Report from Cheltenham Jazz Festival – The Aristocats

A response to seeing The Aristocats (1970) - a few years on...

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4 May

A response to seeing The Aristocats (1970) - a few years on...

It must have been in around 1968* that I was taken by my parents, almost certainly with my sister, to see The Aristocats. I have just watched it again, with no acquaintance in between, in the Cinema Tent at Cheltenham Jazz Festival – and, yes, I had forgotten that jam-session, when the alley-cat musicians, led by Scat Cat, have let themselves into Thomas O’Malley’s pad, and so, despite the jazzy tone to some of the earlier musical numbers, I had begun not to figure why this was being shown at a jazz festival.

As it is, it is a great little film, and, although animation techniques are considerably different now for much of what is produced (so there would not necessarily have been the need to make scenes such as that jam-session at the expense of the budget for such clear and focused images throughout the film), it does not feel dated – and, yes, it was Walt Disney. No doubt it has been restored, but, as this is not a film festival, I am unsure whether I need to look in the festival handout that I picked up for more details.

What was probably lost on me as a boy is that the cats need not be cats and that this is not really a film about cats (or cats and humans) at all…


23 May - Now continued, with some thoughts penned in a station waiting-room earlier

The cats are, of course, cats in the swinging, jazz sense, and there is the fable of the much-loved and attractive Duchess (Eva Gabor's voice) being Lady to Thomas’ Tramp** (Phil Harris' voice), by putting aside her wisdom and prejudice about ‘alley-cats’ after they have played and bantered together, and he has – after his fanciful promises – assumed care for her and her kittens.

Duchess' home-life, the epitome of the idea of self-improvement through music and the other arts, resembles that of a grande dame, wanting her children to acquire taste and poise, and not hiss and scratch, as Berlioz wishes to do with his sister. Of course, it is, on another level, charming fantasy that a kitten can play the piano by bounding back and forth on the keys, but it is there for the contrast between the sedate family sing-song and the raucously lively – and beautifully put-together – jam-session.

Duchess, being the best kind of Duchess, appreciates the musicianship and sees all that is good in Thomas and his friends Scat Cat and the others (and, maybe, we wonder what her past was, and who was father to her kittens for her to suppose so badly of the alley-cats) : this is, after all, not plumbing the depths of Shakespearean characterization, but good fun, but with a bit of a message about not taking Edgar - or any of the others - at face-value.

(In fact, the only ones who can be taken in those terms are Abigail and Amelia, the waddling, unflappable British geese, and, once they have served their purpose of route-marching the party to Paris to rescue their sozzled uncle, they are given no further part.)

The Old Lady is given a portrayal consistent with her remaining in the background, worrying about what has happened, and generally being benign, along with her amiable lawyer-friend (who seems to have the geniality of the goose-uncle to a T). As already mentioned, the care and attention to high-quality imagery is in the jazz scene, whereas she is sketchily drawn, roaming the mansion, so that we are distanced from her grief, and can rest it instead in Roquefort, the mouse, whose quivering voice is so brilliantly done by Sterling Holloway.

The tussle at the end is about Edgar fighting for what he wants, and the animals showing that, by working together, they can overpower and defeat him. A wholesome account of the nature of good and evil, which leaves little room, except at a comic level, to understand Edgar’s desire not to have his life dominated after his mistress’ death by her menagerie – again, this is not Corneille, and, beyond understanding his motivation, we are not invited to enter into such things.

At heart, setting aside the misery and self-destructiveness in the genius of many a twentieth-century jazz musician, the wish to be ‘in’ and play a horn so that people want to listen :


Ev'rybody wants to be a cat,
Because a cat is where it’s at



End-notes

* Actual date 1970.

** Another Disney, from 1955.


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Who's excited - about what ? ! (Or Predictions about I'm So Excited ! (2013))

Who's excited - about what ? ! (Or Predictions about I'm So Excited ! (2013) (Los amantes pasajeros))

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3 May

Who's excited - about what ? ! (Or Predictions about I'm So Excited ! (2013) (Los amantes pasajeros))

To judge by a still that I saw earlier, Pedro has just camped up The High Life even more and made a feature of it (in both senses)...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 2, 2013

If you don't know what The High Life is - whatever the title lyric says - that's not extraordinary...


I like the way that, in his review, Empire's critic, David Hughes, has alluded to the running joke in Woody Allen's much misunderstood Stardust Memories (1980) :

An unshakeable tolerance for high camp and lowbrow humour may be required to fully appreciate Almodóvar's broad, bawdy comedy - even for fans of his early, funny films.

As I read the rest of Hughes' review (a tongue-twister in his office, no doubt), I found myself also reminded of that epsiode of - what else ! - Father Ted...

Is Broken Embraces a meta-film ? : It seems - as well as the film within it - deliberately badly edited : the DVD extras are the best bits !
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 2, 2013

Update

As at 9 May, Rotten Tomatoes says that 34% of audiences, and 60% of critics, liked the film*...


End-notes

* For comparison, the equivalent percentages for Broken Embraces (2009) are 74% and 81%.


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The Answer to Everything ? (#ATEOpera)

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1 May

On Thursday last week, I went to the British Film Institute (@BFI) with the intention of watching a matinee and redeeming a complimentary ticket (issued because of the out-of-synch screening of Underground) : because of some conference, there was no matinee, and I couldn’t find the ticket, but none of that turned out to matter :

I bought a ticket instead to see Streetwise Opera’s (@streetwiseopera’s) production, with sections on film, at some venue, not necessarily NFT3, where we were all delegates together in some (seemingly) fictional conference, although many a one attempted, in character, to do such things as selling me a tie (I pointed out that I had one in my pocket, and that a T-shirt has no collar anyway) or asking me how I felt about the event.

To camera, when invited to say something inspirational, I came up with ‘Brick is beautiful’. It turns out that it would – if anyone had much been paying attention – have been seen on the screen of NFT3. Generating nonsense to order, as this blog as a whole is likely to evidence, doesn’t entail much…


In a way, I wish that I had bantered more with the Streetwise crew, rather than taking my seat, but, once in my seat, it seemed churlish to make the row rise again (to let me out) and, yet again, for my re-entry – the other end of my row was blocked off by the mixing-desk. (It seemed that no one else decided to join in with the ‘official’ delegates at the front, with their suits, briefcases, ability to sing.)

As a homage to Marcel (although spelt differently), I had chosen a name-badge with the identity of Pierre Duchamps, an Alternative Energy Intern. I hoped that something would hang on this, rather than it from the lanyard, so it was a disappointment that it might as well have said George Osborne, Financial Meddler. (No big deal, but there could have been a draw from those badges known to have been issued, and a game of forfeits...)

Ignoring the name, when one of the cast introduced himself by way of an extended arm from two rows forward, I claimed to be Peter Henderson-Smyth-Henderson-Smyth-Henderson, and he concluded that I sounded ‘quite posh’.

I hoped also that, in the style of I Fagiolini’s The Full Monteverdi my neighbour would turn out to be ‘a mole’. When I heard / saw that show (in Cambridge), one knew that, over a modest meal, one had one or more singers at one’s table, but not who he, she or they were :

A woman challenged me as one, and – fool that I am – I didn’t play my denial for all that it was worth. (Although, of course, it was self evident that a denial couldn’t mean anything, so I wasn’t believed anyway, since, as everyone will testify, I do look like a professional singer.)


No matter, as it merely meant that I could, more or less, relax in my seat without the obvious need for further participation. However, I did fail to reckon on the company song, and, at the best of times (silliness doesn’t help), I cannot co-ordinate words and any actions, not least when those words (and their music) were unknown to me minutes before !

Early during the run-through of this act of corporate worship, I gave up, and, standing inert, took much more satisfaction in seeing the cast sing and mime the whole song en masse (which, in the style of The Twelve Days of Christmas, repeated each one of the Ten Rules of Good Business), much more than coaxing my resistant abilities further could have achieved. (I have no doubt that few have my problems, and most would have taken pleasure in what, for me, was an exercise doomed to fail.)

I can confidently (wonder whether I should) state that @streetwiseopera's #ATEOpera had a good take on company manners, @catherinebray...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 27, 2013

That’s my hesitation out of the way, a strange (but usual) mix of wanting to be in a role-play, but on my terms. So, on to what this combination of filmed and live experience seemed to say. In doing so, I am influenced, after the event, by having read the programme**, which, I found, pulled together one’s appreciation of the overall narrative intent. (Such, of course, is the way – and world – of opera, whereas I am happy and used to making my own way in that of film).


Not to try to summarize what happened, save that the film interspersed with the live singing and action, the arias from Christopher Lowrey (counter-tenor) and Elizabeth Watts (soprano), interacting on screen with members of Streetwise from all over the country, were exquisite. Indeed, as I Tweeted :

I can confidently (wonder whether I should) state that @streetwiseopera's #ATEOpera had a good take on company manners, @catherinebray...

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 27, 2013

Can't stop humming (in public, and singing elsewhere) Lascia ch'io pianga after @lizwattssoprano and @streetwiseopera plus Sacconi Quartet !

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 28, 2013

The filmic aspect was in no way subservient to the role and action of these clips, but portrayed the alienation, isolation and heartfelt humanity at work in a response to the clinicality of company lore, which dictates shaking hands with the client not because one feels that one wants to, but as part of good business.

I have seen the Watts aria several times over (as my attempt to support Streetwise and download from the iTunes platform failed, after posing insurmountable problems), and it stands that repeated watching, because it is composed entirely in the idiom of cinema. I imagine the same to be true of the aria sung by Lowrey, of which my impression was that the wholly musical performance of the Vivaldi was respected in the service of the message that rapacity to invest threatens to overcome what matters, and what we should really value in this life.

I can confidently (wonder whether I should) state that @streetwiseopera's #ATEOpera had a good take on company manners, @catherinebray...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 27, 2013

Informed by the programme, I apprehend the arch that these and the other filmed sections sought to erect, but I do confess that I was lost in following how the scene from Peter Grimes, which, I now gather, led into a Streetwise commission from Orlando Gough, brought about the degeneration of the dream of Locateco Solutions : throughout, this cinematic work, the execution was brilliant, and the closing scene of rejection, liberation, and immersion in the natural world was evocative and poignant.

It was merely that the step that took us to where the façade began to crumble was not clear. Arguably, though, for those who felt the movement for the Berlin wall to collapse, or for what is shown in the powerful documentary The Miracle of Leipzig (2009) (Wir Sind das Volk) not to happen, the feelings were stronger than an exact notion of why what was tipping had become unstable.


So the filmed episodes I do not seek to fault : David Pisaro (tenor) singing Grimes in the church setting was marvellous, as was how the scene – with Britten’s skilful writing – built to his expulsion, but – rightly or wrongly – I felt that I did understand, at the time, why everything was unravelling. The programme addressed that, and this is – if a concern at all – a minor one, since I had had the time to read ahead, but chose not to.

The Streetwise singers in NFT3, interacting with the projection, gave an overall feeling that conveyed how important the voice, music, the human spirit is. All in all, a stunning experience, and a tribute to all in any way involved with it !



Post-script

After this Tweet (and following the link) :

StreetwiseOpera ‏@StreetwiseOpera 21m
Lovely review of #ATEOpera in @spectator http://www.spectator.co.uk/arts/opera/8900001/the-point-of-life/


I commented this:

Everything that this reviewer writes about @StreetwiseOpera's The Answer to Everything is spot on : it was timely, its parody of the corporate world (and its tics) was telling and amusing, and the music was of a very high quality, not least that passage from Grimes.

And if any Minister for Culture couldn't understand or relate to it, maybe that person's in the wrong job... !


I have now followed a link to a review in The Guardian, as Tweeted by @StreetwiseOpera... The reviewer found the event dramatically 'confusing', which mirrors what I attribute (above) to not having read the synopsis.



End-notes

* I tried to explain that I was there on the strength of knowing that Elizabeth Watts (@LizWattsSoprano) was involved, whose single with Streetwise I knew (from Splatter) had just been released.

My neighour thought that I said ‘Watson’, and, her not knowing EW, it didn’t seem to help that I said that she is a soprano. I ended up mumbling something about she was probably one of many, as I was, sadly, suddenly not sure, in the guise of being a delegate, how sopranos could fit in a corporate structure…


** It had two front covers (a style of presentation that I gather to be called tête-bêche).


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Burns made me do it...

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1 May

A poem, written in the pub - if not over a malt - yesterday, because of seeing* :

How would you talk about the liquid of whisky.....? Is there a word you would say, or a formula or a poem, or what? pic.twitter.com/ffwPYUE1Fw

Thank you, @wildandmagic ! - I have written my first poem this year, soon on my blog... Called (after Burns) To a Dram.
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 30, 2013

Here goes:



To a Dram


Note one thing :
These words,
The water of life,
Are not


Metaphor,
Simile,
Analogy,
Allegory...


No, a direct
Statement
Of pure fact,
Pure as barley

 
As water
As living yeast,
Which drives
Sugar to thrive


Huge vessels
Whose real size
Defies our mind
(All those litres !)


Cannot contain
The breath of God,
A holy embrace
That blossoms


'Volatile', we say,
'Mercurial'
And all of these –
And none – is Scotch…



©   Copyright Belston Night Works 2013




End-notes

* This should be, for those in the know, 'an embedded Tweet', but Pratter tells me that I'm not authorized** - pretty rough Version, The Agent, not the Authorized Version...

** In fact, I now see that '@WildAndMagic's account is protected'. How lovely !


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Box perfect[ly] - tick all the boxes !

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28 April

Does any phrase containing the word 'box' avoid contention, or just tick all the boxes (as the phrase has it)... ?

It's a wonder that we don't say 'check' all the boxes, but I am sure that it's upcoming, i.e. forthcoming !


Let my little survey explode into life - like a jack-in-the-box (not to be pigeon-holed - another sort of box - it's in any old order) :


* Thinking outside the box, namely not responding with inertia and paralysis to a problem, but solving - or getting near to solving - it, so really just 'thinking' (instead of 'stagnating')


* Would you like to come inside my box ? - a dubious proposition of a sexual nature, calculated to make one think cheaply about the beauty of physical union


* If one did tick all the boxes, what a nonsense that would be : Are you □ Employed □ Self-employed □ Unemployed (unless you are an unpaid intern) !


* You need to box perfect - and, as we've said, Stuff the adverb !


* Tick the box on Amazon® to send a Twat that says I've ordered the Cary Grant boxset ! - thereby prove that you reject boxed set


* No, this is my cardboard box - for those who like cheap gibes at those on the streets, and wouldn't support @StreetwiseOpera by buying its beautiful single with @LizWattsSoprano, the Sacconi Quartet and Duncan Ward, available as a download straight from iTunes, or you can first watch that extract from their film The Answer to Everything before you buy at : https://vimeo.com/64050260



An unending list of derision


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Kelly Brook's ex hit by doube-decker (according to AOL®)

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25 April

At any rate, the hedline (sic) talks of a doube-decker.

Knowing that a deck denotes part of the equipment of the likes of DJ Skunk, I dare not assume that this is a merror (a portmanteau word*, comprising 'error' and 'mere'), but guess that doube might denote :


* That 'whole dub thing'

* A Routemaster smeared with melted cheese and barbeque sauce

* A bi-plane flown by a dove**

* A love-track sung by Kelly, which went straight to this former partner's heart



Yes, I am too lazy to read 'the actual' story, or rather, me and my doube, we're havin' too much craic... !


Postscript : 26 April

And to-day AOL® excels itself :

Woman defiant against bag theif [sic]



End-notes

* Thank you, Lewis Carroll !

** German Taub.


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The 100 best romantic movies ? (according to @TimeOutFilm)

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24 April

It all started with Catherine Bray (whom The Agent Follows on Pratter)... :





Catherine Tweeted :

And here is the glorious full @timeoutfilm Top 100 Best Romantic Movies: ow.ly/kksI9
— Catherine Bray (@catherinebray) April 23, 2013

Stupid Apsley looked at her 1 to 10 (as previously Tweeted), since she had been one of Time Out's 101 'experts, including the folks who make their living from giving movies a critical mauling', and Tweeted Catherine :

Well, it must be a fix, @catherinebray, if there's no duplication in the @timeoutfilm 100 - and can reviewers swear these are free choices ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 23, 2013

@theagentapsley What do you mean by no duplication? Plenty of people have picked the same films...
— Catherine Bray (@catherinebray) April 23, 2013

Skipping a few more of Apsley's irritating questions, we move on to :

@theagentapsley You'll have to ask @timeoutfilm for specific metrics - I don't have the details!
— Catherine Bray (@catherinebray) April 24, 2013

@theagentapsley @catherinebray nobody was allowed, or tried, to pick a film twice. we apply v strict and strictly democratic system!
— Time Out Film (@TimeOutFilm) April 24, 2013

@theagentapsley some didn't want to rank (v few) and so each of their choices got same points
— Time Out Film (@TimeOutFilm) April 24, 2013

So, if it were all democratic - with a lot of great strictness thrown in - what did the 100 list really mean ? :

In @timeoutfilm's Top 100 (timeout.com/london/film/th…), 101 voters' choices (1 to 10 each) were pooled. But were the choices equal, or ranked ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 24, 2013

@theagentapsley each of the 101 gave top ten in order. points assigned to each film in each list (more for no1, less for no10)
— Time Out Film (@TimeOutFilm) April 24, 2013

That's fine, @timeoutfilm, but, without knowing the weighting, the overall 1 to 100 means relatively little - as against unranked 1 to 10s.
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 24, 2013

And what about those 'romantic' films. For what it's worth, Apsley has this to comment :

In @timeoutfilm's Top 100 Romantics, 5 films for Cary Grant, with Jimmy Stewart nearby - did other stars top that ? timeout.com/london/film/th…
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 24, 2013

In @timeoutfilm's Top 100 Romantics, does voting Annie Hall (1977) no. 4 miss what Allen (and Brickman !) is really doing with this film ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 24, 2013

So Apsley got thinking... :

Ten free choices for each of 101 voters, so 1010 selections to be whittled down to a ranked list of 100 by, where possible, weighting the choices according to preference.

Obviously not a scientific experiment to which a test of significance need necessarily be applied, but assume, for argument's sake, that one in every two or three list of ten choices would be a duplicate : 505 discrete selections, but how skewed might the voting get if, say, 1st place carried 15 points, 2nd place 13 points, 3rd place 11 points, and then allocating a range of 10 points to the remaining 7 positions?

Could it possibly be that a relatively very small number of the overall 101 voters, choosing the same film in 1st place, might out-vote a larger number ranking it, but putting it lower down their list ? If so, democracy would mean that those with 'a passion for' a film within their choice of 10 would vote down (or, even, out) a greater number putting it, say, 8th...


No doubt more than one way to analyse these data-sets and arrive at a 1 to 100, then...


For example, Annie Hall :


* Richard Gere (who didn't choose it) only voted for 2 films

* Sally Hawkins put it 7th

* Frances O'Connor put it 4th

* Sara Pascoe put it in an unranked list

* Christopher Walken - as Gere

Summary : 3 out of 18 Actors voted for it



* Dave Calhoun (Time Out) had it 1st

* Kate Muir (The Times) put it 5th

Summary : 2 out of 18 Critics voted for it



* Judd Apatow only voted for 3 - this was the 3rd

* Richard Curtis put it 1st

* Aside - Gideon Koppel's choice for 1st was Carry on Camping...

* Jamie Travis says 4th [and, for my money, wisely names Hannah and her Sisters as 9th, which I didn't notice in anyone else's list]

* Penny Woolcock goes for 2nd

Summary : 4 out of 21 Film-makers voted for it



Conclusion

Overall, out of 57 people in these three lists who could have voted for Annie Hall, only 9 did, with 2 x 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 2 x 4th, 5th, 7th and an unranked.

To me, though Annie Hall is a great film (if not, in my view, really a romance), it suggests that the voting must (if 57 / 101 is a representative sample - I can analyse the other three categories...) be too diffuse for the votes of many to count for anything and / or that the weighting gives an unrepresentative result.


Taking this on :

Of the Film industry insiders Of whom there were 20), Shira MacLeod rated it 3rd, and Louisa Dent 2nd, but no one else named it. 2 out of 20


There were 13 Cultural heroes* : Lauren Cuthbertson put it 6th, Robyn Hitchcock 3rd**, Tim Key voted (but didn't rank it), Tom Odell said 5th, and Isy Suttie 4th. 5 out of 13


Finally, 11 Writers, of whom Moira Buffini listed it, chronologically, penultimate, Joe Dunthorne put it 6th, and Jack Thorne 1st. 3 out of 11


Those new categories make, all in all, 10 out of 44, with a further 1st, 2nd, 2 x 3rd, 4th, 5th, 2 x 6th, plus 2 x unranked.


Added to the categories above, 19 out of 101 (more respectable) :

1st x 3 (Critic, Film-maker, Writer)

2nd x 2 (Film-maker, Film industry insider)

3rd x 3 (Film-maker, Film industry insider, Cultural hero)

4th x 3 (Actor, Film-maker, Cultural hero)

5th x 2 (Critic, Cultural hero)

6th x 2 (Cultural hero, Writer)

7th x 1 (Actor)

Unranked x 3 (Actor, Cultural hero, Writer)


With the new categories, around one in five named Annie Hall, and that got it 4th in the 100 list. How much that is down to the weighting, with 8 out of 19 in the 1st to 3rd positions, is anyone's guess...

And, of course, if the three voters who declined to rank their choices had not done so, that might have made things different again !



Afterword

And what about Dr Zhivago (1965), ranked only no. 96 - to the digust of someone who commented on Time Out's pages ?

Well, I guess that there couldn't have been many votes, and, out of their 10 choices, this is what I find:

* No Actors voted for it

* No Critics voted for it

* In Film-makers, Gillies MacKinnon put it 7th, and Shirin Neshat 8th


Just over the halfway point (57 from the 101 who made some sort of selection), only two picked it - how many more secured Dr Zhivago its position at 96 ?


No Film industry insiders or Writers, and just Bella Freud from Cultural heroes (5th), so 3 votes out of 101, nothing higher than 5th place, gets 96th place.

Fourth place overall secured by 19 votes, 96th by 9, so where anything came in that list of 100 could be depend on the weighting given by - or lack of weighting - one person who chose the film...

Highly scientific (or democratic) ? Maybe a much-higher place was won for a film with, again, just three votes, because it had all its votes in positions 1st to 3rd


Comments, especially from @TimeOutFilm, welcome !



End-notes

* Bella Freud is to be valued for listing Subway (1985).

** Hitchcock came up with The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985).


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Video: Woman shocked to see tiger in public toilet (according to AOL®)

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23 April

Of course, a tiger in the petrol-station, or in the woman's bedroom, would have been unremarkable*.

After all, Esso still seems to like tigers (though, I am quick to say, I do not have any idea what it does to forestall their extinction - nearly said 'secure', but that was just  a confusion of seeking and stopping), and many a home has a Tigger, either a fluffy version, or built into a photograph-frame.

As for this toilet tiger, it couldn't have been a bothersome sort, because there is no claim that the woman was hurt ('mauled' is the preferred term), but just that she was shocked by seeing it. Perhaps she was under the faulty impression that they are extinct...

Mean of someone, then, to go and proof her wrong by attracting it inside the WC, but you know what these activists are like !


End-notes

* Oh, the perils of what T. S. Eliot (to be specific) liked, I think, to call specificity !


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In Praise of Baxter

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21 April 2013



Dear Bruce Baxter

Forget it, Susan Tomes !

You have always been the best, but your new all-Mozart recording is just blinding.

The music critic for The Times called it revelatory, but, for me, its effect is very shiny and totally chic - not at all redundant.

I know that you treasure these epistles, and I am more in awe of you than ever, but I remain your number-one fan



Juliet


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Film reviews : Pretending to know more than one does... ?

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21 April

I have blogged elsewhere how slips in what a reviewer, say, of films writes might make one think that he or she did not see (all of) the film in question. From which one might infer that I think that the minimum that one can expect, if the reviewer did not watch the whole film, is for him or her to say so.

What, though, about a film whose screenplay is not original, but adapted from a book or a play (most higher-budget films are such films) ? Can the reviewer meaningfully comment about the adaptation if, say, he or she has not read the book or play ?

In asking which, I recognize that, with such a film, it is one thing to criticize an infelicity or the implausibility of a character or part of what he or she does, another to locate the reason for it with the various film-makers (screenwriter, director, actor, etc.), without seeming to stop to ask Was this in the original, and what would deviating from that, if possible, have meant – and how would it have been done ?

If, of course, without having read the original book or play and not admitting not to know it, one wrote a review that gave the impression that one had, or that the infelicity or implausibility was squarely that of the film-makers alone, would one be pretending to know things that one did not ? If so, is the temptation for a reviewer to do it to seem convincing in that capacity, authoritative ? :


In the House (2012)

Anyway, let me get on to Francois Ozon's intriguing story of the unusual relationship between a 16-year-old pupil, Claude, (Ernst Umhauer) and his teacher (Fabrice Luchini).

The teacher sets his class the task of recounting what they did the previous weekend and Claude begins a sequence of writing about the home life of a classmate (Bastien Ughetto).

At first, this amounts to viewing through a window but to make the work more realistic he inveigles himself into his subjects' lives.

Gradually, the essays become more sinister and the teacher effectively becomes a voyeur, demanding richer writing from the boy who becomes his 'protege'.

Ozon has adapted Juan Mayorga's play without losing a theatrical feel to the movie (there are only three sets in the film; school, the classmate's home and the teacher's house).

In The House benefits from outstanding performances: Umhauer shows a superb streak of underlying malevolence while Luchini does a fine job as a teacher whose initial apparent naivety may be a cloak for uglier motives.

Courtesy of Neil White (@everyfilmdteled)


I am pretty sure that the Mayorga original has not been read. For one thing, the Amazon® search that I did when I was interested to find the source material suggested that it is not available (not, at any rate, in English, but instead under the name El chico de la última fila (which IMDb gives me)).

However, the reference here is vague enough to suggest that it might be known, but which of us knows whether the play has 'a theatrical feel' to lose ? I suggest that this is an inference, without reference to whether Mayorga wrote in, for example, a naturalistic, post-modern, or Brechtian mode (or a mixture of any one of these and others).

As I have already blogged, the locations are constricted and claustrophobic, but one cannot simply suppose either that the play proposed them, rather than using some other approach or device, and there are more than the three mentioned : near and at the basketball court, outside and inside the cinema, in and around the gallery, and, fleetingly, Garcia's house and a bus.


Here's another take on the film and how it has been constructed:


For a film maker to turn his gaze back on his own narrative can be risky, and exploring the nature of writing and the creative process risks alienating the viewer if not handled well, but François Ozon has a solid track record in handling such matters. In The House creates a world of moral ambiguity within which its characters’ motivations are always reasonable, if not always rational, and events are allowed to spiral gently out of control (or further into control, depending on your perspective). While the genitalia and breast themed artworks on the wall of Jeanne’s gallery suggests that absence of morality becoming more prevalent in contemporary society, the motivations of Germain and Claude are more timeless and satisfyingly shaded in grey. The script by succeeds in having its cake and eating it, cocking its nose at trite genre conventions while successfully weaving them into the plot.

In The House thrives on its relationships: between Germain and Jeanne, the couple whose relationship becomes defined by their reactions to Claude’s work; between Germain and Claude, as the line between fact and fiction blurs and the definition of their pupil and mentor relationship blurs with it; and between Claude and the mother of the family at the centre of his writings, Esther (Emmanualle Seigner), defying the age gap between the two to give an additional layer of uncertainty and ambiguity. These relationships are all sold by uniformly excellent performances from the cast, especially newcomer Unhauer, and it’s a step up from the almost forced frivolity of Ozon’s last film, Potiche. There’s just a couple of unfortunate notes, including the insistence on every French film featuring Kristin Scott Thomas feeling the need in some way to draw attention to her English roots (here a reference to Yorkshire), and the ending, an extra portion of cake too much in the having-and-eating-of-cake. But if I had to mark the efforts of Ozon and his cast, they’d be looking at a solid grade this time around.

Courtesy of The Movie Evangelist (@MovieEvangelist)


If Ozon is the 'film maker', what does he make is film of or from ? Can he be credited with the work - the 'risky' turning 'his gaze back on his own narrative' - when it seems unlikely that Mayorga, with his experience, would have been excluded from participation in the adaptation ?

At the moment, that is just a guess on my part - but is it likely, even if I gather that it happens often enough, that Ozon would simply adapt the play for the screen without seeking Mayorga's input ?

And the ending, whose closing shot The Evangelist tells me that he simply does not like ? - the grammar of the film implies that what we see is and has continued to be what Germain and Garcia are looking at, but that may not be so. Is it any better (or worse) if it is (a) in Germain's head, (b) a deliberately boggling kaleidoscopic depiction of the varieties of life that we can (happen to) see into, or (c) Garcia projecting his imagination onto the world as a creator who has Germain in thrall ?


To be continued



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Hey, Cinephiles ! I'm a Philokinotologist - are you ?

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18 April

Philologist (philo + logos ?) means the student / lover of words. As for 'cinephile', it seems back to front : Philokinotologist, anyone ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 18, 2013

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Goldberg and McCann ride again

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17 April

I love everything that is old; old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines. -Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield
— Got Wine (@luv_wine) April 26, 2013

The pair who turn up and sometimes threaten more with innuendo, and what they don’t say rather than what they do, bear these names in Pinter’s The Birthday Party. The Homecoming has the unseen figure of MacGregor, who – so Sam claims at the close of the play – had Max’s wife in the back of the car as he drove.

In Old Times, the Gaelic name is McCabe, mentioned only in the sequences when Kate and Anna seem to inhabit another time and place – or another place and time to inhabit them. But who is McCabe ?

The play’s dialogue accustoms us to the possibility that, for example, we may never be sure whether it was Anna’s skirt that Deeley, with her compliance, looked up – or says that he did.

Anna’s eventually agreeing with him that it was she does not, in itself, signify that it did happen. Yet it does come immediately before Kate’s unleashing her fractured and furious speech about Deeley and Anna, with which the dialogue ends, and leads to the tableau with which it concludes.

The names McCann and McCabe share, to some extent, in euphony, but more so in the fact that they betoken an Irish, rather than a Scots, origin (on the rule that the prefix ‘Mc’ is one, and ‘Mac’ the other). If that rule is valid and if, as it seems, Deeley is an Irish name, could we posit that McCabe is really he ?

The Homecoming’s MacGregor is the only person not referred to by his or her Christian name or a pet form of it (Teddy, Lenny, etc., but just Ruth), although it is shortened to Mac. That pattern seems true in Old Times, because (in Act 2) the other names that Anna uses are Charley, Duncan and Christy – in Act 1, Anna had suggested Jake (whom Kate said that she does not like), or ‘Charley…or…’, and Anna then named McCabe, when Kate asks whom she meant.
Managing, the second time, to break in to whatever is happening between Anna and Kate again in Act 2, Deeley claims that Christy ‘can’t make it. He’s out of town’, and Kate says ‘Oh, what a pity’, before, after marking silence, the three talk together ‘normally’ again.

Prior to Deeley’s words, she feelingly and tellingly said about Christy (after saying that she liked him best, and Anna said that he is ‘lovely’) :

He’s so gentle, isn’t he ? And his humour. Hasn’t he got a lovely sense of humour ? And I think he’s…so sensitive. Why don’t you ask him round ?


Even a fondness and admiration for another man twenty years ago – or is it now ? – seems to have been too much for Deeley, too much of a threat, as Anna (after Deeley’s eruption) seems to perceive herself to be:

(To Deeley, quietly) I would like you to understand that I came here not to disrupt but to celebrate.

Pause

To celebrate a very old and treasured friendship, something that was forged between us long before you knew of our existence*.


The description of Christy does not seem to match Deeley’s nature and behaviour, and, with it, comes a portrayal of a time when men friends of Anna’s would be invited around, by Anna, to where Kate and she lived. (That is, if we believe the play’s opening dialogue to the effect that Kate had no friends other than Anna, and in the light of Anna’s saying Would you like me to ask someone over ?)

If he is not Deeley, McCabe is, at any rate, a mystery in Act 1 : in the scenario of the 1950s at its end, Kate says that she will think in the bath about Anna’s hesitant suggestion of asking McCabe, so not the definite rejection that Jake gets. Yet, by Act 2, we have :

Kate : Is Charley coming ?

Anna : I can ring him if you like.

Kate : What about McCabe ?

Anna : Do you really want to see anyone ?

Kate : I don’t think I like McCabe.

Anna : Nor do I.

Kate : He’s strange. He says some very strange things to me.

Anna : What things ?

Kate : Oh, all sorts of funny things.

Anna : I’ve never liked him.

Kate : Duncan’s nice though, isn’t he ?


As two women discussing men whom they know might, they turn briefly to Duncan, having more or less agreed that they do not like McCabe, and then to Christy, whereupon Deeley makes his successful interruption.

In context, then, is that intervention made in genuine fear, because he – McCabe – has heard himself rejected, and it seems that Christy might be asked to come to see Kate in his stead ?

Couple that with how Anna eventually validates Deeley for maintaining that he had a liaison with her**, and Kate’s words to Deeley about Anna’s feelings for him (events which he gives the impression of not quite remembering, not quite crediting, and which Anna does not even attempt to deny), and, with a consequence reminiscent of the unfolding of an Ibsen play, the trap has snapped shut.

For Anna, despite being the one for whom Deeley felt a real attraction, is not the one whom he chose to marry, and he had gone along with allowing Kate to efface the memory and reality of Anna :

He asked me once, at about that time, who had slept in that bed before him. I told him no one. No one at all.


That links back to when, just to Deeley, Anna had been denying his saying that they had had prior contact and having been at the party. Deeley said that afterwards

I never saw you again. You disappeared from the area. Perhaps you moved out..


In negating what Deeley proposes, Anna does not challenge him identifying her as that woman, but simply says No. I didn’t. Deeley then asks where Anna was, and, before he appears to drop the subject, she says Oh, at concerts, I should think, or the ballet.

By doing so, Anna lamely resuscitates the impression of a social whirl for Kate and her with which she launched herself into the play, whereas it seems just as plausible that, at some point, Anna’s world had revolved around The Wayfarers Tavern – despite her protestation I wasn’t rich, you know. I didn’t have money for alcohol., which Deeley rejects by saying that men, himself included, bought her drinks.

Knowing that Deeley is Kate’s husband, Anna maybe does not want to remember, and she does not appear able to parry Deeley’s claims now that he has her alone. He, for his part, almost certainly takes advantage, either of embellishing a real situation, or – if Pinter leaves us thinking it amounts to anything different – fabricating an account so far back that Anna cannot easily and definitely contradict him.

If Deeley is McCabe, any disappearance of Anna could not even be on a figurative level as Kate’s narration of Anna being dead or Anna’s of a man in the room who is sobbing and puts his head in Kate’s lap : that silent closing scenario, with the three of them, is like the dumbshow in Pericles or, more famously, in Hamlet, which sums up what dare not be spoken, but they know as truth, remembered truth.

In writing this, I find myself back at Beckettt’s Play, with Kate, Deeley and Anna linked as are his voices, doomed by an inextricable past…


Postlude

What a bastard relation to appreciating a play reading a text and thinking that one understands it is ! I say this, having just re-read Landscape, from 1968, and feeling an effect from it - an effect so different from a production, a performance, not least with Pinter, where the cumulative effect of the stage-directions Pause, Silence or even Long silence cannot be experienced on the page.

Such a crooked teaching that encouraged one to approach plays - and poems - as texts, when they are merely notated in writing, and live outside it !

My copy tells me that Peggy Ashcroft and Eric Porter were first broadcast on the radio in it, and then, in 1969, Peter Hall staged it (Ashcroft again, but not Porter). That figures. Is it conceivable that Pinter did not hear and know Beckettt's radio play Embers, broadcast first in 1959 ? And this play and also Silence, how they feed into the mood and nature of Old Times


End-notes

* Was the friendship, though, long before ?

** Of which he tells Kate, after telling alone Anna that this is his recollection, with the apparent intent of demeaning both Anna (for being the woman whose skirt he was allowed him to look up) and, by association, Kate herself for letting him become her husband when his interests were not in her, despite his story, with homoerotic mentions of Robert Newton, of meeting Kate at a screening of Odd Man Out.


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