The Sand Pebbles

Talk about art imitating life, a life which obsesses over the nature of art. The Sand Pebbles (1966), starring Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna, and Candace Bergen, is a film about issues whose hilarious tagline happens to be "THE STORY OF MEN...men who disturbed the sleeping dragon of China as the world watched in terror!". In light of my recent comments on women, film, and "issues", and some of the responses those comments have garnered, I can't begin to explain what a perfectly funny coincidence it is to have watched The Sand Pebbles tonight.

Directed by Robert Wise (West Side Story, The Sound of Music, The Day the Earth Stood Still), The Sand Pebbles takes place in 1920's China and tells the story of U.S. Navy engineer Jake Holman (McQueen), newly transferred to a post patrolling the Yangtze River on the U.S.S. San Pablo. Jake is an uncomplicated man, and while good at his trade and far from stupid, he defines the term "military grunt". He is content with his place in the Navy, and with Jake, what you see is what you get - he's not hiding any secret strengths below his average-Joe surface. River patrol is pretty boring, but Jake gets unwelcome excitement in the form of dozens of Chinese nationals who have slowly made the San Pablo their home, filling out the holes in its crew for the price of room and board. Some of those holes are in Jake's engine room, and it's not long before this bigoted johnny-come-lately is stirring up the sleepy, comfortable rhythms the crew has grown into as it coexists with the Chinese while doing as little work as possible. Jake's first and only friend on the ship is Frenchy (Attenborough), a gentle and genial fellow who takes a shine to a local woman on his first shore leave with Jake. Jake kind of has women on the brain himself, specifically Shirley (Bergen), a missionary he met while en route to his new post. As internal conflicts on the mainland deepen, it's not long before the American gunboat's grudgingly tolerated presence becomse something far less welcome, though they remain forbidden to use force against the Chinese. Tensions skyrocket when the Chinese lay siege to the Pablo, trapping its crew aboard and forcing it to winter in the harbour as the sinking water level becomes impossible for a boat that size to navigate. What really brings everything to a head, though, is the increasingly dangerous position the crew finds themselves in after one of their own is falsely accused of the murder of a Chinese national.

Packed with heavy themes of bigotry, sexual abuse and slavery, and the many facets of Communism, the first half of The Sand Pebbles is an engaging and exquisite drama. Steve McQueen was an extraordinary talent, and his performance here is one few actors can rival; it may very well be his finest. In his hands, Jake's everyman attitudes and conflicts are real and recognizable, and selling that type of character is one of the harder things for an actor to accomplish. Richard Attenborough plays a role very different from the one he played opposite McQueen four years earlier in The Great Escape, bringing Frenchy to life as a man of shy, quiet determination who's as easy to identify with as Jake is. Captain Collins (Richard Crenna, who you may recognize as Rambo's Col. Trautman) and his first officer, Mr. Bordelles, are a rare cinematic pair in that they are both not only men of good character who make a good team, but who are excellent officers and seamen as well. Candace Bergen's Shirley doesn't have a lot of screen time, but she uses that time very well, creating a natural character who reminds me of many of the missionaries I've known. Robert Wise was an extraordinary hand at drama, and in this area The Sand Pebbles is rivaled by few other films. Looks, body language, and myriad other small but important touches make the characters and their actions and reactions natural, normal, and real.

The second half of the film brings with it military action, and these sequences are not up to par with the film's strong dramatic scenes. Not only is the direction less deft, resulting in one of the more unengaging cinematic naval battles in recent memory, but the second half is also where the film starts becoming engulfed by its primary political message. This is not to say that wasn't clear from the start. While the final ten minutes should be terrifying, and similar scenes in other films have left me unable to sleep, I found the terror here was overshadowed by the message. About thirty minutes before the end, the film's politics become cemented to its emotions, and after over two hours of identifying with Jake, his last scenes left me unaffected by his predicament because I'd been firmly told why I should feel what he feels in those last moments, whereas up until then the film had simply made a good argument for what it thought was the best reason for Jake to feel as he does. The first problem with this is that I'm very stubborn and stupidly proud, and have an automatic negative gut reaction to emotional instructions. The second, wider problem with this is that, while well-presented, I couldn't relate to or identify with the film's reasons for its feelings, which is why they worked well as a preferred option to consider, but not as an absolute. After two hours of restrained yet very effective presentation, this lessened the message somehow. In this way, The Sand Pebbles is very similar to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: the first half is a perfect, incredible example of its genre and filmmaking in general that also brings a powerful, thought-provoking message; the second half gives all that up for a soapbox.


On a separate note, I would feel remiss to not mention that the shortest available version of The Sand Pebbles clocks in at three hours and three minutes, and doesn't really have what many filmgoers including myself would consider to be an "ending" . It stops rather than ends, an important distinction for any story, but one you may find especially frustrating for a story of this legnth. A more recent example of a film that finishes instead of ending is No Country For Old Men, which uses that device in a fuller, more effective fashion than the film in question. If you don't like getting that kind of sass from your movies, you may prefer watching the first half of The Sand Pebbles and then paying a visit to Moviepooper.com to fill in the rest (or just ask me how it ends).

On a very separate note, for some reason I'm convinced that Robert Wise was one of the few McCarthy-era directors to be an actual, card-carrying member of the Communist party, but I can't seem to find any corroboration of that, so I'm starting to doubt that this conviction/memory is correct. If it's not, who am I confusing him with?

First half good, second half less good, The Sand Pebbles is as perfect an example as I could've asked for of the difference between a good film about issues and a bad or not so good film about issues - because it's both! No one will ever accuse me of being efficient, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate the virtue. :D