Movies at Home: The Deadly Affair, Open Fire and Arabesque

 

The Deadly Affair is an adaptation of John Le Carre's first book Call for the Dead. Here George Smiley is called Charles Dodds as Paramount had gained copyright for Smiley's name when they released The Spy who came in from the cold. Dodds is played by James Mason, I thought an odd choice, especially as Alec Guines wonderfully restrained in Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy. Mason shouts far too much, especially when he talks to his wife Ann (her name the same as the book) played by Harriet Anderson. I felt there was far too much about their relationship and not enough about the story.

Dodds talks to Samuel, a member of his organisation, in a park, almost an interrogation. But later Samuel is found dead.  When Dodds visits the bereaved wife (Simone Signoret) he becomes suspicious. And so the plot thickens. I liked the London scenes of 1967, it looks pretty grimy down The Embankment and Battersea Power Station. I thought that Harry Andrews was best thing about the film as an MI5 operative called Mendel.

I was not sure why we see rehearsals for Macbeth, except that there was an early role for Lynne Redgrave as teenage dogsbody Virgin Bumpus. She was brilliant. Of course it's Dodds whose plan at the end comes to fruition and the spies are dealt with. This was not a great movie, but intereting all the same.

Open Fire is actually a 1994 made for TV film. I have included it here as it was one of the first directed by Paul Greengrass. Based on the true story about gay criminal and nasty transvestite David Martin played by Rupert Graves. We are the 1970's, it's seedy and violent and so are the police. We follow Martin and his robbery'sincluding where he is discovered and shoots a member of the constabulary. The film explores his sexuality and his relationship with Sue Stephens played by Kate Hardie.

I liked how Martin's escape from custody was so well filmed, and the subsequent police search and a chase on foot through Hampstead Underground Station. Leading the police was Jim Carter (from Downton Abbey) as Detective Chief Superintendant Young. He makes the arrest. This was after one of them shot Stephen Waldorf by mistake. The film looked as dirty as it's subject matter.

I may not have seen Arabesque since I saw it in the cinema in 1966. Based on the 19061 novel The Cipher, it stars Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in a Stanley Donen movie. Typical of it's time (unfortunately) it did win a BAFTA for best cinematography. But the whole thing looked like a Bond rip off and other scenes straight from North by Northwest. We are never quite sure whose side anyone is on as poor hapless Peck struggles through, chasing a scrap of paper with some hyroglyphics. 

This was a follow up for director Stanley Donen following his far more successful Charade. (See my review 19th April 2020). However there is one interesting scene of a building site where the builder was Cubitts. A wonderful firm back then called Holland, Hannen and Cubitts. Taken over by Tarmac who went bust in 1976.

Mark Kermode's Surround Sound - Part 2

 

Chapter 3  The Director's Vision

Mark starts this long chapter with Jordan Peele's creepy debut film Get Out where composer Michael Abels also scored his first film. We hear lots about the relationship between the director and composer. As an example Mark talks about the composer Anne Dudley working with director Paul Verhoeven. Anne talks to Mark about how a director might have trouble with a piece of orchestration, whether too fast, not fast enough, too loud or too soft, or even the wrong instrument. 

Mark mentions one theme from Manchester by the Sea. Director Kenneth Lonergan won the Oscar for best original screenplay, but according to Mark, let everyone down by ignoring Lesley Barber's score for the movie's most dramatic sequence and instead the oh so familiar Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor. Mark says "the result is disastrous". (Yes it's familiar but not worth the criticism.)

There is a lot about a technique some directors use called "temp tracks". They lay down some pre-existing music over a rough cut of the movie to get the composer started. Some of them hate this. We hear some examples. Then with big studio films, the composer might not just be inconverstion with the director, but also the producers, music supervisors and the editor without even the director being there. (These people tell the director separately what they think of the music).

More interestingly, we hear about partnerships between director and composer such as Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone (A Fistfull of Dollars etc), and Christopher Nolan and Hans Zimmer (Interstellar etc) Paul Thomas Anderson and Johnny Greenwood (There will be Blood etc), David Cronenberg and Howard Shore (Cosmopolis etc) and Yorgos Lanthimos and Jerskin Fendrix (Poor Things).  I'm surprised I have seen all these. Mark says about the last of these "the most adventurously inventive scotre of 2023", and that the director had asked for ther score before the film was even shot and (miraculously, 95% ended up in the film. Mark ends this chapter with a favourite film of his called Out of Blue. (No, this is one film I have not seen, nor has hardly anyone else). Loosely based on the Martin Amis 1997 novel Night Train. Mark loves the score and the film that did rather badly at the box office.

Soundtrack Selection -  Under the Skin (2013)

Maybe I'm one of the few people who went to see this film. Scarlett Johanson is an alien finding her way on Earth. Mark loves the soundtrack by British composer Mica Levi. You can hardly call it music, more just sounds. Not easy l;istening to it on it's own, but somehow matches the movie for it's strangeness. Mark thinks it "lends cohesion to a film that occasionally threatens to fall apart". I can agree with that. We hear about Levi's  other scores for films like Zone of Interest. 

Chapter 4   How did we get here?

Part 2 - From Goldsmith to Gudnadottir

Despite Mark's accolades for composer John Williams, he tells us he just prefers the music of Jerry Goldsmith. We hear a lot about his soundtracks. As we do for his "challenging" music. Next comes a part about composer Anne Dudley. (See my posts of 22nd April 2022 where there is a huge amount about her scores for so many films. And then on 24th June 2022 about her work with ABC, next on 15th August 2018 and January 2019 about the souindtrack for Mama Mia and 6th May 2022 for her work on Benedetta). Mark reminds us that Anne actually won an Oscar for scoring The Full Monty and only the second woman to do so. I did not know that. We hear about her career with the Art of Noise and working with many icons in the pop music industry. She scored so many films of which I was not aware. 

Mark describes Hans Zimmer as "the current blockbuster composer of the day" with over 200 films in over 40m years and two Oscars. He also presents live shows. We hear all about all the big movies that he scored and his work with Christopher Nolan. The stories about Hannibal and Dune are amazing. I had not heard of the next composer Shirley Walker or why she "held the record for composing more original scores for major studio features than any other woman". She scored many super hero movies and three Final Destination films. Next is Rachel Portman whose score for Emma (1997) won the Oscar. Her work includes radio and TV s well as films like The Cider House Rules and Chocolat which was also Oscar nominated. 

Mark says that Enrico Morricone being prolific is not the word with over 500 film and TV scores. I'm just not sure Mark's listin of so many does the book any favours. I wanted more about the person or some anecdotes. Like the fact that he didn't win an Oscar until 2016 for Taratino's The Hateful Eight. Lists again for A R Rahman, his Oscar and nominations. Icelamdic composer Johann Johansson gets a mention for Arrival and Hildur Guonadottir for Joker.

Soundtrack Selection - Drive My Car (2021)

Drive My Car is a wonderful film, and saved on my TV recordings. Ryusuke Hamaguchi's film was the first Japanese film to be nominated for a best picture Oscar. (Should have won). It did win best International Feature and nominations for best doirector and best adapted screenplay. Mark tells us this was his favourite score for that year composed by Eiko Ishibashi and is now a favourite album. But he calls it a strange film (I don't know why, its perfect). Mark describes the instruments the composer used that "feels like scenery" just as the director wanted. (Eiko's favourite film composer is John Barry, as he is mine. So why is he hardly mentioned in the book!) Where is his score for Out of Africa not mentioned. Just because it is too popular does not mean it's great and so much better than lots of movies that are mentioned. And Mark, it won the Oscar! Anyway, Mark completes this part with "it defies clinical assessment" and "the music is the movie". How can he be so wrong.

Chapter 5   The Long and Winding Road

From Compostion to Orchestration (and occasionally rejection)

This section starts with Elmer Bernstien who scored more than 150 films. Why must Mark just list so many. Better is stuff about composers and their own techniques for the process, Some might go into the studio with just the story, others with the full screenplay. All sorts of differnet ways. Isabel Waller-Bridge wants to see the picture with all it's visuals. Michel Jarr researched everything about Laurence of Arabia before starting on his score. We hear lost od anecdotes about ridiculous deadlines for the music. And even a composer's score being ditched completely for someone new. There are instances when a film and it's score have been fully completed, only for the studio to cancel it's distribution. 

There is a great part about Abbey Road Studios. Who and what was recorded there. John Barrett, the studio engineer there, tells us about everything that goes into a recording session. From the musicians to instruments, orchestrators music editors and lots more. In the booth there might be producers and others connected to the film, all wanting their say. There is a huge amount here about the ways the soundtrack ncan be recorded, lots of anecdotes and technical stuff. Really amazing what goes on. All very interesting. Mark end this part with "watching an orchestra play note perfect a piece they are rfeading for the very first time always seems like an extraordinary magic trick". But that's what they do. 

Soundtrack Selection - Brazil (1985)

Is "Terry Gilliam's dystopian masterpiece" going toom far? Mark goes to the "devasating ending" which includes  Michael Kamen's Bachianos Brazil Samba. The composer remembers one time when he thought he was being ditched for another composer. But Gilliam stuck by him. The whole soundtrack is worked around that piece. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, this was the first their after it's major upgrade. For Mark, we have to "abandon reality and let our musical thoughts take flight". Well, I have not seen this film for a long time so I cannot comment. Maybe do some research.

Kingfisher at the Canal

I had just started on my way back home, walking down the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal, when I saw a flash of blue in the trees. I only had my phone with me that has a very poor camera. But both these photos do have a speck of blue if you look hard enough. A beautiful kingfisher.

As I walked down the canal path, the bird flew from tree to tree just ahead. And I followed just behind. I stopped when the kingfisher stopped. Once near the end of this section of the canal path, a lady coming towards me from the opposite direction also stopped when I pointed out the bird, for which she was delighted. I just wish I had my camera.

 

28 Years Later : The Bone Temple, Hamnet and Mercy

 

I only went to see 28 Years Later : The Bone Temple as I had seen the previous three. See my posts of 20th June 2025 (28 Days Later), 4th June 2007 (28 Weeks Later) and 15th July 2025 (28 Years Later). The only good thing about the latest movie is Ralph Fiennes reprising his role from the previous film. This time a violent mob has been parachuted in from A Clockwork Orange but far less interesting. Actually, the second half is far better than the awful first with all it's gratuitous violnce. Surprisingly, we see little of the undead in this version. The ending is pretty spectacular as the ghastly leader of the mob gets his just deserts in the worst way imaginable. But I wish I hadn't bothered.

Let me start by saying the book by Maggie O'Farrell is a wonder. Less so is it's adaptation to a play at the RSC Stratford and here a similar disapointment. So much of the book is fabulous prose that is so hard to capture in a film. Director Chloe Zhao may have been selected after her superb Nomadland, but here she seems to have plumped for a kind of art house film. Visions of a tree at the very beginning is always a give away. A pastoral saga? Maybe I know the story too well, but the family drama that takes up most of the movie is not that interesting. Scenes of birth, for example, take up too much time. The film's success relies on the magical and very last act at the Globe Theatre. And although, like Mark Kermode, even though I was not moved to tears with the ending scored by Max Richter's obvious On the nature of daylight, it is still a very clever piece of theatre. The film almost topples those brilliant last dozen pages of the book. 

As for the cast, I must be in a minority thinking that the two Irish actors in the lead roles were right in your face, thinking look at me. There was no subtlety from Jessie Buckley as Agnes nor from Paul Mescal as William. Again except for the ending.  I wanted paired back performances. Fortunately those came from Joe Alwyn as Bartholamew and Emily Watson as the mother. Maybe I loved the book too much. The film itself may have been aimed at a young audience coming to the play for the first time with all that intensity. That's my only reason why it won best picture at the Golden Globes and with all those nominations for an Oscar.  Is this a mainly woman's film? The writer, director and lead actress tells us about falling in love, birthing children, and bringing them up with an absent father. That is ninety percent of the movie. 

The critic's reviews were mainly positive. Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian gave it five stars. Nicolas Rapolo in Sight and Sound magazine describes it as "an immersive account of the desire, grief, love and anger that that course between a woman and her playwright husband". I was more interested, as was someone on mumsnet, with the Echinacea next to where Agnes was working in the garden. Back to thje book, and will always remember meeting Maggie O'Farrell at the Hay Literary Festival where she signed her latest book. 

I was trying to think where I had seen something similar to Mercy. I find that might have been Searching (2018) where similar events are played out on a computer screen. Here it's Chris Pratt (I didn't think he could be this good) locked in a chair and given ninety minutes to give A I  interogator Rebecca Ferguson enough reason to exonerate him from the killing of his wife. Because we are way into the future, every event is held in banks of video that Chris can call on as evidence.

I liked the fact that early on he is full of anger that hinders this process. But of course in all these things, he gradually gets himself together and prove what a great investigator he rerally is. So we have stacks of video filling the screen with huge energy. The story is at first a slow burner that gradually gathers pace with a resulting last act that is fast, derivative, complicated and totally bonkers. But what went before was jolly interesting. It certainly had to be seen in the cinema. 

Mark Kermode's Surround Sound - Part 1

 

Opening Titles - "Just the Music"

Just a note before I start. There is quite a lot to write about from Mark Kermode's Surround Sound. So as I did for Greg Doran's My Shakespeare, I will give each chapter it's own post. Mark starts at the beginning with his early years when he became interested in the music in films. Starting with 2001 and Silent Running. He says that in the latter, Joan Baez had two songs of which Rejoice in the Sun is his favourite movie soundtrack song of all time. So we gather that from a young age, Mark has always loved music in movies. He runs through many of his fvourite soundtracks, too many to mention. 

Mark talks about his five years at Scala Radio and meeting Simon Mayo with whom he still works on their podcast. There is a section on female composers of film scores. One example is Eiko Ishibashi who scored the wonderful Drive my Car (2021). "My favourite soundtrack of that year, and one of the finest of the 21st century" says Mark. 

This first chapter seems to be, as Mark puts it, "a seemingly endless list of composers". As he says "my own personal experience of film music is both scattershot and shambolic". (I would not argue with that given the first sixteen pages of the book). Better is the description of the racks of vinyl records at 58 Dean Street where it was "an education" for all those film soundtracks. (This is well before the internet). He goes on to talk more about his five years with Jenny Nelson at Scala Radio. Jenny presented Classic FM's "Saturday Night at the Movies". 

But Mark's favoured brand of music was .... skiffle. (See posts of 28th February and 28th March 2018). He talks about Neil Brand and his "peerless ability" to perform improvised piano accompanyment for silent cinema, and who had joined Mark's skiffle group (The Dodge Brothers) to play for old movies at the Midnight Sun Film Festival in Finland. The band also had a gig at Glasonbury playing to a silent movie.

Chapter 1 - Never Silent

This chapter is all about the days of silent movies and how the musical accompanyment grew to support them. Apparently that in the UK it was the old music halls that began to show these films and already had an established orchestra who could provide the music. There were musical directors who began organising the score to fit each scene. Sometimes the film would arrive with the score written specifically for that performance and others relied on classic choices.

Mark goes on to talk about the first film to have synchronised music in 1927's The Jazz Singer. It's success led to every film having a musical soundtrack. But even today, you can still find old silent movies being shown with live music.

See my post of 27th September 2023 : "The Story of British Cinema" on Sky Arts : "The Pioneer Years".

Soundtrack Selection - "It's a Wonderful Life"

Mark says this is "my favourite Christmas movie". (It's my least favourite.) Skipping the story and background to this oh so familiar film, we get to the composer of the score. Dimitri Tiomkin conducted an eighty piece orchestra and a choir of forty. Born in Russia, Dimitri became the "highest paid film composer in Hollywood". He gained twenty two oscar nominations and won four times. These imncluded The Ballad of High Noon which used to be played regularly on the radio.

Chapter 2 - "How did we get here?"

Part 1: From Korngold to Williams

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was an Austrian composer. There is an early mention of his score for the 1968 film Karakatoa, East of Java. (Full movie on YouTube). Mark goes on to list all the films he scored. Did he create the symphonic film score? I was amazed that his first two films won the oscar for best music. Although it was the studio's head of department who received the trophy. He had to wait until 1939 to win an oscar under his own name for The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Doreen Carwithen was the world's first female film composer. In 1941 she won the Aylesbury Music Scholarship. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music and went on to write the scores for over thirty films as well as other music. Mark tells us there was a "depth and complexityto her music as well as a spirited tunefullness". (See Men of Sherwood Forest (1954). There is in her honour, the Carwithen Music Festival at Haddenham in Buckinghamshire every July at St Mary's Church. There is a plaque at No 8 High Street where she was born. 

A long section follows about Usha Khanna and Bollywood in general. There is, of course, a part about A R Rhaman (Slumdog Millionaire). Then here comes Bernard Herrman who composed the music for over two hundred movies! A few are described here. Then on to John Williams and his fifty year collaboration with Stephen Spielberg. Mark is in awe of this peerless composer. Obviously, there is much more to come on these later in the book. 

Soundtrack Selection - Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Mark thinks that this film is "not universally one of his best". (I think it's one you can see time and again, don't know why). There is a lot of familiar background to the film before we get to the score by Jocelyn Pook. This British viola player toured with The Communards for many years.There is an interesting background to how and why director Stanley Kubrick found her. Mark explains how some of the music was composed and recorded before some scenes were shot so it could be played at the same time. Twenty five minutes of her score made it to the final film. Jocelyn talks about how she felt "out of her depth" and only knew for sure that her music was used was when she saw the final finished film. Mark concludes "It's a credit to Pook's genius that, whether one loves or hates Eyes Wide Shut, it is impossible to imagine the film without her music. It really is the very best thing about Kubrick's flawed swansong. Without it, the movie would simply fall apart".

Movies at Home: North by Northwest, Pixie and The Eternal Daughter

 

Despite seeing numerous extracts from North by Northwest, I don't think I had ever seen the full movie. This Alfred Hitchcock classic from 1959 did not disappoint. When David Thomson in his book Have You Seen ..... talks about the director's film Vertigo that he loves to death, but then now "realised, for the first time, that North by Northwest is better". I have to agree. Here "fears are rendered as comedy". The all star cast are superb, as is Bernard Herman's score.

Olivia Cooke is excellent as Pixie in this comedy thriller set in the west of Ireland. She is the stepdaughter of a small time gangster and teams up with a couple of useless young men when a bag of loot falls into their laps. Pixie is attractive and cunning in a film that is described as "Father Ted meets Tarantino". Yes, there is violence and the shoot out is straight from one of the latter's movies.

The real gangster is Father Hector played by Alec Baldwin as a rogue criminal with a gang of hoodlums. Directed with gusto by Barnaby Thomson and quite well written by his son Preston, Thank goodness for something original and witty. 

The Eternal Daughter is the first film I have seen by writer/director Joanna Hogg. (Her two films called The Souvenier are on BBC iPlayer). Tilda Swinton plays both filmaker Julie and her mother Rosalind who arrive at this isolated hotel in the dead of night. Rosalind remembers it as a mansion where she stayed as a young woman. But not everything seems right. Are there any other guests or is this all in someone's imagination. There seems to be just the receptionist, but who does the cooking? 

The film is very slow, but somehow has its' moments. When the mother and daughter talk it is much more interesting. The mother can be a little fractious and the daughter seems on edge. But the scenes with the two are fine. Julie is here to write her next film, but hardly gets a word down on her laptop. There are strange noises in the night that gets her out of bed.  Is this a kind of ghost story? The ending tells us all.

Oscar and Bafta nominations for Sentimental Value

 

My film of the year Sentimental Value earned nine nominations for a 2026 Oscar, (only two foreign language films gained more, ten for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Roma (2018),) and it should have been more. Here they are:

Best Picture
Best International Feature Film
Best Director
Best Actress in a Leading Role: Renate Reinsve
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Stellan Skarsgård
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Elle Fanning
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas
Best Writing (Original Screenplay)
Best Film Editing

How can a film earn nominations in all four acting categories and not earn a nomination for best casting beats me. There were also eight nominations for this film at the Baftas.

The film that beat it to the Palme d'Or at Cannes, It was just an accident only gained three Oscar nominations and just one for the Baftas.