Trailer The Last Valley

In a time where the world was shocked by hate and consume by war. When a man had nowhere to run, no pace to hide, suddenly, there was a valley, the Last Valley.

And into this valley, came two man, a man of violence [The Captain] "Break open every house, then round-up the peasants, fire the village at leisure"

And a man of peace [The Teacher] "Why such waste? Went to here, leave while your army dies."

Michael Caine as the Captain: "If to kill is necessary, I do it, without conscience"

 Omar Sharif as the teacher: "I bring a message from the Captain. Captain undertakes to protect your village from other soldiers on conditions that he and his men be will billated for the winter. If not your valley will die.

There goal were very differents. There ideas were very so much the same.

[The Captain]: There is no just rules
[The Teacher]: Millions of settlers more will dire
[The Captain]: Your leaders are bigots
[The Teacher]: 'Cause the pope wars on the Catholic Emperor
[The Captain]: Your generals are bandits
[The Teacher]: He wars on the Catholic King of France
[The Captain]: You employ any muscle that you can get
[The Teacher]: He wars on the catholic king of Spain
[The Captain]: And the Pope plays politics
[The Teacher]: And by hundred are the princes ans kings and bishops. All by their own rotten purposes
[The Captain]: All sides are rotten, except by people like you. Religious fanatics who incite to murder for the sake of a god they have never known. Don't you understand ? There is no God!

One stood for war, one stood for peace between them a lost valley, the Last Valley.

War in cinema: a century of blockbuster

 

In october 2009, Thomas Chouanière wrote an article on Evene about cinema and war on the occasion of the DVD release of Howard Hugues' film Hell's Angels. The journalist wondered about the way the movie maker showed a major conflict on the big screen.
He focused on the movie Hell's Angels directed by the magnate Howard Hugues in 1930, and the 60's that he considered as the golden age of historic war film.

In 1930, Howard Hugues made a dream come true: Direct a film. His production, Hell's Angels, was a tribute to the soldiers of air against a background of a love story. The particularity of that film was the means, both financial and material. Howard Hugues' film broke all records: 70 airplanes, 4,2 millions dollars spent, 1700 onlookers and an amazing preview!

Hugues launched the fashion of big-budget war films.

In the 60's, film studios produced a lot of historic big-budget films in the form of peplums such as Cleopatre, Ben-Hur or The Ten Commandments . The rise of big-budget films inspired the producer Darryl F Zanuck . He decided to produce a huge film about D-Day, the Normandy landing during World War II: The longest day,  with a budget of 10 000 000 millions dollars  and an exceptional cast: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Arletty, Bourvil, Sean Connery, Jean-Louis Barrault....The film required thousands of extras, whole hectares of land, four directors (one of whom Zanuck himself). The Longest Day might be indeed one of the most expensive film projects in history. 

Hell's Angels and The Longest Day were considered as a monument in cinema. In 1962, film director Stanley Kubrick mentioned Hell's Angels as one of his 10 favourite movies and having influenced his later career, and Martin Scorcese paid tribute to Howard Hugues and his Hell's Angels with the movie Aviator, with Leonardo Di Caprio in the role of the businessman.

During almost 30 years, The Longest Day was the reference for WWII movies. The historical battles were meticulously recreated with a great authenticity thanks to many military consultants and advisors who helped to produce the film. 

It was an example for a long time but the impact has been swept away by the first 10 minutes of Saving private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, 1998).

It should be noted that the poster of Saving private Ryan is a tribute than the poster of the longest day. 






























http://www.evene.fr/cinema/actualite/guerre-hughes-anges-enfer-2290.php










To have more information, read this!

The Last Valley, James Clavell (1971)

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 During the XVIIth century, Europe was devastated by the Thirty Years War. In 1641, an educated man, Vogel (play by Omar Sharif), that the confrontation between Catholics and Protestants left indifferent, wanted to flee destruction and starvation . He came to a fertile, idyllic valley, seemingly empty and untouched by the surrounding devastation. Shortly after, a group of mercenary, led by the Captain (Michael Caine), arrived in the valley and caught Vogel. While his men wanted to rape, despoil or burn some villages, Vogel managed to convice the Captain to spare the new village and its inhabitants, so that he could rest there for the winter.

But Vogel intuitively felt the Captain was tired to fight and hastily thought out a plan to save the Valley.

  The inhabitants came back and made a deal with the Captain, in spite of the reluctance of the priest, an intransigent catholic priest : The mercenaries would be provided with board and lodging and some of them could get married. In return, they would have to ensure the defense of the valley. At first, the locals accepted their fate, Vogel became a sort of mediator in order to settle the disputes between villagers and soldiers. When winter faded, the Captain and his men left the village, ordered to Vogel to stay there. After his departure, his woman from the village was caught engaging in devil-worshipping witchcraft. The priest ordered for her to be tortured and burned at the stake, and one of The Captain's men killed the priest pushing him into the fire. Meanwhile, the Captain and his men engaged in a major siege operation.  Most of his men were killed. The Captain survived long enough to return to the valley, only to find himself ambushed by the villagers, and Vogel trying to escape before the villagers kill him too. The Captain died of his battle wounds, declaring to Vogel, "You were right. I was wrong." A young woman from the village wanted to leave with Vogel, but he told her to stay and ran off alone in the mist.

The first image of the film is a cross, turned into two warriors.

With the medieval music of John Barry, this opening suggests that religion will be the only reason for that theological battle. At the release of the film, the two main conflict areas in the world were Middle-East and Northern Ireland, where religion was the cause for conflicts. The Last Valley, adapted from a novel of J.B Pick, illustrates this context even if it's a film

The movie deals with a historical period rarely treated by cinema: The Thirty Years War. A dark period during which the Holy Roman Empire lost the third of its population. From the first minutes, we follow Omar Sharif rovering in a world similar to hell. Starvation, slaughtered villages, rapes, mass graves, Clavell multiplies apocalyptic pictures showing the atrocities humanity can commit.

The contrast is even more gripping when the action takes place in a heavenly place, a sort of eden,  a place where everyone could live happy and safe.

 But it is just an illusion and problems remain. The only force of control is the mercenary army led by Michael Caine. The history depicts the tensions due to the thought coexistence between soldiers and country people totally dominated by a cruel fanatic priest and a headman.

 Many situations show the strangehold of the priest and the headman on the weak mind and the way they use to satisfy their sadistic liking. The headman does not hesitate to offer his own daughter to the soldiers in order to receive absolution. Religion turns out to be an instrument of power and manipulation, ruling over peasants by fear.

Clavell wants to show three things with his film :

1-  the barbarity of that war touched every part of the country, even safer places.

2- He also shows the impact of war and religion upon mankind. Michael Caine played a soldier who was able to commit the most violent acts, a warrior absolutely comfortable with an atmosphere of violence. But that man became more human from being with simple folk. Omar Sharif played an intellectual lost in a dark period whose beliefs are shaken by the cruelty of that war.

3- Both characters are different and similar in the same time. They are two men totally desoriented, living in a mad world, having lost everything (women and children) but find some comfort to their pain. Vogel is running away all the time but finds peace in that valley and when he becomes a mediator. The Captain (whose name we ignore) stays impassive into his violent run-up but becomes human in this haven of peace that is the Valley. Besides, while he is seriously injured, he wants to come back in the valley to die and say to Vogel that the winter he spent in the valley was fantastic. Before his last breath, he gives up this image of ferocity. He becomes again a man with regrets, admitting to have left his lover to loose everything in a foolish war.

 

War and cinema

The representations of war in the cinema are various. Movie makers depict war in many way and there exist a lot of ways to describe it: exaltation (bring to light the great historic battle, war hero...), denunciation (antimilitarism movie or against war) or just an violent adventure.

The two World Wars and the Vietnam war have greatly inspired film director but what about movie on early modern war?

The aim of this blog is to focus on the vision of cinema on the great battle of the modern period and especially a conflict which has left its mark on the European History: the Thirty Years War.

Through The Last Valley directed by James Clavell in 1970 with Michael Caine, we will show how the cinema industry deal with this war.

A brief return to the past

In 1618, a great war broke out in  Central Europe. It origin is complex and no single cause can be describe for the fighting.  Initially a religious conflict burst in Bohemia (Holy Roman Empire), setting Catholics and Protestants against each other. But the policy of alliance developed it into a more general conflict,  involving most of the countries in Europe in a race for power. At extended, war became less specifically religious and evolved into the continuation of the rivalry between the Bourbons (King Louis XIII and his prime minister, the Cardinal Richelieu) and the Habsburgs (the emperors Ferdinand II and Ferdinand III) for the control of Europe.
Ending in 1648 and rightly nicknamed  the Thirty Years War, it was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European modern history. Many regions were divested, provocating the death of millions people (between 3,000,000 and 11,000,000).

Plunderingof a village and fire of a monastery during the Thirty Years War. Print by Jacques Callot (1592-1635)