except for the cannibals, obviously

Music Um, yes, I'm a bit late with this but having realised, during my recent rewatch that the best thing about the first two series of Torchwood is its expression of Welsh culture (except for the cannibals, obviously), I'm overjoyed with the way, Newport State of Mind, does much the same thing in music.

Until the record company tries to pull that page down too.

"I wanted to make a fiction film"

Film The AV Club interviews Terry Zwigoff and offers up an interesting titbit:

"AVC: The Criterion edition of Louie Bluie includes an approving quote from Woody Allen on the back. What’s your association with Woody Allen?

TZ: I was asked to do a documentary about him by his producer Jean Doumanian, years ago. I met him, and spent about a week out there with him, and he was very nice, very generous. But she clearly wanted to do a film about his band touring Europe, and I was more interested in other aspects of his life. So they got Barbara Kopple to do that thing she did, Wild Man Blues. I liked the last scene in that movie, with his parents. That’s more like what I would’ve wanted to do.

AVC: Was that after Crumb?

"TZ: Yeah. Right after Crumb, before I made Ghost World. One of the reasons I bowed out of doing it was because I wanted to make a fiction film, and Ghost World was my chance. It was either do this documentary on Woody Allen, who I admired very much, or do Ghost World."

Much as I love that final scene and would have liked to have seen Zwigoff's version of Woody Allen's life, I think I much prefer the existence of Ghost World. A bit later there's some comment on Woody's directing style and one of the reasons he likes to write his own films and goes some way to explaining why he's an auteur when other film makers just aren't.

a decent replacement for Shampoo

Music Long term readers (and I mean lifers with no chance of parole) will know about my search for a decent replacement for Shampoo, the big in Japan, one hit wonders, song on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie soundtrack girl group.

Meet Hotpants Romance:



Rather more free form, and essentially a racket, but the no shit taking attitude, the ethic of turning out the same song over and over again is intact, ability to sing not essential. Plus the pastel colours, oh the pastel colours [via]

if Inception was gender reversed

Film I've had Karie and John's posts about recasting Inception under other conditions knocking around in my brain for a few days. They've conspired to produce a new cast list of what the film would be looked like in 2001. I'd agree with almost everything, except I still think Tom Beringer would be there. Oh and Audrey Tattou instead of Marion Cotillard.

Taking a leaf out of the Bechdel Test, I wondered what the cast would look like if Inception was gender reversed. As you'd imagine this is somewhat harder.

Angelina Jolie plays Cobb. *
Rosario Dawson steps in for Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur (or Gwen) **
Romain Duris replaces Marion Cotillard.
Michelle Yeoh as Saito, in place of Ken Watanabe.
Michael Cera as Ariadne (or Adrian). ***
Hermione Norris replaces Tom Hardy as Eames (Emma).
Rachel Weisz instead of Cillian Murphy as Roberta Fischer.
Demi Moore in place of Tom Berenger as Browning.
Parminda Nagra replacing Dileep Rao

Some notes:

* Honestly, I agonised about this, but in truth there isn't another actress of DiCaprio's stature known for action and acting.
** I didn't agonise over this
*** Ariadne is in awe of Cobb in the film and though I know this is jokey and easy I can imagine what these scenes would be like.

Except for readers in Scotland ...

Journalism I'm not entire surprised by this. The Daily Express has begun a campaign to stop the imminent clock change in the UK:

"THE Daily Express today launches a crusade to stop Britain being plunged into early evening darkness every autumn.

The Time for Change Crusade would give us an extra hour of daylight in the evening all year.

Prime Minister David Cameron said last night he would “look at” whether Britain should turn the clocks back each year.

Except for readers in Scotland where a completely different spin is being put on the story and there's no apparent campaign:

"DAVID Cameron sparked fury yesterday as he agreed to consider plans to move Britain’s clocks forward by an hour all-year round.

English MPs want the Prime Minister to introduce British Summer Time throughout the year to give families one hour more of daylight in the evenings.

But most Scots are firmly opposed as they fear children would travel to school in darker mornings throughout much of the winter, risking more traffic accidents. Tourism chiefs south of the Border back the move to bring Britain into line with most of continental Europe, saying it would boost the leisure industry."

So you're fully supporting on one side of the border something which is sparking "fury" on the other? Of course you are. Like I said, I'm not surprised. In fact I'd be disappointed if you weren't.

Public Art Collections in North West England: Stockport War Memorial and Art Gallery

Closing out his entry on Stockport War Memorial and Art Gallery in his book Public Art Collections in North West England, Edward Morris offers a brief incident of brutal honesty:

“Stockport is the only major industrial and commercial centre in north-west England without a notable public art collection”

But this isn’t a critical assessment, it’s a statement of fact, the reasons for which he’s already unpicked over the previous three rather large paragraphs and which are worth summarising a bit here.

Essentially Stockport missed the boat in creating an art collection with a strong legacy due to a series of critical errors by the original benefactors. A couple of local MPs James Kershaw and Benjamin Smith made provision – as similar worthies had in other towns – for the building of a local art gallery.

But against the protestations of the local council who knew that such a building could only be successful in a town centre (no doubt eyeing similar local projects) Keshaw and Smith built it in the nearby Vernon Park outside of the tourist loop instead.

After they handed over the keys in 1860 they set about appealing for art to fill its walls. None was forthcoming. Out of what looks in hindsight like a desperation to validate their position, Smith bought the collection of the Marquis of Brancadori (which he'd seen during a European tour) on the cheap.

After keeping a few for himself and loaning the rest to the gallery; but before too long what seemed like a bargain hoard filled with old masters by the likes of Murillo and Velazquez turned out riddled with misattributions and copies. So when he bequeathed them to the gallery on his death, they were, perhaps, of little or no interest.

By the late 1800s the Vernon Park Museum was dedicating itself to natural history and antiquities; the art collections such as they were transferred to a Bramwell Hall in 1936. By then, however, another serious public art gallery provision was already in hand.

This was to include a war memorial for those who’d fallen in the first world war and opened in 1925 and still stands on Wellington Road, as pictured. But with a few notable exceptions because of the depression which was gripping the area, the bequest of art had all but stopped.

On reflection to complete this journey I should have visited Bramwall Hall and perhaps I will, it does look rather atmospheric with its Tudor stylings. But since this has dragged on long enough, I’m keeping to the edifices and collections on Edward’s contents page.

So last Wednesday I climbed the steps in front of the Wellington Road building – and climbed them again two hours later when the gallery had actually opened at one in the afternoon. I’ve now reached the museums with a really tricky or limited opening hours.

[Just as an interlude I should add that Stockport isn’t otherwise without its museums. Before the trip I asked twitter what else there was to do. To a person, the twitterers suggested the Hat Museum or more accurately the Hat Works. I visited the Hat Works. There are lots of hats:



Now, back to the art gallery.]

Some geography of the interior. The war memorial is directly opposite the entrance, a kind of marble chapel, with, at the centre, a giant group by Gilbert Ledward depicting Brittania comforting a nude man holding a broken sword to symbolise sacrifice.

As Edward suggests “the style is as austerely neoclassical as the building itself”. The permanent fine art collection is displayed in a largish room to the left, and is displayed in three phases, portraits, people in place and people in isolation. Aptly, considering how I’m feeling at the moment, I visited during the third.

Apart from, depending on your tastes, the usual two Lowrys, the most striking piece presently on display is a Jacob Epstein bust of a young Yehudi Menhuin produced just as the violinist would have been at much the same age as Nigel Kennedy.

As ever, Epstein emphasises the most prominent sectors of the face, his nose and neck, an ice cream whipped mop of hair atop his head, quite a contrast from the balding figure I grew up with when classical music performers were still allowed on popular television during prime time.

Accompanying literature on the purchase suggests that the museum (perhaps keen to beat the price down) questioned whether a crease in the bust’s forehead was damage incurred on the object. The agent for the seller confirms that in fact this was a measure of Epstein’s accuracy.

Menhuin sustained the scar during an accident in his youth. The agent then cites that all six versions of the bust have the same gash. The bust is also accompanied by a note in Epstein’s own handwriting confirming the authenticity of the piece.

The bold lines of this bust are mirrored in a painting by Laurence Isherwood of an “old Spanish lady” from 1972. Interesting for its technique more than anything else, I think it lacks a certain character, the lines of the woman’s face and disembodied heard obscured in the mass of pink and purple hues.

It's an experiment I think in trying to produce a Turneresque effect within a portrait which doesn’t quite work, for me at least. Like an old analogue television which hasn’t quite been tuned in or a new television when a plane is flying past interfering with the digital signal.

I mention it only to contrast with David Stefan Przepiora's People in which similarly broad brush strokes are brought to bear on a crowd scene but which has much more cohesion of colour – a range of autumnal colours – and I’d say purpose – how strangers may walk down the same street but inhabit their own world.

Whilst it’s true that recently I’ve seen photographs treated by computer to look similar used to decorate coffee shops and artists impressions for major architectural developments, there’s something very poignant about these gloomy figures painted in the year of my birth.

A couple of the works on display are listed as having been bought at the Bradford Print Bienniale in 1972. Costing £8 was Roger Savage’s Sunday Morning Walk, in which, from the rear, we see a father taking his son along a promenade.

A world of emotional significance is drawn from around twenty blocks of muted colours, greys and blues because the shape of the child on his shoulders is mimicked in the rocky islands which lay out to the coast, suggesting, perhaps, the weight of responsibly the son or daughter has brought to them.

Someone with an imagination like mine might consider that the woman depicted in Elisabeth Von Holleben’s colourful etching nearby is the mother and wife awaiting their return, even if the grey hairs and scarf suggest something different. The patterning in the lace top is exquisite, the overall effect similar to late Raymond Briggs.

Which is rather the story of the collection overall – a few notables and other works by artists who aren’t quite notable yet. If Edward’s correct in suggesting that this isn’t a major collection this certainly didn’t feel like a wasted visit though I'd also plan to include the Hat Works as part of your day trip.

"his stage version in 1899"

Film The Bioscope has a couple of fascinating posts about Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes during the silent era. Much of time seems have been spent fighting copyright infringement:

"The Stoll series raised the thorny issue of copyright once more. Doyle had instructed his literary agent to check the validity of his copyrights in the USA before he signed his deal with Stoll in 1920, but American interests challenged the Stoll series nonetheless. The Goldwyn Corporation argued that Doyle had sold the dramatic rights to the Holmes stories when William Gillette had created his stage version in 1899, rights which then passed on to the Essanay company in 1916 when a feature film was made of Gillette’s play (starring Gillette), and then to Goldwyn, which produced the feature film Sherlock Holmes in 1922, with John Barrymore as the detective. The case was thrown out by the New York Supreme Court, but it demonstrated the muddle that Doyle (or his representatives) had created and the difficulty the law had in separating stage from screen."

They've also compiled a filmography from various sources. Sounds like the Alan Barnes book could be an essential purchase, assuming there isn't going to be an update ...

"important buildings"

Film An entertaining bit of ineption about the architecture in Inception:

"the architectural set pieces grow increasingly trite and familiar. The bulk of the dream sequences take place in the following spaces: on the streets of downtown Los Angeles, including a wide intersection in front of a Famima store; the inside of a van; a hotel room; hotel hallways; an elevator; an elevator shaft; and a quasi-Brutalist mountainside complex where, in the deep snow, you can make out the boot-prints of both James Bond and Jason Bourne."

What this writer has missed is that Ariadne has to create unfamiliar versions of the familiar and that loop back on themselves. If she had gone about creating the architectural marvels this writer was hoping for, the mark would have realised his dreams were being interfered with.

Plus in criticising Cobb's world, he's neglected to realise that this is Cobb's world, the buildings of his memory. These are the important buildings in his life.

"Why can't you just make one phone call to Buckingham Palace?"

Film Quantum Leap is being turned into a film and it isn't some rubbish spoof, it's canonical! Donald P Bellisario is writing, Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell also appearing. I've always assumed a spin-off would have Sam's daughter searching for him through time, but sadly that now sounds a bit too close to the new Tron Legacy film.

Meanwhile, the inevitable fan film has been in production. The YouTube video title rather gives the game away.



If Richard Desmond sees this he'll be broadcasting it in a prime time slot on Channel 5.

Press release: Romeo and Juliet at the Fire Station in Croxteth

This sounds rather amazing, so I think I'd best just republish the whole press release:

Setting Shakespeare Alight:
Romeo and Juliet at the Fire Station

A FREE contemporary community production of Shakespeare's play of feuding families and star crossed young lovers is taking place at Croxteth Fire Station 26th – 28th August.

Coordinated by The Reader Organisation, and directed by Neil Caple (Royal Shakespeare Company, Brookside), the Merseyside Community Theatre (MCT) project has been running in the Alt Valley since April and time’s nearly up to move from the rehearsal space at the Jacob’s Cracker factory to the grounds of Croxteth Fire Station where the four performances will be held later this month.

Neil Caple, Director, says:

“I’ve seen people turn from shy, quiet individuals into real actors who are now commanding the stage when they’re on. We’re ready to light up the fire station!”

This unique, community-led project has involved people of all ages and backgrounds, and includes a mix of complete novices and seasoned professionals in the cast and crew. MCT have remained true to their promise of including everybody with a desire to get involved in the show: from acting to stewarding, tea-making to set-building, and the audience for each of the four shows is filling up fast.

Performances take place Thursday 26th, Friday 27th, and Saturday 28th August at 7.30pm, with an additional performance at 2.30pm on Saturday 28th. All of the shows are free, just turn up. If you want to guarantee entry, please call Emma on 07739 420009 or email emmamcgordon@thereader.org.uk to have your space reserved.


www.merseysidecommunitytheatre.co.uk

Romeo and Juliet at the Fire Station in Croxteth

Theatre This sounds rather amazing, so I think I'd best just republish the press release:

Setting Shakespeare Alight:
Romeo and Juliet at the Fire Station

A FREE contemporary community production of Shakespeare's play of feuding families and star crossed young lovers is taking place at Croxteth Fire Station 26th – 28th August.

Coordinated by The Reader Organisation, and directed by Neil Caple (Royal Shakespeare Company, Brookside), the Merseyside Community Theatre (MCT) project has been running in the Alt Valley since April and time’s nearly up to move from the rehearsal space at the Jacob’s Cracker factory to the grounds of Croxteth Fire Station where the four performances will be held later this month.

Neil Caple, Director, says:

“I’ve seen people turn from shy, quiet individuals into real actors who are now commanding the stage when they’re on. We’re ready to light up the fire station!”

This unique, community-led project has involved people of all ages and backgrounds, and includes a mix of complete novices and seasoned professionals in the cast and crew. MCT have remained true to their promise of including everybody with a desire to get involved in the show: from acting to stewarding, tea-making to set-building, and the audience for each of the four shows is filling up fast.

Performances take place Thursday 26th, Friday 27th, and Saturday 28th August at 7.30pm, with an additional performance at 2.30pm on Saturday 28th. All of the shows are free, just turn up. If you want to guarantee entry, please call Emma on 07739 420009 or email emmamcgordon@thereader.org.uk to have your space reserved.


www.merseysidecommunitytheatre.co.uk

the Gordon Brown of Doctor Who

TV Benedict Cumberbatch signs himself up as the Gordon Brown of Doctor Who ...



Oh, he so wants it now.

terrifying

Film I saw Showgirls and Coyote Ugly at the cinema. Looks I'll be completing the trilogy:



The trailer is still terrifying though.

the messy hijinks of courtly romance

When I was lucky enough to see As You Like It at Shakespeare’s Globe last year, I assumed it would be the only show in that season that I’d be lucky enough to witness. Now, thanks to a collaboration with Opus Arte, best known for their live recordings of music, opera and ballet, a number of the plays are being recorded on hi-definition for broadcasting in cinema and the lucrative secondary market of dvd and blu-ray. The first wave includes As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet and the revived production of Love’s Labour’s Lost, originally conceived in 2007 but added to last year’s Young Hearts season.

It’s quite easy to fixate on the climax of Love’s Labour’s Lost which doesn’t quite fit the pattern of most of Shakespeare’s comedies. At the moment when he seems ready to complete the coupling up of royals and friends, the Princess of France gains word of the death of her father and that she must take the throne, their potential significant others entering exile until the winds of change have blown over. The critical assumption is that this cliffhanger was meant to be resolved in the now missing Love’s Labour’s Won, a grand experiment in comedy across two parts.

Dominic Dromgoole’s Globe production, by emphasising the shift in tone from the messy hijinks of courtly romance to the sudden melancholy of the Princess taking office, the production suggests another option – that Shakespeare was cheekily dramatising the moment when Elizabeth replaced her father on the throne and the dramatic shift from the frivolity of youth to ruling the known world. The arc of Michelle Terry’s authoritative performance, perhaps the strongest of the souls on stage, even resolves itself in the moment when grief and recognition combine.

Until then, what a Carry-On! There are essentially two possible approaches to Love Labour’s Lost's complex maze of word play and allusions; emphasise the text in the hopes the audience will be attentive enough to go with it or cut as many of the obscure passages as possible and replace them with slapstick (or songs if you’re Kenneth Branagh). Dromgoole seeks a middle ground. No innuendo goes unemphasised and the director also relies heavily on the bawdy abilities of his cast for a winning combination.

It’s fair to say that even if not all of the senses of Shakespeare’s words are communicated, the humour certainly is, in Fergal McElherron’s Chaplinesque antics as Costard and in the manic desperation between the students not to reveal their amorous ambitions having agreed to put learning before love. Because of the venue, these are not subtle performances, which helps poor Don Armado, one of the least funniest of Shakespeare’s clowns who here is gifted a Borat-like accent by Paul Ready and a heavy dose of pathos which means that for once the play within a play doesn’t drag.

Now and again the text is allowed to zing not least in the barbed exchanges between the charismatic Trystan Gravelle returning as Berowne and Thomasin Rand, whose aristocratic face masks a tender wit. She’s a worthy replacement for the just out of RADA Gemma Arterton whose appearance in the original version was a spring-board for her film career. But as with the other Globe productions I’ve seen, there’s a genuine sense of comradeship, of the cast pulling together, making the most of the unexpected, when planes are flying over or some other unusual noise bleeding in from modern London, going about the business of living outside this historical bubble.

The on-screen audience laps all of this up, and indeed part of the enjoyment of watching the production is seeing the reaction of the groundlings. Recording in the Globe presents a special challenge; most filmed theatre shies away poking into the auditorium but in this venue, the audience are vital part of the show. Film director Ian Russell treats this as an event, and gives a genuine appreciation of what it’s like within the space, the atmosphere, though with enough close-ups for it not to look static on a television screen, illuminating the delicate details of designer Jonathan Fensom’s period costumes.

Love's Labour's Lost is available from Opus Arte on dvd and blu-ray. Review copy supplied.

Love's Labour's Lost (Shakespeare's Globe production presented by Opus Arte)

Not being able to visit London often, let alone Shakespeare’s Globe, even though I was lucky enough to see their production of As You Like It last year, I assumed that as usual I would be missing everything else. Now, thanks to a collaboration with Opus Arte, best known for their live recordings of music, opera and ballet, a number of the plays are being recorded on hi-definition for broadcasting in cinema and the lucrative secondary market of dvd and blu-ray. The first wave includes As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet and the revived production of Love’s Labour’s Lost, originally conceived in 2007 but added to last year’s Young Hearts season.

It’s quite easy to fixate on the climax of Love’s Labour’s Lost which doesn’t quite fit the pattern of most of Shakespeare’s comedies. At the moment when the bard seems ready to complete the coupling up of royals and friends, instead the Princess of France gains word of the death of her father and that she must take the throne, their potential significant others entering exile until the winds of change have blown over. The critical assumption is that this cliffhanger was meant to be resolved in the now missing Love’s Labour’s Won, a grand experiment in comedy across two parts.

Dominic Dromgoole’s Globe production, by emphasising the shift in tone from the messy hijinks of courtly romance to the sudden melancholy of the Princess taking office, suggests another option – that Shakespeare was cheekily dramatising the moment when Elizabeth replaced her father on the throne and the shift from the frivolity of youth to ruling the known world. The arc of Michelle Terry’s authoritative performance, perhaps the strongest of the souls on stage, even resolves itself in the moment when grief and recognition combine.

Until then, what a Carry-On! There are essentially two possible approaches to Love Labour’s Lost's complex maze of word play and allusions; emphasise the text in the hopes the audience will be attentive enough to go with it or cut as many of the obscure passages as possible and replace them with slapstick (or songs if you’re Kenneth Branagh). Dromgoole seeks a middle ground. No innuendo goes unemphasised and the director also relies heavily on the bawdy abilities of his cast for a winning combination.

It’s fair to say that even if not all of the senses of Shakespeare’s words are communicated, the humour certainly is, in Fergal McElherron’s Chaplinesque antics as Costard and in the manic desperation between the students not to reveal their amorous ambitions having agreed to put learning before love. Because of the venue, these are not subtle performances, which helps poor Don Armado, one of the least funniest of Shakespeare’s clowns who here is gifted a Borat-like accent by Paul Ready and a heavy dose of pathos which means that for once the play within a play doesn’t drag.

Now and again the text is allowed to zing not least in the barbed exchanges between the charismatic Trystan Gravelle returning as Berowne and Thomasin Rand, whose aristocratic face masks a tender wit. She’s no doubt a worthy replacement for the just out of RADA Gemma Arterton whose appearance in the original version was a spring-board for her film career. But as with the other Globe productions I’ve seen, there’s a genuine sense of comradeship, of the cast pulling together, making the most of the unexpected, when planes are flying over or some other unusual noise bleeding in from modern London, going about the business of living outside this historical bubble.

The on-screen audience laps all of this up, and indeed part of the enjoyment of watching the production is seeing the reaction of the groundlings. Recording in the Globe presents a special challenge; most filmed theatre shies away poking into the auditorium but in this venue, the audience are vital part of the show. Film director Ian Russell treats this as an event, and gives a genuine appreciation of what it’s like within the space, the atmosphere, though with enough close-ups for it not to look static on a television screen, illuminating the delicate details of designer Jonathan Fensom’s period costumes.

Love's Labour's Lost is available from Opus Arte on dvd and blu-ray. Review copy supplied.

beautiful and unexpected

Music This is rather beautiful and unexpected, especially since it's from a publicity email I've just received.

"Seems Like Old Times" from Annie Hall as covered by Sarah Blasko.



Doesn't quite have Diane Keaton's heartbreaking whiff of failure, but at least retains a hint of her nostalgic sadness.

Lovely.

Here also is the accompanying photo of Blasko wearing a bowtie, because, as we know, bowties are cool.

slash

Film That's Inception slash fiction. What were they like at private school?

"Arthur doesn’t tell anyone else about Eames. He doesn’t witness anything like it again anyway, even after he starts hanging out in Eames’s room on occasion. Dom’s been spending more and more time with Mal and Ariadne has started an architecture club, so Eames is pretty much the only person around that Arthur sees on a regular basis. He doesn’t really have a choice in the matter but even if he did, he acknowledges that the outcome would probably be the same.

The Fall dance and the end of the semester are both coming up, the combination of which makes all the students quietly go crazy. Arthur kicks it into high gear and takes full advantage of the new later library hours. He sucks down coffee like a mad man and only eats when Eames sneaks him sandwiches from his backpack.

Eames even being in the library is a fairly novel turn of events. Once, Arthur looks at Eames’s book selections when he’s off in the bathroom and sees titles ranging anywhere from Psychopharmacology to Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan to Eat, Pray, Love."

Not safe for work. Or anywhere else to be honest.

"It’s not my favourite song ever."

Music 10 Years of Being Boring. A hundred and fity web pages about one song:

"Today every single note and word of Being boring bring a lot of memories—both good and bad memories. It is not just another song anymore—as if it ever was one! It’s become something I can relate to. Something deep. Something touching. Something meaningful. It’s not my favourite song ever (without any doubt that title should be given to Pet Shop Boys’ another masterpiece, 1987’s King’s Cross), but it is most certainly one most personal."

Found in the comments to "Why Pet Shop Boys' Being Boring is the perfect pop song" at The Guardian.

"Ménage à trois"

Film Patricia Clarkson talks about working on Woody's Whatever Works:

"I mean, some elements of my mother are there. My mother's hair; that's my mother's hair. But she's a radically different woman. But yes, my Southern roots are very present. And those just delicious, divine words that I get to say. Just that crazy journey...from a conservative Southern socialite to an artist who is sleeping with two men. God, I can't even remember my lines now except, "Ménage à trois." People quote it to me all the time on the street. I guess I said it with a certain cadence. And so people come up to me and say "Ménage à trois."

Which sounds like the kind of thing which happens in a Woody Allen film. A pattern is developing.

"a stack of dreaming people"

Film I've been waiting for this. Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell deconstruct the narrative structure and offer a thorough film studies perspective of Inception and produce essentially the best analysis of the film you're likely to ever see. Spoilers ahead obviously:

"The narration constructs its causal chain by being nominally omniscient. For short stretches of the film we may be “with” Ariadne and Cobb or Mal and Cobb and witness them having personal conversations, most dramatically when Cobb fails to talk Mal out of leaping to her death. These moments provide the main alternative to the exposition-ridden dialogue, and they are a very small portion of the overall speech in the film. Yet the narration arches over all, stitching together the series of causes by moving us among the levels, catching at exactly the right moment the critical action (Arthur is putting a stack of dreaming people into an elevator) or dialogue (Cobb asking Ariadne where she designed a route bypassing the labyrinth in the hospital)."

[...]

"In sum, as ambitious artists compete to engineer clockwork narratives and puzzle films, Nolan raises the stakes by reviving a very old tradition, that of the embedded story. He motivates it through dreams and modernizes it with a blend of science fiction, fantasy, action pictures, and male masochism. Above all, the dream motivation allows him to crosscut four embedded stories, all built on classic Hollywood plot arcs. In the process he creates a virtuoso stretch of cinematic storytelling."

There's much to talk about here and a may just when I have some time (though Jim Emmerson who wasn't a fan of the film has some), except to say that I love that even Thompson is willing to admit she still doesn't understand the whole plot and Bordwell can still find fault with a film he clearly very much enjoyed. Though I'd argue that some of the action sequences are purposefully clunky because Nolan is underscoring imperfections in the dream.

an interesting audience cameo.

Elsewhere I've reviewed Playing Shakespeare, John Barton's epic exploration into the practice of communicating blank verse during which I highlight an interesting audience cameo. There's another one after this link ...

Playing Shakespeare.

New to Region 2 dvd, Playing Shakespeare is the Channel 4 series from the 1980s in which, across nine episodes, renowned theatre director John Barton workshops with a group of actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company various aspects of communicating the canon to an audience. It’s an astonishing piece of television which is essential viewing for actors, anyone with a passing interest in Shakespeare and even, I would say, the stage in general and has a quality of thought and presentation which seems quite alien in these times when television assumes the viewer’s ignorance then works backwards.

At the very least it’s important because it captures a moment in cultural history when a range of what are now household names were still perhaps best known for their theatre work. Younger versions of amongst others Sinead Cusack, Sheila Hancock, Ben Kingsley, Jane Lapotaire, Ian McKellan, Mike Gwilym, David Suchet, Roger Rees, Lisa Harrow, Michael Williams, Patrick Stewart and Judi Dench all appear, an unprecedented line-up united because they’d previous been directed or advised by Barton, all apparently still learning their craft and having great fun simply working the text outside the pressures of a real production.

Barton’s contention, which he describes as the two traditions approach, is that actors should take to heart Hamlet’s advice to the players, totemically repeated throughout the series, “Speak the speech I pray you as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue” and find a middle presentational ground between Stanislavskian naturalism and the Elizabethan tradition. An actor should consider each phrase and clause carefully so that it seems naturally to be the only thing a character would say in that situation. He’s fighting against the tendency in some actors to simply provide the general sense of Shakespearean dialogue, sapping its spontaneity.

Barton also seems well aware that his televisual approach, a kind of loose rehearsal in front of cameras does have an inherently artificial quality. Certainly there are moments when some actors are trying create a moment of spontaneity which almost always looks like what it is -- a feed question or line so that Barton can move on to the next bit as an actor approaching from the side "John, can I just ask you ...?" But he confronts it by playing the famous Footlights clip of Fry & Laurie rehearsing several meanings of the word "time" then having much the same discussion with his own actors in a more thoughtful tone, to demonstrate that however well parodied his approach might be, it's still extremely useful.

In my review of the book shaped transcripts of these episodes, my main concern was that Barton’s thesis could only be properly illuminated once we we’re able to hear and compare the changes brought by the actors when Barton’s direction and suggestion is assimilated. Sure enough, in the episode when Dench and Pasco work a section of Twelfth Night, we can now see their performance subtlety develop across readings, Dench’s Viola becoming much stronger, Pasco's Orsino more reflective. Sometimes these manipulations have obviously been worked out in advance for illustrative purposes but all of them demonstrate that a performance is a collusion between actor, director and Shakespeare himself.

That’s especially true in the episode dedicated to investigating the differing interpretations of Shylock from David Suchet and Patrick Stewart. Barton directed them both in acclaimed productions and it allows him to also demonstrate that no matter how many suggestions the director gives, the final decisions should be left to the actor. Stewart employs an aristocratic approach against Suchet’s near stereotype but both have strong justifications for their choice, the former the need to assimilation the latter to emphasise their heritage as a way of shielding him from cultural influences, both available in the text. Shakespeare has gives the actor choices.

Not least in the matter of pauses. Barton notes and the actors express that Shakespeare communicates great meaning in the instants when the actor and so character isn’t speaking when their either considering what to say next or indeed waiting for the reaction of their rival or potential lover to their curse or oaths. In speeches too. As Michael Pennington exquisitely reveals, all of Hamlet’s big soliloquies become entirely legible when the commas are emphasised and Shakespeare even offers a hint in “To be..” when he says the results of death “Must give us pause.” Pennington’s contributions are the strongest Hamlet contingent, though Barbara Leigh-Hunt gives a wonderfully restrained Gertrude for “There is a willow…” to illustrate how the greatest melancholia can be communicated through restraint.

Even for those of us who are less interested in the technical aspects of acting, the series is worth seeing for the powerful moments in which the various actors tackle these famous speeches. Patrick Stewart’s Titus consoling himself when all seems lost. Sheila Hancock’s heartbreaking Mistress Quickly on hearing of Falstaff’s death. Lisa Harrow’s horror as Innogen in discovering a headless body. Ian McKellan’s late appearance as Shallow, his pipes whistling in their sound prefiguring Gandalf the Grey. On more than one occasion my reaction was much the same as the bewildered Hamlet on seeing the Player King weep for Hecuba, summoning great emotional depth seemingly from nowhere. Astounding.

With all of the talk of looking to the detail of the text, it’s impossible to also gain some fascination from the chance to see these actors in such unvarnished circumstances, without any of the barriers that are thrown up in their appearances on chat shows. Williams stepping through the shadows at the back of the set looking for a lighter (many of the actors are chainsmokers) or Dench fidgeting with a plastic cup which she quickly realises is making too much noise and hides under her chair. Roger Rees and Mike Gwilym are inveterate flirts, Lisa Harrow entirely receptive. The gentle rivalry between Stewart, Suchet, Kingsley and McKellen.

Look closer still and Playing Shakespeare even contains moments of genuine poignancy. Donald Sindon fighting his natural tendency to over egg within a television studio, keenly aware that his style is at odds with the more naturalist work of the others. Peggy Ashcroft’s nostalgic reaction to hearing a recording of herself playing Viola thirty years earlier, the memories of another time flooding back to her. Dench and Williams’s marital affection, during the segment in which the actors work a longer section of Twelfth Night, the latter with just a few lines but patiently following his cues. And who should be in the studio audience, her acting career stretching in front of her?

Helena Bonham-Carter didn’t apparently receive any formal training as an actress. By the end of that decade she would be playing Ophelia on film and Olivia in Twelfth Night five years after that. If John Barton’s Playing Shakespeare was part of her informal training, she was off to a flying start.

Playing Shakespeare is available from Acorn Media UK. Review copy supplied.

"As if you are Bogie in "Casablanca,"

Film Ebert's rather beautiful review of Lost In Translation directs us to seek out a translation of the Suntory Scene. Finally I have and he's quite correct, "there's nothing implausible about the scene":

"Mr. Bob-san. You are sitting quietly in your study. And then
there is a bottle of Suntory whiskey on top of the table. You
understand, right? With wholehearted feeling, slowly, look at the
camera, tenderly, and as if you are meeting old friends, say the
words. As if you are Bogie in "Casablanca," saying, "Cheers to you
guys," Suntory time! "

Something which has always annoyed me about the reaction to Coppola's film, sometimes from professional reviews who should know better, are the charges of casual racism, that the Japanese characters are stereotyped for simple comic effect.

What they miss is that if the likes of the prostitute are stereotyped, its because the director is capturing the process all visitors to another place follow. What we're being offered is Tokyo filtered through the perceptions of Murray and Johansson's characters, the simplification developed in memory and attitude after the fact.

In other words, the joke's on us.