Thursday 25 March 2010

Shutter Island (2)

Over the three full days of my visit to Croydon, the Gods, yours, mine, and everyone else’s, smiled down exceptionally kindly. I also made several good choices and the mistakes were limited. In the first the part of this series nine hundredth piece of writing I reported the decision to go by bus to Teddington, having discovered that the one planned to Sutton continued to Kingston and over the Thames Bridge to Teddington, where I lived for over two years from 1967. After a quick lunch at Tesco’s and a good walkabout along the High Street to towards Teddington Lock and then southwards, I had visited the outside of house, and armed with the information gained from local estate agents calculated that it was worth in the order of £650000 to £750000, given the difference between its neighbours in terms of the additional floor space added to them over the years, the market price of the property next door five years ago and that of other properties in road and immediate area.
I had then taken the bus to Kingston, passing Hampton Wick Station, onto the road leading to Hampton Court and into Kingston to explore the development of the Bentalls’ shopping centre and only then decided to find the nearest cinema and find out if there was a film which I wanted to see at a time which enabled me to get to Wimbledon in time for a hot meal and a relayed performance of La Boheme from Covent Garden. I mention Hampton Wick station and Hampton Court, the place and the Palace because two days later I was to take a bus which passed through Ham, the village with its common, on the way to Petersham and Richmond, also on the Thames, and its Green, Theatre and enormous Parkland.

On the Monday I had then discovered that two or three years ago a new Odeon Multiplex, a Bowling alley and restaurants had been built close to the station and across from the Bentalls’ store and centre. There was a showing of Shutter Island, commencing within three minutes, sufficient time to buy a ticket, tell two assistants of the adventure I was having and once inside the area of theatres take the escalator up instead of down, found myself back to one of the assistants again, had a laugh at myself, took the escalator down and found myself a good seat in the allocated row just as the advertising changed to the trailers of forthcoming films.

It has been my practice to give a detailed account of films as well as my reactions and judgements but for the first time in memory I propose not to reveal ending of this film, only to say at the outset that film concerns illusion, hallucination, belief and reality and could be said to be based on those lines of T S Elliot, I think from one of his plays, possibly the Cocktail Party in which a psychiatrist type figure explains that human beings cannot cope with too much reality.

I am of the opinion that this film is one of the cleverest and technically accurate films about the roles of patient’s and doctors in an asylum for the criminally insane, the USA equivalent of Broadmoor. I will provide clues which are numbered to the outcome of this film.

The Martin Scorsese directed film has some violence and vivid gore and overall is not for the feint hearted or those concerned about their mental health. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as US Marshall Edward (Teddy) Daniel, sent to the institution, which had requested external help following the disappearance of a prisoner Rachel Solando(1) from her locked room in the female section and is not to be found within the prison run facility where the warden and his armed men are responsible for security within and outside the prison which includes a forbidden castle like inner prison for the most violent and disturbed category of insane offenders. We meet Teddy on the ferry boat on his way to the Island located in Boston harbour, and it is only on the ferry that he meets his partner for the investigation, US Marshall Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffulo)(2). Teddy is feeling unwell from the crossing(3). The island is uninhabited apart from the prison complex with an electrified perimeter wall, and inner wall with two sets of prison gates with armed warders before reaching the internal grounds where is located the two contemporary for the period, late 1950’s early 1960’s accommodation/treatment blocks, one for men and one for women, the palatial accommodation for the senior Prison Psychiatrists and other accommodations, and the separate gothic and forbidding fort like structure. They pass a gothic like cemetery on the way from the landing stage and during the whole film which lasts 138 minutes there is no reference to the wardens, medical and nursing staff having families or homes on the island.
The film was shot in a number of locations including Peddock’s island, a recreational facility in Boston Harbour and which does contain a former military Fort with many internal buildings all now in ruins and closed to the public for safety reasons. The Lighthouse which has great significance is in a different location as are the internal facilities and grounds of the institution where existing medical facilities for prisoners held by the state in Federal facilities.

The two Marshals meet hostility and suspicion from the moment of their arrival and are required to hand over their weapons(4) which they point out is contrary to their statutory position, but a condition of their access into the prison complex, and Teddy is refused access to all the personnel files(5) which as a consequence leads him to call off the investigation at an early stage. The medical director, played by the always outstanding Ben Kingsly appears reluctant to discuss the situation with him until they meet for cigars and drinks after dinner and where the Marshals encounter Max Von Sydow, a German Psychiatrist who advises the Medical Director on behalf of the governing Board.

There are several developments before and at the meeting which governs understanding of what happens in the rest of the film. It appears impossible for the missing prisoner to have escaped although one nurse admits he had a toilet break without being replaced(6). This does not explain how the prisoner appears to have managed to have then got through the two gates managed by armed warders at all times. The woman is said to have killed her three children but does not believe she has done this or that she is in prison and still acts and talks as if she is continuing to live in her former community(7).

Teddy is haunted by one memory and on hallucination. The hallucination is the presence of his former wife who we learn was killed in a fire at their home caused by the janitor, called Andrew Laeddis(8) who escaped normal prison because of insanity and who Teddy believes was admitted to the institution but which he could not find any record prior to the visit. This leads his new partner and audience to have the suspicion he has come to seek revenge. However he is also haunted by visual memories of liberating Dachau concentration camp and a child about seven to nine years who he found frozen clutching her mother among the piles of bodies and who now asks why he arrived too late to save her(9). Teddy explains that he and the other soldiers went berserk at one point and lined up the guards before shooting them. He tells his partner he has enough of killing and intends no physical harm to the janitor.
He explains that the reason for seeking the assignment is different, He had encountered a former inmate of the prison medical centre who has escaped but come to attention of the police authorities. He claimed the establishment was using mind changing drugs on behalf of the government to make them into secret assassins, something which incensed Teddy because of his knowledge of what the Nazi’s had been experimenting and then Russians and Koreans(10). The medical director has explained that he is opposed to the traditional way of quietening violent people. Lobotomy surgery which involves cutting into the brain memory, eliminating memories and making the individual docile and zombie like. The other method is to use medication which relies on constant dosages and which has addictive consequences.
I have previously written of my knowledge of psychotropic drug use in the 1960’s as a means of regression therapy by the county psychiatrist for Staffordshire. I cannot remember at what point in the film the use of such drugs is mentioned but the medical director has explained that his approach is to use psychotherapy, role play and presumably regression therapy as an alternative to the lobotomy(11).
Teddy’s plans for abandoning the visit and report the medical director for his non cooperation are thwarted when a storm arrives of hurricane proportions. During the storm there is a loss of power with the consequence that some of the highest category of prisoners escape from the fort during which time the two marshals have changed into nurse uniforms because their suits became wet when they went on an outside investigation taking refuge in a building in the cemetery. They go on an explore of the Fort where Teddy become separated from his new partner and is attacked by an inmate on the loose who he half kills in retaliation (12). He then discovers the man who he claims had revealed to him the ongoing activities at hospital, George Noyce is back in the fort, badly beaten and blaming Teddy for his predicament(13) claiming he will never get out again.
There is the growing feeling created that Teddy is the victim of a plot to silence him from discovering and revealing what is going on at the centre. This is reinforced when first the missing prisoner is said to have been found outside the prison and returned to her cell unable to explain what happened to her. His partner then disappears and when later he encounters the medical staff they challenge that he was ever with a partner(14). Before this he investigates a cave in which he finds someone who says she is the real Rachel Solando, a former Psychiatrist at the establishment who has been committed because she would not go along with mind changing experiments.(15) She warns that they are out to get him.
It is at this point Teddy in effect becomes a fugitive on the island and blows up the car of the Medical Director(16) as a hallucination of his wife urges him to leave the island and not go and investigate the Lighthouse where it is believed dark things are taking place. The concentration camp girl also reappears at this time.(17) He makes his way to the Lighthouse where he disabled a guard and makes his way to the top where he find an office with the Medical Director expecting his arrival. For what happens next and why the film has to be experienced firsthand

Shutter Island (2)

Over the three full days of my visit to Croydon, the Gods, yours, mine, and everyone else’s, smiled down exceptionally kindly. I also made several good choices and the mistakes were limited. In the first the part of this series nine hundredth piece of writing I reported the decision to go by bus to Teddington, having discovered that the one planned to Sutton continued to Kingston and over the Thames Bridge to Teddington, where I lived for over two years from 1967. After a quick lunch at Tesco’s and a good walkabout along the High Street to towards Teddington Lock and then southwards, I had visited the outside of house, and armed with the information gained from local estate agents calculated that it was worth in the order of £650000 to £750000, given the difference between its neighbours in terms of the additional floor space added to them over the years, the market price of the property next door five years ago and that of other properties in road and immediate area.
I had then taken the bus to Kingston, passing Hampton Wick Station, onto the road leading to Hampton Court and into Kingston to explore the development of the Bentalls’ shopping centre and only then decided to find the nearest cinema and find out if there was a film which I wanted to see at a time which enabled me to get to Wimbledon in time for a hot meal and a relayed performance of La Boheme from Covent Garden. I mention Hampton Wick station and Hampton Court, the place and the Palace because two days later I was to take a bus which passed through Ham, the village with its common, on the way to Petersham and Richmond, also on the Thames, and its Green, Theatre and enormous Parkland.
On the Monday I had then discovered that two or three years ago a new Odeon Multiplex, a Bowling alley and restaurants had been built close to the station and across from the Bentalls’ store and centre. There was a showing of Shutter Island, commencing within three minutes, sufficient time to buy a ticket, tell two assistants of the adventure I was having and once inside the area of theatres take the escalator up instead of down, found myself back to one of the assistants again, had a laugh at myself, took the escalator down and found myself a good seat in the allocated row just as the advertising changed to the trailers of forthcoming films.
It has been my practice to give a detailed account of films as well as my reactions and judgements but for the first time in memory I propose not to reveal ending of this film, only to say at the outset that film concerns illusion, hallucination, belief and reality and could be said to be based on those lines of T S Elliot, I think from one of his plays, possibly the Cocktail Party in which a psychiatrist type figure explains that human beings cannot cope with too much reality.
I am of the opinion that this film is one of the cleverest and technically accurate films about the roles of patient’s and doctors in an asylum for the criminally insane, the USA equivalent of Broadmoor. I will provide clues which are numbered to the outcome of this film.
The Martin Scorsese directed film has some violence and vivid gore and overall is not for the feint hearted or those concerned about their mental health. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as US Marshall Edward (Teddy) Daniel, sent to the institution, which had requested external help following the disappearance of a prisoner Rachel Solando(1) from her locked room in the female section and is not to be found within the prison run facility where the warden and his armed men are responsible for security within and outside the prison which includes a forbidden castle like inner prison for the most violent and disturbed category of insane offenders. We meet Teddy on the ferry boat on his way to the Island located in Boston harbour, and it is only on the ferry that he meets his partner for the investigation, US Marshall Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffulo)(2). Teddy is feeling unwell from the crossing(3). The island is uninhabited apart from the prison complex with an electrified perimeter wall, and inner wall with two sets of prison gates with armed warders before reaching the internal grounds where is located the two contemporary for the period, late 1950’s early 1960’s accommodation/treatment blocks, one for men and one for women, the palatial accommodation for the senior Prison Psychiatrists and other accommodations, and the separate gothic and forbidding fort like structure. They pass a gothic like cemetery on the way from the landing stage and during the whole film which lasts 138 minutes there is no reference to the wardens, medical and nursing staff having families or homes on the island.

The film was shot in a number of locations including Peddock’s island, a recreational facility in Boston Harbour and which does contain a former military Fort with many internal buildings all now in ruins and closed to the public for safety reasons. The Lighthouse which has great significance is in a different location as are the internal facilities and grounds of the institution where existing medical facilities for prisoners held by the state in Federal facilities.
The two Marshals meet hostility and suspicion from the moment of their arrival and are required to hand over their weapons(4) which they point out is contrary to their statutory position, but a condition of their access into the prison complex, and Teddy is refused access to all the personnel files(5) which as a consequence leads him to call off the investigation at an early stage. The medical director, played by the always outstanding Ben Kingsly appears reluctant to discuss the situation with him until they meet for cigars and drinks after dinner and where the Marshals encounter Max Von Sydow, a German Psychiatrist who advises the Medical Director on behalf of the governing Board.
There are several developments before and at the meeting which governs understanding of what happens in the rest of the film. It appears impossible for the missing prisoner to have escaped although one nurse admits he had a toilet break without being replaced(6). This does not explain how the prisoner appears to have managed to have then got through the two gates managed by armed warders at all times. The woman is said to have killed her three children but does not believe she has done this or that she is in prison and still acts and talks as if she is continuing to live in her former community(7).


Teddy is haunted by one memory and on hallucination. The hallucination is the presence of his former wife who we learn was killed in a fire at their home caused by the janitor, called Andrew Laeddis(8) who escaped normal prison because of insanity and who Teddy believes was admitted to the institution but which he could not find any record prior to the visit. This leads his new partner and audience to have the suspicion he has come to seek revenge. However he is also haunted by visual memories of liberating Dachau concentration camp and a child about seven to nine years who he found frozen clutching her mother among the piles of bodies and who now asks why he arrived too late to save her(9). Teddy explains that he and the other soldiers went berserk at one point and lined up the guards before shooting them. He tells his partner he has enough of killing and intends no physical harm to the janitor.
He explains that the reason for seeking the assignment is different, He had encountered a former inmate of the prison medical centre who has escaped but come to attention of the police authorities. He claimed the establishment was using mind changing drugs on behalf of the government to make them into secret assassins, something which incensed Teddy because of his knowledge of what the Nazi’s had been experimenting and then Russians and Koreans(10). The medical director has explained that he is opposed to the traditional way of quietening violent people. Lobotomy surgery which involves cutting into the brain memory, eliminating memories and making the individual docile and zombie like. The other method is to use medication which relies on constant dosages and which has addictive consequences.
I have previously written of my knowledge of psychotropic drug use in the 1960’s as a means of regression therapy by the county psychiatrist for Staffordshire. I cannot remember at what point in the film the use of such drugs is mentioned but the medical director has explained that his approach is to use psychotherapy, role play and presumably regression therapy as an alternative to the lobotomy(11).
Teddy’s plans for abandoning the visit and report the medical director for his non cooperation are thwarted when a storm arrives of hurricane proportions. During the storm there is a loss of power with the consequence that some of the highest category of prisoners escape from the fort during which time the two marshals have changed into nurse uniforms because their suits became wet when they went on an outside investigation taking refuge in a building in the cemetery. They go on an explore of the Fort where Teddy become separated from his new partner and is attacked by an inmate on the loose who he half kills in retaliation (12). He then discovers the man who he claims had revealed to him the ongoing activities at hospital, George Noyce is back in the fort, badly beaten and blaming Teddy for his predicament(13) claiming he will never get out again.
There is the growing feeling created that Teddy is the victim of a plot to silence him from discovering and revealing what is going on at the centre. This is reinforced when first the missing prisoner is said to have been found outside the prison and returned to her cell unable to explain what happened to her. His partner then disappears and when later he encounters the medical staff they challenge that he was ever with a partner(14). Before this he investigates a cave in which he finds someone who says she is the real Rachel Solando, a former Psychiatrist at the establishment who has been committed because she would not go along with mind changing experiments.(15) She warns that they are out to get him.
It is at this point Teddy in effect becomes a fugitive on the island and blows up the car of the Medical Director(16) as a hallucination of his wife urges him to leave the island and not go and investigate the Lighthouse where it is believed dark things are taking place. The concentration camp girl also reappears at this time.(17) He makes his way to the Lighthouse where he disabled a guard and makes his way to the top where he find an office with the Medical Director expecting his arrival. For what happens next and why the film has to be experienced firsthand

Monday 22 March 2010

Neretva and a journey

If there is time for me in the future I will devote a writing to Marshal Tito and the development of Yugoslavia, the former single nation which straddled the Adriatic and where brave adventurers travelled through by train on their way to Greece in the 1950’s and 1960’s before era of cheap air flights and the country itself became a holiday destination in its own right.

For now I want to concentrate on Joseph Tito the guerrilla freedom fighter who during World War 1 had become the youngest Sergeant Major, wounded and decorated and as the head of the communist party led behind the scenes opposition to the Germans, Italians and Hungarians who then invaded in his country in 1939. Part of his role, supported by the British in particular, is covered in the three hour film, The Battle of Neretva made with state sponsorship in the late 1960’s in Serbo-Croatian and English and distributed by American International Pictures. The film was as expensive to make as the Hollywood epic, with a cast of thousands, including 10000 members of the People’s army, and four villages and a fortress constructed and destroyed with hundreds of old soviet tanks made to look like the German Tiger Tanks and also destroyed. It was necessary to destroy the actual bridge over the river which was in fact blown up twice and then repaired but because of the smoke they eventually used a studio created model for the film footage. Imported actors included Yul Brynner, Orson Wells, Carl Jurgans and Anthony Dawson.

It is my understanding that the film accurately describes one of the definitive and course changing events of World War II at a huge cost in life and human suffering. In 1943 the Hitler led Axis set in motion an offensive to destroy Tito because of his support among the people. The plan was to encircle the Partisans with their backs to the River Neretva in Bosnia-Herzegovina having destroyed the bridge to prevent a crossing. The Axis organised six German, three Italian, two Croation and a number of Chetnik and Usasha formations against the partisans in January 1943.

In order to escape the strong armoured and professional German army, Tito needed to cross the river where he knew he could beat the Chetnik forces and escape. To achieve this objective he prepared a major deception first appearing to destroy the bridge suggesting he intended to follow the river northward so the German command hastily reorganised it forces to meet them. Part of his force did go northward to evacuate a hospital which had come under attack, but while this was happening his engineers created a low level crossing from the lowered remains of the bridge sufficient for people on foot to cross but not the artillery. His armed forces then crossed over and defeated the Chetniks and followed by the rest, including the evacuated injured, destroying the crossing before they left.

In 1943 Tito became the effective political as well as military head of the Yugoslav people which continued for some four decades and he was the only European Communist leader to break with Stalin and successfully declare independence and development relations with the rest of Europe, the USA and world in general. The Partisans paid a heavy price at Neretva with eight thousand killed and two thousand captured but the foundation of Tito’s power and influence among the people was laid in their sacrifice, something which the film portrays, emphasising the part which women played in the fighting, and using music and voice to great effect. The heroics were real and of lasting impact until after his death.

Although I knew I had an early start on Sunday in order to make use of the cheapest train ticket of the day, it was 1.30 to 2 am before I retired to bed and sleep having tested and set the alarm for 7am and got as much ready as I could leaving only the packing of clothes and food preparation for the morning. As is usually my experience I awoke within minutes of the alarm going off and had completed by getting up when it did. I was therefore able to check that I had not won any prizes on the two Euro tickets purchased the previous evening and played a level of Luxor Mahjong.

It was when making up my rolls that the first mishap occurred as the previously used small freezer bags had torn and a roll filled with coleslaw and salami fell to the floor, opening up but the coleslaw filled side end the right side up. I put in the case a small container of grapes and another of the chocolates and some crackers. The four rolls, more grapes and two pecan swirls went into the shoulder bag along with notes and papers, the laptop mains lead, headphones, mouse and radio link, and the data transfer memory stick. I hoped to be able to use the lap top on the journey. The only other temporary glitch was that I locked the interconnecting door in the home with the case on the other side.

I was ready to leave just after 8am as planned. I only met one other human, out walking a dog during the downhill walk to the Metro station. The majority of curtains were drawn so I walked slowly not to make too much noise with the wheeling case and taking the back route through lanes and open spaces. There was no train on the platform but as I walked onto the far end of the former railway station, a train came from a siding and as two as myself and another waiting passenger entered it set off. I was lucky but this meant arriving at Newcastle station in with half an hour before the departure. There was time for a bacon roll, hash browns and coffee at the Burger King, when a woman who had bought the Sunday Times discarded the sports section for me to read. I then bought a London Time Out. This is usually a waste of money, because I enjoy reading about the plays and musical and free events but rarely go to any. I then started to cross over the bridge to where the London train usually departs, looked across and realised that it was at the arrival platform and available for boarding and had been there as I went in for my breakfast. I

I ticked myself off for not checking this before anticipating I had missed the opportunity to get a window seat at a table. Fortunately the disabled seat at the end of the appointed carriage was available. This is not ideal as one has to sit at the end and lean forward to make use of the table, but although the train became full as the journey progressed I had both seats to myself throughout. I was a little anxious about taking the seat as the train announcer made it clear, three times before we set off that only those holding correct tickets for the particular train were allowed and anyone else would be required to pay the full fare. He also asked that people took their allocated seats as the train was expected to fill, and should not remove any seat allocation ticket if they were not taken up. Shortly after setting off an attractive and young female attendant went through the compartment with the food and drink trolley. I paid her little attention at the time. I cannot remember how long afterwards I looked up from organising the lap top and going online, disappointed to find that I could not listen to live commentary from the Test match in Bangladesh because it would restrict the bandwidth available for other uses and hand to rely on the changing scorecard with written notes.

I noticed that on the floor between the two compartments was a packet of sandwiches and a chocolate muffin and my first reaction was that someone had dropped them but no one appeared ahead in either direction. A woman across the aisle correctly suggested they had fallen off the trolley. I mentioned this to the ticket checker who tried to take them with him until I suggested I would keep them until the trolley returned. It was only sometime latter that I appreciate that the trolley attendant was very attractive and young and was so impressed with my honesty that she gave me a free cup of coffee and the muffin, over £2 in value. She also gave me a great smile and asked how I was on her further two visits as did the ticket collector.

Having checked that the cross river train was in operation I was concerned that there was no train listed on the notice board for Brighton, and then kicked myself when the assistant drew attention to the one listed for Three Bridges. I had to wait 20 minutes but this meant that I arrived at the Travel Lodge only 15 mins before the earliest check in time and was let into a room, which was the same room occupied less than a month ago. Although I went out to buy in food and then for a post meal walk I decided to relax rather than do something, enjoying the Antiques Road Show and Lark’s Rise to Candleford where Laura was confronted by her first and present loves.

I was tempted by the bottles of wine and other goodies but settled for a prawn salad and water for the meal with croissants for the morning.

The commentaries on the Test Match have been of secondary interest because the announcement from the Test and County Board that they plan to change the format of the county championship. The truth is the championship game could not survive with the revenue from the Test Matches, 20 20 and one day format game finals. However for those of my generation the four day county championship game is the basis of my cricket watching. It is my understanding that the problem is a revolt of some players and counties who find themselves in the second division and unable to compete for the £1 million county prize introduced last year and perhaps resenting that new team Durham and to less extent Sussex have dominated the championship over the past decade and which Durham looking as if they could do so over the next year or so. I have had difficult in finding a written report of the proposed changes but I believe the intention is to create three groups with Durham in the northern one which would continue to involve games with Yorkshire, Lancashire and Nottinghamshire as now, but mean no four day visits to Lords or the Oval which is something I have looked forward to over the years. In the Test Match Bangladesh decided to bat after winning the toss and managed a credible first innings total of 419. England did well taking it slow in the heat and looked this morning as if they could make a total of 500 or so giving potential match winning lead although a draw looked the most the likely outcome. When a tired Bell made his first mistake late in the day and was out for a magnificent 138 it still looked as if Bresnan, not out 74 at the close, and with Swann and Broad to come they could still reach the desired target. However Swann was the victim of a freak run out and Broad was out of salts, the team as 440, for 8 at the close and lead of 50 looked the likely possibility.

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Destination Burma, World war II

I have been to Sunderland twice over this weekend. There was a time when I possessed several suits which I could wear according to mood an occasion. The wearing of suit with a tie achieves a different reaction from people, especially as one gets older. These day I only possess one wearable suit and recently I noticed that because of a longer leg length than usual it had become frayed and unsightly. Since the closure of the only cleaners in the town the journey to Sunderland has become necessary and this time I decided to ask if it was possible to repair the damage. The combination of cleaning, repairing and adding a permanent crease cost as much as a pair of new trousers but well worth it as part of a suit.

After depositing the trousers at the cleaners I made my way to the main post office counter service in Sunderland and had a pleasant surprise. The post office is always very busy and despite over a dozen stations, one can stand for five to ten minutes in the monster queue. On this visit the queuing area had been replaced by three areas of leather armchair style seats providing 24 places. On arrival you take a ticket, choosing which of the three services you require and then take a seat and wait for your number to be called although there is an Argos style screen. He seats are every comfortable and this is a public service development which merits commendation.

Yesterday the weather was dreadful with a cold biting and blustery wind, accompanied by occasional bouts of drizzle and as a consequence I took the car to dentist rather than walk, fortunately finding a car parking space outside the health centre. I had to fold the repaired trousers for the trip through Sunderland to car park and then tried to journey home with them slung over the front passenger seat, unsuccessfully. The day was retrieved by an excellent supermarket shop because I arrived just as assistants were making available items which had reached their final display date for a third of the usual price. The bargains included three whole trout and several fillets and three cartons of chicken breasts. There was also an interesting addition in the freezer cabinets with the arrival and an Indian and Chinese meal for two. The Indian meal includes only two main dishes but the Chinese three, with a side dish. At £4 each this will make a great feast for one. Later I realised I made a mistake and left too much of the fish unfrozen to eat twice in the week, only to forget the eat by date had been reached. I therefore had to consume a double fish portion for the evening meal. I am not a great fan of fish without batter or a sauce at the best of times but I managed. Waste not, want not, as is said.

I also saw the Never so Few with Frank Sinatra and Gina Lollobrigida miscast in roles which required less well known actors. Other included Peter Lawford, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson. The film is said to have been based on the USA operation 101 fighting in Burma during World War 2 designated 101 attracts my attention and the campaign in Burma has always seemed to me one oft he most difficult and heroic of the war. One of my wartime memories was the arrival of the telegram announcing that death of one of the two sons of the eldest aunt oft he family and with whom I lived until a young man and who continued to live with my birth and care mothers until her death. He is buried in that part of Asia.

The most famous of the films is the Bridge over the River Kwai and its sequel, both about the railway line. China Girl 1942 was also shown again within the past decade( and is set in China and Burma with Giene Tierney, George Montgomery and Victor Mclaglen. A Yank on the Burma Road 1942. Bombs over Burma was made in 1943 and is about attempts to sabotage a main supply road. I have no recollection of seeing Rookies in Burma also made in 1943. Objective Burma I have seen again within the past decade and features Errol Flynn (1945) and also Three came Home 1950 was shown recently on a satellite channel. I also remember a film called The Purple Plan 1954 not have no image of its contents. I have seen The Burmese Harp, an important film made by the Japanese director Kon Ichikawa in 1956 and gives their perspective. I do not remember seeing the 1958 film The Wind cannot Read or the latest made film in 2001 with Robert Carlyle and Kiefer Sutherland said to be about the construction of the Burma railway-To end all wars. There is one other important film which I will refer to shortly.

I first return to Never so Few which is the least convincing of those I remember, mainly because it has so many high profile stars with Frank and Gina and I can find no supporting information to back the main story which is that the group of Kachins led by Frank crossed the border into mainland China to attack a warlord who had attacked them only to find they had been given authority by the local government to attack and loot using weapons and supplies which the US had provided the Chinese. The find the identification tags of a number of US soldier and after one of the closest comrades of Frank is killed, he orders the execution of all the prisoners. Understandably he is in trouble when he returns having been ordered not to cross the border, to release the prisoners and to destroy the documentary evidence, the latter as the means for him to apologise and be discharged on medical grounds after the stress of the campaign. He refuses to cooperate and is supported by the General sent to sort out relations with the Chinese. He tells the representative to go tot eh proverbials claming to have a letter from the Nationalist leaders supporting his approach and annoying that the Nationalists will hold an inquiry.

Gina is in the film as the mistress of a powerful and wealthy bigwig able to move freely into India, Burma and China providing the allies with intelligence. She requires high maintenance but for some inexplicable reason takes a shine to the penniless Sinatra and abandons her more attractive and interesting lover. The films ends with them on honeymoon and Gina planning to become a housewife and mother!

The film is said to be based on the OSS 101Detachment about which I discovered an informative and accurate article, not on Wikipedia for once. The background for the decision to create a behind the enemy lines operation was the cutting of the road through Burma into China by the Japanese, preventing USA supplies and the creation of an airfield which threatened aircraft trying to provide China with the supplies. The special unit was intended to sabotage the airfield and the Japanese supply routes and was first led by Carl Eifler, a former policeman holding the rank of Colonel when he was discharged because of his injuries in 1943 After the war he took degrees in divinity and psychology and became a clinical psychologist. He died at the age of 96 in 2002.

General William Peters took over the command from Eifler. Born in 1914 he only received his commission in 1938 becoming the unit’s operations and training officer before taking the command which he held until 1945 when he became the commander of all OSS operations in China south of the Yangtze river. After the war he joined the CIA. He then served in Vietnam and 1969 was ordered to investigate the My Lai Massacre. He recommended 24 people for court marshal for murder and for the cover up which was not what the politicians wanted to hear. He died comparatively young of at heart attack aged 69.

As mentioned the first task of Detachment 101 was sabotage but this was changed to guerrilla warfare with Captain William Wilkinson and four agents sent to contact the Kachins in the area. This task force built up to 700 when Wilkinson was succeeded by Commander Luce a Navy Doctor who had worked in the area gaining the support of the Kachins.
Another task group was led by Vincent Curl and developed into a 600 strong force. In total some 3000 guerrillas were recruited and deployed from 1943. The American operation worked alongside that of the British Colonel Orde Wingate whose Chindits raiders comprised Indian, Gurkha and Burmese troops and after the Quebec Conference it was agreed to a joint enterprise in preparation for the campaign to free Burma from the Japanese. The project was called GALAHAD and US General Stillwell persuaded Lord Mountbatten to place the combined force his under his control. The long range force was under the operational command of Frank Merrill and became known as Merrill’s Marauders.

Frank Merrill enlisted in the US army when only 19, in 1922 and attended West Point in 1929. In 1938 he became the Military attaché in Tokyo where he studied the Japanese language. He was then with General MacArthur’s staff in 1941. In under six months the joint force covered 750 miles through the harshest jungle, fighting five major engagements and engaging in combat 32 occasions. They suffered heavy casualties with in the last mission 272 killed 955 wounded and 980 evacuated for illness and disease. General Merrill himself suffered a heart attack with only 200 surviving intact. Out of the original combined force of 3000 only a combat effective 130 officers and men survived the campaign. After the war Merrill became a Commissioner of highways in New Hampshire but his health failed and he died in 1955 aged 52. Jeff Chandler played him in the film Merrill‘s Marauders about which I have not recollection but I suspect it was made to counter the impression given by Never So few. Towards the end of the were some 5500 Kachins in action against the Japanese.

Wikipedia states that the character played by Sinatra was based on Meredith Reynolds who after the war became Sheriff of Sangamon County in the State of Illinois. I cannot find further information about the man and how close his experience with the OSS followed that portrayed in the film. I guess I will have to live without ever knowing if any part of the film had a factual basis.

Sunday 14 March 2010

Crazy Heart . Bridges and Kristofferson, Julius Caesar and trhe Pirates

Over the past days since returning from my visit to the Midlands I have watched two films, with one in theatre, the Oscar award winning performance of Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart, and an Italian Roman, as I call them, an adventure set in the days of the Roman Empire called Julius Caesar and the Pirates, surprisingly based on a fact. There have been five attention seeking episodes of Babylon 5 and another important episodes in unravelling the secrets of Lost. I have watched several familiar episodes of NCIS, and Friday was the first of the Spring and Summer’s great weekends of sport on TV with the start of the latest new format Formula 1 season and the second day of the Indian Premier League, and England overpowering Bangladesh in the first of two Tests, not an expected outcome in Rugby union International at Murrayfield, Newcastle playing the Boro away and Sunderland at home to Man City after Man United home to Fulham ay midday.

I begin with Jeffrey Leon Bridges and father and elder brother all established film actors, His father Lloyd Vernet Bridges Junior was born in 1913, grew up with parents in the hotel industry but who also owned a movie theatre. He attended UCLA where he studied political science which led him to being briefly blacklisted years later because he and once belonged to an Acting Laboratory which had links with the Communist Party. He appeared in nearly 100 films and was just as well known in the USA for TV work which led to a couple of Emmy nominations.

Looking through the list of film credits I recall Lost Horizon 1937 and Blondie Goes to College 1942, Atlantic Convoy 1942, Sahara 1943, A walk in the sun 1945, Ramrod 1947,16 Fathoms Deep 1948 Red Canyon 1949, Little Big Horn 1951 High Noon 1952, Wichita 1955, Apache Women 1955, The Rainmaker 1956, Running Wild 1973 and the Fifth Musketeer 1979, Hot Shots 1991, Honey I blew up the Kid 1992, Hot Shots Part Deux 1993, Peter and the Wolf 1995. Sea Hunt brought him TV attention 1957-1961 and in the UK he became well known through his role as Commander Cain in Battlestar Galactica. He was also the White Knight in a TV production of Alice appearing in a wide range of roles and series from Mission Impossible to Roots. His personal interests were more social than party political, becoming involved in environmental campaigns and his one marriage to actor Dorothy Simpson in 1938, provided him with the strongest of family lives, albeit he was absent working for more time than he was at home with his children the actors Beau and Lloyd Bridges, daughter artist daughter Lucinda, with a third son who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He lived to the age of 85.

His wife, who was also known as Dorothy Dean, provided the family with its strength, was a child actress who first appeared the film Finders Keepers when she was six. She appeared with Lloyd in a UCLA production and they married after living together for 60 years. She lived to the age of 94. She continued to work throughout her life usually appearing with members of her family and father and sons in the well known TV movie Secret Sins of the Father in 1993. She was also a published poet and is known to have written one piece for her husband every Valentine’s day. Aged 89 she published the story of their relationship and the success of her children, as well as the horror of the death of her baby son.

Beau Bridges was christened with the name of his father but given the nickname according to Wikipedia by his parents while reading Gone with Wind. Lloyd has stated in public the importance of his brother on his life because of his father’s absences for work. They worked together in one film which has been shown several times on satellite and cable TV, The Fabulous Baker Boys.

I remember seeing the film Red Pony 1949 but not Beau who was only 8 years, but the film the Cimarron Strip 1969 makes a regular appearance on TV. I also have seen Two Minutes Warning and the Four Feathers, another TV regular showing from 1977, Norma Rae 1979, Silver Dream Racer 1980 and Night Crossing1 981 with Honky Tonk Freeway also that year, Witness for the Prosecution 1982, Kissinger and Nixon 1995, Jerry Maquire1996, P T Barnum 1999, Inherit the Wind 1999, The Agency 2002, Evil Knieval 2004, He has appeared in several episodes of Stargate and in recent films Desperate Housewives and My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend both of which I have chosen not to see.

Despite their success it was left to the young brother to produce performances in parts which attracted the critical attention of his contemporaries, first with a nomination as Best Supporting Actor in The Last Picture Show and again for his supporting role in the Clint Eastwood Film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, He was nominated for the best actor with Starman and other roles have brought him praise including his role in the Big Lebowski. I have also seen the Iceman Cometh 1973 Tron 1981, Jagged Edge 1985 Texasville 1990 The Vanishing 1992, The Mirror has Two Faces 1996, Arlington Road, 1999, K Pax 2001, Seabiscuit 2003 and the Men who stared at Goats 2009. He will appear in a Tron follow up and as Rooster Cogburn in a remake of True Grit. He is married with three children an is an admitted user of marijuana to which is not longer addicted.

This brings me to the Oscar winning film Crazy Heart which is about an alcoholic country singer song writer with failed marriages and career dive which has taken him to appearing in small bars and a bowling alley, bursting with resentment over the way his former singing partner who he taught everything he knows is having a major career with albums and 10000 audiences. The film is said to partly based on the story of Kris Kristofferson and was made by County Music Television for a direct to DVD release and only was given limited release by Fox subsequently. It cost only $7 to make.

Certainly the physical appearances of Bridges and Kristoffersen are strikingly similar and Kris was married three times, was a brilliant song writer and his singing career had its ups and downs but to suggest that there a great resemblance is nonsense, although the production company explained that they had difficulties in getting the rights to do the story and therefore the film had elements of the lives of three country singers composite.

Kristofferson was the son of a USA Major General and he became a captain in the army and then a helicopter pilot of graduating in Literature and coming to Merton Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar I think just before I went to Ruskin College. He was married three times including the singer Rita Coolridge. He is known to have ahd a relationship with Janice Joplin up to her death and with Barbara Streisand. He has eight children by the marriages. He wrote Me and Bobby McGhee for Ray Stevens and Joplin, Sunday morning Coming Down for Johnny Cash and Ray Stevens, and Help me Make it Through the night a Grammy award. He also wrote, From the bottle to the bottom.

He also became a first rank Actor appearing in 100 film and TV Production winning a Golden Globe as best actor in a Star is Born. Other well known roles were Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Alice does not Live here anymore, Freedom Road and Heaven’s Gate, and with Johnny Cash and Last days of Frank and Jesse James, in the Blade films and the remake of Planet of the Apes. He is on a different plane to the character of Crazy Heart.

Back to the film in which Bridges plays an alcoholic country singer playing small town bars and a bowling alley. As a favour he agrees to be interviewed by a young divorcee with a young son and son. At first she is yet one more prospect for a one night stand and where despite his alcoholism, his unkempt appearance and age, women of all ages, including wives, throw themselves at him.

What makes the reporter- Jean Craddock, played Maggie Gyllenhaak, different, is that she reveals she has a young son, and when she presses Bridges about his background and three marriages, he reveals he has a son now aged 28 who he has not seen since the marriage broke up when the child was four years of age. The character is only too painfully aware of his shortcomings and failures and it is this in turn which attracts women to him. It is Jean who persuades him to try and make contact with his son and she is there to pick up the pieces when the son does not want to know.

There is something about their first experience together which draws Bridges back to the young woman but when drunk, he falls asleep at the wheel and crashes into the desert. It she he contacts and she who agrees to care for him while the leg heals. The doctor warns that he is moving quickly to early grave unless he stops the smoking, the drinking and loses weight. It is during his recovery that two things happen which reshape their respective futures. He starts to have the relationship with her young son which he failed to have with his own child and becomes keen to present himself in a better light, so he swallows his pride and accepts the opportunity to open a large open air concert with his former protégée, played by Colin Farrell, who he resents for having become so successful, a 50 concert world tour and an ongoing recording contract.

The concert appearance and the contact he makes with his former friend and work colleague leads to the offer of a substantial advance to write songs for a new album and enables him to get off the road for several months and return to his home.

This means a 900 mile distance between him and the young mother and her son and against her better judgement she saves up holiday to have an extended weekend with him during which time he takes the two into the city and suggests he looks after the boy while the mother goes shopping. Going into the bar for a drink he takes his eye off the boy who wanders off and is lost in the big city. He is quickly recovers by the police but the mother realises what a mistake she has made and goes immediately home.

This is yet another reminder of the price his drinking has cost in his life and he seeks the help of a friend, played by Robert Duvall who also has a major role in the production of the film, also a recovering alcoholic, to enter a clinic. He sobers up, cleans himself up and his home, and then makes an unannounced appearance at the home of the woman, who tells him that if he really loves her and her son he will not attempt further contact. Because of insight and guilt he accepts her request.

The film jumps to sixteen months later. Bridges is part way through a major concert tour shared with his protégée, as famous and a wealthy man, sober but alone. He encounters the mother again who has become a music journalist and engaged to someone else. He agrees to an interview and the film ends and we know they will then go their separate ways. They both are happy in their own ways but the self inflicted wound inside him is beyond repair.

This is a story that has been made time and time again and in this form intended for the country music loving fraternity. The performance is excellent in a film which will otherwise prove unmemorable. In terms of other nominated actors that of Colin Firth on a Single Man is marginally better. In some way the award is for a career to date and for a family.

There had have been other father and son notables, Douglas Fairbanks Senior and Junior, the first, Kirk Douglas with two actors sons, Michael the most well known and two sons who are film producers were more of my generation, and more recently Martin and Charlie Sheen come to mind.

I flipped through available free films one lunch time and blinked at the title Julius Caesar and the Pirates. There has been a series of Italian made films about Roman Empire Times of dubious quality but Julius Caesar and the Pirates, come on. Alas I am wrong.

Rome not just tolerated piracy but negotiated deal on the basis that Senators were supplied with slaves to work their estates. There is a contemporary account of what is alleged to have happened when Julius was captured by Pirates written by Plutarch in that a ransom of twenty gold talents was demanded to which Julius burst out laughing and said he was worth 50, a point made in the film. He was in captivity for over a month but released as soon as it was paid, It is reported that he maintained a regal manner through the stay and then set about capturing them and their spoils. He eventually crucified all his captors as he is alleged to have warned them during the captivity.

In the film Caesar has been forced out of office by Sulla who in reality was either a Consul and Roman Dictator about 150 years before the capture or a contemporary senator who was one of Caesar’s commanders during an important battle. In the film the fictitious Sulla takes power and sends his forces to find Caesar who has escaped the coup, but badly wounded. They reach the coast and without tools manage to create an effective raft until captured by the pirate Hamar along with the daughter of a friend. It is not clear why Caesar, his faithful servant and the girl are not used and killed during the brief period when Caesar’s friend is sent back to Rome to collect the ransom. The Pirate leader lets it be known that he proposes to kill him after he has the money. The plan is foiled through the intervention of the father of the captured daughter and the mistress of the Pirate who takes a shine to Caesar and aids in his escape from immediate harm. Caesar returns to his wife and power, the daughter to her father although she also establishes a relationship with Caesar’s friend who arranges the ransom and helps with the rescue. The mistress of the Pirates appears to have sacrificed her life from him. There are various interludes with dancing girl and celebration banquets Roman style as well as pirates battles before the final comeuppance. The film provided an amusing interlude while attending to my work project completing the registration work on some 40 new sets

Saturday 13 March 2010

Alice in Wonderland 3 D

50 years ago at the Olivetti Sales School in Berkeley Square I learnt concept of valued adding and which Sky TV has developed to an exceptional level in order to maintain market share as Virgin and the BBC and other cable networks attempt to compete with the giant that has made sportsmen and a few sports women into international celebrities on a par with the cinema idols of my childhood, and with the accompanying wealth and media attention.

When I commenced with Sky sports the initial premium was £3 and now it is the subscription maker although Virgin with offering free ESPN is putting up a good fight. In fairness it is Sky which has poured billions into football and more recently cricket, showing Test series around the world and more recently with the one day and 20 20 competitions and where ESPN and ITV has joined in the latter.

Politicians have moaned at the absence of Tests matches from terrestrial and main channel TV as well as Premiership Football. At present the World Cup, the European Cup and the FA CUP are available to Terrestrial and Freeview. The Olympic Games is the major event of Terrestrial TV every 4 years and Formula One which has been switching between the ITV and the BBC. The BBC also has the Wimbledon fortnight.

The Boat Race, The Derby and the Grand National, Golf with the Ryder Cup and the British Open, Darts and Snooker, Cycling with the Tour de France and GB, Athletics and the Grand Prix events, Rugby Union and League and American Football, Basketball and Baseball have all gravitated towards cable and Satellite with the BBC trying hard to maintain its role as the Premier broadcaster, but losing out repeatedly to Sky.

Sky’s first solution on reaching a plateau in sales was to produce a system where it is possible to record shows in the box and to pause a current show and other extras which required the price of a new box, and a set up fee. n came High Definition with anther new box, set up fee and subscription. I have an HD ready large screen TV, not the biggest domestic screen on the market but one which dominates my lounging work room and where I am yet to see the difference between the screen quality and HD. I also have so far been unable to get the BBC and ITV HD channel on my Freeview built decoder with the TV set

The TV is a marvel in that I can switch between terrestrial and Freeview on the opening screen, then go to Sky on the second and presumably a cable channel or other digital TV system with another channel for Tape and DVD/CD playing and one for attaching PC where I have mastered using the lap top to transfer SKY, BBC ITV and other channels players. The recent bonus is Sky catch up on some features.

Now this autumn there is to be 3D showings of sport, entertainment and film, but a special TV is required with the sets in production for purchasing coinciding with the new system. There will also be enlarged lap top type gaming computers which will revolutionise lives, but at a price.

I have mixed reactions to the latest 3D development. I have had only three experiences to-date. The first was journey to the centre of the Earth, the Jules Verne story, where I saw the latest production in 3D at the 02 Dome. It was a significant improvement over the hand held cardboard glasses with red and green lenses and a good example of value adding to the product, as in addition to a higher ticket price to pay for the 3D process and its development there was an additional fee to hire the glasses. I thought the new process excellent but noted that the screen size was significantly reduced and that there appeared to be a distortion of the human figure when in movement.

The reduced screen size was eliminated a year later for the viewing of Avatar which also boasted there latest improvements in computer generated technology in which real actors perform the physical movement of the characters against the blue screen wearing electronics which maps out their movements. I thought the combination of the latest CGI with 3D interesting, especial where the process is used to bring out from the screen into the audience in addition to the 3D depth within the screen. I did not think the film merited major awards in terms of story and the overall impact.

I was interested in seeing the latest film version of the Alice in Wonderland story created by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the name of Lewis Carroll 1832 1898. The book as never been out of print since its first appearance in mid Victorian England (1865) and has been translated into over a hundred languages. A feature of the original manuscripts of Alice’s adventures Underground, changed to Wonderland for publication, and the Sequel, Through the Looking Glass were the illustrations and several special educations to include original drawings followed by various artists bringing their own interpretation tot he story. Scholars have also attempted to give meaning to the contents, line by line. An original edition was sold in 1998 for $1.54 million, the highest for a work intended for children until a limited edition of a Harry Potter book sold for £1.95million $3.9 million.

The first film, a silent one was made in 1903 followed in 1931, 1933 and 1949, followed by Walt Disney in 1951. Jonathan Miller produced a BBC TV production in 1966 followed by a musical film in 1972. In 1986 the BBC created a 4 episode serial with a whole variety of special editions ranging from a Sesame Street Special in 2008 to a pornographic edition in 1976 and an erotic lesbian anime movie in 1995.The reason why the latter two are mentioned is because question has been asked was the author of the work a paedophile?

Dodgson was a distinguished mathematician who became a lecturer at Christ Church Oxford for close on 30 years, having graduated at the university after Rugby school. Brought up in the household of a clergyman, Dodgson also trained for the priesthood and in his diaries he expressed concern about his worthiness and a preoccupation with sin and guilt, describing himself as vile. I single man in his late twenties and early thirties he became attached to the wife and three daughters of the dean of Christchurch and it was on one of their long river boating trips on 4th of June 1962 that he outlined to the girls a story about Alice Underground, which he worked to become the Alice which almost every literate child reads or is told today.

While a single man spending his leisure time with unrelated children would be the cause of speculation today it was significantly less so over a century ago and one also thinks of the relationship of J M Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, and the sons of the Llewellyn Davies family who he spent much time with. However what has led to justifiable questioning of the character of Dodgson is that it is established that he undertook nude and semi nude photographs of female children which he and his defenders argue was not uncommon at the time and reflected his artistic interest in the human form. It is also argued that far from being interested only in children in his life and the writings in his diary reveal that he had a strong heterosexual interest in the adult female, single and married and after the publishing success of the Alice books he became a close friend of the notorious free lovers and thinkers of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood. The issue may have been settled one way or the other in the four of the thirteen volume of diaries which have disappeared together with a few pages torn from another.

Knowing something of the background but having read the Alice books several decades ago, I was interested in seeing how Tim Burton approached the Alice story, especially having cast Johnny Depp as the Mad hatter and giving him the lead role alongside Alice.

The two books cover toughly the same period in which a pre puberty girl finds herself in a strange world of creatures in which the human beings resemble playing cards in one and chess pieces in the second. There is no overall story but a series of bizarre experiences in which appear what has become legendry characters, The Mad Hatter. The March Hare and the Dormouse, Tweddledee and Tweedledum, The White Rabbit, The Dodo and the Cheshire Cat, The Walrus and the Carpenter, Humpty Dumpty, The Mock Turtle, The Lion and the Unicorn, The King Queen and Knave of Hearts, The White Queen and the Jabberwocky.

The film 2010 film begins with Alice as a young woman pressurised into accepting the offer of marriage from an aristocratic wimp and rushing away to avoid having to turn him down at a staged family event before a large number of guests. She falls down a large hole in the ground after encountering a large White Rabbit.

The film then faithfully follows the first chapter of Alice Underground in that she discovers the doorway into the enchanted garden and drinks from the bottle, Drink me , to shrink in size only to leave the key on the table, and then eats too much of the cake, Eat Me, making herself into a giant, so she has to drink again from the bottle with the key in hand to exit into the garden and the wonderland. Most of he next five chapters are omitted especially the Pool of Tears and Caucus Race and the Duchess. However we do met the Caterpillar smoking the hookah pipe and the Cheshire Cat before meeting the Mad Hatter, played by Johnny Depp, with the March Hare and Dormouse at the Tea Party.

I was struck that in his endeavour to create a story with a plot beginning to end Tim Burton has borrowed from the Wizard of Oz with the Red and White queens, sisters, replacing the White and Wicked witches, and the Mad Hatter and other characters replacing the Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow.

Immediately upon her arrival there is a great debate among the characters if Alice is the Alice who appeared in Wonderland in the past, thus suggesting the opportunity for the film makers to make a prequel in the future, covering aspects of the adventures in the original books not covered in this film. The reason they want to know is that they are shortly to have Frabjous day on which according to an ancient prophetic scroll Alice looking like Joan of Arc, special sword in hand, slays the Jabberwocky, a fearsome creature with aerial power, and controlled by the Red Queen who has taken power away from her sister, the White Queen.

Among the first to hear the possibility that Alice has returned, the Red Queen who sends the Knave of hearts to capture her using a bloodhound who works for the Queen under protest as she has his family as hostages. Fortunately when they arrive at the Hatter’s tea party, he knows the bloodhound who does not reveal the presence of Alice. Later when the Hatter is captured Alice decides to rescue him and the Bloodhound from the palace of the Red Queen where the special sword is kept and guarded by the ferocious Bandersnatch who is even more aggressive than usual because he has lost an eye taken by the dormouse in an action which had a mother sitting close by horrified while the children appeared to take the incident in their stride as when Alice has to walk on large dead stepping stone heads to cross the river to get to the castle like palace.

Inside the Palace Alice is nearly discovered when she eats too much of the cake and grows bigger than the Queen, but manages to pass herself off as Um from Umbridge as the Queen is playing Croquet using the head of a Flamingo. Because of the various changes in size Alice is always getting in and out of clothes and growing into a giant again the Queen orders use of curtain to make an appropriate dress

The Hatter also talks his way out of execution by designing a variety of hats for the queen. They make their escape to the White Queen which leads to a confrontation with the Red Queen who produces the Jabberwocky as her champion. Alice who has taken the special sword with the help of the Bandersnatch remains reluctant to take the role as champion. She has been ambivalent about her role from the outset. In a flashback to her childhood, she remembers having recurring nightmares of an Underland and of her father’s advice in which he tells her to pinch herself whenever she is frightened by her dreams. However this time she cannot wake herself up and reluctantly comes to the conclusion that the only way out is to taken on the fear inspiring Jabberwocky.

The full forces of the Red Queen come to the White Queen and they form battle lines on a giant chess board. Finally comes as Joan of Arc look a like and has a heroine battle after which she has to drink the blood of her conquest to return to her present time, as a consequence adventures Underground she rejects the marriage proposal and approaches her former guardian and friend of her father to join father’s former business which he manages. She decides to go off on a mission to China to extend the business following in father’s adventuring footsteps, thus proving for an opportunity film covering this aspect, although how the Underworld characters can be reintroduced remains to be experienced.

Alice is well played by Mia Wasilowska in a character the opposite of how Victorian young women were required to behave. Jonny Depp is outstanding as a soulful man destined to be alone whose clothes and appearance changes throughout the film to match his intense emotional moods. Helena Bonham Carter is the Red Queen with Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat, Michael Sheen, the White Rabbit, Alan Rickman is ideal as the Cheshire Car, Timothy Small plays the bloodhound, Barbara Windsor is the Dormouse Tim Piggot Smith as the Guardian owner of the firm, Geraldine James as his wife, Lindsay Duncan as Alice‘s dependent mother, Francis de La Tour as the delusional aunt, Michael Gough as the Dodo, Imelda Staunton as the Tall Flowers and Christopher Lee as the Jabberwocky.

I saw the film on a Saturday evening at 5,15 and the house was full. The approach of the Odeon was to restrict bookings to the Premier Sears , about 40 of the 240 or so available. I was advised to arrive half an hour before the performance and already there was a queue of around fifty people. The queue had reached outside he cinema before we were allowed to rush for seats of choice. This meant that those with families, the majority, had plenty of time to be pressurised for popcorn, drinks, ices and such like which meant that most families were spending £50 on the visit without going for a meal after.

Clearly the 3D film has become the weekend family outing competing with the teenage domination of the past decade. I was overwhelmed by the half dozen previews of CGI 3D family films coming over successive weeks, including new 3D versions of past favourites. The emphasis in the trailers was on 3D trickery as things flashed straight at you into the auditorium. This did enable a rapid adjustment to the format. Sky used he opportunity to show what 3D football and ballet will be like and I cannot wait for the cricket. However this will further affect the inclination to meet the cost and limitations of the live performance, with the exception of sitting in the sun for a few pounds watching championship cricket, meeting spectators and visiting other cricket ground.

And what of the film given the history of films, the books and the author? I continue to find some of the 3D effect unnecessary and overwhelming and similar to being in a strobe lighted dance hall or rock concert at maximum blast without any slow or quiet numbers. I also wondered about the impact upon the children who were as young as five or six. I was taken to the cinema at least twice a week from the age of six or seven seeing films where children were only allowed with an accompanying adult, the A picture, yet it was sometime the graded C film which had the most disturbing influence, The Wizard of Oz being one but also the A film with Margaret Lockwood, the Wicked Lady and a film in which a number of people became hunted and which I have not seen since. On arrival to get tickets I overheard a family leaving an early showing and the children agreed with their father that the opening was great but it sagged in the middle. My impression is that it will have been considered a good time but only one of many with not outstanding. Whether it will lead to some turning to the original books I suspect only a few. Both books can be read on line through the Gutenberg project.

Monday 1 March 2010

The Hurt Locker and British Musical Experience

I begin with the event of this trip and the year to date. -the film The Hurt Locker which won the British Film Academy Best film award for 2010. I originally planned to see the film at a 6pm showing at the Odeon Cinema in the Tottenham Court Road because the price was reasonable at £8 compared with the £11 required for the earlier showing at the Leicester square Odeon. There are three Odeon’s adjacent to each other-. the main Odeon used for cinema Premiers and is the Premium cinema in central London with a Royal Circle Price of £20 and no concessions. The Mezzanine is a collection of small cinema showing rooms of some 50 seats each with a television size screen above and to be avoid unless there are no alternatives, and the Odeon West End which is to one side of the square overlooking the original on the day West end Theatre Ticket booth and which has not been overtaken by a dozen similar outlets between the Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus Tube stations.

I had completed my visit to the British Music Experience at the 02 Dome earlier than anticipated and decided that I did not want to find things to do until the evening so took the Underground Jubilee line to Waterloo and the Northern from there to Leicester Square. The next showing was at ten past three which gave me a good couple of hours so I had a walk about for an hour having a look at the books shops and some of side roads between the Square and Oxford Street. The great discovery is what is happening at Tottenham Court Road station which has a mixture of memories for going back to fifty years when I met friends here going to Humph’s which became the 100 club, and at least one girl friend going to the Academy Cinema. The station is being developed six times its present size as the central London nub of the new cross London link from the East with Romford and Brentwood via Farringdon, to Paddington and London Airport and on onward to Marlow and Reading Westward. This billion pound project will not be completed until 2017. The Astoria Theatre is one of the buildings compulsory purchased and demolished. Traffic is now one way down Oxford Street to Oxford Circus.

The other development noticed on the walkabout is the growth of China town into the Haymarket and the escalation in the number of places offering chair massages and acupuncture. I discovered a quiet Wetherspoons and fancied a sausage, chips and beans meal for £3.99 only to find that because of kitchen problems there was no food and the coffee machine had broken down. However on arriving back in Leicester square I found a table at the Wetherspoons next to the Odeon Mezzanine and was pleasantly surprised when the food came quickly, comprised four sausages, was warm, well presented and tasty. I devoured a half pint of Fosters and could have easily downed a full pint. Arriving at the cinema I made the mistake of accepting a seat at the rear when offered one at the front, but at least it was an aisle seat. It was sell out show with the final seats going as the film commenced including a foreign gentleman who did not want to sit in his allotted seat next to me, much, to the consternation of those in the row behind and the usherette, so I bundled him down into the seat as the film commenced.

The Hurt Locker follows the last days of a bomb disposal unit before the end of their tour of duty in Iraq. It begins with the death of the team disposal expert and follows the approach of the replacement who had a previous tour in Afghanistan before coming to Iraq making a total of 280 devices disabled. This fact is designed to emphasise his skilled ability counterbalancing his risk taking and tendency for unilateral action, breaking contact with other members of the team who travel together in a Humvee vehicle, comprising the bomb disposal technician, a communications officer who acts as driver, and a gunner who mans the machine gun mounted on top of the vehicle and as look out during the operations.

The Humvee stands for High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled vehicle which has replaced the Jeep as the core vehicle in a wide range of models used by sixty countries world wide, with the UK developing its own variation. The Afghanistan government has 4000 new models in service according to Wikipedia

At one level the film is a series of action sequences, seven of which any could have made one film, developing the central characters, their back stories and hopes for the future. In the first event the original team disposal officer is killed as he comes to the end of his tour.

In the second the new man finds that in addition to the first device disabled in the dust roadway there is a second line which leads to five devices, may have been six. In the next it is a car weighed down by devices in the boot and he has difficulty in locating the detonation point

There are several horrific realities when devices go off. The padre who accompanies them to understand what it is like, is blown up by a separate device with the first a decoy.

When called to a bomb factory, they discover the gruesome body of teenage boy where the explosive device has been embedded inside his body.

In another situation a man, the father of several children,. pleads for help, imprisoned in a frame with a timer about to expire. There is insufficient time

No newsreel, or eloquent and descriptive news writer, and no other film maker before has managed to place you inside the mind and feelings of the three men or use their eyes to see what is happening. This is not just my view but the opinion of critics by the score. You experience the fear but above all their single minded courage, and their humanity, empathy with everyone around them, despite the likelihood that the next individual helped is out to kill you and willing to kill fellow citizens and themselves in the process.

My favourite critic, James Berandineli, makes the point that this film is a thriller rather than a drama but thrills in the most positive of edge of seat ways, because you believe it is real and matters without “ the glorification of violence and bloodshed.” Within the past couple of weeks I heard the Nigel Balchin story, The Small back Room, made into a radio play and features the dismantling of a device where earlier a similar one killed the friend of the research scientist who goes out to advise and record what happens and then takes the initiative to act himself. This original post war 1940’s film had audiences riveted, clapping and cheering. There were moments in the film when I felt the whole audience was with me and no one who shared the experience will be able to look a service man or woman in the eye without wanting to know that they and their families are being provided the best pay and conditions, and are able to lead the best of lives when their period of service ends.

The second point made by James is just as important. The film has no political agenda in relation to the particular war although the soldiers have deep feelings about what they do and those determined to kill them. They are trained professionals, doing a life or death job, counting the days when their tour of duty is over and they can return to families and friends before moving on to the next challenge. Fredericke and Mary Busant for Spirituality and Practice make the point that after such an experience how can anyone return to dealing with everyday tasks in the mundane world. James has a son by a girl friend who he married and then divorced. Back home they are together, if it is possible for anyone to be together with someone who has not shared the experience, she asks him to get some breakfast cereal. He stares at the long aisle of options and grabs the first that takes his fancy, disposing devices had become an easier and more meaningful experience for him. Coping with an attention demanding child will be another matter.

The third point made is while some major and established actors are mentioned, they only have bit parts and the honours go to James Renner as James the risk taking disposal technician, Anthony Mackie as Sanborn the communications officer and Brian Geraghty as Owen Eldridge the look out cover gunner who is captured and rescued but is badly injured in the leg and sent home. The Director Kathryn Bigelow should command an Oscar as should the screenplay writer, Mark Boal, who four years previously was attached to such a squad in Bagdad.

Also noted the San Francisco Herald -one of the great war films. The Miami Herald described the film as a masterpiece. The St Louis dispatch an unforgettable film and a brilliant character study. The Christian Science Monitor missed the big point by a mile when it complains that the character of the technician is glamorised as any classic Westerner. The man, and any of those engaged in the activity are heroes of the best kind. He is not there to kill which is the usual role of the soldier o Western hero, but to save life and prevent destruction by risking his own, time and time and time and time again. Compare him to Tolstoy who ends his life a hypocrite and a clown. Rolling Stone argued that the film is for those who don’t like Iraq war movies.
It was just as well that I did not pay to visit the British Music Experience at 02 Dome in North Greenwich. I first considered buying a ticket at the time of visiting the Dome for the first time since its original function. Then when visiting for the Barber, Bilk and Ball trad concert there was a special price offer of £10. The present leaflet shows £15 for adults, £12 over 60’s and children £10. Then on Thursday evening the free London Evening standard had a voucher for a £1 entry before the end of next week. I arrived early, earlier than I had planned because of good rail connections, having to run down the walkway as the train to St Pancras pulled in, The main thoroughfare was deserted on arrival not long after the place was officially opened for the day. I made my way to coffee shop close to the entrance area and invested in a gigantic cup of Americano sitting at a table as the settees were all occupied. People began arriving about 15 mins before the scheduled time of 11 am but I quickly found they ahd come for the Michael Jackson exhibition which ended on the Sunday. Such was the interest that only about half of those waiting to get in were allowed to do so, to ensure that visitors were able to make use of the interactive components. I was able to enter the exhibition free having acquired a copy of Venue, the 02 magazine which lists the restaurants and provides information on forthcoming shows at the main and side arenas and the Vue Cinema, and fortunately noted the free entry voucher.

The exhibition occupied the top floor and is divided into exhibition rooms covering a decade or part decade and which each room constructed on the same basis. There are packed displays of memorabilia, dresses, suits, instruments, record covers and programmes. It is possible to select a number of the items on display and listen to information about them. In the middle of the area there is a table like construction with what looks like four high backed chairs. These have small screens in the back rest and headphones to listen as key figures in a music style explain something about its development. On each table three styles are listed in succession, for 1945-1950‘s, they are Jazz, Skiffle and Rock and Roll. Various photos and artefacts appear on the table as well as talking heads on the screens. There is also a large whole wall screen with world and musical events, about ten a year which you can scroll and then hear information or record clips.

This is excellent as long as you are able to use as you wish which was possible for the first 15 mins as people moved in an out, until the hordes began to arise and then it was necessary to wait not in an English queue first at the controls takes control and with the tendency for people to flit about rather than engage in serious study. There was one other exhibition area off the central concourse. This housed a variety of instruments which could be played as well as voice recording studio. In the central concourse area there is a dance area where it is possible to dance following steps on screen rather like the Wii mat. There is a large map the UK where one can locate the birthplaces of well known artists and a third interactive area where audio and visual devices of yester year are displayed and there are interactive elements. Between the side areas there are large screen on which leading artists of the period perform. One bonus is seating areas. When one is ready to leave there is a departure show in which one becomes part of an arena concert complete with strobe lighting and huge screen on three sides which snatches of performances from some of the major concerts of featuring British artists. As with most exhibitions it is difficult to absorb all the information and much will only be of interest to when a person was young and took an active interest in popular music. My main interest was the display on traditional jazz which included the programme for the Riverboat trip to Margate. Why did I not have a copy? I do not remember one being available. There was also a copy of the Ken Colyer album in my collection. Participants are given a smart ticket with a unique number which enable three tunes to be downloaded free from I Tunes as well as transferring on lone recordings made at exhibits during the visit.

The exhibition is a registered charity but clearly needs an ongoing income to maintain staff and other running costs. There are two selling areas one upstairs before entering the exhibition area and one downstairs with a separate entrance However for those making the investment, a family ticket for two adults and two children is £40. I suspect they will not feel value for money or recommend to others without the free or £1 incentive. An outing to a main concert or sporting event will costs a couple in the region of £150 for tickets, food, drink and travel.

On the way to the Travel Lodge I bought a prawn and pasta salad and some grapes as well as Pan au chocolate. I discovered that one can use the blue token given the first night when I had paid by cash as a charity contribution to one of three listed in a special box near the exit. It had been a good day.