War Horse (film)
War Horse is a 2011 war drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg, from a screenplay written by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis. It is based on Michael Morpurgo's 1982 novel and its 2007 stage adaptation. The film features an ensemble cast that includes Peter Mullan, Emily Watson, Niels Arestrup, Jeremy Irvine, David Thewlis, Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch. Set before and during World War I, its plot follows Joey, a bay Irish Hunter horse raised by English teenager Albert as he is bought by the British Army, leading him to encounter various people throughout Europe, in the midst of the war and its tragedies.
DreamWorks Pictures acquired the film rights to the novel in December 2009, and Spielberg was announced to direct in May 2010. Having directed several films set during World War II, it was his first to tackle the events of World War I. Shot in England over 63 days, the production used 5,800 extras and 300 horses. Several longtime Spielberg collaborators—including producer Kathleen Kennedy, cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, editor Michael Kahn, production designer Rick Carter and composer John Williams—worked on the film.
Produced by DreamWorks and distributed worldwide by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures through the Touchstone Pictures label, War Horse became a box-office success and was met with positive reviews. The film was named one of the ten best films of 2011 by the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review, and was nominated for six Academy Awards, two Golden Globes and five BAFTAs.
Plot
A bay Irish Hunter is born in Devon, England in 1912. Farmer Ted Narracott outbids his landlord Lyons for the colt at auction, to the dismay of his wife Rose who wanted a working horse that can plough, not an Irish Hunter. Their son Albert, with his best friend Andrew, names the colt Joey, and teaches him to come when he imitates an owl's call. The horse and boy, now closely bonded, plough a rocky field, permitting the planting of turnips and saving the family's farm.Rose shows Albert his father's medals, including a Distinguished Conduct Medal, from the Second Boer War, and gives him Ted's regimental pennant, confiding in Albert that his father carries physical and mental scars from the war.
When war with Germany is declared in 1914, heavy rain ruins the family's crops, forcing Ted to sell Joey to an army officer, Captain James Nicholls, who sees Albert's heartbreak and promises to look after Joey. Albert is too young to enlist, and ties the pennant to Joey's bridle, promising he will eventually find him.
Joey bonds with Topthorn, a black stallion with whom he is trained for his military role. The horses are deployed to Flanders with a flying column under the command of Nicholls and Major Stewart. They lead a cavalry charge through a German encampment defended by hidden machine guns. Nicholls and most of the cavalrymen are killed and the Germans capture the horses.
Gunther, a young volunteer, grooms Joey and Topthorn. When his younger brother Michael is sent to the front lines, Gunther deserts with his brother on the horses. The German army captures the boys and executes them, leaving the horses unattended. They are found by Emilie, a French girl, the next morning, and she hides them from German soldiers in her bedroom at her grandfather's farm. Emilie's grandfather allows her to ride Joey for her birthday, but they are discovered and captured by the Germans while Emilie's grandfather keeps the pennant.
By 1918, Albert has enlisted and is fighting alongside Andrew in the Second Battle of the Somme where Andrew is killed and Albert temporarily blinded by an exploding gas bomb.
The Germans use Joey and Topthorn to haul artillery under the care of Private Friedrich Hengelmann. Topthorn succumbs to exhaustion from overwork and dies. Devastated over this loss, Hengelmann rebels against his commanders and frees Joey from his reins. Joey gallops into no man's land and evades a tank but is entangled in barbed wire. Colin, a British soldier, makes his way to Joey under a white flag and tries to free him. Peter, a German soldier, comes over with wire cutters, and together they rescue Joey. They flip a coin for ownership of the horse, and Colin guides the injured Joey to the British lines. Albert hears about Joey's rescue while recuperating. Just as Joey is about to be put down by a doctor who deems the horse too injured to recover, Joey hears Albert's owl call. Albert, his eyes still bandaged, is able to describe Joey in perfect detail, and the two are reunited. The doctor nurses Joey back to health.
After the Great War ends Joey is put up for auction. Albert's comrades raise a collection to bid against a wealthy French butcher. Emilie's grandfather wins the auction, implying she has died and the horse is all he has left of her. After Albert pleads with him, the old man recognises the strength of the soldier's bond, returning the pennant and Joey to Albert. Albert returns with Joey to his family's farm, embracing his mother and returning the pennant to his father, who extends his hand to him with pride as Joey watches.
Cast
Production
Background and development
wrote the 1982 children's novel War Horse after meeting World War I veterans in the Devon village of Iddesleigh where he lived. One had been with the Devon Yeomanry and was involved with horses; Captain Budgett, another veteran in his village, was with the British cavalry and told Morpurgo how he had confided all his hopes and fears to his horse. Both told him of the horrific conditions and loss of life, human and animal, during the Great War. Morpurgo researched the subject further and learned that a million horses died on the British side; he extrapolated an overall figure of 10 million horse deaths on all sides. Of the million horses that were sent abroad from the UK, only 62,000 returned, the rest dying in the war or slaughtered in France for meat.The Great War had a massive and indelible impact on the UK's male population: 886,000 men died, one in eight of those who went to war, and 2% of the entire country's population. After observing a young boy with a stammer forming a fond relationship with and talking fluently to a horse at a farm run by Morpurgo's charity Farms for City Children, Morpurgo found a way to tell the story through the horse and its relations with the various people it meets before and during the course of the war: a young Devon farmboy, a British cavalry officer, a German soldier, and an old Frenchman and his granddaughter.
Morpurgo tried to adapt the book into a film screenplay, working for over five years with Simon Channing-Williams, which would ultimately go unproduced. The book was successfully adapted for a stage play by Nick Stafford in 2007. From 2006 to 2009, Morpurgo, Lee Hall and Revel Guest worked on a proposed film version of War Horse, which Morpurgo and Hall would write and Guest produce. Lack of finances meant that it was an informal arrangement, with the film rights not formally sold by Morpurgo to Guest's production company and no one being paid for the work they undertook. In 2009, film producer Kathleen Kennedy saw the critically acclaimed production of War Horse in London's West End with her husband, fellow producer Frank Marshall, and their two daughters. They were very impressed by the story, and Marshall recalled how he was amazed that no one had already bought the film rights to the book.
Steven Spielberg was told about War Horse by several people, including Kennedy, his colleague at Amblin Entertainment. After discussions with Revel Guest, on 16 December 2009, it was announced that DreamWorks Pictures had acquired the film rights to the book, with Spielberg stating: "From the moment I read Michael Morpurgo's novel War Horse, I knew this was a film I wanted DreamWorks to make … Its heart and its message provide a story that can be felt in every country." Spielberg saw the London production of the play on 1 February 2010, and met some of the cast afterwards. He admitted to being moved to tears by the performance.
DreamWorks executive Stacey Snider suggested Richard Curtis to work on rewrites for the screenplay; she had worked with Curtis during her time at Universal Pictures, and Curtis had previously written the World War I-set BBC comedy series Blackadder Goes Forth along with Ben Elton. Spielberg was a fan of Blackadder but had never met Curtis, who was initially reluctant to take part, but on meeting Spielberg, he rethought and committed to work on the script. Curtis stated that the screenplay is closer to the book than the play, and that "the existence of the play itself helped "be brave" about own adaptation". Curtis produced over a dozen drafts in three months, and has spoken of the close collaboration he had with Spielberg while working on the script.
Having previously only been slated to produce the film, Spielberg decided to direct "the second read first draft. It happened faster than anything else we've done together." On 3 May 2010, it was announced that Spielberg was to direct the film; the cast was announced on 17 June. Speaking at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2011, actor Peter Mullan said that he took the part not just because Spielberg was directing, but also because of the "beautiful, really nice script".
Within weeks of hearing from Kennedy about the London theatre production, Spielberg had seen the play, and decided this would be his next film. Spielberg was able to act so quickly because he was on a hiatus, waiting for the animation on his other 2011 film The Adventures of Tintin to be completed.
Spielberg had previously worked on numerous projects with World War II themes. In contrast, War Horse is Spielberg's first foray into World War I storytelling, as he admitted that, prior to learning about the War Horse book and play, "I had never been that interested in World War I". Kathleen Kennedy elaborated on the appeal of the story: "In cinema we've told very few stories about World War I and I think that's one of the things that attracted us to this … It's a forgotten war in the United States, and that had a very powerful effect on Steven and I." David Kenyon and Andrew Robertshaw of Battlefield Partnerships were military advisors on the film.