A Midnight Clear

In the beginning stages of the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, a reconnaissance patrol is sent ahead in the Ardennes forest on the border of France and Germany where they encounter some German soldiers. Who will survive to celebrate Christmas?

"A Midnight Clear" (1992) is an obscure artistic WW2 movie focusing on a patrol in the wintery sylvan landscapes of the Battle of the Bulge. It's more realistic than the surreal "Castle Keep" (1969), but it reminds me a little of that arty flick.

While a couple of scenes could've been more convincingly executed and some elements of the story are unlikely or weird, it's almost an exact recounting of author William Wharton's actual experiences (he wrote the 1982 novel the script was based on). Director/scriptwriter Keith Gordon desperately wanted to plainly state "This is a true story" at the beginning, but the lawyers wouldn't allow it. As such, the supposed disclaimer during the end credits is vaguely worded for legal reasons.

Speaking of Keith, you may remember him as the protagonist in "Jaws 2" (1978) and, especially, "Christine" (1982).

In any case, I appreciated the wintery war ambiance in the woods with cast members from "Platoon" (Kevin Dillon and John C. McGinley), "Dead Poets Society" (Ethan Hawke) and "Forrest Gump" (Gary Sinise). I also liked the inventive approach, the music, and the depiction of this handful of young men united in a struggle of life and death. While the middle starts to get a little tedious and questionable there is a turning point and, from there, the film is quite compelling.

The film closes with a haunting rendition of "It Came upon a Midnight Clear" by Sam Phillips as the credits scroll. I felt moved and reflected.

The movie runs 1 hour, 48 minutes, and was shot in the Park City area of north-central Utah.

GRADE: B.

T's a story about a squad of foot soldiers caught in the Battle of the Bulge. They are youngsters, thrown into the battle, trapped behind enemy lines in the freezing Ardennes, trying to survive. Some of them will.

It's a good place, I think to tell my family story about the Bulge. My uncle was a foot soldier in the battle. He was stuck in a fox hole with an Italian POW who agreed to fight with the American forces. A shell landed right on them, blowing my uncle out of the foxhole, ripping off all his clothes. When a jeep showed up, the driver wanted to leave my uncle's body, but the man he was in insisted he not be left behind. My uncle's corpse was strapped to the front of the jeep like a shot deer, taken back to field headquarters, and dumped in the tent with the other dead soldiers, and soon my grandparents get their 'deeply regret' telegram. Some time later, a doctor, walking through the tent, thought he saw my uncle breathing, and revived him from the hypothermia he was in. He spent a few years in a wheelchair, and eventually made a full recovery. He died about fifteen year ago.

Maybe it's that connection that makes this talky drama, shot in a freezing Utah winter, speak to me. Maybe it's the cast, including Peter Berg, Arye Gross, Kevin Dillon, Ethan Hawke, Gary Sinise (in his screen debut), and Frank Whaley. Maybe it's the sere, white cinematography of Tom Richmond. Whatever it is, it's a very worthwhile movie to watch on Memorial Day.

It's a war film, but an atypical and sober one at that. Probably war drama fits better. As there's a whole lot more to it than just action. On that count it has its moments, but really it's about the characters (if something of a coming of age) and the realisation that their enemy is just as reluctant and afraid as them. The script is meditatively thoughtful and the performances by a capable cast (Ethan Hawke, Kevin Dillon, Peter Berg, Gary Sinise, Frank Whaley, Arye Gross and John C. McGinley's pig-headed Major Griffin) are genuinely layered. This helps draw you in, feeling the joy but also the tragic nature that waits. It absorbingly paints the foolishness of war, where in a serenely ironic manner it all pans out. It follows a small young American reconnaissance platoon nearing the end of WW2 in Eastern Europe, which was put together due to them having the highest I.Q. in the army. Thinking that they would get better results, however on their mission they come across a patrol of German soldiers hiding from their inevitable fate and a special, if strange bond is formed between the two parties. Written and directed by Keith Gordon (who I'll always remember him as Arnie Cunningham from John Carpenter's 80s horror flick "Christine"), he does an effective job tailoring the welcoming humanity and the painstaking horrors of war through the visuals, dialogues, atmospheric surroundings and performances. The narrative moves back and forth early on dealing with past events that brought these American soldiers together, before settling on the straight-and-narrow. The material is rather offbeat and mellow, especially when it came to the interactions between the two groups. What seems unfathomable, becomes reality and then even playful (snowball fights?!). There's something simply haunting and forlorn about this presentation and you could probably attributed it to the beautifully moody, if glassy music score. It just stays with you. Like the final shot of the film, where the camera pans onto Hawke's face of despair and this is one powerfully heartfelt moment. "A Midnight Clear" is quite low-key and unpredictable in all, but hard to forget.

"I'm through playing soldier."

This movie was on Bravo last night but was terribly edited so I stopped watching and stuck my video taped copy into the VCR. This movie truly grew on me over time. I had planned to see it in the theater in, I think 1993, when it was released but it was in theaters for such a brief time that I lost my opportunity. I'm very happy to see that other posters here were also profoundly affected by this movie. The first time I'd seen it I was dumbstruck and truly didn't know what to make of it. Like many, I'd been fed a steady diet of WW2 movies with John Wayne, William Holden, Richard Widmark, and the like. They were all of a jingostic testosterone bent and featured stirring musical scores, minimal blood, and happy endings, as in all the Germans/Japanese die. This was the first WW2 movie I'd ever seen that dispensed with all that crap and gave you a sense of how war makes victims of everybody, sparing no one it's violent assault on our sanity. For this Keith Gordon/William Wharton, Mike Nichols/Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegaut, James Jones, Norman Mailer, John Hersey should all be praised for their courage to discard ideological dogma and poignantly lament our violated humanity. They may have, dare I say, stepped upon an enlightend plain where even Steven Spielberg has yet to trod. His movies are remarkable presentations of events, but do not explore any issues that might touch upon this theme of the individual, powerless, human suffering in war time. They are far more traditional morality plays. In short this movie makes you truly feel sorrow for these dead, good intentioned German (Nazi) Soldiers who wanted nothing more than to end their misery as fodder in der Fuherer's army. I was struck By the scene in which Will Knott stares into the eyes of the German officer who's face betrays a million nightmarish images of the Russian front and perhaps some horrible deeds for which he has paid a dear price in guilt worthy of Macbeth. This was one of many scenes which conveyed so much with out a single line of script. Just the faces of the experience guiding the viewer. Mark Ishams fantastic musical score helped quite a bit to. For those who hated this movie, I'm not sure what to say. If your looking for a very heavy-handed war movie this is not for you. If, however, you appreciate the deft and delicate hand in conveying a powerful message and making a powerful statement, than you will be richly rewarded by a movie you will never forget.

"A Midnight Clear" is a film that reminds me of the wonderful French film, "Joyeaux Noel". However, instead of being set during WWI, this American film is set just before the Battle of the Bulge in WWII. Both occur at Christmas time...and both involve a strange sort of cessation of hostilities.

The story is about a tiny reconnaissance group of American soldiers. They have the thankless task of scouting ahead of the rest of the army...and not surprisingly many in their small unit have already been killed. There are two main plots that result. First, they are discovered by a group of German soldiers who do not attack but instead wish to surrender. But, in order to prevent the SS back home from taking retribution against them for not fighting, they propose to make it look like they surrendered only after a horrible fire fight. Sadly, it does NOT go down as they'd planned. Second, after this, when the Major meets up with them, this commanding officer mostly screams at them and threatens them...and leaves them back at their forward base. When the German offensive begins, they're soon stuck behind enemy lines and they have to work hard to find their way back to the Allied lines.

Despite some similarities to "Joyeaux Noel", it is different enough and somber enough to be a different film viewing experience. For the most part, it's just the story of a few men trying to survive...and the thankless tasks they've been given. Well made and worth seeing.