FINAL ELEMENT IN PLACE

SUCCESS OF D-DAY DEPENDED ON NORTH ATLANTIC WEATHER WINDOW

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

A lot was involved in making the biggest decision of the modern world.

With the British and American military assets amassed along the English Coast, the weather would determine the timing of the Allied invasion of Nazi occupied Europe.

Director Anthony Maras creates a narrative that twists and turns during a 72 hour countdown to the Normandy Landings on D-Day.

The camera rarely leaves the command center at Southwick House, in England, where the major Allied military figures of the war are assembled, including United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Commander of the Joint Allied Invasion Force.

Brendan Fraser has a few moments of complete transformation, and otherwise carries the role quite well as Ike. Fraser maintains a three dimensional character with Eisenhower moving forward ever so carefully while being haunted by the recent tragedy of a training mission.

Damian Lewis plays British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery.

The decision to green light the invasion is ultimately Eisenhower’s to make, and he re-enters the narrative several times as if pacing back and forth to personifying an approaching storm.

Maras uses storm as a narrative device running in parallel with the task of the chief meteorologist to track two storms heading into the North Atlantic that threaten to turn the men and machines into strands of straw thrown into the wind.

A score drives all the elements together at command central. Volker Bertelmann creates different compositions for multiple scene sequences until the actors can get settled into the most important task of a century.

Sound is frequently used to symbolize a weather storm.

The camera has already identified the more prominent players with intimate close ups as if bringing forward busts to honour the heroes before the storyline even begins to unfold. Maras also uses a delicate oscillation of long shots and three dimensional shots, occasionally with the background blurred to make the moments in the foreground more important.

At one point the camera is in the middle of the scene with the background blurred, but the foreground remains connected to what is beside and behind the camera.

If you needed a hint, the second unit director has taken several shots from above, looking down into the clouds and into approaching storms, even with lightening crackling.

The set is loaded with details such as props from the war years, cigarettes and analogue phone conversations that now look archival.

Everything goes all quiet when Eisenhower gives his meteorologist a deadline while also underscoring that everything is set to go – ‘so don’t hold the voices of freedom up’.

Andrew Scott has a challenging role as meteorologist James Stagg. Stagg has been recommended by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. And with such a reference, Eisenhower subordinates his own meteorologist who he has been using throughout the war with great success.

Scott, playing a non-soldier in military uniform, who must command a team of meteorologists, shows how Stagg struggled to maintain authority. Everything is all the more complicated because his wife is in the hospital expecting a child.

When Eisenhower’s meteorologist begins to challenge Stagg’s authority with a different forecast – well, a lot of pressure occurs.

Maras has side-stepped the big sweeping epic, and he has instead provided a detailed snapshot of a specific event. The camera does not attempt a career retrospective of a meteorologist or struggle to explain the entire war through this one moment.

The weekend with Eisenhower and Stagg is entertaining, nevertheless. Initially, the idea to focus 100 minutes of runtime on a weather forecast seems absurd, but Maras works hard and makes everyone else work hard to underscore the importance of the momentous decision.