THE HILL
UK, 1965, 123 minutes, Black and white.
Sean Connery f Heavy Andrews, Ian Hendry, Michael Redgrave, Ossie Davis, Ian Bannen, Alfred Lynch, Roy Kinnear, Jack Watson, Norman Bird.
Directed by Sidney Lumet.
The Hill is not everyone's kind of film. It is grim and sombre moviemak1ng at its best. It is oppressive, offering reflections on that grimmest of all realities, the struggle for freedom and the sheer clash of one naked will against another.
The Hill is a prison film with a difference. The prison is a North African camp for recalcitrant soldiers during World War II. Thieves, con-men, cowards make up the inmates and their guardians have been assigned to make them soldiers. The Hill is a picture of the inevitable..
The first half-hour or so is about the most oppressing thirty minutes one could see, the reality of the camp, the training, torture, humiliation, clash of personalities and authority and freedom are unrelentingly presented, with the hill itself as a central symbol. Towards the latter part of the film, the tone becomes one of farce, but it is black farce with a sting, set in the framework of grimmest pessimism.
Sean Connery is fine as the central prisoner, Roberts, who engages our sympathy and provides a focus for what goes on in the camp. Harry Andrews has been a martinet before, but here he plays a strict, lonely and, sometimes, bewildered bully. Ian Hendry plays the sadistic Williams quietly but menacingly. The whole cast is excellent, Roy Kinnear providing some welcome comic relief and Ossie Davis carrying off the farcical protest at the end superbly.
Sidney Lumet directed this film between The Pawnbroker and The Group. (He later worked with Connery in the slick The Anderson Tapes, 1971). A shattering but rewarding experience.
1. Did you enjoy this film? Why?
2. Why was the film made? What impact do you think it would have on general audiences?
3. How was the atmosphere built up during the credits - sand, dust drill, orders?
4. The arrival of the five principal prisoners and their "breaking-in" took half an hour or more of the film. What was the effect of this massive piling on of humiliation and punishment?
5. How do you explain the phenomenon of this kind of camp? The mentality of those in charge? Their disregard of people's feelings and rights and their own enjoyments of their power and wielding of authority?
6. If there has to be such a prison, how do you think it should? Do such soldier-prisoners need breaking as shown by the constant drill, doing everything on the double e.g. mess-parade, punishment of the hill?
7. How was the hill a symbol in the film?
8. In order to get at the issues the film raises, consider the personalities of the principal characters and their clashes. How can you discover who is 'right' and who is 'wrong' ?
(a) The prisoners:
- Roberts - his Scot's arrogance, his being made a scapegoat in trial and in the prison, his endurance, his impatience, his being humiliated, his standing out to condemn Williams, his being beaten, his standing on principle yet criticising the regulations, his sorrow at the end as the prisoners' brutality broke his hopes. The black man - his humiliation as a black man, his friendliness, his support of Roberta, his being driven too for, his discharging himself from the army, his clowning, his beating up Williams. The weak man who was not a criminal but who was humiliated for not being tough, who was laughed at by his companions and who died, McGrath? - rough, afraid, vengeful, the ordinary man, Bartely, as comic relief (on the double with his food spilling), his (naming, cowardice, fear, selfishness and all what he suffered because he was fat.
(b) The Staffs
The incompetent commander - self-indulgent, signing whatever was put before him, not the slightest interest in his work.
The prison overseer - old tradition (25 years), hard, sense of
self-made man, standing by the book, authority for authority's
sake, intending not merely to break but to turn the prisoners out as soldiers, afraid, shrewd, uncomprehending in a crisis, drinking at nights out of boredom,
Williams as cruel, authoritarian, cunning.
Harris - the objector, ineffectual, but finally finding courage to stand on principle and humanity.
The Medical Officer, part of the system, little awareness of the prisoners, fearful, yet finally forced to take a stand on principle and humanity.
9. After discussing the main characters and their clashes, what would you say were the main issues in the film concerning - authority, cruelty, respect for human dignity, principles, fear, war and traditions, revolt?
10. Was the film too serious and oppressive?
11. Even though the audience was forced to laugh, especially at the black man's farcical behaviour, was the film funny? How funny?
12. The film was clearly overstating its case by emphasising the brutality and the force. Do you think this was a good method? Would the film have had the same impact if this had not been done?
13. Why was the end of the film pessimistic? What comment on the whole film did it make?
