic Canvas

Mendes channels Alfred Mendes’s frontline accounts, infusing 1917 with familial verisimilitude. The director’s research spanned Oxford’s Bodleian Library war poetry and BBC veteran tapes, yielding flourishes like singing Jolly Good Luck to the Girl Who Loves a Soldier. This anchors spectacle in testimony, countering jingoism with quiet devastation.

Production hurdles tested resolve: Brexit delayed location permits in France, prompting UK builds; COVID shadows loomed post-premiere. Yet Mendes’s theatre roots—directing Cabaret revivals—ensured actor intimacy, with Chapman and MacKay bunking together for rapport.

Marketing leaned technical prowess, trailers teasing seamlessness sans spoilers. Box office soared to $384 million on $100 million budget, Oscars netting ten nominations including Best Picture. Legacy endures in film schools dissecting its rig, influencing long-takes in Birdman successors.

1917 bridges silents like Wings (1927) to modern epics, revitalising war genre sans supersoldiers. Its restraint—minimal gore, maximal implication—invites reflection on futile fronts, from Somme to today.

Director in the Spotlight: Sam Mendes

Samuel Alexander Mendes, born 1 August 1965 in Reading, England, to a Trinidadian academic father and English literature professor mother, grew up steeped in storytelling. Educated at Magdalen College School and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he directed plays like The Importance of Being Earnest, Mendes cut teeth at Minerva Studio Theatre in Chichester. By 1992, he helmed the Donmar Warehouse, revitalising West End with revivals of Cabaret (1993, Olivier Award), Assassins (1992), and Glengarry Glen Ross (1991).

Feature debut American Beauty (1999) exploded, winning Best Director Oscar for its suburban satire starring Kevin Spacey. Mendes followed with Road to Perdition (2002), a noirish Depression-era tale with Tom Hanks; Jarhead (2005), Sam Mendes’s Gulf War anti-epic probing Marine psyche; Revolutionary Road (2008), reuniting DiCaprio and Winslet in Yates adaptation; and Away We Go (2009), a road-trip dramedy penned by Dave Eggers.

James Bond tenure defined 2010s: Skyfall (2012, $1.1 billion gross, second-highest Bond earner) revived franchise post-Craig; Spectre (2015) delved organisation lore amid global chases. 1917 (2019) marked war pivot, earning third Best Director nod. Recent: Empire of Light (2022), Olivia Colman starrer on 1980s cinema romance; stage returns include The Lehman Trilogy (2018, Tony winner) and Merrily We Roll Along (2023 Broadway revival).

Mendes’s oeuvre spans intimate dissections to spectacle, influenced by Lean and Kubrick, with recurring themes of masculine fragility and institutional rot. Knighted in 2000, he co-chairs Neal Street Productions, backing Penelope and The Hollow Crown. Personal life: married Rachel Weisz (2011-2018), father to two sons. His precision elevates 1917 as career zenith.

Actor in the Spotlight: George MacKay

George MacKay, born 13 March 1992 in Brixton, London, to stage actress Mary O’Brien and lighting designer Paul MacKay, discovered acting via Byham Hurst classes. Television bowed with Rose and Maloney (2002), but film breakthrough arrived in The Boys Are Back (2009) opposite Clive Owen, earning praise for grief portrayal. Sundance hit How I Live Now (2013) showcased Saoirse Ronan romance amid apocalypse.

Versatile turns followed: Private Peaceful (2012) WWI drummer boy; Sunlight (2015) as defiant teen; Captain Fantastic (2016), Viggo Mortensen’s off-grid son navigating society. SS-GB (2017) alt-history Nazi Britain lead; Been So Long (2018) musical with Michaela Coel. 1917 (2019) propelled stardom as Schofield, BAFTA-nominated for raw endurance.

Post-1917: True History of the Kelly Gang (2019) bushranger Ned Kelly; The Old Guard (2020) Netflix immortal alongside Charlize Theron; Munich: The Edge of War (2021) Chamberlain emissary; Wolf (2021) feral youth; The Beast Must Die (2021) vengeful father. Theatre: The Caretaker

(2010 West End); voice in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). MacKay’s intensity, honed at Mountview Academy, suits everyman heroes. Private, he advocates mental health, resides London. 1917 cements his as modern war face.

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Bibliography

Deakins, R. (2020) 1917: The Long Take. American Cinematographer, January. Available at: https://theasc.com/magazine/jan20/1917 (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Mendes, S. (2019) By Grandad’s Side: Making 1917. Empire Magazine, December. Available at: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/sam-mendes-1917-interview (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Pryor, I. (2019) 1917: Sam Mendes and the Family Legacy. Sight & Sound, November. Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-sound/reviews/1917-sam-mendes (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Shone, T. (2020) The One-Shot War: 1917 Deconstructed. The Atlantic, February. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2020/02/1917-movie-review/606251 (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Windolf, J. (2019) Roger Deakins on Lighting the Trenches. Vanity Fair, December. Available at: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/12/roger-deakins-1917-interview (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Wooldridge, I. (2020) Alfred Mendes: The Forgotten Frontline Poet. The Times Literary Supplement, March.

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