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The Gathering Storm (DVD)
Additional DVD options | Edition | Discs | Price | New from | Used from |
DVD
February 4, 2003 "Please retry" | DVD Video | 1 | $20.62 | $2.75 |
Watch Instantly with | Rent | Buy |
Genre | Documentary, Drama, Historical |
Format | Multiple Formats, NTSC, Full Screen, Color, Subtitled |
Contributor | Jim Broadbent, Linus Roache, Richard Loncraine, Tom Wilkinson, Frank Doelger, Julie Payne, Lena Headey, Larry Ramin, David M. Thompson, Albert Finney, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Derek Jacobi, Vanessa Redgrave, Hugh Whitemore See more |
Initial release date | 2009-09-15 |
Language | English |
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Product Description
Gathering Storm, The (DVD) This historical romance provides an intimate look inside the marriage of Winston and Clementine Churchill during a particularly troubled yet little-known moment in their lives. In the years before World War II, Churchill finds himself on the fringe of British politics: a lone voice crying out in the wilderness as he warns his country and the world of the growing Nazi threat. Together with Clementine, he must confront the personal demons of depression and the specter of bankruptcy before he can reemerge as a compelling political leader and international hero.
Product details
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- MPAA rating : NR (Not Rated)
- Product Dimensions : 7.75 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches; 0.01 ounces
- Item model number : HBO1000106950DVD
- Director : Richard Loncraine
- Media Format : Multiple Formats, NTSC, Full Screen, Color, Subtitled
- Run time : 1 hour and 36 minutes
- Release date : September 15, 2009
- Actors : Albert Finney, Vanessa Redgrave, Jim Broadbent, Tom Wilkinson, Linus Roache
- Producers : Ridley Scott, Frank Doelger, David M. Thompson, Tony Scott, Julie Payne
- Language : English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
- Studio : HBO Studios
- ASIN : B002CWKTUA
- Writers : Hugh Whitemore, Larry Ramin
- Number of discs : 1
- Best Sellers Rank: #54,499 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #9,541 in Drama DVDs
- Customer Reviews:
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Physically, Finney makes for a great Churchill, and the mannerisms, not to mention the deep, authoritative tone in his voice, all suggest tremendous character study on Finney’s part. Hugh Whitemore’s script captures Britain’s future prime minister as he is reconstructing himself from has-been blowhard concerned with Gandhi to the man who foresaw the Nazi threat. Churchill is seen formulating speeches, working on his cadence, writing articles and editing himself extensively, and sticking to his guns after taking unpopular stances; he does these tasks anywhere, from the bathtub to bars to the grounds around his mansion where he paints landscapes.
“Gathering” assiduously tiptoes through Brit history of the mid-1930s without mentioning trouble among the royals or Neville Chamberlain’s attempts to talk Hitler out of storming Czechoslovakia or Poland. Churchill’s vision of preparedness was translated as war-mongering, and indeed, nothing brings him greater political joy than the message, delivered at pic’s end, “Winston is back!” Pic grants Churchill considerable humanity: His love for England, shot beautifully by Peter Hannan, and wife Clemmie (played beguilingly by Redgrave) are the forces that guide him, not the desire to plant the Union Jack in foreign territories.
Telepic covers the years 1934-39, and at the outset, Churchill is a staunch yet outmoded imperialist. “England is lost in a pacifist dream,” he says early on, depressed by his lack of power, near-bankruptcy and, on the political front, the rising support for Adolf Hitler. Churchill writes opinion pieces for various newspapers and makes political speeches that initially are heckled by the small groups in attendance. As time passes, his speeches are heard by an increasingly larger and accepting audience.
The shift of concern to Hitler’s growing power and the mobilization of workers gains Churchill the support and friendship of Wigram, who uses his Foreign Office access to get his hands on secret information. Wigram’s involvement stems from his own plight — Churchill has convinced him, quite rightly, that Hitler’s racial cleansing would mean no life for Wigram’s disabled 4-year-old son (Laurie Flexman). Eventually, the spy life is too difficult for this mild-mannered do-gooder to handle. His domestic bliss is threatened when Clemmie takes off for an “adventure,” leaving Churchill to re-establish himself on yet another front, the home.
Redgrave gives Finney a run for his money on the acting front. She is consistently dignified, and her two mood shifts — one’s to anger, the other to reflection — are startlingly affecting. Redgrave inhabits a character removed from the history books and a thoroughly believable one at that; she is the embodiment of a support system that gets pushed to the hilt one time too many yet remains capable of recovery. When she returns from her trip and shares in her husband’s triumph, her expression of joy is bountiful and all-giving, a distinct contrast to the cautious looks of love she proffers early in the film.
Key supporting players — Jim Broadbent, Tom Wilkinson, Derek Jacobi and Tom Hiddleston — provide an aristocratic air around Churchill, though none of the parts beyond Wigram is particularly meaty. Celia Imrie, as his assistant Mrs. P, and Ronnie Barker, who as David Inches commands the 18 staff members, take their roles of subservience and imbue them with a subtle, welcome touch of propriety.
Richard Loncraine directs “Gathering Storm” almost as a dance, steadily building the story, the interplay between Churchill and all who enter his world. “Storm” ends up playing gracefully due to his efforts, heavy as it is on historical data. Ending, for some, may appear too crass and feel-good, but it seems inevitable that “Storm” would end with something of a victory.
Hannan’s photography captures the exquisite English countryside and the vastness of Churchill’s country estate Chartwell, where much of the pic was shot. It supplies an intriguing dividing line between Churchill, who enjoyed a regal lifestyle, and the frugally minded Clemmie, who was never fond of the house. Conversely, shots in London come at the viewer from a wide range of angles, many of them used to enhance the compact conditions people in which lived and worked.
Howard Goodall’s score is huge, like the sort of red wine one would drink with wild boar, and in places it threatens the pic’s somber tones. Moments in which the filmmakers have chosen to go with a backdrop of nothing but silence are quite moving.
This movie THE GATHERING STORM shows the homebody Winston and his relationship with the love of his life Clemetine and the way he was perceived in the eyes of each who knew and grew up around him during his days as a speaker of Parliment to his being assigned the Prime Ministership of Britian. Each child's perception is different as well as the perception of Winston's relationship with Clemmie as she was called. The chemistry between ol' "Pug and Pussycat" is something that can't be denied throughout the movie.
The movie shows Winston as human and vulnerable as anyone else living and breathing on his planet which quite possibly hadn't been shown that much for the wide and TV screens. You'll laugh, cheer, wonder, and shed a poignant tear for this unlikely man whose stances were not always embraced by the majority and not only stood by them but he knew how to take the vocalized gestures of doubt and disbelief and turn them into the very fire that inspired him to keep going. He took the arias of doubt and disbelief and he used them to fuel his drive to find out more documented and irrefuted sources of information that would either support their opinion AND how to work around it OR he would take those shards of information and he would make them realize, "This is why I felt that this is the way we should be going on this and I have in my hands the proof that my way is the only way the way I feel we should be looking at this situation MY way is the only way to do so." Then again, he doesn't really raise his voice. He doesn't call his fellow Members of Parliament dirty names nor does he cuss in any of his pleas and speeches. He speaks to them like persons and if he does point out a wrong coming from them, he just mentions the wrongdoing and NOT WHO DID IT.
You need to see this movie. It's the greatest movie I've seen in regards to the time frame presenting itself.