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Ill begin by discussing a couple of very noted works, films that have earned Oscars and justly deserved rankings on lists of Hollywood classics. First, Mrs. Miniver, which won Oscars for Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, and Best Picture, and stars Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, and Teresa Wright. Second, The Best Years of Our Lives, which won Oscars for Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Picture, and features performances by Fredric March, Teresa Wright and Dana Andrews. Then Id like to share a gem that I had never heard of until I had the only fortune to stumble upon it in a video shop. It stars Ginger Rogers, one of my favorite actresses, and Joseph Cotten, and is called Ill Be Seeing You.
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), starring Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews and Teresa Wright, tells the interwoven stories of three war veterans who return to small the city life after the war. One is a bank manager trying to find his trouble in a family that hes been away from for so long. His son and daughter have literally grown up in his absence and his relationship with his wife is tentative and uneasy at first. The 2nd character is a handsome war hero. He was a hotshot in a aircraft during the war but finds that he must now return to his own particular brand of reality, because in civilian life hes an unskilled loser, saddled with a flamboyant wife who loses interest in him once hes out of uniform. The films third male lead is a young man who has efficaciously tailor-made to the wartime loss of his hands, but who doesnt believe that his enjoyed ones can gain knowledge of to handle it. The Best Years of Our Lives is a wonderful movie. Its touching and tender, and deserving of the label classic.
These and many other films made during or simply after the war offer us a special glimpse into the iteration, as they present scenes of life at that time. Watching them now, from a vantage point of more than sixty years after the wars end, its most unlikely to see them as they must have been seen at the time, because members of the audience would have brought with them their own private traumas, dramas and fears for the long term. Still, these movies offer us some heartfelt emotions, vicarious experiences and nostalgic glimpses of the lives of our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents, and were all of the richer for it.
While Mrs. Minivers last scene serves as a be-careful call for American audiences to mobilize to fight the war, this film seriously isn't alone in using this tactic. I know that other films, such as Hitchcocks Foreign Correspondent, and Chaplins The Great Dictator, have received criticism for making dramatic speeches at their ends, speeches which blatantly mirrored the filmmakers feelings. In my opinion, though, theyre all both understandable and forgiveable, given the desperate nature of world events at the time and the need for Americas involvement in the war. Watching these films now, I find them intriguing because they remind me that these people were actually experiencing the war, living through the horrible news that each new day brought and seeing the wars ever-expanding scope, even they while making the films.
WWII is a vast subject, and can include films on many choice themes.
Im no fan of the blood and guts selection of movie of soldiers and battlefields and glory and tragic deaths. Films about the Holocaust can be very powerful, while additionally being great works of art, but they can additionally be very complicated to watch, as they talk about the most unspeakable of horrors. Other WWII movie themes include romances in war-torn Europe and Asia, spy stories, life in Britain during the blitz, and many others.
Many a movie has been made about WWII, both during the war and in more rccent years. Even in a century full of horrifying calamities, WWII can stake its claim as among the major disastrous events of the 20th century. It killed millions of people, tore families apart, created floods of refugees, and otherwise destroyed the lives of countless others. The war left its blood-stained mark on everyone who lived through it. Its importance for both the collective reminiscence of mankind, and as a useful resource of gripping stories that so many of us must relate to, inspired filmakers during the war and has molded many filmmakers ever since.
My favorite WWII films, notwithstanding, are those films that focus on the homefront and tell smaller, more private stories of how the war affected the lives of of us, films that tell the warm quieter tales of interpersonal relationships and the impact that the war had on them. I was a baby boomer, born in the mid-fifties, so I never experienced the war straight away and I only discovered these films a good fifty years after the war had ended. Although Im no expert on such films, I do have a few favorites that Id like to share.
The last film that Id like to discuss is called Ill Be Seeing You (1944). Ginger Rogers plays a girl on leave from a womens prison. Joseph Cotten is a soldier recovering from shellshock. These two damaged people, both feeling isolated and out of sync with the hectic wartime world, find solace and energy in each other. Its an mild story, beautifully told, and the atmosphere in the home of Gingers aunt and uncle is warm and inviting. There aren't any villains here, its simply a pleasant home full of nice people trying to treat each other decently, although they dont at all instances succeed in this. Actors Spring Byington and Tom Tully bring a genuine warmth to the family scenes and youll even find a teenage Shirley Temple.
