INTERVIEW: Inside “The Fallow Few”: Bringing a First World War Story to Life

Writer/Director JR Rappaport on set with Bradley James JR Rappaport began with a very different First World War film in mind. Before writing and directing The Fallow Few, a drama based on the true story of a British officer sentenced to execution for desertion, Rappaport had been developing a film about the Christmas truce of 1914, when soldiers on opposing sides of the First World War temporarily stopped fighting and emerged from their trenches to exchange greetings and gifts. He was drawn to the idea of enemies finding common ground, but the outline wasn’t taking the shape he wanted. “It was coming out a little too feel-good,” Rappaport said. He began asking what might persuade a soldier to disobey his commanding officers. That led him to read about British soldiers executed for desertion, eventually working through the stories of all 306 men pardoned by the British government in 2006. Lieutenant Edwin Dyett’s story was the one that stayed with him. “I connected very deeply with the material. I connected with the stories of these young men,” Rappaport told us. “I was very incensed and fired up about Edwin’s story. I had to do something.” The first famous article about Edwin Dyett...