Reawakening the Desire for Truth, Beauty, and Adversity

1917, directed by Sam Mendes, tells the WWI story of Corporals Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George MacKay) who are given the task of delivering a letter to a general on the frontline in order to call off an attack that will inevitably kill 1,600 Allied forces. Though there is nothing incredibly new about this story, as it is the plot of many war movies- a soldier overcoming all odds to save his fellow soldiers- there is still something that never ceases to inspire us. 

1917 taps into three basic desires that every human heart longs for: A duty of adversity, a Truth to defend, and a Beauty to live for. One cannot help but leave the theater desiring for a more adventurous life, full of meaningful adversity. We are force fed a lie that the easiest route is the best one, but through experiences as simple as this movie, we come to realize that this is not always the case.

Spoilers Ahead 

A Duty of Adversity

Corporals Blake and Schofield are sent on a mission against their will. They are told that they must move through enemy territory, into the unknown, in order to deliver a message to save their fellow soldiers.

Blake is eager to set out on the mission, especially knowing that his biological brother is one of those soldiers in danger of death. Schofield on the other hand, is terrified by the prospect of stepping out of the relative safety of the trenches. Ultimately they do not have a choice; they have been given a duty that they cannot deny.

The road toward the frontline is full of treacherous danger and death. Schofield is buried by rubble after a trip wire is set off, but Blake picks him up and leads him out of the bunker. Blake, in an act of mercy towards a German, is killed by him. Both men support each other and carry on when the other is too weak to.

In the final moments of the mission, Schofield perseveres to find the battalion. In order to find the general before all of the men are sent to storm the German trenches, he has to run into no man’s land before anyone else.

One of the most incredible shots of the movie occurs in this scene. While all of the other Allied soldiers were running toward the Germans, in an act of necessary defiance, Schofield runs perpendicularly through them towards the general. He even runs into multiple fellow soldiers, being knocked to the ground, but he continually gets up to keep running. This shot simply depicts what the whole movie is about. Though he desires comfort, he is compelled to go against the grain and fight for a higher cause, even when no one else around him fully understands what he is doing.

A Truth to Defend

Along a similar line, everyone desires to defend a truth, to have some ideal to strive toward. In the movie, the truth comes in two main forms: the message to deliver to the general, and in the second half of the movie, the truth of Blake’s death. Schofield feels the obligation to find Blake’s brother and tell him the news. 

The attainment of truth is a sacred thing, and it is depicted in that way in the movie. Only a few receive the message, and only Schofield is there to witness the truth of Blake’s death. Though they were given these truths in secret, they were never meant to keep them to themselves. They were meant to share them and bring peace through them. 

In addition, there are stakes to possessing the truth. Carrying the truth simultaneously contains the duty to share it, and if it is not shared, there can be consequences. Blake and Schofield are given a (true) message, and they are told if they do not convey the message to the general in time, 1,600 men will perish. 

When we are given truth in life, it is our obligation to share it with others, because they always make life better or more meaningful. If we discover something beautiful, we cannot help but share it. If we discover a cure to sickness, it would be a crime against humanity to keep it for ourselves. The truth demands justice and it demands to be diffused. Instinctively we know this, which is why we long to know the truth, love it, and defend it.

A Beauty to Live For

I loved how this idea was handled in 1917, as it was far more subtle than most other movies in this genre. The beauty in Blake’s life was his family- he set out on the mission without question for the sake of his brother. Their friendship is the beauty that he is living out the mission for. In addition, at the moment of his death, he pulls out a picture of his whole family, and tells Schofield to write to his mother for him. The love of his family is what he lived for, and at the moment of death nothing else really mattered in his life. 

On the other hand, we did not find out what Schofield was living for until the end of the movie. In the final scene, we come to learn he has a wife and children waiting for him back home. In addition to showing us what he was probably thinking about throughout the entirety of his journey, this revelation clarifies the scene with the French woman and the baby in the basement of the demolished city. We see that through his encounter with them he is reminded of his own family, and in a moment of fatigue and desperation, he needed the to see the beauty he was living for to carry on.

Though some people may find the revelation of his family unnecessary, I would argue that it is essential to his character. Learning what people are living for gives their actions context. He was terrified to set out on the mission because he had a family to return to, but at the same time, his saying yes to the mission makes his courage all the greater. 

Everything in life has to be understood within the context of beauty, because without it nothing else makes sense. The truth without beauty is boring, and any goodness experienced in life without beauty is simply unattractive. If Schofield did not have a great beauty to live for, then why would he defend the truth through such great adversity?

We can recognize all three of these desires as things that make us want to live life to the fullest. Seeing people live them out on screen makes us realize that maybe we are missing something in life. Maybe we are floundering without a Truth to live for, or life is too easy and there is nothing challenging us to be the best versions of ourselves. Maybe we lack Beauty in our life and because of it, truth seems boring and the daily struggle seems futile. 

Whatever it may be, we desire all of these things whether we realize them or not. They are fundamental to what it means to be human. We are made for discomfort and adversity. We are not made to just float through life half asleep, we are made to live and be perfected through the struggle.

It is so easy to be lulled to sleep in our current day and age. In our hearts, we know that we are made for much more. We are made to live for beauty and truth while in the midst of adversity. If we pay attention, stories like 1917 can reawaken in us these elementary desires if we let them, and I pray we can let them.