![For Whom the Bell Tolls [DVD]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51vsJvcNz3L._SX300_SY300_QL70_ML2_.jpg)
I'm not the biggest Hemingway fan in the world, but when a film has Gary Cooper & Ingrid Bergman in a story by Ernest Hemingway, it was must viewing, for me and my wife.
I enjoyed the movie enormously, as did my wife. The relationship that flourishes between Cooper and Bergman had the kind of chemistry that is incredibly special. I will agree that the style exhibited in this movie are significantly different than today's films, however, Gary Cooper's natural acting talent shines through and provides a template for film actors from an upcoming era such as Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, James Dean and Robert Redford. All of these male film actors need only watch "Coop" to see the subtlety he imparts to audiences to get a glimpse of the future from the past.
Meanwhile, actress Katina Paxinou nearly steals the show as Pilar. She's Greek, though playing a Spanish woman of intelligence, grit and compassion, who wins an Academy Award for her first American film performance. The strength of her character is so very clear and her ability to provide leadership for the brave local fighters adds a flash alongside that of Ingrid Bergman, playing Maria. Both women are striking in their roles and marks more powerful female voices which largely reflect the new roles women are cutting out for themselves in the landscape of the United States economically and professionally due to the rise of women in the workforce because of World War II. Rosie the Riveter became Rosie the Guerilla Fighter in For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Also, Cooper's role as Robert Jordan, the tough, but tender American explosives expert is a stunning role model for coming generations of men, from Senator John McCain, President Barack Obama and even Lech Walesa of Poland. Jordan's antifascist fighter proved irresistible for men from different eras. Senator McCain said he'd found 2 four leaf clovers in his parent's front yard as a 12-year-old and raced to their library to find a suitable book to press them in. By chance For the Whom the Bell Tolls was the book he chose. He opened the book to Chapter 10 and a few tense lines captured young John McCain's imagination, "casting an “immediate spell” on him."
“For a long time, Robert Jordan was the man I admired above almost all others in life and fiction. He was brave, dedicated, capable, selfless, possessed in abundance that essence of courage that Hemingway described as grace under pressure, a man who would risk his life but never his honor,” McCain wrote." He wrote further: “He was and remains to my mind a hero for the twentieth century, my century, the century when McCain went to war on ships and claimed our place in the great clashes among rival ideologies, fascism, communism, and self-determination, that made the age as memorable for its violence as for its progress.”
President Barack Obama also had an appreciation for the book version of For Whom the Bell Tolls. “… in a July interview for Rolling Stone Magazine, the candidate cited For Whom the Bell Tolls as one of the books that most inspired him.”
War novelist Robert Stone commented: “Both [McCain and Obama] in their way are tough guys, and their code is inherent in Robert Jordan," says Stone. "Hemingway kind of created the idea of the anti-fascist hero. You can't have Casablanca and Bogart and all those characters without that Hemingway character. They also derive from Robert Jordan."
“Gary Cooper was the perfect image for our campaign to get people to vote. We’d never had free elections in Poland. I am always so touched when people ask me to autograph that image of Gary Cooper from our campaign poster.” LECH WALESA, President of Poland, Nobel Peace Prize
The combination of Hemingway's words and Gary Cooper's acting created a synergy that is still thriving today.
The movie was somewhat transformative for me and my wife. Having come through a rocky period in our Nation's history and then seeing the clashes between the freedom fighters and the fascists in For Whom the Bell Tolls, provided us both with a cathartic experience.
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At the end of the film, after Bergman's Maria has been shepherded away from Cooper's Robert Jordan and we see him prepare for what will be his last firefight to make a rear guard action which can only end in his demise, we see and hear Jordan speaking to Maria, figuratively of course. The combination of his talking and his heroic actions, defending his lover and friends with a Lewis machine gun, Cooper finds himself in a position he will repeat years later as Will Kane in High Noon. Alone and outnumbered, he must fight for the right side, his compatriots and the woman he loves, though he'll have to do it all by himself. When the film was released in 1943, it ranked number 2 on the US market for that year in earnings, so even then the film found an audience in the midst of a war that actual Americans were fighting around the globe. Despite that fact, people still came out to watch movies and escape their toils being the "arsenal of democracy" as President Roosevelt had named the USA in 1940, for a few hours.
Just a few years prior, Gary Cooper had won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Alvin York in 1941. His work in The Pride of the Yankees, where he played the doomed Lou Gehrig was extremely popular. Cooper was visiting American troops fighting in World War II, the performance they wanted most was for Cooper to replicate Gehrig's speech from the film: "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth"— was the last thing theater patrons heard after seeing his work acting as Lou Gehrig. So, for Cooper professionally, this was the pinnacle of his acting career, at that time.
Overall, the movie proved very satisfying for my wife and me. I bought the movie from Amazon because I know I'll want to see it again, likely within the next month or so. No matter how much attention I'm paying to any movie, multiple viewings always offer me treats I failed to take notice of previously. Heck, I'm still finding little nuggets in films like Jaws. A movie this rich in details will give me plenty of reasons for many viewings.
I hope some of you who have read this far will actually see the movie. Thankfully, the Spanish Civil War is not shown in all its horrors, decency had to have some place in films, regardless of how REAL the directors/producers wanted it to be. Having fought in combat myself, I can tell you that seeing a full rendition of actual combat on a movie screen rarely gives the viewer a sense of witnessing the horrors of war. It's an education most sane people will gladly avoid, a smart move. The fight scenes in this film are relatively light compared to modern war epics like Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down. Still, I wouldn't recommend letting young children see this one. Some terrible details of Maria's capture by fascists and her parents were brutally murdered. I hardly think that's appropriate viewing for children. Only you know how mature your kids are far better than I do.
Enjoy the film and add the book to your reading lists while we struggle with COVID-19 social distancing, masking and hand washing as though it was an Olympic event.
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Customer reviews
Gary Cooper Grandad of Indiana Jones
Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2007
This is my second favorite film of all time next to The adventures of Robin Hood(1938) staring Errol Fynn.This movie has everything action adventure and romance .I neverget tired of watching Gary Cooper who in my opinion is the grandaddy of Indiana Jones, no one else can wear the classic fedora and pre-world war 2 leather bomber jacket like Cooper. Ingrid Bergman (I always had a crush on her ) plays a 19 year old spainish girl ,it's hard to believe she was 27 when she made this film in late august 1942.I'm half way through reading Ernest Hemingway's book For whom the bell tolls,the book has more graphic sex than in the film .In the film Cooper and Bergman have smoking hot chemistry ,it looks like at any moment they are going to be go at it in the sack. I hope paramount will release a 2 disc DVD set in 2008 in time for it's 65th anniversary .I posted a few photos on amazon I hope you like them.
Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2007
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A. W. Wilson
IT TOLLS FOR THEE from UNIVERSAL CINEMA CLASSICS
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 11, 2018mikeongar
You needed to be a fan of old Hollywood films to enjoy this.
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Fusgus
Another great Hemingway book and fairly faithfully played out on screen
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 5, 2014barry mead
For Whom The Bell Tolls dvd
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