Why decency is 1917’s secret weapon
THeRe was something rather magnanimous about Sam Mendes on the stage at the Royal Albert Hall last Sunday, when his film 1917 took the top prize and was named best film at the Baftas. The director didn’t grandstand. He asked one of the film’s stars, George MacKay, who plays a lance corporal on a mission with a fellow soldier played by Dean-Charles Chapman, to step up to the podium and say a few words instead. At one of the after-parties I asked Mendes about his selfless gesture and he said he was aware that there won’t be too many more opportunities for his lead actors and other collaborators ( co- writer Krysty Wi l s o n - Cairns performed a similar duty when 1917 took the best British film prize) to enjoy the limelight, and that he wanted MacKay to get some of the glory. Mendes praised both his leads for their faultless performances, and their decency.
MacKay is one of the good guys in the film industry. I remember asking him if he ever went to nightclubs and showbizzy hangouts.
He looked at me as if I’d gone bonkers. ‘That’s silly. I wouldn’t get noticed in the first instance and I’m not really interested,’ he told me.
Isabella ellis, a film script supervisor (she works under the name James ellis), happens to be married to Roger Deakins, the camera maestro who shot the World War I picture. She told me that when she met George’s mother ( the costume designer Kim Baker) she couldn’t stop herself from exclaiming: ‘Oh, I have wanted to meet the woman who produced this remarkable young man!’
People ask me why I love 1917 so much.
Well, it’s a great cinematic movie experience for starters. And, for me, it’s also about a decency that we rarely see reflected in public life any more — in this country but also in the u.S.
MacKay somehow exemplifies that quality, which is so rare.