2024-02-07 09:23:01
by Maurizio Porro
Remake of many films, it was one of William Friedkin’s last works of «The Exorcist»
This «Caine Mutiny: Court Martial» is a remake with a long history. It was born as a novel, Pulitzer Prize winner in ’51, then a trial drama in ’53 by Herman Wouk and was performed in America many times, the first with Charles Laughton (later also Charlton Heston) and Henry Fonda, until a revival in 2006 , while in Italy it was performed by Ivo Garrani and Alberto Lupo in ’54, directed by Squarzina. But great notoriety came from a ’54 film by Edward Dmytryk with Humphrey Bogart in the role of the neurotic Captain Queeg who pathologically plays with marbles, José Ferrer and Fred Macmurray among the sailors of the minesweeper on the Pacific front during the Second World War world. At the moment of danger from a typhoon, the commander is deposed by Lieutenant Maryk (Van Johnson) who will thus face the military trial before the martial court.
There were television adaptations, one by Altman at home and also in Italy in ’61 one by Vaccari with Foà and Moschin in command. Now, the beautiful procedural film on the poster on Paramount+ is the remake of the famous title with Bogart which competed for 7 Oscars, but while that one showed live the adventure of the minesweeper Caine with the dramatic moments of the storm, the alleged pathology and the mutiny, which remains the most famous in the history of cinema together with that of Bounty, in whose first edition of ’35 there was Clark Gable but Laughton was always the commander.
The director of this new edition which takes place behind closed doors like a classic court movie but with a military setting (see «Code of Honor» with Tom Cruise), in front of the naval majors who will have to judge the events, is a great author who left at the end of August, William Friedkin. He was the director of titles such as «The Exorcist» and «The Violent Arm of the Law», worldwide successes: a few days after the presentation of his latest film at the Venice Film Festival, where in 2013 he received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, Friedkin he died suddenly at the age of 88, leaving us with the memories of a prestigious career full of Oscars.
This new «Mutiny» is very different from the 1954 film, it has a more claustrophobic and theatrical nature, it does not leave the military courtroom, but it is also endowed with considerable moral tension. The facts are the same, there is Lieutenant Maryk (Jake Lacy, excellent) who relieves Captain Queeg (Kiefer Sutherland, at the center of a relentless interrogation, also with the suspicious marbles in his hand) from duty during a hurricane, already visited by doctors for neurosis, harassment, pathological oddities. Who was right?
We know this, at least those who do not remember the precedents, after an hour and 40′ of tense debate in which two mentalities, two ways of managing power, but also two lawyers clash, among which stands out the lieutenant’s defender, the lawyer Barney Greenwald (Jason Clarke, another joker in the film), who is convinced of his client’s guilt but defends him anyway by implementing a diabolical plan in two stages. Friedkin’s film works well even if the historical coordinates have been radically changed, we are no longer in the Second World War, but in the present day, on a mission that touches Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, the only sea route that allows the passage between the Persian Gulf and the open sea.
The geography therefore changes, even the political one, but the human and hierarchical story of disobedience (and of mental illness, perhaps bipolar) remains the same and is based on a very solid narrative and directorial structure and on a cast that doesn’t make a single mistake.
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February 7, 2024 (changed February 7, 2024 | 10:22)
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