Capturing the essence
- Martyn Foster
- May 23
- 11 min read
It’s not so much about factual truth, but spirit and soul.
When we talk about the essence of something, we’re usually talking about its nature, a quality or characteristic that is inherent to that something. Now, normally to be described as an essence of something, it tends to have some aesthetic or moral quality because it usually refers to an abstract feature of determining its character. Plato would say that “essence” belongs in what he called, “the realm of the forms”, where knowledge, intelligence, pure thought and reason are to be located. If a something did not have the desired properties that the particular something was meant to have, it would no longer be deemed to be that something (or even associated with it), for it did not share in the essence of that something.
Capturing the essence is not so much about factual truth but capturing the spirit, the vibe, the essence, the feel of a time period or event. I will be exploring this using the films, Ford vs Ferrari and the two Tarantino movies, Inglourious Basterds and Once upon a time…in Hollywood. I think all three of these films do a great job of capturing the essence, but are by no means the only good examples. I think it’s also a good time to remind ourselves that films are not documentaries; they’re primarily narrative based (not “fact” based) with the use of creative liberties mainly for entertainment purposes. Also, these films were made some 50, 60, 70 years after the period/event in which they centre around, so they’re retrospective.
Unlike my three previous movie related explorations, I have chosen multiple films to discuss, as opposed to a single film. So, I will do this film-by-film, picking out scenes and making general points as I go along, and not chronologically laying the film out (thoroughly) as I’ve done in the preceding posts.
Ford vs Ferrari
Racer and car builder, Carroll Shelby (played by Matt Damon) – and as it turned out, one of the most synonymous names in automotive history – is sought by Ford Motor Company to create a race car that will beat “old man Enzo” and his Ferraris at Le Mans during the 1960s. Shelby entrusts racer Ken Miles (Christian Bale) to be his primary development test driver, and the two would go on to design and build one of the greatest cars known to man, the GT40, which would go on to win four Le Mans 24 hours in a row from 1966-69.
There’s a scene where Shelby takes Henry Ford II for a spin in the prototype GT40; 1) to get him away from “the suits” (more of this in a minute), 2) to showcase directly how raw and insane it is, and 3) for Shelby to get Ken Miles to race the car at Le Mans (against the suits wishes) by waging his company on Miles winning at Daytona. Now, there is no evidence to suggest this ever took place, nor the touching moment in the car when Henry Ford II breaks down crying wishing his father could have seen this, but it works well from the film’s narrative perspective. The essence of legacy issues with Ford, the politics of racing and business are captured well in this scene.
There is a constant back and forth between Shelby & Miles, and the suits all film long, conveying that it is as much them as Ferrari that they’re battling. This idea of corporate getting in the way of things and wanting cookie-cutter clean images for PR is already automatically understood by most audiences, so that constant vibe of being at odds is acceptable regardless of how much actually went on. Even in modern racing there’s a lot of corporate interference and drivers are drilled like PR robots to prevent any personality characteristics negatively impacting the team/company/sponsors…and yet it’s the personalities that the people want to see.
In the end, with Miles comfortably ahead in the race, he slows down to give the suits their 1-2-3 finish across the line, only to get screwed of the win due to a technicality. Old man Ferrari doffs his hat in respect to Miles because he knew what a drive it was and, rather intuitively, what he did (or was asked to do) and what it cost him. As I eluded to before, racing is as much a battle on the track as off the track – and thankfully it has become a lot safer.
The films ends with the rather tragic death of Miles while testing the latest GT40 which the movie handles respectfully (we didn’t need to see Miles flung from the car to know that he died – and no one really knows what caused the accident in reality). Shelby takes Miles’ death pretty hard, and for a long time, and you can clearly see he misses him and the honest relationship he had (even continuing to check in on his family) – which you’d honestly have to have a soul made of stone to not feel anything.
Shelby narrates this point which captures the essence of racing cars, "There's a point, at 7,000 RPM, where everything fades. The machine becomes weightless, just disappears. All that's left, is a body moving through space and time. 7,000 RPM. That's where you meet it. You feel it coming. It creeps up on you, close in your ear. Asks you a question. The only question that matters. Who are you?"
Ford vs Ferrari does a great job of illustrating the breaking boundaries while dodging death spirit of the era and the nature of the pursuit of victory at all costs in the face of a herculean challenge. The essence of danger in motorsport is conveyed really well, along with our human need to push ourselves, find limits and go beyond them. Side Note: The performances by Damon and Bale (as Shelby and Miles) are top notch and carry the film from start to finish.
Inglourious Basterds
“Once upon a time…in Nazi-occupied France”, the film starts, kind of ironically given Tarantino would go on to use that phrase in the last movie I’ll discuss. However, Inglourious Basterds centres around WWII and, primarily, the exploits of a bunch of Jewish-American soldiers (The Basterds) led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) which eventually lead to the death of Adolf Hitler.
However, we will start with the opening scene, as it is one of the best opening scenes to a movie ever (in my opinion) conveying the charismatic and threatening presence of SS Colonel Hans Landa (played impeccably by Christoph Waltz). I could do an entire post on this scene alone, but we don’t have that time, instead you get the essence of the Nazis as this looming force that is drawing nearer and nearer to your home, or in this case the LaPadite milk farm. It’s a fantastically scripted scene which goes from a casual and polite visit (if there ever is such a thing with the Nazis), to an intense, accusatory and life threatening interrogation. “You’re sheltering enemies of the state, are you not?”, Landa ushers this statement menacingly to Monsieur LaPadite (Denis Menochet), already knowing the answer. In reality, you’d be shitting yourself at this moment while trying to remain steady, but you can see they both already know what is about to happen, and the essence of that is acted out tremendously. Landa calmly gets up, ends the conversation as to not arouse suspicion, says adieu before his soldiers brutally execute the Jews harboured beneath the floorboards. One manages to escape, Shoshanna (Melanie Laurent), and it looks like Landa is going to shoot her down with his pistol, but just shouts “Au revoir, Shoshanna”, grinning as he puts his pistol away and Shoshanna runs across the field terrified out of her wits and sobbing. The opening scene encapsulates the essence of what Nazi occupation and interrogation was like for a lot France and those trying to shelter Jews away from prying eyes.
The strudel scene is another great example of a Nazi interrogation yet under different circumstances as Shoshanna – who escaped and is now a cinema owner called Emmanuelle Mimieux – is asked to hold a Nazi movie night as its main star, Frederick Zoller, (Daniel Bruhl) has taken quite a liking to her and his war exploits as impressive enough that Goebbels might entertain such a change. She seems relatively composed given the company she’s in at this fancy restaurant for lunch surrounded by not only Hitler’s second in charge, but Gestapo as well. It’s not until Landa (and his charmingly menacing grin) arrive to question her that her heart skips a beat – and it’s not until the end can she truly let her emotions out. It’s another great example of the lies, the games, the deceit, the cunningness that went on during this period as people trying to convincingly masquerade their charade as a matter of life and death, and how much the Nazis knew (or not), and used to their advantage.
The bar in the basement scene is up there as one of the best scenes in the movie, where members of the Basterds, along with British Lt Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) rendezvous with a British spy, German actress Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) and go to said Nazi film night above. Spies and secret meetings behind enemy lines were all par for the course in WWII – however, inconveniently, this one was not as secret and along with a number of other German soldiers, and the Gestapo Major (August Diehl) from the above scene was also there. Once again, that beautiful seesaw between keeping up the ruse and losing control plays out. That ability to go between playful jokes to serious intimidating, trying to uncover something, anything, like an accent or a tell, that’d give away a fake, is incredible. Both Hicox and the Gestapo Major go out spiritedly for their country once the veil falls away, as one tended to do in their positions.
The film ends with all the Nazis elite, including Hitler, at the film night dying in a fiery/explosive and machine gun demise as the result of independent actions taken by the Basterds, Shoshanna and Landa. Needless to say, this is not how Hitler really went out, but somewhere in an alternate universe this would play out. The plan and calculations to kill them all at the movie premiere is not far-fetched and still acts within the spirit of WWII. Trying to get them all together at once was so rare. Landa’s conditional surrender and not notifying the Nazis of the plot is just another way of illustrating how clever he was and a step ahead. He could see a way out and maximised his leverage to escape punishment for his deeds. Compared to the opening scene where he delighted in being called the “Jew Hunter”, he despised it in front of the Lt Raine, instead focusing on his ability as an exceptional detective who was just great at his job. Not uncommon for people to want to get out of being a Nazi war criminal and act like they were a double agent all along. Landa surrenders himself over to Raine at the agreed upon location, Raine promptly shoots the guard he had with him and carves a Swastika onto Landa’s forehead (like they did at other times in the movie) so that everyone, including Landa himself, would be reminded of who he truly was despite taking off that SS uniform.
Tarantino likes to blend these half true, half fantasy stories into hyperrealistic films and I think Inglourious Basterds does a good job of capturing the essence of Nazi-occupied France in WWII even if the story is little exaggerated and sensationalistic. The performance by Waltz as Hans Landa is by far one of the best you’ll ever see.
Once upon a time…in Hollywood
Moving on to the final film, and second Tarantino movie, Once upon a time…in Hollywood is set in the sun soaked smoking 60’s of Hollywood, California, and for the most part is a love letter to that era. The film does a brilliant effort at nailing the vibe of the period; fashion, music, cars, culture. Like I mentioned previously, there is this blend of real and fiction, as we follow along the life of Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), a once star now struggling to stay relevant actor, and his stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). Dalton is a fictitious character who is kind of an amalgamation of real life actors from that late 50-60s period. Still, there are several real characters in this movie, most notably Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) – and this is where alternate universe Tarantino strikes again, and gave Tate a better ending than she got in real life, let’s say, but we’ll get to more of that at the end.
The world is changing, the culture is moving fast and Hollywood is at the forefront, but Rick Dalton is no longer the leading man material he once was, and has not made the transition from TV to film as successful as someone like Steve McQueen, for example. Dalton has to contend with getting guest appearances on other people’s shows, usually as the heavy/bad guy – and getting the shit kicked out of him every week is not doing his leading man image any good. This tale of a fallen out of favour actor is very relatable to the audience, being able to pick examples or at least imagine one, and perhaps even further looking at their own lives where they feel a bit like a has been in a world that is passing them by. This story is, dare I say, the essence of 99% of actors worldwide; fighting for roles, big breaks and career longevity.
We follow Rick and Cliff through many TV/Film sets as we switch from set life to action in an ironic way of watching actors play actors. The dynamic is as expected, the actor lives in a Hollywood house while the stuntman lives in a trailer, and Cliff largely doesn’t have a job unless Rick is acting. The two come as packaged deal which was more of thing back in the day, but still somewhat relevant now in films – with stuntmen and women still largely unrecognised for their efforts, sadly. Cliff doesn’t seem to mind being the Robin to Rick’s Batman, even if it means driving him around, picking him up (both physically and emotionally, he is an actor after all), and even fixing his TV aerial at one point. Essentially, the pair of them are just scraping by.
The Playboy Mansion party scene helped to illustrate not only the meteoric rise of Playboy in the 60’s, but also highlights the changing scene/culture – also Dalton’s absence further reinforces his fall from relevance. It also explains the relationship between several real life characters (McQueen, Tate, Polanski, Sebring), but whether any of them ever attended is up for conjecture. The colours, the clothing, the music, the by the pool party is all peak 60’s material, however. When Cliff (friendly) fights Bruce Lee on set, I always felt this was in essence another one of those “you had to be there to see it” type Hollywood stories, regardless of whether Bruce Lee ever did do this or not, let alone someone got hands on him.
Gradually throughout the movie we’re exposed to Cliff’s physicality and propensity for violence – I mean, the stuntman who takes a beating, can give a beating. The run in he has with the hippies out at Spahn Movie Ranch, essentially a proxy for the Manson family cult members, he beats the crap out of one for putting a knife in Rick’s car’s tyre before getting him to fix it. In real life, it was members of the Manson family that were responsible for Sharon Tate’s death, but in Tarantino’s alternate universe, Cliff and Rick deal out the punishment when they come to Dalton’s house (as opposed to Tate’s house next door). Cliff (and his dog) go to town on the “fuckin’ hippies” when they enter Rick’s house coming to kill them, before Rick is disturbed in the pool outside, goes into his shed and pulls out the old movie prop flamethrower and torches the last one. The ending is truly brutal and insane, but then again so were the real life murders. Dalton then talks to Sebring through the gate and gets invited up where he’s introduced to Tate, and the story ends there…imply what you will about their future careers going forward. It’s still a “not what you know, but who you know world.”
The aesthetic and attitude of 60’s California, and more specifically Hollywood, is visceral. At times you can feel the warmth coming through the TV with a strong whiff of cigarette smoke on the nose. There is a reason why the style is still heavily imitated and this film does a good job replicating and paying homage to it. I think it captures the essence of Golden Era Hollywood transitioning into a new era. It was a hell of a time to be alive.
Thank you for reading, I probably overdid it with three films, so I’ll cut it back to two for next week, the final week of my movie month of May. What films do you believe capture the essence the best? Please do let me know if you’ve been enjoying these and whether or not you’d like to see more in the future.
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