Sunday, BBC1, 2:35pm
Steven Spielberg’s War Horse (2011) is a visual and emotional tribute to the extraordinary resilience of animals and soldiers alike during World War I. Adapted from Michael Morpurgo’s novel, the film traces the journey of Joey, a remarkable horse who threads through the war’s gritty fabric, touching the lives of British, German, and French alike. Yet Spielberg’s horse, framed against sweeping landscapes and harrowing battlefields, is as much a vessel for historical mood as it is a protagonist. Though the film occasionally softens the jagged edges of history, it paints the war with a poignancy underscored brilliantly by John Williams’s unforgettable score.
Williams’s music here is nothing short of masterful, weaving pastoral English motifs with heart-stirring crescendos that are alternately hopeful and haunting. His score evokes the spirit of War Horse as both an epic and an intimate tale, tapping into emotions of innocence lost and courage found. The “Dartmoor, 1912” theme, full of yearning strings, conjures an almost mythic England—pristine, pastoral, and unscarred by the upcoming devastation. This is Williams at his most melodic, and he wields his orchestral power to transform Joey’s journey into something approaching the timeless.
War Horse does blur certain historical details, portraying the trenches with a Spielbergian touch of sentimentality. The real war, naturally, was more brutal and more fragmented than Joey’s linear travels might suggest. But the film’s power lies in its earnest tribute to wartime courage and connection, where even a horse becomes a silent witness to human endurance and despair. In a world marred by conflict, Spielberg and Williams remind us of moments of beauty and resilience—expressed as much through hoofbeats as violins—and they ask us to look at history not only for what it was, but for what it meant.
- Tom Hanson