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"I trained these men. They will fight to the death. But if we must die, if we must die, let it be like this." ~ D'Artagnan Randall Wallace was a keynote speaker last year at the Willow Creek Arts Conference, where he described his upbringing in a family of Baptist preachers and Southern storytellers, and his decision to major in theology at Duke University. He seemed hell-bent for the pulpit, but somehow wound up a storyteller of a different caliber. Despite a sense of loss at leaving the formal ministry, Wallace confessed that God's plan for him as a filmmaker was greater than his plan for himself as a minister. He held a large audience in rapt silence, with tears streaming from his eyes as he told us:
In all his epic cinematic histories Wallace has pursued "bold in the truth" true stories, all featuring noble warriors fighting in foreign lands, exploring the timeless themes of love, loyalty, valor, freedom, sacrifice, faith, and the bloody cost of heroism. Loosely based on the 1850 novel by Alexandre Dumas, père, which was itself loosely based on a historical account of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (not iron, but black velvet), Randall Wallace's The Man in the Iron Mask opens with this disclaimer: "Some of this is legend, but at least this much is fact -- when rioting citizens of France destroyed the Bastille, they discovered in its records this mysterious entry…."
Wallace's 1998 version is the most recent of a story filmed a dozen times in cinematic history. Master of '30s horror movies, James Whale's 1939 version of The Man in the Iron Mask is perhaps the most haunting. Perhaps this is due to his own personal demons which he had trouble hiding, as shown in Bill Condon’s biopic about Whale’s life, Gods and Monsters (which coincidentally also came out in 1998.) In Wallace's version, though, horror and haunting give way to honor and humility. Leonardo DiCaprio plays both the king and Philippe. Following some stellar roles (including Rimbaud, Romeo and Titanic heartthrob Jack Dawson), King Leo I shines as a lustful, spoiled King Louis XIV, but, unfortunately, also shines as Philippe, a prisoner too pretty for his padlocks, and too pure and noble in heart to be believed. He won the Razzie that year -- by himself -- for Worst Screen Couple. Shot on location in France, the movie is lovely to watch. The all-celebrity cast even pale next to their royal milieu: the landscapes and vistas, the palaces and castles, the costumes and dances, the regal Vivaldi clips and Glennie-Smith's lush soundtrack. The story, which is largely about the aging of the musketeers, leans more heavily on sight gags and sentiment rather than action and adventure, and involves us more with the political intrigue of the day rather than the spiritual malaise of the times. As the story begins, one of the now-retired-but-still-famous three musketeers, Athos, played by John Malkovich, has lost his son to the lustful King Louis who took a liking to Raoul's love Christine and had Raoul killed in battle (the echoes of David's adultery in the Bible seem clear). Athos bounces manically from despair to death-wish, recruiting the other two musketeers to help him take revenge on the king. But the other two are in no position to fight: Aramis, acted by a dourer-than-thou Jeremy Irons, has gotten religion. He is often framed with halos and near crosses. Porthos, overplayed as always with lusty panache by Gerard Depardieu, has eaten, drank and voulez-vous'ed his body to the point of meltdown, giving us a peek at his pudgy derriere just to prove it. The fourth musketeer and true lead character, D'Artagnan, swashbuckled handsomely by Gabriel Byrne, wins back the price of admission by showing us how the role should be played. D'Artagnan is captain of the king's guard, loyal to both Louis XIV and the twins' mother, Queen Anne. Not as creaky as the other musketeers, he also has a major crisis of conscience in the story: whether to join his brothers-in-arms against his king, who, as it turns out is his kin. That's right: in this version D'Artagnan is the father of the king/prisoner twin brothers, a drastic departure from the novel. In the DVD commentary, Wallace admits that the twist added thematic resonance (incorporating ideas such as paternity, identity, sacrifice, gentry marrying royalty, etc.) over the benefit of any controversy it might have stirred up – though the recent cinematic claims that Superman in Superman Returns and Jesus in The Da Vinci Code fathered children make this film’s controversy even easier to buy today. We learn this juicy tidbit as the king's guard out-numbers and traps the four musketeers and Phillipe after they have daringly helped the young man escape from prison (in a scene that the website Hollywood Jesus adores for its religious symbolism but Roger Ebert balked at for its improbability). D'Artagnan rouses them to a final charge with the stirring speech quoted at the top of this essay that ends, "if we must die, let it be like this." Wallace notes the influence of a similar line from the midpoint of C.S. Lewis' final Narnia chronicle, The Last Battle, which he has read to his sons numerous times. The speaker is a girl, Jill, who says, "Even if we are killed, I'd rather be killed fighting for Narnia than grow old and stupid at home and perhaps go about in a bath-chair and then die in the end just the same."
Asked by a Japanese journalist why all his movies are about sacrificial love, Wallace said, "The second greatest wealth we can have is people in our lives who would die for us; but the greatest wealth we can have is people in our lives we would die for." The journalist, Wallace relates, called him "a samurai" and said he must come to Japan so they can get drunk together. Porthos would be proud.
Questions for reflection and conversation: These are all direct quotations from the movie, questions asked of one character by another. Ask them of yourself:
Eric David (M.A. Film Production, USC) has been published in or on Christianity Today Movies, The Mars Hill Review, The Ooze, The Bastard Quarterly, and he wrote the essay on as well as serving as a panelist for Annie Hall at last year's CAFF. The father of two growing boys, Eric and his wife live in Los Angeles. www.ericdavid.info
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Here Comes the Son, King: 
"In every project I've had a moment when I've had to get down on my knees and pray: if this is the time, Lord, you want me to show my sons what a man does when he gets knocked down, then let me have that failure, bring it on, but please help me get up, please give me the strength to show them that if I go down, I'm going down with my flags flying, I'm going down bold in the truth as I see it."
The conspiracy theory runs that King Louis XIV, the Sun King, had a twin brother who he could neither bring himself to kill, nor allow himself to set free. So he had his own twin jailed, his face covered to prevent revelation of his identity.
With the obligatory rebel yell, "One for all, all for one!" the heroes rush headlong to their certain death. But as the smoke clears, miraculously, they all are still standing, or perhaps not so miraculously: even at the king's orders, his guard cannot shoot their own national heroes, they aimed at the floor. Enraged, the King grabs a pistol and aims at his own twin brother. D'Artagnan takes the bullet and dies in Phillipe's place. Philippe smartly places his mask on the king and orders "this madman" taken to the tower. He assumes the mantle of the king and leads France to prosperity and peace, becoming the nation's most beloved ruler.