As I was finalizing my final list of 10 (11) movies for the Film Snob series, this was the last minute dark horse entry, which I hope doesn’t demean it in any way. I was reminded of Winslow Boy, oddly enough, as I watched the DVD of the third season of the FX drama The Shield, a pretty brutal L.A. police drama that apparently ended it’s final season ever last fall on a very high quality note (and I’m hoping and praying that as I slog my way through the show’s DVDs that nothing is spoiled for me from outside sources).Guest starring for a few episodes as a housewife ignorant of her husband’s possible brutal crimes was Rebecca Pidgeon, a very versatile and articulate actress who has starred in nearly every David Mamet movie since the mid-1990s including 1999’s Winslow Boy. When I saw her performance in The Shield, I was reminded of how her appearance in these films made everything more snappy and sophisticated. As I recall, the main performances I’ve seen of hers were in the Mamet movies The Spanish Prisoner, Winslow Boy, and State and Main. Through a psychological thriller, a English period piece, and an ensemble comedy, she remained such a professional acting presence, but what really tied her performances together was the critically respected dialogue and direction of her husband, David Mamet.
David Mamet was a playwright before a director, which is why among the crème de la crème of film criticism he is considered a master of film dialogue. Translating a craft that requires engaging words to be spoken in a static setting for 1-3 acts into a moving picture is exciting if done well. The rhythm and pacing of a script is the invisible glue that makes a tolerable film a good film and a beautifully shot film a masterpiece. Can you imagine how epic the Star Wars saga could have been if George Lucas delegated his script writing duties a little bit to have Luke and Solo’s words sound intelligent, with turns of phrases and pacing that would match the rhythms of the light saber duels? Instead the focus was on the epic flashy effects and space worlds, while the characters, as good a quality as some of the actors were, butchered the English language and turned the spoken word as a tool for clunky placeholders between explosions.
Now David Mamet, who also directed the excellent Spartan and supervised the TV Show The Unit, has shown how action plus perfectly crafted dialogue can equal intense action filmmaking. But Winslow Boy is a particular interesting case because of how Mamet manages to filter anger, condescension, and other strong emotions through a restrictive filter, as the film is set among upper class Britons at the beginning of the 20th century, where the most emotional expressions are understated and controlled. I remember a review of this film saying that it was compelling because it was Mamet-style adaptation of a play “as British as a teacup”. This play, which was written in 1946, was about a family trying to clear their name after a son, a cadet in a military youth academy, was expelled after being wrongfully accused of stealing a postal order. By all means, a description of the play immediately brings to mind those prim, proper, and seemingly dull (at first glance) Masterpiece Theater specials that usually air on Sundays, when I'm contemplating the work week that will soon begin and what to avoid anything dated and dingy. As a Mamet adaptation of this play, however, a fascinating cinematic experiment was set up, as a playwright known for creating brilliant variations of many modern curse words had to give the same contemporary energy to this material.
Perhaps Winslow Boy would seem ordinary without that context, but this film sparkles in ways that films using modern colorful language can’t. I’m having trouble finding source quotes from the movie, but there are so many moments of familial tension and interaction that come up through subtle accents on syllables and words. In turn, these intricately crafted lines are so well-performed by the cast, that they serve as the verbal equivalent of the punch in a face and a devastating substitute for the modern curse-laden screeds of today. With contemporary physical confrontation and saucy language tremendously out of step in the society of this movie, these scenes have a unique power.
A few highlights (spoilers limited):
When the father looks into the accussed son’s eyes and explains how a “lie between you and me can never be told”, before asking directly, with conviction, twice, if he performed this crime.
When the daughter and her fiancé (who is a military officer and takes the side against the family in the case against the military academy for the expulsion) discusses the pursuance of the case. .. The fiancé’s military family wants them to drop their efforts, while the daughter (played by Pidgeon) doesn’t think that it should effect their matrimonial plans, hoping that their love cannot be overturned by this conflict. It the final exchange we see between them, the fiancé asked for her to encourage her father to drop the case, and in a beautifully constructed line, Pidgeon doesn’t directly say yes…
“I love you John… I want to be your wife.”
To which the fiancé says “Then it’s settled then.”
There’s also some riveting scenes with the older son as he is cut off by his father from his expensive academic studies and encouraged to join his father’s banking profession. There is no emotional eruption in this scene… just a matter-of-factness that portrays the emotions on the son’s face. At a scene to wrap up this subplot much later, you can tell just by the contemptuousness on the son’s face that he has gone through a great deal of emotional turmoil as a stage of his life where he was guaranteed both financial support and career freedom has ended.
Finally, there’s a scene that was apparently added by Mamet for this movie, a brutal, meticulously crafted interrogation of the family’s advocate towards the ‘Winslow Boy’ that convinces the lawyer of the boy’s innocence by making him appear guilty. In fact, this one scene could be the textbook example of the absolute power of words, and the genius of using them to reveal hidden truths.
Describing this dialogue obviously doesn’t do it justice. But from a standpoint of appreciating the layers of filmmaking one must at least be cognizant of to be a Film Snob, Winslow Boy is a great example. An entertaining film adaptation of a play set in upper-class Edwardian England in 1908 is one thing to appreciate, but it's a whole other thing to find fascination in the vision of a filmmaker funneling his contemporary rhythms of script-writing and language into a completely different world. The medium between the material of the Winslow Boy play and Mamet's other works, represented spot-on by the actors, is exciting to behold. But I think my personal appreciation for The Winslow Boy is because of my understanding this larger creative context in which it was made. No filmmaker, unless there are the most opportunistic hacks in the business, make a movie in isolation of their other output. Watching other Mamet material before this one would really help you appreciate the depature this film takes, and makes the dry archaic setting much more resonant in the process.
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