Damianista

The Art of War, Salon, September 8, 2001

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The Art of War

by Gary Kamiya, Salon.com, September 8, 2001

HBO’s massive and bloody miniseries, “Band of Brothers,” attempts the impossible and nearly succeeds.

The history of serious movies about war, from “Paths of Glory” to “Johnny Got His Gun” to “Apocalypse Now” to “Saving Private Ryan,” is a history of attempts to do the impossible: turn the unthinkable into art. The problem, always, is truth. If a work of art about war does not tell the truth, it is obscene — but how can one tell this truth? And what is it, anyway? Is it a former human being who has been turned into pieces of bloody meat by large fragments of metal? Or is it the soaring words of Abraham Lincoln: “That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain …”? Falstaff or Prince Hal? Hideous death or trumpets and brass? What form, what story line, what aesthetic approach can capture war’s nihilistic horror and still contain some larger meaning?

Continue reading The Art of War, Salon, September 8, 2001

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Easy Company’s Hard Times, Los Angeles Time, August 26, 2001

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Easy Company’s Hard Times

by Susan King, Los Angeles Times, August 26, 2001

HBO’s ‘Band of Brothers’ miniseries re-creates the bonds forged in a unit of American GIs during bloody European fighting in World War II.

HOLLYWOOD — It’s hard not to be struck by the silence when watching Tom Hanks’ war, as played in the 10-part HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers,” which begins Sunday.

Although millions were spent in filming the series, which aims to capture the three-year odyssey of the U.S. paratroopers of Easy Company up to and through D-day and on to the ultimate defeat of the Germans in World War II, the result is a study in how powerful restraint can be. Shot from the point of view of a fighting man, “Band of Brothers” puts one in the trenches, in the chaos and often in the silence of war. Continue reading Easy Company’s Hard Times, Los Angeles Time, August 26, 2001

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This American Platoon is Led by a Brit, Los Angeles Times, August 20, 2000

On August 20, 2000October 8, 2017 By Damianista Comments Off

Damian Lewis survived a slew of tests to win the role of a war hero.

by DAVID GRITTEN, Los Angeles Times, August 20, 2000

HATFIELD, England — “I’ve really screwed up my hearing,” grimaces Damian Lewis. “I should have had earplugs in.”

The mud-spattered Lewis, in a World War II paratrooper uniform, has spent the morning shooting blanks (24 for each take) from an M-1 rifle at a crowd of extras dressed as German soldiers.

It is a deafening business, and everyone else on set either wears earplugs or covers their ears whenever director Tom Hanks yells “action!” Continue reading This American Platoon is Led by a Brit, Los Angeles Times, August 20, 2000

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Watch Out for The Young Dudes, Evening Standard, July 8, 2000

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Young, gifted and British: the new crop of Brit actors seems to have been cast in the mould marked “Good-Looking — But In An Unconventional Manner”. And there is nothing the film industry likes more than faces that stick in the mind long after they’ve smiled or scowled their way across a screen. Continue reading Watch Out for The Young Dudes, Evening Standard, July 8, 2000

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In Rank with Spielberg and Hanks, The Evening Standard, May 16, 2000

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In rank with Spielberg and Hanks

by Kensal Green, The Evening Standard, May 16, 2000

It’s incredibly easy to spot Damian Lewis as he wanders into the gastro-pub near his flat in Kensal Green. Not only is his hair very ginger – brazen- coloured, really – but he’s wearing a khaki jumper and trousers which make him look, from a distance, like a soldier without the boots.

Most people will know 28-year-old Lewis as a soldier – Lieutenant Neil Loughrey, the morally-compromised British Army officer in the BBC’s acclaimed drama Warriors. This was the kind of TV event which provoked debate (about the UN’s role in Bosnia) well after its broadcast date and thus bestowed instant fame on its actors. In its wake, Lewis was offered a part in the BBC’s current late-twenty-something series Hearts and Bones. He plays Mark, miserably married to Dervla Kirwan (as if that were possible), desperately trying to leave his early-twenties behind, but not making a very good fist of it. I get the feeling that this pub on the Harrow Road is full of Marks. Continue reading In Rank with Spielberg and Hanks, The Evening Standard, May 16, 2000

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Warriors: Oh what a lonely war, Daily Mail, November 22, 1999

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Warriors: Oh what a lonely war

by Peter Paterson, Daily Mail, November 22, 1999

OVER the past two nights, we have seen, in Warriors, a deeply moving, alarmingly realistic and powerfully acted drama about a war in Bosnia-Herzegovina that occurred less than a decade ago, yet has been almost wiped from the memory by subsequent Balkan troubles.

Given this collective amnesia and magnificent as it was in many respects – Warriors had no time to explain the witches’ brew of Serb versus Croat, Moslem versus Orthodox, the bitter legacy of World War II, the Tito dictatorship or the collapse of communism. As a consequence, the complexities of who was fighting whom, and why, were barely intelligible to anyone who had not at least seen the shortened, three-hour version of that great documentary The Death of Yugoslavia. Continue reading Warriors: Oh what a lonely war, Daily Mail, November 22, 1999