As the most celebrated director of the modern era, Steven Spielberg creates excitement among film fans like few others. Since the early 1970s he’s been a dominant force in Hollywood, and is responsible for many of cinema’s most defining moments. He is perhaps best known for large-scale productions, bringing a sense of grandeur to his stories as only a few big-name directors can. His latest film, WAR HORSE, is no exception: spanning the length of The Great War, and travelling from rural Devon to The Battle of the Somme, WAR HORSE is as epic as any previous Spielberg film. It also has a very personal and intimate core, and Spielberg considers that, with WAR HORSE, he has created a different kind of war film, one that has strong underlying themes of love and friendship.
‘This is not SAVING PRIVATE RYAN or BAND OF BROTHERS,’ he says, talking at the film’s London press conference, ‘It’s a bonding story, in which Joey circumvents the emotional globe of The Great War and connects with the people who are caring for him. He has a way of bringing people together, even people from both sides of the war.’
For those that don’t know, Joey is the name given to the story’s titular horse. After farmer’s son Albert trains and rears Joey, the two form an unbreakable bond. But when war begins in Europe, Joey is sold off to the army. From this point on, Joey finds himself in the ownership of numerous people in different parts of the conflict. But Albert vows to reunite with Joey somehow, and soon finds himself in the thick of the war, fighting in terrifying no-man’s land battles.
The story originates from the 1982 novel by Michael Morpurgo. It has gone on to find great success as a theatre adaptation in London’s West End, and is now finally brought to the big screen by Spielberg. It’s unsurprising that the director should be drawn to the material; he’s often explored the humanity beneath significant historical events, and when he talks about WAR HORSE he projects a genuine passion for the film. Spielberg is particularly enthusiastic when discussing actor Jeremy Irvine, who plays the leading role of Albert.
‘I looked at hundreds of potential Alberts,’ says Spielberg. ‘What made Jeremy stand out was that quality that makes certain stars stand out and rise above the rest.’
For Irvine, the production has been a surreal but life-changing experience. He confesses to having wondered if the previous evening’s red carpet premiere had been a dream, and next to his co-stars (including Emily Watson and Tom Hiddleston), proves to be a modest and affable presence.
‘I came straight from having no lines in a theatre show to this,’ Irvine laughs. It’s clear he’s happy enough to have a speaking part, let alone the leading role in a Steven Spielberg picture. Although new to the industry and inexperienced in filmmaking, Spielberg was in no way deterred from casting the 21-year-old actor.
‘I’m very accustomed to working with actors with no experience,’ says Spielberg. ‘Just look back at Drew Barrymore in E.T. or Christian Bale in EMPIRE OF THE SUN – this is the kind of career that could be in store for Jeremy. Often a newcomer will freeze up in front of the camera or imitate other performers. My job is to return them to what it is I first saw in them – an uncensored human being. Jeremy did a wonderful job playing himself.’
Irvine was undoubtedly aided by the veteran director, who has guided many young actors before to memorable and acclaimed performances. His techniques have caused some discussion amongst the cast members, who appropriately likened him to a horse whisperer.
‘He does a very strange thing,’ says Emily Watson, who plays Albert’s mother Rose, ‘he talks to you during takes. The first few days, we were all taken aback by it – you’re in the middle of doing your scene and he’s talking to you. He knows exactly what he wants and plants little seeds in your head. It takes a director of incredible skill. He doesn’t have to reach for things – he can just make them happen.’
Directing human actors is one thing, but directing horses is something else entirely. Whilst the stage production uses models and puppetry for Joey and other equine characters, there was never any doubt that the film version would use real live animals. Screenwriter Richard Curtis recalls how, after agreeing to script the film, he was regularly asked ‘How are you going to do the horses?’ to which he always replied, ‘With horses.’
As one would expect, shooting live animals in such prominent positions isn’t without its problems. For the part of Joey, eight horses were needed, some of which were trained specifically for one action or moment, such as kneeling or walking backwards. One major difficulty was ensuring that the animals at no time came under any stress or injury, which is especially problematic when shooting scenes of conflict.
‘When I had a crazy idea,’ Spielberg recalls, ‘the horse trainer would say “I can do that safely” or “I can’t do that safely”. We also had someone from the Humane Society who had power over me. I gave her chance to stop a take, or even stop a take from being taken.’
It’s not just Spielberg who shows great respect for the horses. The cast are also in awe of the animals, particularly those who found themselves riding during the shoot. Tom Hiddleston, who plays Captain Nicholls, is particularly vocal on the subject, particularly as he had to re-learn what he thought he knew about horse riding.
‘I’d done some riding on THOR, but Asgardians ride like cowboys,’ he says. ‘When I was taken off to cavalry school, I was disabused very quickly of my bad habits and drilled like a soldier. It’s amazing learning to ride – horses are so sensitive that they’ll call your bluff. If you’re feigning confidence with arrogance they’ll bolt, and you won’t be able to control them. You have to be humble enough to allow them to teach you to ride. The sensitivity and nobility of those animals is something I never expected, the depth of their capacity to feel. Horses have so much to teach us – the horse’s capacity for courage reminds people of their own humanity.’
For the horse, the First World War was a pivotal time. Whilst historical battles had largely been fought on horseback, the animals found themselves replaced by aeroplanes, tanks, and advanced weaponry. This transitional period is perfectly captured in the film: as mounted soldiers armed only with swords find themselves facing heavy-artillery machine guns, the transforming and frightening realities of modern conflict become clear. Despite the changing methodologies of warfare, a great number of horses were still sent into battle, resulting in a high number of animal fatalities.
‘Roughly speaking,’ says Michael Morpurgo, author of the original novel, ‘one million horses went into the First World War and 65,000 came home, which means roughly the same number of horses died as men on our side. They died the same way – on the wire, they drowned in the mud, died of exhaustion and disease.’
In Morpurgo’s story, the horse comes to represent something else entirely, something that Spielberg and Curtis have emulated in their adaptation. By seeing the war through Joey’s eyes, we are able to see the futility of war and how senseless and terrifying it truly is. As one of the only characters to not be directly involved with the killing of others, Joey somehow claims more humanity than most of the human characters. As Spielberg states: ‘If more people had the common horse-sense of Joey, we wouldn’t be having wars.’
Morpurgo echoes Spielberg’s sentiments about war, and considers that whilst his book is free of graphic violence, the subject matter will still leave readers feeling ‘desperately sad and wretched.’ He also comments on the renewed popularity of his novel (most evident from the enormously successful stage adaptation), and believes this is due to current world events.
‘We have bodies coming home in coffins covered in flags,’ the author says, ‘and not just in this country but worldwide. I think people are more in contact with the consequences of war than they’ve been for a very long time.’
The battles featured in WAR HORSE are frighteningly realistic. Whilst Spielberg has kept gore and blood to a minimum, the film still manages to reflect the horrors of real conflict. The scenes have been staged accurately, and the only thing to have not been faithfully recreated were the bullets. The filming of such sequences proved particularly moving for Hiddleston, whose character fights on the frontline.
‘You could hear 480 hooves thundering in your ears,’ says the actor, ‘the sound of 120 stuntmen screaming at the top of their lungs, 300 extras running away from you in terror – it felt as real as it could possibly get. It made me recalibrate my appreciation for what real conflict must be like and what real soldiers go through. I felt an enormous responsibility to represent the kind of spirit with which that war was fought and the courage people displayed. It’s about the triumph of collective courage over fear.’
However, whilst these aspects of the film remain effective, it makes up only a small part of the overall narrative. Spielberg considers key to the story’s universal appeal is that beneath the surface it is, in fact, a love story.
‘There’s only about 12-15 minutes of combat in this film’ says Spielberg. ‘It’s not really that kind of a film. I wanted families to see this picture together. Unlike SAVING PRIVATE RYAN where I was trying to equate the actual testimonies of the young men who fought and make the movie as brutally authentic as possible, I took a different approach o this story, so for me it’s a combination of a war and love story. Albert shows tremendous fear when crossing no-man’s land. It’s almost blind fear that makes him race forward. He also has a reason for racing forward. He has a goal in his heart.’
With WAR HORSE released in UK cinemas this week, the iconic director is set to move on to his next project, LINCOLN (which he refuses to discuss until production has finished). It’s safe to assume that LINCOLN will also fuse great conflict and human drama, a combination Spielberg has regularly made the focus of his career. For now, however, he will be hoping that audiences feel as impassioned by WAR HORSE as he clearly does, and engage with both major stories with the film – love and war. At the very least, WAR HORSE should raise questions for those who see it, and should inspire serious thought about the nature of war and those involved. As Michael Mopurgo says, ‘I think we should be asking the question – why? Why did that happen? Was it necessary? Anything that gets us thinking like that is really important. A film that does that as powerfully as Steven Spielberg has is terrific, and I’m very pleased I’m associated with it.’
WAR HORSE is released in UK cinemas Friday 13th January.
Read our review here
