Sunday 17 February 2013

War

A few years ago some sort effort to remake The Dambusters was launched with quite a lot of attendant publicity. Of course a major focus for attention in the press was the thorny subject of Guy Gibson's dog who's name is subject to an unfortunate taboo that has arisen since the original film was released. My solution to the problem was rather simple, just make him a Greyhound and call him Racey, then you have one of the characters drop a line some along the lines of, "He always running somewhere, he is the raciest dog I've known". A solution unlikely to see fruition unfortunately not least because film makers today are too prosaic but mostly because those who've acquired the rights have decided to adopt the simper solution of not actually making the film. I think they started shooting some stuff with Lancaster mock ups but that's about all I've heard about it for a few years.

Another war time raid around which there was rumoured to be a film in production was the St. Nazaire raid. Operation Chariot, as it is also known as, offers some meaty material for any filmaker, the bare facts of the events surrounding the operation read like a screenplay but I'm sure that wouldn't prevent the odd fantasy embellishments that the film industry is so fond of. It's no surprise then that Operation Chariot has fuelled at least two cinematic dramatisations: The Gift Horse and Attack on the Iron Coast. Unfortunately neither of these films do the topic justice and  both of them just use Operation Chariot for plot elements rather than being authentic dramatisations of the raid itself. Alas this project seems to have disappeared as well, which is a real shame, I'd pay to see a decent dramatisation of that raid. I suppose one of the problems the raid represents is that the drama is already intrinsic to the historical events, so it represents a kind of affront to the Hollywood mindset. The same mindset that produced that god awful abortion Pearl Harbour, perhaps it's just as well that neither of these films will get made afterall.

Saturday 16 February 2013

Superhero quiz

Your results:
You are Batman
Batman
80%
Hulk
70%
Green Lantern
70%
Spider-Man
60%
Iron Man
55%
Superman
45%
Catwoman
45%
Robin
44%
Wonder Woman
42%
The Flash
40%
Supergirl
32%

You are dark, love gadgets
and have vowed to help the innocent
not suffer the pain you have endured.
Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...

Uncanny this result because I am The Batman, shame about the crummy picture though, I might have to do something about that.

Saturday 9 February 2013

Went the day well?

Many years ago and I really do mean many I spent some time as an inmate in a children's ward, I was probably about five years old, there you are that's how long ago it was. It's a period in my life which I obviously recollect imperfectly but the images that remain are some of my most potent memories. One of them is the haunting sight of the children in the glass rooms, this was a period when the thalidomide legacy was still unfolding so you can imagine the effect of the uncensored reality within these isolation wards would have on the young minds gawking aghast with their noses pressed against the windows. There are other memories: wearing a toy Indian head dress while confined to bed, finding a kaleidoscope in the toy box, making a break for freedom only to be a hunted down by a nurse, being told to stay still and watch the birdy on those chilly morning trips to the other place, the nun who asked me about Jesus and Mary and gave a fist full of St. Christopher, waking up one morning to find my self in one of those glass rooms.

To accompany this fuel to feed the engines of imagination is a memory of the first film I remember seeing, shown on the ward Tele. Went the Day Well was produced as a propaganda effort in WW2. The film actually works very well as a drama, in fact certain elements of if have been recycled more than once, most notably in Jack HIggins's The Eagle has Landed. Which features a plot derived from Went the Day Well, that is, a village being infiltrated by Germans disguised as friendly troops and a climax that features a siege that takes place inside a church. One memory of the film that sticks with me, is what I call the German seven scene, it's where the disguised German officer arouses suspicion by crossing his seven while writing a note. It's funny how such a memory can linger and influence your feelings, I always shudder when I see people do that today and I often wonder if the other kids in the ward who watched the film that night feel the same way. On a less personal level the film is noteworthy because although it's an obvious exercise in propaganda it's an unusual piece of cinema in that it's quite sophisticated as a narrative but it was made before the narrative conventions in mainstream cinema solidified after the war and as such represents an interesting social document.

One aspect of this is the role women play in the film there are a number rounded female characters with fully active volition, so active in fact that it is often violent and occasionally fatal, one such instance is the famous pepper scene. There are also a number ancillary female parts that depict a range of human attributes both positive and negative in quite a realistic way, That's an aspect of mainstream drama that suffered quite notably after the war, there are exceptions, probably I would cite Patrica Neal's role in The Day the Earth Stood Still and maybe a few others but even these tend to be one sided, focusing on the positive. Another related aspect of the film that is really quite extraordinary for a propaganda flick, is the of independence with which the protagonists exercise their own volition. That would be totally verboten today, if you'll excuse the play on words, in recent years a much greater emphasis on dependence has arisen in modern drama. Characters portrayed risking their lives pro-actively, driving the narrative not just reacting to it, are heroic archetypes not realistic portrayals of ordinary people. For that reasons modern film looks rather pale in comparison to Went the Day Well.

The major problem with mainstream film drama is the attention it garners from the would be censors, the guardians of morality and taste. For them everything has to be a morality tale, how many times have you heard, xyz portrayed somewhere will encourage some kind antisocial behaviour? quite a lot I imagine. Printed media doesn't get nearly so much attention although it doesn't escape completely, Seduction of the Innocent proves that point but on the whole it's gotten away with being a lot more rounded, interesting, reflecting reality and real people to greater degree than cinema, although that has diminished too in recent decades. There were no outraged newspapers calling for the banning of Anthony Burgess's Clockwork Orange but it was a different story when Kubrick made his film. As I mentioned I feel this normalization of cinematic drama grew incrementally after the war, step by it step it ate away veracity til today we're in the state where a propaganda film produced in the time war contains more realism than the fair we get today, in what is supposed to be a free world. When Jason Isaacs was prompted to defend the trivial characters in the Mel Gibson vehicle The Patriot, he said he thought that depicting the hero as a slave owner would send the wrong message. No one has epitomized the problem so succinctly, thanks Mr. Isaacs.

Monday 4 February 2013

A quickie

Here's a little game, unfortunately this only really works if you're male and you're also old enough to remember Dad's Army. You can still have a go but it's probably not going to work.

Choose a character from Dad's Army that most represents yourself, you know, the kind of person you are, it can be any of the characters? When you've chosen press the button marked go.


Cassandra 3

 3 ecch

After a few moments of panic spawned by concerns over spilt tea frying the the laptop, which I hastily power down by pulling the battery, the implications of Carol Reid's letter start to permeate my mind. I've dealt with agents. before and I've seen both sides of them, the  obsequious grasping after a cash cow and the supercilious dismissal dished out to hopefuls.  To say they're not my favourite people would be underestimating the level of my contempt by a factor analogous to describing the residents' of Mai Lai's encounter with the US army as, unfortunate. My immediate concern is the non existence of Cassandra Wheatfield, the cynicism that had given rise to her and her companions, had not been so thorough as to prompt me to consider the implications should any of their submission actually be accepted. Sure I had a vague plan that I could place myself as some sort of intermediary that I hadn't really though but now the short comings of my perfunctory attention to those details where coming home, especially in the light of the publisher's request for a meeting. The other aspect of the letter that was causing me concern was the seemingly irregular manner in which Reid had made the submission for review to the publisher, whose identity she'd carefully withheld in her letter. I admit I've no real insight on how these dealing are handled. I suppose Reid could have been scraping the barrel to garner interest from this publisher and in desperation fell back on Cassandra submission, not a scenario that holds much conviction for me, a mystery that's will need further inquiry.

For a few  moments I consider staying in and mulling over the situation but I decide I might tackle the problems more effectively after I've cleared my thoughts and decide to make my way to the snooker club. I grab my coat and sunglasses. My intense photophopbia makes the low winter sun particularly uncomfortable and the snooker club lies to the south, so shades are a must even on a November Sunday morning.  My dependence on such eye wear arouses the amusement of the occasional prick who decides the sight of someone in shades in winter is too good an opportunity for ridicule to pass up. In my younger days I've left more than one them regretting their ignorance, nursing a blood sodden nose on an impromptu trip to casualty or depositing their last meal on the pavement after I've delivered a swift massage to their solar plexus with my fist. I'm a bit cooler now, not that I don't still feel the urge to deliver the odd swift lesson in street etiquette, it's just that I'm a bit warier of the consequences of giving my not inconsiderable temper free reign.

Outside a slight breeze has picked up, stirring the leaves that the street sweeper's missed, not enough to give them flight as they're still a bit sticky from the rain. I get to the end of my road and stop at the curb, to wait for the cars to pass, only they're not there. I don't know how long exactly I've lived here, more than a couple of decades and I've never managed to negotiate the junction at the end of my road with out stopping for traffic. This phenomenon has been a constant since I've lived here, doesn't matter if I'm out at 3:00 am trying to walk off insomnia or its a Xmas day visit to the graveyard. If there's only one car on the road in the entire country it'll be here to make to stop at this junction. There a child on the side of the road, a toddler no more than four or five, he's with grandma it looks like. He chuckles as he sees me, no doubt he's party to the circumstances that have caused habit to make me pause for traffic that isn't there. He waves, his carefree amusement at life strires my spirit, I smile spontaneously and return his wave, something which causes the witch accompanying him a certain consternation. Can't have the joy the children give the world freely dished to strangers I suppose, have to guard it jealously like a spiteful miser. She tugs his arm and admonishes him, "Why are you waving at strangers?" she spits her poison into his ear with her nectar coated tongue. Now I'm the one who feels sick enough to leave his breakfast on the pavement, ecch.

I climb the old viaduct to get a view of the river on my journey, the weed growing between the discarded sleepers and ballast is only the bit greenery left round her too. It's a favorite with dog walkers, who can't be bothered to scoop the poop, so you need to watch your feet.  There's a few of 'em ahead, stationary, something in the river has caught their attention. They're strangers to me but one of them accosts me, a woman walking a pointer: "Do you know what's happening?"

"Sorry?" I reply.

"There are men water just there." she gesticulates towards towards the water, and I follow her finger. The glint of the sun on water is too much for me to see any detail but I just make a few animated figures after a while.

"Dunno, perhaps there's been an accident with a boat or something last night." The scene doesn't hold the same compelling interest for me as the dog walkers, maybe because my sight of it isn't as refined as theirs, so I leave them to it and bother with my own concerns.

It's not long before I reach the snooker club, the club lies under the viaduct, the building occupies one of the spans. There was a stop here too on the old railway  so it's easy to climb the old stairway, which makes the viaduct a convenient route to the club. It's not till I get in the club that my curiosity about the stranger resurfaces. It takes a while for me to get used to light in club after my walk on the viaduct but I can't see any one in the main hall who looks out of place. There are just a few people here today on the snooker tables, mostly punters, one or two players too but it's not that busy. I'm not here for snooker though, so I make my way swiftly to the back after I've deposited my coat on one of the pegs, it's safe to that here as long you keep old Billy happy, he's the guy who look after the place. I'm here for the nine ball tables. I used to play the old game with red balls but that was another life. I make my way past the snooker tables but it's obvious that my arrival has aroused some interest.  No one speaks to me directly but I'm about half way through the snooker hall when I hear it, one of the punters whispers none too quitely to one of his companions, "Cassie Belmont"

Friday 1 February 2013

The doodle files

Doodles they're kinda interesting but they most often get get assigned to oblivion pretty instantly, I admit some of mine have hung around a lot longer than that, not getting thrown out till they've been virtually obliterated by assorted beverage stains. I'm not labouring under any delusion that these particular examples are noteworthy to any degree but I fancied documenting them because I'm interested in doodles:


Some doodles are doomed to an early extinction because the urge to draw something is so insistent that you pick up the nearest implement, in this case an aquarellabe Stabilo and doodle on the most convenient surface at hand, the table top adjacent to my laptop.



Let's not forget the all time classic, the back of an envelope. I obliterated the return address here, I've no idea who it was, it's a PO Box number but I'm wary of the risks of inundating some poor sap's post with trash spawned by internet pranksters.

This one demonstrates a nice aspect of doodling, it's not constrained by convention, so if you get something wrong, like the nose and lips here, you can just draw them somewhere else, who say's they havta be in the right location?



Hair? let's make her? him? (a bit andronginous this one) mostly bald cos I wanna draw an ear. Another example of translocation, got the hand wrong? just do another one in the corner.



Let's try out this ink I found on in the back of the cupboard to see if it's any good? The answer to that would be no. I masked out my name here, not because I'm concerned about DeadSpiderEye's secret identity being revealed, you can track that down in less than a minute with Google, but it's almost the same as my signature and publishing that on the web might be -- um foolish.