Directors: Joey Figueroa, Zak Knutson
Starring: John Milius, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Oliver Stone, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Running time: 99 minutes
Certificate: 15
A bold, brash and passionate force whose name doesn’t quite ring as loud as that of Steven Spielberg or George Lucas, John Milius is the titular subject of this loving tribute, the directorial debut of Joey Figueroa and Zak Knutson. Some of Hollywood’s biggest names weigh in on Milius’ life, his incredible writing skill and deliver a wonderful personal touch to an industry that (perhaps now even more so than when Milius and his film school friends sought to change it in the 1970s) is too often mired in advertising and business politics rather than emotion and storytelling.
Milius himself brings both of these qualities in abundance. A straight forward chronological telling of his life, the film charts his personal turn against counter-culture and disappointment at not being drafted to fight in the Vietnam war thanks to asthma. His dreams dashed, he turns to the work of Akira Kurosawa and heads off to the University of Southern California. From here on out, it’s just about the quietest way a man can make his mark on film history. One of the centrepieces of the ‘movie brats’ that reinvented Hollywood, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese and more give us tales of how Milius brought amazing scenes to other people’s work (such as the USS Indianapolis speech from JAWS) and occasionally found the director’s chair with the likes of DILLINGER and CONAN THE BARBARIAN but ultimately struggled to cement himself among the movie industry’s elite.
One poster for the film sets the ‘individual vs the world’ conflict up brilliantly, stating Milius is “the greatest filmmaker you never knew” and while watching, you’re left to make your own decision as to why his career never quite equalled the likes of his peers. You’ll get stories of both high praise and loving damnation and its genuinely hard to watch someone so devoted to the medium of film occasionally let his emotion drive him away from success. Despite what we all think of the movie industry, it’s easy to understand not wanting to work with a director when he brandishes a gun at an executive mid-discussion. This makes things doubly hard for the movie’s third act gut-punch that thankfully still falls in line with the grand celebration that is this retrospective.
MILIUS is a moving appreciation of a larger than life figure in the world that produces life on screen. He did things, for better or for worse, his way and this film tells the wonderful story that is his life in touching and sincere fashion.
MILIUS is released on DVD on 18th November via StudioCanal
