bluesman-20
War and Remembrance picks up after where the Winds of War left off. It's late dec.1941 and captain Victor "Pug " Henry fights to get the command of a battleship. and he receives the U.S.S. Northhampton. The beginning of War and Remembrance shows the Allies getting involved in the war and the early losses. It also depicts two major story lines which are both powerful. One is the effect the war has on a military family and the battles they fought. And the other is the Final solution as it effects the Jews . It pulls no punches. It tells no fairy tales it hits you where you live. The Story is powerful and the acting is superb. If you liked The Winds of War you'll like War and Remembrance. But in my mind the Winds of War is the superior of the two. War and Remebrance has the same power. It seeks to tell simply the main story of World War II using the two main families the Henry's and the Jastrow"s and thru them we see the horrors of war. The loss of a son. The persecution of the Jews and the hate that drove men to commit horrors in the names of their country. My one simple complaint is that there simply is not enough of Robert Mitchum in this one. If Winds was Pug's Story then War is Pug's sons story. Byron steps out of the supporting cast and takes center stage. Hart Bochner takes over the role the Jan Michael Vincent did in Winds and makes it his own. Compelling TV at its best.
Deusvolt
.....of War" But as reasons, they cited production values centering on shooting locations, authentic sets, care in staging shots, and other technical aspects of production. No one said the very obvious: "Remembrance" is better than "Winds" because of the higher caliber of acting. Jane Seymour's nuanced portrayal of Natalie was certainly better than Ali McGraw's one-dimensional haughty, petulant and flibbertigibbet Natalie. Gielgud was more professorial and a really convincing intellectual Jew compared to Houseman. His delivery of that sermon on the biblical Job as a "stinking Jew" (an epithet Jews were required by the SS to use in introducing themselves in the concentration camps) was very moving. The noble but conflicted Byron characterization by Hart Bochner is certainly not the shallow hot in the pants Byron portrayed by Jan Michael Vincent. For some reason, I also preferred the Warren Henry of Michael Woods over that of Ben Murphy who wasn't bad at all but Woods had the charisma or the "glow about him" that Pamela Tudsbury (Victoria Tennant) described. Polly Bergen's acting or maybe her role as Rhoda much improved in "Remembrance" because in "Winds" she was just this overly excited and artificially cheerful navy housewife bowled over by the seeming glamor of Nazi Germany. Now in "Remembrance" she displays a fuller range of acting descending into regret and downright pathos as she realized that she flirted away her marriage and family. I realize I may not be being fair in blaming the actors named. For all we know, Herman Wouk's screen writing skills improved in the five-year interim between "Winds" and "Remembrance." Similarly, Curtis' directorial savvy may have also improved. And that brings me to the matter of comparison between the book and the screenplay. The film generally succeeds in bringing to the TV audience the gist of the story (stories actually) in "Remembrance," but actually it is not a faithful rendition of the book's narrative. Certain contrivances were used to bring key characters to interact with each other to get the audience into the flow of the epic. For example, in the film Pug and Armin von Roon were personally acquainted or even friends in a sort of way. But in the book they never met as far as I can recall. Admiral Henry was writing a memoir or a postwar analysis of the battles and the conduct of the war and was using a book written by Von Roon as a reference which he was refuting on several points. I was somewhat sympathetic to the Von Roon character in the book but still he was presented as somewhat of an opportunist who supported Hitler as long as he was winning the war and turned against him only when Germany was losing. In the film, however, Von Roon (excellently played by Jeremy Kemp) was shown to be an early critic of Hitler and hinted at as one of the plotters of the failed assassination of the Fuhrer.Your Edit Subject:
merdiolu
If you want to measure how much television production and mass entertainment has regressed over 20 years you should check "War and Remembrance" and compare it with trash aired on television and theaters right now. Characters straight from Herman Wouk's original novel are dramatic , have feelings , fears , struggles , personal agonies , accomplishments and failures. They are real as much as they can be in fact too real in stark horrific reality of wartime. We see two families Henry's , Wastrows and people around them living , struggling , trying to survive and move on in these extraordinary conditions of greatest war mankind ever made. Meanwhile we witness main events and personalities of war , battles , diplomatic events etc. And yes best produced holocaust scenes ever made in television. Horror of what Nazis had done to Jews , Slavs , Gypsies , Communists and other undesirable minorities were sampled and brought to screen with dramatic acting , intense detailed production values. I fact same high production value standards is in entire miniseries itself. From cold bitter merciless concrentation camps to wartime America , from occupied France to Germany to naval battles at sea everything has an authentic look of 1940'es. It is very informative in historical sense.Although characters are depicted like in novel not all characters are well written ( both in novel and in miniseries ) Romance story of Captain Pug Henry with Pamela Tudsburry who is half his age is very unconvincing and compared with stark brutality of what Jastrows enduring at hands of Nazis it is just pointless and trivial. Same thing can be said for Polly Bergen's character , Rhode Henry , Pug's drunk wife and her relationships and manners in comfortable US. Instead they could give us some more battle scenes and other stuff about war and contribitions of characters. Fortunetely rest of casting and character writing is very very good. Jane Symour and John Gielgund are just awesome as Aaron and Natalie Jastrow , Jews who are trying to survive in Nazi occupied Europe. Hart Borchner is also giving a good performance as US submarine officer Byron Henry who is trying to reach his wife Natalie and his child trapped in Europe. Victoria Tenant , Robert Morley are not bad either. Rest of cast and supporting characters are also showing very admirable performances. Stefan Berkoff as Adolf Hitler is quite entertaining to watch for example.....
lsgm1
I read the books long ago, and watched "The Winds of War" when it first came out. Don't ever watch a sequel that's made 5 years later than the original - it just doesn't work. I understand Ali MacGraw decided she was too old in 1988 to play Natialie Jastrow - kudos, she was too old in the first - but Jane Seymour? She looks about the same age as Ali, too. Robert Mitchum looked exhausted, his clothes didn't fit, and he had no passion. Hart Bochner, as Byron Henry, was awful - just awful. Briny was indolent, insolent, and quirky - Jan Michael-Vincent was far better, although agreeably too old. Ralph Bellamy did a good job as FDR, but was too small. I know no one who likes a good read is ever satisfied with the movie, but casting is everything in these long sagas - an unknown who fit the part would have been far better.