A Separate Peace
by Peter Yates
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Actor: Aaron Ashmore, Danny Swerdlow, J Barton, Jacob Pitts, Toby MooreDirector: Peter Yates
Brand: Paramount
Cinematographer: Checco Varese
Producer: Enrique Murciano
Producer: J.B. Sugar
Producer: Laura Gherardi
Producer: Michael Sugar
Writer: John Knowles
Writer: Wendy Kesselman
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); German (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 92 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-02-08
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Paramount
DVD Reviews of A Separate Peace
DVD Review: Like political commentary, a polarized version
Summary: 4 Stars
You might as well see this version of A SEPARATE PEACE if you have the chance, but it is not likely to be a treasured memory like the book might be for those whose feelings have been captured in the original story by John Knowles. The four main characters start the story as students attending a summer session of Devon School so they can receive high school diplomas before being drafted when they turn 18. As narrated by Gene Forrester, the book has constant overtones of comic menace picking everything apart. As a main character on the DVD, Gene is merely a wimp, and the glory all belongs to Phineas, as in these two paragraphs early in the book:
"What I like best about this tree," he said in that voice of his, the equivalent in sound of a hypnotist's eyes, "what I like is that it's such a cinch!" He opened his green eyes wider and gave us his maniac look, and only the smirk of his wide mouth with its droll, slightly protruding upper lip reassured us that he wasn't completely goofy.
"Is that what you like best?" I said sarcastically. I said a lot of things sarcastically that summer; that was my sarcastic summer, 1942.
The movie does its best to capture a manic level of energy, especially associated with jumping out of the tree and swimming. I thought the high point in the background music was twenty six minutes into the movie, when `Tiger Rag (Hold That Tiger)' is used to pep up jumping into the ocean, buying popcorn, and eating ice cream cones the day before Gene has to take a math test. Sleeping near the beach so Finny can go for a morning swim, Gene gets to math class late for the test and can't think straight. Fun and study compete for Gene's time on the DVD, and he is likely to get cut off if he tries to say anything. Ultimately the main theme of the movie is about friendship, and the idea of the Super Secret Suicide Society is mentioned about six minutes before the `Tiger Rag (Hold That Tiger)' music starts.
The novel was published in 1959, a year before two veterans of World War II ran against each other with amazing vigor for the presidency of the United States of America. One of the first scenes of the movie features a Hitler radio broadcast received by the bright boy character six times a day to keep track of what is going on in the world. Half way through the movie, Finny calls the war stupid, corrupt, "what a waste!" With all the emphasis on Gene working hard to be able to compete with rich kids on their own level, there is a lot of testing of the value of warfare in blue blood temperament. Clearly the people that made this movie might have been influenced by President Kennedy getting the Vietnam ball rolling with a few key assassinations in Saigon early in November, 1963, and more recent struggles in the world's trouble spots, where America's elite thinkers like to pick and choose what form of government they will support. Each new war gets promoted like a trip to the ocean: "Being here with your best buddy." Every episode is treated like Americans liberating the world. Finny gets the most ironic line: "Can't they stop talking about that war for one second?"
Nietzsche has a scene in section 6 of Zarathustra's Prologue in which a tight-rope walker reaches the middle of a rope between towers; then a jester came up behind him, uttered a devilish cry, and jumped over the lazybones who had stopped in his way. (THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE, p. 131). Comic actors can attempt to do the same thing to World War II. Leper makes a great comic Hitler in a dance sequence featuring boys in their dorm after the first fifteen minutes of this DVD. Using war as a dramatic backdrop is as modern as constantly questioning the sanity of everything, but the book maintains a comic edge on the imaginative binge behind these characters far longer than the DVD. There is a line early in the movie about Leper's snail house, which allows each snail to have complete privacy so they stay peaceful and don't fight like us. The events of the story call for contrasting interpretations from different points of view that are by no means united in the condemnation of a spoiled brat.
Description of A Separate Peace
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