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15. Dez 2016
TUNES OF GLORY Criterion Collection Special Edition DVD
This is a great movie. The time: immediately following the Second World War. The place: Scotland, specifically the Scots Highland Regiment. The Regiment has returned from hard combat in North Africa and Europe, and once again is ensconced in its barracks in the Scottish Highlands--the place in which it has been headquartered for over three hundred years. The Acting Commanding Officer is Col. Jock Sinclair (Alec Guinness), a rough, uneducated man from the lower classes who worked his way up to Colonel from the ranks. Sinclair got his promotion in the desert, fighting Rommel, and one senses that these experiences have created strong bonds of friendship between Sinclair and certain other officers in the battalion. Now higher headquarters has assigned a new Commanding Officer to the battalion--Col. Basil Barrow, a university-educated man from the upper classes who comes from a long line of officers who served with, and indeed commanded, the battalion. But Barrow, for all that, is viewed as an outsider and newcomer--while the other officers forged friendships in the war, fighting the Germans, Barrow was in the Pacific theater. Sinclair is relegated to second-in-command. Sinclair is deeply resentful of Barrow, and immediately gets off on the wrong foot with his new commander, unintentionally belittling Barrow's war service, most of which involved the horrors of being a POW tortured by the Japanese. In fact, Colonel Barrow is deeply scarred by his wartime experience, and has lost perspective in dealing with his officers. He is a martinet, and appears to forget that leadership involves earning the respect of one's subordinates--it is not simply bestowed from on-high. Although both men love the Regiment above all else, this film is about an implacable conflict between Sinclair and Barrow. For Sinclair does not respect Barrow, who he views as a "spry wee gent who will not command the Battalion for very long..."
The interaction between Barrow and Sinclair provides for an intense psychological confrontation. This is a war movie without a war. None is needed. This is a superb study in leadership, confrontation, loyalty, and the nature of the tradition-rich Highland Regiment. The class divisions among the Regimental officers is interestingly portrayed. The entire cast turns in a fine performance, and Guinness is truly stellar as the rough-spoken Colonel Sinclair.
The DVD is beautifully remastered, with crisp audio and video. I've been keeping an old ratty videocassette of this film for years, hoping that the film would eventually turn up on DVD. Now it has, and any film aficionado will enjoy this crisp, fast-paced and intense story.