The news of the demise of Woolworths brought back many memories for me. I haven't set foot in Woollies for years so it was hardly part of my emotional landscape, but it provided me with my earliest work experience, so I have some long-ago, fond memories of the place.
I was 14, and in those days you could work legally for 2 hours a dayso I did Friday evenings. It was a small branch in a typical 60s shopping precinct and opened until 7pm on Fridays only in those far-off days before extended opening. Even that was considered pretty revolutionary.
The staff consisted of a handful of embittered regulars and the rest were schoolgirls. We had few customers, and our most frequent visitors were a gang of Rockers (we're talking about the mid-60s, so there were still Mods and Rockers, in the days before there were hippies) who would loaf around, shoplift and drop off stink bombs.
My memories are pretty fragmentary, but I seem to have spent most of my time there working on the biscuit counter, where we had those old-fashioned tins ranged in front of us, and we'd sell them loose. And of course there were the famous tins of broken biscuits. It seems unimaginable now, but people used to buy them! Why can't we be as frugal nowadays? I suppose we may have to be in the coming months as the credit crunch starts to bite, but Woollies will be long gone.
After we'd finished work, we used to go over to Lewis Separates which stayed open a bit later, and spend all our wages on clothes. We were Mods, of course, or tried to be - anyway, clothes, and music (increasingly) were all we thought about (boys weren't quite so important). Looking good, and knowing the latest dance steps were what was really important. I do remember vividly the exhilarating feeling of having my own money after years of a few coins pocket money and the unconfined joy of spending it on whatever I wanted - bliss! I felt I had the world at my feet.
So, while I can't feel much emotion at Woollies demise, I have fond memories, and I'm sure I'm not the only one as not many places were willing to employ girls as young as us. I know my brother found it much easier to work, and he seemed to have loads of jobs.
Anyway, once I was 15 I graduated to working all day Saturday, but that didn't last long. I got a much-coveted job usheretting at the Oxford Playhouse, but that's another story.....
Monday, 22 December 2008
Sunday, 7 December 2008
stationary
I was thinking about stationary the other day as I was writing my diary. My diary's a beautifully designed moleskin-bound thing from Paperchase, with an elastic bookmark. It's heavy, luxurious, and perfectly-formed. I'm about to start on my second one - though I've been writing a diary for a few years using other designs, I finally discovered these lovely objects in the Paperchase concession in Borders.
It got me thinking, and reminiscing about stationary. Now, I'm one of those people who love stationary, who have a bit of a fetish about it. I know that it's a syndrome as I remember reading an article about stationary-addiction, so I know I'm not alone. In fact there was an article in The Times the other day about a love, no, need for lovely leather-bound diaries in today's era of email and text.
Anyway, stationary-addiction can be defined, if such a thing can be defined, as a love of paper, pens, diaries, and all ancillary items. Computer stuff does not count. But where does this love of everything to do with writing come from?
I can only speak for myself, but I can trace it right back to childhood. I would go into town with my parents, and rather than drag me round Sainsbury's or the Co-Op, they would leave me in a wonderful emporium which I don't think had changed since the Edwardian era, called something like Oxford Educational Bookshop. At least I think it was called that but I may be wrong, but it was something like that. It was a two-story emporium - dark and overflowing with stationary stuff. The ground floor was relatively uninteresting, full of rubbers and pencils, but upstairs was where the action was. Or rather, inaction. It was usually empty of people, apart from me and the occasional browser, but it was full of piles of paper, exercise books - stationary. I would wander its aisles, such as they were, fingering the stuff, looking at it, stroking it, reading it, and, I guess, fetishizing it. I would spend hours there. And I could. No-one ever challenged or questioned my right to be there, in fact I don't remember the presence of any staff.
The funny thing is, when my daughter left school at 18, and decided that she wanted to work for a year to save up enough money to go to Australia for a year, she ended up working in - guess what? A stationary shop! And it was a wonderfully old-fashioned place that hadn't changed in decades. Not quite the Edwardian emporium of my memory but a 1970s-type of place with absolutely no 80s ambience at all. Anyway she spent a very happy year there, and still returns every now and again to see the staff. And it still hasn't changed. Though whether it'll survive the economic storm that's coming remains to be seen.
Anyway, one thing I've found in adulthood is that I'm definitely not alone - in fact I imagine that it may become more prevalent as stationary becomes a bit of an endangered species. Nothing can possibly replace the joy of pen on paper, especially moleskin-bound paper. And of course, the pen has to be a green Pentel rollerball pen with black ink. I've just discovered the WH Smith website so have been able to buy a big job lot of them. It's one of my biggest secret terrors that they'll be discontinued. Along with black notebooks!
It got me thinking, and reminiscing about stationary. Now, I'm one of those people who love stationary, who have a bit of a fetish about it. I know that it's a syndrome as I remember reading an article about stationary-addiction, so I know I'm not alone. In fact there was an article in The Times the other day about a love, no, need for lovely leather-bound diaries in today's era of email and text.
Anyway, stationary-addiction can be defined, if such a thing can be defined, as a love of paper, pens, diaries, and all ancillary items. Computer stuff does not count. But where does this love of everything to do with writing come from?
I can only speak for myself, but I can trace it right back to childhood. I would go into town with my parents, and rather than drag me round Sainsbury's or the Co-Op, they would leave me in a wonderful emporium which I don't think had changed since the Edwardian era, called something like Oxford Educational Bookshop. At least I think it was called that but I may be wrong, but it was something like that. It was a two-story emporium - dark and overflowing with stationary stuff. The ground floor was relatively uninteresting, full of rubbers and pencils, but upstairs was where the action was. Or rather, inaction. It was usually empty of people, apart from me and the occasional browser, but it was full of piles of paper, exercise books - stationary. I would wander its aisles, such as they were, fingering the stuff, looking at it, stroking it, reading it, and, I guess, fetishizing it. I would spend hours there. And I could. No-one ever challenged or questioned my right to be there, in fact I don't remember the presence of any staff.
The funny thing is, when my daughter left school at 18, and decided that she wanted to work for a year to save up enough money to go to Australia for a year, she ended up working in - guess what? A stationary shop! And it was a wonderfully old-fashioned place that hadn't changed in decades. Not quite the Edwardian emporium of my memory but a 1970s-type of place with absolutely no 80s ambience at all. Anyway she spent a very happy year there, and still returns every now and again to see the staff. And it still hasn't changed. Though whether it'll survive the economic storm that's coming remains to be seen.
Anyway, one thing I've found in adulthood is that I'm definitely not alone - in fact I imagine that it may become more prevalent as stationary becomes a bit of an endangered species. Nothing can possibly replace the joy of pen on paper, especially moleskin-bound paper. And of course, the pen has to be a green Pentel rollerball pen with black ink. I've just discovered the WH Smith website so have been able to buy a big job lot of them. It's one of my biggest secret terrors that they'll be discontinued. Along with black notebooks!
Saturday, 29 November 2008
Of Time and the City
I went to see Of Time and the City recently, directed and narrated by Terence Davies. It's his paen to the Liverpool of his childhood, and was received with great acclaim at Cannes in the summer.
I went with a group of friends, one of whom was someone who'd grown up in Liverpool at around the same time, the post-WWII period. He was deeply moved by the film, appreciating Davies's grasp of Liverpool, not as a geographical entity, but as a place of imagination and feeling. I feel very much the same about Oxford - the place where you grew up becomes part of your DNA, a place that you feel rather than see. I visited Oxford a couple of years ago - the first time for quite a while. I'd left at the age of 32, after spending virtually my whole life there, and had only returned a few times, but walking round the streets of the city, it was as if I knew every paving stone, every brick in the wall. Even though much in the city has changed beyond recognition, everything is still there, not just in my memory, but in my unconscious, in every fibre of my being.
So I recognised where Davies was coming from, and so did my friend. On Mark Kermode's film review slot on Radio 5, he talked about the torrent of mail he'd received after he'd praised the film to the skies the other week. Many people had gone to see it after hearing his recommendation, but had ended up bored, or hating it. Though there were some who'd loved it. Davies's voice was a problem for some, and it's not a normal one - like other Liverpudlians he had elocution lessons (Beryl Bainbridge is another) as the L'pool accent was seen as a massive handicap before the Beatles came along and made it fashionable. So his voice is fruity and posh, with an acerbic, but yearning tone which encapsulated the act of memory, of return, of looking back, perfectly
The film is a collection of found footage woven together to form a tapestry of Liverpool then and now. And that's basically it, though I cannot overemphasise that it's actually much, much more. I will certainly buy the DVD when it's released as I think it will be a film that I'll return to over and over again. Thank you, Terence
I went with a group of friends, one of whom was someone who'd grown up in Liverpool at around the same time, the post-WWII period. He was deeply moved by the film, appreciating Davies's grasp of Liverpool, not as a geographical entity, but as a place of imagination and feeling. I feel very much the same about Oxford - the place where you grew up becomes part of your DNA, a place that you feel rather than see. I visited Oxford a couple of years ago - the first time for quite a while. I'd left at the age of 32, after spending virtually my whole life there, and had only returned a few times, but walking round the streets of the city, it was as if I knew every paving stone, every brick in the wall. Even though much in the city has changed beyond recognition, everything is still there, not just in my memory, but in my unconscious, in every fibre of my being.
So I recognised where Davies was coming from, and so did my friend. On Mark Kermode's film review slot on Radio 5, he talked about the torrent of mail he'd received after he'd praised the film to the skies the other week. Many people had gone to see it after hearing his recommendation, but had ended up bored, or hating it. Though there were some who'd loved it. Davies's voice was a problem for some, and it's not a normal one - like other Liverpudlians he had elocution lessons (Beryl Bainbridge is another) as the L'pool accent was seen as a massive handicap before the Beatles came along and made it fashionable. So his voice is fruity and posh, with an acerbic, but yearning tone which encapsulated the act of memory, of return, of looking back, perfectly
The film is a collection of found footage woven together to form a tapestry of Liverpool then and now. And that's basically it, though I cannot overemphasise that it's actually much, much more. I will certainly buy the DVD when it's released as I think it will be a film that I'll return to over and over again. Thank you, Terence
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Dylan again
I watched my videos of the BBC's collection of programmes they screened a few years ago the other day (I think they're from about 2005). I watched them when they were first shown, and I taped them all as I knew I'd want to see them again. The first was Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home which one of my sons has on DVD and I'd borrowed it from him a few months ago. but I couldn't resist seeing it yet again for the third time.
Here is an artist at the height of his powers, but who's clearly realised that everything's beginning to get out of control. I was struck this time by how acutely intelligent and perceptive Dylan is during this period (early-mid-60s). It's as if he has a kind of X-Ray vision and sees stuff no-one else can. He's a sponge, and soaks up everything that's going on around him. No Direction Home is interspersed with snippets of recent interviews with him and he's at great pains to tell us, as he has done throughout his life that he has no interest in politics or attitudes, or opinions. This was horribly at odds with 60s attitudes, and got him into much hot water as he repeatedly came up against people who wanted him to be their spokesman and a mouthpiece.
Dave van Ronk says in No Direction that he somehow tapped into the collective unconscious of the early 60s and could see that there was a fundamental sea-change going on (as evidenced by his famous 'something is happening and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr Jones?'). He was a cultural magpie, and his endlessly fertile brain soaked up everything around him like a sponge. This, together with his fascinatiopn with words, and their power, enabled him to produce epics like Hard Rain in which vast spaces and distances open up - giving us new visions with a myhtic, epic quality that have never been surpassed.
Tambourine Man was a kind of catalyst (it certainly was for me). Its wild, poetry took off into the stratosphere, taking us young folks who were ready and waiting with it, giving us a feeling that there wasn't anything that we weren't capable of. His quicksilver mind always outwitted the clumsy preconceptions of his interviewers, who were left trailing in his wake of his fierce intelligence.
There's wonderful footage of his performance at Newport in 1965 with the Paul Butterfield Band. The coruscating guitar of Mike Bloomfield begins Maggie's Farm, and in a way, it's even more cataclysmic than his later stuff with the Band. Boos and jeers ring out, and people who were there queue up to try and distance themselves from the hatred and rancour that greeted him. Few are prepared to admit now how much they loathed it all.
I remember clearly hearing Like a Rolling Stone for the first time and feel privileged to have been able to do so. It was on Radio Luxembourg, with its dodgy reception and Horace Batchelor
ads. What a time that was! To me, it remains his greatest period - Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde. His motorcycle accident happened soon after, but he was still able to produce the magisterial John Wesley Harding. Then something happened - and out came the dismal Nashville Skyline and although I dutifully bought it, Dylan was never the same for me.
I've just started reading Greil Marcus' Invisible Republic, about the Basement Tapes, so perhaps that'll shed some light. I'll post more when I've finished.
Anyway, No Direction is a wonderful picture of an artist at the height of his powers and Dylan has atremendous chronicler of his life in Scorsese. More please!
Here is an artist at the height of his powers, but who's clearly realised that everything's beginning to get out of control. I was struck this time by how acutely intelligent and perceptive Dylan is during this period (early-mid-60s). It's as if he has a kind of X-Ray vision and sees stuff no-one else can. He's a sponge, and soaks up everything that's going on around him. No Direction Home is interspersed with snippets of recent interviews with him and he's at great pains to tell us, as he has done throughout his life that he has no interest in politics or attitudes, or opinions. This was horribly at odds with 60s attitudes, and got him into much hot water as he repeatedly came up against people who wanted him to be their spokesman and a mouthpiece.
Dave van Ronk says in No Direction that he somehow tapped into the collective unconscious of the early 60s and could see that there was a fundamental sea-change going on (as evidenced by his famous 'something is happening and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr Jones?'). He was a cultural magpie, and his endlessly fertile brain soaked up everything around him like a sponge. This, together with his fascinatiopn with words, and their power, enabled him to produce epics like Hard Rain in which vast spaces and distances open up - giving us new visions with a myhtic, epic quality that have never been surpassed.
Tambourine Man was a kind of catalyst (it certainly was for me). Its wild, poetry took off into the stratosphere, taking us young folks who were ready and waiting with it, giving us a feeling that there wasn't anything that we weren't capable of. His quicksilver mind always outwitted the clumsy preconceptions of his interviewers, who were left trailing in his wake of his fierce intelligence.
There's wonderful footage of his performance at Newport in 1965 with the Paul Butterfield Band. The coruscating guitar of Mike Bloomfield begins Maggie's Farm, and in a way, it's even more cataclysmic than his later stuff with the Band. Boos and jeers ring out, and people who were there queue up to try and distance themselves from the hatred and rancour that greeted him. Few are prepared to admit now how much they loathed it all.
I remember clearly hearing Like a Rolling Stone for the first time and feel privileged to have been able to do so. It was on Radio Luxembourg, with its dodgy reception and Horace Batchelor
ads. What a time that was! To me, it remains his greatest period - Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde. His motorcycle accident happened soon after, but he was still able to produce the magisterial John Wesley Harding. Then something happened - and out came the dismal Nashville Skyline and although I dutifully bought it, Dylan was never the same for me.
I've just started reading Greil Marcus' Invisible Republic, about the Basement Tapes, so perhaps that'll shed some light. I'll post more when I've finished.
Anyway, No Direction is a wonderful picture of an artist at the height of his powers and Dylan has atremendous chronicler of his life in Scorsese. More please!
Monday, 10 November 2008
The Leopard
I watched this film twice (my latest DVD rental) - I'd always wanted to see it but had never managed it so finally caught up with it. I'd long had a fascination with Italian cinema ever since I did an Open University course in post-war French and Italian society which had a substantial component on Italian neo-realist film.
Visconti was an especially interesting character - a Marxist, homosexual aristocrat who made one of the earliest neo-realist films, Ossessione. We were sent a video with various film clips as part of the study pack and there were several clips from Ossessione, but I soon obtained it on video, and even went to see it at the cinema a few years ago. I can't remember why it was on, but there was a one-off screening at the Watershed one Sunday afternoon, so I couldn't possibly miss that. It had become one of my favourite films - gritty, in black-and-white, it depicted the underside of Italian society for the first time ever. It was made during Mussolini's regime - I don't know how Visconti managed it, but it was an act of great courage. He went on to make La Terra Trema a seminal film in the neo-realist canon, but post-war, his career path followed a highly individual trajectory.
The Leopard was released in 1963 and by then Visconti was making large-scale epics about Italian history, notably Rocco and his Brothers in 1960, which I remember my father going to see on his own. It was about a family of boxers (my father was a huge boxing fan) and of course it had subtitles. Dad's hearing had been damaged in the war, so the subtitles made a huge difference. He didn't go to the cinema much, so this must have been pretty special for him, though I have no idea what he made of the film.
Senso, which was set in the mid-19th century, dealt with the Italian aristocracy, a subject of which Visconti had a feeling for, and knowledge of which was unsurpassed. I haven't seen Senso, so it'll go straight on to my rental list. Later he made The Damned which was about the German upper classes' complicity with Nazism, and starred Dirk Bogarde. I did see that a long time ago, but my appetite has been whetted so that'll go on the list as well.
The Leopard was graced by Burt Lancaster in the leading role as Prince Don Fabrizio Salina, the head of a decaying Sicilian family, buffeted by Garibaldi's revolution. I written about Lancaster before, and although he's dubbed here, his presence illuminates the film from begininng to end. Dubbing is perfectly normal in Italian cinema, even Italian dialogue is often dubbed for Italians, so it doesn't really seem out of place. It does enable actors such as Lancaster, Bogarde, and Alain Delon, another Visconti favourite who features here, to feature quite comfortably in Italian films. Anyway, Lancaster's performance is masterly. His character knows and accepts that he and his class are doomed to pass away, and the final scene, in which Salina leaves the grandiose ball alone, on foot, leaving everyone else to drive off in ther carriages, and slowly wanders the darkened streets, stopping and quitely genuflecting as a religious procession passes by, manages to be deeply moving. I can't possibly explain why - Lancaster's in long shot, the camera's withdrawing and letting the action unfold - but after nearly 3 hours in his company, both he and Visconti have managed to make us care about him.
It's full of glorious set pieces, the centrepiece the ballroom scene at the end which is a full 40 minutes. I suppose many would consider it goes on for far too long, but it lets us in to the heart and soul of Sicilian society - magnificent.
I must mention the music. Visconti uses music a great deal, in fact his films are operatic. It's yearning and emotional, and pretty old-fashioned. I loved it - it's elegaic, emotional and full of longing and sadness. It's by Nino Rota, who was responsible for the music for The Godfather. I can imagine it wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but it's a perfect marriage of sound and vision.
Italian cinema nosedived in the 1970s but appears to be on the brink of a resurgence - ;et's hope so, the Italians have a rich cinematic tradition. Meanwhile I'll revisit some of its greatest hits.
Visconti was an especially interesting character - a Marxist, homosexual aristocrat who made one of the earliest neo-realist films, Ossessione. We were sent a video with various film clips as part of the study pack and there were several clips from Ossessione, but I soon obtained it on video, and even went to see it at the cinema a few years ago. I can't remember why it was on, but there was a one-off screening at the Watershed one Sunday afternoon, so I couldn't possibly miss that. It had become one of my favourite films - gritty, in black-and-white, it depicted the underside of Italian society for the first time ever. It was made during Mussolini's regime - I don't know how Visconti managed it, but it was an act of great courage. He went on to make La Terra Trema a seminal film in the neo-realist canon, but post-war, his career path followed a highly individual trajectory.
The Leopard was released in 1963 and by then Visconti was making large-scale epics about Italian history, notably Rocco and his Brothers in 1960, which I remember my father going to see on his own. It was about a family of boxers (my father was a huge boxing fan) and of course it had subtitles. Dad's hearing had been damaged in the war, so the subtitles made a huge difference. He didn't go to the cinema much, so this must have been pretty special for him, though I have no idea what he made of the film.
Senso, which was set in the mid-19th century, dealt with the Italian aristocracy, a subject of which Visconti had a feeling for, and knowledge of which was unsurpassed. I haven't seen Senso, so it'll go straight on to my rental list. Later he made The Damned which was about the German upper classes' complicity with Nazism, and starred Dirk Bogarde. I did see that a long time ago, but my appetite has been whetted so that'll go on the list as well.
The Leopard was graced by Burt Lancaster in the leading role as Prince Don Fabrizio Salina, the head of a decaying Sicilian family, buffeted by Garibaldi's revolution. I written about Lancaster before, and although he's dubbed here, his presence illuminates the film from begininng to end. Dubbing is perfectly normal in Italian cinema, even Italian dialogue is often dubbed for Italians, so it doesn't really seem out of place. It does enable actors such as Lancaster, Bogarde, and Alain Delon, another Visconti favourite who features here, to feature quite comfortably in Italian films. Anyway, Lancaster's performance is masterly. His character knows and accepts that he and his class are doomed to pass away, and the final scene, in which Salina leaves the grandiose ball alone, on foot, leaving everyone else to drive off in ther carriages, and slowly wanders the darkened streets, stopping and quitely genuflecting as a religious procession passes by, manages to be deeply moving. I can't possibly explain why - Lancaster's in long shot, the camera's withdrawing and letting the action unfold - but after nearly 3 hours in his company, both he and Visconti have managed to make us care about him.
It's full of glorious set pieces, the centrepiece the ballroom scene at the end which is a full 40 minutes. I suppose many would consider it goes on for far too long, but it lets us in to the heart and soul of Sicilian society - magnificent.
I must mention the music. Visconti uses music a great deal, in fact his films are operatic. It's yearning and emotional, and pretty old-fashioned. I loved it - it's elegaic, emotional and full of longing and sadness. It's by Nino Rota, who was responsible for the music for The Godfather. I can imagine it wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but it's a perfect marriage of sound and vision.
Italian cinema nosedived in the 1970s but appears to be on the brink of a resurgence - ;et's hope so, the Italians have a rich cinematic tradition. Meanwhile I'll revisit some of its greatest hits.
Saturday, 18 October 2008
Brideshead Revisited
I saw the new film of this book last week; it wasn't at the top of my 'to-see' list, but my daughter wanted to go, so, as we knew nobody else in our mostly male family wouldn't want to go, off we went to the local multiplex.
We thought we were going to be the only people in the audience (we were, once before, when we saw the Hamlet set in a present-day New York loft apartment, starring Ethan Hawke. It was quite good actually, but a rather weird experience, watching Hamlet in a deserted multiplex auditorium). But 2 more people turned up, so the 4 of us settled down, rattling around in a huge cinema.
Brideshead is something I feel very attached to; I read the book back in the 1970s, so I was very much the age my daughter is now when I first encountered it. I read it several times, luxuriating in Waugh's perfect prose and inimitable storytelling. I went on to read most of Waugh's other novels, and then his diaries and letters. His l;ife was fascinating - although far removed from my own world, I was seduced, and still am, by the whole Waugh milieu.
Anyway, along came the ITV serial in about 1981, starring Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews, which of course became a benchmark for so-called 'heritage' drama serials. In the days when there were only 3 channels, it became compulsive viewing for millions, and the nation was riveted. I remember looking forward with high excitement to the final episode, which was screened just before Christmas. The nation was frozen under a blanket of snow and ice; the Solidarity protests were underway in Poland, and people over there were starving; the Tory spending cuts were taking hold and the country was still only beginning to recover from the late 70s recession, yet we were all held in thrall to this elegy for British country house aristocratic life before WWII.
Jeremy Irons essentially read the book as a voiceover, and his elegaic, understated style set the tone for the whole dramatisation. John Mortimer wrote the script and I can't see any deviation from Waugh. Mortimer is a socialist atheist, about as far removed from Waugh as is possible, yet he captured the spirit of the book perfectly. The casting was perfect - I've said this before, but it's one of my bugbears, so I'll say it again - they could all speak Waugh's dialogue, and, try as they might, none of the actors in the new film could. Emme Thompson as Lady Marchmain did her best, but even she couldn't manage it. Claire Bloom played her in the TV series, and portrayed her icy elegance perfectly. Thompson was good, but somehow too robust, and coul;dn't quite manage to excise the estuary from her voice. Patrick Malahide as Charles's father did better, as did Michael Gambon as Lord Marchmain, but when you know they were following in the footsteps of John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier then even these fine actors are going to seem somewhat diminished. Gielgud caught Mr Ryder's unworldly yet lethal self-absorption so perfectly, it's hard to imagine it being done any better.
I must also mention Phoebe Nicholls as Cordelia. She captured her heartfelt goodness perfectly. She only made the most perfunctory appearance in the new film - a merely token presence only, but in the book, and the TV series, she's central. She's a living embodiment of how Catholic lfe should be lived, and example to all the other characters, and she could have been insufferable, but Nicholls made her enchanting. I suppose the filmmakers either couldn't find anyone who could play the part convincingly, or they just couldn't be bothered with her, seeing her as just a priggish goody-goody.
Anyway, what was good about the new film was Ben Whishaw as Sebastian. I love Whishaw as an actor, and I think he's something very special. He had some bad reviews and I couldn't find anyone who was prepared to say a good word about his performance. But I though he captured Sebastian's damaged fragility perfectly. Anthony Andrews was of course superb, and managed to convey Sebastian's self-knowledge and deliberate self-destruction beautifully, but he was physically wrong - too tall and too robust. He towered over Irons which somehow seemed wrong, while Whishaw seemed as is he might break at any moment, which is how I always imagined Sebastian.
Mortimer, in spite of his atheism, never shied away from the religion, which is central to the book. Waugh says in the preface that it's the subject, but the film pushed it aside as a kind of annoying extra that they had to somehow fit in, but wasn't really interested. Mortimer was interested, and in the book Charles comes to recognise the operation of grace - something which the film ignores. Film Charles remains a doubter, which is wrong. Which makes Julia's refusal to continue their relationship meaningless. And that's another thing - Julia. Diana Quick in the TV series was perfect, brittle, but vulnerable. Again Hayley Atwell did her best but was too solid. You just couldn't imagine her giving up Charles for God.
So, a missed opportunity perhaps, but I don't think the book is filmable nowadays on any level. You have to be able to call on people who are prepared to take Waugh seriously, and I don't think any one is these days. Oh well....I suppose we'll never see another good Waugh adaptaion, though there are plenty out there already. Kristin Scott Thomas in A Handful of Dust - another actress who can speak properly And does anyone remember the marvellous Sword of Honour BBC serial in the 1960s, with Edward Woodward? A creditable version was done a few years ago with Daniel Craig which I remember as being rather good, but, in the end, the books are so good that they spring to life in one's head.
We thought we were going to be the only people in the audience (we were, once before, when we saw the Hamlet set in a present-day New York loft apartment, starring Ethan Hawke. It was quite good actually, but a rather weird experience, watching Hamlet in a deserted multiplex auditorium). But 2 more people turned up, so the 4 of us settled down, rattling around in a huge cinema.
Brideshead is something I feel very attached to; I read the book back in the 1970s, so I was very much the age my daughter is now when I first encountered it. I read it several times, luxuriating in Waugh's perfect prose and inimitable storytelling. I went on to read most of Waugh's other novels, and then his diaries and letters. His l;ife was fascinating - although far removed from my own world, I was seduced, and still am, by the whole Waugh milieu.
Anyway, along came the ITV serial in about 1981, starring Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews, which of course became a benchmark for so-called 'heritage' drama serials. In the days when there were only 3 channels, it became compulsive viewing for millions, and the nation was riveted. I remember looking forward with high excitement to the final episode, which was screened just before Christmas. The nation was frozen under a blanket of snow and ice; the Solidarity protests were underway in Poland, and people over there were starving; the Tory spending cuts were taking hold and the country was still only beginning to recover from the late 70s recession, yet we were all held in thrall to this elegy for British country house aristocratic life before WWII.
Jeremy Irons essentially read the book as a voiceover, and his elegaic, understated style set the tone for the whole dramatisation. John Mortimer wrote the script and I can't see any deviation from Waugh. Mortimer is a socialist atheist, about as far removed from Waugh as is possible, yet he captured the spirit of the book perfectly. The casting was perfect - I've said this before, but it's one of my bugbears, so I'll say it again - they could all speak Waugh's dialogue, and, try as they might, none of the actors in the new film could. Emme Thompson as Lady Marchmain did her best, but even she couldn't manage it. Claire Bloom played her in the TV series, and portrayed her icy elegance perfectly. Thompson was good, but somehow too robust, and coul;dn't quite manage to excise the estuary from her voice. Patrick Malahide as Charles's father did better, as did Michael Gambon as Lord Marchmain, but when you know they were following in the footsteps of John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier then even these fine actors are going to seem somewhat diminished. Gielgud caught Mr Ryder's unworldly yet lethal self-absorption so perfectly, it's hard to imagine it being done any better.
I must also mention Phoebe Nicholls as Cordelia. She captured her heartfelt goodness perfectly. She only made the most perfunctory appearance in the new film - a merely token presence only, but in the book, and the TV series, she's central. She's a living embodiment of how Catholic lfe should be lived, and example to all the other characters, and she could have been insufferable, but Nicholls made her enchanting. I suppose the filmmakers either couldn't find anyone who could play the part convincingly, or they just couldn't be bothered with her, seeing her as just a priggish goody-goody.
Anyway, what was good about the new film was Ben Whishaw as Sebastian. I love Whishaw as an actor, and I think he's something very special. He had some bad reviews and I couldn't find anyone who was prepared to say a good word about his performance. But I though he captured Sebastian's damaged fragility perfectly. Anthony Andrews was of course superb, and managed to convey Sebastian's self-knowledge and deliberate self-destruction beautifully, but he was physically wrong - too tall and too robust. He towered over Irons which somehow seemed wrong, while Whishaw seemed as is he might break at any moment, which is how I always imagined Sebastian.
Mortimer, in spite of his atheism, never shied away from the religion, which is central to the book. Waugh says in the preface that it's the subject, but the film pushed it aside as a kind of annoying extra that they had to somehow fit in, but wasn't really interested. Mortimer was interested, and in the book Charles comes to recognise the operation of grace - something which the film ignores. Film Charles remains a doubter, which is wrong. Which makes Julia's refusal to continue their relationship meaningless. And that's another thing - Julia. Diana Quick in the TV series was perfect, brittle, but vulnerable. Again Hayley Atwell did her best but was too solid. You just couldn't imagine her giving up Charles for God.
So, a missed opportunity perhaps, but I don't think the book is filmable nowadays on any level. You have to be able to call on people who are prepared to take Waugh seriously, and I don't think any one is these days. Oh well....I suppose we'll never see another good Waugh adaptaion, though there are plenty out there already. Kristin Scott Thomas in A Handful of Dust - another actress who can speak properly And does anyone remember the marvellous Sword of Honour BBC serial in the 1960s, with Edward Woodward? A creditable version was done a few years ago with Daniel Craig which I remember as being rather good, but, in the end, the books are so good that they spring to life in one's head.
Monday, 6 October 2008
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy's book has been dramatised before, notably by Roman Polanski nearly 30 years ago. I saw it at the time, but I need to revisit it -Nastassia Kinski was Tess and that's about all I can remember.
I first read the book as a young teenager; I'd never heard of Hardy until I read an article in the teen magazine Petticoat when I was about 12 or 13. Petticoat was a new publication which sought to capture the burgeoning early-60s ethos and attempted to be different from longer-established mags such as Jackie. It contained the usual cartoon-strips and articles on fashion, makeup and relationships, but it also touched on cultural topics, and its earliest issues had celebrities talking about their favourite books. Jean Shrimpton, the Kate Moss of the 60s, talked about Tess of the D'Urbervilles and what it meant to her, and I was captivated. Something I've never forgotted was her description of the passage where the dairymaids cross a stream on their way to church dressed in their best clothes. Shrimpton talked about the skirts of their white muslin dresses flying up and butterflies being trapped in them, and what a miraculous image that was. I was captivated and resolved to read Hardy as soon as I could.
Of course I wasn't aware that the 60s saw a renaissance of interest in Hardy's novels. He'd fallen out of favour since his death, but his books had begun to appear on the 'O' and 'A' Level syllabuses. We did The Woodlanders for 'O'Level and The Return of the Native for 'A' Level, and we all loved them, but Tess, and Jude the Obscure were not surprisingly kept off the syllabus. Of course these two, both emotional rollercoasters are strong meat, and were my favourites. Tess is the perfect book for romantically-inclined adolescents, but I think it really must have beed a sixties thing, as ny children, when asked to read Hardy at school, were unmoved. I don't know it was because they were boys, but I have a feeling that Hardy's books caught the temperature of the times, and the 80s were less sympathetic to his work.
Anyway, the TV series. This production was a typical 2000s BBC costume drama; high production values, great care lavished on sets and costunes, a lush musical score and easy-on-the-eye actors. This can have mixed results - for example, Gemma Arterton as Tess looked perfect, very much as I'd always imagined Tess; tall, beautiful and with a slightly other-worldly appearance, a bit apart from everyone else, with a faraway look in her eyes. The actor who played Angel though, was wrong, wrong, wrong. He looked far too young, and had a petulant look on his face, as if he was always about to stick his lower lip out. He was also too small. I'd always seen Angel as a big man; fair-haired, yes and a chilly character, but he was a man of weight and substance. This version was a callow adolescent. But maybe it's my vision that's wrong.
Anyway I enjoyed the first 3 episodes, but the final one dragged, and although I dutifully watched it through to the end, I'd lost interest long before. Tess's fate left me unmoved, and I'm not sure why. I suppose I just didn't believe a word of it. The thing with Hardy is that you do believe it when you're reading it, however preposterous the story.
Anyway, time to have another look at the Polanski, I think.
I first read the book as a young teenager; I'd never heard of Hardy until I read an article in the teen magazine Petticoat when I was about 12 or 13. Petticoat was a new publication which sought to capture the burgeoning early-60s ethos and attempted to be different from longer-established mags such as Jackie. It contained the usual cartoon-strips and articles on fashion, makeup and relationships, but it also touched on cultural topics, and its earliest issues had celebrities talking about their favourite books. Jean Shrimpton, the Kate Moss of the 60s, talked about Tess of the D'Urbervilles and what it meant to her, and I was captivated. Something I've never forgotted was her description of the passage where the dairymaids cross a stream on their way to church dressed in their best clothes. Shrimpton talked about the skirts of their white muslin dresses flying up and butterflies being trapped in them, and what a miraculous image that was. I was captivated and resolved to read Hardy as soon as I could.
Of course I wasn't aware that the 60s saw a renaissance of interest in Hardy's novels. He'd fallen out of favour since his death, but his books had begun to appear on the 'O' and 'A' Level syllabuses. We did The Woodlanders for 'O'Level and The Return of the Native for 'A' Level, and we all loved them, but Tess, and Jude the Obscure were not surprisingly kept off the syllabus. Of course these two, both emotional rollercoasters are strong meat, and were my favourites. Tess is the perfect book for romantically-inclined adolescents, but I think it really must have beed a sixties thing, as ny children, when asked to read Hardy at school, were unmoved. I don't know it was because they were boys, but I have a feeling that Hardy's books caught the temperature of the times, and the 80s were less sympathetic to his work.
Anyway, the TV series. This production was a typical 2000s BBC costume drama; high production values, great care lavished on sets and costunes, a lush musical score and easy-on-the-eye actors. This can have mixed results - for example, Gemma Arterton as Tess looked perfect, very much as I'd always imagined Tess; tall, beautiful and with a slightly other-worldly appearance, a bit apart from everyone else, with a faraway look in her eyes. The actor who played Angel though, was wrong, wrong, wrong. He looked far too young, and had a petulant look on his face, as if he was always about to stick his lower lip out. He was also too small. I'd always seen Angel as a big man; fair-haired, yes and a chilly character, but he was a man of weight and substance. This version was a callow adolescent. But maybe it's my vision that's wrong.
Anyway I enjoyed the first 3 episodes, but the final one dragged, and although I dutifully watched it through to the end, I'd lost interest long before. Tess's fate left me unmoved, and I'm not sure why. I suppose I just didn't believe a word of it. The thing with Hardy is that you do believe it when you're reading it, however preposterous the story.
Anyway, time to have another look at the Polanski, I think.
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