Drive

Take the style of Michael Mann when he's actually being good, the moral darkness of Schrader (think 'Taxi Driver', 'American Gigolo'), and a good dollop of 'Shane' and you have 'Drive', a.k.a. the movie that's too cool for school. Slap on a cracking 80s style score by the likes of The Chromatics, and things start bubbling. Then add a confident Ryan Gosling, amiable Bryan Cranston and the always sleazy Ron Perlman, oh, and who's that? - well, who would have thought it, Albert Brooks as a convincing psycho (actually there's a lot of them about in this movie, including the 'hero') - and things just get better and better. If only Carey Mulligan would stop smiling in three different ways and actually act (I'd pay a lot to see her actually play angry for instance), we might have the perfect movie. Actually no, we wouldn't, because despite all that coolness - and this film fairly drips with it - there is actually nothing here that you haven't seen before. In fact a lunatic French guy behind me in the cinema claimed to prefer 'Man on Fire' (avec Denzel Washington) when it finished (I think I could smell his socks through the movie, the stinking French bastard's, not Denzel Washington's). Yes, it was similar to 'Man on Fire', among many other movies, though less so than most, but just because it's been done before doesn't mean it's been done better and this does it pretty damn well. 'Man on Fire', my ass! Anyhow though I too have seen this all before I did really like watching it all again. Though I kind of missed a little kid at the end crying 'Shane, Shane....' Probably wouldn't have been very cool though....

Keeping Tabs

Okay, to be expanded, but books in the last while:

A Mercy - Toni Morrison
Just couldn't get into it. I dislike fiction that tries to replicate a person's dialect (put me off Robert Louis Stevenson for quite a while after I read 'Thrawn Janet'), and the parts of the novel told by Florens aggravated me. Morrison tries to tell her (very simple) story through the stories of her characters and as an insight into 17th Century America, it has its interesting aspects. However, drawing similarities between slavery and indenture is hardly ground-breaking. For a more subtle analysis of the dynamics of slavery read Octavia Butler.

The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula Le Guin
Or Ursula Le Guin. The world is changed by put-upon George Orr's dreams, and things get tough when self-righteous psychiatrist, Dr Haber, gets his claws into him. Sounds like Philip K. Dick, but Le Guin has a discipline to her narrative that Dick rarely showed. Not that there ain't problems (I hate 'real world' prophecies, aliens and clichéd 'battle against the wind' endings), but there's far too much that's brilliant here not to be won over. Fine stuff.

Trouble Is My Business - Raymond Chandler
Just a novella, but Marlowe all the same. A routine muck-raking case escalates into a massacre in Chandler's inimitable way. Always passes the time.

Just reading Flannery O'Connor's 'Wise Blood' now. A novel of grotesques that spawned everything from 'Taxi Driver' to 'A Confederacy of Dunces', as far as I can see. I link O'Connor to Shirley Jackson in the way I might link Morrison to Butler, but I'm liking O'Connor a lot more than I did Morrison. I'll keep you posted.

Law Abiding Citizen

A cause for laughter, "Law Abiding Citizen" is junk, junk and trash into the bargain. And isn't it funny how the guy most worthy of being destroyed is the one left standing in the end? Did I just spoil it for you? Don't worry, it was rotten already.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

That novel, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", gets a Swedish cinematic outing, and doesn't it do well. The story is not very original (haven't we seen 'Jar City', 'The Crimson Rivers', etc.?), but it holds the attention while the film's main strength develops. For, like all the best detective stories, it's its characters (particularly the eponymous girl) that really win the audience over. Blomkvist and Salander are a winningly odd couple and though the film takes its time to bring them together, they are all the richer in our minds by the time they do. Their contrasting reactions to a death near the end very neatly incapsulate the extremes of society's attitude to criminals, and made me question myself (I don't come off well). A step above the usual.
By the way, I know Hollywood gets the scent of money and want a remake, but they really should just stay away; they can't do this sort of thing.

Cocaine Cowboys

Wow! Telling the tale of the real drug trade of Miami in the 70s and 80s, 'Cocaine Cowboys' certainly paints a vivid picture, making a mockery of all the fictitious portrayals in the process. Hearing assassin Rivi coolly talk about his many kills was chilling enough, but even he pales in comparison with his boss 'Godmother' Griselda Blanco, truly one of the most monstrous creatures that has ever existed. The Borgias have nothing on her. On top of all this, and all the killing, Miami's later renaissance is seen to be almost wholly the result of drug money. How's that for making a link between capitalism and crime! As it happens it wasn't the drugs that got the Government involved anyway, just the violence it ultimately spawned. And I have to admit, from an organisational perspective, there's a lot industry can learn from the methods of Jon Roberts and Mickey Munday. Cynical, sick, but very effective.
A live-action version featuring De Caprio and Wahlberg is in the pipeline, but exactly why I don't know; this says it all.

"Let me tell you something, my Kraut, Mick friend!"

How many times have I seen 'The Godfather' now? I'm reciting the lines as they speak them. Even for a movie wedding sequence, some might say 'The Deerhunter', but for me 'The Godfather' can't be beat (the one in the 'The Deerhunter' bores me). The scene with Luca Brazzi alone, comic though it might appear, conveys so much about Don Corleone and his family. It's long, but that wedding sets up the whole movie. Exquisite!
Here comes the horse's head! Oh, I love it sooooooo much!
"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

A Prophet

A Prophet - If you see one French prison movie this year....
A young Muslim man begins a 6 year stint in a French jail. He may or may not have been innocent of the crime for which he has been incarcerated, but then as they say in Shawshank, everyone is innocent in jail. Whether or not he was, he is soon forced to shed blood and in so doing becomes involved with Corsican mafia, hash dealers, and a dangerous, but heady career in crime.
There are enough critics out there singing the praises of 'A Prophet', without adding my voice. For what it's worth though, I will. It's a powerful film that can stand alongside epics like 'The Godfather' without any embarrassment. However, before we get too fawning, it should be said that it is still a melodrama and as subject to the contrivances that characterise much melodrama. Characters are introduced whenever their particular talents can aid our likeable antihero, Malik, in his descent/ascent. They are also removed - through convenient illness or Government decree - as needed. Continuing the convenience, our hero's charmed life is impacted by a curious (and not entirely convincing) touch of the supernatural (he gets out of one particularly dangerous predicament, and gets out to his advantage, after a very suspect episode). His protection from a Corsican mafia boss, while familiar from many other movies, conveniently smooths the way for much of Malik's activities, especially in getting him out of the prison. These are not flaws per se; they allow for an engrossing, intelligent thriller that has a lot to say about success, opportunity and morality. But they are plot contrivances that take this film out of the naturalistic setting that writer and director Jacques Audiard otherwise seems to be striving for (with its commentary on politics, society, and religion).
It should also be said that, unlike say 'The Godfather', I did not for one moment feel any real condemnation of Malik in his rise. Other critics have seen a moral fall and so a moral message to the film. Without wanting to give too much away, there is no real Michael Corleone moment where the door is shut on a lost humanity, no that I could see anyhow.
These could be small quibbles (or big ones depending on your attitude to an amoral cinema), but there is no doubting this is rivetting cinema. Worthy of the praise, of the Grand Prize at Cannes, and of your time, try to see this one.

Mesrine: Killer Instinct

Mesrine: Killer Instinct - Thank God for the French

After kiddie hour(s) with Tarantino, I treated myself to more adult fare this afternoon, taking in 'Mesrine: Killer Instinct'. Telling the story of France's public enemy number 1, and one of Europe's foremost celebrity crooks, it charts his development from being a soldier in Algeria in 1959 to his eventual death in 1979. It does it in a vigorous, disciplined way with as much attention to character as to the robberies and escapes that made his name.
I am not a fan of Vincent Cassel who usually chews up more scenery than a Fianna Fail sponsored road project. Having said that his take on French gangster Jacques Mesrine is reasonably well-restrained. The film too, the first part of a two film biopic, is coherent, unrelenting and unforgiving. If this man is to be a celebrity crook who ultimately wins our sympathy, then pushing a gun in his wife's mouth gives him a very bad start. What comes across most is the complexity of the character. Yes, he has good, and indeed charming, points; he's funny, loyal and even loving. But he was a successful gangster for a reason and the dark side of his personality is ever present.
In the acting stakes, mention should also be made of Gerard Depardieu, another actor who often acts larger than life. He is admirably subdued here as Mesrine's boss and mentor, Guido, and all the more threatening for it.
The action is handled expertly, his treatment in and escape from a Canadian prison being especially well done. There is style in the use of split screen and glamour in the globetrotting camera. Be warned though that this film is only the first part and it goes so quickly that the end is too abrupt crying out for part two. I'm certainly waiting for it.

Jar City

'Jar City' has a grumpy police detective investigating the murder of an unpleasant sort that prompts the release of all sorts of unpleasant skeletons (from closets, graves, floors, jars...). Unusual diseases and nasty rapes also figure.
Lots of praise being heaped on this belatedly released Icelandic thriller (it was made in 2006). I second the enthusiasm. It's a standard detective yarn with all the chestnuts familiar from British shows - the inexperienced partner, the detective with family problems, interlinking crimes and dark histories - but told in a forlorn Icelandic setting, and told briskly and with humanity. Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson is a standout as the takes-no-shit detective, Erlendur, but the unfamiliar cast are all strong. It probably suits the small screen better, but it's worth seeing one way or the other.

There's Just One Little Thing....

A long time ago I was involved in writing the script for an online murder mystery game called 'Love Lies Bleeding'. In researching my story I had an opportunity to cap a childhood fascination with true life killers and crime. Jack, Dr Crippen, The Acid Bath Murder, Ed Gein, etc.; they all held a ghoulish appeal for me. The more ingenious their style of dispatch the better. For instance think of the Acid Bath Murderer dissolving away his victim's corpse, only getting caught when the remains of his victim - her kidney stones - were found on his gravel drive. Just how childish this taste of mine was can be seen by how I equally lapped up Agatha Christie novels as if they were somehow extensions of these crimes. That there was a real human dimension, the victims, seemed to pass me by. They were mere markers in a fiendish chess game between the criminals and law and order. Crippen was just one more celebrity villain on Columbo. And like Wile Coyote on Roadrunner, I always used to root for the bad guys and hate it when the little mac-clad detective came back to say, 'But there's just one little thing....'
How times have changed. Though I would be something of a horror fan, today I have no real interest in serial killer movies. 'Psycho' and 'Halloween' are the only real standouts of the genre for me, each for the beauty of the film-making and the depth of their stories (a psychological depth in one, a pseudo-supernatural one in the other). I suppose 'The Honeymoon Killers' is up there too (and probably 'Peeping Tom'), but I find 'Friday the 13th' etc. risible. (And don't get me started on Lucio Fulci!). Today it's hard for me to see such fare without seeing the innocents put in the monster's way. All I see are the victims. Disposable teens or not, I can't see people as pieces any more (and I'd really prefer not to see them in pieces).
Now it's my mother who pigs out on a diet of 'CSI' and 'Forensic Detectives' on the Discovery Channel. I haven't watched 'Columbo' in a very long time, but I guess his style of detection, like that of Poirot or Marple, is a chess game far removed from real killers. It's Scooby Doo for the armchair set. CSI is also in this bracket. The oddball Petersen solving crime like a better equipped Nero Wolf, is just another in a long line of chess players. I do object to that Forensic Detectives muck which is nothing but pornography of the very worst kind. There are real people there and pain enough without it being trotted out for entertainment. There is a very, very real distinction between the clever detective story and real murder. Still I suppose I was once one of those viewers in my way. Paradoxically it is the 'real crime' programme that is really for children (sorry, mom), because one needs a child-like engagement in order to distance oneself from the reality being depicted. I suppose in many ways the world of the child and the sociopath are not all that dissimilar. (And no, I'm not really implying my mother is a sociopath, really I'm not...she wouldn't hurt a fly....)

Lonely Hearts

'Lonely Hearts' is yet another account of the infamous 'Lonely Hearts Killers', though this time with the added distinction of being written and directed by the grandson of one of the cops who brought them in. Whether he adds anything to the tale though is doubtful.
For the uninitiated, throughout the late '40s, conman Raymond Fernandez targeted vulnerable women through lonely hearts columns, meeting, seducing, robbing and then leaving them. That is until he met the somewhat unstable Martha Beck. Martha proved to be his soul mate and to her he confessed his criminal activities. Far from being shocked, she embraced his lifestyle, masquerading as his sister, while he pursued more lonely women. She even added an extra dimension; murder.
The definitive movie telling of this seedy story is Leonard Kastle's 1970 film, 'The Honeymoon Killers'. Low-budget and looking it, it nevertheless caught the homicidal duo's career perfectly, with Tony Lo Bianco and Shirley Stoler making the killers live again with amazing performances. It was also very faithful to the facts of the case. Despite Robinson's credentials that can't be said for the latest version.
Once again there are star turns by the actors playing the killers. Jared Leto shows us Fernandez as a small-time operator who is nevertheless ready to take the next step into homicide given the right push. Salma Hayek is perfectly believeable as that 'push', a wonderful mask of caring and affection hiding a truly psychopathic interior. She is excellent. The problem is she looks nothing like the original Beck who suffered from a weight problem and was acutely aware of the world's perception of her. Hayek's Beck, despite a voiceover telling us of an abusive brother and a lifetime of ills, is too pretty to adequately convey the real Beck's insecurities.
The story, while close, nevertheless deviates from the facts too, principally to give John Travolta's Detective Robinson more of a role in the killers' capture. A 'subplot', involving Robinson's relationship with his son following his wife's suicide, is no doubt of great interest to the director, but personally I saw it adding little to what should be the main tale. Despite a somewhat one-note performance from Travolta, he and Gandolfini are a good pairing as the cops on the case, but when it comes down to it, they seem to do very little actual detecting. In fact, they seem to do very little of anything, and that is part of the problem. This is really a movie of two stories, the Lonely Hearts Killers on one side, and the director's grandfather's unhappy life on the other. One is a nasty, but engrossing, portrait of two pychopaths in love, the other is a hopscotch mosaic of cop life in the '40s. In trying to tell the stories of both the cops and the robbers, 'Lonely Hearts' fails to do justice to either.
Where the movie succeeds is in the period detail, the casual violence and racism of the cops, the petty squabbling over who takes a pinch. The film also works when conveying the pathos of the horrific final murders of the pair. Visiting a single mother and her young daughter, Beck's jealousy ensures as unhappy an ending as you might expect. Here again though the earlier film was even more chilling.
This is not a bad movie. Although I question the wisdom of another retelling, the good performances and the only just dominant narrative of the killers ensure that it won't bore any audiences. However, it adds little to what is already a familar tale, and one that is not pleasant. Make no mistake, Fernandez and Beck were two of the most sickening killers of the Twentieth Century. Their story is sordid and unpleasant. However, I say it again, if you want the definitive 'Lonely Hearts Killers' on celluloid watch Kastle's 'The Honeymoon Killers'. You won't forget Shirley Stoler in a hurry.

Last Embrace

Just flicked on Jonathan Demme's early Hitchcock homage, 'Last Embrace', halfway through and had to keep watching. Many directors have tried to ape the great director, most notably De Palma who has tried to make a career out of it, but to my mind Demme's effort is one of the best. Roy Scheider play a secret service man grieving for his wife who suddenly finds himself the target of a deranged killer (or killers). Scheider takes the role that normally would have been Cary Grant's, and excels (sad to see his recent death), but though the movie recognises Hitchcock's earlier romantic thrillers, as it progresses it takes in his later period, the age of 'Psycho', 'Marnie' and 'Frenzy'. We also get some cheeky echoes of the classics (a shot of Princetown mirrors 'Vertigo'; instead of Mount Rushmore the film ends with Niagara Falls). However, much as it pays tribute to Hitchcock both in story and style, this is still a Demme movie. I wouldn't class myself as a huge Demme fan, but I respect him as a distinctive voice and talented auteur. Here he displays a lightness of touch that should undermine the darker elements of the story, but somehow he manages to keep things on an even keel. He also gives it a unique spin. Unlike Hitchcock's WASP-ish tales of white Anglo Saxons, this is resolutely a Jewish tale and that seems to require some humour ("When Jews get killed by a lunatic leaving Hebrew notes, naturally you have to have a committee;" or so says ageing sidekick Sam). What really makes the film though is the wonderful Miklos Rozsa score. In truth, using that soundtrack, Demme could film the phonebook and still come off with a nostalgic piece. But he didn't film the phonebook. Instead he brought a real cinematic sensibility to an intriguing screenplay and created a fine film. I know I am in the minority on this one, but I think it works and wonderfully well too.

Back on the Beat

I haven't exactly been burning the blog boards up of late. A little extra curricular activity has been taking up my time, so reading, viewing, etc. has gone a little by the wayside. Having said that...

 

I did read Chandler's 'The Curtain' featuring Carmady, probably the next most common detective in his oeuvres next to Marlowe. Although I only saw, not read, 'Farewell, My Lovely', both the Dick Powell and Robert Mitchum versions, and a long time ago, there are a lot of parallels; old rich man in huge house, missing (good) girl, and especially the garage scene. The next story, 'Try the Girl', has similarities too, at least in a 'Moose Malloy'-type called Skalla.

 

I've read a lot of Chandler's 'Collected Short Fiction' at this stage and am still only halfway through. Very readable stuff. The old story about Chandler not knowing who killed the driver in the movie version of 'The Big Sleep', makes perfect sense. You don't need to know what exactly is happening to enjoy these tales, and sometimes it probably helps if you don't. There is a hypnotic quality to the writing, very much like an oral account, which makes sense too when you consider that most are told in the first person. You just go with the flow trusting that Carmady (and Chandler) knows his job and will get us there in the most efficient way in the end. I have a natural bias to Hammett, but I can still appreciate quality and this is quality.

Dr Mabuse, the Gambler

Earlier watched 'Dr Mabuse, the Gambler'. I noticed some of the stills on the cover were not on the box, while some storylines seemed garbled. Looking up Empire, I found that the 86 minute copy I have should be 246 minutes long! And the soundtrack was woefully inappropriate for the most part, Brahms chamber music sloppily added, with what I took to be the original score only coming in infrequently.

 

With it master of disguise arch-villain, obsessive police inspector, infatuated mistress, and sadistic killings, 'Dr Mabuse' takes all the elements that defined 'Fantomas' and revitalises them for a post-war age. Given that it came nearly ten years after the French film, I suppose it is hardly surprising that the German movie is infinitely more sophisticated. Modern though 'Fantomas' was in direction and style, 'Dr Mabuse' is as thrilling in execution as any of the other masterpieces that defined the work of Fritz Lang. Using animation, superimpositions, surreal sets, off-kilter camera angles, strange lighting, Lang makes his film a feast for the eyes. There is a shot of Mabuse in a sewer near the end that immediately reminded me of Harry Lime in 'The Third Man'.

 

Rudolf Klein-Rogge, the mad scientist Rottwang in Lang's later 'Metropolis', plays Mabuse as an even more brutish villain than Fantomas, discarding his humanity in a frenzied pursuit of pure power and control. In contrast all the other characters breathe as living people. Chief Inspector von Wenck (or De Witt as he's named in the inferior copy I watched) in particular is a more complex nemesis for Mabuse than the French Juve, even finding time to fall for a jaded aristocrat, Countess Told, while infiltrating secret clubs where 'whatever gives pleasure is permissable'. ( 'Cards or cocaine?' he is asked in one establishment.) For all that the version I saw was mangled, I saw more psychological realism in this script concocted by Lang and his co-writer/wife Thea von Harbou, than their later collaboration for 'Metropolis'.

 

In one word - and like the villain - mesmerizing!

Fantomas Revisited

For the long weekend I borrowed two films I have long wanted to see: Fritz Lang's 'Dr Mabuse, the Gambler' and its sequel, 'The Testament of Dr Mabuse'. The first is silent, the second isn't (though in German). Naturally, given that they deal with ubercriminal, Dr Mabuse, a master of disguise, there are a lot of similarities with their French precursor, Fantomas.

 

I suddenly realised that I never followed up my comments on Fantomas. I finished watching all of Louis Feuillade's silent series some time ago, but they did make an impression. In contrast to a lot of silent product of the time, Fantomas is slick entertainment. Hampered by some truly ropey storylines, and an extreme facial hair fetish on the part not only of the criminal, but his nemesis, Inspector Juve, it does work remarkably well 90 years later. I can understand the many remakes made throughout the 20th Century and the claim that it influenced everything from James Bond to 'The Usual Suspects'. It is the seminal work the critics claim.

 

There were several Fantomas serials. Each one is prefaced by shots of the lead in the various guises he will adopt, so surprise is not possible (not thata two-year old would be fooled by the shoddy beards and wigs Fantomas wears). Invariably using his accomplice/lover, Lady Beltram, he stages a wide range of audacious crimes, always pursued by plump Inspector Juve. Juve is not above a little extra hair himself and on occasion infiltrates the criminal's gang, ultimately to no avail. Fantomas always escapes for more mayhem.

 

Distinguishing the films is a style of direction that seems very modern. There are De Palma-style set pieces involving elevators and crashing trains. Sometimes, however, the ambition outstrips the resources as when Juve and his helper the reporter, Fandor, escape a 'raging' fire (a couple of small bonfires) in some barrels. Many of the storylines occur in the open air, giving an almost documentary feel to some of the city episodes.

 

What is really interesting though is the character of Fantomas himself, who is unrepentingly evil. I suppose he is capable of charm, but it is made clear that the fascination he elicits in his reluctant mistress, Lady Beltham, is based on his cruelty. Indeed it is his unrelenting sadism that really keeps the audience watching, although the not-as-dumb-as-he-looks Inspector Juve gives us someone to root for too.

 

Despite the attraction of the sadistic madman, and the panache of the productions, it is still very silly stuff, full of easy coincidences and a dependence on conveniently ubiquitous laundry baskets for hiding places. The bizarre methods of escape the eponymous anti-hero employs (from false arms to hidden pits) may allow for a sequel, but left this viewer groaning. Still it's almost worth it and if, like me, you have a fondness for cinema's milestones, the many escapades of Fantomas deserve at least a peek.

 

Short, But Sour

I finished the Chandler short, 'Spanish Blood'. Coming from 1935, I think it's his first really mature work. Not that the others are 'immature', you understand (they're certainly great fun); it's just that this is the first to really capture the sense of world-weary sadness that characterises the best noir fiction. The cop, Delaguerra, strives for the best, but can only keep the world from the worst. It also features Chandler's first femme fatale, as far as I'm concerned. Although she is a relatively peripheral figure, she is a force that corrupts in spite of herself. In this story, sin tars all, and the wages of sin truly are death, spiritual death for some, but literal for most.

Blood and Whiskey

I read three of Raymond Chandler's 'short' stories over the weekend. They are more properly novellas being between 50 and 70 pages each. He is a different bird to Hammett, though they inhabit the same cage. The emphasis to my mind is on the malleability of story. Solutions to the various crimes - murder, kidnapping, blackmail - are offered throughout the tales by many different characters, each account plausible until skewered by a new development. Indeed the first tale I read, 'Blackmailers Don't Shoot', cannot be said to have a definitive solution. This ambiguity of narrative is pure genius. However, sometimes ambiguity covers up the author's own confusion and when during the filming of Chandler's 'The Big Sleep', he was asked about the death of one of the characters (was it murder or suicide?), he himself could never give a satisfactory account.

By the way, Marlowe only turned up in the third tale, 'Finger Man', after two pretty strong predecessors, Mallory and Dalmas (each dealing with blackmail in Hollywood and linked to studio, Eclipse Films), dealt out the lead. And just how much whiskey can a detective drink and still detect? I thought Hammett's Ray and Nora Charles could drink, but Marlowe practically breathes the stuff!

The Chandler stories are in a volume of his collected stories, so it is a bit bulky to carry around. For that reason, I also started reading Cormac McCarthy's 'No Country for Old Men', also knowing that the Coen Brothers' screen adaptation is imminent. It is a while since I read 'Blood Meridian', or 'All the Pretty Horses', and I kind of wondered whether this would be the gentle (slightly uninteresting) style of 'Horses' or the amoral, cataclysmic violence of 'Meridian'. Within ten pages I had my answer. I was reeling from shock. This could be powerful (stomach churning) stuff if the Coen Brothers do it right. Anyhow Chandler's copious fights and gunplay seemed like Agatha Christie when I went back to him, though none the worst for that. I look forward to reading both books.

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.