Castle Keep (Full Screen Edition) dvd movie.|
Castle Keep (Full Screen Edition) buy bestselling dvd movies, videos find reviews, ratings, prices |
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List Price: $14.94 Our Price: $12.99 You Save: $1.95 Features • Closed-captioned • Color • Dolby • DVD-Video • Full Screen • Subtitled • NTSC In Theaters : 1969 DVD Release : 20 July, 2004 |
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Castle Keep (Full Screen Edition) description Released to mixed reviews in 1969, Castle Keep now qualifies as a potent allegory for the insanity of the Vietnam War. In that respect it belongs in the same category as better-known anti-war films of the period including Little Big Man and The Wild Bunch, and director Sydney Pollack (who scored his breakthrough hit later that year with They Shoot Horses, Don't They?) deftly straddles a stylistic line between old-school Hollywood and the emerging counterculture epitomized by Easy Rider. He also gets a memorably off-kilter performance from Burt Lancaster (who had been instrumental in launching Pollack's directorial career), the young-looking Tony Bill (who later became a successful producer-director), and especially Peter Falk, who would soon gain TV fame as Columbo. As American soldiers occupying a richly-appointed medieval castle in the Ardennes Forest near the end of World War II, they're a M*A*S*H-like bunch of military misfits (including Bruce Dern as a conscientious objector) engaged in a microcosm of occupational warfare as German troops draw closer. The ending is uncompromisingly bleak, reflecting the futility of Vietnam with long-lasting resonance. From a latter-day perspective, Castle Keep is a bold hybrid of large-scale WWII action and political statement, which may explain why such high-profile filmmakers as Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese successfully campaigned for a widescreen DVD after the release of this inferior full-screen version. --Jeff Shannon |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | A character herein asks of another, "Did you hear a scream, maybe a wild bird or an eagle?" I'd add, "Or perhaps, nothing?" |
| "We don't believe in fighting," a soldier tells Peter Falk's character in the middle of the night on an otherwise quiet street. "Oh," Falk responds, "who believes in fighting?" The soldier, who a moment before had been leading a handful of soldiers singing for redemption, responds that "We believe in God. That frightens you doesn't it? All you believe in is fornication and killing. We're conscientious objectors," the soldier (played by Bruce Dern) tells Falk, in conclusion. Patrick O'Neil's character is an objector in a way too. He plays a "famed art historian" turned fighting subordinate who tries to persuade Burt Lancaster to abandon the castle they are holed up in rather than see it destroyed should they try to hold it against advancing Germans. He tells Lancaster, his one-eyed commander (a man who apparently can't see the forest for the trees, or so it seems to be suggested) that "If something isn't saved, what's it all for?" Lancaster, whose name herein is Falconer, continuing on this theme, objects by saying that "You can't save anything by giving it to the Germans. If you give them anything you have to give them everything."
All this, mind you, takes place in Belgium at "a tenth century castle in a twentieth century war," as the film trailer states. The characters herein likewise are rather oddly situated. We have the art historian in a historic castle filled to the rafters with priceless art; the one-eyed commander determined to hold the fort, as they say; a preacher (not the singing guy above who was from another unit), who berates a German tank with words until it is simply too close not to be fired upon; a would-be writer who is trying to absorb all that is happening around him; a cowboy of sorts, who takes a liking to a Volkswagon Beetle Bug car and spends an inordinate amount of his free time polishing it and driving it in circles in front of the castle; and we have Peter Falk's character, a baker turned soldier---the most alive character in the film, the most watchable actor herein---who, almost just to make him as odd as some of the others, winds up helping the local baker's wife (whose husband is presumably dead) literally make bread. Falk: "I've got no place to go, no place to retreat to." The words could just have easily been spoken by Lancaster's character, of course. Hence the latter's determination to stand his ground. Is this a wonderful picture? That should be easy enough for you to answer from just this sketch I've provided you with, but as you can project a bit of your own thinking into this film, you can argue (as others have here) that this film has more depth than one might at first glance see. That depends more on you than anything else, of course, so I'll leave it at that and give Castle Keep a rather neutral three stars and leave it to you to decide whether to have a gander at this film. Cheers |
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