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Movie Takes
War Horse
A children’s movie for young and old and above all the intellectually immature.
There is, so I’m told, a species of genre fiction known in the trade as “young adult” — intended for teenagers who are presumably diffident about their ability to appreciate grown-up literature. When I was a young adult, or even a teenager, I would have felt insulted by the assumption that I couldn’t cope with fiction, or anything else, intended for old adults, adults tout court, but perhaps kids today are flattered by the publishing industry’s attention just to them. The counterpart of these books in the era before niche marketing were “adventure yarns” by the likes of Sir Walter Scott, Alexandre Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson or John Buchan. These characteristically featured a young adult male going to war, or battling spies or pirates, and readers liked them because they were of an age to be doing such things themselves and did so vicariously (at least) through their heroes.
Well, you can see the problem. In the eyes of many if not most parents and pedagogues these days, war is no longer to be considered a great adventure but a moral blot on the human race and something that no young person should aspire to be a part of. Even spies and pirates deserve our compassion, not our enmity. Accordingly, young adult literature seeks to inspire that compassion in those who would once have preferred risk, excitement, or blood lust. A good example is to be found in the work of the man described as “the most respected British children’s writer working today,” someone who was also, formerly, something called the “children’s laureate” of Great Britain. This is Michael Morpurgo, whose book War Horse has now been brought to the silver screen by none other than Steven Spielberg. The book dates from 1982, but it was first adapted for the stage with the horses played by puppets at the National Theatre in Britain in 2007. Mr. Spielberg caught the performance and decided to turn it into a movie, but with real horses.
Horses, it seems, are still allowed to have adventures, though they are not supposed to enjoy them any more than people do who are forced to go to war. And, as everybody now knows, the least enjoyable war ever was World War I. What a lot of victims were there to excite our compassion! But the human victims were presumably morally compromised by being there in the first place, so the Messrs. Morpurgo and Spielberg have turned their attention instead to the perfectly innocent and therefore perfectly victimized Joey. Joey is a thoroughbred colt bought at auction by a drunken farmer from Devon, Ted Narracott (Peter Mullan), who for some reason thinks he will be a good plough-horse. Ted very nearly loses his farm as a result of his folly and extravagance, but his son, Albert (Jeremy Irvine), teaches Joey to plow, which no one else believes he can do. Needless to say, Albert and Joey are great pals.
When the war comes, however, Ted is in trouble again, and he sells Joey to the cavalry. Thereafter, Joey has numerous adventures. First, he is part of a doomed cavalry charge; then he is captured by the Germans, seized by a couple of deserters, and befriends a Belgian girl and her grandfather. Then he is nearly worked to death pulling German field artillery hither and yon before escaping and galloping into no-man’s land where he is hung up on barbed wire. As a victim again, he inspires two young soldiers, one British, one German, to a spirit of comity and cooperation, in spite of the wicked war machines of which they are both a part, in order to cut him loose. But as the horse is grievously wounded, the best he can hope for is either to be summarily shot or else to be sold to French butchers for meat.
I do not think it can possibly count as a spoiler if I tell you that Joey somehow escapes both fates and is reunited with his best friend Albert, still a boy and apparently unchanged by his own time at the front, who loved him from a colt. We know from the start that this is how the story must end as surely as we know that Jim Hawkins must return from Treasure Island, his pockets stuffed with Flint’s treasure. Such stuff resists all criticism as the duck’s feathers do a rainstorm. It is sentimental, anthropomorphic clap-trap to be sure, but as that is precisely what it sets out to be, and what its audience presumably expects of it, censoriousness is pointless. That makes it, like most young adult fiction — and, nowadays, most movies — a sub-variety of the fantasy genre, even though it purports to be a historical romance.
For there are no more historical romances. If you read Walter Scott or Dumas you will get a pretty fair if romanticized idea of Scottish or French history in the 17th and 18th centuries, but the World War I of War Horse is as much a fantasy world as Narnia. More so, indeed, as the film doesn’t even take the trouble to explain what the war was being fought for or why its victims thought they had to fight it — and so, presumably didn’t regard themselves as victims. The madness of war, along with the wickedness and stupidity of those who waged it can be taken for granted now as part of the more general benightedness of previous generations which is all ye know and all ye need to know about the past if you are a young adult today — and therefore represent moral progress’s crowning achievement. History itself, like the adolescent mind, has apparently reached a terminal stasis where, instead of continuing to grow and change, it may dwell forever in its own self-satisfaction.
About the Author
James Bowman, our movie and culture critic, is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of Honor: A History and Media Madness: The Corruption of Our Political Culture, both published by Encounter Books.
Doctor_X| 1.17.12 @ 7:25AM
Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Alan Brooks| 1.17.12 @ 9:14AM
"More so, indeed, as the film doesn't even take the trouble to explain what the war was being fought for or why its victims thought they had to fight it -- and so, presumably didn't regard themselves as victims. The madness of war, along with the wickedness and stupidity of those who waged it can be taken for granted now as part of the more general benightedness of previous generations which is all ye know and all ye need to know about the past if you are a young adult today"
This is an indictment of:
a. Prussia
b. Germany as a whole
Either way, we lose. If the war was an imperialist contest, 1914-'18, it doesn't say much for the West;
if the war was Germany's fault, then the "war guilt"clause in the Versailles Treaty was justified:
which says something extremely bad about the Germans.
mike daniels| 1.17.12 @ 11:22AM
Come on people- since when are we supposed to get history lessons from movies and do you really want them from Spielburg? This was a great STORY. It was well acted by a cast of unknowns and beautifully shot. My 13 year old daughter and I really enjoyed it. Oh I majored in history in college and never once checked Hollywood as a source of historical information
Jeamar| 1.17.12 @ 12:56PM
Mr. Bowman you are a sour puss. The movie was entertaining which, for some people, is the reason they attend some movies. There are movies which supposedly "have a moral" and some which nothing but sex and violence. The intellectually mature adult can usually tell the difference without professional critical approval.
JP| 1.17.12 @ 11:55AM
Germany had a gun pointed to its head in 1919 and had to agree that it was the sole instigator of the Great War. But anyone who looks closely at the causes of the Great War cannot ignore the fact that France and Russia went to great lengths to make it happen. Ditto for Austria. And to a lesser degree, the UK.
Alan Brooks| 1.17.12 @ 5:35PM
Then WWI was an imperialist war!
One can't have it both ways as a capitalist-imperialist, or as a Marxist: if WWI was imperialist, then capitalism can (it is ancient history almost a century later) have been blamed.
If Germany was the sole instigator, then the Marxist analysis is erroneous.
So it would appear in this particular case, the Marxist analysis was valid-- WWI was an imperialist-capitalist war.
Appleby| 1.17.12 @ 7:43AM
At least it's not about vampires. (P.S. I am probably the only Girl alive who has never liked horses, including My Little Pony. Something that big, with a brain, has got to be plotting against me.)
Bill| 1.17.12 @ 8:46AM
A brain, I might add, about the size of a walnut.
My dad was in the horse cavalry. He had no romantic notions about the life of a war horse, and he thought horses were just about the dumbest domesticated animal around.
Gr0w1er601| 1.17.12 @ 9:18AM
Bill, I prefer the phrase 'not that motivated' as opposed to 'dumbest'.
Ground Control| 1.17.12 @ 9:43AM
Sounds like MY Dad! He too was a Horse Cavalryman in the 1930's. And although he loved horses and loved riding, he said the same thing, that horses were the dumbest things on 4 legs. He once told me that if a stable were on fire, you had to go in and remove the horse then tie him up outside. The horse was so stupid he would go back in to the burning stable because he thinks it's safer in there.
KyMouse| 1.17.12 @ 11:57AM
Perhaps horses, like people, vary in intelligence?
Interesting book: "Beautiful Jim Key: The Lost History of the World's Smartest Horse," by Mim E. Rives.
In an era when most animals were treated cruelly, that horse was "taught with kindness" by a former slave (who was also a self-taught veterinarian) to count, write, make change, and more, 'tis said. He and the horse were sensations in their era, and helped the public see what gentle training could achieve.
Dai Alanye | 1.17.12 @ 4:06PM
“I once saw a horse could count,” Wes offered. “Yeah, he'd stomp his hoof. Or maybe her hoof — I was a kid. Do rithmetic and so-on. Turns out the guy gives it a signal, real sneaky-like.”
From Lovejoy's World
KyMouse| 1.17.12 @ 2:57PM
The brain of a horse varies in size quite a bit, since there are miniature horses and Shires, and every size in between. Plenty have brains about the size of a grapefruit.
I've been known not to use my brain at all sometimes. It needs its rest. However, I do like grapefruit and walnuts. As Scarecrow once said of me, "Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they?"
Bill| 1.18.12 @ 9:28AM
Your brain is working 100% of the time; you're mistaking your not paying any attention to thinking with thinking itself.
Bill| 1.18.12 @ 12:44PM
People who engage in ignoring their thinking call it Transcendental Meditation. I've always wondered why it's called "meditation" when it's about doing your best to ignore your thoughts.
dsayne| 1.18.12 @ 1:02PM
"What are we doing tonight, Brain?"
Stuart Koehl| 1.18.12 @ 6:55PM
The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!
Alan Brooks| 1.17.12 @ 9:23AM
"The madness of war, along with the wickedness and stupidity of those who waged it can be taken for granted now as part of the more general benightedness of previous generations which is all ye know and all ye need to know about the past if you are a young adult today..."
BTW: the greatest failure in the 20th century was the Vietnam War, a shameful defeat of the first magnitude.
When you interfere in a civil war, you'd better damn well win.
Stuart Koehl| 1.17.12 @ 10:38AM
Only a devout communist would still think that the Vietnam was was a "civil war".
Dai Alanye | 1.17.12 @ 4:08PM
Won militarily, lost politically by a Dem-controlled Congress.
Tina B| 1.17.12 @ 4:25PM
I agree, Stuart, but that would be our Alan the Trollmeister.
Joan| 1.17.12 @ 9:33AM
I thought it was great. No swear words, no gratuitus sex, and even if the story is fabricated, it entertained me tremendously. Does everything have to be over intellectualized? Can't we just let one thing be? Yes, it was about the victims of war and anyone with an ounce of brain knew from the get go it was all fantasy. SO WHAT!!
Riff Raff| 1.17.12 @ 9:44AM
You mean, a 2 hour movie about horses and no horses were engaged in gratuitous sex? But I thought this was HOLLYWOOD?! :-)
Seek| 1.17.12 @ 1:58PM
Gee, how clever. I've seen some two dozen movies this fall; none had "gratuitous" sex. By the way, all sex is gratuitous. That's how we all got conceived.
ConantheContrarian| 1.17.12 @ 10:01AM
I thought WWI was pretty stupid, at least from the British and French side of the equation. Why should they care what Germany and Austria do to Russia and Serbia?
Stuart Koehl| 1.17.12 @ 10:39AM
By the way, this is one of Bowman's dumber reviews.
Le Cracquere| 1.17.12 @ 11:31AM
Movie stimulus: Entertainment
Bowman response: Censorious dyspepsia
When a man likes his movies arid and "improving," it's cruel to keep making him review films that don't meet those criteria. Simply out of charity, can't we farm such work out to someone philosophically open to enjoying oneself in the theatre?
C Smith| 1.17.12 @ 11:43AM
Bowman's reflections on fantasy genre purporting to be a historical romance caused me to reflect on church last Sunday morning and the young and the not so young adults who are a product of the fantasy world of Narnia, totally unaware that they are debtors to the sacred ashes of the thousands who have followed Jesus even unto death:
http://martyrsmirror.blogspot......-1550.html
Mark| 1.17.12 @ 11:51AM
History teacher here. Excellent idea! There should have been a scene where they sat the horse down and explained to him how the war started and why the combatants were fighting.
Geez. I taught WWI for several years, and yet I'm still not quite certain about what caused that ridiculous mess. I summed it up for my students this way. It started for stupid reasons, they fought it in a stupid way, and they ended it with a very stupid treaty. Do you think the horse could have understood that? Maybe, not, because I'm not sure that you do.
JP| 1.17.12 @ 11:57AM
Yes, Mr Ed would have seen to it.
cicero| 1.17.12 @ 2:37PM
Mark - me, too. While not a history major, I chose it as an avocation, and have read history on my own for the past 50 years, or so. I still have yet to find a rational explanation for WWI. Nothing I have read, from "Guns of August", to Moral War" has explained why Europe sent millions of men to their deaths in a senseless slaughter. WWII was at least staarted by a madman our fo revenge. If anyone has read anything that would clear this up, I'd like to hear about it.
albert constantine jr| 1.17.12 @ 7:57PM
Didn't John Wilkes Booth and Leon Czolgosz assassinate Archduke Ferdinand and Anton Cermak while shouting"sic Semper Tyrannus, now we will have a Stalwart", or something like that?
Tiddly| 1.17.12 @ 4:18PM
Kaiser Bill wanted more respect. Several million people had to die trying to get it for him.
He ended up chopping his own wood, withered arm and all.
Dai Alanye | 1.17.12 @ 4:28PM
Every generation needs its war. Major wars start every twenty or so years, very roughly speaking. If there is no war, such as for college-attending draft dodgers during Vietnam, some of the slackers go down South on a civil rights crusade that ordinarily wouldn't hold their interest, while others take up an anti-war crusade.
A bunch of minor wars like Kuwait, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq tend to inoculate against the urge toward major wars. (I use the term "minor" in comparison to WW I, WW II, US Civil War.)
I suppose it's possible that a folk movement like the settlement of the West or even the conquest of space, if we ever got serious about it, could displace the urge for a nice big fight.
The belief that callous old men send unwilling young men off to die is misleading. The younger generation signals its readiness for a deadly struggle before the older in-charge generation takes action.
Seek| 1.17.12 @ 4:34PM
Nietzsche, Freud, and Ortega y Gasset, in their own ways, made the same point. Regrettably, Ron Paul's supporters, who in a sense are seeking their own brand of war, wont understand.
albert constantine jr| 1.17.12 @ 7:54PM
I've observed that many are against all war, and are willing to use any and all means of force against you to make you see things that way, too.
Dai Alanye | 1.17.12 @ 4:37PM
I knew there was some reason I've always been bored by philosophy... I provide my own.
POST American| 1.17.12 @ 5:30PM
--------------------FINAL WORD------------------------
Franchise slum Hollywood can fnd NO better
project, in this, the 11th hour of the Globalist
RED China sellout and TREASON OP
----- than this decades stale piece of
PC horse worship?
Meanwhile, BOTH the awesomely relevant
60th Anniversary of the KOREAN WAR
----------------------and!------------------------
the 200th Anniversary of the DEFEAT
of the forces of police state Globalism
(ie Napoleon's DEFEAT in Russia)
---were 'overlooked'.
PCP Smoker| 1.17.12 @ 9:32PM
The only way this movie could have been worst was if it featured Matt Demon. The amount of sanctimonious crap we would get from Demon and Spielberg would be suffocating.
Seek| 1.18.12 @ 3:12PM
The question is this: Did you actually see "War Horse?" As for Matt "Demon" (such Bloomsbury wit!), there was nothing sanctimonious about his role in "We Bought a Zoo," which I did see the other night. You've been smokin' the wrong stuff, dude.
POST American| 1.23.12 @ 11:36PM
----Franchise slum Hollywood has
not only 'overlooked' all treatment,
all mention of the Globalist installed
---------RED Chinese Halocaust---------
--BUT!--
even as a police state unfolds and EUGENICS
is unquestionably on the move right here
----the 60th Anniversary of the
---------------------KOREAN WAR----------------------
-is BURIED.
---------------------TAKE HEED!------------------------