Reactions visible to anyoneReactions visible to owner’s Close FriendsReactions only visible to youDraft entryVisible to anyone (with link)Visible to the member’s friends (with link)Only visible to you
Stephen Crane's Great American Story of the Civil War
Henry Fleming is a young Union soldier in the American Civil War. During his unit's first engagement, Henry flees the battlefield in fear. When he learns that the Union actually won the battle, shame over his cowardice leads him to lie to his friend Tom and the other soldiers, saying that he had been injured in battle. However, when he learns that his unit will be leading a charge against the enemy, Henry takes the opportunity to face his fears and redeem himself.
Audie Murphy stars in John Huston’s war drama, based on Stephen Crane’s novel about a young soldier during the Civil War who has to confront his cowardice.
Huston shoots the film in a really distinctive way, using extreme close-ups and strange angles to bring us into the mindset of the soldier, and the techniques are striking even today. The battle sequences, especially towards the end, are superbly done, creating a more immersive experience than was usual at the time, and long before Dunkirk or 1917. I found the last sequence moving, with lots of striking imagery and a sensitive, measured performance from real life war hero Murphy.
However, due to a major edit by the studio, 50 minutes were left…
Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage is the great American war novel, and a precursor of modernism in his inventive use of narrative tools to convey subjectivity and the thin membrane separating cowardice from courage.
John Huston intended to use cinematic tools, Matthew Brady’s camera and film noir camera moves, to convey subjectivity as Crane had, to show what it felt like to be on that battlefield, fighting fear and blinded by cannon smoke. He didn’t want to portraying a battle of North vs South, but of one soldier fighting with himself. Huston hoped to convey psychological action matching the armed conflict, and to build on the poignant irony of awarding Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier of WWII,…
Adapted from the famous Civil War novel by Stephen Crane, John Huston's film was radically cut by a third (!) by MGM after bad previews which infuriated Huston who'd considered it his best work. There are still some very impressive parts and he coaxed excellent performances on untested actors. I kept trying to figure out whether it's an anti-war or pro-war film (it has features of both). But its strength lies is in its portrayal of the psychological conflicts that confront soldiers facing violence and life/death struggles.
The two young leads (WWII war hero Audie Murphy and WWII newspaper cartoonist Bill Maudlin) portray young men barely out of boyhood who are both overly excited and deathly afraid of combat. Their…
Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage is a novel of contradictions. Its protagonist, Union soldier Henry Fleming, runs away from one battlefield in fright only to lead the charge forward on another just hours later. The novel itself is routinely regarded as the greatest of all fictional accounts of the U.S. Civil War and one of the best depictions of battle ever written, yet its author was born six years after the war ended and had not seen conflict firsthand up to that point. (One of the reasons I love literary realism so much is that it puts paid to the cliched advice to “write what you know.” Crane and other realists demonstrated that one can write about whatever is…
____________________________________________________________________________ Film #22 of 25 in theExploring My Birth Year challenge ____________________________________________________________________________
Stephen Crane's 1894 novella about the Civil War is a classic in American literature, and John Huston's adaptation (albeit severely edited by the studio) is absolutely faithful to the book. What's more, the lead role is played by Audie Murphy, the most decorated U.S. war hero of World War II, and he gives a totally convincing performance as new recruit Henry "The Boy" Fleming, who learns to overcome his deepest fears and discover bravery in the face of possible death.
"You ought to write your folks a letter, and tell them you ain't killed." ~ The Cheerful Soldier
I was especially impressed by the casting. Murphy is…
Excellent examination of men under the stresses of combat, a subject matter tailor-made for John Huston. His camerawork here is fluid and eloquent, the framing of his subjects in the tight Academy ratio adroit. He is helped immeasurably by the beautiful black and white photography of Harold Rossen, whose battlefield scenes are distinguished by figures emerging from or being consumed by swirling smoke.
Huston sensibly casts his picture with 'everyman' actors and no stars, although Audie Murphy, concentrated and credible, was fast becoming one. All of his actors exude a sense of authenticity as they face fear and mostly overcome it, and the director himself pops up in an uncredited irascible cameo. The film doesn't hammer home an anti-war message…
It wasn't the first time, nor the last time, that a studio virtually ruined a movie by sticking its nose where it didn't belong. The only version of this Civil War tale, based on the book by Stephen Crane, is a little over an hour long, despite the fact that director John Huston delivered a two-hour-long motion picture.
It's told and shot in a "you are there" style, as we tightly follow the experiences of one soldier, played by highly decorated WWII veteran Audie Murphy, before, during and after a battle that appears to be Chancellorsville. And it's all quite compelling in a life-and-death fashion, as far as that goes. This is how the best war movies have always been…
I just finished reading Picture by Lillian Ross which is a groundbreaking piece of film journalism that comprehensively details the making of this film at M-G-M. John Huston said that this was the best film he ever made and then the studio re-edited it while he was out of the country shooting The African Queen and turned what may have been a masterpiece into a short, messy, and forgettable adaptation of a classic Civil War novel. The movie is just alright but if you like stories about old Hollywood and behind the scenes stuff, I really can’t recommend Lillian Ross’ book highly enough!
Interesting primarily as a historical curiosity: it's one of the earliest adaptations I've seen that's slavishly faithful to the source material (very much to a fault), to the point of having voice-over narration explaining what characters are feeling as if the actors' performances aren't enough by themselves
It starts off on the right foot, showing how soldiers are just kids putting their lives on the line for a country that doesn't care enough about them, and almost seems ready to argue that courage is more contingency than character ("Their very ignorance brought them victory"), but then goes down the much less persuasive "war turns boys into men" route instead and transforms into pro-war propaganda
Audie Murphy's genuine thousand yard stare is an anti-glorification statement in and of itself but the film goes even deeper with it's claustrophobic cinematography tinged with noir stylizations and angles, some POV shots to put your right there on the battlefield to feel the absolute mind-numbing fear of entering a deadly and brutal battle that has no true meaning in the end. There are no cowards in war, only survivors just as there are no true heroes, only damaged men willing to die for something they feel has some meaning but then again that just might be some bullshit I'm talking. I can't help but lament the loss of the original cut which loses the unnecessary narration and adds even more darkness to the narrative, just imagine more nightmarish scenes like the one with the soldier in the road.
A solid straight-ahead war film that positions that most battles are meaningless, it doesn't matter if you win or lose, and that cowardice has about the same value as suicidal bravery. The voice-over is a huge mistake, but there's still tons of starkness throughout.
It's good, not great, but the book about its making. Lillian Ross' PICTURE. is a classic.
Audie Murphy as a rookie Union soldier who is finally thrust into battle and runs away from it. Shamed by his actions, he tries to reframe what happened in his mind so it won't be so hard to bear. A man's internal battle with himself while the real battle rages on. There's always another chance as long as the battle is still raging to get back in and redeem yourself. Stephen Crane's book came out in 1894 looking back but within the span of a lifetime, and John Huston, who wrote the screenply, really captures the book's literary quality in the dialog, the acting, and the war.
Letterboxd is an independent service created by a small team, and we rely mostly on the support of our members to maintain our site and apps. Please consider upgrading to a Pro account—for less than a couple bucks a month, you’ll get cool additional features like all-time and annual stats pages (example), the ability to select (and filter by) your favorite streaming services, and no ads!
