Overlord (Criterion Collection) (1975) | DVD Review

It’s a travesty that a film like 1975’s Overlord was overlooked for almost thirty years. Rarely seen in North America before 2004, we are now able to experience this very important and very powerful statement about war, made all the more significant thanks to the newly released Criterion Collection edition on DVD.

Seamlessly splicing actual World War II footage from Britain’s Imperial War Museum into the fictional narrative of Overlord, director and co-writer Stuart Cooper (1977’s The Disappearance) gives us the tale of one British soldier, Tom Beddows (Brian Stirner), from being drafted and going through training right up to the morning of D-Day. Along the way, we also get to experience Tom’s growing realization that he may not make it out of this alive. In fact, he comes to accept the fact that his demise is imminent and that there’s nothing he can do about it. Originally commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to make a documentary, Cooper spent countless hours perusing the film archives in search of footage that would compliment his simple story of a man coming to grips with the fact that he is somewhat insignificant in the grand scheme of things and feels he’s getting smaller and smaller as the war machine just gets bigger and bigger. What sets Overlord apart from most other World War II movies like The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far is the fact that heroism has no role in the film. In fact, apart from the archival footage, there are no battle scenes. What we are treated to, however, is an interesting (and probably quite realistic) take on the mentality of the soldiers as their boats approached the shores of Normandy on June 6, 1944: pervasive dread, nervous laughter at stories told to ease the tension, followed by dead silence. It’s a harrowing scene, to say the least. In an effort to make the film as realistic as possible, Cooper enlisted the services of longtime Stanley Kubrick cinematographer John Alcott, who used old German camera lenses and grainy black and white film stock so that his footage closely resembled the archives. Despite a solid if not-well-known cast, including Stirner who is more well-known for having written and directed 1999’s critically acclaimed A Kind of Hush, the real star of Overlord is the archival war footage. Planes performing strafing runs, nighttime bombings, soldiers in training, it’s all here. But even more interesting is the footage of soldiers in their down-time: fooling around, relaxing, lining up for food, getting paid in French currency and immediately gambling the money away amongst themselves. You truly get a sense of the quick camaraderie that built up between the soldiers. And Cooper does a fantastic job of placing the footage so that it is a part of the narrative.

At one point the soldiers go to a dance and Tom meets a girl (Julie Neesam), stepping on her toes while they dance and going for a walk outside, eventually agreeing to meet up at the same spot in two days. It’s a touching scene in that, even though he may be going through hell and knows that something big is coming, the prospect of falling in love offers a glimmer of hope for Tom. Of course, their second meeting never happens due to the fact that Tom’s troop is on the move to a new camp, and the girl haunts his dreams until the end of the film. The final realization that this is probably the end for Tom is when the soldiers are ordered to either hand over their correspondence to be sent home or to throw it all in a bonfire they had made, so that in the event of their capture, none of it could be used against them. The look on Tom’s face when he makes his choice says it all.

It goes without saying that Criterion Collection releases are usually can’t-miss affairs, and Overlord is no exception. The digital transfer, overseen by director Stuart Cooper, is from a 35mm fine-grain master positive, and it is immaculate. The sound is in Dolby Digital 1.0 (mono, in other words), but given the material, it fits perfectly.

Disc features include:
– Feature-length audio commentary from Cooper and Brian Stirner which is very informative, although it was recorded separately, so there’s no interaction between the two. Cooper relates stories about combing the archives and his thought process while writing Tom’s story, while Stirner relates more detailed tales about filming certain scenes and what he was trying to achieve in his role.
– Mining the Archive, a twenty-three minute featurette where archivists with the Imperial War Museum discuss the museum’s role in making the film, while also explaining the footage used in the film as well as the training the cameramen went through while preparing for battle. We also get to see more war footage not used in the film.
– Capa Influences Cooper, a photo essay of famed war-time photographer Robert Capa’s work, with a voiceover by Cooper explaining the influence Capa’s work had on him while making Overlord.
– A Test of Violence, a 1969 short film by Cooper about Spanish anti-war artist Juan Genoves.
– Cameramen at War, a 1943 newsreel film from the British Ministry of Information that pays tribute to the newsreel and battle correspondents during the war. This is actually quite amusing (in a morbid way), listening to the narrator cheerfully talk about the greatness of a particular cameraman, only to mention (just as cheerfully) that he’d been killed minutes after taking the particular shot we’re watching.
– Germany Calling, a Ministry of Information propaganda film from 1941. This one uses footage from German propagandist Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will set to a silly waltz, making the parade of German soldiers, along with Hitler himself, appear to be dancing.
– Excerpts of journals from two WWII soldiers, narrated by Brian Stirner. These two journals were used as a primary source for much of what happens to Tom in the film.
– Original theatrical Trailer
The package is nicely rounded out by a 28-page bookletthat includes an essay by Film Comment editor Kent Jones, a short history of the Imperial War Museum, excerpted from a speech given by Roger Smither, head of the Film and Photograph Archive, when Overlord opened on June 2, 2006, in Washington, D.C., and excerpts from the Overlord novelization, by Cooper and Christopher Hudson.
The only problem I had with the features was that there weren’t enough…I found myself wanting to see more and to seek out more information about a war that, sadly, I know little about.

Overlord is a very powerful film about the isolation and insignificance felt by one soldier in an army of millions, even while showing us important scenes from the war that nobody should go without seeing at least once in their lifetime. Thanks to the efforts of the fine people at Criterion, we have a package that will help people to understand the horrors of war, even while feeling for the soldiers who took part in it and appreciating the sacrifices they made. A definite must for any war-film fan, but also highly recommended for anybody interested in a good story that also serves as a history lesson.

Movie rating – 4

Disc Rating – 4.5