On a short walk yesterday I found the lane to the church was flooded. With the heavy rain in the last week, the bridge over Wendover Brook could not cope and the water spilled out down the lane. The bridge over the brook restricts the flow and it comes out in a torrent as the picture below.
Having read all the other eight novels by Ann Patchett, I thought that this was the best. And that is saying something. We are in lockdown and Lara's three grown daughters are home to help with picking cherries on their parent's huge farm in Michigan. They take the opportunity to hear their mothers' story about when she was a young actress and met and performed with the budding star Peter Duke. But before that, the first nine pages (possibly the best introduction to a novel ever) Lara and her friend Veronica are still at school, helping to register people for their audition for a part in an adult amateur production of "Our Town" in the school gym. When Lara's grandmother turns up, Veronica asks her "Do you want a part? I know people, I can make you a star". "Veronica loved my grandmother. Everyone did".
But Lara's daughters, Emily, Maisie and Nell are desperate to hear about Duke, the famous actor who knew their mother at the start of his career. Lara tells us they are "waiting to hear the parts I'm never going to tell them". There are countless clever and emotional parts too numerous to mention. Early on at seventeen, Lara is in California for a screen test. There is an outdoor pool. "We need to see you swim". "Seriously? I wondered how cold the water was because that's the first thing a person from New Hampshire thinks about when someone starts talking about swimming". Little do they know.
Much later at Tom Lake, Lara is a late stand-in to play Emily in, yes, "Our Town". Where she meets Duke. This is why her girls are so interested in her story. But will they ever get the cherries picked. "We do not stop for snow in North Michigan. Schools open. Buses run". I loved who the girls were and how different they are. There is a lovely contrast between young love and Lara's marriage to Joe. Lara tells us "I learned so many things that summer at Tom Lake and most of those lessons I could have done without".
This book has made me want to watch Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town". The author loves it. Paul Newman stars as the Stage Manager in a performance on YouTube.
Isabella, middle aged and not so recently bereaved, is visited by an old friend Vinny. She lives in a small seaside resort next to the pier. Her son Laurence is a recruit in the army and visits when he can. The book was written in 1953 so there was still National Service at that time. Vinny becomes a lodger in a house that belongs to Rose Kelsey (also bereaved) and her sister Emily. "He imagined his room having once been the housekeepers sitting room ..... a sealed off part of the house". (Reminding me at eighteen of my tiny bedroom only accessed off some steep narrow back stairs with it's cupboard like door into the dining room).
Apart from Vinny's mother who comes to stay (at her favourite shop "asking lots of questions about things she had no intention of buying") and a family boarding for the summer, that's the full cast of this story about secrets. Vinny falls for the injured Emily (what was she doing in the car that killed Rose's husband), although he already has a wife of sorts. "His inability to to cross the gap from wooing to lovemaking, and many unconcluded love affairs, had left him with a large circle of female friends". His pursuit of Emily is a strange affair: "an elderly man behaving like a love lorn youth". And already married. Not Taylor's best work, but her prose is as haunting and witty as ever.
Ian Nathan introduced this episode by telling us that released in 1959, I'm All Right Jack became top of the British box office and the number one film of that year. Steve Punt thought it was a "state of the nation" film. The cast is awesome. Peter Sellers has graduated from being a comedy actor (first coming to prominence in the BBC radio programme "The Goon Show" (never missed an episode) was not mentioned) to a film star alongside Ian Carmichael (the posh twit), Terry Thomas, Dennis Price, Richard Attenborough, Irene Handel, Margaret Rutherford and John Le Mesurier.
Directed by John Boulting and produced by his brother Roy (both committed liberals), we heard about how they interchanged roles on some of the series of comedies they made. These included Brighton Rock also featured in this series. They used lots of location filming with an "ex Steven Armstrong went on to say that this film was a "social satire" and a clash between the workers (always looking after number one) and management who all seemed upper class idiots. Neil thought they stuck with an exaggerated plot and that it was a "jaundiced view of life" of Britain in the 1950's.
Steven Armstrong discussed the emergence of the country from the second world war (that was never discussed) how the country was changing with a new consumer society and emerging teenagers (including me). The film was a "parody of the angry young men of the 50's" (not me). Based on the 1958 novel Private Life by Alan Hackney, it shows how the country was changing, An in depth feature about Peter Sellers included how he was given carte blanche to create his character of the bolshi shop steward. He also plays the fusty upper class character who starts the film on his own in his club. He makes the movie. Ian Carmichael is also superb, his character "just out of university" from Oxford. Steve Punt thinks he feels as if he can do anything.
Steven's explanation of how the film compares the cads and bounders of the upper class with the lazy working class on the make is quite something. Even the emerging middle class gets a mention. This is the best film criticism of the series so far. It seems quite like a historical document that still reverberates today. I will watch the film in a couple of weeks time.
The full page review in September's Sight and Sound Magazine was enough to take me to Berkhamsted and the Rex Cinema. Based on the 1934 play Mon crime by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil, it is the kind of farce in which the French specialise. Although it does start with someone being shot. The suspect is beautiful blonde Madeleine (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) who lives poorly in a tiny Paris apartment with budding lawyer Pauline (Rebecca Marder). Her trial is a farce as the two women turn it into a story about the oppression of women.
Director Francois Ozon has adapted the book with Phillipe Piazzo. It is fast and clever. There are lots of laughs to be had along the way. And who should turn up over half way through but the wonderful Isabelle Huppert as the faded silent movie star Odette Chaumette. The men are far less sympathetic. From the lawyers, to the judge, the boyfriend, his father and an industrialist. It's all great fun. The scenery from the 1930's is wonderful, as are the costumes and cars. I loved it.
There is one very subtle idea of a one way relationship. Look at the lawyer Pauline's eyes as she looks up at Madeleine in the dock. Unrequited love that is never explained. Thank goodness.
Ginette Vicendeau in Sight and Sound Magazine November 2024: marries brilliant entertainment with dubious ideology.
EDITORIAL
Mike Williams tells us about film magazines and the loss of one of them, Total Film. "Magazines need a lot to go their way to survive".
OPENING SCENES
Guy Lodge describes how the Best International Feature at the Oscars is limited to one per country. (It used to be called Best Foreign Language Film). India has a controversial history , none more so than this year when All We Imagine As Light was dumped in favour of a comedy Laapataa Ladies. All because it was a European film taking place in India. There was an interesting section about six big movies that were not chosen by their country, including Anatomy of a Fall, Ran, Talk to Her and Three Colours Red. All these are great.
There was little interest in EDITOR'S CHOICE, IN PRODUCTION, NEWS, IN CONVERSATION, MUSINGS (David Lynch on music), MEAN SHEETS, and READER'S LETTERS.
THE LONG TAKE
The four regular articles in the Talkies section are always interesting. With the death of Maggie Smith, Pamela Hutchinson looks at her career in film. From winning the best actress Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and much later a best supporting actress win for California Suite. Some of her other films include The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987).
FLICK LIT
Nicole Flattery calls The Substance "tedious, over explanatory body-horror". She was far less impressed than I was.
TV EYE
Andrew Male talks about Alan Plater's three part adaptation of Chris Mullins' 1982 novel A Very British Coup. He asks "what would happen if a Marxist working class Labour leader came to power after a decade of corrupt Tory rule". Ray MacAnally plays the left wing PM.
THE MAGNIFICENT '74
Jessica Kiang recommends Gena Rowland's performance (dazzling and dangerous) in A Woman Under the Influence. "It's a film so singular, so cataclysmic and transcendent etc". "The riskiest screen performance of all time". "It disturbs still". Gena was nominated for best actress at the Oscars and won the Golden Globe. Directed by her husband John Cassavetes, it also starred Peter Falk.
ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT
Six pages on the new film by Payal Kapadia (also on the front cover). It won the Grand Prix at Cannes this year. A portrait of Mumbia with three generations of women and the complications of arranged marriages. The first time an Indian film maker made it to Cannes in thirty years.
CONCLAVE
Another six pages, this time on the adaptation of the Robert Harris 2016 novel. A pope has died and Cardinal Thomas Laurence (Ralph Fiennes) has the unenviable task of organising his replacement. I didn't read any more as I want to see it in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to it.
BIRD
A long article on Andrea Arnold's new film "blending social and magic realism". Not sure.
DECONSTRUCTING BARRY
Barry Keoghan talks about his role in Bird. See my reviews of The Banshees of Inisherin and Saltburn.
SING THE CHANGES
The director of the musical drama Emilia Perez Jacques Audiard explains this trans "heavy metal-meets-hiphop-inflected musical". Am I too old for this? No nationwide release so would have to wait for maybe The Rex.
FILM REVIEWS
These include All We Imagine As Light (see above), Christmas Eve at Miller's Point (Long Island stories), Heretic (I gave Hugh Grant's horror a miss even though it has The Hollies' best song), The Piano Lesson (no general release), Conclave (see above), In Her Place (1950's Chile looks interesting), Joy (only a short review but any Jack Thorne screenplay might be worth a lookout, especially starring Thomasin McKenzie, Bill Nighy and James Norton.) Steve McQueen's Blitz is all over the cinemas but Bird isn't.
DVD'S ETC
I may have seen a long tome ago The Oblong Box (1969 with Vincent Price. David Lynch's 1997 Lost Highway is the first in this trilogy.
Nothing in LOST AND FOUND, WIDER SCREEN or BOOKS.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
An interview from 2016 with one of my favourite actresses Isabelle Huppert. "Acting should always be less than more". She hates rehearsals, spontaneity being the key. Not sure about that seeing her in yesterdays The Crime is Mine at The Rex. She appeared on the cover of Sight and Sound Magazine in September 2016. But I have seen many of her movies and am looking out for more.
Nothing interesting in THIS MONTH IN .... 1953.
ENDINGS looks at 1924's The Last Laugh. About a doorman at a grand city hotel.
Very few flowers left in the garden at this time of year. Just the odd rose.
The campanula around the conservatory.
And a couple of flowers left on the Hypericum Hidcote can be seen now the surrounding low Hypericum has been pruned.
This photo was taken a couple of days before the full moon, this one being the Beaver Super Moon. Lots of photos on the internet, but this one peeks out behind the Pseudo Acacia behind the far fence.
I knew nothing about Lee Miller before I read the first review of this amazing film. So before I watched it I was aware of her wartime photography, but unprepared for the final harrowing act. Kate Winslet is excellent in the title role, an Oscar worthy performance, as is Andrea Risborough as Audrey Withers who was, at the time, editor of Vogue magazine and Lee's boss but also a close friend. But it's when Lee gets to the front line in Europe we find that is so unusual for a woman. Critic Wendy Ide says she is "fierce and committed". In the October issue of Sight and Sound, Sophia Satchell-Baeza confirms that "Winslet perfectly captures Lee's indominable spirit, foolhardy bravery and sense of righteous indignation". But I completely disagreed with one review that said it was "just a shame that such an unconventional life must be so conventionally told". American cinematographer Ellen Kuras in her first major directorial role was a wise choice.
Sophia Satchell-Baeza in Sight and Sound Magazine October 2024: What Lee does is to showcase an impressive cast.
One way to describe Anora is if you take the plot of Pretty Woman, but make a much younger version of Julia Roberts working in a club where she meets and performs for an even younger and stupider Richard Gere. So Ani (a brilliant Mikey Madison) works in a Brighton Beach dive where one of her clients is Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) the dissolute son of a Russian oligarch. He pays her $15,000 to be his girlfriend for a week. What follows gets the film it's eighteen certificate. But not just their crazy wedding in Las Vegas. Can she not see how stupid a person he is (constantly drunk or on drugs) or is she just thinking of the money. Probably.
But it's what happens after their return that turns the film into some kind of grand farce. Vanya's family heavies turn up to sort out the mess the son had made. But Vanya disappears leaving Ani to face the men alone. In the lead is Karren Karagulian as Toros, the Armenian fixer for the family. They all leave the luxury mansion in Brighton Beach in a search for Vanya that takes us to places such as Coney Island.
The editing is occasionally so sharp as if there is so much to get through and the director needs to ensure this is not a three hour film. Sean Baker has created a brilliant film. Nobody dies, only one of the heavies is hurt (what did I say about a farce? A touch of Tarantino perhaps.) I have a whole page of notes about the final scene, but all I can say is that there are feelings from the last pair that are so subtle you cannot stop wondering. The very final scene in the car has all sorts of interpretations in the reviews. My view is that Ani is a complicated woman (especially given her job) and is just not used to a man being that nice to her. But maybe he isn't.
One final note. The film is "shot in glorious widescreen". A treat to see in the cinema. No wonder it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Tom Shone in the Sunday Times gave it five stars and "The best film of the year so far". Oh yes, with added Take That. I must look out for the director's previous films of which Tangerine might be the best.
Jessica Kiang in Sight and Sound Magazine November 2024: By turns swoony, funny, panicky and sad, this is the director's most vivid creation yet.
It must be years since I went to see an animated feature film. But it was the five star review in the Sunday Times (and other publications) that encouraged me to try. A Chris Sanders classic I was told. I have to say that the animation was superb. Of course there are no humans to compare, but all the animals are so life like, and very funny. I'm so glad I saw it on a really big screen. There is the odd scary bit where I can imagine some very young might get upset, but overall a good story about parenting and friendship. Of all the cast, I just loved Bill Nighy who only comes in later as Longneck, the elderly and wise Canada Goose. I even liked the big song Kiss the Sky by Maren Morris. Surprise, surprise.
Alex Dudok de Witt in Sight and Sound Magazine November 2024: the whole thing is soaked in oversaturated colours that sit as heavily on the screen as the slushy orchestral music does on the soundtrack.
We are in March 2022 so only a couple of years ago. Nina Stibbe is sixty, forty years since she was last in London as a twenty year old Au pair. Writing home to her friend in Leicestershire that became her first book "Love, Nina". Five more novels, all on my shelf, the last being "One Day I Shall Astonish The World" for which Nina attends quite a few book events and literary festivals. But Nina has left her home in Cornwall, maybe for good, at least for a year. That's the time she sets herself for her stay with the seriously successful writer Deborah (Debby) Mogach. Another nine of her novels on the shelf. She finally leaves Truro on 18th April (possibly for ever". No word about her husband, although lots about her children.
I have to say that I found this book mainly tedious. This is not the cheerful young writer from forty years ago. This is a diary of sorts, most of which is completely boring. There is some introspection about her relationships with men, some description of how London has changed from the litter to construction work everywhere and how much everything costs. There is one note that made me laugh about Debby's garden: "her potting compost is actually a bark chipping soil improver which means it drains instead of holding the moisture".
But the book rambles on and on about her daily life. Going to a preview of the theatrical adaptation of Debby's "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" is about as good as it gets. By page 130 (and we are not halfway) Nina tells us she is "not settled in London ....... might be time to go back to Cornwall". I just wish someone could have cut out at least two thirds. We do hear about her writing a new novel, but nothing I can find about any future publication. Although there was talk about the jacket design!
By the end of January she is talking about her "year in London almost up".
Then suddenly on 14th March 2023 her last quiz night at the Grafton Arms in Kentish Town. All rather sad. "I'm going to miss my team". Debby tells her "that's the thing about life. It gets good just as you're about to f... off". A last sad bit about getting a reminder from Hampstead Heath Swimming Pools that her season ticket is about to expire. On the 19th March Nina is packed to leave the next morning, but instead heads off so as not to have to say goodbye to Debby. First to the University of Leicester for a literary event and then on the 23rd at Gloucester Services on her way back to Cornwall, thinking about this "eventful" year.
Deborah Moggach and Nina Stibbe.
This is the story of the guys who started the big studios in Hollywood. Ian Nathan tells us about the light of California, and these figureheads who had huge control over everything that went onto film. One after another, the presenters gave us their stories. Kim Newman says that so many were from Europe: Russia, Poland, Germany and were predominantly Jewish. They seemed to all start owning cinemas in New York.
Ian Nathan talks about German born Carl Lemmaele who officially created the first studio called Universal in Los Angeles in 1916 in the San Fernando Valley. All because of the light. He built the studio on farmland. Next came the big producers, Cecil B DeMille and Samuel Goldwyn. They started in the theatre and set up a film making business as an offshoot. The first feature film was The Squaw Man in 1914 directed by DeMille.
In 1912, Adolf Zukor founded The Players Film Company. After building up a chain of cinemas, they started in film production with Paramount Studios. Ian Nathan then tells us about Louis B Mayer "the most famous of them all". Born in Russia, he bought his first movie theatre and in a few years had the largest cinema chain on the East Coast. After getting into film distribution, he set up his studio in Hollywood. Neil Norman said he was a real bully, a loud brash hustler. With his partners he founded MGM, or Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Mayer's partner was Irving Thalberg, an opposite to Mayer. A quiet creative producer who wanted better pictures even if that meant less of them. He even shied away from having his name on the credits. A great shame he died at 37.
We then hear about the Warner Brothers story. The three brothers (see photo above) opened a studio in Hollywood, the first to get sound. The fourth younger brother was Jack, the best production chief in Hollywood. By the 1930's he was running the show. But he was the most ruthless of the moguls, tyrannical and ruthless. In the end he even stitched up his own family.
Neil Norman talks about another bully, Harry Cohn. He was instrumental in the setting up of Columbia Studios, making lots of cheap films on a low budget. He had microphones everywhere so he could listen in to all that was going on. His big success was It Happened One Night". Next came Daryl Zanuck who was writing scripts from a very young age. He left Warners to set up 20th Century Pictures which eventually merged with Fox to become 20th century Fox. Zanuck made some big independent films, he was more of a collaborator with his directors than any of the other producers.
Finally we are told about Walt Disney, how he pioneered animation, set up his own studio and eventually went into theme parks. Walt actually started out as an artist but always insisted his name was stamped on the top of every picture. Christina talked about his family orientated movies, and how he set up a team of animators to make the first animated feature in 1937 - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
This time of year, there parts of the lawn where you cannot see grass for all the leaves from the silver birch. I do have a leaf blower that works quite well. But what was a big surprise was the fact that it also dried the soaking grass. That allowed the mower to cut so much better. I had lifted the blade to a higher cut so the grass still looks quite long.
After trimming the edges I went round with my camera and took these photos.
There are still some leaves to come down so maybe a final cut in a couple of weeks.
In 1902, a condemned man sits in his cell writing his memoir. Strange that the villain of Kind Hearts and Coronets gets to narrate his own story. He is the 10th Duke of Chalfont, but only because ...... but that would be giving away the whole plot. We track back to his childhood, a modest family He has a job in a drapers shop. But when his mother dies, he is taken on by the Gascogne family in their law firm, headed by the current Duke of Chalfont. Deaths in the family occur at regular intervals. Until our narrator is charged for a murder he didn't actually commit. The trial takes place in the House of Lords would you believe. i found this to be the funniest part of the film. David Thomson says about this 1949 film "it is a very funny film, but don't let yourself settle for the jollity".
City of God does not actually appear in David Thomson's book. Strange as it was nominated for four Academy Awards and lots of wins in various other awards. But this is a ridiculously violent film. Totally chaotic with a huge cast. If only we knew who was who.
David Thomson says that "Taxi Driver is a great film, in which there was a clear and willing glimpse of disorder at the heart of America". When (a very young) Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle picks up Senator and Presidential Candidate Charles Palantine, he is asked if there is one thing he would do, his answer is to clear up the mess that is New York. "The city here is like an open sewer, you know, it's full of filth and scum. Sometimes I can hardly take it". Thomson goes on to say "The gesture towards urban realism exists, but the film is hallucinatory, beautiful and scarring". The New York locations are amazing, especially the scenes at night.
I find it hard to believe I had never seen this film before, it would have looked so much better on the big screen. I found it a little episodic as Travis picks up various fares, but his pursuit of Cybill Shepherd's Betsy is pretty creepy. But Shepherd looks at her dazzling best. Thomson tells us "The streets gasp with smoke or steam, and in the dank air it turns into Bernard Herrmann's rueful saxophone - his last and maybe his greatest score". If I had known about the extremely violent and, maybe, hallucinatory ending I might have given it a miss. But then I would have missed the wonderful photography.
This was the far border in July. It is dominated by the Hypericum that was planted a good many years ago. These have all been cut back as the photo below. So next year I will keep pruning them to a reasonable height. That way I will be able to see the nice plants at the far end. The rogue tall plant at the back on the right has gone and the white Achillea on the left has been removed. These always needed supporting and still fell over.
I have also taken out some of the Anthemis and replanted these in the long border. Finally I have planted the daffodils as my post of the 12th October. I have yet to decide what I will plant at the far end. Something of medium height this time. Finally, I can now see the lovely hypericum bush on the right in the photo below. On the 3rd July I posted a picture when it was in full flower after having been cut back after the frost damage in the winter.
There may be more posts on this blog about the Robinia Pseudoacacia (or Mock Acacia) than anything else. The photo above is from the 13th June 2023 but there are others on 7th August 2009, 16th June 2015, 10th September 2022, 26th January 2024 and the 18th May 2024.
However, this year the ivy that has attached itself to the trunk has now reached the top of the tree. The photo below is just from the bottom.
Ian Nathan introduced this episode and told us it was made "so soon after the (Vietnam) war ended" and that it "was a radical new way of showing war on screen". It was THE Vietnam movie. It allowed audiences to see the reality of Vietnam. Ian tells us that it was a huge box office hit as well as winning five Oscars. This was despite the fact that the war was hugely controversial at home.
We are shown how the film starts with that wedding in a close knit working class North Pennsylvania town. Set in a Russian Orthodox Christian community, this early part of the film lasts fifty minutes. Christina Newland tells us how the huge number of extras for the wedding scenes were drawn from the local community, so they knew all the dances. We see the three friends here before they go off to war. Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and John Cazale. Leaving Meryl Streep behind. De Niro was the backbone of the project that was such a divisive subject in America.
Steven Armstrong says this is not a traditional war movie, it's about what happens to these three friends. It all hinges on their capture by the Vietcong. The entire film was shot on location, from Cleveland to Thailand and the River Quai where the three were help prisoner and the "dramatic function of Russian Roulette".
Those five Oscar wins included one for Christopher Walken as best supporting actor, as well as best film and best director for a young Michael Cimino. (His next film was the disaster that was Heaven's Gate). It was the British producer Michael Deeley who bought the script. He had previously had success at British Lion Films and it was when they merged with EMI Films that The Deer Hunter came to fruition. Ian Nathan ends with telling us how the film portrays "the phycological impact the war has on soldiers". And about how America sees itself.
I would never ever normally post about health. So this is only here to remind me of the three recent vaccinations that all took place at different surgeries and were all booked through different websites. So much for the NHS and joined up thinking.
First of all was the RSV vaccination at the Bedgrove surgery in Aylesbury and booked through Patient Access.
Next the flue vaccination at Wendover surgery booked through Ask First.
And lastly, today, the latest Covid jab at the Oakfield surgery, again in Aylesbury. This time booked through a text message. Amazing.
