From Here to Eternity
Review
by : Eric
Barker
Starring:
Burt Lancaster (Sgt. Milton Warden), Montgomery
Clift (Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt), Deborah Kerr (Karen
Holmes), Donna Reed (Alma/Lorene), Frank Sinatra (Pvt.
Angelo Maggio)
Directed by: Fred Zinnemann
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"Gentleman
rankers out on a spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Ba! Yah! Ba!"
-- from Kipling, the epigraph to the novel
Life
in the peacetime Army at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, during
the last months of 1941, climaxing in the attack on Pearl
Harbor..
see Pearl
Harbor, 2001 review
World
class moviemaking, adapted from a sensational bestseller of
the early fifties. 'From Here to Eternity' creates a fascinating
world-within-the-world, a microcosmic society where the concepts
of love, honor and duty have been corrupted by disillusionment
and transition, and the hierarchy feeds on its own while impatiently
awaiting another global conflict. Although 'From Here to Eternity'
was notorious in its day for its honest portrayal of adultery
-- a subject that had been all but disallowed by Hollywood's
self-censoring Production Code -- the film's enduring power
comes from a harrowing portrayal of an America between wars,
torn from within by pure Yankee stubbornness, doubt and self-loathing.
The film's
emotional complexity unfolds through one of the great acting
ensembles ever assembled, a patchwork of styles that, in theory,
should not have worked. Clift, at the pinnacle of his artistry
and stardom, gives a profoundly imagined Method portrait as
Prewitt, a poet-warrior in the classic sense with a natural
talent for boxing and an ability to bugle as if the end of
the world was nigh. But Prewitt is destined to be ripped apart
by conflicting ideologies: his deeply rooted need for a family,
which he finds in the structured life of the Army, is constantly
at odds with his native individualism, which brooks no trespass.
On either
side of Prew's conflict, two brother figures who represent
the extremes of his personality, assayed by two consistently
underrated actors: spontaneous, quicksilver Lancaster, in
one of the first roles that allowed him to deepen and subvert
his heroic image, as Sgt. Warden, a hyper-efficient, by-the-book
noncom who has made peace with his own limitations as a soldier
and politician; and the ever instinctive Sinatra, an all-round
performer/entertainer who could do anything he set his mind
to, here playing Pvt. Maggio, a cheerfully insubordinate,
streetwise hustler with the personality of a used car salesman.
Warden
and Maggio are more than literary devices, however. Their
function as good brother/bad brother reflections of Prew's
conflict becomes steadily refracted in multiple subplots which
are sometimes parallel to the main action, sometimes not,
unveiling a secret world of broken idealism, self-deception
and inevitable loneliness. On its top layers, 'From Here to
Eternity' is about the vicissitudes of survival in a peacetime
army; but it is also an uncomfortable critique of the modern
condition, drawing a landscape of banged-up souls reaching
for each other and never quite touching enough to hold on.
Three
more fine performances make 'From Here to Eternity' a unique
showcase of outstanding ensemble playing: certified good girls
Kerr and Reed defied their images and the wisdom of the day
by portraying, respectively, a straying, world-weary officer's
wife and a prostitute with a heart of cool reserve, completing
the film's vision of people straight-jacketed by their social
roles; and the indomitable Borgnine, as Sgt. "Fatso" Judson,
chief torturer of the stockade, a prisoner's worst nightmare.
He loves his work. If your impression of Borgnine is the sweet,
avuncular McHale of "McHale's Navy", you must experience his
leering Fatso, a Shadow figure more dangerous than any foreign
enemy.
Justly
famous for its sex-in-the-sand lovemaking with Lancaster and
Kerr, a scene that seems tame by contemporary standards, and
probably derivative to viewers who may not realize this was
the first moment of its kind in a major studio film, a mighty
clinch in the surf that suggests -- oh, no! -- adult people
may be driven by unreasoning lust. Censors across America
were frantically counting how many waves (!) rolled in to
caress the lovers.
Made during
an age of transition in Hollywood when television was stealing
the movies' thunder, 'From Here to Eternity' was an intensely
risky enterprise for its studio, most observers and people
in the industry certain that it couldn't be done. The novel
was, after all, a Tolstoyan excavation of human motives, infused
with a ruthless postwar honesty about sex and violence that
was decades ahead of anything the movies were offering.
But screenwriter
Taradash (helped by author Jones himself, who has a cameo
in the film) brilliantly pared the story and characters to
their essentials, demonstrating that it is possible to condense
a good book into a good movie. Okay, the flesh has been covered
up, the nearly unspeakable brutality has been shaved to a
minimum; what's left is the book's heart, a powerful undercurrent
of passion and emotional violence in the affairs of men and
women that determines the course of lives, for better or worse.
Zinnemann,
without doubt one of the best directors of the day (see NOTES),
guides the film in a sustained documentary style, giving his
dream cast ample creative room, ultimately blending their
dissonant approaches to serve a gripping narrative. Rich,
evocative black and white photography by Guffey.
NOTES:
DUELING
EGOS: Filmed in less than 60 days, mostly on location in Hawaii.
Clift thought Lancaster the most "unctuous" man he'd ever
met, but Lancaster admired Clift's tenacious, scientific analysis
of every beat in a scene.
Montgomery Clift (b. 1920, d. 1966) was clearly a dynamic
influence on later actors, especially James Dean, and enjoyed
a magnificent early career in a wide range of films, including
Howard Hawks' "Red River" (1948) and George Stevens' "A Place
in the Sun'' (1951). A tragic auto accident in 1957 left him
disfigured and sent him into a downward spiral from which
he never recovered. Addicted to pain killers and alcohol,
he let both his career and personal life founder and died
of a heart attack at the age of 45.
Burt Lancaster (b. 1913, d. 1994) saw action in North Africa
and Italy during the war. A star from his first film appearance
in "The Killers" (1946), he became one of the shrewdest businessmen
to ever win a SAG card, choosing his roles well, forming his
own successful production company and alternating action films
with edgy dramas, maintaining his position as both a box-office
draw and a critical success for three decades. Though his
star faded in the seventies, he continued to find the occasional
perfect role, such as the unctuous, aging, two-bit gangster
of Louis Malle's "Atlantic City" (1981).
TOO TASTEFUL:
Fred Zinneman (b. 1907; d. 1997) was born in Vienna, Austria,
studied violin as a child, immigrated to the States in 1929.
He began as a film cutter and worked his way up through the
studio system. Often dismissed as a mere craftsman with more
good taste than vision, he cannot be denied a magical knack
for dead-on casting choices, or a flair for making a good
script reach its full cinematic potential. Many of his best
films, like this one, examine the plight of the outsider in
oppressive social conditions with a deromanticized, ruthless
gaze: 'The Search' (1948, Montgomery Clift's debut), 'The
Men' (1950, Marlon Brando's debut), 'High Noon' (1952), 'The
Nun's Story' (1959), 'A Man for All Seasons' (1966), and 'Julia'
(1977). The original 'The Day of the Jackal' (1973) remains
one of the great thrillers, Zinnemann's one foray into the
genre..
THE NUMBERS:
Thirteen Oscar nominations and eight wins, including Best
Picture, tied 'From Here to Eternity' with 'Gone With the
Wind' (1939) for the most Academy Awards ever given to one
film (a record later shattered by 'Ben-Hur'). All five principal
actors were nominated, an eye-opening rarity in itself. Reed
and Sinatra won in the supporting categories, Zinneman got
his second for Best Director.
THE REMAKE
BIN: Remade as a pretty good TV miniseries in 1979, with Natalie
Wood (as Karen), William Devane (Warden), Steve Railsback
(Prewitt), and Kim Basinger (Lorene).
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