Beware the Boo-ed Meaneys!

A while back I got an invitation to "An Evening with Christopher Hampton". He's an interesting writer (and director), perhaps most famous for his screenplay for "Dangerous Liaisons" (directed by Stephen Frears). I think he may have won the Oscar for that. Anyhow tonight his directorial debut, "Carrington", (he's directed another two since), was to be shown with a 'conversation' afterwards. Contrary to my usual tastes I sat near the front this time; the main event for me was the conversation not the movie, though, as I hadn't seen it, that was a bonus.

A real bonus. Probably a little too much bedswapping going on for too little reason (but then wasn't that the case with "Dangerous Liaisons"), but all in all a touching story of a real and unusual love affair. In a nutshell, the painter, Dora Carrington, and the homosexual writer, Lytton Strachey, fell in love, shared lovers and ultimately could not live without each other. The two central performances by Emma Thompson and Jonathan Pryce were generally excellent (doubted Thompson a little towards the end; she doesn't do mad/suicidal easily).

So to the 'conversation'. Helen Meaney was the compere and, as a bonus, Jonathan Pryce, looking very worn, showed up (would have liked to hear more from him as it transpired). Hampton, a short, long grey-haired individual, sounds a little like Tony Blair and like said Tony is well able to talk. Luckily, or we would have gotten nothing from the whole event. Meaney was a disaster; archly she pointed out that "cinema, you know the lights, the cameras, allows you to show emotion without words, doesn't it?". I could have hit her. Ill-prepared and unsuited to any film-oriented discussion, she got worse. Pausing to get her wonderful insights together, a member of the audience managed to butt in. At first I thought this was a blessing; if she couldn't ask anything sensible, let the people who were really interested, those who came to see Hampton, do the work. Unfortunately the audience, which had a high proportion of elderly people, were not going to save the evening. I mention the elderly contigent to highlight the fact that these were no young, hungry students wanting to learn about filmmaking; this was a bunch of pensioners getting in out of the rain (and oh, how it rained, didn't I mention it rained...). I'm being harsh, but they were there for a real conversation, not to learn anything. The interlocutor in the seat behind me seemed to think that his usurping of Meaney for one question allowed him to keep his conversation going. Inane question after inane question flowed from this member of the public ("Why do you think Carrington killed herself?" Didn't you see the movie you emotionally blind idiot!) Then another age-challenged maniac asked "Did you (Hampton) feel the spirit of Carrington?". I was tearing my seat to shreds. Meaney of course didn't have a clue what was going on, nor did she understand that part of her role was to rein things in. What a waste of a golden opportunity?

Why didn't I ask something you may ask? It wasn't entirely because I'm chicken; I have asked questions in similar situations. No, I was angry and yes, couldn't think of anything intelligent to ask. After all there were so many distractions! I was interested in Hampton's work on Conrad's "The Secret Agent", as I am a Conrad fan, but, I am ashamed to say, I haven't seen it (it never got a release here), so felt nervous about asking. I kept racking my brains over what the third movie he directed was (yes, Meaney didn't even give a potted history of his work, possibly because she didn't know it). I just checked there; "Imagining Argentina", another Emma Thompson film and one that I have seen. No masterpiece, but it's heart was in the right place, being an indictment of General Videla and his reign of terror in Argentina. Hampton wrote and directed that movie, surely a project worth a question. And outside of mentioning "Dangerous Liaisons", did we get any background? No. "Mary Reilly", a flop that paired him up with Frears again, any comment? No. And what of his Graham Greene adaptations (eg. "The Quiet American")? Ehh, no. I have just glanced at his IMDB entry and there is a tonne of stuff begging to be asked. Yes, maybe I should have glanced at that beforehand, and yes, haven't I a cheek when I didn't and couldn't do better. But wasn't that Meany's job? Wasn't I a spectator? If I'd known I'd be dancing, I'd have brought my dancing shoes.

Anyway I'll stop griping. I left the cinema and there was Hampton and Pryce still standing outside. Two crumblies had Hampton monopolised, but I got to shake Pryce's hand. He'll always be Sam Lowry as far as I'm concerned, so it was good to meet him.

A little more griping; when I got home there was some TV crap, "Bon Voyage", ripping off "Misery" and more shamelessly (coincidentally a movie on Channel 4 later). Probably some crumbly feeling the spirit of Stephen King.

I am reading Dashiell Hammett's "The Continental Op" right now. Hammett was a true genius, but the Op is unjustly neglected (everyone knows Sam Spade, but who knows the Short, Fat, Balding Man with No Name). I read "Nightmare Town" a few months back which included some Op stories, but all the stories in this volume let him strut his stuff, and so far so excellent. They'd make a great tv series. He's a real little man hero in contrast to cool, Satanic Spade, and I think probably truer to the leanings of good old left-winger Hammett. Spade really only appeared in "The Maltese Falcon" and a couple of shorts. The Op gets at least twenty outings, including two novels, "The Dain Curse" and "Red Harvest" (Hammett's best, in my view).

Just saw in Wikipedia that there were 40 short stories! And "The Dain Curse" has already been adapted for tv. The short stories though, they're the ones to tackle. Yes, a tv series.... Wonder if they're in the public domain....

Not content, I looked a little deeper and the Continental Op story, "Fly Paper", was adapted by Donald E. Westlake for the "Fallen Angels" tv series with Christopher Lloyd as the Op. Not a good choice of Op. Too tall and eccentric.