Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Picking Up The Pieces (2000)
Then Picking Up The Pieces is a staple of the cheap dvd boxsets which appear in remainder shops the like The Works featuring Hollywood actors in tv roles from before they were famous, indie films that failed to receive proper distribution or grindhouse style horror. Usually its in a double bill with some early Jim Carrey or a quadruple bill next to the courtroom period drama Darrow with Kevin Spacey. I somehow managed to track down an earlier release ex-rental of the film on its own in Cash Converter on Allerton Road a few years ago.
Now Picking Up The Pieces is a bit of a curates egg and Woody’s participation is just plain weird. It’s not offensively bad, it’s not brilliant, it’s just not particularly inspiring (which probably explains why it received its first showing on cable tv in the US). He plays Tex, a butcher who takes exception to the infidelity of his wife (Sharon yes indeed Stone) and chops her up into pieces, one of which, her hand, goes astray on the road when he heads to New Mexico to bury her.
When said anatomical subsection is found on the road by a blind woman miraculously regains her sight, the local and somewhat morally ambiguous priest played by David err-aha-yeah Schwimmer takes advantage and soon his church is besieged by disabled tourists with lots of money seeking their miracle too. Meanwhile, Keifer Sutherlands Texas cop and former lover of Tex’s wife is on the butcher’s trail as he roles into town searching for the dismembered digits. Which hopefully untangles the mangle of the trailer which also has most of the good jokes.
Director Alfonso Arau’s previous film Like Water For Chocolate was one of my favourite films of the nineties and the first time (and I think only time) I was actively shushed in a cinema as I became very excited with that Romeo & Juliet style tale of star-crossed lovers. That was oddly edited and weirdly paced and tonally all over the place which explains why Pieces shares many of the same problems/opportunites – there are elements of Arau's style or varying styles.
If the Tex material has elements of Chaucer in its comic treatment of a cuckold and spousal homicide, as the village is engulfed with people and the locals making the most of their good fortune I was reminded of the Capraesque Magic Town or an Ealing comedy. It seems to be attempting to say something about faith and how God moves in mysterious ways and the treatment of the miracles firmly puts it into the divine intervention genre.
The essential problem with the film is that can't quite decide whether it's a black comedy, morality tale, religious allegory or western (I suppose). I tend to hate genre labels and like films which flout the rules but without a concrete tether story wise and actually a single point of view character (if we're being really technical) everything just meanders between some nice moments (Maria Grazia Cucinotta dancing in the rain and Sharon Stone's ghost spring to mind) without really engrossing properly.
Like Company Man, I can’t find anything online explaining what Woody Allen is doing in this but he’s certainly one of the highlights and though it’s difficult to tell, seems have been given some latitude to improvise, which means that his dialogue is often funnier than anything happening elsewhere. Plus there’s an unexpected delight to see him working with the likes of Sutherland who doesn’t seem like the kind of figure who’d ever turn up in one of Woody's own films, two acting worlds clashing.
The film was shot in the interesting experimental 2.00:1 or Univisium aspect ratio designed by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro to bridge the gap between television and the cinema with their inherent framing problems (and which he’s controversially used to reframe his earlier films like Apocalypse Now) which explains the slightly odd look of the film – it has even less depth of field than typical 35mm. I wonder what he thinks of Avatar, which was released globally in a hundred different versions.
Public Art Collections in North West England: Bury Art Gallery and Museum
Museums My luck in relation to visiting these art galleries and museums and being able to see their fine art assortment hasn’t always been spectacular; from venues in which the permanent collection is rarely on display to buildings which are largely closed for refurbishment, it’s taught me that website aren’t always accurate and that you really can’t always get what you want.
So I was unsurprisingly unsurprised when I stepped up to the information desk at Bury Art Gallery and Museum and asked about their collection, only to be told that most of the galleries were closed for a rehang and that in any case over fifty paintings, the cream of the collection, were on loan for a tour around Japan and Korea due to finish in October to complete in 2010.
Manchester Art Gallery was apparently supposed to be the main source of paintings for the exhibition but when they couldn’t fulfil their requirements and withdrew a month beforehand, so Bury agreed to pick up the slack. The first venue is the Toyohashi City Museum of Art and History in Japan and the press release for the exhibition features images which I recognise from Bury’s own catalogue.
So there go the Landseer, the Constable, Arnesby Brown, Fred Hall, Sit George Clausen, the Turner, Miles Birket Foster, William Henry Hunt and Samuel Palmer. A shame that I’ve missed them but exciting for Bury and regional art galleries in general that they’re reaching this international acclaim and opportunity. Plus I’d much rather have them being seen by someone rather than sitting in the store room for whatever reason.
The building itself, was designed by Woodhouse and Willoughby of Manchester, the style adopted according the them and quoted by Edward Morris in his book Public Art Collections in North-West England (seems important to keep mentioning the source of this adventure) “the English Renaissance of the eighteenth century, freely treated” and despite its municipal origins on the inside resembles an old fashioned town house, albeit on a grander scale, of the kind that a hero from a Dickens novel might aspire towards with its marble floors and sculptural friezes.
The process of setting up the museum and its collection is much the same as Blackburn, Blackpool or Bolton. Local philanthropist and mill owner Thomas Wrigley (born 1808) amassed a collection of work across his life and after his death, his children (in 1897) presented that work to the town council on the condition that they build an art gallery within which to display them as a memorial to their father which they unanimously agreed to and within two years began work.
The swiftness was partly due to the local MP, James Kenyon offering a thousand guineas a year earlier towards such a building which he guessed would quickly be filled with paintings. He was correct, though official approval was only granted (as was so often the case) if a public library was included as part of the plans (see also Liverpool, Southport et al). The arts centre opened by the turn of the next century and the internal structure still stands, library on the ground floor, art gallery above (with a tiny museum and archive room in the basement).
With so much of the main exhibition area closed off, it’s difficult to know exactly how grand a building it is; with so much of the collection it’s equally impossible to say if I agree with Edward’s sentiment that it’s “probably the best single surviving collection of Victorian paintings formed by the Lancashire Merchants and manufacturers of the later nineteenth century” comparing it favourably to Sudley House. Though I’m sure he’s right. He’s the expert. Plus it’s certainly good enough to be travelling here there and everywhere.
For the moment, what’s left of the collection is being displayed in the main stairwell and smaller room on the top floor with the exhibition “Big Art: Big Ideas” which focuses on large canvases filled with dramatic stories. The space seems necessarily too cramped for them; like a Robert Altman film, it’s difficult to concentrate on one of these stories when there’s another one happening close by. It’s also less fair on those pictures which haven’t been cleaned or have a muted pallet as the eye is drawn to primary colours or visceral action.
Visceral action like the undoubted highlight Jack Cade’s Rabblement by Keeley Halswelle inspired by the rebellion scenes from Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part Two, specifically the moment when Cade’s severed head finds itself jammed atop a spear. All of the action in the painting and so our eye is drawn towards this point, but the nearly abstract shapes of the soldiers generally ignore its presence because the fight continues. Paint is slapped about the canvas though the angles are precise. It’s a curious mix.
On a similar theme, Anna Lee Merritt’s War depicts in piercing technicolour a group of women on a balcony as a victory parade passes by, as they realise that some of their husbands will not be returning home. It’s a refreshing contrast to the number of these late Victorian paintings depicting the fog and smoke of war, of men in battle. The figure who is clearly widowed shows little emotion, perhaps for the sake of her children which makes the scene all the more tragic.
Cleverly nestling between these two paintings is Drawing For the Militia by John Philip which is also a painting despite what the title suggests. In the foreground, the militia is being signed up, measured, questioned whilst in the far background we see the families of these men, crying, unable to cope with their spouses and father’s taking this step. It’s a clever use of a kind of cinematic deep focus to demonstrate both sides of the story, of the two paintings on either side.
The other of the room’s superstars which isn’t currently lost in translation is The Cruel Sister by John Faed which I’m sure I’ve seen elsewhere before. Illustrating a ye olde border ballad, it’s the story of a knight who enters the life of two sisters, one virtuous, the other cruel and the tragedy that ensues. There’s a pantomime element to this – the cruel sister wears black and a scowl, nothing subtle here, and the overcast landscape underscores that the knight has stepped into the wrong domestic situation.
Back in the stairwell, there are some other notables: JR Herbert’s The Crusader’s Wife which shows in profile a woman with a very robust, angular face, almost male in some ways, but with startling realistic brown hair falling down the sides of her head and down her back. Daniel MacLise’s The Student, a Shakespearean story of boy meets girl, she deeply touched by his gift of a daisy symbolic of their collective innocence which is a good as many pre-Raphealites. Rather underscores (alongside a glance through the accompanying catalogue) what else I missed.
Let's add this to the list of potential revisits.
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Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Small Time Crooks (2000)
Then The copy of Small Time Crooks I’ve watched then and now was bought at Music Zone in Williamson Square, Liverpool. For younger readers, Music Zone was to the early noughties what Fopp is now – good dvd and cds from alternative genres and distributors at unbelievable prices. Ironically Fopp attempted to rescue Music Zone before going to the wall themselves and were later bought out by HMV. Always a bigger fish. In terms of the music retail business, it was the canary in the cage for this recession (Tower Records UK and Andy’s Records being similar terminal birds for previous economic dips). Zavvi was quick to follow.
Now Not too long ago I was talking about this endeavour to a friend and said that I was soon to reach the noughties. “Ah – the wall.” He said grinning. I laughed it off but sadly we’ve reached the millennium and Woody makes his first proper stumble. The reasons are quite complex and I’ll talk about those in a minute, but it’s the first occasion when I’ve become bored and tetchy and frustrated. This must be what it feels like when London marathon runners hit the cobbles of Cutty Sark and realise they have nineteen miles to go, or in my case eight or so films.
The film opens very well, hilariously in fact. We’re introduced to Woody’s character Ray, one of those small time crooks who has a big scheme – he’s going to rob a bank by renting a shop just up the street and digging underneath the shops between. His wife, Frenchy (Tracy Ullman) is initially reticent but is eventually convinced, she loves him and trusts him. His pals Denny (Michael Rappaport) and Tommy (Tony Darrow) are in on the deal and eventually fellow jail bird Benny (John Lovitz in a low key performance for him) who they have to enlist because he’s rented the shop from under them.
There’s an Only Fools and Horses vibe to this opening section. Like Del Boy, Ray is apparently the clever one (he’s the one with the glasses anyway) and thinks the next scheme will be the one to make them rich. Frenchy, like Raquel, rolls her eyes and is clearly the cleverer of the two and like John Sullivan’s sitcom, it’s the incidentals of the plan which gain in importance to the point of overwhelming everything. Hollywood writer Elaine May turns in a sterling performance as Frenchy’s cousin May, the Trigger of the group whose random approach to logic threatens to derail everything (she continues to be one of the few reasons to continue watching).
This section is hilarious and up there in terms of quality with some of the anecdotes in Radio Days and has elements of The Marx Brothers in its approach to slapstick. The problem is that when one of these random variables leads the couple to become rich, the film makes the same mistake as late Only Fools And Horses in thinking that turning the piece into a class culture clash story equals comic gold. In order to accomplish that, Woody effectively has to become the intellectuals in Interiors and make fun of his underclass characters because they stock their home with vulgar acquirements, don’t know who Tintoretto is or don’t want to sit through an opera.
He does make some attempts at balance. When the English art dealer played by Hugh Grant (that’s Hugh Grant!) takes Frenchy under his wing there are some on the nose references to Pygmalian and a demonstration that his motives might not be entirely honourable. All the rest of the so-called culturally aware figures are interested in is seeing how they can exploit the couple’s new found wealth in arts projects, take advantage of their minimal understanding of the arts. But too often, and this is unlike Woody, he goes for the easy joke, the mobile phone ringing in a classical music concert, financial ignorance at inopportune moments and the farce of being chased through rooms.
There’s nothing wrong with the way the film is shot; Fei Zhao in his second and last work for the director offers some beautiful compositions, not least an early magic hour shot taking in the roof of an apartment and the city which is as good as anything Gordon Willis produced in the seventies. The performances are superb even as the script is falling apart with only Grant looking slightly incongruous and out of sorts at a moment when he was at the peak of his fame largely reacting to whatever Ullman and Allen are doing. It’s simply that, when the caption One Year Later appears, the film falls apart and Woody seems as unsure in his writing as he’d been in years.
The Swingometer
Politics The BBC Archive has posted material related to the election night swingometer with plenty of clips of past glories.
My favourite is this discourse from a couple of weeks before my birth in 1974 in which Sue Lawley looking like a sexy young Doctor Who companion from the period, casually, one hand in her pocket, explains the results of the overnight poll.
Full clip is here and you can't tell me something hasn't been lost in the wizbit pacing of the new news. Especially the final moment and the smirk. Now it's Jeremy Vine in a holodeck waving his arms around.
Another draw is the list of candidate names which demonstrate that all of the fiction figures that turn up on comedy series from the Python to The Day Today, all have their roots in fact.
I've listed them after the jump because they do sound like the stuff of another era and I really can't believe that these people existed. Especially Margaret Thatcher.
My favourite is this discourse from a couple of weeks before my birth in 1974 in which Sue Lawley looking like a sexy young Doctor Who companion from the period, casually, one hand in her pocket, explains the results of the overnight poll.
Full clip is here and you can't tell me something hasn't been lost in the wizbit pacing of the new news. Especially the final moment and the smirk. Now it's Jeremy Vine in a holodeck waving his arms around.
Another draw is the list of candidate names which demonstrate that all of the fiction figures that turn up on comedy series from the Python to The Day Today, all have their roots in fact.
I've listed them after the jump because they do sound like the stuff of another era and I really can't believe that these people existed. Especially Margaret Thatcher.
And low, the crack in reality continues to make its presence felt ...
TV Straight from our Auntie's house ...
"Sarah Jane Smith is reunited with another of The Doctor's former companions, Jo Grant (Katy Manning), in a new series of The Sarah Jane Adventures, set to air on CBBC this autumn. They'll be joined by The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith), in special editions penned by executive producer Russell T Davies.It's interesting. Just when I think I've run out of squee I'm still able to produce some on command. Will this be why RTD had to watch an episode of the new series of Dr Who, as revealed by The Grand Moff on Radio 4's Front Row the other week? (episode still available)
The two episodes will see The Doctor and his two former time-travelling partners caught up in an alien-busting adventure that will entertain Doctor Who fans of all ages.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Company Man (2000)
Then First time, this time, only time. See below.
Now About the longest eighty minutes of my life – and that includes the time I was stuck at Manchester Piccadilly at five in the morning waiting for the first train back to Liverpool with nothing to read and no one about – Company Man by any measure is a horrible comedy, unfunny, often offensive so. The story of Douglas McGrath’s Alan Quimp, a school English teacher with a grammar fetish who “lucks” himself into the Cuban wing of the CIA and causes the Bay of Pigs, everything you need to know about the sensibilities of the film makers can be found in a single sentence on its wikipedia page: “Bill Murray had a cameo appearance in the film, but his appearance was cut.”
Enjoying a 15% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, the few positive reviews may have been written in the kind of LSD haze that McGrath presents us with in one of the film’s low points. Flatly shot on economical sets that barely explain the film’s $16 million price-tag and poorly edited, it seems to be attempting to resurrect early Woody Allen, specifically Bananas, but lacks Woody’s pacing and timing, largely falling back on reverse reveals in which a character says that something won’t be happening and in the next scene it is revealed that it has. A running gag of Alan incessantly correcting the grammar of his colleagues is so irritating at one point I was actively swearing at the screen in desperation for it to stop.
Most of the actors are trying their best with the meagre material but just sometimes you can see a flicker of fear in the eyes of the likes of Sigourney Weaver, Dennis Leary and John Turturro suggesting they’re wondering how they got into it and aren’t sure what they’re supposed to be doing. When Alan Cumming appeared, I shouted “Not you too Alan!” like I’d just heard he’d been shot down in a war zone. For much of the duration I was trying to work out (a) where I’d seen writer/director/actor Douglas McGrath before and (b) how he’d amassed this cast for this failure, even to the point of asking Anthony LaPaglia to don a beard and greens to play Fidel Castro (and must have used only Hitchcock’s Topaz for research so broad is his characterisation).
Quick glance at the imdb and McGrath’s revealed to be Woody’s co-writer on Bullets Over Broadway with small roles in Celebrity, Bullets, Small Time Crooks and Hollywood Ending. He’d already directed the Emma adaptation with Gwyneth Paltrow in ‘96 and would go from Company Man to Nicholas Nickelby before redeeming himself with Infamous, the Truman Capote film that wasn’t Capote. I’ve scrabbled about for an interview, some indication of what might have gone wrong here but all I can find is review after interview listing its failures; Roger Ebert attended twice, bless him, just to see if the audience reaction changed. It didn’t. Still silent. Salon says it’s like a life sentence. They’re right. I ended up tidying my tiny blu-ray collection halfway through.
McGrath might have thought himself Woody’s successor and though you could imagine him being an able performer given the right material and director – in a Wes Anderson film perhaps – he’s just not enough of a presence to carry his own film. Perhaps that’s why he’s surrounded himself with so much star power; but all too often he looks like a YouTube editing wizard who’s inserted themselves into someone else’s movie. How else can we explain why the rest of the cast are called upon to simply react as he does his schtick. It’s not until you see an actor/writer/director giving themselves what they think are the best jokes that you realise how generous Woody is in portioning out the humour even in the films were he’s supposed to be the main character.
The actor/writer/director’s previous credits explain Allen’s participation as the head of the Cuban branch of the CIA. Not that you could tell that from the box or the credits were his name is nowhere to be found. Did he see the finished product have his name taken off or did the film as a favour on the understanding that his appearance would be a surprise? Either way his sudden reveal is one of the few good moments as he lounges beneath a beret in the local drinking establishment explaining how he became stuck in what until that point is a backwater position within the organisation. Beyond that he’s largely wasted, uncomfortably handing out exposition and sending Alan out on missions to kill Castro, before the indignity of his final scene in which the virtuoso clarinettist has to mime using a saxophone.
In the absence of a trailer, here's Woody on Moby Dick, Cole Porter & Artistic Theft [via]:
miniblog archive
The Surge.
Politics Last night, I nearly burst into tears after seeing some numbers. No, it wasn’t the ratings given by visitors to Gallifrey Base for the Doctor Who episode, though fans really don’t know when they’ve been born when they’re giving Spitfires vs. Daleks five on ten and complaining about the fact that the technology seemed to have been knocked together in five minutes by one of their agents gone rogue.
No, my near show shower was after seeing the Liberal Democrats ahead of two other parties in the Mail on Sunday poll. A YouGov poll tonight as reported by UK Polling Report offers similar numbers LDEM 33%(+4), CON 32%(-1), LAB 26%(-3). I knew that Nick Clegg’s performance had been good, but I didn’t really suspect that they’d be transferred into these numbers.
Mad keen on politics, I’ve been following the election since its been called watching Newsnight on consecutive evenings, listening intently to the Today programme and PM and reading my paper of choice. As I joked here, having already decided who I was going to vote for this largely consisted of half listening to the arguments then insulting the people on Twitter. #ge2010.
Until Thursday there was a quite resignation about being a lifelong Lib Dem supporter and knowing that our polling record would slip in and out of 20% until the election when we would stunningly under-perform, as usual winning some seats but losing just as many others meaning we’d end up back at square one, our only hope this time for a hung parliament and a bit of more influence. Hence my emotion response to some numbers.
As ever until Thursday, the Lib Dems where considered by the media as the also rans. The election meant some extra focus here and there, but though the Labservative manifestos appeared as headlines in the papers Monday to Thursday, the Lib Dems were reduced to a byline or nestling somewhere in the middle pages, our message lost within the squabbling over the content of the parties that seemed most likely to form the next government.
Have I Got News For You the week before the debate was making the usual jokes about the Lib Dems being forgettable and not being able to make up their mind about anything – jokes which were repeated the following week in the episode which ran opposite the leadership debate and which look slightly anachronistic now (slightly?). There was an element of motion going to Paxman’s interviews with Clegg and then Cable; they both acquitted themselves well, but with his cold, Paxo didn’t seem to be trying.
When I wrote my review of the leadership debate with my effusive praise of Clegg, it was still with the slight expectation that since only about a quarter of the country would be watching and since in the days after the chancellor’s debate which Cable won hands down too the polling numbers stayed the same, I expected that we might pick up a couple of points, but people would still keep to their usual expectation that a Lib Dem vote was a wasted vote and that they’d stick with one of the two main parties.
You know the narrative from there. The wacky polls on Friday with massive numbers which turned out to be the product of voters who’d actually watched the debates and knew they were going to be asked. Then into yesterday polls from typical samples began to show and the Lib Dem numbers were higher but not steller, which it then transpired were from surveys taken before the debate and showed a manifesto surge. Now the real post debate numbers are appearing and well, we know the story of that:
LDEM 33%(+4), CON 32%(-1), LAB 26%(-3)
Liberal numbers which haven’t been this high for decades, Labour numbers lower than Michael Foot, the Tories holding steady. If this is just a flash in the pan, if by the end of the next week the hype will have died down and the Lib Dems have returned to their old stomping ground of 20% at least we have this moment to point to and show that we can be relevant.
Except, and this is why, quite frankly I’m brainfried, people with an opinion are suggesting that this may not be a flash in the pan, that these numbers may be sustainable. Anthony Wells at UK Polling Report thinks (and he isn't the only one) that they could well be if the “wasted vote” people switch back to their natural opinion and I’d add if the non-voters in a similar category make the time.
I’m under no illusions about this. The chances of the Lib Dems winning the election are slim unless they can start picking off the Labservative vote in greater numbers. Most projections suggest that the support is too diffuse and there aren’t enough true marginals to be relevant. This would have to be 1997 scenario with shell-shocked young Lib Dems picking off cabinet ministers and us asking each other the next morning if we were up for Milliband.
Both of the other two parties (it feels wrong to call them the “main parties right now) will be heading after the Lib Dems with greater force. We can already see the new Conservative strategy at work with there persistent suggestions that voters will change their tune when they scrutinise the “eccentric policies” going on to purposefully misrepresent those policies (see Bob Ainsworth fudging Trident yesterday morning).
Plus there’s two more leadership debates and Cameron and Brown are bound to be sharper having been rocked out of their complacency. The next, on Foreign Affairs will be a real test for Clegg, though his anti-war credentials and general internationalism (what’s the word for someone who speaks five languages?) may stand him in good stead.
And neither of the other leads will want to come across as bullies, the conundrum which faced John McCain and look what happened to him. I don’t think Gordon will be agreeing with Nick as much and David will cut back on the anecdotes but since those seemed to be the well honed strategies, both may come across as nervous as they try desperately not to fall back into those old modes and risk looking like fools.
The only problem may be that it’s on Sky News which, apart from the potential for bias in the moderation, means that many people will rely on clips (despite the reach of digital television people can’t seem to find the top of the dial). If he makes any major gaffs they’ll be repeated over and over and over again. It just depends on the narrative and how fair the media wants to be.
But as we’ve seen by the sudden appearance of Nick on the cover of newspapers (unthinkable before Thursday), there’s a buzz around him of the kind that sells newspapers or makes people visit websites; the last thing they may want to do is piss off their potential readership by suggesting their new golden boy is no good, a flash in the pan. We’re uncharted territory now.
So that could be my natural pessimism. For the electoral polling map to change overnight like this feels unprecedented and like 1997 there is something in the air. Search for Clegg or “Lib Dems” on Twitter and watch the general outpouring of good will; if that is being replicated in the real world, and the polls suggest it is, anything could happen.
Anything is possible.
Cue late career, but not Deborah yet, Debbie Gibson:
Yes, indeed.
No, my near show shower was after seeing the Liberal Democrats ahead of two other parties in the Mail on Sunday poll. A YouGov poll tonight as reported by UK Polling Report offers similar numbers LDEM 33%(+4), CON 32%(-1), LAB 26%(-3). I knew that Nick Clegg’s performance had been good, but I didn’t really suspect that they’d be transferred into these numbers.
Mad keen on politics, I’ve been following the election since its been called watching Newsnight on consecutive evenings, listening intently to the Today programme and PM and reading my paper of choice. As I joked here, having already decided who I was going to vote for this largely consisted of half listening to the arguments then insulting the people on Twitter. #ge2010.
Until Thursday there was a quite resignation about being a lifelong Lib Dem supporter and knowing that our polling record would slip in and out of 20% until the election when we would stunningly under-perform, as usual winning some seats but losing just as many others meaning we’d end up back at square one, our only hope this time for a hung parliament and a bit of more influence. Hence my emotion response to some numbers.
As ever until Thursday, the Lib Dems where considered by the media as the also rans. The election meant some extra focus here and there, but though the Labservative manifestos appeared as headlines in the papers Monday to Thursday, the Lib Dems were reduced to a byline or nestling somewhere in the middle pages, our message lost within the squabbling over the content of the parties that seemed most likely to form the next government.
Have I Got News For You the week before the debate was making the usual jokes about the Lib Dems being forgettable and not being able to make up their mind about anything – jokes which were repeated the following week in the episode which ran opposite the leadership debate and which look slightly anachronistic now (slightly?). There was an element of motion going to Paxman’s interviews with Clegg and then Cable; they both acquitted themselves well, but with his cold, Paxo didn’t seem to be trying.
When I wrote my review of the leadership debate with my effusive praise of Clegg, it was still with the slight expectation that since only about a quarter of the country would be watching and since in the days after the chancellor’s debate which Cable won hands down too the polling numbers stayed the same, I expected that we might pick up a couple of points, but people would still keep to their usual expectation that a Lib Dem vote was a wasted vote and that they’d stick with one of the two main parties.
You know the narrative from there. The wacky polls on Friday with massive numbers which turned out to be the product of voters who’d actually watched the debates and knew they were going to be asked. Then into yesterday polls from typical samples began to show and the Lib Dem numbers were higher but not steller, which it then transpired were from surveys taken before the debate and showed a manifesto surge. Now the real post debate numbers are appearing and well, we know the story of that:
LDEM 33%(+4), CON 32%(-1), LAB 26%(-3)
Liberal numbers which haven’t been this high for decades, Labour numbers lower than Michael Foot, the Tories holding steady. If this is just a flash in the pan, if by the end of the next week the hype will have died down and the Lib Dems have returned to their old stomping ground of 20% at least we have this moment to point to and show that we can be relevant.
Except, and this is why, quite frankly I’m brainfried, people with an opinion are suggesting that this may not be a flash in the pan, that these numbers may be sustainable. Anthony Wells at UK Polling Report thinks (and he isn't the only one) that they could well be if the “wasted vote” people switch back to their natural opinion and I’d add if the non-voters in a similar category make the time.
I’m under no illusions about this. The chances of the Lib Dems winning the election are slim unless they can start picking off the Labservative vote in greater numbers. Most projections suggest that the support is too diffuse and there aren’t enough true marginals to be relevant. This would have to be 1997 scenario with shell-shocked young Lib Dems picking off cabinet ministers and us asking each other the next morning if we were up for Milliband.
Both of the other two parties (it feels wrong to call them the “main parties right now) will be heading after the Lib Dems with greater force. We can already see the new Conservative strategy at work with there persistent suggestions that voters will change their tune when they scrutinise the “eccentric policies” going on to purposefully misrepresent those policies (see Bob Ainsworth fudging Trident yesterday morning).
Plus there’s two more leadership debates and Cameron and Brown are bound to be sharper having been rocked out of their complacency. The next, on Foreign Affairs will be a real test for Clegg, though his anti-war credentials and general internationalism (what’s the word for someone who speaks five languages?) may stand him in good stead.
And neither of the other leads will want to come across as bullies, the conundrum which faced John McCain and look what happened to him. I don’t think Gordon will be agreeing with Nick as much and David will cut back on the anecdotes but since those seemed to be the well honed strategies, both may come across as nervous as they try desperately not to fall back into those old modes and risk looking like fools.
The only problem may be that it’s on Sky News which, apart from the potential for bias in the moderation, means that many people will rely on clips (despite the reach of digital television people can’t seem to find the top of the dial). If he makes any major gaffs they’ll be repeated over and over and over again. It just depends on the narrative and how fair the media wants to be.
But as we’ve seen by the sudden appearance of Nick on the cover of newspapers (unthinkable before Thursday), there’s a buzz around him of the kind that sells newspapers or makes people visit websites; the last thing they may want to do is piss off their potential readership by suggesting their new golden boy is no good, a flash in the pan. We’re uncharted territory now.
So that could be my natural pessimism. For the electoral polling map to change overnight like this feels unprecedented and like 1997 there is something in the air. Search for Clegg or “Lib Dems” on Twitter and watch the general outpouring of good will; if that is being replicated in the real world, and the polls suggest it is, anything could happen.
Anything is possible.
Cue late career, but not Deborah yet, Debbie Gibson:
Yes, indeed.
Victory of the Daleks.
TV New New New Doctor, New New Daleks. There was fascinating article in the party newsletter (or Doctor Who Magazine to the rest of you) last year at about the time Steven Moffat had been announced as show runner about the treatment of mythology in the series which spent much of its duration underscoring that the show has been at its best when its ignored what has gone before and that it was up to poor souls online and in books to try and rationalise it all should they feel the need to. It speculated on how Moffat could proceed once he took over, would he choose to forget everything essentially producing his own Rose, offering us the people of Earth enjoying first contact once again, new new versions of old monsters unaware of the previous few years and what not?
Eventually, the conclusion the article came to (if I remember rightly) was that this would be more difficult to do with the spin-off shows spewing extra continuity all over the place and that Moffat would have to offer a continuation of some sort because soap-addicted/addled viewers can’t accept massive changes in continuity (just small ones possibly like the uncertain age of Ian Beale in EastEnders) but that he was unlikely to want to carry on with any of Davies’s characters or designs. What Victory of the Daleks does, aptly given the atmosphere in the country at the moment (and I don’t mean as a result of the Iceland volcanic ash which is clearly the result of Pyrovile barbecue) offer a third way, mixing elements of old and new Who more clearly than before. I mean look at the majesty of that title.
Firstly, a new design of Dalek. At some point in the future someone will write a longer essay on what the different Dalek designs say about each of the men in charge of the series. Briefly, Davies’s brief had been to “beef up the design” according to Gary Russell’s The Inside Story, make it look like a tank, with its rivets and whatnot. But despite the later revisions its always seemed a bit – anonymous? Is that the word? -- only really gaining individuality in the Cult of Skaro. But with the exception of Dalek, the pepperpots on mass have really just had the same function as the Orcs in Lord of the Rings, giant indomitable army offering “insurmountable” odds.
In the Moffat/Gattis model, there’s a new individuality (of sorts) up front, with a return of the big primary colours not just from the Cushing movies but they're also heavily influenced by the 60s TV-21 strips. That’s where their commanding presence comes from and like those stories, as Confidential revealed, he and Gattis were keen to see the return in the television series of these hierarchical versions with a proper chain of command and model codes like “drone” or “eternal”. Not just a fabulous merchandising opportunity, their new bulk gives them even greater weight and menace within the studio, and it was rather amazing to see so many practical examples spinning around in one shot, this half dozen having more substance than a thousand computer generated versions.
The basis of the story was once again to show the clash between our humanity and the pluralism of the Daleks. Like Power of the Daleks (also referenced in dialogue), Time of the Daleks (the Big Finish audio) and the Kit Kat commercial ("Peace and Love!") this was initially achieved by having the ring modulator speak all too human phraseology to underscore the wrongness of it (“Would you like a cup of tea?”). But later, once inside the Dalek ship we could see the contrast between the empty cold lifeless interior they called home and the map room in the allied bunker with telephones and cigars and life strewn everywhere. Standard sci-fi trope to be sure, but the rapid cutting between the two was very evocative. Plus they’re bobbing their heads again when they talk. I’ve missed that.
And they’re, as Moffat and Gattis have observed, “crafty”. This whole story was the scene in the sewers from Daleks in Manhattan in which a couple of members of the cult decided to gang up on Sec extrapolated across forty-five minutes. The plan was typically convoluted. The last remaining time-travelling members of the race create an android shaped bomb to infiltrate the allies during World War II so that the appearance of two Daleks in disguise makes sense so that Winston Churchill is impressed enough to invite his friend the Doctor along to help make some more, knowing the timelord wouldn’t believe it enough for them to have a reason to have his desperate voiceprint identify himself and them so that they could convince a new Paradigm generating doo-dad to produce a brand new species.
Phew. It’s ingenious and no less incredible than scooping out the centre of the planet in order to turn it into a space ship. Of course, it’s perfectly convenient that they should choose a time period that provides the opportunity to see spitfires in space attacking a Dalek ship, Independence Day-style, but like the city of the back of a star whale, this version of the series is revelling in its curious visuals, its Josh Kirby approach to plotting. I stand by my assessment of the new era as a huge fairy tale, with the addendum that I might need to apply the Britannica definition from time to time: “Fairy tales may be written or told for the amusement of children or may have a more sophisticated narrative containing supernatural or obviously improbable events, scenes, and personages and often having a whimsical, satirical, or moralistic character.”
None more improbable than keeping the Daleks at bay with a Jammy-Dodger. Matt beat the Dalek test hands down capturing all of the fear and violence inherent in Eccleston’s performance from the seminal interrogation room scene in Dalek with the sarcasm of Tennant’s first meeting (somewhat thrown away) in Doomsday. Granted much of his time with them was spent waiting for information and watching impotently as the game changed, but he was entirely magnetic and certainly had those moments Troughton was so good at, in which he stood perfectly still and even without the aid of editing we watched his mind deducing what their plan would be and the horrible consequences even though in this case it was to escape and regroup. When he later said that the Daleks had beaten them, it was the quite resignation that it twas and will forever be thus.
As the first piece by a non-Moffat it's our first chance to see his methodology for the series in the wild. How different was this to The Unquiet Dead? The episode did offer a new approach to the celebrity historical (based on Moffat's suggestion) as the Doctor and Winston are old sparring partners (beautifully underscored by the chemistry between Matt and Ian McNeice standing for Robert Hardy) whereas before, it was the first time he’d bumped into Dickens or Queen Victoria. Except the Doctor has always waxed anecdotally about this or that historic figure and what we have here, finally, is an example of that within a story. If you take a full franchise view of their previous encounters they originally met when the Doctor looked like Colin Baker to foil the Players in a Terry Dicks novel (wikia for more details) which seems to fit somehow, two brash personalities butting against one another (with some added interested that the Seventh Doctor spent a lot of time around Hitler).
The episode was also not about Churchill particularly learning anything about himself. He found aliens a perfectly natural happenstance of life, approaching the Doctor and the TARDIS openly and mostly coming across in narrative terms like a historical version of the Brigadier sending a message to the Doctor when he was particularly required. In a Russell T Davies guided version of this story, I’d imagine Winston becoming increasingly desperate to have his hands on the Doctor’s technology or for the Doctor to take sides in the war with an added meditation (ala the Larry Miles’s novel Interference) on why he chooses to become involved with some conflicts and not others (only briefly touched on towards the end) and what gives him that authority with a side order of ‘web of time’ style rationalisation and an explanation as to where the fuck he was during Children of Earth?
Or was it simply that with the Dalek material, the episode was stuff already and that's whey decided to go the other way? Oh the joys of auteur theory. The episode did end on an emotional beat. Handed the usual moral conundrum of saving the Earth or destroying the Daleks, the Doctor chose us again allowing his mortal enemy to skip off again (with a fabulous shoom into hyperspace). The ensuing scene offered another example of Amy filling in for the newly divested human part of the timelord, realising that the way to a man’s oblivion continuum is a woman. Once again, we’re seeing the Doctor following Amy’s lead as though the spirit of the Tenth Doctor has spread between the two of them. Bill Patterson was predictably extraordinary here, realistically capturing his robotic skip between the pain of grief to the tragedy of unrequited love.
Finally, the clearest indication that Moffat has thought about potential for a mythological reset is Amy’s inability to recognise the Daleks. There’s a certain vagueness to this. We don’t know yet if it’s just her that doesn’t remember the events of Journey’s End or the whole planet; certainly she seems quite comfortable with the idea of aliens in general and the implications of the universe teeming with life so she might have experienced one of the dozens of other invasion events. She can’t have been picked up before Journey’s End was occuring because the Doctor would surely have known about this and wouldn’t have decided to turn it into a plot point. But he doesn’t seem particularly perturbed at least not in the same way Eighth did in the second series of his Big Finish audios when it became apparent neither Orson Welles or Charley had heard of Shakespeare and went off to investigate. It’s not like she can claim to have been scuba diving.
Perhaps I’m reaching, but what if the crack that’s either following the Doctor around or as I suspect the Doctor is following around (A month later? Really?) is a revisionist switch, a chance for Moffat to pull back on some of the more eccentric mythology from the Davies era or even eep, the nu-Who equivalent of the Faction Paradox, a way of explaining some of the inconsistencies? Three episodes in there are mysteries afoot and they’re character based, not disappearing bees and planets. My brain, so full of stuff, is now casting about and wondering if he’s even reaching as far back as The Next Doctor, when Tenth wondered why a giant Cyberman stomping London isn’t in the historical record or if Churchill’s apparent ignorance of Torchwood is also connected. Probably not. Either way, it's an indication that Moffat isn't ready to put a lid on his predecessor's work just yet, not completely ignoring continuity or totally embracing it but something else. Good here, init?
Next Week: Let the River RUN!
Eventually, the conclusion the article came to (if I remember rightly) was that this would be more difficult to do with the spin-off shows spewing extra continuity all over the place and that Moffat would have to offer a continuation of some sort because soap-addicted/addled viewers can’t accept massive changes in continuity (just small ones possibly like the uncertain age of Ian Beale in EastEnders) but that he was unlikely to want to carry on with any of Davies’s characters or designs. What Victory of the Daleks does, aptly given the atmosphere in the country at the moment (and I don’t mean as a result of the Iceland volcanic ash which is clearly the result of Pyrovile barbecue) offer a third way, mixing elements of old and new Who more clearly than before. I mean look at the majesty of that title.
Firstly, a new design of Dalek. At some point in the future someone will write a longer essay on what the different Dalek designs say about each of the men in charge of the series. Briefly, Davies’s brief had been to “beef up the design” according to Gary Russell’s The Inside Story, make it look like a tank, with its rivets and whatnot. But despite the later revisions its always seemed a bit – anonymous? Is that the word? -- only really gaining individuality in the Cult of Skaro. But with the exception of Dalek, the pepperpots on mass have really just had the same function as the Orcs in Lord of the Rings, giant indomitable army offering “insurmountable” odds.
In the Moffat/Gattis model, there’s a new individuality (of sorts) up front, with a return of the big primary colours not just from the Cushing movies but they're also heavily influenced by the 60s TV-21 strips. That’s where their commanding presence comes from and like those stories, as Confidential revealed, he and Gattis were keen to see the return in the television series of these hierarchical versions with a proper chain of command and model codes like “drone” or “eternal”. Not just a fabulous merchandising opportunity, their new bulk gives them even greater weight and menace within the studio, and it was rather amazing to see so many practical examples spinning around in one shot, this half dozen having more substance than a thousand computer generated versions.
The basis of the story was once again to show the clash between our humanity and the pluralism of the Daleks. Like Power of the Daleks (also referenced in dialogue), Time of the Daleks (the Big Finish audio) and the Kit Kat commercial ("Peace and Love!") this was initially achieved by having the ring modulator speak all too human phraseology to underscore the wrongness of it (“Would you like a cup of tea?”). But later, once inside the Dalek ship we could see the contrast between the empty cold lifeless interior they called home and the map room in the allied bunker with telephones and cigars and life strewn everywhere. Standard sci-fi trope to be sure, but the rapid cutting between the two was very evocative. Plus they’re bobbing their heads again when they talk. I’ve missed that.
And they’re, as Moffat and Gattis have observed, “crafty”. This whole story was the scene in the sewers from Daleks in Manhattan in which a couple of members of the cult decided to gang up on Sec extrapolated across forty-five minutes. The plan was typically convoluted. The last remaining time-travelling members of the race create an android shaped bomb to infiltrate the allies during World War II so that the appearance of two Daleks in disguise makes sense so that Winston Churchill is impressed enough to invite his friend the Doctor along to help make some more, knowing the timelord wouldn’t believe it enough for them to have a reason to have his desperate voiceprint identify himself and them so that they could convince a new Paradigm generating doo-dad to produce a brand new species.
Phew. It’s ingenious and no less incredible than scooping out the centre of the planet in order to turn it into a space ship. Of course, it’s perfectly convenient that they should choose a time period that provides the opportunity to see spitfires in space attacking a Dalek ship, Independence Day-style, but like the city of the back of a star whale, this version of the series is revelling in its curious visuals, its Josh Kirby approach to plotting. I stand by my assessment of the new era as a huge fairy tale, with the addendum that I might need to apply the Britannica definition from time to time: “Fairy tales may be written or told for the amusement of children or may have a more sophisticated narrative containing supernatural or obviously improbable events, scenes, and personages and often having a whimsical, satirical, or moralistic character.”
None more improbable than keeping the Daleks at bay with a Jammy-Dodger. Matt beat the Dalek test hands down capturing all of the fear and violence inherent in Eccleston’s performance from the seminal interrogation room scene in Dalek with the sarcasm of Tennant’s first meeting (somewhat thrown away) in Doomsday. Granted much of his time with them was spent waiting for information and watching impotently as the game changed, but he was entirely magnetic and certainly had those moments Troughton was so good at, in which he stood perfectly still and even without the aid of editing we watched his mind deducing what their plan would be and the horrible consequences even though in this case it was to escape and regroup. When he later said that the Daleks had beaten them, it was the quite resignation that it twas and will forever be thus.
As the first piece by a non-Moffat it's our first chance to see his methodology for the series in the wild. How different was this to The Unquiet Dead? The episode did offer a new approach to the celebrity historical (based on Moffat's suggestion) as the Doctor and Winston are old sparring partners (beautifully underscored by the chemistry between Matt and Ian McNeice standing for Robert Hardy) whereas before, it was the first time he’d bumped into Dickens or Queen Victoria. Except the Doctor has always waxed anecdotally about this or that historic figure and what we have here, finally, is an example of that within a story. If you take a full franchise view of their previous encounters they originally met when the Doctor looked like Colin Baker to foil the Players in a Terry Dicks novel (wikia for more details) which seems to fit somehow, two brash personalities butting against one another (with some added interested that the Seventh Doctor spent a lot of time around Hitler).
The episode was also not about Churchill particularly learning anything about himself. He found aliens a perfectly natural happenstance of life, approaching the Doctor and the TARDIS openly and mostly coming across in narrative terms like a historical version of the Brigadier sending a message to the Doctor when he was particularly required. In a Russell T Davies guided version of this story, I’d imagine Winston becoming increasingly desperate to have his hands on the Doctor’s technology or for the Doctor to take sides in the war with an added meditation (ala the Larry Miles’s novel Interference) on why he chooses to become involved with some conflicts and not others (only briefly touched on towards the end) and what gives him that authority with a side order of ‘web of time’ style rationalisation and an explanation as to where the fuck he was during Children of Earth?
Or was it simply that with the Dalek material, the episode was stuff already and that's whey decided to go the other way? Oh the joys of auteur theory. The episode did end on an emotional beat. Handed the usual moral conundrum of saving the Earth or destroying the Daleks, the Doctor chose us again allowing his mortal enemy to skip off again (with a fabulous shoom into hyperspace). The ensuing scene offered another example of Amy filling in for the newly divested human part of the timelord, realising that the way to a man’s oblivion continuum is a woman. Once again, we’re seeing the Doctor following Amy’s lead as though the spirit of the Tenth Doctor has spread between the two of them. Bill Patterson was predictably extraordinary here, realistically capturing his robotic skip between the pain of grief to the tragedy of unrequited love.
Finally, the clearest indication that Moffat has thought about potential for a mythological reset is Amy’s inability to recognise the Daleks. There’s a certain vagueness to this. We don’t know yet if it’s just her that doesn’t remember the events of Journey’s End or the whole planet; certainly she seems quite comfortable with the idea of aliens in general and the implications of the universe teeming with life so she might have experienced one of the dozens of other invasion events. She can’t have been picked up before Journey’s End was occuring because the Doctor would surely have known about this and wouldn’t have decided to turn it into a plot point. But he doesn’t seem particularly perturbed at least not in the same way Eighth did in the second series of his Big Finish audios when it became apparent neither Orson Welles or Charley had heard of Shakespeare and went off to investigate. It’s not like she can claim to have been scuba diving.
Perhaps I’m reaching, but what if the crack that’s either following the Doctor around or as I suspect the Doctor is following around (A month later? Really?) is a revisionist switch, a chance for Moffat to pull back on some of the more eccentric mythology from the Davies era or even eep, the nu-Who equivalent of the Faction Paradox, a way of explaining some of the inconsistencies? Three episodes in there are mysteries afoot and they’re character based, not disappearing bees and planets. My brain, so full of stuff, is now casting about and wondering if he’s even reaching as far back as The Next Doctor, when Tenth wondered why a giant Cyberman stomping London isn’t in the historical record or if Churchill’s apparent ignorance of Torchwood is also connected. Probably not. Either way, it's an indication that Moffat isn't ready to put a lid on his predecessor's work just yet, not completely ignoring continuity or totally embracing it but something else. Good here, init?
Next Week: Let the River RUN!
Politics I'm part of The MSN Voters Panel. We're being asked about party affiliation and what we think are the main issues. My contribution (which is typically long) is towards the bottom. Note this was written before the Leadership debate, which has completely changed the complexion of the election.
Elsewhere Sometimes when writing a Doctor Who review I'll begin with a decent angle and work it through to a decent conclusion. Other times I'll begin with a flimsy angle and run it into the ground. This is one of those times.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Sweet and Lowdown (1999)
Then Viewed at the Odeon on London Road in screens five or six. I was the only audience member and at one point during the trailers I had to get up to go to the toilet. Philosophically I wandered if like the tree in the forest not making a sound, the screen would cease to exist if I wasn’t there.
Now I’ve now reached the end of the nineties and it’s with some surprise as I watched Sweet and Lowdown that I realised that Woody hadn’t until that point made a bad film. When I was doing the Hitchcock thing, I was disappointed to find that I was impressed with less than a half of his work but with the exception of – A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy or Another Woman – I’ve been constantly delighted and looked forward to watching all of these films. Neither of those is a bad film and have enough of a positive critical response to suggest that it’s simply my own feelings about them. He’s constantly trying to up his game, create some magic. There’s no complacency here.
He could, for example, have churned out dozens of Hannah and Her Sisters or Manhattans, relationship dramas set in New York. That’s certainly what his reputation suggests and with a location change worked perfectly well for both Ozu and Rhomer. And yet here we are in 1999 and he’s finally produced a musical biopic commemorating his love of jazz music, the jazz music that’s permeated all of his previous work. But of course, being Woody Allen, it’s a fictional biography structured around a series of anecdotes offered by real jazz experts including the director himself who sometimes can’t quite get the story straight (at one point we’re shown three different versions of the same event, just as outlandish as each other).
The storytelling idea is somewhat similar to Radio Days or Broadway Danny Rose and like those films by suggesting that what we’re seeing are the half forgotten moments and rare insights, he succeeds in creating a legend. A viewer hitting this film cold could be convinced, as I was initially (I even looked for some of his records), despite the eccentricities, (“Wanna go to the dump and shoot some rats?”) that Emmet Ray existed, especially with the inclusion of so many real life names and performers. Woody could have created a film about a real figure, but that wouldn’t necessarily have provided the leeway to add his usual brand of poetry, improvisation and irony.
Much of the film’s success stems, of course, from Sean Penn’s central performance. Woody says that he didn’t give the actor much direction, that there was no discussion about the character and back story. Emmet Ray is in the script, the arrogance, rudeness and peculiarity, but Penn brings to what could have been a cartoon character, a humanity, the glint in his eye that explains how someone so broadly sketched could produce such transcendental music. The guitar playing isn’t him – it’s Howard Alden overdubbed -- but Alden taught Penn to play and the actions are very convincing; the actors makes Ray the kind of performer seems to enter a trance the rest of the world becoming beside the point.
In directing Samantha Morton, Woody suggested that he’d like to see her play Hattie like Harpo Marx. Once she’d found out who Harpo Marx was he then had to ask her to key down her facial expressions a little bit after a few days because the impersonation was too uncanny. Her job is largely to react to Penn’s cruelty, but she’s able to communicate an awful lot through the shape of her mouth. Uma Thurman is funny, but the relationship between Emmett and Hattie is so strongly observed the one brief moment when the film loses its way is when Thurman is front and centre. But that scene also gives us the joy of seeing John Waters acting in a Woody Allen film (imagine the reverse of that scenario) so it’s probably forgiveable.
The cinematographer is a surprising choice; Fei Zhao is best known for giant historic Chinese epics (his next film would be House of Flying Daggers) and would work with Woody on this and Small Time Crooks. He brings a rare depth of field to shots and unlike some of Woody’s other collaborators seems to be accentuating the character rather than simply filming around them. That’s especially true in the scene were Ray’s moon folly is hoisted into the rafters. At first we see it from the ground from the steady position of his fellow bandmembers, then there’s a reverse point of view shot from Emmett’s drunken perspective in which that ground is wobbling about. We know immediately that the scheme isn’t going to work and await with trepidation the impending disaster.
First TV Debate.
Politics For the benefit of international readers, tonight offered something of a historic moment for UK politics with the first live television debate between the three party leaders which is why some names that have no relevance to you will have been trending on twitter (it's us getting our own back for Justin Bieber). In televisual terms, ITV's presentation of the first debate was bargain basement; the set looked like it last saw service during Telethon '90 and the compare/moderator Alistair Stewart seemed more nervous and snippy than the party leaders themselves, randomly shouting out their surnames in a bizarre attempt to recreate the mood of University Challenge.
The majority of first reaction polls (in other words the ones from television networks without vested interests) suggest Nick Clegg won and he really did. Far from being the add-on many feared he often dominated exchanges and as Cameron offered anecdotes but little in the way of policy detail and Brown spent most of his time either agreeing with Clegg or asking for the chance to put right what he let go wrong. In his opening statement, Clegg said that he wanted to demonstrate that he offered an alternative to the old politics and he continued with that throughout time and again, noting that the more the other two argued, the more they sounded like they were saying the same thing over and over again.
Nick genuinely laughing when Gordon agreed with him once again. Addressing one questioner he then referred to another from earlier on in the debate working in her location (Blackburn -- see -- I remember it too now). But in general he just seemed more confident and got his points across more clearly. He also repeated them often, understanding that people may be tuning in and out and that they will remember policies best if they hear them over and over. That didn't happen with the other two who were too busy squabbling with each other over details of policy and points scoring rather than addressing the audience both in the studio and at home. If Nick Clegg's performance tonight doesn't increase the Liberal Democtrat's standing in the polls, nothing will.
The majority of first reaction polls (in other words the ones from television networks without vested interests) suggest Nick Clegg won and he really did. Far from being the add-on many feared he often dominated exchanges and as Cameron offered anecdotes but little in the way of policy detail and Brown spent most of his time either agreeing with Clegg or asking for the chance to put right what he let go wrong. In his opening statement, Clegg said that he wanted to demonstrate that he offered an alternative to the old politics and he continued with that throughout time and again, noting that the more the other two argued, the more they sounded like they were saying the same thing over and over again.
Nick genuinely laughing when Gordon agreed with him once again. Addressing one questioner he then referred to another from earlier on in the debate working in her location (Blackburn -- see -- I remember it too now). But in general he just seemed more confident and got his points across more clearly. He also repeated them often, understanding that people may be tuning in and out and that they will remember policies best if they hear them over and over. That didn't happen with the other two who were too busy squabbling with each other over details of policy and points scoring rather than addressing the audience both in the studio and at home. If Nick Clegg's performance tonight doesn't increase the Liberal Democtrat's standing in the polls, nothing will.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Celebrity (1998)
Then Watched in screen one in the Cornerhouse in Manchester.
Now Like Deconstructing Harry, Celebrity is seen by some as the moment when the rot set in, when Woody Allen stopped being as good as he used to be. It still retains a solid splat inducing 39% at Rotten Tomatoes. I wasn’t a fan on first viewing but this time around I found it as interesting and entertaining as any of the films in this period and certainly more accessible than some of his work from the late eighties.
It’s very prescient about were the nature of celebrity was heading, the intensity with which some notables are pursued in the internet age having not yet calcified. As one of the characters notes, “You can tell a lot about society by the people it venerates”. But it also illustrates that everyone idolises someone; when Ken Branagh’s writer Lee is invited to a dinner party he’s still in awe of other writers and book editors who don’t quite understand his adulation.
The film captures Leonardo Di Caprio just as he was about to make a concerted effort to ditch his teen idol status and he seems to be portraying an exaggerated version of the public’s perception of him. Adding to the authenticity, his entourage consists of the kinds of actors you might expect would be in his entourage – Gretchen Mol is his girlfriend and the hangers on are a young Sam Rockwell and Adrian Grenier who five years later would himself fill the Di Caprio-type role in the tv series Entourage.
The film employs one of Woody’s standard “novelistic” structures of two thematically related stories running alongside one another as seen in Husbands and Wives and later Melinda and Melinda. Here he compares the fall of Lee with the rise of is ex-wife Robin (Judy Davies) to illustrate the randomness of success and how even the most headstrong amongst can see the world crash about around our feet. What goes up, must come down.
Within that, the stories have a very sketch like structure, most of the various sequences reasonably self-contained. The impression (aided by the lustrous black and white photography) is of a series of memories, the characters constantly reflecting backwards on where they’ve been. As the editing bounces between the two stories only rarely is there much cause and effect but there is symmetry, the attitudes reversing between Lee and Robin from the first screen scene to the last.
The other disconcerting aspect of the film is Ken’s performance, in which he’s essentially impersonating Woody. In this New York Daily News interview, it’s revealed that like John Cusack in Bullets Over Broadway, the director asked Ken to drop the impression and just act. Unlike Cusack, Branagh just carried on anyway:
”I wrote Kenneth Branagh a letter when I sent him the "Celebrity" script. I said to him, "This part is not me. If I was younger, I would definitely not play it. When I was writing the thing, before I thought of you, I had someone like Alec Baldwin in mind. I think he would have been great doing it, but he was not available - and I want to be completely upfront about this. But this is definitely no way me. It requires a younger and more attractive person than me. Even when I was younger, I wasn't attractive enough to play this part. I need someone who's got more flair."I imagine the conversation was very much like the audition scene in his In The Bleak Midwinter between Branagh’s own avatar Michael Maloney and an actor who’s doing an impression of Olivier’s Richard III:
“And, of course, Kenneth is a great actor and I thought it would be a breeze for him. And then as he was doing it, I would go over to him and say "You know, it seems to me that you're doing me. A lot." And he'd say, "I hear what you're saying, don't worry." And then guys on the crew would tell me that he was doing me. And I just sort of threw in the towel and felt, that's how he sees this character. This is how he sees him, and this is a great Shakespearean actor. What's the smartest thing to do here? Do I try to force him into a different mold, or do I go with his take on the character?”
Ken: Well, I like, I know, like um … yeah … hmm.But what Branagh’s doing isn’t simply an impression or a Mark Kermode-style parody. Every movement, the intonation of his voice, the ticks, yes the gesticulation, is like Woody. The level of observation is startling, it’s disconcerting in a similar way to the animated ant Z in Antz, but somehow it works. As Woody says in that interview, “I was amazed! He's a great mimic.”
Woody: Ken, I like what you’re doing, it’s very good. But could we just try losing the accent, the gesticulating, the unfinished sentences and try the scene again?
Ken: Well, I like, I know, like um … yeah … hmm.
Woody: Brilliant! Much better! Thanks very much.
Ken: Oh that felt great, I really felt like it freed me up.
This is the last film he shot with Sven Nykvist and there’s a return to the far more controlled camera work of Crimes and Misdemeanours. My favourite sequence artistically is late on when Lee, having made a commitment to Famke Jansson’s character meets his earlier crush Winona Ryder in a crowded bar. The pair sit opposite one another at a table and the camera pans through 180 degrees focusing on their two faces and somehow, amid the conversation chaos, despite the usual mono soundtrack, we’re able to focus on their staccato dialogue as Lee realises that his emotional life has just become frightfully complicated.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Antz (1998)
Then Seen first at the Odeon on London Road, on screen one, just after the refurbishment I think, when it went from five to ten auditoriums. Antz is usually considered a failure and a poor cousin to both PiXAR and Dreamworks’s later releases (and missing from the usual showreel they put on new discs which does have Bee Season of all things), but it reached the number one slot on the week of release in the UK. It’s available for £3 from Amazon at the moment on DVD, though I’ll warn you that it’s not a brilliant transfer; these days digimations tend to be sent to disc direct from the source code whereas Antz looks like it was copied over from a non-HD source in the traditional way, the smeary transfer not doing justice to the crowd scenes.
Now Here is what Woody Allen told the New York Daily News on the subject of Antz:
“That was hilarious. I was having a drink with Jeff Katzenberg and he said I was the voice he needed for an ant. I've never seen "Antz," but it made more money than my last five pictures put together. I wish it was mine.”Well, of course you haven’t (or hadn’t – this was over ten years ago) and of course you do. Antz is of course notorious because it was part of Katzenberg’s revenge strategy when he left Disney – to produce a superior film about the social insects before they could distribute A Bug’s Life. He succeeded on both counts – Antz turned up a month earlier and unlike the PiXAR film (which is mainly a bunch of film parodies wrapped around a quest structure – meaow etc.) is thematically fairly complex. As the wikipedia sums up better than I could without simply plagiarising them without attribution:
“The film explores aspects of individualism and collectivism and shows the transition of the colony from a dictatorship to a more-or-less traditional monarchy combined with a constitutional republic.”The hiring of Woody to play Z, the hero ant is the key difference and gives the film a different tone. Four writers are credited on the screenplay: Paul Weitz, Chris Weitz, Todd Alcott and Chris Miller but the character’s asides are pure Woody as is the opening and best scene in which Z is introduced talking about how insignificant he feels within the colony and about his childhood. The directors were originally going to begin the film with the shot flying through the colony, but they understood that Woody was their greatest asset and decided to put him front and centre.
With digimation still in its relative infancy, it’s startling to see Woody’s gesticulations being mimicked so successfully through an ant who looks nothing like him (although some concept art on the wall behind one of the animators in the making of documentary has a grotesque design in which Woody’s hair, cloth hat and glasses are superimposed on an ant). The animators had footage of Woody in the sound recording booth, but mostly took their cues from the films themselves for the and body movements designing new software to govern the facial expressions.
The scene in which Z is being jostled about by his fellow workers and army ants walking in formation mimics a similar scene in Love & Death and there’s certainly something of the interactions between him and Diane Keaton from Sleeper in the moments when Z and Princess Bala are on the road to Insectopia. But it’s important note that although some of the shots resemble some of the earlier funny ones as does Z’s characterisation with the exception of that opening scene this is nothing much like a “Woody Allen” film.
It’s still a fairly traditional bit of Dreamworks digimation, with a slightly more adult age group in mind. Z jokes about erotic thoughts at one point, there’s torture, characters die horrifically and some of the battle scenes between the ants and termites have Starship Trooper levels of violence. But it’s still an action adventure film, with pretty montage sequence and romance. There are no interesting structural elements, it's not revealed that the ants are manifestations of a New Yorker’s psyche and there’s editing within scenes. This isn’t another David Frankel attempt at mimicry.
Some casting trivia: Nearly all of the main voice cast had appeared (or would later appear) in one of Woody’s films. Sharon Stone was the girl on the train in Stardust Memories and Sylvester Stallone was the hoodlum on the train in Bananas. Plus, there’s Another Woman’s Gene Hackman and Annie Hall’s Christopher Walken. Dan Aykroyd would later turn up in Curse of the Jade Scorpion. Jennifer Lopez hasn’t appeared yet, but given the rapidity of Woody’s releases, it can only be a matter of time.
Public Art Collections in North West England: Ruskin Library
Museums We begin with an apology. I visited The Ruskin Library at Lancaster University last October and have no excuses for not talking about it before now, some five months later. The problem with being addicted to these kinds of adventures is that at some point they all begin to pile on top of one another and I was high on Hamlet and Hitchcock films at the time and then there was my birthday, then Christmas and then I began with The Wire then Woody Allen and somewhere in there, hammering out these meagre paragraphs became something being put off, a transparent dangling carrot expectantly awaiting extrapolation, as Alanis Morissette or Stephen Fry might say.
To begin: as Edward Morris describes in his book, Public Art Collections in North West England, John Ruskin, the nineteenth century critic and art historian was one of the seminal figures in the development of the academic study of culture, yet unfashionably for the early part of the last century he believed that the work could be understood on its own terms, that its deeper meaning was less useful than its aesthetic qualities. His philosophy is neatly summarised at the Wikipedia but largely amounts to the artist producing the best work he can and if the viewer likes it, that’s fine. If they don’t that’s fine too. But it’s still art. Also Gothic buildings rule! Ruskin’s also notable for falling in with the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of painters – his ex-wife Effie would later marry John Everett Millais and the pair were the subject of a number of paintings. He offered financial support to the likes of Burne-Jones all of which was somewhat dramatised in the BBC’s Desperate Romantics last year, with Tom Hollanderand a beard as Ruskin.
John Howard Whitehouse was an electro-plate worker turned politician turned school master. Heralding from Birmingham, he founded a Ruskin Society there in 1896, and across the following half century, he amassed an impressive collection of books, manuscripts, drawings and paintings by Ruskin which by 1929 were being housed in a school he’d founded in the Isle of White. When he died in 1955, the collection passed to former pupil J.S. Deardon who also wrote extensively about Ruskin, his old master and the collection. When the school closed in 1996 due to local cuts in the education system, the collection was loaned out to Lancaster University due to its reputation for nineteenth-century studies and because of its proximity to Brantwood, were Ruskin spent twenty-eight years of his life (and a future stop on this trip around the galleries) [Update 21/01/2010: Stephen Wildman, Director and Curator, Ruskin Library clarifies my over simplification in the comments below].
Conceived by Richard MacCormac and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, this present building was constructed to house that collection which extends to over fifteen thousand items which are all teasingly held in glass walled rooms and can be seen through a glass floor in the basement. As you can see from the photograph, it’s quite the most extraordinary building, of the kind of Kevin McLeod might drool over on Grand Designs. MacCormac deliberately designed the building to resemble a chapel, which is does, one of the anti-rooms that might appear in a modern cathedral like Coventry. Though walking up to the building from the outside, along the perfectly measured, plain path brings to mind science fiction films; instead of nineteenth century papers it would have been quite proper to find a monolith, the architect from The Matrix films or a splinter from the fortress of solitude hidden within.
Stepping inside, you’re confronted with a central display case. The exhibition areas are in mezzanine floors on either side and the reception desk and administration office are off-handedly/unobtrusively placed on the left hand side (photos available at the library’s website). The library reading room, as I explained, is in a glassed off section at the front/back of the building but I was strangely unimpressed enough not to even ask if I could go and see; the long day was closing and I was content to simply enjoying the feeling of the place, the smell, which is presumably engendered by the ecclesiastical setting, which is odd considering my lack of appreciation for organised religion. I’m still awed by churches though. I’m a very confused/complex person.
Due to the brevity of the building, the collection isn’t on permanent public display. Which might also be why Edward only dedicates a page to it in his book. There is a rolling exhibition programme of selections in one area and what seems like commercial presentations in the other [they aren't, again, see comments]. At present there is a show of Ruskin’s Daguerreotypes of Tuscany which in the future will change to Mountain Glory: Ruskin’s ‘Modern Painters’ and the Swiss Alps. With an embarrassment of riches, but a small subject focus, the curatorial imperative must be to find relevant themes and also to try and put the artist into historical context, create a shop window for the collection. But that might also be why the library isn’t widely visited by the public; with lengthy exhibition periods there’s a certain lethargy, a get round to it approach to calling in. Which is a shame because it’s well worth a visit, for the building alone.
To begin: as Edward Morris describes in his book, Public Art Collections in North West England, John Ruskin, the nineteenth century critic and art historian was one of the seminal figures in the development of the academic study of culture, yet unfashionably for the early part of the last century he believed that the work could be understood on its own terms, that its deeper meaning was less useful than its aesthetic qualities. His philosophy is neatly summarised at the Wikipedia but largely amounts to the artist producing the best work he can and if the viewer likes it, that’s fine. If they don’t that’s fine too. But it’s still art. Also Gothic buildings rule! Ruskin’s also notable for falling in with the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of painters – his ex-wife Effie would later marry John Everett Millais and the pair were the subject of a number of paintings. He offered financial support to the likes of Burne-Jones all of which was somewhat dramatised in the BBC’s Desperate Romantics last year, with Tom Hollander
John Howard Whitehouse was an electro-plate worker turned politician turned school master. Heralding from Birmingham, he founded a Ruskin Society there in 1896, and across the following half century, he amassed an impressive collection of books, manuscripts, drawings and paintings by Ruskin which by 1929 were being housed in a school he’d founded in the Isle of White. When he died in 1955, the collection passed to former pupil J.S. Deardon who also wrote extensively about Ruskin, his old master and the collection. When the school closed in 1996 due to local cuts in the education system, the collection was loaned out to Lancaster University due to its reputation for nineteenth-century studies and because of its proximity to Brantwood, were Ruskin spent twenty-eight years of his life (and a future stop on this trip around the galleries) [Update 21/01/2010: Stephen Wildman, Director and Curator, Ruskin Library clarifies my over simplification in the comments below].
Conceived by Richard MacCormac and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, this present building was constructed to house that collection which extends to over fifteen thousand items which are all teasingly held in glass walled rooms and can be seen through a glass floor in the basement. As you can see from the photograph, it’s quite the most extraordinary building, of the kind of Kevin McLeod might drool over on Grand Designs. MacCormac deliberately designed the building to resemble a chapel, which is does, one of the anti-rooms that might appear in a modern cathedral like Coventry. Though walking up to the building from the outside, along the perfectly measured, plain path brings to mind science fiction films; instead of nineteenth century papers it would have been quite proper to find a monolith, the architect from The Matrix films or a splinter from the fortress of solitude hidden within.
Stepping inside, you’re confronted with a central display case. The exhibition areas are in mezzanine floors on either side and the reception desk and administration office are off-handedly/unobtrusively placed on the left hand side (photos available at the library’s website). The library reading room, as I explained, is in a glassed off section at the front/back of the building but I was strangely unimpressed enough not to even ask if I could go and see; the long day was closing and I was content to simply enjoying the feeling of the place, the smell, which is presumably engendered by the ecclesiastical setting, which is odd considering my lack of appreciation for organised religion. I’m still awed by churches though. I’m a very confused/complex person.
Due to the brevity of the building, the collection isn’t on permanent public display. Which might also be why Edward only dedicates a page to it in his book. There is a rolling exhibition programme of selections in one area and what seems like commercial presentations in the other [they aren't, again, see comments]. At present there is a show of Ruskin’s Daguerreotypes of Tuscany which in the future will change to Mountain Glory: Ruskin’s ‘Modern Painters’ and the Swiss Alps. With an embarrassment of riches, but a small subject focus, the curatorial imperative must be to find relevant themes and also to try and put the artist into historical context, create a shop window for the collection. But that might also be why the library isn’t widely visited by the public; with lengthy exhibition periods there’s a certain lethargy, a get round to it approach to calling in. Which is a shame because it’s well worth a visit, for the building alone.
miniblog archive
The Beast Below.
TV Just be self-reflexive for a moment, I notoriously failed to review most of the 2005 season for this blog, offering a single paragraph in reaction to the revelation at the close of the second episode The End of the World. I hope I’ve made up for that omission in the intervening years (look at that, it’s years) but if the thirty year old version of me (I was thirty?) was quite as vociferous as I am now about spending a few hours (a few?) after every episode trying to come to terms with what he’d just seen, for the purposes of looking for a way into this review, he might have noticed that The End of the World was Russell T Davies’s mission statement about what his era of Doctor Who was going to be like, the Britney, the funky aliens, the last of the timelords, the chips.
Last week I suggested The Eleventh Hour was that mission statement; yet it wasn’t until rewatching the episode later that I realised that Moffat, the writer let us not forget of the editing awareness scenes in Forest of the Dead, wasn’t just offering a Doctor in transition, he was also offering a show in transition. Some have since criticised the Daviesian – oh err – Daviesesque – ugh – I’ll get back to you on that one – fundamentals on show there: the TARDIS hurtling to Earth, the scientific Chatroulette roundtable, the alien invasion subplot, the approach to the boyfriend, the ransacking of his season openers for the plotting, as though Moffat was losing his touch. But he’s too clever for that. Moffat was showing the series itself still cooking, and just like the Doctor as soon as his brain was in gear, the Moffat version of the show snapped into place too.
Which means that in fact, The Beast Below, is Steven Moffat’s mission statement. Philosophically, narratively, we’re in completely different place. As Moffat explained in Confidential, Doctor Who isn’t just like a fairy tale, it is a fairy tale, something which got lost in most areas of the Davies era, inadvertently asserting itself when your reviewer was trying to justify why it was ok for a whole planet to be pulled halfway across the galaxy when some fans were dismissing it as a reason to hate an episode. He’s throwing around names like Roald Dahl and suggesting Amy is a Wendy figure being carried about by a Peter Pan figure, bedecking her in a pyjamas to prove the point. Wow. I mean wow. Under those circumstances, the hiring of Neil Gaiman to write an episode next series doesn’t look quite so eccentric (and we’ll talk about those influences in a moment).
This is a deeply held belief in what the show should be like, a belief Moffat's had for over ten years if not longer. We know that because as I suspected when I reproduced sections of it for this very blog, he talked about what he wanted to do with the show in some detail ten years ago in Doctor Who Magazine, ironically in the same round table as Russell T Davies. Some key quotes: “I just want him out of those TARDIS doors and having adventures. Us kids want Narnia, not the wardrobe”, “The way you’d know you’d got it right would be if the 11 year-olds all jumped up and down and said it was the best show ever and all the sadder Doctor Who fans muttered that it was no longer serious adult drama like it was when they were 11” and “He should be forty-plus and weird looking – the kind of wacky grandfather that kids know on sight to be secretly one of them.”
With the exception of the notes on his age (though as we know Moffat was looking for someone older before Matt walked into the room) those few quotes sum up The Beast Below. We’re barely in the TARDIS – when Amy isn’t floating in space in a shot that looked like it was just trailer fodder but was actually in the episode along with the voiceover – the Doctor’s already left the box and into the adventure before she’s noticed he’s gone. For reasons we’ll talk about in a moment the story was as simple a story as we’ve seen so far but infinitely complex in that way that feeds a child’s imagination and the Doctor is no longer the omnipresent figure and that slightly giddy kiddy madness has largely returned to his eyes of the kind we’ve only rarely seen in him since he danced in his new shoes in San Francisco. He’s not always in control, he doesn’t always know what’s going on, he sometimes makes mistakes, just like children and those of us who are basically still children. He’s had a return to innocence.
And so has the show. Not often since the Hartnell era, and certainly not since 2005 have we seen a narrative that it could so easily be accommodated on a series of Give-A-Show slides. Something along the lines of “The TARDIS lands on Starship UK!”, “The Doctor and Amy meet a crying girl. It’s an oppressive regime!”, “Liz 10 is the queen!”, “The Doctor and Amy fall through a tunnel!”, “The Doctor and Amy are inside a space whale!”, “The space whale is being used to move the starship through the stars!”, “The Doctor and Amy free the space whale from torture!” and “The starship continues on its way!” Ditching time travel as a plot-device for the very first time, and even after being split up initially (for Amy to receive the vital clue which will lead to her epic win at the climax) much of the episode has the Doctor lead Amy (and us) through the adventure, dropping Pinocchio-like into the stomach of the beast, meeting Liz 10 and receiving the revelation about her along the way.
In other words, The Beast Below is a picture book, the scene changes like a child turning the page, offering a constant stream of surprises and unusual images, Starship UK with its collection of sky-scrapers itself suggesting even an old fashioned pop up picture book. To dismiss it as having a "weak story" is to miss the point entirely. Which isn’t to say that Moffat is only being influenced by children’s stories. The market place brought to mind the London Below from Neverwhere; the final image of the star whale pure Terry Pratchett (and Pat Mills if you’re in the mood for some Who apocrypha). And whilst arguably Moffat’s own stories previously have suggested similar images and ideas and with a hat-tip to Paul Cornell the fate of the Family of Blood, it’s never been quite so on the nose, quite so specifically trying to speak to children, hoping against hope that the adults are enjoying it too.
Admittedly some of this is similar to Davies’s The Sarah Jane Adventures with its clown shaped Pied Piper and black-cloaked Trickster so perhaps I shouldn’t really get myself too carried away in trying to define an era on the basis of a single episode (especially with those photos of a football shirted James Cordon knocking about). Indeed there was something of the Mona Lisa about Sophie “Alison from Scream of the Shalka” Okenado’s gun-toting cockney Liz 10 except far better performed and with a post-racial subtext to her monarchy. But I don’t remember SJA being quite so complex with its political subtext; the big white buttons with “Protest” or “Forget” printed on them which turned out to be an apt satire on the political process or the Smilers whose simplistic happy face/sad face/angry face approach to everything is terrifying but also redolent of the nanny state.
Perhaps the difference is that Moffat is underscoring fairy tale elements which have always been there, but rather than hiding them in colder technology (sonic screwdriver as magic wand) he’s making them obvious, aggressively fantastical. At no point in the episode was it explained exactly why the country was being administered by these fairground throwbacks. The question was asked, I think, but we were simply left to accept the status quo, why the sometimes happiness, sometimes not, patrol had such a hold on the population, teaching the children even when a real teacher or plasma screen with a computer generated Melvyn Bragg or Matt Baker (as might have been the option in the Davies era) would be the more logical solution. Because in fairy tales we don’t question talking mirrors and poison apples; they just are. Build a space station on the back of giant star whale? Alright then.
Plus, none of the characters in The Sarah Jane Adventures (with the exception of the titular mistress herself) has developed quite as much as Amy has already. Like Moffat’s version of the show, she’s at once a child but also an adult; marriage is awaiting her, but she’s almost desperate to stay in the TARDIS, even to the point of risking all on a hunch. Our previous nu-Who companions enjoyed their journey as a kind of privilege, something bestowed at the drop of a TARDIS key; Amy has the self awareness to know that she has to prove herself, explain effectively why the Doctor needs her. It’s somewhat like Donna suggesting that 10th required her to be his moral conscience, but Donna would never have made that big speech at the close of this episode (probably because he would have got there before her). She’s both entirely real and totally mysterious. Wow, again.
Then, right at the end, Moffat curiously evokes The End of the World himself. But instead of Rose being disturbed by the Doctor as she looks out into the immensity of space, it’s the Doctor ruminating on his failure to see the details which were right in front of Amy. I thought initially we were supposed to assume that he had been testing his new companion, her moral code, but instead he seems like a man who understands what he’s lost in this regeneration, that the human elements of his tenth persona which inescapably led to his doom have been divested and he knows he’s returned to having an alien perspective. When he clumsily embraces Amy, it’s as though he’s trying to literally absorb her humanity. Then its off to the TARDIS again and Moffat commits another surprise as like the early Hartnell era we effectively get the next episode teaser as part of the story, Churchill, Daleks and all (oh yays) because like children, no sooner have we read one story, we want to be enchanted by the next one straight away.
Next Week: Doctor Who sprouts its own Downfall-like meme.
Last week I suggested The Eleventh Hour was that mission statement; yet it wasn’t until rewatching the episode later that I realised that Moffat, the writer let us not forget of the editing awareness scenes in Forest of the Dead, wasn’t just offering a Doctor in transition, he was also offering a show in transition. Some have since criticised the Daviesian – oh err – Daviesesque – ugh – I’ll get back to you on that one – fundamentals on show there: the TARDIS hurtling to Earth, the scientific Chatroulette roundtable, the alien invasion subplot, the approach to the boyfriend, the ransacking of his season openers for the plotting, as though Moffat was losing his touch. But he’s too clever for that. Moffat was showing the series itself still cooking, and just like the Doctor as soon as his brain was in gear, the Moffat version of the show snapped into place too.
Which means that in fact, The Beast Below, is Steven Moffat’s mission statement. Philosophically, narratively, we’re in completely different place. As Moffat explained in Confidential, Doctor Who isn’t just like a fairy tale, it is a fairy tale, something which got lost in most areas of the Davies era, inadvertently asserting itself when your reviewer was trying to justify why it was ok for a whole planet to be pulled halfway across the galaxy when some fans were dismissing it as a reason to hate an episode. He’s throwing around names like Roald Dahl and suggesting Amy is a Wendy figure being carried about by a Peter Pan figure, bedecking her in a pyjamas to prove the point. Wow. I mean wow. Under those circumstances, the hiring of Neil Gaiman to write an episode next series doesn’t look quite so eccentric (and we’ll talk about those influences in a moment).
This is a deeply held belief in what the show should be like, a belief Moffat's had for over ten years if not longer. We know that because as I suspected when I reproduced sections of it for this very blog, he talked about what he wanted to do with the show in some detail ten years ago in Doctor Who Magazine, ironically in the same round table as Russell T Davies. Some key quotes: “I just want him out of those TARDIS doors and having adventures. Us kids want Narnia, not the wardrobe”, “The way you’d know you’d got it right would be if the 11 year-olds all jumped up and down and said it was the best show ever and all the sadder Doctor Who fans muttered that it was no longer serious adult drama like it was when they were 11” and “He should be forty-plus and weird looking – the kind of wacky grandfather that kids know on sight to be secretly one of them.”
With the exception of the notes on his age (though as we know Moffat was looking for someone older before Matt walked into the room) those few quotes sum up The Beast Below. We’re barely in the TARDIS – when Amy isn’t floating in space in a shot that looked like it was just trailer fodder but was actually in the episode along with the voiceover – the Doctor’s already left the box and into the adventure before she’s noticed he’s gone. For reasons we’ll talk about in a moment the story was as simple a story as we’ve seen so far but infinitely complex in that way that feeds a child’s imagination and the Doctor is no longer the omnipresent figure and that slightly giddy kiddy madness has largely returned to his eyes of the kind we’ve only rarely seen in him since he danced in his new shoes in San Francisco. He’s not always in control, he doesn’t always know what’s going on, he sometimes makes mistakes, just like children and those of us who are basically still children. He’s had a return to innocence.
And so has the show. Not often since the Hartnell era, and certainly not since 2005 have we seen a narrative that it could so easily be accommodated on a series of Give-A-Show slides. Something along the lines of “The TARDIS lands on Starship UK!”, “The Doctor and Amy meet a crying girl. It’s an oppressive regime!”, “Liz 10 is the queen!”, “The Doctor and Amy fall through a tunnel!”, “The Doctor and Amy are inside a space whale!”, “The space whale is being used to move the starship through the stars!”, “The Doctor and Amy free the space whale from torture!” and “The starship continues on its way!” Ditching time travel as a plot-device for the very first time, and even after being split up initially (for Amy to receive the vital clue which will lead to her epic win at the climax) much of the episode has the Doctor lead Amy (and us) through the adventure, dropping Pinocchio-like into the stomach of the beast, meeting Liz 10 and receiving the revelation about her along the way.
In other words, The Beast Below is a picture book, the scene changes like a child turning the page, offering a constant stream of surprises and unusual images, Starship UK with its collection of sky-scrapers itself suggesting even an old fashioned pop up picture book. To dismiss it as having a "weak story" is to miss the point entirely. Which isn’t to say that Moffat is only being influenced by children’s stories. The market place brought to mind the London Below from Neverwhere; the final image of the star whale pure Terry Pratchett (and Pat Mills if you’re in the mood for some Who apocrypha). And whilst arguably Moffat’s own stories previously have suggested similar images and ideas and with a hat-tip to Paul Cornell the fate of the Family of Blood, it’s never been quite so on the nose, quite so specifically trying to speak to children, hoping against hope that the adults are enjoying it too.
Admittedly some of this is similar to Davies’s The Sarah Jane Adventures with its clown shaped Pied Piper and black-cloaked Trickster so perhaps I shouldn’t really get myself too carried away in trying to define an era on the basis of a single episode (especially with those photos of a football shirted James Cordon knocking about). Indeed there was something of the Mona Lisa about Sophie “Alison from Scream of the Shalka” Okenado’s gun-toting cockney Liz 10 except far better performed and with a post-racial subtext to her monarchy. But I don’t remember SJA being quite so complex with its political subtext; the big white buttons with “Protest” or “Forget” printed on them which turned out to be an apt satire on the political process or the Smilers whose simplistic happy face/sad face/angry face approach to everything is terrifying but also redolent of the nanny state.
Perhaps the difference is that Moffat is underscoring fairy tale elements which have always been there, but rather than hiding them in colder technology (sonic screwdriver as magic wand) he’s making them obvious, aggressively fantastical. At no point in the episode was it explained exactly why the country was being administered by these fairground throwbacks. The question was asked, I think, but we were simply left to accept the status quo, why the sometimes happiness, sometimes not, patrol had such a hold on the population, teaching the children even when a real teacher or plasma screen with a computer generated Melvyn Bragg or Matt Baker (as might have been the option in the Davies era) would be the more logical solution. Because in fairy tales we don’t question talking mirrors and poison apples; they just are. Build a space station on the back of giant star whale? Alright then.
Plus, none of the characters in The Sarah Jane Adventures (with the exception of the titular mistress herself) has developed quite as much as Amy has already. Like Moffat’s version of the show, she’s at once a child but also an adult; marriage is awaiting her, but she’s almost desperate to stay in the TARDIS, even to the point of risking all on a hunch. Our previous nu-Who companions enjoyed their journey as a kind of privilege, something bestowed at the drop of a TARDIS key; Amy has the self awareness to know that she has to prove herself, explain effectively why the Doctor needs her. It’s somewhat like Donna suggesting that 10th required her to be his moral conscience, but Donna would never have made that big speech at the close of this episode (probably because he would have got there before her). She’s both entirely real and totally mysterious. Wow, again.
Then, right at the end, Moffat curiously evokes The End of the World himself. But instead of Rose being disturbed by the Doctor as she looks out into the immensity of space, it’s the Doctor ruminating on his failure to see the details which were right in front of Amy. I thought initially we were supposed to assume that he had been testing his new companion, her moral code, but instead he seems like a man who understands what he’s lost in this regeneration, that the human elements of his tenth persona which inescapably led to his doom have been divested and he knows he’s returned to having an alien perspective. When he clumsily embraces Amy, it’s as though he’s trying to literally absorb her humanity. Then its off to the TARDIS again and Moffat commits another surprise as like the early Hartnell era we effectively get the next episode teaser as part of the story, Churchill, Daleks and all (oh yays) because like children, no sooner have we read one story, we want to be enchanted by the next one straight away.
Next Week: Doctor Who sprouts its own Downfall-like meme.
Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: The Imposters (1998)
Then A ropey ex-rental copy from 1998 bought at the Lark Lane Flea Market at the old police station early this decade. I was attracted by the cast, by the fact that it was the second film directed by Stanley Tucci and I’d enjoyed his first, Big Night, very much and the quote on the cover, from Empire Magazine, “a genuine success … a package of unexpected delights”.
Now The Imposters, the story of a pair of out of work actors who become mixed up in some mad-cap, crazy adventures aboard an ocean liner seems to be Tucci and Oliver Platt’s attempt to recreate the old Hollywood double acts and 30s screwball comedies, primarily Laurel and Hardy but using modern (well modern in the late 90s) film editing and techniques.
We’re in Purple Rose of Cairo territory with a sprinkling of Grand Hotel as a great ensemble turn up for a series of scenes. Which is rather the problem; including the double act no one has too distinct a personality, everyone is symbolic of a certain type of old actor and any sympathy we have depends on how much we like the given actors. Even in the 30s, screenwriters, who had predominantly come from theatre knew which buttons to press in their audience.
Frankly, I don’t know which film Empire were watching, but The Imposters is a film length jokeoid. It has all of the constituent parts of a comedy without actually being funny. The performances are good, as is the art direction and it’s shot really well, but somewhere in editing the timing has dropped out, so scene after scene passes in which you can see what the joke is but you’re not actually laughing, and the less laughing you’re doing the more disappointed you become.
Initially I thought it was the PAL conversion on the video which was at fault (sometimes when films were transferred to video they would be sped up slightly annihilating the slender margin for error in comedy) or I was in the wrong mood but in truth it’s because Tucci can’t quite decide how to pitch the comedy so everything becomes too over emphatic, rather like the original version of Don’t Drink The Water. Plus the best comedy films have the capacity to entertain no matter your mood.
Woody’s cameo is in the third scene as a neurotic theatre writer/producer who auditions the two actors. Predictably, perhaps, his is the funniest moment as he watches startled as the two actors murder his script, then rudely takes a phone call from his wife in the middle and has an argument over financing whilst our “heroes” are trying to act. Perhaps his participation was reciprocation for Tucci appearing in Deconstructing Harry. Either way, it’s an enactonism which works better than most of the rest of the film.
Here’s the trailer. You have to earn Oliver Platt in a dress, Stanley.
Now The Imposters, the story of a pair of out of work actors who become mixed up in some mad-cap, crazy adventures aboard an ocean liner seems to be Tucci and Oliver Platt’s attempt to recreate the old Hollywood double acts and 30s screwball comedies, primarily Laurel and Hardy but using modern (well modern in the late 90s) film editing and techniques.
We’re in Purple Rose of Cairo territory with a sprinkling of Grand Hotel as a great ensemble turn up for a series of scenes. Which is rather the problem; including the double act no one has too distinct a personality, everyone is symbolic of a certain type of old actor and any sympathy we have depends on how much we like the given actors. Even in the 30s, screenwriters, who had predominantly come from theatre knew which buttons to press in their audience.
Frankly, I don’t know which film Empire were watching, but The Imposters is a film length jokeoid. It has all of the constituent parts of a comedy without actually being funny. The performances are good, as is the art direction and it’s shot really well, but somewhere in editing the timing has dropped out, so scene after scene passes in which you can see what the joke is but you’re not actually laughing, and the less laughing you’re doing the more disappointed you become.
Initially I thought it was the PAL conversion on the video which was at fault (sometimes when films were transferred to video they would be sped up slightly annihilating the slender margin for error in comedy) or I was in the wrong mood but in truth it’s because Tucci can’t quite decide how to pitch the comedy so everything becomes too over emphatic, rather like the original version of Don’t Drink The Water. Plus the best comedy films have the capacity to entertain no matter your mood.
Woody’s cameo is in the third scene as a neurotic theatre writer/producer who auditions the two actors. Predictably, perhaps, his is the funniest moment as he watches startled as the two actors murder his script, then rudely takes a phone call from his wife in the middle and has an argument over financing whilst our “heroes” are trying to act. Perhaps his participation was reciprocation for Tucci appearing in Deconstructing Harry. Either way, it’s an enactonism which works better than most of the rest of the film.
Here’s the trailer. You have to earn Oliver Platt in a dress, Stanley.
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