Those classics...

Rating: 8/10 (29 October 2005)

Movies are one of the things I love the most in my life, and I really want to know about the things I love. So I believe that in order to appreciate films, you should watch everything; to become a cultured person in the matter. Not just watch the contemporary films, or in Descartes mode, watch only the films made after I was born.
Everything includes classics like "From here to eternity". Made in black and white: with pure passion. While I watched I tried to think about the way movies were made at those times. The power the big female stars like Deborah Kerr had, the money actors like Burt Lancaster made per movie, the low budget of the projects, the little shooting time.
What were the results? In the case of "From here to eternity"; an Oscar winning film where everything fits perfectly. Because it was not easy to make it work, or at I least that's what I think. I think that at the time there was an honest cinema, with lots of true spoken words. Nowadays we have P.T. Anderson and his encounters between people, but in the 50's it took a man named Daniel Taradash to make moving a two people chat.
When Private Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) arrives in Schofield, he has a little "catch-up" talk with a soldier. In three minutes, with non-exaggerated words, we understand the essence of Clift's character. The army is his life; and he's destined to end his days there. He'll have his problems, he'll have to fight, he'll have to gain his place, but that's how things go with the hero. Then he'll meet his woman Alma (Donna Reed) and fight for love, too.
But it's not just about him and his love story. There's another man, Prewitt's superior; Sergeant Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster), who has another superior, Captain Dana Holmes. However, Holmes goes out with friends and the honorable Warden does all the work. From time to time, Holmes' wife Karen (Deborah Kerr) visits the base, and the Sergeant approaches. Later both of them experience two of the most romantic scenes I've ever witnessed.
And here comes an issue probably discussed many times. In a movie where the character that highlights the most is Prewitt, Montgomery Clift is second-billed, and Lancaster is first. Yet Lancaster goes into the water and the sand with Deborah Kerr, third-billed. Who is the leading man? Lancaster or Clift? And if they're both leading men, why is Clift's woman supporting actress and not Lancaster's? Well, supposing the latter four are the "leading team", each of their performances is incredible and impossible to detail about. On the other hand, supporting performances or a supporting performance is from another world. Frank Sinatra's Angelo Maggio is priceless. We don't get many given friends in today's cinema. In a story like this one, Prewitt needed someone beside him, and that little guy was there from the start until the end. They'll meet again.
The work of Fred Zinnemann ("cine" is cinema in Spanish, and "zine"..Zine man: The man of the cinema) is wondrous too. Now the final product of a film depends of lots of people, and influences come from different parts of a production; but I think back then the director was like a king. It was his word in his world or something like that. Zinnemann's camera always makes close ups in the characters' faces.
Maybe he believed it was very important to show feelings and maybe the face is the part of the body that expresses them best. I would do the same.