Return to Hardwick

How we learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.

(2019) Documentary (Gravitas) Michael Cudlitz (narrator), John Marx, Sherman Alpert (voice), George Jung, Raymond Eck, Leland Spencer, Gail Mailloux, Reed Phillips, Libby Morgan, Glenn Martin, Colin Mann, Roger Barker, Sheralee Barker, Floyd L. Carpenter, Laura Mesrobian (voice), Christopher Rice, James Root, Vernon Swaim, Karyn Senatore. Directed by Michael Sellers

 

They are called the Greatest Generation for a reason. They sacrificed, putting their lives and their comfort on the line to fight true evil. And they triumphed.

Now, they are old and slowly fading away and their memories of the Second World War with them. Daytime Emmy Award nominee Michael Sellers’ grandfather fought with the 93^rd Bomber Group of the 8^th Air Force, mainly based at Hardwick Air Base near Norwich in East Anglia, Great Britain. What had once been an air base is now mainly a potato farm. The few buildings that remain are in surprisingly good shape, although they too are beginning to crumble.

Those who live nearby, as well as the children and grandchildren of those who flew nearly 400 missions from there (more than any other group in the 8^th Air Force) had formed an association to foster reunions and trips to visit their old haunts in Norwich and Hardwick. Local townspeople feel a real sense of gratitude to the group, who helped turn the tide of the war. They have done what they can to preserve what is left and put together a museum dedicated to the 93^rd.

At one of those reunions, Sellers got the idea to make a documentary but rather than capture the stories of those who actually served, he concentrates on three children of those who served there – George Jung, whose father (a navigator) died when he was young, so he never really got to hear about what his father experienced in the war; Gail Mailloux, whose mother and father (who have since passed away) met at Hardwick and got married there, and finally John Marx, whose Uncle had died in a plane crash on the air base. So little information had made it to the family about what happened that Marx has spent years trying to piece things together.

Utilizing archival footage, still photographs and interviews with the veterans, their descendants as well as those who live in the area, to make a mostly fascinating documentary that focuses not so much on the big picture of the war, but on a particular unit involved with it. This really hasn’t been done before except for maybe with the Tuskegee Airmen, but it’s a good idea and should be repeated with other units that served in the War.

The only real quibble I have is that at times the narrative is a bit disjointed and done in kind of a scattershot fashion, jumping from story to story and into different time periods of the war. There is some context so you have an idea of the major events that the group was involved with but that is a relatively minor quibble. For history buffs, particularly those enamored of military history, this is solid gold.

REASONS TO SEE: Interesting stories from the vets, as well as some wonderful archival footage.
REASONS TO AVOID: A little bit disjointed.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some brief profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Produced with the aid of the 93^rd Bombardment Group Association, which puts together the reunions and trips back to Hardwick for surviving veterans, promotes keeping the history of the Bomb Group alive, and gives the veterans and their families a means to keep in touch with one another.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Google Play, Microsoft, Vimeo, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/8/20: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet, Metacritic: No score yet
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Memphis Belle: The Story of a Flying Fortress
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Miss Bala (2019)

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Rebel in the Rye

Quiet please; author at work.

(2017) Biographical Drama (IFC) Nicholas Hoult, Kevin Spacey, Zoey Deutch, Victor Garber, Hope Davis, Sarah Paulson, Lucy Boynton, James Urbaniak, Amy Rutberg, Brian d’Arcy James, Eric Bogosian, Naian González Norvind, Evan Hall, Adam Busch, Celeste Arias, Bernard White, Kristine Froseth, David Berman, Will Rogers, Jefferson Mays, Caitlin Mehner. Directed by Danny Strong

 

Being an author is often a lonely pursuit. Writers live inside their heads more than most and for those who are true writers the act of writing is more of a compulsion than a calling. The talented ones often see that talent turn savagely on the wielder of that talent.

Jerome David Salinger (Hoult) was a teen who was bright but had difficulty dealing with authority. A caustic, sarcastic soul, he didn’t win points with school administrators by often ridiculing his professors in class. As 1939 is in full swing, he decides to attend Columbia University in New York City and study creative writing, much to the frustration of his staid stodgy father (Garber) but supported by his ever-patient mother (Davis).

At Columbia he comes under the wing of Whit Burnett (Spacey) who is a published author and a passionate teacher. Burnett, who also edits Story magazine on the side, has no time for fools or dilettantes but finds the kernel of something worthwhile in the young, insufferably arrogant student. In the meantime Jerry, as his friends and family call him, is busy wooing Oona O’Neil (Deutch) who happens to be the daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neil.  Talk about a long day’s journey into night.

His pursuit of being a published author is interrupted by World War II and Salinger, who was part of the Normandy invasion as well as the Battle of the Bulge, was profoundly affected by his wartime service. He was present at the liberation of concentration camps and watched his friends die before his very eyes. He came home a changed man and although one of his psychiatrists called his PTSD “a phase,” it would as his literary agent Dorothy Olding (Paulson) said, “mess him up” for the rest of his life.

One of his constant companions during the war was Holden Caulfield, a character Salinger had invented for a short story he had submitted to The New Yorker before the war. Burnett had been particularly enamored of the character and had urged his young student to write a novel about him; Salinger had been reluctant to since he had primarily written short stories to that point but throughout the war Salinger continued to write about the character; much of what he came up with appeared in the seminal novel The Catcher in the Rye, which became a publishing phenomenon and catapulted Salinger to international fame.

However with that fame came stalkers, young people so inspired by the novel that they approached the author wearing the red hunting caps that were the preferred chapeau of Caulfield in the novel. Salinger, already a private person, felt constrained to leave New York City for rural New Hampshire where he built walls of privacy around himself and his second wife Claire Douglas (Boynton) who eventually found her husband, who wrote constantly, to be more and more distant. As time went by, she confessed to her husband that she was lonely. That didn’t seem to matter much to him.

Much of this material appears in the Kenneth Slawenski-penned biography J.D. Salinger: A Life on which this is mainly based and it certainly gets the facts about Salinger’s life right. However, we don’t really get the essence of Salinger here and maybe it isn’t possible to do so; the reclusive nature of the author makes it difficult to really get to know him now even more so than it was when he was alive (he died in 2010 at age 91).

Hoult does a credible job playing the author during the 15 year period that the story takes place. It was one of the heydays of literature in New York City but we don’t really get a sense of the vitality that suffused the literary scene that saw magazines like The New Yorker publishing some of the best work of American authors ever. The movie is in some ways lacking in that rhythm that made the Big Apple the most vital city on Earth at the time. Nevertheless, Hoult is a marvelous actor and while this isn’t the role that is going to get him to the next level, he at least does a good enough job here to continue his forward momentum.

Hoult though in many ways is overshadowed by Spacey as the charismatic Burnett. We see Burnett as a mentor, and then in later years as a man with little money who sees his magazine and publishing house slowly languishing into obscurity even as Salinger is becoming one of the most popular authors in the world. The two would have a falling out and we see that Burnett is stricken by it, while Salinger is remarkably cold. Spacey makes Burnett more memorable than Salinger himself and who knows, given his performance here and in Baby Driver we might see his name bandied about for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar during awards season.

I was never convinced of the time and place as I said earlier; the characters look and act like 21^st century people rather than mid-20^th century, other than the smoking. The dialogue is full of platitudes and doesn’t sound the way people of any era talk. This I found doubly surprising since Strong wrote two of HBO’s best films including Recount, one of my all-time favorite made-for-cable films.

This isn’t going to give any insight into Salinger or his work; in fact other than a few snippets, very little of the words that the author penned have made their way into the film. The best that one could hope for is that younger people, seeing this movie, might be moved to see what the fuss was about and read Catcher in the Rye for themselves. I suspect that will give frustrated viewers of this film much more insight into the mind of the author than any docudrama ever could.

REASONS TO GO: Spacey delivers a strong performance. Renewed interest in Salinger might be generated.
REASONS TO STAY: The dialogue is littered with platitudes and the characters don’t act like people of that era.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a bit of profanity, some violence, a few sexual references and some disturbing wartime images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Filming took place in Wildwood, Cape May and other towns along the Jersey coast.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/30/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 36% positive reviews. Metacritic: 37/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Salinger
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Abundant Acreage Available