Welcome to Fresh Catch, the official FilmFisher newsletter!
Because our style of writing here at FilmFisher is very in-depth and requires a lot of time and attention for each piece, we don’t really write a lot about the newest releases that are coming out right now. With Fresh Catch, we’ll be in your inbox every Thursday morning to let you know what we’ve been watching recently and whether or not we think it might be worth your time to check out, both from the new releases hitting theaters every weekend and from the old favorites we’ve been revisiting.
Old Favorites: Memorial Day
This weekend marks Memorial Day in the United States. More than just an opportunity to plan more fun or rest in a long weekend, the holiday offers a moment for reflection on the ways that war has affected our lives, the impact that it has on those who participate in it, and the nature of the sacrifices given by the people who choose to lay their lives on the line in defense of what they believe is right.
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946, writeup by Timothy House)
As a pacifist, I often struggle with holidays about patriotic celebration of the armed forces. But Memorial Day can be an opportunity to consider the genuine virtues of those who serve in war to protect those they love, especially the legitimate and laudable courage. These people risk life, limb, and for those who survive, often much, much more that they never realized was at stake. The Best Years of Our Lives, made in the immediate aftermath of World War II, is shockingly clear-eyed about the ways that returning GIs were affected by the war and its end. Far from propagandistically presenting the veterans as stoic heroes returning in triumph, or as innocent victims of a country that left them behind in exchange for their sacrifice, the film depicts them honestly, as real people. Some are disillusioned, some are depressed, some lash out in unhealthy and even wrong ways. Regardless, they are real human people, which as Aslan says at the end of Prince Caspian, “is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth.”
White Christmas (1954, writeup by Christian Jessup)
The more one reflects on White Christmas, the less it actually seems to be about ... Christmas. At least, not in the traditional sense. Instead, the film tells a charming, yet subtly melancholic story of veterans trying to find identity and belonging in the aftermath of World War II. Bob Wallace (Bing Crosby) fills the post-war void by diving into his work as a Broadway star, much to the chagrin of his partner Phil (Danny Kaye). Phil, initially eager to pursue show business, now wants nothing more than for the two of them to settle down and start families. Major Waverly, their former commanding officer, has invested his life savings into a failing Vermont inn, only to face further heartbreak when his attempt to rejoin the army is rejected. Each man, in his own way, is unable to find their place after the war; the song “Gee, I Wish I Was Back in the Army” is played for laughs, but underlines the very real truths these characters (and countless real-world veterans) are facing. Ultimately, the answer lies in helping one another. Phil helps Bob find love, and Bob recruits their entire former division to surprise Waverly for Christmas Eve, reminding him that he isn't forgotten. And what better backdrop for finding love and belonging than Christmas, the day God sent his Son for our restoration?
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956, writeup by Timothy Lawrence)
Ten years after the great American actor Fredric March played a soldier returning home from World War II in The Best Years of Our Lives, he co-starred in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, about a veteran still haunted by the war ten years after its end. If you double feature them, the two films play like a cross-section of a decade of America's post-war history: The Best Years of Our Lives is about the immediate difficulties of coming home, and The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit is about the wounds that linger beneath the material prosperity of the 1950s. Gregory Peck plays the central figure, a rising executive torn between the dueling worlds of the home and the workplace, with the tortured stoicism he brings to so many of his best roles – but March may play the more memorable character, an aging workaholic whose devotion to building a great business has left him bereft of human connection and helplessly aware of his own misplaced priorities. With its widescreen Technicolor cinematography and hefty runtime, this is a film that makes the ordinary struggles of ordinary people feel like an epic about an entire nation's psyche. Doubly recommended for Mad Men fans who want to see the movie that formed the blueprint for one of the great American TV series.
A Hidden Life (2019, writeup by Dustin Stephens)
“It seemed no trouble could reach our valley. We lived above the clouds.” So speaks Fani Jägerstätter, reflecting on the early days of her life with her husband, Franz, in the hills of their near-Edenic Bavarian village of St. Radegund. In Terrence Mallick’s most recent film, A Hidden Life, Franz and Fani (real historical figures upon whose journals and letters the film’s screenplay is based) must wrestle with the consequences of the Nazi’s quest for power and the resulting ravages of World War II. When Franz is commanded to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler, he refuses. He cannot square the call to genocide and allegiance to a violent, evil, Earthly power with his convictions as a Christian. He suffers for his choice. Members of his community - even leaders of his church - try to convince him to submit and tempt him to give up. However, in committing himself to following his conscience in the face of suffering, Franz provides an eminently empowering and honorable example of a nonviolent conscientious objector. A Hidden Life reminds us to honor and be encouraged by the fallen victims of war who show us that armed resistance is not the only way to respond to evil. There is another way, cruciform and sacrificial.
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Excellent post guys!