Tag: historical heroines

Annie Oakley of the Wild West, by Walter Havighurst

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★★
“An appetiser rather than a main course, that diverts from the topic far too often.”

Annie Oakley was one of the earliest “girls with guns”. In her role as a sharpshooter, performing with the likes of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, she travelled the globe, appearing in front of Presidents, Kings and Emperors. She shot a cigarette held by the future Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany (accuracy later deplored by American newspapers, after the nations went to war in 1917). At 90 feet, she could shoot a dime tossed in midair, or hit the edge of a playing card, then add five or six more holes as it fluttered to the ground. In seventeen years and 170,000 miles of travel, she only missed four shows, and even in her sixties, could still take down a hundred clay pigeons in a row.

So why is this book unsatisfactory? Largely because much of it isn’t actually about her. Originally written in 1954, Havighurst uses Oakley as a key to write about…well, everything else connected to her, and you’ll find half a dozen pages passing without any mention of its supposed subject. The author goes off the track with alarming frequency: Buffalo Bill, a.k.a. William Cody, is the main beneficiary, and someone unschooled in the topic will learn almost as much about him as Oakley. There are some effective moments, particularly when Havighurst depicting the loving relationship between Annie and her husband, Frank Butler, whom she met while outshooting him in Cincinnati. Married for over fifty years, they died less than three weeks apart. But such passages are few and far between; the actual Oakley-related content of the book is disappointing, though I’m now keen to track down a better work on the topic.

By: Walter Havighurst
Publisher: Castle Books [$8.98 from HalfPrice Books]

Joan of Arc (1999)

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★★★★

joanofarcOne problem with history is that viewers likely know how it ends: if you want to surprise them, why bother making a historical drama? Joan of Arc knows this, so starts with her burning at the stake. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword: it robs the climax of its striking power, yet acknowledges without doubt, that this is a tragedy. The theme of manipulation is again strong here, with Joan discarded after having outlived her usefulness, despite an odd character change in the second half, where she drifts for a jarring moment into petulant bitch mode. It’s almost as if the makers hinted at a megalomaniacal side, crazed by power, and her fatalistic approach to her capture rings false – probably because it is nowhere near the truth. There’s more fabrication early on, with Joan an unwanted daughter who sees a friend (blind, no less) killed by enemy soldiers – must she always be some kind of post-traumatic stress survivor?

Once it hits its stride, however, there is rarely a wrong step, at least dramatically speaking – the French king again comes off as far more implicated in Joan’s death than evidence suggests. Neil Patrick Harris is convincing as Charles, who moves from self-doubt to certainty in his divine right to be king, then on to using that power against the one who put him there. Peter O’Toole too turns in a fine performance as Bishop Cauchon, though more facts are tampered with, allowing him to act as Charles’ spiritual advisor when he was actually always on the English/Burgundian side. That it’s a TV miniseries is apparent, with 15th century France populated by remarkably clear-skinned and straight-teethed people. There’s even hints of romance between Joan and her companion, Jean de Metz, which serves little purpose. The battle scenes, too, are all but bloodless – I wasn’t expecting the decapitations and arterial spurting seen in Besson’s film, but I didn’t really want the Middle Ages, sanitized for my protection. Even the guy dying of plague looks pretty good. [Chris noted a glaring continuity error at the end: on her way up to the stake, Joan is wearing shoes, but by the time she gets there, she’s barefoot!]

However, the main difference between this and The Messenger is that Joan of Arc is convincing. Perhaps with the advantage of having extra time (the DVD of the miniseries runs 189 minutes), they make the effort to show her interacting with other characters, and Sobieski’s calm, complete assurance is a striking contrast to Jovovich. The viewer can see why people would believe her, and it naturally follows they will too – Sobieski’s Emmy nomination was entirely well-deserved. Despite playing fast and loose with the facts (another example: Joan’s brother was not killed in battle, but lived to see her trial verdict overturned), this strong central performance holds the film together and, with the aid of the other fine actors, makes it eminently watchable. It may not be historically accurate, but it does a fine job of explaining why her myth is still honoured in the third millennium, without coming down in one camp or the other regarding the source of her visions. There are few TV miniseries worth watching, and fewer still worth owning, but this one comes highly recommended.

Dir: Christian Duguay
Star: Leelee Sobieski, Neil Patrick Harris, Peter O’Toole, Chad Willett

The Messenger: the story of Joan of Arc

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★★★
“Joan’s eminent originality was her common sense”

messengerThis was the the very first sentence of Michelet’s classic biography, published in 1853, but you’d be hard pressed to recognise the same person in Besson’s portrayal. A more accurate summary of this Joan would be the line spoken to her as she languished in prison: “You didn’t see what was, Jeanne – you saw what you wanted to see…” Besson comes down firmly in the school of thought which has Joan as a mentally deranged religious loony. While this is a viable theory, it doesn’t work as played by Jovovich – all twitchy, rolling her eyes and staring off into the distance – since it becomes impossible to see why anyone would have followed her. Unless we assume the 14th century French population were entirely gullible, she should have spent her life quietly as some village’s idiot. This cripples the film irreperably, since we feel little or no sympathy for a heroine depicted as a frothing zealot.

Historically too, it gets off to a bad start – an entirely fabricated incident in which Joan sees her sister first killed, then raped by an English soldier. This provides a spurious ground for Joan to hate the invaders, when contemporary accounts tell of her concern being almost equal for both sides. Also made-up is her finding a sword in a field, and there is a sudden leap, with Joan arriving to an audience with the King – in truth, she talked her way up the hierarchy. A rather lurid scene (missing from the US theatrical release) where Joan’s virginity is verified, marks the end of a troubling first act. Once her campaign begins, though, the film improves drastically, with excellent (if somewhat implausible – did they really use something resembling helicopter rotors as weapons?) battle scenes, that are at once enthralling and grim. It’s understandable when they unhinge Joan’s sanity even more; another of the themes seems to be that her mission was really non-Christian, in that it led to the deaths of so many people. Something about “thou shalt not kill”, though given the bloody history of Christianity, singling her out seems somewhat unfair. Tcheky Karyo delivers a fine performance as the leader of Joan’s army, facing the difficult task of balancing her expectations, with prosaic things like, oh, not getting killed.

Joan’s capture, trial and execution are fairly close to the truth, though in reality, the King was less involved and more concerned for Joan than shown. It certainly is reasonable to suggest that a naive innocent such as Joan would have been used for political ends. Once she’d outlasted her usefulness – and with the king on the throne, she quickly became more a hindrance than a help – she would have needed to be disposed of. Must confess, I quite like the concept of Joan as a medieval version of Lee Harvey Oswald. Dustin Hoffman’s appearance as Joan’s conscience is another neat touch, and his sarcasm works well. Indeed, the film is one good performance from being excellent. The bad news is, it’s Jovovich who is the culprit (a messenger who deserves to be shot?), though Besson and co-writer Andrew Birkin perhaps warrant most of the criticism for twisting facts and characters in order to fit a predetermined goal. Their Joan is so far from the historical record, they’d have been better off placing their character in an entirely fictitious setting.

Dir: Luc Besson
Star: Milla Jovovich, John Malkovich, Faye Dunaway, Tcheky Karyo