David Puttnam

"My Life So Far" is the story of how the Pettigrew family, living in their family estate Kiloran House in Scotland, deals with changes brought by the end of WWI, told through the point of view of one of the Pettigrew children, Fraser (Robert Norman). The family is headed by the maternal grandmother MacIntosh (Rosemary Harris), affectionately known as "Gamma", who's decisions are to be obeyed without question. Gamma's son Morris (Malcolm McDowell) left home to build a career for himself and succeed as a well-to-do businessman; while her younger daughter Moira (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) followed the traditional route - she fell in love with Edward Pettigrew (Colin Firth), gave up a promising chance at becoming an opera singer, settled down at her family estate and raised a big family. Edward is a typical country gentry of his time - owns a minor business (turning sphagnum moss into medical dressings), a pious man and defender of traditional values (gives a speech at every Sunday service), loves and listens only to Beethoven, and has a passion for inventions and mechanical improvements all over the estate. All of which are laughed at by Morris, who lives in London but comes back to visit often, as he is competing with Edward to inherit the estate after Gamma passes away; the two could barely conceal their loathing for each other. Edward does not appreciate and resists waves of new changes in the world, but the harder he tries, the more things fall apart. Morris and his beautiful and charming French fiancee Heloise (Irène Jacob) introduce jazz to the children ("the sound of devil speaking" according to Edward). An emergency landing brought the eldest daughter Elspeth's (Kelly Macdonald) first suitor - a French show pilot Gabriel Chenoux (Tchéky Karyo). Fraser discovers grandfather MacIntosh's book collection in the attic, as an act of rebellion against Edward, took interest in reading them all. Without guidance, he misunderstood the definition of "prostitution", believing it to be a business term, suggests to all guests at Morris and Heloise's engagement party that Moira, Heloise and Gamma should go into prostitution to enhance the moss business. Worst of all, Edward finds himself drawn to Heloise, and having a brief affair with her prior to the wedding. While passing out food during a curling game held in her husband's honor, Gamma fell into the lake. Although she was pulled up immediately, she died of pneumonia soon after. Gamma left the estate to Edward, leading to the ultimate altercation between Edward and Morris at her wake. Edward boasts about that Morris has lost more than the estate to him, causing Moira to finally confront him and tell him that she is aware of his affair with Heloise all along. It took months before Edward's efforts finally won back Moira, and the family settles back to its old routine. On a Sunday morning, all Pettigrews are heading toward the church, except Fraser. Edward finds him relaxing in a chaise lounge in the library, a cognac glass filled with milk in one hand, a lit cigar in the other, swaying his head and body to Louis Armstrong's "On the Sunny Side of the Street" (a secret gift from Heloise). Instead of thrown into a fit of rage, he smiles and closes the door, leaving Fraser to enjoy himself.

A man's blunders regarding his family are told and retold through different eras in history. Five bittersweet vignettes that span the entire human history about five different men, all called Hector and played by the same actor (Robin Williams), who find themselves at a critical juncture in their lives. In prehistoric times, Hector lives in peace with his wife and their little son and daughter in a cave on a quite uninhabited island somewhere in the north. His world is shattered when a group of foreign pagan raiders led by a young chieftain and a somewhat pacifistic priest arrive there. In Ancient Rome, Hector is a loyal well-treated slave of Lucinnius, a somewhat naive big trader with political connections. When his latest shipment fails to arrive and the local corrupt governor Cyprion refuses to lend him money for his further endeavors due to bad omen that a professional soothsayer saw while reading the future from a chicken liver, he is ruined. To make things worse, just as Hector plans to ask his master for freedom and elope with his master's female African slave Thalia, Lucinnius informs him that they've been chosen to be scapegoats and must kill themselves under the governor's orders. In medieval times, Hector is a Scotsman who's traveling with a somewhat zealotic but friendly and well-intentioned priest on a mission of mercy to help the fallen crusaders, mortally wounded in the bloody skirmishes, make it to the other side in peace. Beatrice, a nice beautiful flirtatious Italian widow, is traveling part of the way with them as well. Hector is tired of death and carnage and wants to go home but when he and Beatrice connect despite not speaking each-others languages, he falls for her. The priest warns him that he can't handle her needs but Hector doesn't take his friendly warning seriously and eventually leaves with her. However, he soon realizes that the priest was referring to responsibilities of a complicated family life. During the Renaissance, a group of Portuguese nobleman and their servants and soldiers gets shipwrecked somewhere on the coast of Africa. They make an encampment at the beach and try to find some Africans to ask for help but they also try to uphold their strict old ways of life at their beach camp. The realities of the life and death situation they're in kick in quickly and things go wrong for most of them. Hector is one of the lower nobleman, who tries to reconnect with his lover, who wants nothing to do with him. However, Hector's misfortune turns out to be his blessing this time, if only temporarily. In present day New York, Hector is about to pick up his young daughter and little son he hasn't seen in years from his ex wife and her new husband and take them to a seaside bungalow where they can reconnect again. However, his day turns into a quagmire. First he gets blamed by the police for a bizarre accident that almost kills one of the tenants in a building owned by his somewhat sleazy partner Boris. Then Hector borrows the flower delivery car from his nice girlfriend Anna to get the kids but forgets to deliver the flowers which Anna's client ordered for a celebration. His kids don't make things much easier for him either. He decides to treat them like adults for a change and they have a redeeming serious talk about their uneasy relationship. Five bittersweet vignettes about five men from various eras of history, all called Hector and played by the same actor (Robin Williams), who find themselves at a critical juncture in their lives. In prehistoric times, Hector lives in peace with his wife, son and daughter on an uninhabited island somewhere in the north. His world is shattered when a group of raiders arrive there. In the Antiquity, Hector is a loyal well-treated slave of Lucinnius, a somewhat naive big trader with some political ties. When Lucinnius goes bankrupt and is ordered to kill himself, he asks Hector to join him. However, Hector has a different plan in mind for himself. In medieval times, Hector, a Scotsman, falls for Beatrice, a beautiful Italian widow. They connect despite the language barrier and she takes him home. However, she comes with some baggage. During the Renaissance, a group of pompous Portuguese nobleman and their servants is shipwrecked on the coast of Africa. They try to keep the old social order and survive until they can find help. In present day New York, Hector tries to reconnect with his estranged son and daughter despite his misfortunes.

In 1943, the crew of a B-17 based in the UK prepares for its 25th and final bombing mission over Germany before returning home to the USA. It's May 1943 at a US Army Air Corps base in England. The four officers and six enlisted men of the Memphis Belle - a B-17 bomber so nicknamed for the girlfriend of its stern and stoic captain, Dennis Dearborn - will soon start their twenty-fifth mission, having completed their previous twenty-four successfully with nary an incident, while fewer and fewer other planes are coming back from their missions at all. If they complete their next mission successfully, they will be the first Army Air Corps B-17 Crew to complete their tour of duty. Visiting communications officer Lt. Col. Bruce Derringer wants to publicize and highly tout their accomplishment, even before it happens, as a long term good news campaign at a time when there is little good news to report. Derringer's plan is against the wishes of the base commander, Col. Craig Harriman, who would prefer to treat the ten as any of his other hard working men. The previous success of the Memphis Belle is despite the disparate natures of the ten men, whose personalities and backgrounds could not be more different. Each of the ten has a differing view of Derringer's publicity campaign as well as to the probable success or failure of what will be their last mission regardless, a dangerous one into enemy territory over the skies of Bremen, Germany. —Huggo 1943. The air war over Germany is at its zenith. In the 8th Air Force is a B-17 bomber whose crew are about to complete their 25th mission, the first to do so. After this mission they will be rotated back to the US on a marketing drive. However, their 25th mission is far from a milk run and they will need all the skill and luck they can muster to back it back alive. —grantss The "Memphis Belle" is a World War II bomber, piloted by a young crew on dangerous bombing raids into Europe. The crew only have to make one more bombing raid before they have finished their duty and can go home. In the briefing before their last flight, the crew discover that the target for the day is Bremen, a heavily-defended town that invariably causes many Allied casualties. —Murray Chapman <muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au> It's May 17, 1943; the day before the Memphis Belle's, a B-17 bomber, 25th and final mission. After their final mission, they crew of ten men get to go home. Since they would be the first crew to finish all 25 missions in the 8th Airforce, there were already plans to make the 10-man crew big stars back home for the war effort. But the mission hadn't been flown yet. With the target being Bremen (not Dresden), which was a target heavy in surface-to-air artillery, the flak wouldn't be easy to get through. With weather, nerves, and dreams all playing a part in the finishing of the mission, the crew has to become the lead plane in the squadron and get the job done of bombing a Nazi supply factory, if they get it wrong, many innocent people could be killed. —Jen Marh <nhl1135@icanect.net>

"The Duellists" is based on a story written by Joseph Conrad, which, according to the author, was itself based on a true story whose origins sprang from a ten-line paragraph in a small Southern France local newspaper. That brief paragraph reported the fatal ending of a duel between two officers in Napoleon's Grand Army. The two officers had fought a series of duels in the midst of great wars on some futile pretext. As the pretext was never disclosed, Conrad invented one. We are in 1800, in the garrison town of Strasbourg, on the Rhine. There is a lull in the Napoleonic wars, and the French soldiers are enjoying a moment of peace before resuming the slaughters. As the film opens, a young girl driving a gaggle of geese happens upon two men dueling in a meadow. Lieutenant Gabriel Féraud (Harvey Keitel), from the 7th Hussar Regiment, is in the process of settling a score with an unknown man who soon ends up skewered on the Lieutenant's épée. We learn that this man is the nephew of the Mayor of Strasbourg, and is seriously wounded, when General Treillard (Robert Stephens), Commandant of the garrison, enters his officers quarters and makes inquiries about this Lieutenant Féraud. Lieutenant Armand d'Hubert (Keith Carradine), from the 4th Hussar Regiment, admits to vaguely knowing the gentleman, and he is immediately "volunteered" by his Commandant to find him and bring him back to the barracks, where he will be put under house arrest. General Treillard, who must see that his soldiers obey the Emperors rules prohibiting combat with civilians, needs to investigate what happened in the meadow. It is somewhat ironical that Bonaparte, who spent a large part of his life dueling with the rest of Europe on a rather grand scale, involving tens of thousand of participants on both sides (but was somewhat of a dilettante when judged by present day's standards), had little respect for the same tradition on an individual level. D'Hubert, after looking all over town, ends up at Féraud's private quarters, where he learns that the Lieutenant is attending a soirée at the salon of Madame de Lionne (Jenny Runacre). At the salon, d'Hubert meets with Féraud and informs him of his mission. Féraud, having judged himself the insulted party in his morning duel, cannot comprehend the reason for his arrest. Further, he determines that d'Hubert has in turn insulted him by bursting into the salon of Madame de Lionne, disturbing him with the General's orders as he was talking to the lady. Féraud immediately challenges d'Hubert to a duel with sabers, which ends when Féraud is wounded. Now, not only has Féraud's forearm been injured, but his wounded pride demands satisfaction. From then on, for the next fifteen years, Féraud will be obsessed with the idea of settling his dispute with d'Hubert, holding him captive by Férauds tragic, ironic concept of honor. D'Hubert goes to meet his friend, an army surgeon (Tom Conti), asking his advice on how to get out of this messy situation. The surgeon tells him first, to keep away from Féraud, second, to always stay ahead of Féraud in military rank, since only duels between soldiers of equal ranks are tolerated and third, to rely on Napoleon for keeping the wars going, as there is no dueling during a state of war. Augsburg, one year later. Lieutenant d'Hubert meets an old girl friend, Laura (Diana Quick), one of the camp followers. She tells him she has an offer of marriage from a one-armed veteran, but they nevertheless resume their relationship. It happens that Lieutenant Féraud is in the same town, and of course they will duel again. Epées, this time. This encounter is not so lucky for d'Hubert, who ends up gravely wounded. Their seconds propose that now the honor of both parties has been saved, but The Duellists both refuse the opportunity for reconciliation. Laura nurses d'Hubert back to health, but after a face-to-face with Féraud and a subsequent consultation with a fortuneteller, she realizes that these duelists will go on until one of them is killed. If it is d'Hubert who is to die, she cannot see any future in their relationship. She decides to leave him and go and marry the disabled ex-soldier. Captain Féraud (he caught up in rank with d'Hubert, who was promoted earlier) and Captain d'Hubert meet in a third duel, again with sabers, in a cellar. The two combatants fight to total exhaustion in an inconclusive duel, and eventually, dirty and bleeding, must be separated by their seconds. Lubeck, 1806. Captain d'Hubert and Captain Féraud duel a fourth time, on horseback. It is Féraud's turn to be wounded, seriously enough to not be able to continue the fight to its conclusion. Laura reappears on the scene. She is now a widow, and had hoped to settle with her ex-lover, Captain d'Hubert, but she sees that this is just wishful thinking. D'Hubert, too involved in this dueling matter, remains deaf to her subtle suggestion that they resume their affair. Russia, 1812. The Emperor's Grand Army, defeated by the terrible Russian winter and the Russian battle tactics, is in retreat. Colonels Féraud and d'Hubert are now like grunts in the "sacred battalion," consisting of officers of all arms who had no longer any troops to commend. One night, around a campfire, they find themselves again face to face. They silently recognize each other. The next day, Féraud requests a volunteer to go investigate some Cossack activities in the nearby woods. The soldiers are so exhausted and despondent that Féraud had guessed rightly that d'Hubert would be the only one to follow him, with the ulterior motive of finishing their endless confrontation. Far from the camp they come face to face, each with a pair of pistols, but at that moment, a group of Cossacks appears and the two adversaries present a common front to fight them off. Following this, in a gesture of reconciliation, d'Hubert offers Féraud a drink from his hip flask, but the latter disdainfully walks away: "Pistols, next time," he says. Tour, 1814. Napoleon is in exile on the Island of Elba and the Bourbons are back in power with Louis XVIII. General d'Hubert is convalescing at his sister Leoni's home from a bad leg wound sustained during the campaign in France, fighting the Prussians. She suggests to her brother he ought to get married, and offers to introduce him to Adele (Cristina Raines), the niece of her neighbor, the old aristocrat Chevalier de Riverol (Alan Webb). After a short courtship, the two marry. D'Hubert is visited by a Bonapartist gentleman (Edward Fox), a friend of General Féraud, who tries to recruit him to aid in the planned return of the Emperor, but d'Hubert refuses. Following the "Hundred Days," the return of Napoleon to French soil, the Emperor is defeated at Waterloo, and definitively exiled to the Island of St. Helena. Louis XVIII is returned to the throne. Many known Bonapartists are arrested, including General Féraud, and these will be executed as examples. Upon hearing the news, d'Hubert meets with the Police Minister of the Second Empire, Fouché, now Duke of Otranto (Albert Finney), and requests Férauds pardon, a request that is granted. D'Hubert asks only that his intervention on Férauds behalf be kept secret. Having discovered d'Hubert's whereabouts, Féraud sends two of his ex-companions in arms to set up yet another, and hopefully, final duel. The Duellists meet at dawn, on d'Hubert's property, with pistols. Two shots each, fire at will. D'Hubert gets to fire the last shot, but instead of killing Féraud, he fires a bullet into the ground, and with this gesture becomes the rightful owner's of Féraud's life: "I shall simply declare you dead," says d'Hubert. The final scene shows Féraud, from the back, standing on a bluff overlooking the Dordogne River winding through the beautiful valley below. He stands wearing a two-pointed cocked hat and a long black, straight military capote, reminiscent of his Emperor's portraits on the Island of St. Helena - could it be "le petit caporal" (the little corporal), the Emperor himself, humiliated and defeated? It is the "end of the road" for Féraud: finally at peace, as he meditates on what has been his life.