One of the few inconveniences of the film class involves making sure that the period does not end right as some critically dramatic moment is unfolding on screeen. Such happened today. Among the most powerful scenes in AQotWF (and certainly the famous) occurs when Paul spends a day and two nights sitting in a shell hole in No Man's Land accompanied by a French poilu whom he has stabbed. The scene dramatizes the madness of war with little subtlety. At one point, Paul extracts the dead man's papers and gazes at a photograph of his wife and small child. He promises that when the war ends, he will search out the family in France and take care of them.
The scene ends with Paul escaping (at last) from the hole during a lull and returning to his own lines. He has a short conversation with Kat, explaining to him what happened, how he killed a Frenchman, with a knife, up close and personal. Their conversation takes place in a trench, while a sniper stands close by them, working his deadly game, killing several French soldiers at long range, and laughing giddily at his success. I won't give any more away. I want you to see it tomorrow. The question for the class is this: Will Paul write to the French soldier's widow? The sniper gives us the answer.
Unfortunately, the bell rang just as Paul killed the man in teh hole. The emotive power of that scene, like so many in the film, builds slowly. So, tomorrow,we begin in the middle. And then I learn that all the seniors will be absent on Friday, so we have to finish it all tomorrow. Oh well.
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Hey Mr. Bennett, it's Nick DeNitto. Nice looking blog. You may have noticed that there is a picture of a dog in the top right corner of the screen. That's me. Well, my old dog. That is the feature I was telling you about. Because I am "following" you, every time you update I see it now.
ReplyDeleteMr. Bennett, I only have one question about the film that I keep forgetting to ask you which is, In the beginning when the teacher is giving them the speech and telling them to enlist in the army, wasn't there a draft that made it mandatory for all able bodied men to join the military anyway?
ReplyDeleteBTW (BY The Way) did you mean to call it Lousy Timing because of the part in the movie today where the guys where talking the lice out of their clothes?
ReplyDeleteThe boys are supposed to be too young, I think. It's supposed to be a high school class. However, you are right in that they would have been called up in the draft very soon after. My recollection of the draft at that time in Germany was that all 19 year olds were called up to serve for a two year term, followed by many years in the reserves. They would then serve a few weeks every year to maintain their fitness. So, let's figure the boys are seniors in high school, just 17 years old.
ReplyDeleteAbout my use of the word "lousy," unfortunately, I did not consider the timely pun at all. Silly of me not to take credit for it considering that it is rather clever. Rather, I credit you for noticiing it. Well done!
I don't think all the seniors are going to be absent on Friday, some aren't going on the Disney trip.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing, are you implying anything by saying that the "sniper gives us the answer"?
Implying? No. I'm not implying anything at all. I'm being very direct. The sniper is seemingly not related in any way to the conversation between Kat and Paul. They are talking to one another, and a sniper is "working" nearby. This sort of thing happens all the time in real life and it has no meaning whatever. You and Reema are talking on the bus and the bus-driver is yelling at a customer to pay his fare. There is no significance to this at all, and if you start to believe that the argument between the bus driver and the fare-beater has some symbolic significance in your life, then you are a psychotic and will soon find yourself taking all sorts of powerful drugs to quiet your hallucinations. But, in a film, the conversation in the background IS significant and tells the audience something about the main characters. In this case, the sniper reveals the answer to my question, not directly, but by his actions.
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