In Love and War, USA 1996

Sandra Bullock with Richard Attenborough

This is a film adapted from ‘In Love And War: The Lost Diary of Agnes von Kurowsky, Her Letters, and Correspondence of Ernest Hemingway’ by Henry S. Villard and James Nagel. The book is based on Villard’s experiences as a volunteer ambulance driver in Italy in World War I and what he learnt later about people he knew there. Whilst in hospital Villard came to know Ernest Hemingway, also a volunteer with the Red Cross and wounded whilst at the front. Villard’s co-author, James Nagel, taught literature at Georgia University and was an expert on Hemingway. Villard also knew one of the hospital nurses, another US volunteer, Agnes von Kurowsky, who had a relationship with Hemingway. All three went their separate ways but after Hemingway’s death by suicide in 1961 Villard contacted and met Agnes. After Agnes’ death in 1984 her widower sent Villard both diaries and letters from the war period. All this fed into the book. The relationship between Hemingway and Kurowsky has intrigued scholars, especially as some of Hemingway’s writing refer to the romance, notably in his famous novel A Farewell to Arms.

What is uncertain is the depth of the affair and whether the couple actually had sex. Kurowsky stated not. Hemingway is an unreliable witness and his novel includes both sex and pregnancy. One complication is that Kurowsky was seven years older than Hemingway. In some letters she calls him ‘kid’. This seems to have been a factor in the end of the affair when Hemingway returned to the USA. After that they never met again.

So the book is not a factual record but rather three separate recollections of characters and events and the film takes liberties with the record in the book. The opening credits inform audiences that the film is based on a true story. As in most cases of mainstream film this is not completely accurate. Reviews on the film commented on how the narrative does not really address Hemingway’s later career, which presumably is what makes the story interesting or commercial; nor as written is there a sense of his well publicised character.

In the film Hemingway’s appearance is delayed and we first meet Henry Serrano Villard (Mackenzie Astin), a volunteer driver. He meets Agnes von Kurowsky (Sandra Bullock) among a party of US volunteer nurses; Harry immediately takes a shine to her. Then we meet the young Hemingway (‘Ern’ Chris O’Donnell), another US volunteer and chafing to be near the action. Later he makes his way to the front line distributing chocolates to the Italian soldiers; this seems to be in defiance of orders. He is injured in an artillery barrage but distinguishes himself by saving a wounded Italian infantryman. Both end up in the hospital where Agnes is working; later joined by Harry as well. Nurses have been instructed to avoid emotional relationships with patients. However Agnes has previous nursing experience at the US John Hopkins hospital and her experience there saves Hemingway from losing his leg in an amputation. He now makes a dead set at Agnes though she is at first resistant; she points out the age difference, given as seven years.

However, one night a patient commit suicide leaving an unfinished letter to his parents. All are distraught but Agnes takes the letter to her room in an attempt to finish it. Ern follows her and then dictates a fine ending for the letter. This is followed by an embrace and an ellipsis; but the later plot suggests that there was no actual sex.

This occurs when Agnes has been posted to a field hospital near the front line. She agrees to meet Ern at a village one evening. They rent a room at what is a bordello or brothel. And there sexual coitus is consummated. Then Ern is posted back to the USA. Meanwhile Agnes has also been courted by an Italian doctor and with a nurse friend visits him and his family villa in Venice. Torn by conflicting emotions Agnes agrees to marry the doctor and writes to Ern ending the relationship.

The final part of the film is invention. Agnes again changes her mind and breaks off with the doctor. She then visits New York and meets Harry. He tells her that Ern is at his family home and his letters are ‘raging and rambling’. Harry advises Agnes to visit Ern. She does and finds him fishing at local lake; something he had talked to her about in Italy. But Ern tells her

‘it wouldn’t work, not now’.

Agnes leaves whispering

“I love you” and adding to herself, “his pride meant he wasn’t able to forgive me.”

The film has very good production values. The production design: the costumes and props: and the  cinematography are all excellent,  as are the opening credits. The film uses locations in the north of Italy and in Venice to great effect. And the narrative provides space for Italian characters and plotting including Italian medical staff: Italian residents and citizens: and the Italian military. There is both English and Italian dialogue, with most of the latter translated in subtitles. This is a distinctive feature of what is essentially a Hollywood-style production. The production crew includes a number of craft people who had worked on other Attenborough projects. These include Production Design by Stuart Craig: Costumes by Penny Rose: Cinematography by Roger Pratt: and Editing by Lesley Walker.

The scripting involved a number of writers, however, Dimitri Villard, [whose father co-wrote the source book], worked on the screen story and was a producer. And Diana Hawkins, Attenborough’s long-time collaborator, was a co-producer. The attention given to Italy and to Italians widens the sense of the world of the story. It also provides settings that contribute to the atmosphere, and in the case of the Venetian villa, sumptuous sequences.,

The cast are good overall. Sandra Bullock and MacKenzie Astin are both convincing. Chris O’Connell tends to perform on the surface. Some of his sequences work well but he does not really generate the passion the character should feel. And, partly because of the writing, he is not really convincing as this emerging literary talent. Ingrid Lacey as fellow nurse Elsie ‘Mac’ MacDonald is good; as is Emilio Bonucci as Dr. Domenico Caracciolo, who provides an Italian romantic interest. The supporting cast are generally fine and convincing.

The film did well at the box office but not with the critics. One reviewer caustically claimed,

“Ernest Hemingway’s early life with all the stuffy tropes that the author would have excised in a second draft.”

Whilst the doyen critic Robert Ebert wrote,

“In Love and War is not much interested in Ernest Hemingway’s subsequent life and career, and even in its treatment of this early period, it doesn’t deal with themes such as his macho posturing, his need to prove himself, his grandiosity.”

It is interesting to compare this film treatment with Hemingway’s novelistic treatment of the affair and the two film versions of that work. Hemingway had a spare, muscular style. The novel embroidered both the affair and Hemingway’s experiences and presented these in the first person. It was also censored and considered over-explicit for the time. It offers the experience of War, or at least the particular type of war found early in the C20th. And it creates a powerful sense of the relationship and its problems.

The first film version was made in 1932 by Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Frank Borsage, an expert in creating on-screen romance. The two stars were Helen Hayes and Gary Cooper; the latter not the upright character he played in later years. The film compresses, changes and adds to the novel’s plot. But there is real chemistry between Hayes and Cooper and the romance, with a tragic conclusion, is powerful . In 957 David O Selznick produced a new version; so, of course, it starred Jennifer Jones playing opposite Rock Hudson, a popular romantic lead. The film opened out the story with Italian locations and much more background. But Jones and Hudson failed to create the romantic emotion of the earlier version. The 1996 In Love and War is much for effective than the 1957 film in its use of a wider story: locations and costumes: and a fuller background. But it does not generate the emotional power of the 1932 version. Interestingly neither does it generate the emotional power of Attenborough’s earlier Shadowlands; likely the closeness of that story to his own early years of adulthood had an effect.

Neither the book or the three films actually address the politics of World War I or those involved in the campaigns between Italy and Austria. Ironically the 1932 film version was banned in an Italy that succumbed to fascism after the war.

In colour and Panavision 2.35:1, running time 113 minutes