TUMBLEDOWN

UK, 1988, 115 minutes, Colour.
Colin Firth, Paul Rhys, David Calder, Barbara Leigh- Hunt, Jack Fortune, Ann Bell, Sophie Thompson.
Directed by Richard Eyre.

Tumbledown was a controversial television film for UK audiences in 1988. Director Richard Eyre had already tackled issues surrounding the Falklands War in his 1983 The Ploughman’s Lunch. This time, with the help of veteran screenwriter, Charles Wood, and the adaptation of the memoir by Scots soldier Robert Lawrence, he brings the war vividly to the screen as well as the aftermath for injured soldiers. This is in the tradition of such films as The Best Years of Our Lives, The Men, Born on the Fourth of July which was to be released the following year.

Colin Firth is excellent in the role of Robert Lawrence, reminding audiences that for almost a quarter of a century he has been a strong screen presence in the UK and overseas. The supporting cast includes Paul Rhys as his close friend, David Calder and Barbara Leigh- Hunt as his parents.

The film has very vivid scenes of the actual war and the battles, especially for Mount Tumbledown. It shows both the British and the Argentinians, not drawing back in presenting brutal scenes, including Lawrence bayoneting a young Argentinian soldier. It also shows the frustrations of the returned soldiers, the seeming neglect of the British government in caring for them and their rehabilitation. To that extent the film was controversial as well as a challenge to the British government and British audiences in the 1980s. Richard Eyre is a noted stage and theatre director, who made such interesting films as Iris, Notes on a Scandal, Stage Beauty. Charles Wood is a veteran writer who has tackled a number of war themes after his scripts for the Beatles’ films, A Hard Day’s Night and Help. His explorations of war and its futility include How I Won the War, The Long Day’s Dying, the satiric aspects of the 1968 The Charge of the Light Brigade and the absurdist The Bed Sitting Room.

1. The impact of the film? For the television audience? British audiences of the 1980s in the aftermath of the Falklands War? Wider audience interest in the themes, the presentation of war, wounded soldiers, rehabilitation and the aftermath? The challenge of the film?

2. The structure of the film: the dinner, the flashbacks, the consequences of the war sequences, the discussions and the finale?

3. The picture of English society, families, politics? The military? Training, the ethos of the military, the involvement in the Falklands War and the particular battles, the hospitals?

4. Audience judgment on the Falklands War? The role of the Argentinians? The role of the British? Margaret Thatcher? Military advice? The political implications of the war? The British war traditions, the men involved, the reasons given by Margaret Thatcher? The effect of the war?

5. The film based on a true story, on the life of Robert Lawrence? Colin Firth’s screen presence and the subtlety of his performance? During the war? Afterwards and his being wounded? His friendship with Hugh? The visits, reminiscing? His relationship with his family? How sympathetic a character in himself, his loyalty to Britain? His relationship with Sophie? The call-up, the training, the ethos, the experience? His suffering, trying to walk, the role of the chaplain? The ceremony? His talking about death and its being visualised? The impact of this kind of character and his experience of war?

6. The character of Hugh, in himself, his friendship with Robert, his experience, the contrast with his experience and Robert’s?

7. Sophie, the family, her relationship with Robert?

8. The Lawrence family, the traditions, communication, the experience of Robert’s injury, recovery?

9. The picture of the military, the soldiers, the officers, the medical personnel, the chaplains? The detail of the war action? Argentinians and British?

10. Robert’s treatment, his bayoneting the Argentinian, his patriotic attitudes? The role of the veterans and their treatment after the war?

11. The film as a presentation of 20th century war, for and against?