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Spies of Warsaw pt. 1 (a.k.a. my David Tennant problem)
Spies of Warsaw is about a Frenchman spying in Warsaw in 1937. I got stuck in the first Alan Furst book awhile back -- should give it a retry -- but I could have sworn I remembered its being about a Polish spy. (Edit: My mistake; I'm thinking of a different Furst novel.) Ah, well. SoW, although gloriously photographed in Poland, isn't about living in Poland, or about Poles. It's about David Tennant being a moderately glamorous spy.
Which is the problem. David Tennant, take him for all in all, looks like an Angry Bird. He has three basic expressions: watchful, scowling, and a charming cheeky grin. He can produce variations on all of these on demand. However, he he can't do suave or diplomatic to save his life, which is a limitation when playing a character who is a French military officer under cover as a diplomat. Tennant glowers through diplomatic events in a way that would get him recalled to Paris post-haste. He has nothing resembling a military bearing; he slouches, carries one shoulder slightly higher than the other, and rolls from foot to foot when he walks. A character refers to him as carrying himself "as if he had a stick up his arse", a line that should have been cut immediately after casting. (If you want to see what a military bearing looks like, take a peek at Basil Rathbone or David Niven.)
But what about the plot, Mrs. H? It's a very, very conventional spy plot. Glamorous French aristocrat and WWI veteran is in Warsaw before WWII, sees what is coming -- he drops a hint about the Germans invading through trees and is brushed off with a reference to the Maginot Line -- but is hamstrung by unsympathetic superiors. (A total waste of Burn Gorman, alas.) He runs agents -- for once, an accurate portrayal in a glamor-spy role -- who wind up dead or betrayed. He has a doomed romance with a White Russian refugee who is living with a Russian socialist journalist. He sneaks through the streets of Warsaw.
And you've seen it all before. Which is a pity. As I mentioned, the cinematography is superb, and I'd love to see a Furst dramatization that covers the despair and sense of abandonment of the Polish military. Failing that, I would like to see a mid-20th-century drama in which THE STARS WEAR HATS IN THE GODDAMNED STREET. Ahem. Sorry about that. I have Issues. While we're on the subject, I don't think Tennant's uniform is properly tailored; his epaulettes roll toward the front of his shoulders.
Nobody in the French hierarchy makes the least attempt at French body language or indeed at matching one another's British accents. It's a drama about British spies who happen to be wearing French uniforms and dropping the occasional reference to France. As per usual, the German officers have a military bearing and are speaking German with subtitles.
What we have here is a bad case of imaginary toads in real gardens.
Which is the problem. David Tennant, take him for all in all, looks like an Angry Bird. He has three basic expressions: watchful, scowling, and a charming cheeky grin. He can produce variations on all of these on demand. However, he he can't do suave or diplomatic to save his life, which is a limitation when playing a character who is a French military officer under cover as a diplomat. Tennant glowers through diplomatic events in a way that would get him recalled to Paris post-haste. He has nothing resembling a military bearing; he slouches, carries one shoulder slightly higher than the other, and rolls from foot to foot when he walks. A character refers to him as carrying himself "as if he had a stick up his arse", a line that should have been cut immediately after casting. (If you want to see what a military bearing looks like, take a peek at Basil Rathbone or David Niven.)
But what about the plot, Mrs. H? It's a very, very conventional spy plot. Glamorous French aristocrat and WWI veteran is in Warsaw before WWII, sees what is coming -- he drops a hint about the Germans invading through trees and is brushed off with a reference to the Maginot Line -- but is hamstrung by unsympathetic superiors. (A total waste of Burn Gorman, alas.) He runs agents -- for once, an accurate portrayal in a glamor-spy role -- who wind up dead or betrayed. He has a doomed romance with a White Russian refugee who is living with a Russian socialist journalist. He sneaks through the streets of Warsaw.
And you've seen it all before. Which is a pity. As I mentioned, the cinematography is superb, and I'd love to see a Furst dramatization that covers the despair and sense of abandonment of the Polish military. Failing that, I would like to see a mid-20th-century drama in which THE STARS WEAR HATS IN THE GODDAMNED STREET. Ahem. Sorry about that. I have Issues. While we're on the subject, I don't think Tennant's uniform is properly tailored; his epaulettes roll toward the front of his shoulders.
Nobody in the French hierarchy makes the least attempt at French body language or indeed at matching one another's British accents. It's a drama about British spies who happen to be wearing French uniforms and dropping the occasional reference to France. As per usual, the German officers have a military bearing and are speaking German with subtitles.
What we have here is a bad case of imaginary toads in real gardens.
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For that, I think you'd have to watch a movie filmed during the mid-century. May I suggest The Third Man?
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My favorite part was when Tennant and his Polish friend were talking about how thing used to be black and white during the war but spying was all shades of gray and literally said those exact cliches as if they were being super serious and deep. Just, really? Really??
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If you really want something cringe-inducing you can watch him in the bizarrely trippy Casanova movie. He just basically mugs his way through the entire thing. (And I like Tennant.)
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I've been reading a lot recently, and phew. Not only is the German determination to eradicate Poland creepy, but Western Europe's silent complicity is horrifying.
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A Question of Honor, by Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud,
and for the utterly grim but vivid, The Avengers: A Jewish War Story by Rich Cohen.
There are more, but those three come at it from various directions, and they all have bibliographies.
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I've speculated that it goes back to the aftermath of Attila's visit, but that's pure, undiluted speculation; everyone was a barbarian to the Romans, though.
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Take a look at the list of proud marchers in the parade through London. Were the Poles represented? They were not. It was as if their pilots, just to name one set of valiant fighters, had not considerably stiffened the RAF's backbone at the beginning of the conflict, when GB was struggling to get planes into the air. Poland, from anything I can read, had effectively vanished.
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I'd not bothered to look this up, and am now split between keeping my blood pressure low by giving it a miss, or actually downloading this with a view to a drinking game evening...
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"He wasn’t that keen on some of the period costumes either. The French military uniform, he admitted, was quite nice, but the dress uniform for formal occasions he had issues with. “That’s hard to pull off. That’s like one of the suits you used to wear”, he said to Jonathan, referring to the host’s once legendary bizarre dress sense.The dress uniform was “bright blue, with sort of … clown trousers, and a hat that you’re supposed to wear at all times”. He said that when he the whole thing on the entire crew laughed at him, so he had to resort to carrying the hat instead."
http://tennantnews.blogspot.com/2013/01/david-tennant-on-jonathan-ross-show.html
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