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| Photo by keithsim@imdb.com - © 1953 Columbia Pictures |
I had never seen From Here to Eternity (1953) except for the scene that everyone knows in which the lovers kiss in the waves of the Hawaiian shore. But I had heard that it won a lot of Oscars and was on many "best films" lists. So, of course, if one is attempting to catch up on classic films, this seems to be a film to add to the queue.
This film, directed by Fred Zinneman and written by Daniel Taradash, tells the story of several army men, and the women in their lives, in 1941 Hawaii. Montgomery Clift plays Robert E. Lee Prewitt, a private who joins a new unit but refuses to box for them. His new captain, Capt. Dana Holmes (Philip Ober), who is only interested in advancing his career and the glory that boxing brings to his unit, orders his staff to make Prewitt’s life a living hell until he agrees to box. The unit's second-in-command, Sgt. Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster), follows the Captain’s orders, but clearly has no respect for a man who doesn’t respect the military. The Sergeant begins to pursue the Captain's wife, Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr), who struggles with issues in her marriage, namely, her husband’s philandering and her inability to have children. Meanwhile, Prewitt falls in love with Lorene (Donna Reed), a girl hired to entertain men at a social club. Plus, there’s Frank Sinatra in an Oscar-winning turn as Prewitt’s buddy Angelo Maggio, who clashes with a crude stockade sergeant, played by Ernest Borgnine. And let’s not forget that attack on Pearl Harbor.
What’s fascinating to me is that this grand movie with big stars, fantastic scenery, and immense themes about love and war is, at its core, about something very basic: people making life choices. In From Here to Eternity, each character has made choices that brought them to the film’s present-day situations. And, where they end up at movie’s end is a direct reflection of the choices we watch them make. [Warning: Spoilers follow for anyone who hasn’t seen the film.]
For example, Prewitt is emotionally damaged from having blinded a good friend while they were sparring at his old unit. As a result, he chooses not to box for his new unit, regardless of the torture they heap upon him. Lorene makes the choice not to get engaged to Prewitt because she has already decided her path in life, and it does not include being married to an army man. In desperation, she offers to marry Prewitt to try to keep him from rejoining his unit after the bombing, but you know that it could not happen, even if he were to survive. (When she talks about him on the boat while leaving Hawaii, she takes pride in presenting the false story—invented by the army or by her? I’m not sure which—about how he died a hero. She did not want him as he was.) And then there’s Sergeant Warden, choosing to give up a future with Karen (sexy rolls in the sand notwithstanding) to stay married to the army. Captain Holmes and Maggio make their life-defining choices, too.
And I think that is why this film has endured. We can see past the glamour of the screen and the historically pivotal timeline to focus on the characters. So while the film may be big, the characters’ lives are small. They are soldiers and housewives and working men and women like everyone else. They make choices based on their beliefs and fears and desires—choices that may or may not serve them well, but they are their choices to make. And we connect with the film because we all have choices to make, too.
