I have been trying very hard to like the new millennium Doctor Who, but I think the time has come to admit defeat. I have now reached the tipping point where I have given up hope that the series will turn into something that I actually enjoy watching. Something that I can watch without constant cringing embarrassment at its maudlin emotional excesses or irritation at its poor narrative construction, moral ambiguities and repeated excursions into dubious religious territory. Then there’s the bombastic and intrusive orchestral score which grates like sandpaper on my musical sensibilities. That’s quite a list unfortunately! As The Outland Institute has it – a once favourite program has turned into Neighbours in Space: a soap with science fiction fantasy trimmings.
If my parents were avid watchers of Doctor Who, right from the early William Hartnell days (Dr. Who first went to air in the UK in 1963), the Doctors I grew up with were Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee. I dropped out mid Tom Baker due to other non-television watching activities, fortunately before that point where his performances and the story lines degenerated into eccentric and twee pantomime and tedious fannish stories about the Doctor’s fellow Time Lords and home planet of Gallifrey.
My first memories of Dr. Who were of Patrick Troughton in a shaggy overcoat accompanied by his companions, Victoria and Jamie, battling with mysterious and rather frightening yeti in Tibet who turn out to be robots animated by impressive glass silver spheres. The air of menace in my memories of this story was further enhanced by the constant howl of a freezing wind in the background, the interaction of the Tibetan monks and the alien intelligence, and the grainy black and white in which the series was filmed. Unfortunately this adventure titled ‘The Abominable Snowmen’ first broadcast in 1967 has been lost – wiped as was a common practice of the day in relation to television series. This was reflective of the low status of television as an art form at the time and, of course, nobody had any idea that the technology for home recording and viewing would exist in the future and that much money could be made from a combination of nostalgia and fan completism.
I am part of a generation – indeed generations – who grew up with Doctor Who and it has no doubt structured the imagination of those generations in ways they cannot even track – and this is perhaps part of the reason for the huge success of the new millennium version of Doctor Who. People want to like it, as it hooks into a cultural imaginary formed by Doctor Who in the past. Parents also want their children to have that experience. Of course, in the 1960s the mere mention of ‘cultural formation’ in relation to something like Doctor Who, more readily defined as genre trash culture for children, would have been anathema. The series creators tried to attenuate this with some educational pretensions – notably the adventures set in various periods of European history. But Patrick Troughton eventually left Doctor Who on the insistence of his wife who thought that acting in this children’s rubbish (furtively watched by many adults as well) was a poor career move. But of course, apart from a small but notable part in The Omen (1976), his three-year stint as Doctor Who from 1966 to 1969 is what he is remembered for today. This disqualification of certain types of imaginative output – namely the speculative imaginary – as suitable for consumption by adults is by no means dead in current culture.
We started the Society and Space open site as a partner to the print journal and the publisher’s site […]
You would think that a quick – material goes up usually within a day or two of being delivered in final form – and open-access venue would be appealing. And certainly, some people have already taken advantage of it and we have more to come. But there has also been a very curious resistance. People have complained about ‘being relegated to the blog’ or suggested that they are ‘old-fashioned’ and want their book review in print.
In my view, this hesitation reflects the fear that publication online – even when through a reputable commercial press – is not as serious or as permament as paper publication. The written word is a solid and permament object in the physical world when it is on paper, but an ephemeral thing of light and energy online. There, it could disperse into the ether at any moment, leaving the author with no material possessions and no physical evidence of his or her accumulating presence as an author in the world. One could perhaps refer to Foucault’s notion of the materiality of discourse here – what does that materiality mean in digital form?
For another post which touches on these and related issues see the In the Middle blog (via Stuart)
Let us call the totality of the learning and skills that enable one to make the sign speak and to discover their meaning, hermeneutics; let us call the totality of the learning and skills that enable one to distinguish the location of the sign, to define what constitutes them as signs and to know how and by what laws they are linked, semiology: the sixteenth century superimposed hermeneutics and semiology in the form of similitude… ‘Nature’ is trapped in the thin layer that holds semiology and hermeneutics one above the other, it is neither mysterious nor veiled, it offers itself to our cognition, which it sometimes leads astray, only in so far as this superimposition necessarily includes a slight degree of non-coincidence between the resemblances.
The truth of all these marks – whether they are woven into nature itself or whether they exist in lines on parchments or in libraries – is everywhere the same: coeval with institution of God.
Michel Foucault, (1970) [1966]. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. Tr. A. M. S. Smith. London: Tavistock, pp. 33, 38.
Random thoughts in response Updated November 2019 during the Australian bushfires. I would suggest that the global situation has deteriorated since my original post at an alarmingly fast rate.
In The Order of Things, Foucault describes a scientific view of the world far removed from our own. This view saw the world as a large book to be read, with signs placed there by God to help humans live and find their way in the world. The mysteries of the universe could be read by paying attention to, and interpreting these signs, reading the works of those who had already interpreted these signs and by knowing that the highest cosmic spheres could be seen in operations in the human body itself and the smallest object of nature. The microcosm mirrored the macrocosm.
This view of nature also placed humans in a very different power relation to ‘nature’ from the one which underlies current scientific knowledge. Humans relied on the beneficence of God to provide them with signs to guide them through the world. ‘Nature’ was not given to them, as in the modern view, as something over which they could exercise unlimited sovereign power without the attenuating responsibility which marks even the exercise of pastoral power. It must be said, however, that in some quarters at least, elements of pastoral power (questionable as they may be) entailing ideas of some kind of responsibility and duty of care have become stronger over the last fifty years with regards to ‘nature’.
The notion of climate change and the debate over to what extent human activity is contributing to this process is one that is at present the subject of acrimonious public debate, even entailing death threats against hapless climate scientists. The problem is not restricted to the global warming of our planet but also encompasses the chemical poisoning and toxic modification of our environment – of our food, water and air supplies and general environment. This is already having demonstrable effects on people’s health and well-being and that of plants and animals, not to mention eliminating some species of plants and animals altogether. We should perhaps, not just publicly address the major drivers of climate change -the consumption of fossil fuels and the destruction of forests (globally, not just in the Amazon) – but these others as all part of the same problem.
The essential problem, as I see it, is how we philosophically position ourselves in relation to our environment. The current view which underpins scientific and technical knowledge and which dates back to Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is an instrumentalist – indeed a predatory one – if we take it to its logical conclusion. It is the view that we exist in a hierarchical power relation to the world – a world which has been given to humans as top of the evolutionary scale and the chosen of God, to use as they please with impunity. It is a view which closely aligns with ideas and practices of colonialism, social Darwinism and mercantilism which saw their apotheosis in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and which continue to operate in a variety of forms.
If we can change this philosophical view to a more co-operative one which promotes a harmonious and respectful interaction with our social and physical environment – right down to inorganic matter-, then perhaps the effects might not be so destructive. Relations of co-operation, accommodation and understanding, rather than relations of power, domination and exploitation.
One of the problems with the climate change debate is that it is highly politicised and also tends to focus people on the grand scale (‘this will happen in the future and over there’) allowing many people to simply switch off either in confusion or irritation in the face of a continual barrage of political and media posturing. If, however, direct and immediate and local threats to people’s health and lifestyles are demonstrated, they might be more willing to come to the party. There are, of course, enormous vested interests in the food, mineral resources and manufacturing industries that seek to prevent these threats from becoming a matter of public debate.
I am however an optimist and believe in people’s endless capacity to address problems and come up with creative solutions. It is not too late. The mere fact that we haven’t been globally nuked yet, given the arsenals out there is, I think, grounds for optimism. There is also wide evidence that a view and practice of scientific knowledge that is based more on cooperation than exploitation is starting to gain growing traction. (See the work of Bruno Latour, and recent work on the ethics of objects).
With thanks to Nicholas Cavanagh for providing the opportunity to think about these issues in response to a short piece he wrote on the political debate around climate change.
I see nothing wrong in the practice of a person who, knowing more than others in a specific game of truth, tells those others what to do, teaches them and transmits knowledge and techniques to others. The problem in such practices where power – which is not in itself a bad thing – must inevitably come into play is knowing how to avoid the kind of domination effects where a kid is subjected to the arbitrary and unnecessary authority of a teacher, or a student is put under the thumb of a professor who abuses his authority. I believe this problem must be framed in terms of law, rational techniques of government and ethos, practices of the self and freedom.
Foucault, M. (1997). The ethics of the concern for the self as a practice of freedom. In P. Rabinow (Ed.) Ethics: subjectivity and truth. New York: New Press, pp. 298-9.
If we regard all human culture – without exception – as a complex way of dealing with the environment and social interaction, then we all have an obligation not to dismiss certain intolerable practices as quaintly folkloric simply because they are not part of our own ‘culture’, but to work with other human communities to modify the way human beings treat each other everywhere. From the Western point of view, this does not mean engaging in the patronising paternalism of an allegedly more enlightened Western culture (along the lines that ‘Western democracy will save the world’ for example). Neither, on the other hand, does it mean the rejection of a corrupt and over-civilised Western culture which has lost touch with its primitive roots.
But if these are two positions that need to be avoided – what position can one usefully adopt? Here one needs to extend the frontiers beyond ‘the West’ and encompass all human experience. Perhaps what is involved is the non-hierarchical recognition of and respect for difference, a position which doesn’t privilege one period of history and its practices (either the ‘natural’ and ‘primitive’ or the current advanced technological present) or one geographical or ethnic location (wherever that might be on the planet). It is also a position that sees differences not as existing in unchanging and static isolation – hermetically sealed away to be revered in their unique and eternal form, but which welcomes a constant interplay between them, encouraging their constant modification in relation to each other.
At the same time, this does not mean that every human practice should be tolerated. Exercises of power that negatively impact on the well-being and freedoms of people (and other species I might add) should always be challenged. But again, this statement needs to be qualified in various ways. It is not a question of promoting unlimited individual freedoms (to take an extreme example, the freedom of a serial killer) – but of balancing the interplay of freedoms in the social body. This has always been the dilemma of human societies and remains all too clearly a work in progress with frequent and spectacular failures along the way. Foucault suggests that this situation needs to be managed through the dynamic and always open practice and examination of law, and the ethical government of self and others.
Further, as Foucault usefully argues, not all exercises of power are bad. It is possible to positively guide the conduct of another – for example in a teaching situation. To expand on this example further, the teacher student relation is necessarily a relationship of power. Just how this is managed has always been fraught with difficulties, and complex and ever changing systems of regulation continue to be formulated both at overt and more hidden levels to deal with the problem. Thus there is a difference between the kind of relationship of power between teacher and student which takes the opportunity to deploy effects of domination and authoritarianism, and the kind which uses mechanisms of power (such as those involved in the transmission of knowledge and assessment) to guide the students’ behaviour and knowledge in useful and helpful ways, while still retaining a respect for the students’ freedom.
There has been a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater in attempting to negotiate this dilemma in the contemporary era, an era marked by complex and conflicting forces of social and cultural globalisation. Thus, in the interests of fostering tolerance and social harmony, the claim is made that anything goes – everybody has a right to their opinion, no matter what that might be. But this position of absolute tolerance, paradoxically, can foster the tolerance of injustice and intolerance itself. It is very easy to nobly tolerate certain injustices when one is not at the receiving end, and when they don’t directly impinge on one’s own existence.
With thanks to Kelli McGraw for raising interesting questions which provoked this post.
Strong Spoilers. Please note that this discussion will probably only make sense if you are familiar with all the Harry Potter books and films. WARNING: DO NOT READ, if you don’t want to know what happens in the film before seeing it.
With this action packed and very watchable film, the last of the 1990s blockbuster fantasy franchises draws to a close. Fantasy science fiction viewers are now faced with a bleak landscape of dreary comic book super hero adaptations stretching ahead in seemingly endless vistas. 3D trailers for The Green Lantern and Captain America ran at the sold out 3D Imax session I attended, and although clearly big on spectacular special effects, the clichéd characters, plots and politics induced an overwhelming sense, in this viewer at least, of yawning apathy. Other attempts to create big fantasy franchises in the wake of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter have all failed. C.S. Lewis’s series The Chronicles of Narnia is simply too dated, too loaded with sectarian overtones and elitist assumptions about social class and race to really bring into a modern sensibility and the attempt to make Philip Pulman’s His Dark Materials trilogy into something, fizzled out after a very ordinary first film, The Golden Compass, and the impossibility of rendering the equally sectarian (but in a deliberately opposed sense to Lewis) subsequent novels palatable to a mainstream audience.
I hasten to add that I have never had more than a lukewarm interest in the Harry Potter films either, regarding them simply as no more than the poor and rather tedious cousins of the books. But this last, all stops pulled out, instalment is a cut above the rest and indeed is actually better in some ways than the book. But this last entry aside, I think in general the books would be better suited to the medium of television, rather than film. A lengthy, and no doubt unfeasibly expensive BBC series might do them better justice.
Of course, the books have their problems too, as has been pointed out at great length by critics, particularly in terms of their very conventional views on social hierarchy and gender and the problematic division between an elite of magical people and a plebeian race of non-magical people (muggles). But for all that, they are compelling and highly readable stories and Rowling creates extraordinarily vivid detail in describing the minutiae of her created world. She also plays with language creation in interesting ways – combining Latin, French and English in some of her neologisms (for example, the pensieve). They are also probably one of the most widely shared cultural texts amongst the under 30s. This is certainly the case with regards to my own (Australian) teacher trainee university students and thus the novels can be used as a literary point of reference in teaching contexts. Very few of these students have not read the books, or at the very least seen the films, and they are widely and enthusiastically loved. That other fantasy franchise with which Harry Potter has often been compared in terms of its popularity, Twilight, is on the other hand almost universally reviled and ridiculed by the student body.
But to return to the last Harry Potter film, the rather clumsily titled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2. The battle scenes owe much to that benchmark film, The Lord of the Rings of course, and the extraordinary and intricate visuals and special effects are given meaning by the journey of the characters and the plot. But what really made the film for me was a relatively short section which forms a story within the story – namely the story of Severus Snape. Professor Snape, master of potions and eternally aspiring Black Arts teacher, has always been my favourite Harry Potter character. I have long had a bit of a weakness for characters who hide their softer side under a harsh exterior. Snape, for all his authoritarian and sartorial social maladjustments, is finally revealed as a romantic idealist in the final book and film. This secret had been hinted at from the start and the final revelation of his true loyalties and motivation (his undying and unrequited love for Harry Potter’s mother) came as no surprise to me, at least, when I read the final book.
But sadly, I found Rowlings’ treatment of Snape’s backstory to be perfunctory and highly unsatisfactory. The final exposure of his story read more as a series of notes than a properly developed final draft of a novel, but no doubt the narrative problems posed by Snape’s backstory within the Harry Potter format were simply too difficult to solve. Indeed, the character probably deserves a separate novel in his own right and from his own point of view. This is where film comes in. Such narrative conundrums are far easier to deal with when you have people – actors – who can invest proceedings with layers of emotion and complexity. It had been my hope that the film would come up with the goods where the book had singularly failed and I am very happy to say I was not disappointed.
In an all too brief capsule, with a fine performance from Alan Rickman and some beautiful nostalgia inducing visuals evoking the lost hopes of childhood, we find the tale of a classic flawed hero: social exclusion, unrequited love, dalliances with the dark side, noble self-sacrifice and final tragic redemption. The story of the tragic hero is one that remains endlessly resonant in literature and from my own point of view, Severus Snape is perhaps Rowling’s most interesting character. Sadly this story within a story draws to a close all too quickly and we are returned to what another reviewer has described as the rather wooden performance of Daniel Radcliffe.
Interestingly, Dumbledore the ostensible hero and mentor figure of the series, emerges as somewhat tarnished in Rowling’s final book and in the final film, Dumbledore’s brother alludes to the former’s less than creditable past and secretiveness and as Snape’s memories reveal, Dumbledore is quite happy to raise Harry as a lamb for the slaughter, knowing that he would eventually have to be killed. It is a pity that the film, probably for reasons of time, was not able to include the story of Dumbledore and his sister. Due to the omission of some of these plot intricacies, one thing (amongst others) I found lacking in credibility in the film was Harry’s continuing ready trust and admiration for Dumbledore, even after viewing Snape’s memories in the pensieve. Rowling’s narrative intentions here are quite obvious. Those we consider heroes are perhaps less heroic than we think and those we despise as villains might perhaps not be what they seem.
Rowling recently hinted at the possibility that she might consider writing more entries in the Harry Potter saga, but as many hope, she will not be tempted to tamper with the integrity of the existing series. (Although I have to admit I find the idea of Harry and the team at wizarding university an entertaining prospect.) Indeed, her final epilogue which sees the trio all implausibly married to their adolescent crushes would actually seem to close down the possibility for future adventures. Unfortunately (except for Harry’s brief tribute to Snape ‘as the bravest man I have known’), this epilogue was also tagged on to the film. One critic accurately describes its inclusion as ‘unintentionally hilarious’, with the actors we have been used to seeing as children and adolescents suddenly appearing as fond parents. It is certainly true that the incongruity of this scene caused quite a bit of laughter in the cinema session I attended.
Rowling has recently launched an interesting (and clearly no expense spared) online transmedia experiment, titled Pottermore centering on the seven novels and promises to include a lot of material (extra scenes and back story) that was not included in the original novels. A kind of updated, and one would hope more entertaining (!), version of Tolkien’s Silmarillion for Harry Potter fans. My own hope here for the transmedia project would be that we might finally see a more satisfactory written treatment of Snape’s story.
The dual Poland-Tunisia experience balanced my political experience, and also referred me on to things which basically I hadn’t sufficiently suspected in my pure speculations: the importance of the exercise of power, the lines of contact between the body, life, discourse and political power. In the silences and everyday gestures of a Pole who knew he was being watched, who waited to be out in the street before telling you something, because he knew quite well that there were microphones everywhere in a foreigner’s apartment. In the way voices were lowered when you were at a restaurant, in the way letters were burnt, finally in all these tiny suffocating gestures as well as in the savage and raw violence of the Tunisian police beating down on a university, I went through a kind of physical experience of power, of the relations between the body and power.
Michel Foucault, (2004). ‘Je suis un artificier’. In Roger-Pol Droit (ed.), Michel Foucault, entretiens. Paris: Odile Jacob, pp. 120-1. (Interview conducted in 1975. This passage trans. Clare O’Farrell).
Random thoughts in response
It is worth providing a few background details concerning these interesting remarks offered by Foucault in an interview with Roger-Pol Droit. The interview was not published at the time it was conducted in 1975, mainly due to Foucault’s well-known reticence in relation to making autobiographical statements in a public forum.
In 1958, Foucault was appointed head of a new Centre for French civilisation in Warsaw. He lasted only a year before being caught in a classic Cold War honey trap with a young man and was asked to leave the country. His connections with Poland did not end there however, and in the early 1980s after a State of Emergency was declared in Poland, he worked on a committee with exiled members of the Trade Union Solidarity, a committee which had been set up to provide assistance to those still in the country and to activate for international support.
Foucault spent a longer period of time in Tunisia than he did in Poland. In 1966, he was appointed to a chair of philosophy in Tunisia and remained there until the end of 1968, when it became clear that he was persona non grata with the existing regime. Towards the end of his tenure at considerable risk to himself, he helped students hide their printing presses during the Tunisian student protests of 1968, although he was of course protected to some degree by his professorial status. He saw his students being beaten violently and thrown into prison and some 14 years later he remarked that some of them still remained in prison. Foucault also used his own money to pay for legal defence for these students.
This experience was formative for Foucault. Like many other French intellectuals, he was politicised by the events of 1968. Foucault was no mere ‘armchair philosopher’, he was prepared to take his ideas beyond the library. After being subjected to the standard and usually accusatory question posed by the Left to all comers during the 1970s: ‘where were you in May ’68?’ – given his absence from the Parisian barricades – he pointed out that in Tunisia the situation had been one with far higher stakes, with people’s lives and freedom quite dramatically on the line.
What is also interesting about Foucault’s remarks is his emphasis on the miniscule actions and gestures of the everyday: mechanisms of power are not just grand external abstractions, they operate at the physical level of day-to-day existence at the most humdrum level. Also of note here in Foucault’s account is the capacity of any person, not just a few blessed with political will (Arendt), to resist mechanisms of power and change the balance. The costs can be terribly high of course, as many of those involved in the Arab spring and in Burma know, but they are costs that many are prepared to assume.
Does there exist a pleasure in writing? I don’t know. One thing is certain, that there is, I think, a very strong obligation to write. I don’t really know where this obligation to write comes from … You are made aware of it in a number of different ways. For example, by the fact that you feel extremely anxious and tense when you haven’t done your daily page of writing. In writing this page you give yourself and your existence a kind of absolution. This absolution is indispensable for the happiness of the day… How is it that that this gesture which is so vain, so fictitious, so narcissistic, so turned in on itself and which consists of sitting down every morning at one’s desk and scrawling over a certain number of blank pages can have this effect of benediction on the rest of the day? …
You write so that the life you have around you, and outside, far from the sheet of paper, this life which is not much fun, but annoying and full of worries, exposed to others, can melt into the little rectangle before you and of which you are the master.. But this absorption of swarming life into the immobile swarming of letters never happens.
Michel Foucault, (2004) [1969] Michel Foucault à Claude Bonnefoy – Entretien Interprété par Éric Ruf et Pierre Lamandé, Paris: Gallimard. CD. [This passage translated by Clare O’Farrell]
Random thoughts in response
Foucault articulates the tension many writers – and indeed many other artists – feel between their everyday existence and their art. One wants to write and feels a blight of guilt over one’s life when it is not being done, but at the same time one wonders whether more practical, physical and social activities should not take priority. Writing can only take place when these more worldly duties have been attended to. Writers, it is often joked, have the cleanest houses in the world. If one could just get all the other tasks hanging over one’s head off one’s plate, then the clear decks and space to write will become available. The reality is that this day of freedom never comes. The only solution, as every advisor on writer’s block repeats endlessly (see Boice and Silvia), is to set aside a designated period every day (or most days) and dedicate it strictly to writing.
Foucault’s statement is all the more interesting given his immense productivity. One finds it hard to imagine that prolific writers are subject to this kind of self-doubt. But the guilt of the blank page was not the only guilt mechanism on the table. Foucault also talks about the guilt he experienced in writing itself, given his upbringing in a medical milieu which saw such activity as essentially pointless. He remarked in a later interview that contrary to all reason and evidence, he felt that his writing had no impact and was an utterly useless activity.
Foucault’s comments draw attention to a widespread and historically long-standing suspicion about the social and physical utility of intellectual and artistic pursuits. Even those engaged very effectively in such activity cannot help but be infected by this general idea that what they are doing is both a waste of time and selfish – in short, that they really ought to get out more, make more friends and save the world in a more physical way. This cultural training constantly wars with that other opposing guilt arising from the unwritten word. Yet at the same time, as Foucault observed, the act of writing creates a calm and soothing organised space where one is in control and which blocks out the vagaries and hazards of everyday existence. At the moment writing takes place, one exists in an orderly guilt free zone which unfortunately, Foucault goes on to say, is never able to reduce the rest of life or the demands of the body and the physical to the same manageable two-dimensional zone of white space and abstract black squiggles.
It is small wonder then, given these complex interplays of guilt and desire, that endless volumes of advice on the problem of writer’s block are produced and so eagerly consumed by writers balanced precariously on the fault lines of irresolvable cultural contradictions.
Prompted by re-watching one of my all time favourite films over Easter, I was inspired to make a list of a small handful of favourite films that I re-watch every couple of years or so.
The Glaswegian actor Robert Carlyle mentions that he has always been fascinated by films that feature a cowboy riding into town from nowhere pausing for a while before continuing on his way to somewhere equally vague. This has prompted me to reflect on what my own favoured themes might be. I’m not entirely sure if this will hold, but the exploration of secret and multiple identities is probably a major interest for me. Another fascination is the dissociation of words from their commonly accepted meanings – either making those meanings literal (Flying High (1980) and Police Squad! (1982)) or disconnecting them entirely (India Song (1975) Sapphire and Steel, 1979-82, some of Alain Resnais’ films). Unfortunately there are not too many films or television series which provide fodder for this esoteric interest. Any suggestions for further viewing on this front would be most welcome.
I, like many others, am intrigued by the motif of a secret identity – the secret man of action hidden behind an everyday innocuous and often incompetent persona. The Scarlet Pimpernel appears in my list below, but Zorro, of course, follows in this tradition as well – my favourite film rendition being Zorro, the Gay Blade (Peter Medak, 1981), played with early 80s camp panache by George Hamilton. This is not the kind of role inhabited by many (if any) women unfortunately – except under duress – a condition which disqualifies them from my personal pantheon. The various versions of Nikita (two films and two TV series) and Alias are cases in point.
Also disqualified are the comic book heroes who follow this trope (Batman comes to mind). I think this may be because I find the kind of alternative worlds that characterise comic books, graphic novels and game worlds tedious in their remove from our own world and overwhelmingly and excessively gendered. A notable exception to this personal rule of superhero exclusion, however, is the one version of Superman originally helmed by a woman, namely the 1990s TV series Lois and Clark.
Rules for my list
The criterion for selection here is that it must be a film that I enjoy and which gives me food for thought every time I re-watch it.
Excluded from this list are films I have found immensely powerful, but which I am not tempted to watch over and over again. In this latter list, I would include Akira Kurosawa’s The Idiot (1951) (and certain other of Kurosawa’s films), Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978), Masaki Kobayashi’s trilogy The Human Condition (1959-61), Marguerite Duras’ India Song (1975). There are quite a few others as well – definitely more than enough material for another blog post or two.
Also excluded from the current list are films that I have watched and re-watched and have eventually worn out to the point that they have nothing to offer further viewing.
Also excluded are TV series, which would need to form the subject of an entirely different discussion.
I have arranged the list chronologically in order of year of original release. There are quite a few links (but not exclusively) to Wikipedia here, as for all its unreliability, Wikipedia often provides a good general overview and offers links to the most important sites concerning the topic in hand. In the case of films, Wikipedia articles provide general plot background and useful pointers to critical and production information.
Be warned: as this is a list of my favourites, the writing may be characterised by the excessive and gushing language more commonly seen in marketing blurbs.
The list
‘Pimpernel’ Smith (Leslie Howard, 1941). Actor and director Leslie Howard returned to Britain from the USA at the beginning of World War II to help the war effort and was subsequently killed when the plane he was in was shot down in 1943. In this film he reprises his 1934 role as The Scarlet Pimpernel, but moves the character from the French Revolution to pre-War Europe where he engages in the fight against the rise of Nazism. The film is an entertaining and occasionally edifying blend of English whimsy and anti-Nazi propaganda. In addition, it is gratifying to see a university professor as hero of a film and one who uses his intelligence to propel the action (Indiana Jones simply doesn’t cut it on the second front). Interestingly, the film helped inspire Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg to mount an operation which saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from concentration camps during the War.
The Seventh Veil (Compton Bennett, 1945). A wonderful and intense combination of cod psychoanalysis (a young Herbert Lom given the gravitas of age by a pince-nez and white streaked hair), romantic classical music and a superbly neurotic and complex-ridden lead couple in James Mason and Ann Todd. It also helps that the entire plot revolves around a talented and successful (if notably maladjusted) woman who is not punished for her success at the end of the story. Audiences loved the repressed ambiguities of this film and it remains the tenth biggest box office hit in Britain of all time – outstripping even the later Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Leaving aside the magic cure offered by the psychiatrist/psychoanalyst and the taken-for-granted social class divisions, this film is still engrossing more than sixty years on.
The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949). The striking noir cinematography, the extraordinary zither music and the corrupt atmosphere of post-war Venice and the location settings are the overwhelming attractions here.
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (Albert Lewin, 1951). A film shot in gorgeous lush technicolour by noted cinematographer Jack Cardiff. The visual references to paintings by Giorgio de Chirico, the on location settings in Spain, the genuine flamenco and bull-fight, and Ava Gardner’s beautiful dresses all make this a film worth watching. But it is the back story of the mysterious stranger played by James Mason which combines elements of the Flying Dutchman, the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, with some Othello thrown in which is the main drawcard for me. One thing that removes this film from perfection (apart from the odd clunkiness of the intellectual and cultural references) is that although the concept of the doomed romance is excellent in theory, Ava Gardner is simply unable to match Mason’s intensity and acting prowess. As a result, the chemistry between herself and Mason remains lack lustre and unconvincing.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951). The expressionist black and white cinematography, the extraordinary theremin music and Michael Rennie’s subtle and sympathetic performance as Klaatu are the standouts for me. Don’t even mention the 2008 Keanu Reeves remake (shudder).
Providence (Alain Resnais, 1977). A film about the surrealist imaginings of a dying writer (John Gielgud) who creates a nightmare world populated by members of his family and memories from his past which intermingles with his current reality. This visual and intellectual interpretation of how the writer’s imagination works is a vision I can readily identify with – for all the gender barriers posed here. Dirk Bogarde is at his sarcastic best. The music by Hungarian born composer Miklós Rózsa, a mainstay of 1940s and 50s Hollywood film scoring, is absolutely wonderful and creates an extraordinary atmosphere of lush excess, nostalgia, menace and mystery. It is a crime that this film has not yet been released on DVD.
Flying High aka Airplane! (Jim Abrahams, David and Jerry Zucker, 1980). The literalist visual and verbal jokes in this never get old. Cigarette? Yes, I know.
The Blues Brothers (John Landis, 1980). 1980 was clearly a vintage year for American comedy. Every scene in this film is perfect. Wonderful music, two immensely cool protagonists and an anarchist anti-establishment message delivered with deadpan humour.
The Scarlet Pimpernel (Clive Donner, 1982). This film (which was originally a mini-series made for TV) is an amusing ride from start to finish with highly entertaining and polished performances from Anthony Andrews, Ian McKellen and Jane Seymour, all in sumptuous period costumes. This is my favourite of all the film and television versions centred on this persona. The 1999 Richard E. Grant TV series, for example, simply doesn’t offer the outrageous character contrasts that are so entertaining in this 1982 film.
The Prophecy trilogy (1995-2000). Christopher Walken’s unique and over the top, but at the same time fascinatingly nuanced, performance as the Archangel Gabriel and a truly satisfying end to the series is what draws me back. A good musical score in the first film is also an attraction. The one major problem with these films is that Walken’s screen time is far too brief – particularly in the third instalment. (The two later Prophecy films without any Walken at all are not included here.)
Cypher (Vincenzo Natali, 2002). Again, a film about secret identity and multiple layers of cover-up. A beautiful minimalist soundtrack, a discreet and touching love story and striking cinematography. My favourite scene is the last one: a close up which fades to black of the main character (a great performance by Jeremy Northam), his eyes enigmatically hidden behind sunglasses. The director on the commentary track remarks at this point that we never truly know anyone, not even ourselves. This scene is a striking visual rendition of this idea.
Honourable mention
Stardust (Matthew Vaughn, 2007). This should really go into a separate blog entry on favourite scenes or performances, but I will include it here for the time being. Robert de Niro’s wonderful performance as a cross-dressing pirate is the standout for me in this film. Under the harsh exterior of an old school marauding walk-the-plank pirate, de Niro’s character hides a cultivated and kindly man with a love of fine dresses. His crew, unbeknownst to him, are well aware of his secret identity and are quite happy to play along and maintain his fearsome reputation to the outside world. De Niro’s work has been very patchy since his great performances of the 1970s and early 1980s. For me at least, this performance is a minor return to form.
One of my hobbies is reading books, articles and blog posts by academics on how to write productively. My current reading on this topic is Paul J. Silvia’s entertaining and useful book How to Write a Lot. Silvia is based in the Psychology Department at the University of Carolina.
The book contains such encouraging advice as this: ‘Instead of finding time to write, allot time to write. Prolific writers make a schedule and stick to it (p.12) … There is no other way to write a lot’. (p.17) And this is of course the advice that all books of writing advice continually hammer home. The only solution is the practice of writing itself. One does not have to be brilliant, one just has to do it and not worry unduly if the quality is variable. As long as one is getting it out there. If today one is less than stylish, one has still succeeded in putting words on the page and tomorrow is always another writing (and editing) day.
On its last page, this cheerful and practical book exhorts the reader to enjoy life and to find balance. The goal is not to write oneself into oblivion, but to schedule writing activity so one can enjoy other activities in life free from the guilt of writing tasks undone. The author also creates a space of freedom for the reader suggesting: ‘Write as much or as little as you want to write … Publishing a lot does not make you a good person, psychologist or scientist’ (pp. 130-1) – something that sounds dangerously like heresy in the current university environment.
I will also cite the following, as it is a bit of a hobby horse of mine and one on which I am in total agreement with Silvia. Just substitute any other other humanities discipline of your choice for ‘psychologist’.
The great psychologists are remembered for their great books. No one reads the journal articles that Gordon Allport and Clark Hull wrote; people read Pattern and Growth in Personality (1961) instead… Psychology’s obsession with journal articles has inspired a lot of books, chapters and articles about how to publish articles (eg Sternberg 2000); there are few resources for aspiring book writers… Writing a book is more intellectually rewarding than writing an article. Books matter more than journal articles, chapters in edited books, and edited books, and they offer a chance to tackle big questions and to draw controversial conclusions. (pp. 109-110)
Clint Eastwood’s film Hereafter written by English screenwriter Peter Morgan is a film about how three different people in Chicago, Paris and London cope and fail to cope with the question of what happens after death in a secular society where discussion and investigations of such issues are effectively taboo. It is also a film about grief and loneliness – the isolation that we all face when it comes to death. The film draws attention to the fact that there are few contemporary secular social rituals which provide any support in dealing with these difficulties and people are forced to improvise with varying degrees of success. It is a surprise to see Eastwood dealing with this kind of subject matter and one can perhaps speculate that given his age his thoughts might be turning to matters of death and the afterlife.
There were a number of things aside from the ostensible subject matter of the film (which also, incidentally, included a romance even if this was not evident until the end of the film) which held my attention more closely and one of those things was Clint Eastwood’s direction. The opening special effects with one of the main characters being swept up in the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia were quite spectacular and the impact of this scene will no doubt be further magnified for current viewers by the devastating and terrible tsunami which has hit Japan in 2011. This scene, in the casual suddenness and sheer size of the event and the clarity with which it is shown on screen, provides perhaps some appreciation of what experiencing such a disaster might be like.
In this scene and others, Eastwood’s direction allows you to see clearly what is happening in the external environment around the characters and he is able to create a strong sense of place. You really get a feel for London, Paris and Chicago. Eastwood also conveys the feeling of how crowded the contemporary world is. People are everywhere, all going hurriedly about their unrelated business.
Much other contemporary film makes it very difficult to see the physical and geographical environments in which the characters move. The use of the infamous ‘shaky cam’ – hand-held camera whether real or simulated – the application of colour filters, post production visual effects, fast editing, studio sets and CGI all blur the environments in which the characters are placed. One of the worst mainstream examples of this I have seen was the most recent Bond film A Quantum of Solace (2008). What is the point of spending enormous amounts of money on special effects if the camera is so shaky and has such a narrow and short focus you are unable to see what is happening on the screen? It is a technique which made that other Bond clone The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) fairly unwatchable as well. I would like to suggest that along with the other censorship ratings there should be a new category –‘extreme shaky cam’. One could thus be pre-warned and able to avoid a headache inducing experience where you actually don’t get a chance to see much.
Too few contemporary filmmakers are interested in providing the viewer with a sense of location. Or perhaps what I really mean by this is a sense of place that I can personally read and understand. Thus travel documentaries are not necessarily the solution here. I recognise the Paris and London that Eastwood shows. They feel right. Other fairly recent films which have struck me in this regard are Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers (2005) (watching the countryside pass by through a windscreen), Tony Scott’s True Romance (1993) (‘the Sicilian scene’ setting – the snowy train tracks, derelict cars and trailers of Detroit) and Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men (2006) (the entire film). Perhaps it is my desire to be a virtual tourist – to see other places, almost to experience them through film –but also to observe them as an outsider, a foreigner, that attracts me a certain kind of visual rendition of the environment. Avatar (2009) tried to do this with its alien CGI world, but I found it too riddled with clichés to work.
It was also refreshing to note that Eastwood didn’t resort to the usual cliché of the screen caption to designate place – eg the ghastly London, England trope – presumably a device to distinguish it from some obscure London that exists in the US. He instead used establishing shots of famous landmarks – such as the Tower Bridge in London or the Eiffel Tower outside an office window in Paris.
Moving away from Eastwood’s direction, I would also like to add a few comments about the script. Peter Morgan is an English screen-writer whose previous notable entries include The Queen (2006) and Frost/Nixon (2008). Just as the subject matter of the film marks a departure for Eastwood, this purely fictional outing was something different for Morgan who also notes that he was not used to his scripts being used as written without a difficult process of negotiation during the making of the film. Nonetheless, he emphasizes that of the three characters whose stories we see in the film, it was the story set in London of the young boy who lost his twin brother that most resonated for him. (Incidentally, the boy’s trek through London using stolen money to pay for any number of bogus psychics adds a note of understated humour to an otherwise serious film.) For Eastwood, it was the story of the unwilling and tortured psychic in Chicago, which was his point of entry and, as Morgan remarks, the casting of a star in Matt Damon tends to skew the film to make the psychic the central focus.
I was also struck by discussions between the female French character and a publishing team about producing a book on François Mitterand and some rather pointed comments about him at the end of his tenure as President as nothing but an old man with mistresses and a dubious history of shadowy connections to the Vichy regime. Perhaps given Morgan’s interest in prominent twentieth century political figures we might see a film on Mitterand at some point in the future. (One can hope!)
To conclude, I had not intended to write such a long review, particularly as I found the ostensible subject matter of the film didn’t create many personal resonances, but as is sometimes the case with films, I find that it is not always the central storyline that necessarily grabs your attention.
I have been trying very hard to like the new millennium Doctor Who, but I think the time has come to admit defeat. I have now reached the tipping point where I have given up hope that the series will turn into something that I actually enjoy watching. Something that I can watch without constant cringing embarrassment at its maudlin emotional excesses or irritation at its poor narrative construction, moral ambiguities and repeated excursions into dubious religious territory. Then there’s the bombastic and intrusive orchestral score which grates like sandpaper on my musical sensibilities. That’s quite a list unfortunately! As The Outland Institute has it – a once favourite program has turned into Neighbours in Space: a soap with science fiction fantasy trimmings.
My first memories of Dr. Who were of Patrick Troughton in a shaggy overcoat accompanied by his companions, Victoria and Jamie, battling with mysterious and rather frightening yeti in Tibet who turn out to be robots animated by impressive glass silver spheres. The air of menace in my memories of this story was further enhanced by the constant howl of a freezing wind in the background, the interaction of the Tibetan monks and the alien intelligence, and the grainy black and white in which the series was filmed. Unfortunately this adventure titled ‘The Abominable Snowmen’ first broadcast in 1967 has been lost – wiped as was a common practice of the day in relation to television series. This was reflective of the low status of television as an art form at the time and, of course, nobody had any idea that the technology for home recording and viewing would exist in the future and that much money could be made from a combination of nostalgia and fan completism.
Refracted Input 