So long as there are men...

Rating: 10/10 (13 November 2018)

That's the translation of the French title, and I like it. So long as there are men ... there will be wars, and lives and loves torn apart...
...so long as these things are, there will be the stuff that makes such movies as "From Here to Eternity". And getting back to the original title, in anything is to be deemed eternal in "From Here to Eternity" it is without a doubt Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr's intense and passionate kiss on a Hawaiian beach.
Sure there have been kisses in movies before, remember Rhett and Scarlett's shadows getting closer while war painted the background in bright tones of orange and yellow, a passion burning like the city of Atlanta... yet "From Here to Eternity" surpasses that kiss thanks to two last-minute strikes of genius, earning the film its ticket to immortality : they kiss each other horizontally, lying on the wet sand, and like fire in "Gone with the Wind", natural elements interfere through the wave hitting the couple, the little touch to be parodied zillion times. It's not romantic love but nature in motion, sheer passion: he loves women...
...and she loves men.... and that's that.
I knew it would be impossible not to mention this scene, but there is more in what makes the film such an endearing classic, even more to be compared with "Gone With the Wind" as it was the first film to equal its record of 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. But this isn't any Best Picture winner, the film has a strange capability to please your eyes without trying hard, to challenge your thoughts without being intellectual, to touch your heart without being sentimental and to be erotic by only suggesting... it's a fascinating and insightful gallery of character studies disguised as entertainment or what some would call War movie or Romance.
But there isn't much war in "From Here to Eternity" and not much romance,
the idyll on the beach was so iconic everyone forgot that it was followed by an argument less than a minute after. After the wave-kiss, they'd never have an opportunity to be so physically and passionately in love, for there is an obstacle called duty. And there isn't much war either, only when the film culminates with the Pearl Harbor attacks that the second romance between Montgomery Clift and Donna Reed (playing a prostitute) gets overly melodramatic. By the time the film becomes more Hollywood-like, it's over, women left and wept, men died and others got ready to it.
And that sad irony is what the film carries deeply in its core, thanks to a magnificent script adapted by Daniel Taradash from James Jones' novel, it is poetically summed up in Lancaster's farewell line to a dead Clift "You couldn't play it smart". As Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt, Clift played a stubborn soldier who refused to box for his platoon because of a tragic accident, for much of Captain Holmes' displeasure who pulled the strings to get his middleweight champion. Retrospectively, boxing would have spared him months of humiliations, harassment, and so non-military treatment... without the championship even happening at the end. Well, no one saw Pearl Harbor coming.
Basically, Prew was torn between his status as a soldier and his moral independence and ironically (again), that's what earned him the respect of Sgt. Warden (Lancaster) who could recognize a great soldier if he saw one. Prew represents this kind of lone wolves cherished by the director Fred Zinneman, the likes of Will Kane or Sir Thomas More. And Clift gives an intense performance as hard-nosed Prew, his piercing look threatened more than his body and defied anyone to shaken his integrity. Speaking of which I'm glad Zinneman gave the example by not surrendering to Harry Cohn's initial choices including Rita Hayworth, William Holden and Eli Wallach.
But Lancaster was the only choice they first agreed on and he couldn't have been more perfectly casted. Indeed, Warden is not your typical Sergeant, if anything, nothing is typical in the film, he's quite easygoing, getting away from every situation with his killer smile and a charisma working with both men and ladies and he's enjoying his office work without minding playing the assistant for a less competent hierarchical superior. But he falls in love with his boss' wife and only becoming an officer can solve his dilemma. But like Prew, he feels his duty is to serve the Army and not even love can change that. Even Warden is incapable to 'play it smart', because it's not about being smart, but simply about being true to your personality.
Only women are capable of changing. Kerr as Karen was a honorable woman turning into the Army 'obligee', while Alma was a prostitute trying to become honorable, the film is a successful of fascinating contradictions, even more delightful because many actors played against types, Kerr, more used to sophisticated and distinguished ladies play a repressed nymphomaniac while Donna Reed was the eternal Mary from "It's a Wonderful Life" (she won the Oscar for that role) And how about Frank Sinatra who accepted to be underpaid to get the part (no horse-head behind a deserved Oscar) and good old Marty (Ernest Borgnine) the villainous Fatso Hudson (Ernest Borgnine).
But aren't we all against-type players? Isn't the conflict between duty and personality, the real war in the film? But you can't force people to be what they aren't and love be damned if it ever meant compromising, and this is why by the end, those who played it square didn't necessarily win the game. Neither the others, but only because the film had to sugarcoat some elements from the original novel to please the censors and the Army. Still, with such great performances (nominated in four acting categories), an intelligent script and an unforgettable kiss...
...well, the title says it all.