Fathers and Sons

I've just finished Fathers and Sons, Alexander Waugh's book about his male ancestors. He begins with his great-great grandfather, also called Alexander, but known to the family as the the Brute, and then moves on to his great-grandfather, Arthur, then to his illustrious grandfather, Evelyn. I haven't got any further than that yet, but I assume that he moves on to his father, Auberon, Evelyn's eldest son.

It's a delightful read and I enjoyed it very much - he's not the greatest of writers, but his style is easy, and comfortable to read, especially last thing at night when one's feeling a bit dozy and doesn't want anything too demanding.
But why I am I reading such a book, one which has absolutely no relevance to my life, past or present? Well, it's the Waugh magic, of course,and it's fascinating to see how it was born, grew and matured. I've always loved Evelyn's books, and have grown up with them. I first started reading them in my early 20s and have never stopped. They bear repeated reading as Waugh's prose style is perfect - the book reveals that he was a stickler for correct grammar, and being a bit of a grammar fanatic myself, it's not surprising that his writing is so satisfying, like most grammatically-correct writing. Alexander's writing is OK, but unlike Evelyn's, his writing is sometimes clunky, with rather infelicitous descritopns - but, no matter - his book is highly enjoyable and readable.

Its centrepiece, surprisingly, is Arthur, Evelyn's father who turns out to be a complex and fascinating character, and possibly the source, unwittingly, of Evelyn's talent. He openly favoured his older son, Alec and Evelyn was ignored and neglected throughout his childhood. Arthur's worship of Alec was bizarre and pathological, while Evelyn was left to make his own way in life, turning out, of course to be a literary genius. Arthur was, however, a benign and benevolent character, and after his death, Evelyn wrote a wonderfully forgiving piece about him, remembering his exuberance, and love of home-grown family entertainments. Arthur was certainly the source of many of Evelyn's fictional fathers, and few of them are monsters. Charles Ryder's father's benign neglect in Brideshead Revisited is clearly based on Arthur's.
Alexander's father, Auberon, Evelyn's eldest son, had another neglected childhood and it's fascinating to see how the near delinquent became a lovely, if deeply flawed man, who somehow manged to break the cycle of bad parenting, which went all the way back to Arthur's father, also Alexander, who was known, accurately, as the Brute. Auberon inspired enormous love and affection in his children and clearly worshipped them, but not in Arthur's dysfunctional manner. So, a fascinating family memoir, and a wonderfully vivid picture of Victorian and Edwardian parenthood. Is ours an improvement? Time will tell....

A Beautiful Mind

I've been working my way through a pile of DVDs left here by one of my sons, and finally reached the last one, A Beautiful Mind. I knew about the film, of course; knew it came garlanded with Oscars including a Best Actor for Russell Crowe, but was never tempted to go and see it when it came out.
I was more engrossed by the film than I imagined I would be, but, as with so many Ron Howard films, it's far too long, and ultimately soft-centred. I did, however, find it far more engrossing than I thought I would and was held right up to the end, though I did get impatient in the last half hour, and found myself silently mouthing 'Oh get on with it!'.
The main talking point is Russell Crowe, who is turning into one of our great character actors. It's as if he's saying, I can do anything - bring it on, whatever it is. And he can. He's been completely convincing in everything he's done, from his debut in the masterly LA Confidential, to his wonderful performance in Master & Commander, and, of course, Gladiator. There's much else, The Insider was another high point, and there haven't been many low points, maybe A Year in Provence but we'll draw a veil over that. Anyway, he puts in a creditable effort at capturing John Nash's weirdness. He was a mathematical genius, but this gift came with the burden of paranoid schizophrenia, from which he eventually made a miraculous recovery. Crowe successfullymanages to inhabit his world view and Howard successfully conveys this with his direction, so we don't realise that Paul Bettany, who play his friend and Ed Harris, who is an entirely plausible secret agent, are entirely imaginary. But his world-picture, and his mind, starts to unravel completely as he descends into madness. Crowe conveys this gradual descent and recovery perfectly but the audience realises only gradually that there's something wrong.
The film met with mixed reviews when it was released in spite of being clear Oscar-fodder. Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian slated it (predictably), for being hopelessly at odds with John Nash's real-life persona which is classic Bradshaw. He always misses the point, criticising films for not being realistic. It does have obvious problems, though, and the period detail is hopelessly messy. The hair isn't right for a start - not short enough for the men, and the women's are too casual, not remotely recognisable as a 40s look. The actors try to reproduce the quick-fire snappy delivery of 40s films, but can't do it - they should all be sentenced to watch multiple episodes of Mad Men.
So, an ultimately unsatisfactory film - I felt cross for the missed opportunity. Nash's story is actually more interesting than the one Howard tells. He was a closeted homosexual for a start, and Crowe, good as he tried to be, couldn't ultimately convey Nash's fragility convincingly enough. Inother words, a classic Ron Howard film, soft-centred, and a cop-out,

Terminators I & II

I've just been catching up on the first 2 Terminator films in preparation for the impending TIV, or whatever it's going to be called. I was initially sceptical, but then I saw that Christian Bale is going to be playing John Connor, and a) I'll go and see virtually anything CB is in, plus b) I trust Bale's choice of parts - he rarely makes a bad one.
I'd seen both I & II, but a long time ago, so it was an interesting exercise revisiting them as I couldn't really remember them too well. The first thing that struck me was Arnie - he's perfect! But more perfect in the first film, when he's bad Arnie. He's scary, and somehow his unadulterated, implacable evil is more convincing than his warmer, cuddlier righteousness in the second film. T2's enjoyable, though, but you can see the early signs of Cameron overkill. T1 is short and snappy, about 100mins, which is about right, whereas T2, at least in the T2 Special Edition which I borrowed off my son, clocks in at a bloated 2.5 hours and I started to mentally clock off long before the end.
There's a preponderance of special effects, and we're supposed to be amused at AS subverting his role, and the ironic asides. Well, it probably did seem funny when it was released, but now it's a bit tiresome as we've seen so much of this sort of stuff since. The first film doesn't have anything like that at all, and it's the better film for it. I suppose it belongs to Arnie's perfect period, when he made Predator and Conan. They, to me, are just right, whereas in T2, he's beginning his Kindergarted Cop and Twins period.
Anyway, watching them was a mildly interesting exercise and I fancy the new film, so we'll see how the reinvention will go. I'm sure it'll be too long, though, as is the fashion today for these sorts of blockbusters. It would be nice to see a T1-style action film, but I'm not holding out any hope.