Week 6 (Part 3): The Longest Day

The Longest Day was nominated for Best Picture in 1962. It stars everyone and covers almost every conceivable aspect of the World War 2 Normandy landings. I do mean that everyone is in this movie. John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Robert Wagner, Richard Burton, Henry Fonda, Sean Connery, and many others. Richard Beymer plays a paratrooper in his best role other than Tony in West Side Story (and, much later, Twin Peaks). Many of the roles are basically cameos. Henry Fonda is on-screen for about 2 minutes. Same for Sean Connery and Richard Burton. The movie is shot and edited in the style of a docu-drama, with helpful signposts and subtitles, and it covers American, British, German, French, and other perspectives on the topic of D-Day.

I started this 3-hour film half expecting to be drowning in patriotic bombast, but was pleasantly surprised to see that the film, instead, giddily spends more time diving headlong into strategic minutae than forcing the audience to weep for fallen Allied heroes. Because it's an ensemble cast, the star of the film is really the invasion itself and the insane number of details and decisions that worked in concert to make it happen. There are entire scenes, for example, dedicated to French civilians listening to BBC radio for coded messages regarding the invasion:

History has developed alongside pop culture in such a way that our idea of D-Day revolves mostly around Utah Beach. But again, this film really covers the gamut. There is significant screen-time dedicated to the British Army's landing on Sword Beach:

Because I am an adult living in the year 2015, I necessarily must compare The Longest Day to Saving Private Ryan. The latter is also about D-Day, although it's less about the invasion itself and more about the horror of war, heroism, etc., and in case there was any doubt, there is a requisite, closing scene involving characters talking to headstones at Arlington, you know, just to remind us how we are supposed to feel. The Longest Day, on the other hand, is actually much closer to Twelve O'Clock High, or even Dr. Strangelove, in that it serves equal helpings of inspiration, detail, and humor. 

This is not to say it's a slapstick comedy. One of the more powerful moments of the film comes late in the invasion, when several engineers successively die attempting to clear a key barricade using Bangalore torpedoes. But instead of ending with Robert Mitchum's character standing over the grave of a dead engineer and mourning the boys, The Longest Day simply continues and allows the audience to react however they want.

If this film has any downfall, it's that it is almost overwhelmingly comprehensive. Still, for the subject matter at hand, I far prefer this manner of filming and style of delivery to forced, Spielbergian sobriety. The Longest Day probably could have won Best Picture in 1962 if not for the totally unfair circumstance of being up against Lawrence of Arabia, which many would justifiably argue is the best film ever made.

I gave The Longest Day a score of 8.4.