https://thersites-journal.de/index.php/thr/article/view/223/376
Showing posts with label ancient greece and rome on the big screen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ancient greece and rome on the big screen. Show all posts
Sunday, November 20, 2022
Article by me on the influence of Jackson's LOTR on ancient world movies
Monday, August 09, 2021
Things read and seen in 2021, #5
(Spoilers. * indicates something watched/read for the first time.)
Movies
A rewatch because I had a guest spot talking about this movie on Paul Cornell and Lisbeth Myles' Hammer House of Podcast, and, eventually, this movie will feature in my book on Roman Britain on screen. I'm afraid I don't like this movie very much. It's part of Hammer's 1960s flirtation with the epic, that they get into just about the time the bottom falls out of the ancient epic market, and they don't really have the money to do it justice. Don Chaffey, who directed Jason and the Argonauts, does what he's supposed to do; but it needs a better script, and a better cast. Liz Myles liked it, however.
To be fair to The Viking Queen, it is at least a better movie than this. A #ClassicsTwitterMovie, of course; my Twitter thread is here. Everything that you didn't like about 300 is repeated in this movie, whilst pretty much everything you did like is gone. It's nice that Lena Headey gets a bit more to do, though the movie has to reset her personality for plot purposes. Eva Green does the Eva Green bit of being a mean woman and flashing her boobs (and, of course, has to be motivated by sexual violence in the past, because no other motivation for mean women is allowed), whilst the movie entirely fails to make a star out of Sullivan Stapleton. Absurdity piles on absurdity, with seas that look like they have come out of The Perfect Storm, an oil tanker, and cavalry concealed in the bowels of the Athenian ships.
Another #ClassicsTwitterMovie. My own Twitter commentary was minimal, as I hadn't seen this movie before. It is something I had always meant to get round to, as I wanted to see how Tzavellas handled Greek tragedy, as compared to how Michael Cacoyannis handled it. The prologue is good. Tzavellas very much plays the text as one woman standing up for what is right against an oppressive régime (in the original Athenian context, it's more complex than that, but this is how most modern treatments take the play). Papas is excellent in the central role. But overall, it feels very studio-bound; there are external shots, but they don't exploit the locations very much. The net result is rather stagey, and, I feel, perhaps a bit too respectful towards the text; it's as if Tzavellas knows that he is dealing with an important part of Greek heritage, and as a result, the play doesn't really feel alive. Also, Tzavellas is not as good a director as Cacoyannis.
Another #ClassicsTwitterMovie. My Twitter thread is here. Just less than a year passed between the release of Antigone and the release of this, yet they are vastly different movies, and Papas' performance in this is very much more advanced. In Antigone, she's excellent; here she's extraordinary. The movie is cinematic in a way that Tzavellas' Antigone just isn't. As it happens, Electra is probably my least favourite of Cacoyannis' Euripidean trilogy; but that doesn't mean it is in any way a bad movie. Far from it.
I put this on the syllabus for my course on Classics and science fiction. I chose this episode because it's the one that you can say most interesting things about Classical reception in, as you get the Roman-derived politics, and Naboo which looks like medieval Rome, and an amphitheatre scene. This does not mean that I rate it particularly highly. Lucas should really have remembered that he was better as a producer and story creator than as a director or screenwriter. And Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker is just whiny all the time, giving little indication how he might eventually become Darth Vader, and indeed, why Portman's Padme Amidala should fall for him.
You may recall my enthusing about The Hitman's Bodyguard earlier in the year, and saying that the only thing really wrong with it was that there wasn't enough Salma Hayek. This certainly corrects that, but overall, we're into the law of diminishing returns. Certainly, there are some good funny bits, but they're a lot fewer and further apart than in the previous movie. The script doesn't really have anything new to do with the relationship between Reynolds and Jackson's characters, and so it hits the reset button, so that things that were settled between them, such as gaining a certain amount of mutual respect, have to be gone through again. Still, if you ever wanted to know how Antonio Banderas would play a Bond villain, this is the movie to watch.
At last, the pandemic-delayed Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe gets underway, though actually, given that it is set before Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, this feels more like unfinished business from Phase 3. I wrote a review of this for FA Online, and don't really have much more to add here. There's nothing particularly wrong with this movie, and it is nice to see Johansson in action as Natasha one last time, but Black Widow didn't excite me as much as I was hoping it might. Also, I am extremely disappointed that the movie does not use Pulp's 'I Spy' over the closing credits, which, is in my head, Natasha's theme song. Having predicted that we'd get Yelena Belova and the Red Guardian, and that the story would take the Black Widow to her Russian roots, I was hoping for three-for-three. (Both these movies were seen at Nightflix, where the screen was a bit dark, so that may have affected my enjoyment of them.)
My pick for virtual film club. I wanted to watch this because I liked the trailer, and it is a movie that links in with my interests in London and the fantastic, as this is very clearly a science fictional plot. In fact, it's a superhero plot, with Idris Elba's Brixton Lore (no, really) being constantly described as 'the black Superman' (he's actually the black Captain America). I enjoyed this, despite never having watched a Fast and Furious movie before, so not having any of the backstory. Johnson and Statham are likeable leads (apparently Statham's character was once a nasty villain, but has been redeemed), and there's plenty of over-the-top action. It's nice that Vanessa Kirby's character gets quite a bit of agency, and isn't just a love interest for Johnson. And Ryan Reynolds plays pretty much the same character as he plays in Hitman's Bodyguard.
I happened to mention to John Coxon that I'd never seen Dredd; he told me I must watch it immediately, so I did. Back in 1995 I went to see the Judge Dredd movie that starred Sylvester Stallone. I wrote a review with got published in an apazine, and which I can't lay my hands on at the moment, but I think I said it was the perfect Judge Dredd movie for the first five minutes, up to the moment that Stallone takes the helmet off, and then it just all falls apart. Thank heavens then, for Karl Urban, who here appears very briefly with the helmet off at the beginning, but with his face in shadow, and is then happy to remain in full Dredd uniform throughout. Alex Garland takes a relatively low-key storyline, of Dredd and Cassandra Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) trying to stay alive in a block, rather than the big corruption plot of the 1995 movie, and Dredd is all the better for that. It's not perfect; the black humour that characterises the comic strip at its best is largely missing. Mega-City One also looks shabbier than one might expect, though that probably works in the movie's favour. Dredd is better in just about every respect than the Stallone movie; the only point where the earlier movie is superior is in the design of the Lawmaster bikes, which seem more like those of the comics in 1995.
Television
I embarked on a rewatch of Star Trek, beginning with The Original Series, which I watched in production order, rather than broadcast order. That rewatch has rather ground to a halt of late, but I did get to the end of season 1. Watching it in production order means that I got to see that Uhura began in a gold uniform. And watching the episodes close together meant that I noticed things like Kirk being presented as quite an erudite man, not just a man of action; that Spock isn't half as emotionless as he likes to pretend; that Uhura keeps being given things to do; and that, for all that Next Generation got criticised for everyone having meetings all the time, there are a lot of meetings held on the old Enterprise.
Books
Read for the August meeting of the London Science Fiction Research Community. It's a collection of essays and thoughts relating to ways of trying to save the world. I like very much that these ways are inspired by science fiction (amb looks to both Star Trek and Octavia Butler). It's also worth noting that she is primarily an optimist about this, and we need a bit of optimism when the world around us is burning, and western governments still don't seem interested in taking the drastic action that is becoming ever-more imperative. On the other hand, the book is a little on the bitty side, as is probably inevitable given the many different origins of the pieces that go towards the final book. I feel perhaps that a bit more structure might have made it more effective. I also feel it's not for me as much as it is for people from marginalised communities. Nevertheless, I suspect I shall be coming back to this one.
Virtual theatre
This year's King's Greek Play, written and performed by a cast of KCL students, supervised by David Bullen, Edith Hall, and Nicola Hewitt-George. This production had, as with everything else, to accommodate itself to the COVID pandemic. The solutions taken were very similar to those used by the Oxford Orestes I talked about in a previous post; cast members performed from their offices and bedrooms, giving a claustrophobic feel. There was a crossover in subject matter with Orestes as well; From the Machine combines elements of several Greek plays, many of them set around the end of the Trojan War and its immediate aftermath. So it includes Orestes and Electra's murder of Clytemnestra and their attempted murder of Helen. Unfortunately, after Orestes, From the Machine doesn't feel as innovative as it might have been, and as with the Oxford play, I found it hard to engage. Anactoria Clarke was excellent, however, as an older Helen.
Once again the main play of the Epidaurus festival was screened for free. I'd missed last year's Persians, but managed to catch this. I enjoyed it a lot, and had a big grin on my face. It's unusual for a play in a foreign language, that I'm very familiar with, and which makes few concessions to updating the jokes, to get a laugh out of me. But this did, consistently.
Virtual theatre club pick, because it's available for free through August. I'm not particularly an opera buff, so not only had I not seen this production of La traviata, I'd never seen any production, though I did recognise a couple of tunes. (My mother was a Verdi fan, though her favourite was Aida.) I enjoyed this. I mean, it all ends tragically, of course, but then it wouldn't really be opera if it didn't. Gimadieva is particularly good in the lead role, both as a singer and as an actress.
Tuesday, August 03, 2021
Things read and seen in 2021, #4
(Spoilers. * indicates something watched/read for the first time.)
Movies
Virtual film club pick. Steven Spielberg's homage to the spy movies of the 1960s. There's some excellent direction here, especially in the opening five minutes, as FBI agents trail Mark Rylance's Soviet spy. But Spielberg lacks the cynicism as a director that characterised the '60s movies that inspired him. That is illustrated by the presentation of Tom Hanks' lawyer as an ordinary joe, who happens to get linked up with the trials of Rudolph Abel (Rylance) and the subsequent exchange for Gary Powers. The real James Donovan had been general counsel for the OSS, the wartime predecessor of the CIA. Though the movie suggests that he first met CIA director Allen Dulles when the idea of the swap for Powers came up, Donovan had actually known Dulles in the war, when the latter was head of the OSS's Swiss Directorate. The two were, if not necessarily close friends, mutual admirers, and Donovan had, in fact, talked directly with Dulles when he took the Abel case on. The CIA used Donovan in the Powers negotiations because there was a very real sense in which he was already a Company guy. But that doesn't allow for the dramatic friction between Donovan and the CIA that the movie wants.
A #ClassicsTwitterMovie; the Tweet thread is here. This was the one major entry in the 2014–2016 wave of Biblical movies that I hadn't seen (the others are Noah, Exodus: Gods and Kings, and Ben-Hur). It is undoubtedly the best of those, though that's not exactly a high bar. Essentially a variation on a theme already seen in The Robe, the movie is much more interesting in its first half, when it depicts a sceptical Roman tribune investigating reports of the Resurrection, which he hears only second or third-hand. In the second half, the audience are given clear diegetic evidence that the Resurrection has indeed taken place, and the movie becomes much less interesting. It does, of course, get most of the Roman movie clichés in; the movie's barely four minutes old when we get Roman soldiers forming the testudo, and there's plenty of the Fascist salutes that all these movies engage in. There's a nice performance by Joseph Fiennes as the military tribune in charge of the Crucifixion, and subsequently of finding out whether Jesus has in fact risen again. It's nice to see Tom Felton in a decent role, and Peter Firth, who was once young and dashing like Tom Felton, always gives good value.
My pick for virtual film club night, which I chose because I had just read Paul Kincaid's book on Christopher Priest (see below), whose original novel this movie is based on. Probably my favourite of the Nolan movies I've seen (I haven't seen Memento, but I have seen Inception, which isn't half as clever as it makes out it is, and deeply disliked The Dark Knight Rises). I think I had read the novel first, so one of the big reveals was not a surprise to me the first time round. The other reveal is not quite in the novel, though the movie is drawing upon what the novel has; in any case, it is interesting to watch again knowing all the reveals. It's all pretty gripping stuff, with good performances from Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, Andy Serkis reminding us all what a great actor he is, and, astonishingly, a not-shit cameo from David Bowie as Nikolai Tesla. On the other hand, Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson are a bit wasted. However, the plot all fits together nicely, and I highly enjoyed this rewatch. Last point: I have always found it interesting that the Nolan brothers didn't write the screenplay together, but, as indicated by the use of 'and' in the credit rather than '&', wrote separate drafts.
Yes, I had actually never seen this movie before! And now I never have to again. I very much doubt that I shall watch a sillier movie for a while, nor one that is more '80s, in its lighting, music, and everything, really. (But what would you expect from Golan and Globus?) Lambert seems to be constantly dubbed, apparently by up to three different people, and his accent is never consistent, and certainly never Scottish. But then Sean Connery, as an Egyptian pretending to be a Spaniard, is more than enough Scotsman for this movie. Great to see James Cosmo, who always gives good value no matter how dodgy the movie, and a real surprise to see Celia Imrie, who is not the sort of actress one associates with this sort of movie at all. Police Squad! fans may find it hard to take seriously Alan North, the original Captain Ed Hocken, as a Police Lieutenant. Good use of Queen, though. I have very little intention following this up with any other entries from the franchise.
AKA Upstart Crow: The Movie. Well, it is written by Ben Elton about William Shakespeare, but, whilst it has its share of amusing lines, it is less directed at being funny. Indeed, it's less directed anyway; the story rather meanders, instead of clearly having a point to it. It's all beautifully done, but it's not clear what it's trying to say. Fine performances from Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, and Ian McKellen, but they are all a bit old for the roles they are playing–57-year-old Branagh as 49-52-year-old Shakespeare is one thing, but 83-year-old Judi Dench as 56-60-year-old Anne Hathaway, and 79-year-old Ian McKellen as the 42-year-old (i.e. younger than Shakespeare) Earl of Southampton (whom I'd just seen in Elizabeth R, played by a dashing young Peter Egan) seems a bit much. Still, a perfectly reasonable diversion.
Virtual film club pick, selected because it is on the Hugo shortlist for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. I quite liked this. People will, of course, compare it to Groundhog Day (that the central characters are in a time loop is in the trailer, so I don't consider that a spoiler). However, the movie it reminds me most of is 12:01 PM, a 1990 short with a similar premise but a much bleaker resolution. The sf elements in Palm Springs hang together well enough, though like most time travel movies, it doesn't do to think about it too much. The relationship between the two leads isn't too rom-com insufferable; the two aren't as obviously wrong for each other as is often the case. And I found out I quite like Demis Roussos (or at least I don't mind that I've been earwormed by him). Plus, dinosaurs!
35. Clash of the Titans (UK/USA. dir. Desmond Davis, scr. Beverley Cross, starring Harry Hamlin, Judi Bowker, Burgess Meredith, Maggie Smith, Ursula Andress, Claire Bloom, Siân Phillips, Flora Robson, and Laurence Olivier, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1981)
The 2010 remake was coming up as a #ClassicsTwitterMovie, and I thought I should watch the 1981 original, as I hadn't for a long time. A lot of people whose judgment I admire love this movie, but for me it is very much a lesser Harryhausen work, much less engaging than Jason and the Argonauts, or even the two Sinbad movies of the 1970s. Partly, this is because it looks a bit cheap, next to what George Lucas was doing in the Star Wars movies (which is ironic, because Lucas was a huge Harryhausen fan). It also does not help that a number of the cast are not really giving it their all. Laurence Olivier as Zeus is a particular offender, making no secret that he thinks little of the material (though in fairness he wasn't well for most of the last decade of his life). I get the feeling that Olivier agreed to this entirely as a favour to Maggie Smith, who was doing the movie because she was married to the screenwriter (who does give her some of the best lines). Other people (Claire Bloom in particular) then did the movie because Olivier was in it. This means it's got a starrier cast than any other Harryhausen, but I think I'd prefer people who actually cared about the material.
This was a #ClassicsTwitterMovie, but I have no Twitter thread, because this was the weekend I had my heart attack, so I was in hospital. I don't much like this movie. It's the first of a 2010s wave of Greek mythology done as if they're superhero movies, and while it's far from the worst of this ilk (that would probably be Immortals), it's also very far from the best. Leterrier is otherwise best known for Incredible Hulk, one of the weakest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. Here he directs for effect, and cuts just about anything that slows up the action (I mean, what is the point of employing Alexander Siddig if you're then not going to do anything with him?). It could have been a lot better (it has to be said that the deleted scenes do actually allow the story to make a touch more sense). For all its faults, the 1981 version has a charm that this simply lacks.
Should really be Topkapı, of course. I've heard a lot about this movie, made by American director Dassin, who fled to Europe to work when he was blacklisted in the US, and then fell in love with Mercouri, whom he proceeded to cast in most of his movies. But I'd never seen it. It's very much a quinessential '60s heist movie, with big name British character actors (Robert Morley and Peter Ustinov), and a lot of sympathy for the perpetrators, even though they aren't allowed to get away with it at the end. The movie begins with some interesting use of colour filters, as Mercouri talks directly to camera, but it settles down after that, and the narrative is pretty straightforward. What is really great about the movie is the use of locations in Istanbul, which has always been a bit of an underused setting for Anglophone movies. I recommend this.
Virtual film club pick, selected because it too is on the Hugo shortlist for Best Dramatic Performance. I kinda wish I'd seen it before the nomination; knowing that it's got the nom means I was looking for the element of the fantastic, and that spoils a plot moment. Leaving that aside, on the good side, the pastiches of Eurovision songs and performances are perfect, and Dan Stevens is so much better here than he is in Colossal. But the movie is about 30 minutes too long, and not funny enough. It's at its best when it looks like it's going to turn into the story of McAdams' character Sigrit, but every time it then remembers that Ferrell is its star and writer, and goes back to him. The problem is that his bits don't really have any emotional weight. The movie does have its perfect deeply emotional musical moment right at the end, but somehow it feels like it hasn't quite earned it.
Watching Eurovision Song Contest gave me a hankering to watch this again, an undervalued example of Clement and Le Frenais' work. It's one of my wife Kate's favourite movies, as well, so we watched it together. It's funny, of course, and it too has a big emotional song moment at the end. But in this case, the movie has absolutely earned it. All the songs are good (with lyrics written by Chris Difford of Squeeze fame) and evocative of a certain type of 1970s prog rock. And the cast all convince as aging rock stars in a way that Will Ferrell fails to convince as a 50-something Eurovision entrant. This is a movie so good it makes me like Jimmy Nail! (Also, in the silent moment at the press conference, I want someone to burst into Half Man Half Biscuit's 'Used To Be In Evil Gazebo'; if you've seen the movie and know the song, you'll understand.)
Another #ClassicsTwitterMovie: my thread is here. As we all know, sequels are never as good as the originals; except this one is a marked improvement over 2010's Clash. Better casting, better characterisation, and a plot that interestingly blends the standard return of the Titans trope with the passing of the gods. Not the best mythological movie, but it does a lot better than most.
Virtual film club pick. Almost textbook 'quirky' London-set British romantic comedy, about a single woman of a non-conformist personality (Brown Findlay) forced to get to grips with her garden, and her relationship with her cantankerous neighbour (Wilkinson). Andrew Scott appears as the neighbour's dogsbody, and Jeremy Irvine plays the eccentric love interest. Naturally, the two neighbours come to an understanding through gardening. It's all terribly heartwarming in the way that such movies are. This is by no means a bad movie. Perfectly good script, perfectly good performances, but it doesn't quite deliver the magical realism that the opening scene suggests. Also, not enough Anna Chancellor as a grumpy librarian.
#ClassicsTwitterMovie time again; my Twitter thread, such as it is, is here. Scream 2 is entirely justifiable as a #ClassicsTwitterMovie; part of the plot involves the putting on of a production of a pseudo-Greek tragedy (it's not actually Euripides' Trojan Women, but it's clearly something inspired by the events of the fall of Troy), directed by David Warner. I can recognise that this is a very good movie of its kind, but slasher movies, even meta slasher movies, are very much not my cup of tea. I don't enjoy watching as the bodies pile up, and just about every character you are introduced to will end up stabbed or worse. Still, I now never have to watch this movie again.
Virtual film club pick, and another movie I can admire the technique of without actually enjoying very much. Adam Sandler puts in a terrific performance as small-time Jewish jewellery store owner and gambler Howard Ratner, of the sort that one simply doesn't expect from him, in what is very much not your typical Sandler movie. There are good supporting turns from Eric Bogosian as the loan shark who also happens to by Ratner's brother-in-law, and Judd Hirsch as his father-in-law. The problem, for me, at any rate, is that Sandler's character is utterly unlikeable, and it's hard to summon up any sympathy for the increasingly convoluted lies and deceptions that he gets himself tied up in. I came very close to quitting this movie midway through. In the end, I'm glad that I didn't, but again, I doubt I'll return to this often.
Another virtual film club pick, and one I enjoyed a lot more. It's a delight. It's basically a fairly standard rom-com of two childhood sweethearts rediscovering each other after sixteen years, but it's well done, has several very funny moment,s is not too clichéd, and it's nice to see a movie that centre the non-WASP American experience. Also, Keanu Reeves' cameo redeems him for almost everything terrible he's ever done; his commitment to sending himself up is admirable. Park and Wong didn't think they'd get him, but Reeves is a fan of Wong's, and his attitude to fitting his cameo into his busy schedule (he was filming John Wick 3) seems to have been 'We'll make the time'.
You may be surprised to learn that this is another #ClassicsTwitterMovie. My Twitter thread is here. This is one of my favourite twenty-first century Roman-set movies, though it does make me feel old when I realise that it was released ten years ago. I like it because it's such a rich text; it's not just that it's well-made, but there is so much to talk about—the way it inverts the conventional paradigm by giving all the Romans American accents, and all the oppressed peoples British ones, what it does with Rosemary Sutcliff's source novel, and the interesting engagement with the master-slave relationship, how it removes all female characters from the novel (and thus intensifies homoerotic elements of the Marcus-Esca relationship). Definitely the best of the four Hadrian's Wall movies made between 2004 and 2011, and there wasn't really a better Roman movie until Horrible Histories came along in 2019. If you haven't seen this, you should.
46. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (USA, dir. and scr. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, starring Tyne Daly, James Franco, Brendan Gleeson, Bill Heck, Grainger Hines, Zoe Kazan, Harry Melling, Liam Neeson, Tim Blake Nelson, Jonjo O'Neill, Chelcie Ross, Saul Rubinek, and Tom Waits, Netflix, 2018) *
My pick for the virtual film club. I like the Coen Brothers, and I like westerns, so I thought I would like this, and I do. It's an anthology movie, with six different stories, all linked by being supposedly tales in a book of short stories. They vary in tone a lot, from the silly title piece through to the altogether more throughtful 'The Gal who Got Rattled'. But almost all the stories end in death, and death is very much a theme that runs through them all. Still, seriously superior movie making.
Books
Read because it was on the shortlist for the BSFA Award for Non-fiction. This is an excellent piece of work; Kincaid gets to the heart of what's interesting about Priest's work, in a way that I suspect no-one else could. It certainly made me want to read more of Priest than the small smattering of novels (The Prestige, The Separation and The Islanders) that I have. My only disappointment is that there is little here about Priest's writing on other science fiction writers than himself, apart from his attack on Harlan Ellison and The Last Dangerous Visions; for instance, Kincaid makes much reference to Priest being the first to term the Moorcock-edited New Worlds and its associated writers the British 'New Wave', but makes no mention of Priest's essay on the New Wave in the 1978 Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. I suspect, however, that Kincaid would say, with some justification, that this wasn't the point of the exercise. What stands out here is the quality and perspicacity of Kincaid's writing. It reminds me of how much even the best writing on Classical Reception in science fiction often falls behind the best sf criticism in general, and how much we really need to up our game. Highly recommended.
Reread because I've been revising my paper on the novel for a forthcoming volume on Classics and Artificial Intelligence. Chris Beckett has gone on to bigger and better things since, of course (e.g. winning the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Dark Eden in 2013), but this early novel, somewhat overlooked (perhaps because it took six years for a UK edition to appear), is a cracker. It is the tale of George Simling, a man living in the near-future technocratic state of Illyria, a last holdout against the religious fundamentalism of the rest of the world (the political background to the novel seems, horribly, much more relevant now than it did in 2004), and Lucy, the sexbot he falls in love with. It's an exploration of humanity, personhood, gender, and the patterns we humans impose on the world around us. And the writing is bloody good as well. Recommended.
A reread for my course on science fiction and the Classics, where we were examining exactly why Shelley gave her novel the subtitle The Modern Prometheus, and what that implies. Along the way I was rude about 'that gang of arch-prats that we call the second generation of the English Romantic poets'. Frankenstein is an interesting novel. It's been placed by many as the ur-text of science fiction, and almost as many people have rejected that idea, and I can sort of see why. It belongs much more in the tradition of the Gothic novel than it looks forward to a new genre (if you want to see Shelley really heading out into the uncharted waters of science fiction, go read her later novel, The Last Man). It's also interesting to note how much of what we imagine to be in Frankenstein isn't there at all, but comes from later cinematic adaptations.
Magazines
Every year the BSFA produces a booklet that includes the shortlisted short stories (sometimes only extracts, if the stories are quite long), the shortlisted artwork, a list of the shortlisted novels, and extracts from the shortlisted non-fiction. I try to read the short fiction and non-fiction—it's a long time since I've been able to keep up with the novels. This year, the choice of story was very difficult; all of the stories were worthy of winning, and putting them in any sort of order was quite a challenge; my vote eventually went to Tobi Ogundiran's 'Isn't Your Daughter Such A Doll'. I felt that the non-fiction was a little more clear-cut. As you might guess, I believed that Paul Kincaid's The Unstable Realities of Christopher Priest was clearly a cut above everything else. The work that actually won, Adam Roberts' It's the End of the World: But What Are We All Afraid Of?, was to me, on the basis of the extract here, the weakest of the shortlist. But, obviously, the majority of voters didn't agree with me there.
Television
Magnificent. It's a shame the BBC didn't combine this with a showing of The Six Wives of Henry VIII, for which Elizabeth R is effectively Season 2. As a result, one doesn't quite get the resonances the original audience would have from knowing who some of the people who appear in episode 1 were. But it's not a big disadvantage, and it is a delight to see a lot of iconic actors in early roles―Robert Hardy pre-All Creatures Great and Small, Robin Ellis pre-Poldark, John Shrapnel pre-baldness. And at the centre is the 34-year-old Glenda Jackson, who takes Elizabeth from fifteen to 69, and never seems to be too old or too young for the part she is playing. It's a hard part for her to play―the script, especially in later episodes, generally presents Elizabeth as unknowable, someone for her council to negotiate around in order to get what they want, and her own agency appears slight. Nevertheless, a grand sign of how ambitious BBC drama once could be; I doubt a series like this would get six 90-minute episodes now.
Another #ClassicsTwitterMovie; my Twitter thread is here. About the time that Wolfgang Petersen was making Troy, this miniseries was also being produced. Before watching, I was sure that I had seen this at the time, but evidently this isn't the case. The miniseries doesn't have a good reputation, and it is definitely true that Guillory is a bit insipid in the lead role (and has to do some utterly gratuitous nudity), and overall, it's not terribly well directed, scripted or cast (despite the presence of just pre-fame James Callis and Emilia Fox as Menelaus and Cassandra respectively). But I've seen far worse, and this series definitely has its interesting moments, and makes some interesting choices early on. With regard to my Modern Adaptation of the Trojan War Tropes, it ticks off some (e.g. Helen is blond), but misses others (e.g. we get the sacrifice of Iphigenia). It even finds room for Theseus and Pirithous (played by Stellan Skarsgård and Jim Carter, who deserved their own show).
Virtual Theatre
Watched with the virtual theatre crew for Easter. I'd never seen any production of this, or listened to it all the way through. The Guardian hated this production, only really liking Chris Moyles as Herod Antipas (who is basically in it to be Chris Moyles, and if you don't like Moyles anyway, you won't like him here), But there is plenty to like about this production; Melanie Chisholm shows once again that she always was the Spice Girl with the best voice, and Tim Minchin as Judas is pretty good. But the end is horrible; all bright lights and scantily-clad angels, which one feels undermines the message of the Crucifixion.
This was this year's Oxford Greek Play, produced in a time of COVID, and so assembled in bedrooms and broadcast to the world. This is a highly innovative version of the play, and you can feel the queer energy that the creators brought to it. Which makes me a little sad that it all left me a bit cold. Best bit was Helen talking to Electra, speaking lines of Greek in a deliberately posh British accent. But you shouldn't take my word for it, you should watch it yourself.
Virtual theatre club pick; part of the BBC's Lights Up series. A fun one-man retelling of the Orpheus myth, relocating the character to a record shop. Rapper Testament gives a remarkable performance, accompanied only by two other actors in small roles, and a small number of musicians. I like the way that the story does not consider itself bound by the myth as generally understood. Still available on iPlayer.
Another virtual theatre club pick from Lights Out. In this one-woman play, the Antigone story is retold from the point of view of her sister Ismene. That's an interesting idea, but this production never seems to do anything much with it. What in Sophocles' text is a tale of the conflict between loyalty to the state and loyalty to the family and between sacred and profane laws, is reduced here to a family saga.
I have more to write up, but this post is already very long, so I shall save the rest for another time.
Monday, February 15, 2021
Things read and seen in 2021, #2
Oops! I have let this get away from me again (* indicates something watched/read for the first time).
Movies
A rewatch, in connection with it being both a set text for my Ancient Greece and Rome on the Big Screen course, and a #ClassicsTwitterMovie. To quote myself, from my course materials, 'Ben-Hur is not only the best version of the original source novel (though the 1925 silent version runs it a close second), it is generally considered the best of the Roman epics of the 1950s and 1960s. This position is deserved. It is genuinely a good movie, made by talent that was very much at the top of their game.' Part one of the #ClassicsTwitterMovie thread is here, and part two is here.
† According to the Writers' Guild of America; others, such as William Wyler and Charlton Heston, thought that Christopher Fry deserved a credit, and the script as finally seen is the product of input from over a dozen writers, producers, and others.
4. Live and Let Die (UK/USA, dir. Guy Hamilton, scr. Tom Mankiewicz, starring Roger Moore, Eon Productions, 1973)
The first Bond movie I ever saw in the cinema. I've always had an affection for it—Moore is still finding his way into the role, and so hasn't fallen into the bad habits that mar his later performances, the speedboat chase is great, and George Martin's score is the only Bond music to match John Barry until David Arnold came along. But what struck me this time is how horrifically racist this movie is. Inevitable, I suppose, with it being the 'blaxpolitation' Bond, but it really marred the experience this viewing.
An animated version of the classic tale, watched because I'd never seen it and thought it was about time I did. Charlton Heston introduces the movie from a comfortable study, narrates it and voices Judah Ben-Hur, and signs off as himself at the end. His final words are 'I'm Charlton Heston. Thanks for watching.' As this was the last movie he ever made, those words become an epitaph for his entire career, and a pretty appropriate one, I think. The movie itself is quite a compressed version of the original novel. There is a much stronger Christian message here than in either the 1925 silent version of the 1959 classic, and the screenplay draws upon the Four Gospels directly as well as upon Lew Wallace's novel, including things like the Massacre of the Innocents that Wallace omitted. Messala is also redeemed by the end, something that the 2016 remake also does. Overall, it's okay, but not better than the 1959 version.
Watched, for the first time, with the London Science Fiction Research Community. This is an interesting low-budget sf movie, from a time when a lot of similar movies were being made. The only Sayles movie I'd previously seen was The Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980), which actually feels as if it's been made on a larger budget, though it very definitely wasn't. Brother is about an alien who has been smuggled out from interstellar slavery (it's strongly hinted by an equivalent of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad), who then has to adjust to life in Harlem. New York of the 1980s is quite an alien place, especially to whites; there's a striking moment on the New York Subway where all the white people get off the train, to be replaced by blacks. This was definitely worth watching. It's slightly weird, has a social conscience without ever really preaching, and is in places quite funny. Sayles says it was about the immigrant experience, which is why it begins on Ellis Island.
I had been really looking forward to this, obviously. The first Wonder Woman remains the best of the DCEU movies (not that there is a lot of competition there). This was a bit, well, so-so. I thought killing off Steve Trevor was a bold move in Wonder Woman, and if they were going to bring him back, it would have to be in a way that didn't invalidate his sacrifice, i.e. Diana would have to give him up again. Apart from one horrible aspect, which Will Morgan has well detailed, I thought this was got right. Apart from that, there are two delightful moments, right at the beginning and right at the end, which warmed my fanboy heart, and the rest was standard superhero fare. It does all get a bit excessive at times (Geoff Johns' influence, I feel). And the 1984 setting doesn't entirely work; the movie is going for the strong sense of place that Captain Marvel managed so effortlessly, but it doesn't quite achieve it. Definitely not the breath of fresh air that the first movie was.
A rewatch for #ClassicsTwitterMovie. My Twitter thread is here. An excellent version of Shakespeare's play, with superb performances by Marlon Brando and John Gielgud, and pretty good ones by James Mason and Deborah Kerr. All productions of Julius Caesar are either Brutus plays or Antony plays, depending on directorial choice and actors' performances. Here, thanks to Brando, who is extraordinary, it's an Antony play. The movie is very studio-bound, and in consequence feels rather like a television production at times, except that no television production could have assembled a cast of this quality. Ten years later, director Mankiewicz tackled the same event in Cleopatra. More needs to be done, I think, in comparing his two Roman movies. Unfortunately, movies of Shakespeare's Roman plays are something of a neglected area of classical reception studies, which I'd like to see more people working on.
Apparently the critics were lukewarm to hostile about this adaptation of Michael Frayn's stage farce. I can't think why. Frayn himself liked it. And actually, it's pretty funny. Act Two, where backstage descends into slapstick chaos while on stage the play proceeds apparently smoothly, is done particularly well; it requires expert timing, and here that is delivered by a set of comic actors right at the very top of their game. John Ritter deserves special mention. He never got the recognition he deserved, probably due to snobbery about the fact that he spent much of his career in television sitcoms. But here he's excellent, right up there with screen comedy greats such as Peter Sellers. And the relocation of the setting from England to the US allows jokes to be made about the excruciating English accents everyone puts on. Even Denholm Elliott, basically dying of AIDS by this point (this was his last movie), is great in the role of somebody who's meant to be not as good as they once were.
10. Away From It All (UK, 1979)
As part of my prep for watching Life of Brian again, I decided to revisit the two supporting features that accompanied the movie on its initial release. Away From It All is a parody of the dreadful travelogues that accompanied movies in British cinemas in the 1970s. Indeed, so successful is this in capturing the style that, when I first saw it, I was entirely taken in until five minutes had passed, when there is a line about leaving Venice 'slowly sinking in the west', and was only certain it was a piss-take when I got to the section on Bulgaria: 'take one photograph of the wrong building here, and they're taping electrodes to your reproductive organs'. Also, as this opens with Rome, there's lots of material for the Classical Reception scholar.
This animated short was created by Gilliam for the 1968 Christmas special of Do Not Adjust Your Set, a children's comedy series for which Gilliam did animated material, and which was written by and starred Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Eric Idle (also starring David Jason and Denise Coffey). As you might expect, it is a sequence of traditional Christmas card images, brought to life in a typical Gilliamesque format. It accompanied Life of Brian, and set up a joke in the opening credits of that movie.
12. Monty Python's Life of Brian (UK, dir. Terry Jones, scr. & starring Graham Chapman & John Cleese & Terry Gilliam & Eric Idle & Terry Jones & Michael Palin, Python (Monty) Pictures/Handmade Films, 1979)
13. Fellini Satyricon (Italy, dir. Federico Fellini, scr. Federico Fellini & Bernardino Zapponi, starring Martin Potter, Hiram Heller, Max Born, Salvo Randone, and Magali Noël, Produzioni Europee Associati/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1969)
14. Star Trek: Beyond (USA, dir. Justin Linn, scr. Simon Pegg & Doug Jung, starring John Cho, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, and Idris Elba, Bad Robot/Sneaky Shark Productions/Perfect Storm Entertainment, 2016)*
15. Alexander (USA/UK/Germany/Netherlands/France/Italy/Morocco/Thailand, dir. Oliver Stone, scr. Oliver Stone and Christopher Kyle and Laeta Kalogridis, starring Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto, Rosario Dawson, and Anthony Hopkins, Warner Bros./Intermedia Films/Pacifica Film, 2004)
1. Ben
Hur (USA, TV miniseries, dir. Steve Shill, scr. Alan Sharp, starring
Joseph Morgan, Stephen Campbell Moore, and Emily VanCamp, Akkord Film
Produktion GmbH/Drimtim Entertainment/FishCorb Films, 2 episodes, 2010)*
Another movie on my ancient world movies course, and a #ClassicsTwitterMovie; my Twitter thread is here. I think, apart from a few moments (the Stan/Loretta gags being most obvious), this still stands up after over forty years. Everyone is at the top of their game (a phrase I grossly overuse), and there's hardly a moment wasted, which is more than can be said for a lot of Python product. Standout scenes remain the haggling, the stoning, Spike Milligan upstaging everyone else, 'What have the Romans ever done for us?', and pretty much all of it, really. Very controversial at the time, but these days it all seems rather tame. This has possibly robbed the movie of some of its power to make its audience think again about their attitudes to religion, and in particular group think. 'You don't have to follow anybody' is a message we could still do with paying attention to.
Another movie from my ancient world movies course, and another #ClassicsTwitterMovie. The thread is here. Fellini Satyricon is a movie that I always found 18-21-year-old undergraduates had a problem with. I can understand that; it's a difficult movie. Even I'm not sure whether I actually like it. And I suspect Fellini didn't mean me to know. What I will say is that this was the first time I had actually watched it through in a while, and I certainly find it a rewarding experience, and there are new subtleties that emerge with each viewing. And I will also reiterate my feeling that Fellini intends a lot of what he puts on screen to be funny, sometimes, I think, laugh-out-loud funny. I really must watch more of his work, as it would no doubt provide a better context. And it's a movie that I think deserves to be in any course on antiquity and cinema, because it has influenced so much that follows (Gladiator, in particular, has Fellini's fingerprints all over it).
I'd rather let this slip by on first release. I'd not been that impressed by the first two reboots, especially Into Darkness, and so I had low expectations for this. But it was free on Prime, so I thought, 'why not?' And I found that it's a lot better than the two Abrams-directed examples. For the first time, I found I could actually believe in Chris Pine as Jim Kirk. And I admire the movie's chutzpah; there are some things (e.g. the use of The Beastie Boys' 'Sabotage') that it just shouldn't be allowed to get away with, and yet it does.
And yet another #ClassicsTwitterMovie. My Twitter thread is here. There's no arguing that this movie isn't a mess. Stone took ages to find a structure he was happy with, long after the movie's official release. I think a lot of the problem is that the shape of Alexander's life defeats dramatic structure. But there's also no denying that the movie is a thoughtful one, and I think a lot of critics had difficulty with it because they weren't prepared for this level of thoughtfulness, or simply couldn't cope with the way Alexander's sexuality refuses to fit into the neat boxes they would prefer. This killed off a rival movie version that would have been directed by Baz Luhrmann and produced by Dino de Laurentiis. Some claim that this version would have been more restrained and tasteful than Stone's version, which I find very odd.
Television
Again, watched in connection with my class on the 1959 movie, and because I had never seen it and thought I ought to. If you've never seen it either, don't bother. This is the toxic masculinity version of Ben-Hur, with both Judah and Messala behaving like arses throughout. It is notable for several cameos from actors who are better than the material, such as Alex Kingston as Judah's mother (here named Ruth), Ray Winstone as Quintus Arrius, and Art Malik, an actual Muslim playing Sheik Ilderim! Also features the most rubbish version of the chariot race; they couldn't afford a proper circus, and so the race is done cross-country, like an ancient Roman rally-cross. This is the only version of the story, apart from the 1959 movie, in which Messala dies of wounds received in the race, though here he an Judah are reconciled before he dies. Emily VanCamp makes the best of what little she is given.
I saw most of this last year, but finished off the last couple of episodes last month. And oh, it's a delight. Based on Luke Pearson's Hildafolk graphic novels, which I haven't read but get good write-ups, Hilda is about the adventures of a young girl in a Nordic land where fantastic elements such as trolls, giants, elfs, and other magical creatures are all treated as part of everyday life. I particularly like the woffs, big balls of fur with tails that fly through the air in large groups, and are just treated as something that needs no particular explanation. There's good characterisation for Hilda, her mother Johanna, her friends David and Frida, and various other recurring figures, such as the Wood Man, a man made of wood who casually walks into anyone's home like he owns the place. It's intended as a children's series, of course, but I recommend it to anyone who likes the mythology of Scandinavia, presented in a nice, homely fashion. The second season has now dropped, and I'm looking forward to that.
Well, here's something that has really divided my friends. Half of them really like it, and the other half really don't. I am in the former group. I like the characters. I like the way the show pokes fun at Trek tropes whilst nevertheless remaining Star Trek. I like the way that all the races that appeared in one episode and were then never seen again are back—look there's an Edoan! I think it's worth persisting with, as it gets better as it goes along; the last episode in particular goes places I really was not expecting it to go.
Made to mark the four hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, an ambitious version of Hamlet, shot at Elsinore castle itself. That might seem like a gimmick, but what a cast they assembled! Christopher Plummer as the Prince, delivering a performance reminiscent of his later Wellington, but very effective. Michael Caine as Horatio! Robert Shaw as Claudius! Donald Sutherland as Fortinbras (okay, so Sutherland's accent is ridiculous). When this was shot in September 1963, Shaw had made From Russia With Love, but it wouldn't be released until October, Caine had made Zulu, but it wouldn't be released until January 1964, and Plummer had made The Fall of the Roman Empire, but this wouldn't be released until March. When this was broadcast, all three had big Hollywood movies to their names (albeit Fall of the Roman Empire was a flop, and Plummer would have to wait until The Sound of Music to have a hit). The cast is captured at the one point when it would be possible to have all these three in a BBC Shakespeare. Well worth tracking down.
Comics
I reread this prior to reading the first issue of Kieron Gillen's new Eternals series, which I recently reviewed for FA. Some years back, I reviewed Gaiman's version for The Slings and Arrows Graphic Novel Guide. I now think that review was rather ungenerous; I was probably in a grumpy mood, and overcompensating for those who sometimes say 'It's Gaiman, so it must be brilliant' (I agree Gaiman has done some brilliant things—Stardust, most of Sandman, the Fairyland issue of Books of Magic—but I judge each piece of writing on its merits). I appreciated the writing rather more on a second read through, and the characterisation is pretty strong. And John Romita Jr's art is nice. Gaiman's Eternals works quite well as a not-bad piece of superhero storytelling. However, I'm still not convinced it's Gaiman's best writing in the genre, and I'm still not sure that Gaiman manages to make the Eternals work in the Marvel Universe. But then I'm not sure anyone ever managed that, including Jack Kirby.
Who doesn't like She-Hulk? Bruce Banner's fun-loving, angst-free, superheroically-confident cousin. I read this to do a review of the Omnibus (and its constituent volumes, The Sensational She-Hulk by John Byrne and The Sensational She-Hulk: The Return) for Slings and Arrows, so I'm afraid you'll have to wait till those reviews come out to find out what I actually thought. Actually, part of this was a reread, as another constituent part is a 1985 Marvel Graphic Novel, and that I already reviewed, so you can get a bit of an idea of my views. I will say that I think these stories are significantly better than the pervious run of She-Hulk, reviews of which are also on their way from Slings and Arrows.
Virtual theatre
Swingin' the Dream was a jazz adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, staged in 1939, directed by Erik Charell, and featuring Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman, among other luminaries. It ought to have been a massive hit. Instead, it was a huge flop. The RSC are attempting to recreate the play, which is not an easy task. Only a few torn pages of the script have survived, and the rest needs to be reconstructed from photos, the playbill, the known cast and songs that were included, and what was written about the production at the time. This is an early go at that, mostly consisting of the songs, and commentary to cover the gaps between them. Perfectly pleasant jazz numbers, but one feels a great loss at what might have been restaged, if only we knew more.
I put this here, because it was a stage production filmed on the stage of the Harold Pinter in London, and initially shown in cinemas, though I saw it on BBC4 (well, on the iPlayer actually, where you can still watch it). My this is a cheery piece and no mistake! We are all doomed to unhappiness in this life, but that's fine, we can be happy in the afterlife (if we believe in that). One of the tragedies of Uncle Vanya is that it's clear that everyone has been having these conversations over and over again, and can't escape them. Still, superb performances by an exceptional cast.
Aside from the stage direction 'Exit, pursued by a bear', The Winter's Tale is not a Shakespeare play I'm familiar with. I really should be, as it is set in the world of ancient Greece, or at least Shakespeare's version of that, complete with sending a message to the Oracle at Delphi. I have to say, this production did not win me over. I think it is not the Bard at his best, and one of those 'comedies' that remind us that The Merchant of Venice is also among the comedies. In the first half, an increasingly paranoid Leontes destroys his life, losing his son and wife, culminating in a scene that is played as if it is the origin for a Batman villain. In the second half, we get a Bohemia that is characterised as Ireland, and an Ireland that largely resembles the Ireland of Father Ted. I found the changes of tone threw me out of the production somewhat. I'd like to see another production of this some time, to see if my problems are with this production in particular, or with the play in general.
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