“Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” based on the acclaimed best-selling novel by Ben Fountain, is told from the point of view of 19-year-old private Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn) who, along with his fellow soldiers in Bravo Squad, becomes a hero after a harrowing Iraq battle and is brought home temporarily for a victory tour.
Through flashbacks, culminating at the spectacular halftime show of the Thanksgiving Day football game, the film reveals what really happened to the squad—contrasting the realities of the war with America’s perceptions.
Directed by Ang Lee, the film redefines what is possible in filmmaking and storytelling with the goal of further engaging the audience in an advanced cinematic experience.
Together with Oscar-winning cinematographer John Toll, Lee employs state-of-the-art cameras to shoot in native 3D, high resolution and a history-making frame rate that seemed impossible until now.
“Since ‘Life of Pi,’ I discovered that in making a 3D movie [we need to be] adding not only dimension, but a higher resolution that comes along with a much higher frame rate than we are used to having,” Lee said. “The whole experience is not just about extravaganza, not just about action, but actually about drama as well. The way we look at things, the way we want the audience to engage in a movie I think is more personal. It’s much more grand.”
Lee said he was attracted to the novel’s drama and conflict, noting that it was “a kind of coming-of-age story of a young soldier who has to sort it all out.”
“‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk’ was a very compelling book,” Lee said. “[Fountain’s] observations of the absurdity of the over the top welcome these warriors receive, the juxtaposition of this extravagant celebration of his heroism intercut with his battlefield service in Iraq, the irony of those two experiences side by side. It’s kind of an existential examination of what’s real and what’s not, there’s a sort of Zen quality to that comparison that fascinated me.” —CONTRIBUTED
“Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” opens nationwide on Nov. 9.
