{"id":4355,"date":"2012-02-26T17:16:21","date_gmt":"2012-02-26T22:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4355"},"modified":"2012-02-26T19:15:57","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T00:15:57","slug":"br-roots-of-heaven-the-1958","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4355","title":{"rendered":"BR: Roots of Heaven, The (1958)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>P to R<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Excellent\/ BR \u00a0Transfer: Excellent\/ BR Extras: Good<\/p>\n

Label: Twilight Time\/ Region: All \/\u00a0Released: January, 2012<\/p>\n

Genre: Drama \/ Adventure<\/p>\n

Synopsis: Unable to legally halt the slaughter of the African elephant for its precious ivory, a British eco-warrior goes rogue to force the local government – and hopefully the world – to stop killing animals.<\/p>\n

Special Features: \u00a0Mono Isolated Music Score \/ 8-page colour booklet with liner notes by film historian Julie Kirgo \/ Limited to 3,000 copies \/ Available exclusively from Screen Archives Entertainment<\/a><\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

This film adaptation of Romain Gary\u2019s novel about clashing idealists seems highly prescient today, but in 1958 it must have been treated as an oddity, given its central character, already a social rebel by nature, becomes a bit of an anarchist and militant animal rights activist with a singlular, bull-headed goal: save the elephant or humanity and the planet will die.<\/p>\n

Gary\u2019s novel, originally published in France as Les raciness du ciel<\/strong> in 1956, won the prestigious Prix Goncourt, and its whole narrative was a natural project for pretty much everyone involved. Director John Huston had left Hollywood during the fifties to become a Scottish* manor bigwig while making the odd film here and there, often anchored to anti-heroes caught in extraordinary circumstances which test their mettle, such as the unlikely lovers in the African Queen<\/strong> (1951); the impossible love between a nun and a stranded U.S. Marine during a Japanese occupied isle during WWII in Heaven Knows Mr. Allison<\/a><\/strong> (1957); and Morel, Gary\u2019s anti-poaching activist willing to shoot men in the arse, commandeer private newspapers for personal propaganda, and spank wealthy huntress bitches in front of upper-class imperialistic guests.<\/p>\n

In Gary and Patrick Leigh-Fermor\u2019s filmic prose, The Roots of Heaven<\/strong> veers from sharp, witty dialogue attacking colonialism, commercial exploitation, and public hunger for prefabricated news to impossibly absurd exchanges in which characters seem \u2018to know\u2019 each other\u2019s personal grief and sermonize audiences in heavy doom-and-gloom monologues to no screen character in particular.<\/p>\n

Roots<\/strong> sometimes exists as a venting exercise, but it\u2019s a neat snapshot of the social changes underway during the fifties. European colonies in Africa were losing grip on natives, and struggling to maintain decorum while Africans attempted to reassert ownership of their land and culture; nuclear war was terrifying American schoolchildren during Duck and Cover exercises in case the various probes and Sputniks in space were part of some master Soviet plan to vaporize the Earth; and man\u2019s greed for trophies was laying waste great animal cultures to a few thousand.<\/p>\n

The myth of The Great White Hunter was unmasked as wealthy snots using locals to hunt and isolate creatures for a fatal shot or two, and unlikely allegiances between needy parties were forged in the hope each faction \u2013 animal activist and self-governance \u2013 would succeed. Roots doesn\u2019t attack the flaws of colonialism as John Guillermin\u2019s Guns at Batasi<\/a> <\/strong>[M<\/a>] (1964), but it\u2019s a lead-up towards Hollywood acknowledging and exploiting the changing power shifts within Africa.<\/p>\n

The independent streaks of animal lover Morel (Trevor Howard) and self-governance fighter Waitari (Edric Connor) become the dominant conflicts in Roots<\/strong>, as its their causes which erode the power and ethnic caste order established by the French in their slice of Equatorial Africa \u2013 the latter symbolized by wealthy magnate Orsini (Herbert Lom), whose hunting sponsorships for the acquisition and sale of ivory is eventually put to shame. Sort of.<\/p>\n

Even at the film\u2019s end, there is no clear winner: Morel and his beat-up troupe trek on into the expansive dusty plains, Waitari\u2019s movement has achieved unlikely notoriety for allying itself with Orsini and the local military but gaining little except media attention for a while; and the French colony is just a little wobblier than before. As for the elephants, a massacre was prevented, but whether anyone will care and attempt to codify laws for protection is unclear, if not unlikely. Morel, at best, provided a spark in elevating the pachyderm to the symbol of independence and purity that saved his own soul during a term as a POW during WWII.<\/p>\n

Huston directing a pro-animal picture may seem absurd, as the cigar-chomping filmmaker was the kind of maverick who would engage in Great White Hunter exploits during production (as colourfully transcribed by Peter Viertel in his novel White Hunter, Black Heart<\/strong>), and producer Darryl F. Zanuck (also a cigar-chomper) thrived in controlling masses to create commercial art, but Gary\u2019s tale must have been attractive for Morel\u2019s maverick persona, and crazy attempts to beat impossible odds and leave some kind of lasting mark: for Huston, it was a picture, and for Zanuck, it was testament he could survive and prosper outside of the studio system as an independent producer.<\/p>\n

Both filmmakers had a lot riding on Roots, but Morel\u2019 ideology as well as a futile (and highly contrived) love interest seeded the imbalance in the film\u2019s final half, but it\u2019s hardly a mess. Roots is a great picture because whole scenes sometimes feel as components of a grand creative risk, whether its dramatizing the social events of the era, or letting Orson Welles\u2019 scene-stealing portrayal of Cy Sedgewick, a pompous American TV and radio journalist, viciously satirize the way news is found, shaped, sometimes created, and disseminated with melodramatic bias through the network Idiot Box.<\/p>\n

Welles gets shot in the ass \u2013 Morel\u2019s first true act of frank insurrection towards ivory hunters, after beating up poachers fails and a petition fails to get legislative results \u2013 but respects his assailant for \u2018spitting\u2019 at him, and delivers a marvelous speech about exploitive journalism while drinking booze as he lies prostrate in hospital while his posterior heals from buckshot.<\/p>\n

The love interest \u2013 former WWII whore Minna (Juliette Greco) is like her male companions: ravaged and scarred by WWII, and the screenwriters ability to portray her as a whore wanting redemption through an association with idealist Morel. By fifties Censor Codes, she\u2019s paying for her sins by working (and sometimes servicing) bastard personalities in an armpit colonial outpost in Africa, but she\u2019s oddly content \u2013 happy to see free birds in the morning, and serve dinks with attitude. Her union with Morel never happens (nor does any physical exchange or genuine contact) because being chaste may be her only source of redemption, whereas Morel\u2019s mind is solely on saving the elephant because if it falls to the ground, every species will die.<\/p>\n

Gary\u2019s story is unique for its activist hero and use of stats on the hastened population reduction of elephants, but it remains a symbol: at least in the film, there\u2019s no explanation of the food chain nor how the demise of the elephant will affect neighboring species; elephants as pure creatures simply must exist, as well as every other kind of species. Morel\u2019s mounting madness in wanting a ban on all killing, exploitation, and any kind of hurt dooms him to becoming an outcast governments can\u2019t fully acknowledge because he threatens their exploitation of natural resources and tourist industries. The messages are frank and clear to 2012 audiences, but it\u2019s doubtful these concerns were as obvious in 1958.<\/p>\n

Many of the characters share common war backgrounds \u2013 some are heroes, former POWs, mini-despots, whores \u2013 and they\u2019re part of that colourful setting where bruised ex-patriots have settled in some armpit colony and can\u2019t quite get out; some like it there, some have acclimatized themselves to the new environment that\u2019s drastically different from their home turf, and others become involved in local quarrels less to do with local culture clashes, and more with economic divisions. It\u2019s what made Henri-Georges Clouzot\u2019s Wages of Fear <\/a><\/strong>[M<\/a>] in 1953 so dramatically rich, and one suspects both Huston and Zanuck felt they could explore the fertile elements in their own cinematic variation.<\/p>\n

(The commonalities are present: there\u2019s a town whore, an anti-hero, heroic poseurs, the exploitation of natives by European colonialists, and plenty of emotionally shattered WWII vets from Europe and America. One could even argue the heroes all disappear into a kind of oblivion: Minna similarly waits for a man who\u2019ll never return, Morel and his troupe just disappear into the dusty nothingness of the plains to possibly die, and greed continues to reign.)<\/p>\n

For Zanuck, Roots was a nightmare production due to malaria (only those who bothered to ingest a steady diet of hard bottled liquor remained immune), logistics (filming in Chad, and choreographing a stellar elephant stampede sequence), and then-lover Greco with whom he had ongoing friction. Like The Sun Also Rises<\/strong>, which he also produced with co-star Errol Flynn), the film was an effort to augment the career of his latest French lover (the prior, Bella Darvi, was a disaster), and Greco\u2019s character really doesn\u2019t have a lot to do. Her only raison d\u2019etre<\/em> is to fall for Morel purely to bring drunk WWII vet Forsythe (Flynn) into the drama, and have him field arms and supplies to Morel\u2019s men. Once accomplished, she exists as an exotic, pastel-clad figure whom longtime Huston cinematographer Oswald Morris (at the behest of Zanuck?) sprawls lovingly across the CinemaScope ratio. Case in point: during one \u2018camping\u2019 scene, she rolls back & forth in silk smooth glory to illustrate the virtues of 2.35:1; and in a second, she\u2019s filmed front-to-back, with her figure and pantalon-clad arse and long legs fuzzily filling the upper \u2018scope frame. Next to capturing Marilyn Monroe\u2019s sprawled figure in How to Marry a Millionaire<\/strong> (1953) and Brigitte Bardot\u2019s topless revelation in And God Created Woman<\/strong> (1956), it\u2019s the most deliciously contrived use of form in CinemaScope.<\/p>\n

The rest of the supporting cast includes strong performances by Lom as Orsini (oh, how well he excelled at playing amoral shits), Paul Lukas as a sputtering government rep, and Eddie Albert as a caffeinated, photo-hungry journalist who seems to have Kodak\u2019s Endless Film Roll in his camera, and a camera that can autofocus when its handler is chattering and misaiming the lens at every turn. Connor (who also appeared in Huston\u2019s Moby Dick<\/strong>) is also compelling in his otherwise marginalized role of Waitari, and he sports what may be the coolest sunglasses ever designed. Gregoire Aslan\u2019s performance of Habib is limited by the writers\u2019 decision to strangely have him function as an Iago to all warring parties, whispering what they want to hear to maintain divisions, and snatching opportune profit when it happens; he\u2019s a greedy, slimy Arab, and it\u2019s the least favourable character of the lot. As Morel later laments, if they don\u2019t save the elephant, the whole world could be taken over by \u2018Habibs.\u2019<\/p>\n

When original star William Holden backed out of production, Flynn was awarded top billing, and Morel was played by Trevor Howard, but between the two actors, Flynn\u2019s scenes are far less, and the real show-stopped is Howard, who gives his deeply idealistic character enough dimension so audiences are repelled or amused by his actions. Howard at the very least deserved an Oscar Nomination for his work, and Flynn is also strong in his last major film role (prior to the silly Cuban Rebel Girls<\/strong>), but the film received no laureates and seemed to have disappeared from circulation, save for old panned & scanned TV prints over the decades.<\/p>\n

A recent Spanish DVD offered an anamorphic transfer with an English stereo 2.0 mix, but Twilight Time\u2019s mined the Fox vaults and not only gotten their hands on a HD transfer for their Blu-ray, but added an isolated music track. (The film mix is stereo 2.0, but the music stems only survive in mono, like the soundtrack album issued by Fox in 1958.)<\/p>\n

Details are crisp, the beautiful colours really glow, and the elephant stampede is even more compelling, particularly the shots where Howard stalks very close to an elephant herd. The stereo mix booms in 2.0, and Malcolm Arnold\u2019s score is among his best (admittedly aided by Henri Patterson\u2019s superb \u201cMinna\u2019s Theme\u201d).<\/p>\n

Only regrets: with such a colourful production history and as a forgotten film in both Zanuck and Huston\u2019s Filmography, it\u2019s a pity there isn\u2019t a commentary track. Zanuck assembled an excellent cast, and so many top artisans worked on the film. My bias is largely due towards having a huge affection for the film, and while Julie Kirgo\u2019s liner notes provide a good overview of the film, those wanting more info ought to read Mel Gussow\u2019s outstanding and colourful 1983 biography of Zanuck. Don\u2019t Say Yes Until I Finish Talking<\/a><\/strong>, and jump to the chapter \u201cThe Roots of Hell,\u201d which detail the making of the film.<\/p>\n

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Postcript<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zanuck\u2019s association with Greco extended through several film, including The Sun Also Rises<\/strong> (1957), The Naked Earth<\/strong> (1958), The Roots of Heaven<\/strong> (1958), Crack in the Mirror <\/strong>(1960), which he wrote under his old pen name Mark Canfield; and The Big Gamble<\/strong>. The chanteuse by trade eventually stepped away from films, finishing off with a French TV adaptation of Belphegor<\/strong> (1965), Onkel Toms Hutte<\/a> <\/strong>(1965) co-starring with Herbert Lom, and The Night of the Generals<\/strong> (1967).<\/p>\n

Huston would revisit idealistic characters in subsequent films, but there are similar parallels in The Misfits<\/strong> (1961), in which bruised people battle over jealousies and running free and wild as a horse (literally) in the desert flats of Nevada.<\/p>\n

Although Gary\u2019s first produced script, the author would be involved in just a handful of productions directly, including contributions to Zanuck\u2019s The Longest Day<\/strong> (1962), and writing and directing two films with then-wife Jean Seberg, Les oiseaux vont mourir au Perou<\/strong> \/ Birds Come to Die in Peru <\/strong>(1968), and Kill!<\/strong> (1971).<\/p>\n

Note: an interview with Twilight Time\u2019s producer\u00a0Nick Redman<\/a> and resident film historian Julie Kirgo<\/a> are also available.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2012 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0P to R<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ P to R . Film: Excellent\/ BR \u00a0Transfer: Excellent\/ BR Extras: Good Label: Twilight Time\/ Region: All \/\u00a0Released: January, 2012 Genre: Drama \/ Adventure Synopsis: Unable to legally halt the slaughter of the African elephant for its precious ivory, a British eco-warrior goes rogue to force the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[648,92,1123,557,1122,941,1121,962],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-18f","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4355"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4361,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4355\/revisions\/4361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}