| The Wind and the Lion | |
|---|---|
 Pre-release promotional poster | |
| Directed by | John Milius |
| Written by | John Milius |
| Produced by | Herb Jaffe |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Billy Williams |
| Edited by | Robert L. Wolfe |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
Production companies | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Herb Jaffe Productions |
| Distributed by |
|
Release date |
|
Running time | 119 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $4.5 million[1] or $4.2 million[2] |
| Box office | $9.2 million (rentals)[3] |
The Wind and the Lion is a 1975 Americanepichistoricaladventure film written and directed byJohn Milius, and starringSean Connery,Candice Bergen,Brian Keith, andJohn Huston. The film is loosely based on the real-lifePerdicaris affair of 1904. Connery playsMulai Ahmed er Raisuli, a MoroccanBerber rebel and anti-imperialist leader, and Bergen plays his American hostage Eden Pedecaris, a fictional character inspired byIon Hanford Perdicaris.
Milius' second feature film as a director, it was produced byHerb Jaffe forMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and distributed in the U.S. byUnited Artists and internationally byColumbia Pictures. It received generally positive reviews from critics, and was a moderate commercial success.Jerry Goldsmith’s film score receivedAcademy Award,BAFTA Award andGrammy Award nominations. Milius was nominated for aWriters Guild of America Award for his screenplay.
In 1904,Morocco is the source of conflict among the colonial powers ofGermany,France, and theBritish Empire. Each nation is trying to establish asphere of influence in that country.Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli is the leader of a band ofBerber insurrectionists opposed to the young SultanAbdelaziz and his uncle, theBashaw ofTangier. Raisuli considers the Bashaw to be corrupt and beholden to the Europeans. He kidnaps the American Eden Pedecaris and her children, William and Jennifer, in a raid on their home. Sir Joshua Smith, a British friend of Eden's, is killed during the raid. Raisuli then issues an outrageous ransom demand, deliberately attempting to provoke an international incident in order to embarrass the Sultan and start a civil war.
In the United States, PresidentTheodore Roosevelt is seekingre-election. He decides to use the kidnapping as both political propaganda (coining the phrase "Pedecaris alive or Raisuli dead!") and as an effort todemonstrate America's military strength as a new great power, despite the protests of his cautious Secretary of State,John Hay.
The American Consul to Tangier,Samuel Gummeré, is unable to negotiate a peaceful return of the hostages. In response, Roosevelt sends theSouth Atlantic Squadron, under the command of AdmiralFrench Ensor Chadwick, to Tangier, either to retrieve Pedecaris or to force the Sultan to accede to Raisuli's demands. Roosevelt finds himself gaining more and more respect for Raisuli, thinking him an honorable man who just happens to be his enemy.
The Pedecarises are kept as hostages in theRif, far from any potential rescuers. Though her children seem to admire Raisuli, Eden finds him "abrigand and a lout". The Pedecarises attempt an escape, helped by one of Raisuli's men, but they are betrayed and given to a gang of desert brigands. Luckily, Raisuli has tracked them and kills the kidnappers with a rifle and sword. He reveals that he does not have any intention of harming the Pedecarises and is merely bluffing. Eden and Raisuli come to develop a friendly relationship as Raisuli reveals his story, that he was once taken captive by his brother, the Bashaw, and kept in a dungeon for several years.
Gummeré, Chadwick, and his aide,Marine Captain Jerome, tire of the Sultan's perfidy and the meddling of the European powers and decide to engage in "military intervention" to force a negotiation by seizing the actual seat of power, the Bashaw's palace in Tangier. Jerome's company of Marines, supported by a detachment of sailors, march through the streets of Tangier, much to the surprise of the European legations, whose forces are with the Sultan at distant Fez. They overwhelm the Bashaw's palace guard, taking the Bashaw hostage and forcing him to negotiate.
Under coercion, the Bashaw finally agrees to accede to the Raisuli's demands. But during a hostage exchange, Raisuli is betrayed and captured by German and Moroccan troops under the command of von Roerkel. Jerome and a small contingent of Marines are present to secure Pedecaris and her children. Raisuli's friend, the Sherif ofWazan, organizes the Berber tribe for an attack on the Europeans and Moroccans, while Eden suddenly attacks Jerome. She convinces him and his men at gunpoint to rescue Raisuli to uphold the word of President Roosevelt that Raisuli will be unharmed if the Pedecaris family are returned safely.
A three-way battle ensues, in which the Berbers and Americans team up to defeat the Germans and their Moroccan allies, rescuing Raisuli in the process. In the United States, Roosevelt is cheered for this great victory, and the Pedecarises arrive safely back in Tangier. Later, Roosevelt reads a letter he received from Raisuli, comparing the two men:
"To Theodore Roosevelt - You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you, like the wind, will never know yours. - Mulay Ahmed Mohammed El Raisuli the magnificent, Lord of the Rif, Sultan to the Berbers."
Several members of the film's crew make supporting andcameo appearances: writer-directorJohn Milius as a one-armed German military advisor, director of photographyBilly Williams as Sir Joshua Smith, special effects supervisor Alex Weldon as US Secretary of WarElihu Root, and stunt coordinatorTerry Leonard as Roosevelt's sparring partnerDan Tyler Moore.
John Milius' inspiration had come from reading an article byBarbara W. Tuchman about thePerdicaris affair inAmerican Heritage magazine,[4] and he found the story fascinating; he decided to adapt it into a screenplay once he figured how to make the story more cinematic, by makingIon Hanford Perdicaris a woman, Eden Pedecaris. Milius also researchedRosita Forbes's 1924 biography ofMulai Ahmed er Raisuni,The Sultan of the Mountains; much of the film's dialogue is appropriated almost word-for-word from Forbes's book.Walter Harris's 1921 bookMorocco That Was inspired the depiction of SultanAbdelaziz's court.[5] Milius took similar care in researching the scenes withTheodore Roosevelt.
Milius says he originally wanted Mrs. Pedecaris to be 55 or 60 and played byKatharine Hepburn with the children William and Jennifer being her grandchildren, and the Berber would be a similar age. Milius:
Her husband has died years ago, she's a stern, rich old woman, and she has a last romantic fling with this stern, rich old Berber, the Sultan of the mountains, who can't really do all the things he used to do but pulls it together one more time to save her from the Blue People. A very heroic character. And of course the children would look at such a character as being even greater thanSean Connery – this old man would be the greatest old thing they'd ever seen, and they'd have great admiration for their grandmother for standing up to him, the way old people can snipe at each other and love each other because they have the common bond of age. That was the purest form the movie ever had. Roosevelt was a very young, visceral presence, a vibrant man who represented a new world, who understood Raisuli's world very well but was forced to change it.[6]
Milius had to make the leading characters younger to get the film financed. "No one wanted to make a movie about Arabs and Teddy Roosevelt. So we had to make concessions: a more romantic male, a beautiful woman, much more box office that way. You make these concessions as you go along and perhaps, at a certain point in your career, you don't have to make them, and you makeBarry Lyndon. Maybe it's better that you make concessions".[6]
Milius stated both in interviews and the DVD commentary that he was consciously echoing a number of classic adventure films and stories. He cites the famous British periodicalBoy's Own, as well as the stories ofRudyard Kipling, as inspirations for the film.
Milius said the film was a "boy's adventure movie ... seen through children's eyes ... I'm sick of seeing children used as a point of view when they're sitting there blanching with terror".[7]
1930s adventure films likeGunga Din andThe Four Feathers provided inspiration for the film's style and storytelling technique. The use of children as protagonists is also inspired bythe book andthe filmA High Wind in Jamaica, while the relationship between Raisuli and Eden (Candice Bergen) is based on the 1921 filmThe Sheik. Raisuli's rescue of the Pedecarises on the beach is similar to another mounted sword-fighting scene inAkira Kurosawa's 1958 filmThe Hidden Fortress, and the scene of Jennifer(Polly Gottesman) being cornered byAldo Sambrell's character the Ugly Arab and kidnapped is a reference to the 1956 filmThe Searchers.
Most noticeably, the film inherits a cavalier attitude towardsimperialism, foreign policy, andmilitary intervention, attitudes which were relatively unpopular[citation needed] in 1975 America at the end of theVietnam War. Milius' apparent endorsement of imperialism was not attacked by critics, perhaps due to the film's subtle satiric manner and for the accurate recreation of the era in which its story is set.
"I think people should take home more understanding – or rather awareness – of what I think is the American character", said Milius. "It's very well put in the grizzly bear. I don't think Americans are necessarily civilised or too calm and rational about their approach to life. I rather like that. I really like grizzly bears too. I like grizzly bears a lot more than most people ... You can take the [film's] politics to be anyway you want, for or against the United States".[7]
Milius also had inspiration from more recent films while making the film. He based the film's cinematography, use of desert landscapes, and filming of battle scenes onDavid Lean's 1962 filmLawrence of Arabia, also using many of the same sets, including theAqaba set which had been constructed for Lean's film, here serving as the setting for the final, three-way battle between the Berbers, the Europeans and their Moroccan allies, and the Americans. The Bashaw's palace was the Palace of the Americas inSeville, having appeared in bothLawrence of Arabia andAnthony Mann's 1961 filmEl Cid. Another major influence is the 1969 filmThe Wild Bunch, which inspired the final confrontation between the American and German troops and the earlier scene where Sultan Abdelaziz (Marc Zuber) test-fires hisMaxim gun.
The film was a co production betweenMGM, then under the control ofDaniel Melnick, andColumbia Pictures, then run byPeter Guber. It was produced byHerb Jaffe making his first film as an independent after five years as head of production atUnited Artists.
Milius originally wantedOmar Sharif to play Raisuli andFaye Dunaway to play Eden Pedecaris,[8] but Sharif refused the part and Dunaway became ill due to exhaustion, having to be replaced at short notice by Bergen.Anthony Quinn was also considered for Raisuli. Milius said he wrote the part of Eden withJulie Christie in mind, although she may not have actually been approached for the role. Milius later said he did not particularly enjoy working with Bergen or Connery, particularly Connery because he was so "sour and dour". He greatly admired Connery's performance, whereas he felt Bergen's acting range was extremely limited, and she was only concerned with looking good.[1]
Milius wantedOrson Welles to play newspaper magnateCharles Foster Kane (the name of his character inCitizen Kane) in the film, but the studio would not let him as they were worried about being sued byRKO. Instead, he used the character ofWilliam Randolph Hearst, the real-life figure Kane was based on.[9]
Several of the crew are cast, most notably the cinematographerBilly Williams (perhaps best known forKen Russell's 1969 filmWomen in Love), who plays the gun-shooting, white-suited Englishman Sir Joshua Smith in the opening scenes of the attack at the Pedecaris villa and stunt supervisor Terry Leonard as Roosevelt's sparring partner. The special effects supervisorAlex Weldon appears as Roosevelt's Secretary of War,Elihu Root, and Milius himself cameos as the one-armed German officer who gives the Sultan his Maxim gun to test-fire ("Herr Sultan is displeased?").
Filming was done in Spain, with the towns ofSeville,Granada,Almería andMadrid all doubling forTangier andFez, and theWashington, D.C. scenes being filmed in and around Madrid. For the deserts of Morocco, Milius used many locations inAlmonte[10] and theprovince of Almería, some of which had been previously used in historical epics such asLawrence of Arabia andEl Cid, as well as severalSpaghetti Westerns; Milius claims to have discovered the beach where Raisuli rescues the Pedecaris family after their escape.
The scene at Raisuli's headquarters was filmed atthe castle ofLa Calahorra (Granada). The scene atYellowstone National Park, where Roosevelt (Brian Keith) gives his famousgrizzly bear speech was filmed in theMeseta Central, north of Madrid. These latter two locations would each re-appear in Milius' 1982 filmConan the Barbarian.
The Marines and sailors used in the Tangier attack scene were Spanish special forces troops, along with a handful ofU. S. Marine Corps andUnited States Navy personnel fromthe naval base inRota (Cádiz), who marched with precision through the streets of Seville and Almería en route to the Bashaw's palace. According to Milius (on the DVD commentary), the U. S. Marine Corps actually shows this scene to its advanced infantry classes for midshipmen at theU. S. Naval Academy.
According to Milius, virtually all of the film's stunts were performed by Terry Leonard. Leonard was the stunt coordinator and did some of the stunts and also has a minor part as Roosevelt's boxing opponent early in the film. Milius claims that only four American stunt men were used in the entire final battle scene; the number of Spanish stunt men was close to twenty throughout the filming. He and Leonard defended the film against criticism for alleged animal cruelty, claiming that not a single horse was seriously hurt during filming. While filming this scene,Antoine Saint-John revealed himself to be terrified of horses, and would often hide somewhere on the set when his sword fight with Connery was to be filmed.
The score toThe Wind and the Lion was composed and conducted byJerry Goldsmith. True to the style of suchGolden Age scores asMaurice Jarre'sLawrence of Arabia, Goldsmith used a diverse ensemble that relied heavily upon a large percussion section and a variety ofMoroccan instrumentation.[11] The music went on to earn Goldsmith anAcademy Award nomination, though he lost to fellow composerJohn Williams forJaws. It is often regarded as one of the best scores of his career and was one of theAmerican Film Institute's 250 nominees for thetop 25 American film scores.[12]
The Wind and the Lion debuted in New York during May 1975 and Britain in October. The film was a financial success, thoughSteven Spielberg's hit filmJaws distracted attention away from it.
OnRotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 63% based on reviews from 16 critics.[13] OnMetacritic the film has a score of 69% based on reviews from 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[14]
Variety called it "Generally literate and very commercial period action drama, well written and better directed by John Milius."[15]
Shortly after its release, the film was screened for U.S. PresidentGerald Ford and his staff, who reportedly loved it.[16]
At the48th Academy Awards, the film was nominated forBest Original Score (Jerry Goldsmith) andBest Sound (Harry W. Tetrick,Aaron Rochin,William McCaughey,Roy Charman).[17] The film was also nominated for theBAFTA Award for Best Original Music at the29th British Academy Film Awards and theGrammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media at the18th Annual Grammy Awards. Additionally, Milius' screenplay was nominated for theWriters Guild of America Award for Best Drama Written Directly for the Screen at the28th Writers Guild of America Awards.
A novelization was published by Award Books in January 1975. Based on the screenplay, the story is slightly different from the finished film, with several additional scenes (notably, Eden Pedecaris taking a bath at Raisuli's palace andSamuel R. Gummeré watching the Atlantic Squadron arrive in Tangier) included, and the story's chronology is slightly different. The first printing included a chapter about production events and brief biographies of the cast and crew.
It was released in 1991 onLaserDisc fromWarner Home Video in aletterboxed format.
In Region 1, Warner Home Video released the film on DVD on January 6, 2004, featuring a brief production featurette, the theatrical trailer, and a commentary by Milius.Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has released a bare-bones DVD in Australia (R4) and in several European markets (Region 2), notably Germany,[18] though not yet in the United Kingdom (the Sony release is English-friendly though).
A Blu-ray edition of the film from theWarner Archive Collection was released on April 29, 2014.[19]