When the Italians were struggling against the invading Austrians in the summer of 1918, a cub reporter from Oak Park, Illinois, became the first American casualty of the Great War. One of Woodrow Wilson's Red Cross volunteers, nearly 19, he carried a wounded Italian soldier to safety, sustaining serious injuries to his right leg. Convalescing in hospital, he fell for his nurse and although his leg recovered, his heart never did.
In Love and War, directed by Britain's film Lord and Berlinale regular Richard Attenborough, presents that adolescent heroism and brief romance as a rueful Valentine. For the lad was Ernest Hemingway, but the nurse was eight years older, and their difference in age proved too great - in an era before toy boys - for her to marry him. The incident would later form the basis for his second novel, A Farewell to Arms, where the character of Catharine Barkley is inspired by Agnes von Kurowsky - whose own letters, published in 1989, helped shape the memoir (by Henry Villard, father of the producer Dimitri) on which this intimate epic is based.
Attenborough's film displays his customary craftsmanship- among the collaborators is Allen Scott, constant writer for Nicolas Roeg, and the handsome Panavision camerawork is by Roger Pratt who photographed Shadowlands and Twelve Mobkeys. Although there are many huge crowd and blazing battle scenes - and beautiful backdrops of the Dolomites, Venice, and Canada - the shooting took only 11 weeks, with interiors at Shepperton Studios in London.
Poised for stardom as Batman's Robin, Chris O'Donnell brings his keen, good looks to the role of the young Hemingway, while Sandra Bullock changes speed for her first period role, as the maturer ministering angel. Phillip Bergson
Regie (Dir): Richard Attenborough
Buch (Scr): Allan Scott, Clancy Sigal, Anna Hamilton Phelan, nach dem Buch Hemingway In Love and War von Henry S Villard und James Nagel
Darsteller (Cast): Sandra Bullock, Chris O'Donnell, Mackenzie Astin
Länge (Running time): 110 Minuten.
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