I'm a great fan of film, and I love to find links between films, and between the themes of films and the general cultural goings-on in the world.
Recently, I was introduced to the film, Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage. I haven't been a great fan of his, but recently I can't help but admit that he has appeared in some fantastic films.
In a City Of Angels, a remake of the Wim Wender's modern classic Wings Of Desire, he plays an Angel watching over the lives of contemporary Los Angeles residents, and he falls in love with Meg Ryan, a heart surgeon. Sufficiently so that the Angel he is decides to become a mortal, so that he can fully experience his love for the woman he is smitten with.
As a remake, it is fairly close to the original, in that all of the angels still hang around in the central reference library during the day. And they listen constantly to the worries and concerns of the human residents of the city.
It is definitely a Hollywood remake of a European film, but it is a good copy. I suppose it is one of the films that has begun to change my overall perspective on Nicolas Cage.
I was recently introduced to the film Knowing, in which Nicolas Cage is the bereaved father, the son of a Preacher that has no faith. His son has a strong sense of faith, and although not deaf, he has poor hearing because he hears the constant chatter of voices in his head.
His father is a Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of technology, and has little time for faith, especially after having lost his wife in a tragic hotel fire when she was away on business.
The plot revolves around the burial of a time capsule, and the coincidence of his own son receiving a 50 year old series of apparently random numbers, that very quickly the scientific minded Professor at MIT discovers to relate to every major disaster on the American continent during the past 50 years. Including the fire that killed his wife.
There are additional numbers that at first seem to have no meaning, but when he is present at an aeroplane crash in which 58 people die, right before his eyes, he realises that the unexplained numbers relate precisely to the GPS location of each incident of major death tolls.
Right from the outset, it is clear that the film is an exploration of the difference between randomness, and determinism. Whether or not there is some purpose to the world, and in the course of the film the father's sense of meaninglessness is thoroughly questioned, until finally he is reconciled with his Minister father.
It becomes an unravelling of a strange truth in the predictive nature of the little girl that placed the numbers in the Time capsule, and it suddenly becomes clear that she has foreseen the end of everything, to be caused by a sudden solar flare.
The destruction of the ozone layer by this solar storm will mean the end of the human race, if it were not for the strange rescue of a few young faithful, including as it turns out his own son.
Leaving aside whatever religious convictions anyone might have, it is a compelling story. A kind of ecological thriller, but one that I did not previously think much about in terms of truth and reality.
And then, today I have just seen a Horizon documentary about solar storms, and the genuine threat that they pose to the way of life that we lead in its dependence upon technology. Technology that is exceptionally vulnerable to the destructive effects of solar storms.
As we have become so dependent upon electricity and technology, so we have become vulnerable to the sudden removal of this by the unpredictable nature of solar storms.
Suddenly, a Hollywood end of the world film seems less of a fiction, and more of a warning.
Whether or not there might be a happy ending on another world through the intervention of a race of Angels, is almost beside the point.
The world in which we live is finely balanced on a Fulcrum, so little would have to change for life to have become impossible on this planet, and one wonders if perhaps we should not live as if the world is an unchanging, forever fact. That we are not beyond the possibility of being snuffed out.
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
Why Does Food Taste So Good In Films?
There is something visceral and powerful about the representation of food in films.
I have just watched Julie And Julia, starring the impressive Meryl Streep in yet another amazing role, this time as the woman that changed the way in which Americans feel about food.
It is strangely resonant for me, because a principal structural feature of the film is the way in which Julie in the present day (or close to it) sets herself the challenge of working her way through the entire contents of the cookbook written by Julia in the 1950s, and which introduces for the first time an American audience to the gastronomic joy of French cooking in English.
She sets out to do this within a calendar year, which is no mean feat since there are about 450 recipes to cook and eat.
As an aspiring writer herself, she decides to write a blog about her experience of working through this important book. At the same time as she is a government clerk.
There are few films which are solely about food, but many films in which food or eating play an important part. Sometimes surreal, but always interesting.
Perhaps one of the strangest is in one of my favourite modern films, The Lake House. Separated by two years, the protagonists arrange to meet in a restaurant that is so popular that you must book at least one year ahead.
The character in the present makes the booking, and says that she will meet the other character, two years behind her, at the restaurant on the following night. She turns up, and indeed the booking had been made, but the man she is in love with across time fails to show.
She enjoys the meal, and learns that something has prevented her time distorted lover from attending.
In Pretty Woman, Edward the millionaire businessman takes his street-walking employee as his date for an important business meeting, and Julia Roberts has to learn rather quickly how to identify the different types of cutlery she might be presented with. Slippery little suckers, snails, when eaten for the first time.
Babette's Feast is perhaps one of the few other films in which food plays a crucial central role. The plot is simple, but extraordinary. One of the finest French female chefs escapes revolutionary France by living as the servant to a couple of poor, highly religious sisters on a remote island just off the Danish coast.
The austere life of the sisters is suddenly transformed by the culinary capacities of their new cook, who has been trained in some of the most important kitchens in France.
When she suddenly wins a small fortune in some obscure late 18th century lottery, she repays the kindness that has been shown to her by her austere mistresses, by cooking the most tremendous feast.
It so happens that on this remote island at that time is a French officer that has dined in some of those extraordinary places in which the cook has learned her trade.
It is a dinner to remember, one that has never been seen the like of it in this remote and religiously austere place.
The other unusual feast that comes to mind is in a film that I saw when I was still a student in London, perhaps 30 years ago.
I recently tried to obtain a copy of the film, but it is no longer available, and even a second-hand copy from Amazon would cost around $60. A new copy would cost $140, so rare are copies of the DVD, which is no longer in stock by any retailers in this country or America.
I would like to obtain a copy of the film, the details of which I can only dimly remember.
Clearly it is a film connoisseurs product, if one can be obtained at all.
It is in Swedish and subtitled, and is entitled Montenegro.
It was the first time I ever heard Marianne Faithful sing The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan, which features in the film. As it also features later of course in Thelma And Louise.
The director of the film is apparently rather well-known for having created a film that makes up the rules of film-making as the film progresses. Needless to say, it is a rarity worth watching, especially for the role that food plays in it. Which I will not reveal here. Just in case anyone should be lucky enough to see the film.
Another film starring Meryl Streep and some lobsters is The Hours, and sadly the buffet prepared in this part of the film is never eaten. Once again, a film well worth watching.
I'm sure we will all have our memories of moments in film when food plays a significant part. It is strange that food in films should always taste so good.
I have just watched Julie And Julia, starring the impressive Meryl Streep in yet another amazing role, this time as the woman that changed the way in which Americans feel about food.
It is strangely resonant for me, because a principal structural feature of the film is the way in which Julie in the present day (or close to it) sets herself the challenge of working her way through the entire contents of the cookbook written by Julia in the 1950s, and which introduces for the first time an American audience to the gastronomic joy of French cooking in English.
She sets out to do this within a calendar year, which is no mean feat since there are about 450 recipes to cook and eat.
As an aspiring writer herself, she decides to write a blog about her experience of working through this important book. At the same time as she is a government clerk.
There are few films which are solely about food, but many films in which food or eating play an important part. Sometimes surreal, but always interesting.
Perhaps one of the strangest is in one of my favourite modern films, The Lake House. Separated by two years, the protagonists arrange to meet in a restaurant that is so popular that you must book at least one year ahead.
The character in the present makes the booking, and says that she will meet the other character, two years behind her, at the restaurant on the following night. She turns up, and indeed the booking had been made, but the man she is in love with across time fails to show.
She enjoys the meal, and learns that something has prevented her time distorted lover from attending.
In Pretty Woman, Edward the millionaire businessman takes his street-walking employee as his date for an important business meeting, and Julia Roberts has to learn rather quickly how to identify the different types of cutlery she might be presented with. Slippery little suckers, snails, when eaten for the first time.
Babette's Feast is perhaps one of the few other films in which food plays a crucial central role. The plot is simple, but extraordinary. One of the finest French female chefs escapes revolutionary France by living as the servant to a couple of poor, highly religious sisters on a remote island just off the Danish coast.
The austere life of the sisters is suddenly transformed by the culinary capacities of their new cook, who has been trained in some of the most important kitchens in France.
When she suddenly wins a small fortune in some obscure late 18th century lottery, she repays the kindness that has been shown to her by her austere mistresses, by cooking the most tremendous feast.
It so happens that on this remote island at that time is a French officer that has dined in some of those extraordinary places in which the cook has learned her trade.
It is a dinner to remember, one that has never been seen the like of it in this remote and religiously austere place.
The other unusual feast that comes to mind is in a film that I saw when I was still a student in London, perhaps 30 years ago.
I recently tried to obtain a copy of the film, but it is no longer available, and even a second-hand copy from Amazon would cost around $60. A new copy would cost $140, so rare are copies of the DVD, which is no longer in stock by any retailers in this country or America.
I would like to obtain a copy of the film, the details of which I can only dimly remember.
Clearly it is a film connoisseurs product, if one can be obtained at all.
It is in Swedish and subtitled, and is entitled Montenegro.
It was the first time I ever heard Marianne Faithful sing The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan, which features in the film. As it also features later of course in Thelma And Louise.
The director of the film is apparently rather well-known for having created a film that makes up the rules of film-making as the film progresses. Needless to say, it is a rarity worth watching, especially for the role that food plays in it. Which I will not reveal here. Just in case anyone should be lucky enough to see the film.
Another film starring Meryl Streep and some lobsters is The Hours, and sadly the buffet prepared in this part of the film is never eaten. Once again, a film well worth watching.
I'm sure we will all have our memories of moments in film when food plays a significant part. It is strange that food in films should always taste so good.
Sunday, 4 March 2012
Diaghilev and Lady Ripon
I had a sudden thought this morning, early before I had even properly awakened.
I had a sudden sense of proximity to czarist Russia. A strange thought to have, perhaps, but then of course we all are the result of history, and so perhaps it is no surprise that sometimes we feel as if we are much closer to distant historic events or personages.
My sudden realisation this morning was that over the last couple of days, I don't quite remember where, I had heard it mentioned that Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballet Russe had been brought to London thanks to the patronage of someone that I had recently pause to come to know about. I hadn't quite realised that she was such an important patron of the arts, as I had come to know whom she was in a rather different context.
I remember reading about Diaghilev many years ago, and being fascinated at the way in which his company of dancers had been so radical in their approach to dance and choreography.
Modern ballet and dance still owes a great deal to the work of this company, which visited England very early in the 20th century. The Ballet Russes came to London in 1911, where I believe the patron behind that visit was Lady Ripon. This is supported by the existence in the library of Harvard University in the United States of scrapbooks created by Lady Ripon of dancers from the ballet.
Sadly, Lady Ripon died in 1917, many years before the death of Diaghilev in 1929. This was when the ballet was disbanded, although many of its artists, including perhaps the most famous male dancer of that century. Vasily Nijinsky, toured in America only briefly before Nijinsky stopped dancing in 1919, when he entered a sanatorium in Switzerland suffering from schizophrenia. Nijinsky died in 1950, and although initially buried in London, after three years he was reburied in Paris.
My connection with Diaghilev and his ballet is very slight, but it seems that Lady Ripon as a great patron of the arts was responsible for bringing that company to London in 1911. Lady Ripon is the person to whom my recent special edition of my first collection of poems is respectfully dedicated, since she had also been significantly involved with the Establishment in 1915 of the George V Hospital in London, which was the first point of rehabilitation and healing for thousands of wounded soldiers from the Great War.
A bust of Lady Ripon stands in one of the hallways of the present hospital, which relocated to Worthing where I live in 1933.
Although she died sadly in 1917, she is still respectfully remembered for her critical involvement in the foundation of this Hospital, and of the development of the policies by which it operated then, and no doubt still operates today.
My involvement is simply that my first collection of poems, 50 x 50 - Useful Poetry For Troubled Times - is to be sold in a special edition by the Hospital as a fundraising means.
This is a great honour indeed for me, as I am unable to earn any royalties from sales, and in any case it is likely that the sales of my poetry will be that much greater by its association with such a worthy cause.
The current hospital is an extraordinary model of quality care, and it is the home to servicemen aged between 22 and 100. As I live just across the road from the Hospital, I have attended the past two Summers open days, on doing it I have met with history by meeting with Dame Vera Lynn, who is a great supporter of the hospital.
It is this meeting which I think gave me the confidence to even consider offering my volume of poetry as a potential fundraising tool, because I included an essay about my meeting with Dame Vera Lynn in the hardback edition of my poems, a copy of which has been included within the County Council's prestigious Local History Collection thanks to the importance of the Hospital and of Dame Vera Lynn to the history of the County.
By being made part of that Local History Collection my poems are now rubbing shoulders with works by Shelley, Kipling, and Balzac.
Undoubtedly, it is reflected glory in which I am basking. But if sales of my poetry do as intended for the Hospital, and all proceeds from sales will be donated to the Hospital, it won't do my reputation any harm at all.
And so, since the dancers of Diaghilev's ballet came from the Russian czar's own patronage of ballet in Russia, it seems as if I have discovered that I am strangely intertwined in the threads of history.
Of course, anyone that subscribes to the idea that we are all inevitably connected in the great Chain Of Being will not find this at all surprising.
It is just rather wonderful to realise that without consciously realising it when I made the dedication in my special edition to be used by the hospital, I had absolutely no knowledge of the extent of Lady Ripon's engagement with the arts.
This feels particularly satisfactory to me, since when I was able to work, I worked within the professional arts, never as an artist, but rubbing shoulders with some of the finest musicians and composers of this and the last century.
I will include in this entry for my blog the link to where my special edition can be viewed online at no cost, and indeed from where it can be purchased, and thus support the Queen Alexandra Hospital Home for Soldiers in Worthing. A very worthy cause indeed.
http://www.completelynovel.com/books/50-x-50-useful-poetry-for-troubled-times-extended-edition--2/read-online
I had a sudden sense of proximity to czarist Russia. A strange thought to have, perhaps, but then of course we all are the result of history, and so perhaps it is no surprise that sometimes we feel as if we are much closer to distant historic events or personages.
My sudden realisation this morning was that over the last couple of days, I don't quite remember where, I had heard it mentioned that Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballet Russe had been brought to London thanks to the patronage of someone that I had recently pause to come to know about. I hadn't quite realised that she was such an important patron of the arts, as I had come to know whom she was in a rather different context.
I remember reading about Diaghilev many years ago, and being fascinated at the way in which his company of dancers had been so radical in their approach to dance and choreography.
Modern ballet and dance still owes a great deal to the work of this company, which visited England very early in the 20th century. The Ballet Russes came to London in 1911, where I believe the patron behind that visit was Lady Ripon. This is supported by the existence in the library of Harvard University in the United States of scrapbooks created by Lady Ripon of dancers from the ballet.
Sadly, Lady Ripon died in 1917, many years before the death of Diaghilev in 1929. This was when the ballet was disbanded, although many of its artists, including perhaps the most famous male dancer of that century. Vasily Nijinsky, toured in America only briefly before Nijinsky stopped dancing in 1919, when he entered a sanatorium in Switzerland suffering from schizophrenia. Nijinsky died in 1950, and although initially buried in London, after three years he was reburied in Paris.
My connection with Diaghilev and his ballet is very slight, but it seems that Lady Ripon as a great patron of the arts was responsible for bringing that company to London in 1911. Lady Ripon is the person to whom my recent special edition of my first collection of poems is respectfully dedicated, since she had also been significantly involved with the Establishment in 1915 of the George V Hospital in London, which was the first point of rehabilitation and healing for thousands of wounded soldiers from the Great War.
A bust of Lady Ripon stands in one of the hallways of the present hospital, which relocated to Worthing where I live in 1933.
Although she died sadly in 1917, she is still respectfully remembered for her critical involvement in the foundation of this Hospital, and of the development of the policies by which it operated then, and no doubt still operates today.
My involvement is simply that my first collection of poems, 50 x 50 - Useful Poetry For Troubled Times - is to be sold in a special edition by the Hospital as a fundraising means.
This is a great honour indeed for me, as I am unable to earn any royalties from sales, and in any case it is likely that the sales of my poetry will be that much greater by its association with such a worthy cause.
The current hospital is an extraordinary model of quality care, and it is the home to servicemen aged between 22 and 100. As I live just across the road from the Hospital, I have attended the past two Summers open days, on doing it I have met with history by meeting with Dame Vera Lynn, who is a great supporter of the hospital.
It is this meeting which I think gave me the confidence to even consider offering my volume of poetry as a potential fundraising tool, because I included an essay about my meeting with Dame Vera Lynn in the hardback edition of my poems, a copy of which has been included within the County Council's prestigious Local History Collection thanks to the importance of the Hospital and of Dame Vera Lynn to the history of the County.
By being made part of that Local History Collection my poems are now rubbing shoulders with works by Shelley, Kipling, and Balzac.
Undoubtedly, it is reflected glory in which I am basking. But if sales of my poetry do as intended for the Hospital, and all proceeds from sales will be donated to the Hospital, it won't do my reputation any harm at all.
And so, since the dancers of Diaghilev's ballet came from the Russian czar's own patronage of ballet in Russia, it seems as if I have discovered that I am strangely intertwined in the threads of history.
Of course, anyone that subscribes to the idea that we are all inevitably connected in the great Chain Of Being will not find this at all surprising.
It is just rather wonderful to realise that without consciously realising it when I made the dedication in my special edition to be used by the hospital, I had absolutely no knowledge of the extent of Lady Ripon's engagement with the arts.
This feels particularly satisfactory to me, since when I was able to work, I worked within the professional arts, never as an artist, but rubbing shoulders with some of the finest musicians and composers of this and the last century.
I will include in this entry for my blog the link to where my special edition can be viewed online at no cost, and indeed from where it can be purchased, and thus support the Queen Alexandra Hospital Home for Soldiers in Worthing. A very worthy cause indeed.
http://www.completelynovel.com/books/50-x-50-useful-poetry-for-troubled-times-extended-edition--2/read-online
Friday, 2 March 2012
My Latest Article
I've just been checking out my latest contribution to the magazine Care Talk, which can be viewed free of charge online. Page 19 issue 10.
I'm impressed with the layout, as ever, and coincidentally I've just been interviewed today by one of the magazine's staff writers, for an article in a future issue about assistive technology.
Anyone that knows me will know that I am never short of something to say, and it is through the medium of voice assisted software that I am able to create not only this blog, but also the articles that I have written for Care Talk magazine.
Access to technology is such an important issue for everybody these days, and for someone like myself, severely disabled, it is essential to enable access to a world that has become much more difficult to access in ways that most people take for granted.
I think it was in a film somewhere that I remember first hearing about the notion of technology achieving a point where connectivity has reached a critical level, and I suspect what was once a science-fiction concept in a film, has become or is becoming a reality.
Take for example something I heard on the radio this week. There has been a report published about the skills that carers need to possess so that they can care appropriately for people, and a politician gave as an example (it is always a politician that gives examples) the fact that carers should have as an essential skill the capacity to be compassionate.
The example that was given was of the way in which people are called by their given name, rather than some shorthand like Dearie, Darling, or in a negative context, referred to as bed blockers in hospitals.
This reminded me instantly of a poem which has been included in my first selection, 50 x 50. It's worth reproducing here, to give some sense of the context about which I am talking.
My Given Name
I can't walk the walk and I won't talk the talk
but behind these tired eyes
still beats the same heart as that of
the woman that has raised her children
then their children, loved and been loved
in return. My memories
may be broken, but they are mine
please help me to keep them alive.
Don't call me Dearie, or Darling, or Ducks,
give me back what is mine
and what belongs just to me.
It's the name my fiancee proposed with
the one I married with
and the one that will be given to the registrar
one last time, all too soon.
Before then, keep me safe, keep me warm
in this place, use my name to my face
please protect me from harm
and to the end call me Grace.
It's my given name.
Like many of my poems, it is short and of course created using voice-activated software.
It suddenly struck me that the politician was virtually quoting unknowingly the first line of the second stanza, and this spurred me into action, so I sent a copy of the poem to my local authority contract with the suggestion that the local authority concerned might steal a march on what the government is talking about, if they were to produce my poem as a poster to be pasted to the wall in every staffroom in every care home in the County.
Blow me, if I don't get feedback by e-mail within a couple of hours to say that it was a moving way of communicating how everyone might wish to be treated as they become older, and that it will be raised at team meetings across the country over the next couple of weeks.
The speed of e-mail. And then I got to thinking about whether I had any other contacts that I could send the poem to, and I immediately thought of a friendly press officer that I had met in the context of a short documentary film about me being used for the launch of Social Care TV.
All of this, by the way, was happening before 6 AM in the morning, listening to the news. And so I sent something to my press contact friend, and as a consequence he asked in passing what I was up to these days.
Which meant I told him about this blog, and it turns out that the report that the politician was responding to had been written by the organisation for which the press person worked, so of course he knew exactly who to pass it on to. Small world.
And as a consequence, I may be able to have my blog hosted on some site I would never have thought about, and which would bring me to an audience that I would never have considered might be available to me. Magic.
And all of this through the medium of new technology, that makes communication instantaneous to all intents and purposes. So, I'm looking forward to the next time I can make some kind of connection between something I have written by way of a poem, and something I have heard someone talk about in the press.
Who knows how this thing might end. Hopefully, not in the way that TS Eliot said, not with a bang but a whimper, nor as at the end of Shakespeare in Love, with tears and a journey. My favourite cliched ending is that it will not end until the fat lady sings. Since I used to work in the world of opera, I feel as if I can wish for that one. And most of my friends that can sing would forgive me since they are anything but fat.
I'm impressed with the layout, as ever, and coincidentally I've just been interviewed today by one of the magazine's staff writers, for an article in a future issue about assistive technology.
Anyone that knows me will know that I am never short of something to say, and it is through the medium of voice assisted software that I am able to create not only this blog, but also the articles that I have written for Care Talk magazine.
Access to technology is such an important issue for everybody these days, and for someone like myself, severely disabled, it is essential to enable access to a world that has become much more difficult to access in ways that most people take for granted.
I think it was in a film somewhere that I remember first hearing about the notion of technology achieving a point where connectivity has reached a critical level, and I suspect what was once a science-fiction concept in a film, has become or is becoming a reality.
Take for example something I heard on the radio this week. There has been a report published about the skills that carers need to possess so that they can care appropriately for people, and a politician gave as an example (it is always a politician that gives examples) the fact that carers should have as an essential skill the capacity to be compassionate.
The example that was given was of the way in which people are called by their given name, rather than some shorthand like Dearie, Darling, or in a negative context, referred to as bed blockers in hospitals.
This reminded me instantly of a poem which has been included in my first selection, 50 x 50. It's worth reproducing here, to give some sense of the context about which I am talking.
My Given Name
I can't walk the walk and I won't talk the talk
but behind these tired eyes
still beats the same heart as that of
the woman that has raised her children
then their children, loved and been loved
in return. My memories
may be broken, but they are mine
please help me to keep them alive.
Don't call me Dearie, or Darling, or Ducks,
give me back what is mine
and what belongs just to me.
It's the name my fiancee proposed with
the one I married with
and the one that will be given to the registrar
one last time, all too soon.
Before then, keep me safe, keep me warm
in this place, use my name to my face
please protect me from harm
and to the end call me Grace.
It's my given name.
Like many of my poems, it is short and of course created using voice-activated software.
It suddenly struck me that the politician was virtually quoting unknowingly the first line of the second stanza, and this spurred me into action, so I sent a copy of the poem to my local authority contract with the suggestion that the local authority concerned might steal a march on what the government is talking about, if they were to produce my poem as a poster to be pasted to the wall in every staffroom in every care home in the County.
Blow me, if I don't get feedback by e-mail within a couple of hours to say that it was a moving way of communicating how everyone might wish to be treated as they become older, and that it will be raised at team meetings across the country over the next couple of weeks.
The speed of e-mail. And then I got to thinking about whether I had any other contacts that I could send the poem to, and I immediately thought of a friendly press officer that I had met in the context of a short documentary film about me being used for the launch of Social Care TV.
All of this, by the way, was happening before 6 AM in the morning, listening to the news. And so I sent something to my press contact friend, and as a consequence he asked in passing what I was up to these days.
Which meant I told him about this blog, and it turns out that the report that the politician was responding to had been written by the organisation for which the press person worked, so of course he knew exactly who to pass it on to. Small world.
And as a consequence, I may be able to have my blog hosted on some site I would never have thought about, and which would bring me to an audience that I would never have considered might be available to me. Magic.
And all of this through the medium of new technology, that makes communication instantaneous to all intents and purposes. So, I'm looking forward to the next time I can make some kind of connection between something I have written by way of a poem, and something I have heard someone talk about in the press.
Who knows how this thing might end. Hopefully, not in the way that TS Eliot said, not with a bang but a whimper, nor as at the end of Shakespeare in Love, with tears and a journey. My favourite cliched ending is that it will not end until the fat lady sings. Since I used to work in the world of opera, I feel as if I can wish for that one. And most of my friends that can sing would forgive me since they are anything but fat.
Sunday, 26 February 2012
An Unexpected Audience
Yet again, I find it is about a week since I wrote my blog. Looking at the statistics regarding the countries where my blog is being read, I note that Russia has scored highly this month.
This makes me unashamedly wish to speak to those that live in that country, one that I have never visited, though one that has played a constant presence in my life. Perhaps never as a major player, but there in the background nevertheless.
The first time Russia came in to my experience was when I was at university, at University College London. I was reading to a blind Iranian student, simply as a volunteer, and the kind of blindness that she suffered might have been improved by an operation that could have taken place in what was then of course the Soviet Union.
Iran and Russia clearly had closer ties at that time, and I remember making a visit to the Russian Embassy in London, to assist my friend attend a meeting with the Science Attache.
It seems strange to think of it now, but it felt like an extraordinary journey into another world. The thing I have an abiding memory of is the telephones within the embassy, which were smaller than a typical British telephone, and much rounder in shape or design.
This would have been in about 1980, at the height of the Cold War, and may well have been sufficient for me to have been noticed by our own security services as someone with sympathies towards the East.
In my late 20s, I visited Czechoslovakia, in about 1986. The organization for which I worked hosted an East-West workcamp through International Voluntary Service, in which young people from across the Soviet Bloc attended.
Apparently, this was the first time that Russian citizens had been granted permission to attend an IVS workcamp in the United Kingdom, and as well as a group of five members of a Ukrainian Construction Brigade, we had attendees from Poland, Yugoslavia as it was then, East Germany and from Czechoslovakia.
The project I worked for occupied a substantial house and grounds on the edge of Leeds in Yorkshire, part of which included a walled garden extending to about one acre in size.
The workcamp was a means by which we could develop this overgrown garden which we wished to turn into an organic herb garden.
The house could accommodate 40 people for residential weekends and conferences, mainly in shared rooms. We operated as a co-operative, and in fact the origins of the house as a centre for the promotion of co-operative working linked what we were doing directly to the concepts behind communism. But certainly with a peculiarly English slant.
The house had been built in the early 19th century, and was built from wealth generated through the manufacture of fine carriage cloth. In fact, works from the Company that being exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851.
The current owner was a direct descendant of those capitalist entrepreneurs, but he was an architect by profession, and certainly not a capitalist in the traditional sense. He was wealthy, no doubt, but he had chosen to make his capital available to the development of employee owned businesses structured as cooperatives.
The original vision for the house that we had use of literally for the payment of a peppercorn each year was that it should be used as a College for the teaching of the skills needed to run such ventures.
The English Parliament had passed in 1976 an Act Of Parliament that gave three years of funding to an organisation called the Industrial Common Ownership Movement, which was concerned with the promotion and development of legal constitutions that could be used as the legal basis for such business ventures.
In effect, this was giving practical meaning to clause 4 of the Labour Party manifesto, which was concerned with the common ownership of the means of production.
This was of course famously removed from the Labour Party manifesto by Tony Blair as part of his modernization of the Labour Party. Some would say his dismantling of it.
So in effect we ran a small but successful co-operative business from premises that had been built from the product of capitalist wealth. The house itself was in immediate grounds of about 15 acres, surrounded by 150 acres of farmland. This was rented permanently to a local farmer.
Thus I lived for almost 10 years as if part of the landed gentry, just on the edge of one of the great industrial towns of England, but to all intents and purposes living in a rural location.
There were about seven of us in our co-operative, not all of whom lived on site. We were all paid the same minimal weekly salary, and in effect shared in the profits of our labour. which were not substantial.
Our customers were exclusively not for profit organisations, most of whom were concerned with positive social issues. In other words, the kind of conferences that we hosted in this fine location were concerned with people rather than making money.
The owner of the property, Tom Lupton, was closely connected through his friends to a peculiarly English brand of Christian Socialism, and in some respects, this made an East-West work camp of particular poignancy to us.
When I travelled to Czechoslovakia, it was to attend a workcamp hosted on a co-operative farm and led by the two Czech doctors that had attended our workcamp. Thus, two years before the major upheavals in that country, I had the opportunity to see for myself how communism had shaped that country.
It was an interesting experience.
To facilitate my journey to Czechoslovakia, I had tried to learn Russian, attending an evening class for six months or so before I travelled.
What I failed to realise was that although in theory Russian was spoken as the second language in Czechoslovakia, it was the language imposed by the oppressor.
So that when I tried to use my limited Russian, I was virtually ignored, and it was not helpful to me at all.
Perhaps I was fortunate in that I became friendly with an English teacher at the workcamp, so in fact for my three weeks in Czechoslovakia, two weeks working on the farm, and a week travelling in the country, I had the services of my own interpreter.
In fact I stayed at the home of my interpreter and her husband, and became good friends with them. I was given a privileged insight into the life they lead, and the impact of communism on them.
This was particularly fascinating because my interpreter was an English teacher in a Czechoslovakian School, but she was also a committed Christian, a fact that she had to keep private as it would have been inconceivable for a teacher in a Czech school to have been a Christian.
In the course of my three-week stay in Czechoslovakia, my interpreter was careful to introduce me to a wide range of people, from Communist officials to small local farmers. my most abiding memory is of the way in which the two young men that were spray-painting the enormous grain silo on the farm to which the workcamp was attached, work which in Czechoslovakia at the time would have been highly paid because it was dangerous manual labour, and they used their experience of mountain climbing and abseiling to move up and down the outside of the anonymous grain silo.
They were undertaking this work so that they could fund a project they were working on, and which they proudly showed me.
They were building a concrete hulled ocean going yacht, the plans for which they had obtained from Australia, and which was at the stage of being fitted out. The most expensive stage.
Czechoslovakia of course is a landlocked country, but they had the confidence that if they completed this project, the authorities could not fail to give them permission to sail it, which would mean permission to leave Czechoslovakia.
Given the events of 1989, I am sure that they managed to achieve their dream.
I was not impressed with the reality of communism in Czechoslovakia.
It placed into high relief the experiment that I had been engaged in for the best part of 10 years of my life. Co-operative development in Britain was simply my youthful zeal for political equality, but one in which few people could have experienced it within a commonest state.
Strangely, my abiding memory of the East-West workcamp was a day trip that we made to Blackpool, which I suppose I had the privilege of organizing. I will always remember how everyone from the workcamp experienced the extraordinary delights of Blackpool, a city in Britain that is perhaps like no other, and that compared to any Communist regime, must have seemed so unlike daily life. As it did to me, even though I was a resident of England.
Thus my abiding fascination with Russia, experienced only at one remove through my contact with a Ukrainian construction brigade. Perhaps I have been fortunate to have lived how I have lived, and to have met the people I have met.
Strangely, it is those experiences of people directly that have done most to make me feel as if I have understood something of the psyche of the eastern European. Films like Dr Zhivago, and the novels of Chekhov or Tolstoy have been my only other opportunity. But I have seen so much more than so many of my generation.
Saturday, 11 February 2012
Film Evocation
This afternoon, I have just watched the film Billy Elliot. I haven't watched it for some time, and sometimes, like today, having a break from a film can result in a new appreciation of it. and a reawakening of the power of the film to both move and create deep responses.
I suppose at the moment I am in the fortunate position of seeing my old films in a new light. Part of the reason for this is simply that I have obtained via the Internet a new media player, VLC, which seems to play my DVDs with richer and sharper colours, a complete bonus because the reason why I discovered its existence in the first place was that it has enabled my Intel Macintosh computer to be able to play DVDs from all regions. Instead of having to change the region setting of my DVD player within my computer, which you can only do five times in total, this media player, available free from the Internet, plays DVDs differently. So that the region setting for the DVD is unimportant.
This is pretty helpful, since I have one or two American imports which up until now I have not been able to play on my computer. I have had to use the DVD player in my living room, which I suppose is no big deal since it is part of a surround sound system, which delivers quite amazing sound.
And let's face it, the quality of sound reproduction for a film does make a big difference to one's experience of that film.
Since I have been so technical already, I might as well carry on, and the simple fact is that I have recently purchased a new speaker system for my computer, the one that I can most easily access when I am in bed, that delivers in itself quite phenomenal sound reproduction.
This is Harman Carden Sound Sticks, which have good looks as well as amazing sound reproduction. There is a separate bass speaker, and in each of the clear plastic sound sticks there are four small speakers. The net result is that I have an extraordinary sense of sound quality, making it a joy to watch films old and new all over again.
In this context, a film like Billy Elliot which has a fabulous soundtrack including T-Rex and The Clash comes across brilliantly.
Add to this the emotional journey of such a redemptive film, and it is an explosive experience.
Nostalgia plays its part as well, in that in the final scene of the film, Billy Elliot as an adult dancer plays one of the principal parts in the ballet performed by Adventures In Motion Pictures, Swan Lake. This is extraordinary because of the way in which the entire ballet is performed by men, even the whole of the chorus.
The fact that I have seen this production live is one thing, but I have had the privilege as well when I was working of having worked closely with the Dance Company, when they worked closely in partnership with the orchestra that I worked for. I remember meeting one of their senior managers backstage in Edinburgh at some point, and of course I have also seen them perform alongside Opera North when they created a unique production of The Nutcracker.
So my afternoon has been indulgent in every sense, I have seen a good film in good circumstances and been reminded of the professional life I once led before I became disabled with multiple cirrhosis.
It is a reminder, if one were needed, that I have plenty of reasons to go back through my large collection of DVDs, many of which have been recorded from films broadcast on television. I have been fortunate to be able to edit out the advertisements. So that I can see films as they were intended to be seen.
Anyway, one down, and just several hundred more to go. And that's before I go back to the DVDs I have purchased, which in themselves one might expect to have better quality of reproduction to them.
The simple fact is that film can be a transformative experience, especially with the benefits of modern technology at your disposal.
I suppose at the moment I am in the fortunate position of seeing my old films in a new light. Part of the reason for this is simply that I have obtained via the Internet a new media player, VLC, which seems to play my DVDs with richer and sharper colours, a complete bonus because the reason why I discovered its existence in the first place was that it has enabled my Intel Macintosh computer to be able to play DVDs from all regions. Instead of having to change the region setting of my DVD player within my computer, which you can only do five times in total, this media player, available free from the Internet, plays DVDs differently. So that the region setting for the DVD is unimportant.
This is pretty helpful, since I have one or two American imports which up until now I have not been able to play on my computer. I have had to use the DVD player in my living room, which I suppose is no big deal since it is part of a surround sound system, which delivers quite amazing sound.
And let's face it, the quality of sound reproduction for a film does make a big difference to one's experience of that film.
Since I have been so technical already, I might as well carry on, and the simple fact is that I have recently purchased a new speaker system for my computer, the one that I can most easily access when I am in bed, that delivers in itself quite phenomenal sound reproduction.
This is Harman Carden Sound Sticks, which have good looks as well as amazing sound reproduction. There is a separate bass speaker, and in each of the clear plastic sound sticks there are four small speakers. The net result is that I have an extraordinary sense of sound quality, making it a joy to watch films old and new all over again.
In this context, a film like Billy Elliot which has a fabulous soundtrack including T-Rex and The Clash comes across brilliantly.
Add to this the emotional journey of such a redemptive film, and it is an explosive experience.
Nostalgia plays its part as well, in that in the final scene of the film, Billy Elliot as an adult dancer plays one of the principal parts in the ballet performed by Adventures In Motion Pictures, Swan Lake. This is extraordinary because of the way in which the entire ballet is performed by men, even the whole of the chorus.
The fact that I have seen this production live is one thing, but I have had the privilege as well when I was working of having worked closely with the Dance Company, when they worked closely in partnership with the orchestra that I worked for. I remember meeting one of their senior managers backstage in Edinburgh at some point, and of course I have also seen them perform alongside Opera North when they created a unique production of The Nutcracker.
So my afternoon has been indulgent in every sense, I have seen a good film in good circumstances and been reminded of the professional life I once led before I became disabled with multiple cirrhosis.
It is a reminder, if one were needed, that I have plenty of reasons to go back through my large collection of DVDs, many of which have been recorded from films broadcast on television. I have been fortunate to be able to edit out the advertisements. So that I can see films as they were intended to be seen.
Anyway, one down, and just several hundred more to go. And that's before I go back to the DVDs I have purchased, which in themselves one might expect to have better quality of reproduction to them.
The simple fact is that film can be a transformative experience, especially with the benefits of modern technology at your disposal.
Thursday, 9 February 2012
The World Of Film
It's been a little while since I posted a new blog, and I suppose as I sit in front of my computer to write a new one, I can't help but think about some of the things that have been important to me over the last week or so.
That's the thing about writing a blog, it is somehow different to writing a diary, in that I don't feel compelled to write a daily account of what is happening for me.
And the fact that it is a very public means of collecting my thoughts is another difference between this and a diary. None of the self indulgent diary writing that I have engaged in over the years, and in fact I still have a collection of notebooks which capture those attempts at keeping a diary.
I suppose since I consider myself to be a writer these days, I have progressed significantly from the introspective stuff of my teenage years. As indeed my poetry has progressed significantly, and I would like to think matured somewhat.
Now that we have almost reached double figures in February, I am reminded that my film will be exhibited in Canada at the International Festival, the first showing taking place on Valentine's Day. At least I won't forget.
I consider myself to be a filmmaker as well as a poet, and I would dearly like to increase traffic on my YouTube channel, worthingsp, which I tend to add films to fairly regularly. Mainly short films these days, my most recent called Good King Wenceslas. The reason will be obvious if you can be bothered to have a look.
I am especially stimulated these days in my short film making by what I see in movies, and this latest film came about because I watched In Which We Serve in which there are two moments in which this carol is performed. Once by sailors on board ship, and once by children on shore.
I have combined this with an extract from Love Actually, and with something I found showing Tom Jones during his Christmas show in 1975. He looks so young.
It's fascinating to see the way in which there are recurring links between films, in different periods perhaps, but elements which reflect something of the culture in which we live. The environment in which our lives take their meaning.
I have a collection of about 1000 films recorded to DVD, and so I suppose I am an armchair observer of the culture expressed through film, which is a fascinating subject. And one about which I could write a regular blog in itself.
I'd like to think that my use of extracts from films could be justified under the umbrella of fair use, which is the only excuse for copyright infringement. And I certainly would never try to make money from the work of other people, and always respect the integrity of it.
What next, I wonder. my film viewing has tended to be somewhat rooted in the past, in the sense that most of my film collection is based on films broadcast on TV. That makes most of them eight or ten years since they were released.
Recently, however, I have recently been given a free VIP membership to LoveFilm, which means I am suddenly being exposed to more recent films. This in itself is fascinating, and makes me feel as if I am a timetraveller.
Add to this, that I have just discovered a way in which I can view films free of region restriction on my Macintosh, by virtue of a new media viewer. Which means that I can watch American imports directly on the machine that I have over my bed, and suddenly my viewing experience has been enormously enhanced.
Strange to think that there is such a difference between films released in America and released over here in the UK, but there does seem to be. And of course, DVDs can be purchased so cheaply these days via Amazon, even imports.
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