Classic Literature and Cinema on Sky Arts - Myths and Legends

 

Narrated as usual by Mariella Frostrup, this episode about myths and legends started with the fact that before CGI, many directors took the challenge of bringing these films to life. The great warriors of legend was typified by Hercules and the first film in 1958 that starred Steve Reeves. We then see 1963's Jason and the Argonauts with those amazing warrior skeletons. Ray Harryhausen led the way with special effects and 1981's Clash of the Titans, his last film. We were told about the Roman poet Ovid and his Metamorphoses that includes 250 myths, from which many of these films found the characters.

The section on legends starts with King Arthur with the film from 1953 Knights of the Round Table. We also see a clip from 1981's Excalibur. It was Alfred Lord Tennyson's nineteenth century poems Idylls of the King that formed the basis of these movies. Sir Walter Scott's historical novels Ivanhoe from 1819 were hugely popular as was the film version in 1952. But it was one of the characters who made the biggest impact. The Adventures of Robin Hood from 1938 (a big colour movie) was a remake of 1922's silent movie with Douglas Fairbanks. 

One Thousand and One Nights contains a number of folk tales from the Middle East. It was only much later that the most famous stories found their way into books and then films. First we see 1924's The Thief of Bagdad and then the 1940 remake. It is Scheherazade who tells the stories including Aladdin and Ali Baba, whose 1940 film is the last we see of these. It was Ray Harryhausen who conceptualised The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad in 1958 with pioneering special effects and using colour for the first time. 

Chinese folk tales include the stories of Mulan and we see a clip from 1939's Mulan Joins the Army. Then the Disney animation was followed in 2009's Mulan, Rise of the Warrior. (The whole film on YouTube). One of the Germanic heroic legends is that of Beowulf that became the computer generated film of 2007. It includes a fire breathing dragon! Another ancient hero was Siegfried that was brought to the big screen by Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen in 1924. Next up the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. We see a clip from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Disney animation.

The fairy tales of Hans Christian Anderson include The Little Mermaid, Frozen and The Red Shoes. When L. Frank Baum published his book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, it was not until 1938 that Judy Garland appeared in the movie version, the highly successful The Wizard of Oz. The last part of this episode is devoted to the English writer JRR Tolkien. His The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings have become those blockbuster movies. More interesting were excerpts from an interview with the writer. Because this series is more about the literature that inspired film adaptations.

The Three Musketeers - Milady, Godzilla Minus One and One Life

 

I should have read my review of the first part of this trilogy when I said I would watch the second "only if it had Constance". Well she appeared briefly but no enough to save it. The first half was a complete mess, I had no idea what was going on. Fortunately the second half did have a proper story and some interesting twists and turns. The Three Musketeers - Milady does have dazzling photography, and superb costumes. But the stupid king and his obnoxious and evil brother are just pantomime villains. As is Milady. Indeed, the whole thing had an essence of stupidity. There is one late death that was appalling and totally spoilt the whole thing. The ending is all set up for the final instalment. The only reason I will go is having invested so much so far. 

I was surprised that there was a wonderful human story at the heart of Godzilla Minus One. So the monster is only used sparingly which was fine. There are impressive special effects and the sound design is terrific. The only downside was the hysterical Japanese acting that fortunately only surfaces now and then. But overall, a decent story, and some great characters, And "minus one"? Well, Japan thought it could not sink any lower after the devastation of the nuclear attack at the end of WW2 and what that did for the Japanese character. They were wrong, it did get worse when Godzilla rears his ugly head.

"Save one life, save the world". The story of Nicholas Winton organising the rescue of 669 predominately Jewish children from Prague in the weeks before the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia is told with unremitting tension right until the end. One Life is an extraordinary film, I guess almost totally true in every aspect. I thought the structure worked extremely well with Anthony Hopkins playing the elderly Winton in 1988 looking back to everything that was necessary for his plan to work. Johnny Flynn plays his younger self  determined to do something and save as many children as he could. The film pulls no punches with the final train holding the largest contingent being held and then emptied by the arriving Nazis. And that horror still felt by Winton through the decades. 

The acting is all top drawer with Helena Bonham Carter leading the way with Romola Garai,  Jonathon Pryce and other class British talent. The final scenes are almost an exact replica of the television programme "That's Life" from 1988 and they are completely emotional. The director James Hawes (mainly known for TV dramas) has made a marvellous movie, and a story that had to be told, There is an article in the Guardian by Mathew Reisz about his father, the film director Karel Reisz, who was one of those children who were saved. He refused to take part in Esther Ranzen's programme as Mathew says the film "betrays him". But he doesn't say exactly how. Maybe he wanted the limelight instead of Winton? I think he must have been alluding to missing subsequent events such as the 1988 Holocaust conference. Thank goodness it did. It might have spoilt an otherwise brilliant film.

Discovering Dance on Film

 

I'm starting to catch up with episodes about cinema on Sky Arts from 3DD Productions. This was originally shown in 2018 and may have been lost when we changed our TV box. All the presenters were here as shown in the photo below: Derek Malcolm, Ian Nathan, Steven Armstrong, Neil Norman and Bonnie Greer. As usual for this series, it is a countdown of the best films with dance.

No 25 Silver Linings Playbook from 2012. A young Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper. 

No 24 Strictly Ballroom from 1992. Baz Lurmann's breakthrough movie should be number one. 

No 23 Dirty Dancing from 1987. Patrick Swayze showed how a hunk can still dance.

No 22 Bye Bye Birdie from 1963.  Ann-Margret starred in that tremendous finale.

No 21 And God Created Woman from 1956. I wondered how this was here until I watched Brigitte Bardot dance.

No 20 The Blues Brothers from 1980. In my top three. Ray Charles plays and sings to "Shake a Tail Feather" and  lots of other songs mixed in, with the boys and an amazing dance sequence. I think we see the whole 2 minutes 40 seconds. Watch on You Tube.

No 19 La La Land from 2016. We just had to see that tribute to old musicals as Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone take flight.

No 18 Grease from 1978. Of course, that High School Musical with John Travolta and Olivia Newton John's "You're the one That I Want".

No 17 Yankee Doodle Dandy from 1942. James Cagney, of all people, strutting across the stage, and tap dancing down the stairs of the White House.

No 16 Bande a Part from 1964. That very cool Jean Luc Goddard film and that "hypnotic" dance in the café that also inspired the one in Pulp Fiction.

No 15 Pulp Fiction from 1994. And there it is, John Travolta ( he's still got it) and Uma  Thurman dance to Chuck Berry's "You Never can Tell". Apparently filmed by Tarantino holding the camera and dancing with them.

No 14 Ziegfeld Follies from 1945. Lucille Ball in pink.

No 13 The Cotton Club from 1984. Proper tap dancing by two men in sync.

No 12 Gentleman Prefer Blondes from 1953. Just for Marilyn Monroe singing "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend". Ian Nathan said that this was the best she would get.

No 11 Madam Bovary from 1949. Jennifer Jones and Louis Jardin in a surreal ballroom dancing sequence.

No 10 Cabaret from 1972. Liza Minelli.

No 9 Sweet Charity from 1969. A very strange dance sequence.

No 8 An American in Paris from 1951. At last Gene Kelly. Leslie Carron and the girls dancing on points!

No 7 Gilda from 1946. Rita Hayworth in what Stephen Armstrong called a "very intimate dance".

No 6 The Red Shoes from 1948. Moira Shearer in a film about ballet.

No 5 West Side Story from 1961. The song picked to show us was "America". With that huge studio set.

No 4 The Band Wagon from 1953. Fred Astaire with a very modern dance. 

No 3 Stormy Weather from 1943. A combination of jazz and dance that Steven Armstrong said was "possibly the best dance scene I've ever seen". The Nicholas Brothers in that hugely athletic dance were also acrobats. Cab Calloway stars.

No 2 Singing in the Rain from 1952. Gene Kelly again, singing in the rain.

No 1 Swing Time from 1936. Ian Nathan called this a George Stevens masterpiece. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance a waltz but I found this very old fashioned.  I much preferred them dancing to "Lets Face the Music and Dance" from "Follow the Fleet" released in the same year. 

Classic Literature and Cinema on Sky Arts - War

 

Not my favourite genre. Mariella Frostrop started her narration with telling us we would be seeing "the great battlefields of the past". I have to remember that  it is the adaptation of great novels that is the basis of the following movies. Starting with The Iliad. The Trojan wars were portrayed in 1956's Helen of Troy with that "face that launched a thousand ships". More recent was Troy 2004. I'm not sure why we had Chinese literature, just to see John Woo's Red Cliff from 2004. Shakespeare makes an entrance with Laurence Olivier's Henry V from 1944 and the remake by Kenneth Branagh in 1989.

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fennimore Cooper has seen over ten adaptations on film including in 1992 version with Daniel Day-Lewis. And Tolstoy's War and Peace brought the Napoleonic era to the screen with the 1956 movie. Alfred Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade portrayed  the Crimea war with the 1936 movie and Steven Crane's Red Badge of Courage was directed by John Huston in 1951. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque was filmed with "unflinching honesty" in 1930 and again in 1979 and 2022. 

Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms came to the screen with the 1957 film starring Gary Cooper and his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls came in 1943 with Cooper again. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller was filmed in 1970 following the novels release in 1961. Next The Guns of Navarone by Alastair Maclean became the big blockbuster of 1961 as was Where Eagles Dare in 1968. J G Ballard's Empire of the Sun was adapted by Tom Stoppard for the 1987 movie. 

From Here to Eternity by James Jones was the big movie of 1953 and his The Thin Red Line came in 1998. Richard Hooker's novel MASH about the Viet Nam war became a big hit movie in 1970. Graham Greene's The Quiet American goes to the background of the conflict with the 1958 film version with Audie Murphy. But we also see the 2002 version with Michael Caine. The former had critical success despite the changes to the story, while the latter stayed faithful to the book. I'm not sure why the last film is 1990's The Hunt for Red October from the book by Tom Clancy? Hardly a war film, only the threat.

Art of Film with Ian Nathan on Sky Arts: Episode 5 Comedy, Parody, Satire and Laughs

 

In his introduction, Ian Nathan talked about there being so many different categories of comedy in film. He talks to Steve Punt (a writer/comedian), Stephen Wooley, Paul Webster, a producer and Stephen Armstrong. We start with slapstick and the 1923 silent film Safety Last, and then The General from 1926. Stephen Wooley thought it was a classic. These  demonstrated how Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton took advantage of the new medium that was perfect for their brand of humour. 

With the arrival of sound, His Girl Friday from 1940 was one of many screwball comedies that used witty fast talking dialogue in character driven movies. Howard Hawks directed Cary Grant, but Paul Webster said it was all about the writing, adapted from the 1928 play. In 1941 came Sullivan's Travels directed by Preston Sturges that Stephen Armstrong called "a remarkable film". 

On to satire, and the 1933 Marx Brothers film Duck Soup was one of the films that confronts authority with political satire. Meet John Doe from 1941 was set in a newspaper office and I'm All Right Jack set unions against the management. Peter Sellers was perfect as the shop steward. The Producers from 1967 starred Mel Brooks in a classic. 

I wondered why we then jumped back to 1917's Easy Street. It's because we arrive at laughs. The section on romantic comedies starts with It Happened One Night from 1934 and directed by Frank Capra which Stephen Armstrong said that it set up all the rules for future rom coms. The odd couple formulae was shown in the Laurel and Hardy film The Flying Deuces from 1939 and later in 1952's Road to Bali and all those Road movies. 

British comedy came next with 1949's Passport to Pimlico amongst many others. We were told about the particular brand of comedy for British films, particularly Ealing Comedies and the Carry On films. We see a clip from Carry On Constable that would not be tolerated today. Another Peter Sellers film was Two Way Stretch from 1960. Finally, from the same year, the greasy Terry Thomas showed us all that was terrible about these movies with School for Scoundrels. 

Review of 2023

 

At the darkest time of the year, it's good to look back on garden in summer. But before that I looked at what I said this time last year. Well, no snow, like that which fell the previous December and not the exceptionally mild weather of the year before. So fairly boring, mostly cloudy and windy with spells of rain. One of the wettest autumns I can remember. Good for the garden.

Three holidays this year: Ingleton in May, Bakewell in July and Wells-next-the-Sea in October. It may look like a boring stretch of coastal path, but this walk on the last day out of Wells was quiet and beautiful.

Lots of walking from home this year as too many posts on this blog will demonstrate. But finding some circular routes across fields and along the canal suit me as they are all flat. As is the walk from the car park at Wilstone Reservoir up to another branch of the canal and along to the church of St Mary the Virgin at Drayton Beauchamp. My pole comes in handy in Wendover Woods and other walks in the hills. About six or seven miles is enough for me these days. Visits to some National Trust properties are the same as previous years. 

Four trips to the theatre this year: The Tempest at the RSC in Stratford with Alex Kingston was a revelation, The Pillowman at The Duke of York's and Hamnet at The Swan Theatre at RSC Stratford came in June with Cuckoo at the Royal Court in August. I used my book on London Theatres to compile a list of all the plays I had seen. Published on this blog on 5th May. My favourite films this year have been A Good Person, Air, Cairo Conspiracy, Polite Society, (Not forgetting one major highlight, the song over the end credits - "Identity" by  X-ray Spex), Oppenheimer, Past Lives and Anatomy of a Fall. A few visits to the Rex Cinema in Berkhamsted for some excellent foreign films. Finding Sight and Sound magazine (see post 18th December) has been a revelation. My post of 24th October says everything about my continuing film studies. 

My favourite books this year have been Ann Patchett's These Precious Days, Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan and two by Susie Boyt, The Last Hope of Girls and Loved and Missed. I attended my last meeting of Tring Book Club in August. My post of 13th of that month shows that we read 147 books in thirteen years. I think I only made one visit to London, to Battersea Power Station in August and a trip up Lift 109. We terminated our contract with Sky in June, saving ourselves £39 per month with BT's Big Sport. We did lose the odd Sky channel that we hardly watched, but gained BT Sport in HD. As for TV, our favourite programme Ghosts came to an end. The final series of the six was excellent, as was the Christmas Special.

There was little new in the garden, except I followed Monty Don's advice on Gardener's World and grew some cosmos from seed, sowed in compost in the conservatory.

When planted out, the result was disappointment in pots, but fine in the borders. 

Like last year, I went for bedding dahlias in main border. Ended up being too overcrowded, so I don't need to buy so many next year.

The Garden at Christmas

 

Bulbs are beginning to show in the bedding border.

The irises look healthy, their corms along the top of the soil.

Some of the shrubs have buds on already.

And some winter flowering bushes.

The forget-me-nots have covered the far border.

Finally the bulbs I planted in pots in the autumn are doing well.