The comments section of Dave’s video review of Spike Lee’s 25th Hour quickly turned into a discussion of the director’s work and it’s clear form the comments that there’s a lot of love for Lee out there.
Lee and Clint Eastwood have exchanged words recently over some comments Lee made last week (these news have traveled as far as Turkey) but I think it’s safe to assume that even with this little spat, excitement over Lee’s next project is pretty high and for good reason too. Miracle at St. Anna tells the story of a four black American soldiers who get trapped in a Tuscan village during WWII. What’s particularly interesting to me is that the film appears to be told in flashbacks, with a tie to the “present”.
The trailer for the film has made its way on-line, thanks to Richard at Filmstalker for the heads up, and it looks gorgeous not to mention, unsurprisingly powerful. I, for one, am very excited to see it.
Miracle at St. Anna is scheduled to open on September 26th.
Check out the trailer under the seat!
Jesus, Spike has gone epic. Okay I’m psyched.
Wow. Looks really good. Didn’t know Joseph Gordon Levitt was in this one too. I like the tie to present day, with a mystery and a WWII epic rolled into one. Too bad something like this is coming out in September, the box office doomed month.
Looks like a great twist on the WWII picture, with the whole murder/flashback/valuable artifact. Lookin’ forward to it.
@Eaglewind – I’m actually not sure if that’s JGL. It certainly LOOKS like him but he’s not listed in the cast list and his filmography doesn’t have a listing for this particular film…unless I’ve gone completely blind. Though it wouldn’t be the first time IMDb was wrong, this seems like a pretty big omission….
That’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
DEFINITELY JGL.
And the movie looks great. No more marketing needed. Any more will be spoilerific.
Fall can’t come soon enough!
You’ve seen the trailer, but I’ve read the book, and it is not very good. The event depicted took place on August 12, 1944. Troops from the 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division killed 560 people in the village of Sant’Anna di Stazzema. No US soldiers, let alone African-Americans, were involved. One villager said: “It’s a false reconstruction that does not take account of the historical reality,” adding “This sort of fiction should be banned, otherwise the damage to the memory and historical truth will be very serious.” I don’t believe in banning anything, and plan on seeing the movie. That said, Spike Lee should get his own glass house in order before throwing stones at Clint Eastwood.
Thanks for the info GothicLiner. I try to assume that no film is completely historically accurate but I didn’t realize this was deviating that much from the history.
The novel is a work of fiction “inspired by real events and real people,” that is the massacre at St. Anna and the memories of Buffalo soldiers who fought in the Serchio Valley and Italians (both Fascist and Partisan he interviewed in Italy. He further states,”I have taken certain liberties with names,places and geography, but what follows is real.It happens a thousand time in a thousand places to a thousand people. Yet we still manage to love one another,despite our best efforts to the contrary.”
It is an excellent novel (and screenplay,which I’ve read)for what it is, quasi-historical fiction. It really not a war story per se but a powerful, dramatic story about the interconnectedness of humanity even when we hate and fight each other,the human capacity for compassion and treachery in morally compromising contexts,the evilness and futility of war and the sublimity of the divine providence.