I watched this last night, being unable to resist costume dramas, and it was the BBC, so my expectations were pretty high. I though it was excellent, on the whole, though with a few caveats. There seems to be a costume drama template these days - persistent, lush music, long shots of country houses, most of which are surely too grand for their inhabitants, and nice costumes (of course). Productions which diverge from this pattern, such as the recent Bleak House, stand out startlingly, and I wish there was a bit more innovation and imagination. It's as if the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, which was such a stunning success, has redefined cotume drama for ever, and that model has become set in stone.
Anyway, this wasn't bad - I was intrigued and attracted by the casting of Olivia Williams, an actress who I think is shamefully underused. I remember her in Rushmore, and The Sixth Sense, an interesting British presence in these 2 US films, and she's been in several films since, but nothing prominent. I see on the IMDB that she's had 2 children in the last 3 years, so that would explain quite a bit. Maybe she has one of those interesting faces that looks better in middle age, and as I see she's nearly 40 I suspect we may see more from her.
She was excellent, I thought - endowing Jane Austen with wit, character and intelligence. Her sister Cassandra was played by Greta Scacchi - unrecognisable. I didn't realise it was her until I read an article in the paper. She's aged with dignity as well, and it was nice to see a programme with 2 middle-aged, Botox-free women in starring roles.
Both women reinvented their characters for the 21st century, but there's nothing wrong with that, period productions have done it since the dawn of cinematic time. But what's refreshing is to see actresses with intelligence and lack of vanity, making their characters spring to life for us. It's not new, but it's not always the case. It's essential, for period drama to work, that we can believe in the characters, and this production succeeded admirably.
Monday, 28 April 2008
Saturday, 26 April 2008
Mike Leigh
I've always felt a tad ambivalent towards Mike Leigh's films. I suppose, coming from a working-class background myself, I've sometimes found his portrayals of the working-class life to be patronising, with an undercurrent of nastiness, and plain wrong. Now, I don't know much about his background, except that he's from a Jewish Mancunian family, and that he's even older that me ( a quick look at the IMDB confirms that he's 65), but his work seems to have been part of the landscape in one form or another for as long as I can remember.
Abigail's Party, his 1970s TV play for which he's celebrated - well, I have to say I never found it funny, and thought Alison Steadman's performance was grotesque and a caricature. She repeated it years later in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice (the famous Colin Firth one in 1995) as Mrs Bennett, and I thought Brenda Blethyn played the part much better in the recent film.
Anyway, back to Mike Leigh. I thought Topsy-Turvy and Vera Drake were both wonderful - it's as if making a period film released him from something. They were both warm, humane and engrossing, with marvellous performances from all concerned. They both captured their respective periods perfectly - I took my mother to see Vera Drake and she was deeply moved. I noticed that it was set in November 1950, the month in which I was born, and its recreation of the cramped, dark, spartan, yet warm and convivial lives was almost tangible. My memories of the early 50s are fragmentary, but for her, as a young woman, it would have been like going back in time to see it so perfectly evoked.
So, I went along to see Happy-Go-Lucky, his first film since Vera Drake, buoyed by the largely favourable reviews it received everywhere, though he's usually given a pretty easy ride by the press. I suppose his caricatures of the lower middle classes resonate with metropolitan professionals, as it's the background from which so many of them have escaped. Anyway, although Leigh usually uses cheerful titles ironically, it was refreshingly free of all that, but it was hard to appreciate Poppy, the relentlessly cheerful and optimistic heroine. We see this straight away, as the bike on which she sails breezily round the streets of London, is stolen, and she blithely accepts it, and doesn't even kick the railings to which she'd locked it. She responds to everything with cheerfully sarcastic backchat, which is never funny, just annoying, but you end up sort of liking her, though she'd drive you mad if she was your friend.
It's her acceptance of what life has offered her, and her determination to make the best of things, however unpromising, that does it. She's 30, lives in a cramped rented flat with her friend, and is a primary school teacher, and is clearly in a job she loves. Her energy and enthusiasm is infectious, and you end up wishing there were more people like her around, even if she does drive you up the wall. It's her lack of vanity which does it, and her goodness of heart -
After deciding to have driving lessons before getting a car, she hooks up with grumpy, misanthropic driving instructor, played by Eddie Marsan, who, in typical schematic Leigh fashion, is the polar opposite of Poppy, and puts her in sharp relief.
Another thing I liked was the use of unfashionable parts of London - no Gherkin or Tate Modern - just Finsbury Park, more the London I'm used to; the streets seemed very familiar.
So, a decent Leigh film, in the end, and one I enjoyed. I guess it may be time to revisit his earlier stuff and take another look.
Abigail's Party, his 1970s TV play for which he's celebrated - well, I have to say I never found it funny, and thought Alison Steadman's performance was grotesque and a caricature. She repeated it years later in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice (the famous Colin Firth one in 1995) as Mrs Bennett, and I thought Brenda Blethyn played the part much better in the recent film.
Anyway, back to Mike Leigh. I thought Topsy-Turvy and Vera Drake were both wonderful - it's as if making a period film released him from something. They were both warm, humane and engrossing, with marvellous performances from all concerned. They both captured their respective periods perfectly - I took my mother to see Vera Drake and she was deeply moved. I noticed that it was set in November 1950, the month in which I was born, and its recreation of the cramped, dark, spartan, yet warm and convivial lives was almost tangible. My memories of the early 50s are fragmentary, but for her, as a young woman, it would have been like going back in time to see it so perfectly evoked.
So, I went along to see Happy-Go-Lucky, his first film since Vera Drake, buoyed by the largely favourable reviews it received everywhere, though he's usually given a pretty easy ride by the press. I suppose his caricatures of the lower middle classes resonate with metropolitan professionals, as it's the background from which so many of them have escaped. Anyway, although Leigh usually uses cheerful titles ironically, it was refreshingly free of all that, but it was hard to appreciate Poppy, the relentlessly cheerful and optimistic heroine. We see this straight away, as the bike on which she sails breezily round the streets of London, is stolen, and she blithely accepts it, and doesn't even kick the railings to which she'd locked it. She responds to everything with cheerfully sarcastic backchat, which is never funny, just annoying, but you end up sort of liking her, though she'd drive you mad if she was your friend.
It's her acceptance of what life has offered her, and her determination to make the best of things, however unpromising, that does it. She's 30, lives in a cramped rented flat with her friend, and is a primary school teacher, and is clearly in a job she loves. Her energy and enthusiasm is infectious, and you end up wishing there were more people like her around, even if she does drive you up the wall. It's her lack of vanity which does it, and her goodness of heart -
After deciding to have driving lessons before getting a car, she hooks up with grumpy, misanthropic driving instructor, played by Eddie Marsan, who, in typical schematic Leigh fashion, is the polar opposite of Poppy, and puts her in sharp relief.
Another thing I liked was the use of unfashionable parts of London - no Gherkin or Tate Modern - just Finsbury Park, more the London I'm used to; the streets seemed very familiar.
So, a decent Leigh film, in the end, and one I enjoyed. I guess it may be time to revisit his earlier stuff and take another look.
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
The Aviator
I watched The Aviator a couple of nights ago on BBC-2. It was, oh, about the fourth time I'd seen it, but I never need an excuse to see a Scorsese film, and to have on on prime-time telly (not a common occurence) was too good to miss. I'd seen it twice at the cinema and once on TV already, but I still found it as fresh as a daisy.
This film is the one in which one can safely say Leonardo Di Caprio came of age. It's the first one I can think of in which he had to age, playing a fully-fledged adult, and he did it in style. I think it's a fantastic performance, but it received relatively little recognition, as did the film in general, which is pretty normal for Scorsese. OK. he got his Oscar last year, ostensibly for The Departed, but everyone knew it was a rather shamefaced recognition for a lifetime devoted to brilliant film-making. I thought The Departed was fine - comparing it to the good but comparatively run-of-the-mill American Gangster puts it into perspective. it's a far more substantial work. But, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Casino, Raging Bull - I could go on, and on and on and on. I watch Goodfellas regularly, just to remind myself that there's no-one to touch Scorsese as a director, just in case I forget momentarily.
Anyway, The Aviator is a tour-de-force - little things, like the way in which Scorsese has filmed each period in Howard Hughes' life in the style of the relevant period. Washy colour for the 20s and 30s, then moving to the more strident technicolor of the 40s. I don't know whether that was Scorsese's idea, but he's very sensitive towards how his films look and would have made it possible.
I loved the justly-famous sequence at the Hepburn house in Connecticut - Katherine Hepburn, in the early days of her affair with Hughes, takes him to meet her large, patrician family at their country house. It's a gruelling experience for him as he endures their rat-a-tat, brittle conversation over the dinner table. Cate Blanchett justly won the best-supporting actress Oscar for her performance as Hepburn, but there are plenty of other superb performers on display in the scene, such as the marvellous Frances Conroy from Six Feet Under as Hepburn's mother. I could go on to list the many people who stand out in the film, often in small but telling parts, such as Danny Huston, Alec Baldwin, and Jude Law, not one of my favourite actors, who plays Errol Flynn, perfectly. (Law peaked, in my opinion, as Dickie Greenleaf, in the late-lamented Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr Ripley, another criminally-underated film, and hasn't done anything as good since). And of course the peerless Alan Alda as Senator Brewster, and Ian Holm. Plus an appearance from one of my favourite singers, Rufus Wainwright, singing in the Cocoanut Grove. What more could one ask for?
I love hearing Scorsese talk about film - I have a video of his history of American cinema, and I taped his Italian film history when it was on BBC-4 a few years back. He talks passionately and intelligently about cinema and I could listen to him all day. I won't be going to see his latest film Shine a Light - he loves the Stones, but I really can't pay to watch a bunch of sixty-somethings prance aroud the stage. I'll catch it on TV but I'll watch it because its Scorsese. The Stones story is, I suppose, over-familiar for me, stale and uninteresting.
Nevertheless, Scoresese's left a remarkable legacy, and even if he never makes another film again, which isn't going to happen, his films can be watched over and over again. The man loves the medium, and it shows in every frame.
This film is the one in which one can safely say Leonardo Di Caprio came of age. It's the first one I can think of in which he had to age, playing a fully-fledged adult, and he did it in style. I think it's a fantastic performance, but it received relatively little recognition, as did the film in general, which is pretty normal for Scorsese. OK. he got his Oscar last year, ostensibly for The Departed, but everyone knew it was a rather shamefaced recognition for a lifetime devoted to brilliant film-making. I thought The Departed was fine - comparing it to the good but comparatively run-of-the-mill American Gangster puts it into perspective. it's a far more substantial work. But, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Casino, Raging Bull - I could go on, and on and on and on. I watch Goodfellas regularly, just to remind myself that there's no-one to touch Scorsese as a director, just in case I forget momentarily.
Anyway, The Aviator is a tour-de-force - little things, like the way in which Scorsese has filmed each period in Howard Hughes' life in the style of the relevant period. Washy colour for the 20s and 30s, then moving to the more strident technicolor of the 40s. I don't know whether that was Scorsese's idea, but he's very sensitive towards how his films look and would have made it possible.
I loved the justly-famous sequence at the Hepburn house in Connecticut - Katherine Hepburn, in the early days of her affair with Hughes, takes him to meet her large, patrician family at their country house. It's a gruelling experience for him as he endures their rat-a-tat, brittle conversation over the dinner table. Cate Blanchett justly won the best-supporting actress Oscar for her performance as Hepburn, but there are plenty of other superb performers on display in the scene, such as the marvellous Frances Conroy from Six Feet Under as Hepburn's mother. I could go on to list the many people who stand out in the film, often in small but telling parts, such as Danny Huston, Alec Baldwin, and Jude Law, not one of my favourite actors, who plays Errol Flynn, perfectly. (Law peaked, in my opinion, as Dickie Greenleaf, in the late-lamented Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr Ripley, another criminally-underated film, and hasn't done anything as good since). And of course the peerless Alan Alda as Senator Brewster, and Ian Holm. Plus an appearance from one of my favourite singers, Rufus Wainwright, singing in the Cocoanut Grove. What more could one ask for?
I love hearing Scorsese talk about film - I have a video of his history of American cinema, and I taped his Italian film history when it was on BBC-4 a few years back. He talks passionately and intelligently about cinema and I could listen to him all day. I won't be going to see his latest film Shine a Light - he loves the Stones, but I really can't pay to watch a bunch of sixty-somethings prance aroud the stage. I'll catch it on TV but I'll watch it because its Scorsese. The Stones story is, I suppose, over-familiar for me, stale and uninteresting.
Nevertheless, Scoresese's left a remarkable legacy, and even if he never makes another film again, which isn't going to happen, his films can be watched over and over again. The man loves the medium, and it shows in every frame.
Sunday, 13 April 2008
Ed Wood
I watched Ed Wood the other night on pay-per-view TV - I'd seen it before quite a while ago, but fancied it again, and anyway, to be honest, I don't need much of an excuse to watch a Johnny Depp/Tim Burton film.
It's a subject ready-made for a film - the story of the least-successful, least regarded film director in cinema history. I'm sure there were plenty of others as bad, but Ed Wood is nearly always singled out, and his Plan 9 From Outer Space regularly tops the charts as worst film ever made.
Wood's exotic personality helped - he was a transvestite, with an absurdly inflated opinion of his own film-making talents, but Depp plays him as one of nature's innocents, with a delightful lack of self-awareness. When confronted with a setback (which happens frequently), he gazes into the middle distance, then a wide-eyed smile lights up his face as he thinks of a solution. He clearly loves film, but has no concept of what makes great cinema. He gazes in wonder and delight as his hopeless actors speak his dreadful lines. He breathes 'cut', imagining that he's just filmed Citizen Kane, as another excruciating scene is shot.
The cross-dressing scenes could have been difficult, but Depp, who of course looks great in women's clothing, rises to the challenge, portraying Wood's penchant for dressing in women's clothing as a response to any difficulty. He simply feels more comfortable dressed as a woman, and it shows. Only an actor with Depp's obvious self-confidence and daring could pull it off. He's shown time and time again that he's not afraid to go that little bit further. He made the hideous Pirates of the Caribbean franchise as successful as it was, putting the hapless Bloom and Knightley firmly in the shade, where they belonged, by giving the character a life of its own.
Anyway, Ed Wood's a delightful chamber piece and well worth catching again. Special mention to Jeffrey Jones - a character actor who's rarely noticed, but who never fails to illuminate a film no matter how insignificant his part. He first came to my notice as the Emperor Joseph II in Amadeus, with his famous 'too many notes' aside during the first performance of Figaro.
Martin Landau won an Oscar for his heartbreakingly affecting performance as Bela Lugosi and the film is littered with gems. I can't praise it too highly - it's a gem!
It's a subject ready-made for a film - the story of the least-successful, least regarded film director in cinema history. I'm sure there were plenty of others as bad, but Ed Wood is nearly always singled out, and his Plan 9 From Outer Space regularly tops the charts as worst film ever made.
Wood's exotic personality helped - he was a transvestite, with an absurdly inflated opinion of his own film-making talents, but Depp plays him as one of nature's innocents, with a delightful lack of self-awareness. When confronted with a setback (which happens frequently), he gazes into the middle distance, then a wide-eyed smile lights up his face as he thinks of a solution. He clearly loves film, but has no concept of what makes great cinema. He gazes in wonder and delight as his hopeless actors speak his dreadful lines. He breathes 'cut', imagining that he's just filmed Citizen Kane, as another excruciating scene is shot.
The cross-dressing scenes could have been difficult, but Depp, who of course looks great in women's clothing, rises to the challenge, portraying Wood's penchant for dressing in women's clothing as a response to any difficulty. He simply feels more comfortable dressed as a woman, and it shows. Only an actor with Depp's obvious self-confidence and daring could pull it off. He's shown time and time again that he's not afraid to go that little bit further. He made the hideous Pirates of the Caribbean franchise as successful as it was, putting the hapless Bloom and Knightley firmly in the shade, where they belonged, by giving the character a life of its own.
Anyway, Ed Wood's a delightful chamber piece and well worth catching again. Special mention to Jeffrey Jones - a character actor who's rarely noticed, but who never fails to illuminate a film no matter how insignificant his part. He first came to my notice as the Emperor Joseph II in Amadeus, with his famous 'too many notes' aside during the first performance of Figaro.
Martin Landau won an Oscar for his heartbreakingly affecting performance as Bela Lugosi and the film is littered with gems. I can't praise it too highly - it's a gem!
Sunday, 30 March 2008
Robinson in Space
This is a real original - I'd seen and taped (I still have it) London, made by the same director, Patrick Keillor around the same time, the mid-1990s, and knew that Robinson existed, so I decided to rent it from Amazon.
Well, above all, it's a period piece. Released in 1997, it chronicles a Britain on the cusp of electing a Labour Government by a landslide, after nearly 20 years of Thatcherite conservatism and the seismic changes wrought by that government. Labour was to preside over a similar level of change, but of course no-one was to know that in 1997. A kind of malaise hangs over the country but of course now we know what happened after it is loaded with unintended meaning.
Basically 'Robinson' is commissioned by an unspecified employer to investigate the 'problem' of England, and undertakes 7 journeys with his companion, the narrator, voiced by the late, great Paul Scofield. I had a look at some stuff on the web about the film, and apparently it's a contemporary version of Daniel Defoe's travels as a spy around the country in the 17th century.
Anyway, I found it a fascinating film. All it is is a series of shots of the landscape; shopping malls, factories, used and disused, bypasses, motorways, service stations, building sites, historical monuments and properties, railway stations - but also Oxbridge and Eton. The narrative tells a hidden story - visibly, the country seems to be in decline - there's dereliction everywhere. But underneath runs power, it's in the hands of the few, and it's invisible.
So there's a powerful message, but, to be honest, I was held by the images, the sort of places that
I've always loved - railway stations, places of transit, run-down city areas, I have a natural affinity with them. They make me feel comfortable in a strange way. Somehow I prefer city streets to empty landscapes, which sometimes have an undercurrent of menace. But that's just me.....
So, now for London - I saw it years ago but I've forgotten it ; I shall look forward to it with anticipation.
Well, above all, it's a period piece. Released in 1997, it chronicles a Britain on the cusp of electing a Labour Government by a landslide, after nearly 20 years of Thatcherite conservatism and the seismic changes wrought by that government. Labour was to preside over a similar level of change, but of course no-one was to know that in 1997. A kind of malaise hangs over the country but of course now we know what happened after it is loaded with unintended meaning.
Basically 'Robinson' is commissioned by an unspecified employer to investigate the 'problem' of England, and undertakes 7 journeys with his companion, the narrator, voiced by the late, great Paul Scofield. I had a look at some stuff on the web about the film, and apparently it's a contemporary version of Daniel Defoe's travels as a spy around the country in the 17th century.
Anyway, I found it a fascinating film. All it is is a series of shots of the landscape; shopping malls, factories, used and disused, bypasses, motorways, service stations, building sites, historical monuments and properties, railway stations - but also Oxbridge and Eton. The narrative tells a hidden story - visibly, the country seems to be in decline - there's dereliction everywhere. But underneath runs power, it's in the hands of the few, and it's invisible.
So there's a powerful message, but, to be honest, I was held by the images, the sort of places that
I've always loved - railway stations, places of transit, run-down city areas, I have a natural affinity with them. They make me feel comfortable in a strange way. Somehow I prefer city streets to empty landscapes, which sometimes have an undercurrent of menace. But that's just me.....
So, now for London - I saw it years ago but I've forgotten it ; I shall look forward to it with anticipation.
Friday, 21 March 2008
Derek Jarman
I've been having a bit of a Derek Jarman-fest over the last few days. I taped a film portrait which was screened on More4, together with Blue, and found an old tape I'd made years ago of The Last of England, and then The Garden, my latest rental from Amazon. I taped Derek, a biographical portrait, and Blue, his last film when they were screened on More4 recently, so I finally got around to watching those as well.
I first came across Jarman without realising it in 1971 when I saw Ken Russell's The Devils. Jarman was responsible for the extraordinary sets - modernist white walls and tiles for a film set in 17th century-France. The Devils remains one of my top ten films and is scandalously unreleased on DVD, though I have a bootleg copy I got on Ebay. It demands a special edition with copious extras but Warner Bros won't play ball....sigh.
Anyway, back to Jarman. Of course in 1971 I had no idea who Jarman was, but over the years I became aware of his forays into the frontiers of avant-garde Super-8 film. So, was he a 60s, 70s, or 80s figure? It's difficult - he was born in 1942, so was in his 20s in the 1960s, but came to prominence in the 70s, and was at the heart of the punk scene and of the anti-Thatcherite Gay Liberation movement in the 1980s, eventually dying of AIDS in 1994
Watching Derek though, it's clear that he was always immersed in anti-establishment, 60's values and beliefs. His life from the moment he went to the Slade in London was a revolt against his upbringing, which was a very typically middle class army background. Derek is full of home movies showing an affluent, suburban household, with nicely dressed children playing on manicured lawns, yet in all Jarman's work there is a very 60s nostalgia for the trappings of his parent's life. This was always one of the great paradoxes of the 60s - as evidenced by the fashion for dressing up in Victorian costume and facial hair. Yes, it was a fad, but old photos and films became part of the visual landscape in a way they had never done before, and I think it was part of a reaction against the post-war obsession with modernity at all costs. The rejection of modernist architecture was part of all this. Jarman's films are saturated with the past - even though he is nearly always angrily rejecting it, attacking it, or satirising it or laughing at it.
Anyway Jarman, although a child of the 60s, came of age with the advent of punk and obviously felt far more comfortable with it ethos, such as it was, than with the hippies. And, as a gay man, he had more to reject. Although gay lib grew out of the 60s demands for liberation, free love was largely a heterosexual affair.
The Last of England, made in 1988, is a distillation of his feelings towards his native land. Made at the height of the AIDS panic/crisis, it's an angry, often confused but also elegaic vision of post-industrial decline, steeped in apocalyptic alienation yet replete with beautiful, startling images. It's full of home movies and 'found' footage, with a paradoxically upper-class voice speaking Jarman's narrative (actor Nigel Terry).
Today it looks a period piece and reminds me of the films we used to make at art school in the late 60s. Armed with a Super-8 camera (which is what Jarman used in many of his films), we went out into derelict houses and shot bizarre, meaningless little movies, which we took extremely seriously. There's a scene in The Last of England in which a couple of men have sex on a Union Jack spread out on a floor and it's the sort of filming we would love to have made in 1969.
The Garden was released in 1990 and by now Jarman knew he had full-blown AIDS. It's a strange film, made in the now-famous garden of his cabin in Dungeness. It's clearly an amazing place, inspirational and haunting, with the huge nuclear power station looming in the near distance and Jarman was obviously inspired by living there. The film's full of religious imagery - in Derek he talks about his education, and he was at St Juliana's, a private convent in Abingdon, for a while. I remember the place - we used to play them at netball. I'd be amazed if it's still there; it was one of those tiny little private schools, of which there were many in and around Oxford. Anyway, The Garden is full of Catholic imagery - obvously the Church had come out heavily against homosexuality, but in Jarman's films, there's always this split personality there, love and hate. There's a lot of gay martyrdom, and the whole Clause 4 debate and the AIDS panic must have engendered a feeling of intense persecution among gay men.
Much of The Garden is tediously tiresome, but I'm glad it was made, and it's great to have footage of his garden, as now it's become a bit of a tourist attraction, something I'm sure he would have hated.
Blue was his last film, and is simply a blue screen with a voice-over. By now Jarman was virtually blind, and the narrative chronicles his descent into the privations and huniliations of his treatment. It's rather wonderful and, typically, iconoclastic and challenging. It's funny, but in the interviews with him recorded for Derek, it's clear that he was such a nice man, funny and charming, with a great deal of self-deprecation - typically English, one might say, and that's clearly how he saw himself.
I'm looking forward to seeing some of his earlier films - they're rather addictive and compelling. I must mention the sound and music - it's tremendous. He worked with the same composers repeatedly, and in fact a glance at the IMDB will tell you that people worked with Jarman over and over again. There's the famous ones, such as Tilda Swinton, who could almost be called Jarman's muse, but many others turn up repeatedly. he obviously attracted people to hilm and they loved him - simple as that. It shows.
I first came across Jarman without realising it in 1971 when I saw Ken Russell's The Devils. Jarman was responsible for the extraordinary sets - modernist white walls and tiles for a film set in 17th century-France. The Devils remains one of my top ten films and is scandalously unreleased on DVD, though I have a bootleg copy I got on Ebay. It demands a special edition with copious extras but Warner Bros won't play ball....sigh.
Anyway, back to Jarman. Of course in 1971 I had no idea who Jarman was, but over the years I became aware of his forays into the frontiers of avant-garde Super-8 film. So, was he a 60s, 70s, or 80s figure? It's difficult - he was born in 1942, so was in his 20s in the 1960s, but came to prominence in the 70s, and was at the heart of the punk scene and of the anti-Thatcherite Gay Liberation movement in the 1980s, eventually dying of AIDS in 1994
Watching Derek though, it's clear that he was always immersed in anti-establishment, 60's values and beliefs. His life from the moment he went to the Slade in London was a revolt against his upbringing, which was a very typically middle class army background. Derek is full of home movies showing an affluent, suburban household, with nicely dressed children playing on manicured lawns, yet in all Jarman's work there is a very 60s nostalgia for the trappings of his parent's life. This was always one of the great paradoxes of the 60s - as evidenced by the fashion for dressing up in Victorian costume and facial hair. Yes, it was a fad, but old photos and films became part of the visual landscape in a way they had never done before, and I think it was part of a reaction against the post-war obsession with modernity at all costs. The rejection of modernist architecture was part of all this. Jarman's films are saturated with the past - even though he is nearly always angrily rejecting it, attacking it, or satirising it or laughing at it.
Anyway Jarman, although a child of the 60s, came of age with the advent of punk and obviously felt far more comfortable with it ethos, such as it was, than with the hippies. And, as a gay man, he had more to reject. Although gay lib grew out of the 60s demands for liberation, free love was largely a heterosexual affair.
The Last of England, made in 1988, is a distillation of his feelings towards his native land. Made at the height of the AIDS panic/crisis, it's an angry, often confused but also elegaic vision of post-industrial decline, steeped in apocalyptic alienation yet replete with beautiful, startling images. It's full of home movies and 'found' footage, with a paradoxically upper-class voice speaking Jarman's narrative (actor Nigel Terry).
Today it looks a period piece and reminds me of the films we used to make at art school in the late 60s. Armed with a Super-8 camera (which is what Jarman used in many of his films), we went out into derelict houses and shot bizarre, meaningless little movies, which we took extremely seriously. There's a scene in The Last of England in which a couple of men have sex on a Union Jack spread out on a floor and it's the sort of filming we would love to have made in 1969.
The Garden was released in 1990 and by now Jarman knew he had full-blown AIDS. It's a strange film, made in the now-famous garden of his cabin in Dungeness. It's clearly an amazing place, inspirational and haunting, with the huge nuclear power station looming in the near distance and Jarman was obviously inspired by living there. The film's full of religious imagery - in Derek he talks about his education, and he was at St Juliana's, a private convent in Abingdon, for a while. I remember the place - we used to play them at netball. I'd be amazed if it's still there; it was one of those tiny little private schools, of which there were many in and around Oxford. Anyway, The Garden is full of Catholic imagery - obvously the Church had come out heavily against homosexuality, but in Jarman's films, there's always this split personality there, love and hate. There's a lot of gay martyrdom, and the whole Clause 4 debate and the AIDS panic must have engendered a feeling of intense persecution among gay men.
Much of The Garden is tediously tiresome, but I'm glad it was made, and it's great to have footage of his garden, as now it's become a bit of a tourist attraction, something I'm sure he would have hated.
Blue was his last film, and is simply a blue screen with a voice-over. By now Jarman was virtually blind, and the narrative chronicles his descent into the privations and huniliations of his treatment. It's rather wonderful and, typically, iconoclastic and challenging. It's funny, but in the interviews with him recorded for Derek, it's clear that he was such a nice man, funny and charming, with a great deal of self-deprecation - typically English, one might say, and that's clearly how he saw himself.
I'm looking forward to seeing some of his earlier films - they're rather addictive and compelling. I must mention the sound and music - it's tremendous. He worked with the same composers repeatedly, and in fact a glance at the IMDB will tell you that people worked with Jarman over and over again. There's the famous ones, such as Tilda Swinton, who could almost be called Jarman's muse, but many others turn up repeatedly. he obviously attracted people to hilm and they loved him - simple as that. It shows.
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
There Will Be Blood (part 2)
I went to see this again last night, and my view broadened and deepened that this is one of the finest films in recent memory. I took a son who hadn't seen it before and the one who came with me the first time came too as, like me, he was keen to see it again.
The beginning has to be one of the most audacious ever attempted. Plainview is prospecting, alone, the camera follows his progress in close-up, and there's no dialogue. It's a brutal scene, and it gives us an astonishingly visceral picture of the lives of the people who forgedAmerica, and created its wealth. I noticed the sound this time - it gets you right into the heart of Plainview's world. Jonny Greenwood's music is crucial, dissonant, unearthly at times - it's the bedrock of the film.
The first time I saw the film I wasn't really aware that Paul Dano played 2 parts - Paul and Eli Sunday; I sort of knew but forgot, as Paul appears near the beginning, informing Daniel that there's oil on his family's land. Eli, of course is his brother, the preacher. It's deliberately confusing, I think, and I've seen it suggested that it's intentionally ambiguous; that we're never quite sure that Paul and Eli are distinctive characters - they could be two sides of the same person. It's an intriguing possibility, and perfectly plausible, given the intelligence and complexity with which the film is constructed.
It's a film of extraordinary richness, but I don't know if I could ever bring myself to watch it on DVD. It demands to be seen on the big screen. A masterpiece.
The beginning has to be one of the most audacious ever attempted. Plainview is prospecting, alone, the camera follows his progress in close-up, and there's no dialogue. It's a brutal scene, and it gives us an astonishingly visceral picture of the lives of the people who forgedAmerica, and created its wealth. I noticed the sound this time - it gets you right into the heart of Plainview's world. Jonny Greenwood's music is crucial, dissonant, unearthly at times - it's the bedrock of the film.
The first time I saw the film I wasn't really aware that Paul Dano played 2 parts - Paul and Eli Sunday; I sort of knew but forgot, as Paul appears near the beginning, informing Daniel that there's oil on his family's land. Eli, of course is his brother, the preacher. It's deliberately confusing, I think, and I've seen it suggested that it's intentionally ambiguous; that we're never quite sure that Paul and Eli are distinctive characters - they could be two sides of the same person. It's an intriguing possibility, and perfectly plausible, given the intelligence and complexity with which the film is constructed.
It's a film of extraordinary richness, but I don't know if I could ever bring myself to watch it on DVD. It demands to be seen on the big screen. A masterpiece.
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