When you have—as with The Way Back—an old-fashioned, grueling trek odyssey with plenty of far-off shots of tiny figures crossing a vast landscape, there's a danger in making it sound like an awards-season anachronism for the old folks. Describing the difficulties he had getting financing for his first film in seven years, director Peter Weir sounded surprisingly like a man who feels out of time: 'One [studio exec] said 'We aren't in that kind of business anymore.' I thought what kind of business? Show business?' Truly, Weir has more to offer than mere old-school, impress-through-sheer-scale spectacle. That same sound byte might've been uttered by David Lean at his most peevish; when Lean was interviewed by Gerald Pratley on the CBC in March 1965 (collected in the out-of-print, Andrew Sarris-edited anthology Interviews with Film Directors), he sniped the kitchen-sink realism and other 'obscure' films rising in awards prominence. Doctor Zhivago would be his last great success, and the kind of sweeping epic he'd come to specialize in was on the way out. 'I, personally, often worry about being old-fashioned,' he said. 'But I like a good strong story. I like a beginning, a middle and an end.'
Continued reading FILM OF THE WEEK: The Way Back...
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