{"id":343,"date":"1942-03-29T21:55:07","date_gmt":"1942-03-30T01:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ww2-0\/?p=343"},"modified":"2017-03-29T22:06:18","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T02:06:18","slug":"this-above-all-wants-you-to-keep-the-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ww2-0\/1942\/03\/29\/this-above-all-wants-you-to-keep-the-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"“This Above All” wants you to keep the faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do not misjudge\u00a0This Above All<\/em>,\u00a0starring Tyrone Power and Joan Fontaine, as simply\u00a0a romance full of the complications of wartime. In reality, this film is a cleverly disguised philosophical piece. The characters find themselves in England, one focused on contributing to the war effort while the other struggles with his conscience on whether or not to fight. As the saying goes, opposites attract.<\/p>\n

Prudence Cathaway (Joan Fontaine) is a well-bred English girl from who shocks her aristocratic relatives when she joins the WAAFs (Women\u2019s Auxiliary Air Force). While training in camp, she is set up with a man on a blind date. The man, Clive Gibbs (Tyrone Power), is standoffish at first, but once they begin to talk, it is clear they have a connection. They begin to see each other intermittently and eventually go on holiday together.<\/p>\n

It is during this trip that Cathaway begins to notice Gibbs\u2019s attitude toward the war. He doesn\u2019t like when she\u2019s dressed in her army uniform; he becomes annoyed whenever the war is mentioned and always asks to change the subject. She even hears him having nightmares about the war. It is only when Gibbs\u2019s army friend tracks him down that the truth comes out. Gibbs had taken leave from the army and never gone back. If he doesn\u2019t return in the next day, he will be labeled as deserter.<\/p>\n

At this point the film becomes more than a romance in a desperate time. The struggle to find something worth fighting for overcomes Gibbs. He joined the army the day the war began, saying he was \u201cwilling to die if there was any sense or reason to it.\u201d But he didn\u2019t find any. The leaders were \u201cstupid, complacent, and out-of-date\u201d and weren\u2019t fighting for the same England he was. He believed\u00a0the upper class were fighting this war to keep their way of life intact. He didn\u2019t want to give his life for something that he hated and despised. Gibbs was overrun with these feelings. They haunted his sleep and made him bitter.<\/p>\n

Cathaway saw the war differently. She was of high station but couldn\u2019t sit idly by while England was in jeopardy. She tried to understand Gibbs but made no concessions. \u201cThere are bigger things to fight for than your conscience,\u201d she said. Although Gibbs\u00a0initially refuses to change his outlook on the war, he witnesses Cathaway\u2019s passion and it lays the groundwork for a change of heart. Cathaway reminds him that reason is not always what should be followed. In times of great evil, following the heart must be enough. She speaks to who he is and explains that those who run England do not make it up. \u201cEngland made you, and every part of you,\u201d Cathaway says. \u201cEven if you don\u2019t understand everything, you would understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still warring with his inner demons, Gibbs goes AWOL instead of returning to the army. After weeks of running and hiding he meets a priest who gives him shelter. It is in this moment that Gibbs realizes the need for faith. Faith in his nation and in its people. Reason was telling him not to be mixed up in such a grueling, warped war, but faith pushed him to fight for his country, to believe in a cause bigger than himself. \u201cYour mind and your soul are locked in a struggle \u2013 your body the battleground,\u201d the priest says.<\/p>\n

Gibbs realizes his mistakes and decides to turn himself in. \u201cA man is not entitled to free thought unless he\u2019s ready to pay the price of admitting it,\u201d Gibbs says.<\/p>\n

This film pushes a strong message to not let doubts overcome the cause of the greater good. It shows that fear is a side effect of war but that it leads to bravery, and that love can lend faith to those who lack it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do not misjudge\u00a0This Above All,\u00a0starring Tyrone Power and Joan Fontaine, as simply\u00a0a romance full of the complications of wartime. In reality, this film is a cleverly disguised philosophical piece. The characters find themselves in England, one focused on contributing to the war effort while the other struggles with his conscience on whether or not to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3680,"featured_media":867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ww2-0\/files\/2016\/12\/Poster-This-Above-All_02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8bpwr-5x","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ww2-0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ww2-0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ww2-0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ww2-0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3680"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ww2-0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ww2-0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":868,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ww2-0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions\/868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ww2-0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ww2-0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ww2-0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/ww2-0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}