I walk up and down in six thousand years

[sovay]

By virtue of discussing Julian Firth with kindkit, I have just run into this artifact: Jeremy Wooding's Chartered Streets (1989), a short film in 16 mm black and white starring Firth, the voices of Billy Bragg and Pauline Melville, the streets and faces of London, and the poetry of William Blake. I would also say starring the spirit of Derek Jarman, but in the late '80's Jarman was alive and angry and making things like The Last of England (1987). Anyway, enjoy some anti-Thatcherite psychogeography. I'm not sure it's gone out of fashion.

Comments

Highgate, 1988

[lauradi7dw]

I don't know if this is the correct response, but have a pertinent (?) few minutes of
"High Hopes"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8mpy1rZyq0g

Re: Highgate, 1988

[sovay]

I don't know if this is the correct response, but have a pertinent (?) few minutes of "High Hopes"

I can see how you got there, and I'd never seen any of the movie. Thanks.

[kindkit]

That is very Jarmanesque. (Though Jarman would have put a sex scene in it, bless him.)

Also, young Julian Firth was really rather pretty.

[sovay]

(Though Jarman would have put a sex scene in it, bless him.)

(It's true.)

Also, young Julian Firth was really rather pretty.

I think he's got a nice face even as Brother Jerome, which is probably awkward. But the late eighteenth century looks good on him.

[kindkit]

The late eighteenth century looks good on everybody, I think.

The problem with Brother Jerome's face, I suppose, is Brother Jerome's usual look of pursed-lipped disapproval. Whereas the Traveller in the short film gets to look soulful.

[sovay]

The problem with Brother Jerome's face, I suppose, is Brother Jerome's usual look of pursed-lipped disapproval. Whereas the Traveller in the short film gets to look soulful.

Agreed on both counts. Since it took me years to see Firth as anyone but Brother Jerome, however (tracking character actors became so much easier with the advent of YouTube), I just think it's a tribute to his face that I still thought it was a nice one.

[kindkit]

Rewatching the Brother Jerome bits of Cadfael shows me that, even joking, I was being a bit unfair to him. He's always reacting to what other characters are doing, and I quite enjoy watching his expressions in various shades of "what the hell is going on here" in re: plot things. He also has a good line in looks of adoration directed at Prior Robert, and of "oooh, I have noticed A Clue and now I get to point it out and everyone will realize how clever and virtuous I am!"

May the good dog help me, I think I kind of love him.

[sovay]

Rewatching the Brother Jerome bits of Cadfael shows me that, even joking, I was being a bit unfair to him.

I don't think you were unfair in general, which is why I agreed; he's not a one-note character, and Firth's is certainly not a one-note face, but Jerome's default is that prim indignant sanctimony which always struck me as hoping to pass for Prior Robert's stately air of sailing above it all (and never, ever does, which in itself is rather endearing) and so the rest of it has to sneak in around the edges. He's just a good enough actor—and a good enough character actor, in the honorable tradition of making three-dimensional people out of sketches in the script—that it does.

May the good dog help me, I think I kind of love him.

I should probably say something sarcastically commiserating, but honestly I kind of do, too.

[kindkit]

that prim indignant sanctimony which always struck me as hoping to pass for Prior Robert's stately air of sailing above it all (and never, ever does, which in itself is rather endearing)

Yes, all of this.

I was watching a bit of S1 earlier in which Jerome accuses another monk of singing an inappropriate song, and gets (very gently) told off for it by the abbot, and he's so embarrassed. I actually felt for him.

I blame you entirely. :-)

[sovay]

I blame you entirely.

I'll learn to live with it.