blackfilm.com wrote:Date: Fall 2008
Distributor: Touchstone Pictures (Disney)
Director: Spike Lee
Screenwriter: James McBride
Cast: Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso, Omar Benson Miller, Matteo Sciabordi, John Leguizamo, Joseph Gordon Levitt
Miracle at St. Anna chronicles the story of four black American soldiers who are members of the US Army as part of the all-black 92nd "Buffalo Soldier" Division stationed in Tuscany, Italy during World War II.
They experience the tragedy and triumph of the war as they find themselves trapped behind enemy lines and separated from their unit after one of them risks his life to save an Italian boy.
Looks interesting. The book is described as the story of a "little known historic event", but is fiction. Anybody know to what extent this is a true story?
Belmondo wrote:Looks interesting. The book is described as the story of a "little known historic event", but is fiction. Anybody know to what extent this is a true story?
The 92nd Division was real, one of two exclusively black infantry divisions in WWII, and they were really in Tuscany. My guess is that the events in the film will be dramatized and fictional (i.e. the little Italian boy), but using the general realities of what the Buffalo Soldiers faced.
I saw the tournage at Rome. Mr Lee was filming at Piazza del Popolo the 28th of november. The 29th they were at Sant'Angelo Castle.
It was my first Hollywood "rodaje".
Belmondo wrote:Looks interesting. The book is described as the story of a "little known historic event", but is fiction. Anybody know to what extent this is a true story?
Given that the recent glut of WWII films have left me with an overall "meh" reaction, it's still cool to see that Joseph Gordon Levitt working with someone of Spike's caliber although it sounds like it's a minor part.
My father is actually working on this movie right now- they just finished shooting in New York (all of the shots were interiors though: I guess Spike just really loves New York) and now they are going off to New Orleans (interesting since Spike just did When the Levees Broke before this) and the Bahamas. He mentioned that he thought Joseph Gordon Levitt was a pretty cool kid. He was pretty good in Brick.
Last edited by klee13 on Fri Jan 18, 2008 9:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Klaylock wrote:My father is actually working on this movie right now- they just finished shooting in New York (all of the shots were interiors though: I guess Spike just really loves New York) and now they are going off to New Orleans (interesting since Spike just did When the Levees Broke before this) and the Bahamas. He says John Turturro is in it, which is cool since I think this is their first picture together since Do the Right Thing. He also mentioned that Joseph Gordon Levitt is a pretty cool kid.
May I ask what your father is doing on the picture?
And also, Lee and Turturro worked together on Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Clockers, Girl 6, He Got Game, Summer of Sam, and She Hate Me.
chaddoli wrote:May I ask what your father is doing on the picture?
And also, Lee and Turturro worked together on Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Clockers, Girl 6, He Got Game, Summer of Sam, and She Hate Me.
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I don't know why I thought that for some reason. I never saw She Hate Me, Girl 6, or Jungle Fever though and I don't remember him being in Summer of Sam either. Wasn't that Leguizamo who was in it?
He's a cameraman on it. He's done a lot of Spike pictures before this though. I think one of the first ones he did was Get on the Bus.
Antoine Doinel wrote:Spike Lee chats with the Telegraph and is hoping to premiere the film at the Venice International Film Festival.
I wonder why he's mentioned as being 57 and even quoted as saying he's lived for 57 years when the consensus is that he was born in March of 1957, making him 51. Surely a simple error on the interviewer's part, but a strange one to make.
I knew his little brother (we went to the same HS), and Spike used to come around from time to time-- aint no way that dude is that much older than me (or his little bro).
Spike Lee has so much on his plate in "Miracle at St. Anna" that it's little wonder everything goes flying.
He wants to throw a spotlight in the highly underreported exploits of the all-black 92nd Infantry Division, known as the Buffalo Soldiers, in the Italian campaign in World War II. He wants to show the prejudices they suffered at home and on the frontline, the disputes among themselves, their uneasy but ultimately warm reception by the Italians contrasted with the hostilities with the Nazis. There's a romantic triangle with a local woman, a shellshocked Italian boy, betrayals within the Partisans, a German army massacre and some heavy-handed magic realism. You can just feel audience involvement ebb slowly away with each passing scene of this overlong movie.
Disney won't find "Miracle" an easy film to market. Lee's name might be the best marketing tool, but the film lacks the discipline the director has shown in his recent efforts. It hits every thematic point too heavily and doesn't know when to move on. Box office prospects are not promising for the 160-minute September 25 release.
An unconvincing episode in 1980s New York bookends the film in which an aging black postal clerk kills an aging Italian immigrant whom he obviously recognizes from the war. The first sequences in Italy portray the Buffalo Soldiers as poorly trained and vague about their mission, a bit surprising given their historic reputation for skill and bravery. The incompetence of their white commanders is ultimately blamed for a botched operation that lands four soldiers behind enemy lines, surrounded by the enemy in a picturesque village.
Private Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller), a large man with limited intellect but a strong faith in God, befriends a traumatized 9-year-old boy (Matteo Sciabordi), the first white person he has ever actually touched. The idealistic Sgt. Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke) and the cynical Sgt. Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy) develop a rivalry over the town's beauty (Valentina Cervi), conveniently the only person who speaks English. Corporal Victor Negron (Laz Alonso) struggles along with Stamps to contact headquarters and then to follow orders to kidnap a German soldier.
In adapting his own novel, James McBride lets confusion seep into his story as the rifts among the Partisans and villagers are never entirely clear, and even the orders from American and German headquarters seem capricious. That we're even privy to what the German commanders are up to, given that this is a flashback of an American soldier's memory, is odd.
Odd too, for a film that wants to correct impressions anyone had as to the abilities of black U.S. soldier in combat, are the ethnic cliches about Italians and Germans, to say nothing of rednecks. Portraying "Hun" soldiers as those who would bayonet babies was old in World War I.
Ultimately, the film is an unsavory blend of the sentimental and melodramatic. The subplot of the psychologically injured Italian boy and his "chocolate giant" is never persuasive. In fact, the whole episode is downright embarrassing. The Italian woman, her fascist dad and indeed all the villagers are like bad memories summoned from vintage World War II movies. And having the woman parade topless before an American soldier is pure male fantasy.
None of the characters comes to any kind of life in the writing. Each has but a single dimension with little to distinguish one from another. The story meanders, almost absurdly so, once the quartet get stranded in the medieval village. Certainly if Lee wanted to cut the film a bit before its release, he has ample places to begin.
Perhaps feeling insecure in all this melodrama, Lee lets composer Terence Blanchard blanket the film with a wall of sound, telling you how to feel and react at any given moment.
That's disappointing. As for Terence Blanchard, he can be both the best and worst thing about any given Lee film. His music is as often effective as it is distracting.
Spike Lee: My Spat With Eastwood May Have Cost Me Oscar
Huffington Post | September 10, 2008 02:48 PM
Spike Lee told King magazine that he fears his public war of words with Clint Eastwood may have cost him an Oscar nomination. Earlier this year, at Cannes, Lee criticized Eastwood for not having African-Americans in Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima, Eastwood then said Lee should "shut his face" and Lee responded "we're not on a plantation." Now Lee thinks the controversy that followed his remarks may have ruined his Academy Award chances for new movie "Miracle at St. Anna." Lee tells King magazine:
My wife Tonya told me I may have hurt my chances with the Clint Eastwood stuff... They (Oscar voters and Academy bosses) take everything into account with me. They take into account that I like the Knicks or that I'm in New York."
Lee is adamant the fact he's a Big Apple guy has cost him an Oscar Best Director nomination in the past: "If you did a survey, the bulk of the people who vote in the Academy are in Los Angeles. There's definite bias, considering that my films are typically New York-based." He's still upset that his Do The Right Thing movie wasn't even considered for an Oscar the year Driving Miss Daisy claimed Best Film.
He adds, "Nobody is watching motherfucking Driving Miss Daisy today. Do The Right Thing is being taught in classes at major universities and high schools all over the world. That's how you're supposed to test art. Does the work stand up?"
