Something to watch tonight: Friday 13 September

Blood Diamond (Zwick, 2006)

I mentioned a while ago that I was given Ed Zwick’s memoir, Hits, Flops and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood for my birthday and it has prompted me to go back to a few of his films. (I’ve never seen Legends of the Fall and I feel like The Last Samurai deserves another look.)

His chapter on the making of Blood Diamond is fascinating about how he parlayed the success of Samurai into persuading Warner Bros. to fund a big budget action picture fuelled by outrage about the conflict diamonds trade.

Zwick can be a little patronising about the Africa that he saw in his research but his passion for the cause was genuine and his film certainly raised awareness of a scandalous situation.

I reviewed the film for Capital Times on New Year’s Eve 2006:

Lastly, more star power is on display in Blood Diamond with Leonardo DiCaprio as a South African Zimbabwean diamond smuggler in the midst of civil war in Sierra Leone.

From Djimon Hounsou’s displaced refugee fisherman he hears of a rare blood diamond, pink and as big as a bird’s egg. It’s worth millions and is the ticket out of Africa for whoever can find it. The film makes it clear that the diamond industry has relied on such ‘conflict diamonds’ for years perpetuating the horror and misery of wars across Africa.

Blood Diamond isn’t a bad film but it’s not the great film that it aspires to be. The heavy hand of the screenwriter is visible at every turn and the film never really comes to life, despite excellent work from everyone in front of the camera.

Rewatching a couple of weeks ago, I found that to be a bit harsh. In some ways that’s just time passing and the fact that we don’t really make huge films about big important issues anymore. The film cost over US$100 million in 2006 dollars and we don’t spend that kind of money except on franchises these days.

And I realise that the 2006 version of me was a bit of a snob about DiCaprio and it took some of the stories in Zwick’s book for me to realise how much work he was putting in.

When I realised I wanted to rewatch Blood Diamond, I checked the shelves because I had a vague memory of actually owning it. Sure enough, there it was in one of those bargain box sets with two other DiCaprio films from the same era. So now I have no excuse not to rewatch Scorsese’s The Aviator and Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies.

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Where to watch Blood Diamond

Aotearoa: Digital rental from Apple or Neon

Australia: Streaming on Binge

Canada & USA: Digital rental

Ireland & UK: Streaming on Netflix

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Favourite comment

Reader TH responded very thoughtfully to Tuesday’s post about Chaplin’s City Lights:

Hmm, this provoked some thinking, thank you!

Does a film or book have to be 'modern' or relevant to be good?

Who decides if a work of art is considered 'modern'? How much do our class/gender/ethnicity play into those labels? For instance, I've never yet met a woman who finds Buster Keaton funny, though I'm sure they're out there, but I know several silent movie fans of the female persuasion who join me in stanning for Harold Lloyd as well as for early Chaplin.

And I wonder what the kind of early cinema performer who gets respect in later generations says about that generation? For instance, WC Fields got a lot of critical appreciation until the late 1960s for his purposefully transgressive style...but there came a point where audiences just couldn't relate to someone who wasn't acting his alcoholism, misogyny, or racism.

I can absolutely see why Keaton's deadpan fatalism appeals to others, but even though I agree with much of what you say about Chaplin, I'll always relate more to the perpetual hopefulness of his characters.