heart of steel

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Movie
German title heart of steel
Original title Fury
Country of production United States , United Kingdom
original language English , German
Publishing year 2014
length 134 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
JMK 14
Rod
Director David Ayer
script David Ayer
production David Ayer,
Bill Block ,
John Lesher ,
Ethan Smith
music Steven Price
camera Roman Vasyanov
cut Jay Cassidy ,
Dody Dorn
occupation

Heart of Steel (original title: Fury , English for "anger") is an American - British war film by director, screenwriter and producer David Ayer from 2014 . The premiere took place on October 15, 2014 in Jamaica . It was released in theaters in the United States , Canada, and the Bahamas on October 17th. The film opened in German-speaking countries on January 1, 2015.

action

The film is set in Europe during the last weeks of World War II . The focus is on a tank crew from the US 2nd Armored Division (Hell on Wheels) , which is deployed in April 1945 with its Sherman "Fury" tank in the last offensive against the Wehrmacht on the territory of the German Reich . The five-man crew, consisting of the loader “Rattenarsch”, the gunner “Bible” and the driver “Gordo”, is led by the war experienced Staff Sergeant Don “Wardaddy” Collier. The nose gunner was killed shortly before the film began. The occupation already knows each other from battles against the Germans in North Africa . Because of the war, the men are brutalized and constantly on the verge of collapse. Collier leads his men with a hard hand, but because he has also ensured their survival, they follow him.

The inexperienced Norman Ellison is supposed to replace the tank's recently fallen nose gunner. He had only been trained in the army and as a scribe for two months. The first task he has to do is to pick up the tattered remains of his predecessor from the tank. Ellison is utterly appalled by the soldiers' malicious comments and the first impressions of the front line operation. On an advance he saw a Hitler Youth deployed in the Volkssturm , but did not shoot him. When the boy shoots the American command tank with a bazooka, the entire crew including the platoon leader dies a torturous death in flames. Even in a subsequent battle, Ellison uses his machine gun only hesitantly and with little effect. In order to switch off Ellison's killing inhibition, Collier wants to force him to shoot a prisoner of war begging for his life; Ultimately, Collier has to press Ellison's finger on the trigger of the revolver to kill the prisoner.

Shortly afterwards, the Americans advance into a small town defended by German soldiers who have hidden in the buildings. On the way they pass the bodies of children who were hanged as deserters . When a phosphorus shell from the tank kills an enemy gun and sets several Germans on fire, the infantrymen stop their fire in order to let the Germans burn to death. Ellison kills the burning men, which for the first time earns him praise from Collier. The mayor of the city finally ends the fighting by offering to surrender the remaining soldiers. As it turns out, it is an injured SS officer and several children of the Hitler Youth . After the mayor confirmed that the SS officer was responsible for hanging the children at the entrance to the village, Collier had the officer shot on the spot.

Collier and Ellison move into a household where two young women live. Even if Collier initially shows his usual brutal side, the situation eases somewhat when Collier gives the two women food and cigarettes. He also speaks good German, which also helps to ease the situation (the DVD version has an “ outtake ” in which Collier Ellison explains that his mother was German and was possibly born “not far from here”). Ellison plays the piano in the apartment, to which the younger of the two cousins, Emma, ​​sings. Collier tells Ellison to take Emma to the bedroom, otherwise he'll do it. Although Emma is scared at first, she calms down when Ellison reads her hand . He prophesies that she will have a great love in her life. The two kiss and sleep together. Then all four sit peacefully at the table and eat the eggs that Collier has brought with them when the rest of the team arrives. The traumatized and drunk men almost lead to a fight that Collier can barely prevent. When the tank crew has to move away again shortly afterwards, Emma clings to Ellison's hand crying. While the crew ammunitioned the tank in front of the house, an artillery strike hit the city. None of the crew is injured, but the cousin's house is hit and Emma dies in the process. Ellison runs to the house and tries, crying, to dig Emma up. Rat ass mocks him and pulls him back to the tank.

On the way to a strategically important intersection, the last of the column consisting of four M4 Sherman is shot down by a camouflaged VI Tiger armored car . Since its 88 mm cannon can destroy the US tanks from a great distance, while their 75 mm shells ricochet off the Tiger armor largely ineffectively, the remaining three Shermans steer towards the Tiger, as the armor is strongest at the front , and fire a smoke grenade at him. Deprived of sight, the tiger comes out of cover and onto the open field of fire. Instead of firing precise shots from a standing start, he drives on towards the onrushing Shermans. Two are destroyed, only Fury manages to get to the plot armor behind the less manoeuvrable Tiger despite hits from very close range , in order to set fire to its engine through the weak rear armor. While Collier is shooting parts of the fleeing German tank crew, he himself is shot at from the turret hatch by the tiger's commander. Ellison shoots the commander with the on-board machine gun and curses him.

Shortly afterwards, Fury drives onto a mine at the intersection that is to be kept. The chain and chassis will be severely damaged. Rattenarsch and Ellison search a mill in which an improvised German hospital was set up. Rat Ass apologizes to Ellison and says he thinks he's a good man. Only the rest of them are not good people.

While the crew is trying to repair the tank, Ellison keeps watch and sees a 300-strong Waffen SS unit approaching the intersection, singing a march. In Collier's example, the crew stayed in their broken-down tank in order to hold the strategically important intersection. They set an ambush by taking a dead German soldier out of the hospital, putting a US armored helmet on him and setting him on fire with gasoline on the tank as if the crew had fallen. Before the fight, Ellison is definitively accepted into the team. The men drink and Ellison is given the name "machine" because he is a "fighting, fucking and drinking machine". Shortly afterwards the Germans reach the supposedly incapacitating tank. In a surprise attack, the Americans kill dozens of Germans with their on-board weapons, handguns and hand grenades until they run out of ammunition. All of the crew members, except for Ellison and Collier, die in turn. Badly wounded, Collier leads a final dialogue with Ellison, in which he advises Ellison not to be captured after this massacre of the Germans, otherwise an agonizing death awaits him. The Germans can approach the now incapacitated tank and throw hand grenades into it. Ellison escapes through a hatch in the floor and hides under the tank. A young German SS man sees him but does not give him away.

The next morning, Ellison is discovered by American soldiers. The completely traumatized soldier is called a hero and is transported away in a medical vehicle. The last shot shows the tank at the intersection and the corpses of dozen German soldiers surrounding it, while numerous American soldiers continue their way into the interior of Germany.

production

Film rights

On February 13, 2013 Deadline.com reported that QED International are planning to tackle their next project called Fury . In the same year, the script bought by David Ayer should be implemented by him. On April 3, it was announced that production would start in September 2013. On April 10, Sony Pictures won the auction for the film rights.

Filming

The tiger used in the film with the identification number 131.
The M4A2E8 Sherman used in the film with the identification number T-224875.

According to the UK media, the cast and crew were rehearsing in Hertfordshire , England before filming began in September 2013 . Brad Pitt was also spotted driving a tank on September 3rd.

Shooting started on September 30, 2013 in the English county of Oxfordshire . In advance, Pinewood Studios had informed the residents of the surrounding villages of Shirburn , Pyrton and Watlington of the impending noise pollution from gunshot noises and explosions.

On October 15, 2013, a stunt man was bayonet injured in the shoulder while filming and was taken to John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford by rescue helicopter .

In November, the film production attracted nationwide attention, because on Remembrance Day , the national day of remembrance for the war dead on November 11th, filming with actors in German Wehrmacht and SS uniforms as well as loud special effects took place. Director David Ayer later apologized for the incident.

The film shows one of the last operational armored vehicles VI "Tiger" . The vehicle with the identification number 131 belongs to the Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset, England . The M4A2E8 Sherman used in the film with the identification number T-224875 was also on loan from the Bovington Tank Museum.

Production costs

Production costs amounted to an estimated 68 million US dollars .

music

On November 19, 2013, Steven Price was hired as a film music composer . On August 26, 2014 it was announced that Varèse Sarabande would release the original soundtrack for the film on October 14.

reception

The film received a rating of 6.9 / 10 from Rotten Tomatoes . Of 228 reviews, 77% are positive. In conclusion, it says: "All in all, the film is a well-played, correspondingly unvarnished representation of the horror of war, which offers visceral battle scenes, but does not do justice to its great ambitions."

James Berardinelli described Heart of Steel as an “intense film” with “exciting, authentically staged tank battles and a believable sense of camaraderie among the characters”. The industry journal Variety criticized Brad Pitt playing a "watered down version of his character from Inglourious Basterds " and found the film to be "boring" overall.

The film-dienst wrote that the “war film, which strives for bloody realism, also reflects the callousness and cynicism of its protagonists in the narrative tone”. By doing without "the usual wobbly hand-held camera sequences and hectic cuts", there is room for "reflections, which makes the fatalistic brutalisation of the soldiers all the more shocking".

The world attested the film to the "level of reflection of German cinema of the 1950s", which excludes moral categories and represents the professionalism of the war. While Robert Aldrich's 1956 film Ardennes was "skeptical of war" in 1944 , Ayer was "a believer in war" and was "unreservedly on the side of his soldiers who do what they have to do, because survival trumps all morals".

Kai Mihm from epd Film judged that director and author David Ayer is "moving on classic terrain with his new film [...] too". Heart made of steel is "an old school world war film, cinematically in a contemporary bloody preparation, dramaturgically original through the focus on the men for the brute things". His figures are "concisely drawn archetypes, not clichéd figures", the "visual worlds change [...] between horror cinema and painting, between zombie world, Goya and Hieronymus Bosch ".

The film grossed nearly $ 208 million worldwide.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for heart made of steel . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , November 2014 (PDF; test number: 148 517 K).
  2. ↑ Release Info In: IMDb . Retrieved October 16, 2014.
  3. ↑ Andreas Borcholte: World War II drama with Brad Pitt: The nightmare inside the tank. In: Spiegel Online . December 31, 2014, accessed June 9, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Mike Fleming Jr: QED Pays $ 1 Million For David Ayer WWII Spec Script 'Fury' . In: deadline.com , February 13, 2013. Accessed December 29, 2013. 
  5. ↑ Brad Pitt To Star In David Ayer's World War II Movie 'Fury' . In: deadline.com , April 3, 2013. Retrieved August 29, 2013. 
  6. ↑ Dave McNary: Sony Acquires Brad Pitt World War II Tale 'Fury' . In: variety.com , April 10, 2013. Retrieved December 29, 2013. 
  7. ↑ a b 'Last' WW2 Tiger 131 tank to be used in Brad Pitt film . In: bbc.co.uk , November 19, 2013. 
  8. ^ A b Joanna Crawley: Boys and their toys: Brad Pitt rides shotgun in a tank through the peaceful English countryside . In: Daily Mail , September 4, 2013, updated September 11, 2013. Retrieved October 21, 2014.
  9. ^ Brad Pitt and his new hairdo spotted working on 'Fury' in Hertfordshire, UK . In: onlocationvacations.com , September 11, 2013. Retrieved September 12, 2013. 
  10. ↑ Brad Pitt learns to drive a tank in the quiet English countryside for his new film Fury . In: express.co.uk , September 5, 2013. Retrieved September 12, 2013. 
  11. ^ Brad Pitt films scenes in the British countryside for new war movie Fury . In: express.co.uk , September 30, 2013. Retrieved October 1, 2013. 
  12. ^ Brad Pitt turns British village into warzone for new film Fury . In: uk.movies.yahoo.com , September 30, 2013. Retrieved October 1, 2013. 
  13. ^ Brad Pitt Fury gunfire warning for Oxfordshire villagers . In: bbc.co.uk , October 1, 2013. 
  14. ↑ Brad Pitt action film asks villagers to ignore gunfire and explosions . In: theguardian.com , October 1, 2013. 
  15. ↑ Brad Pitt Fury film: Stuntman stabbed with bayonet on set . In: bbc.co.uk , October 15, 2013. Retrieved January 3, 2014. 
  16. ↑ Brad Pitt director sorry for the Nazi Remembrance Day shoot . In: bbc.co.uk , November 12, 2013. 
  17. ↑ Simon Q: US Sherman at the "Tankfest 2009" at the Bovington Tank Museum on Flickr , June 27, 2009. Accessed October 21, 2014.
  18. ↑ Business In: IMDb . Retrieved October 29, 2014.
  19. ↑ Steven Price to Score David Ayer's 'Fury' , filmmusicreporter.com. November 19, 2013. Retrieved August 31, 2014. 
  20. ↑ Mike Fleming Jr: Brad Pitt WWII Tank Film Rolls Toward November 12 Date With 'Gravity' Composer Steven Price Scoring . In: deadline.com , November 19, 2013. Accessed December 30, 2013. 
  21. ↑ Varese Sarabande to Release Steven Price's 'Fury' Score , filmmusicreporter.com. August 26, 2014. Retrieved August 31, 2014. 
  22. ^ Fury (2014). Rotten Tomatoes , accessed on December 20, 2014 (English): "Overall, Fury is a well-acted, suitably raw depiction of the horrors of war that offers visceral battle scenes but doesn't quite live up to its larger ambitions."
  23. ↑ James Berardinelli : Fury. ReelViews, October 18, 2014, accessed on December 20, 2014 (English): "This is an intense movie, with taut, expertly depicted tank battles and a believable sense of camaraderie among the characters."
  24. ^ Peter Debruge: Film Review: 'Fury'. Variety , October 10, 2014, accessed December 20, 2014 : "Brad Pitt plays a watered-down version of his 'Inglourious Basterds' character in this disappointingly bland look at a World War II tank crew."
  25. ↑ Holger Römers: Heart made of steel. film-dienst , 26/2014, accessed on December 20, 2014 (short review).
  26. ↑ Hans-Georg Rodek: Four tank soldiers and Brad Pitt. Die Welt , January 1, 2015, accessed January 2, 2015 .
  27. ↑ Kai Mihm: Criticism on Heart of Steel. epd film , December 12, 2014, accessed April 23, 2015 .
  28. ^ Fury , boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved January 27, 2015.