The battle of the Alma on 20 September 1854 was the first in which new rifled muskets were used, although only by the British and French. In the event in took twelve months, three major land battles and countless actions between two large and well equipped armies deeply entrenched just outside the city. Sensing an opening for a useful diplomatic success France joined Britain in support of Turkey, which rejected the Tsar’s outrageous terms. He was mistaken, neither Britain nor Austria wanted to see Russia controlling the Dardanelles. Expecting support from Prussia, Austria and Britain, he planned to carve up the European part of Turkey. Having established the Second Empire, (Louis) Napoleon III lost interest, but Nicholas decided to settle the ‘sick man of Europe’ once and for all. When Tsar Nicholas I of Russia retaliated, sending a mission to recover Greek Orthodox rights, the Turks simply gave way to both parties, and hoped the issue would go away. The new president of France, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, exploited Turkish weakness to secure concessions for the Catholic church in Palestine, hoping to gain conservative support for his planned coup d’etat. The initial problem was the weakness of the Ottoman-Turkish empire, and the opportunities this provided for European interference in support of the Christian populations. But eventually the Vienna system broke down. And The Charge of the Light Brigade’s themes couldn’t be more pertinent in a nation still hobbled by class differences, jingoistic nostalgia and predilection for glorious self-harm.After the Treaty of Vienna the great powers enjoyed three decades of peace, years in which industrial, political, economic, social and nationalist pressures were suppressed or deflected. Part of its timelessness is due to the absence of the 1960s makeup and hairstyling that have so dated other epics of the era (though Nolan’s hussar jacket found its way on to Jimi Hendrix, and then Adam Ant). Over half a century later, the film looks better than ever. “No damn business of anyone what is what. Wood gave John Osborne’s earlier draft a fleet-footed satirical makeover that renders the dialogue eccentric, hilarious, authentically Victorian-sounding and a constant delight to the ear. Yet none of Richardson’s other films ever quickened my pulse like this one, and only recently did it strike me that The Charge of the Light Brigade’s presiding genius was not its director but its writer: Charles Wood, the great but undervalued playwright and screenwriter who died in February. Monthly Film Bulletin called it “a well-nigh intolerable mess”. Wikipedia says the film’s reception was “generally positive” but I remember it as negative, exacerbated by the director’s refusal to screen it for the critics and a perception in conservative quarters that it cleaved to modish anti-war sentiments. It sparked in me an appetite for military history and big battle movies that persists to this day. Tramautised yet thrilled by my first grown-up taste of things ending badly, I rushed out and read everything I could find about the Crimean war, including the screenplay’s source material, Cecil Woodham-Smith’s The Reason Why. But oh no! For not only does Captain Nolan get hit by a piece of shrapnel before the charge has even properly begun – he is one of the reasons it all goes so horribly wrong! That heroic stance on the poster? It’s Nolan “screaming like a woman” (Lord Cardigan’s words) as he dies. I knew it would end in tears – I’d read Lord Tennyson’s poem – but confidently expected Nolan to emerge from the disaster, moustache slightly ruffled, to return to his beloved Clarissa. It culminates, of course, in one of the most notorious military blunders in history. The film takes a satirical scalpel to Victorian sociopolitical and military structures, fleshed out by a Who’s Who of Great British Acting led by Trevor Howard, at the top of his game as Lord Cardigan, John Gielgud as Lord Raglan, and Vanessa Redgrave, four inches taller than Hemmings, as Nolan’s love interest. Over the next two and a half hours, these Punch-inspired animations recur at intervals to provide ironic state-of-the-nation commentary (and fill in scenes too expensive to shoot as live action). The animated credit sequence (by the brilliant Richard Williams) proceeds to show the English lion letting out a mighty roar (a parody of the MGM studio ident) and putting on a policeman’s helmet, ready to restore order to the world, followed by an animated digest of the Industrial Revolution, with the British empire at its hub.
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