I've got a taste in my mouth for what it felt like way back in the old days

[sovay]

I just told spatch that life is a series of exhaustions and interruptions. I spent the day so tired, I almost fell asleep once at my desk and once on the couch and both times my phone jolted me awake, which in the latter case was especially unappreciated. Rob made me a spider cake when he got home from work. His place of work has multiple staff out with COVID. We will be testing before joining the rest of my family for Pesach. One plague-time Seder would have been enough.

I am going to need to read Winifred Holtby's South Riding (1936), because if Victor Saville's South Riding (1938) is at all a faithful transfer of its source material, it's got to be a speedrun. Subplots alternate so rapidly onscreen, you can miss crucial information without even blinking. I imagine the politics were more nuanced in the original, too, and chronologically it cannot have ended by observing the coronation of George VI and Elizabeth, however reassuringly it permits once opposed ideological elements to reconcile in the singing of "Land of Hope and Glory." On the other hand, I cannot disdain any film which offers me Ralph Richardson as a full-fledged romantic lead and John Clements as the local socialist with TB—he answers a charge of being "yellow" with a faintly smiling, "Oh, no, I'm not. I'm not even pale pink. I'm red. Scarlet," then double-entendres the declaration with an inevitable cough. Plus Glynis Johns in her screen debut and about forty-five seconds of Skelton Knaggs. The photography by Harry Stradling is very good open-air black-and-white. If it wasn't a faithful transfer, I'm still interested to see what it was transferred from.

Courtesy of a friend who is not on DW: what to feed a budgie during WWII.

I think I had mono the last time I felt like this.

Comments

[legionseagle]

I've read South Riding and while I haven't seen the film I reviewed the excrable 2011 BBC series here . But it absolutely does not sodding well end with the coronation of George VI; it ends with the Silver Jubilee of George V, including a letter from the TB-afflicted socialist Communist explaining how the Jubilee symptomises all that's rotten in the state of the nation and Sarah Burton telling her girls that while I Vow To Thee My Country (which is what they are actually about to sing) is a great and moving piece of art, she finds the line "The love that asks no questions" severely Problematic and they must never, ever, ever take it literally.

[legionseagle]

Um. Well. I just watched the film. I have to say, that was a departure from the book I wasn't expecting, going in.

[sovay]

Um. Well. I just watched the film. I have to say, that was a departure from the book I wasn't expecting, going in.

Okay, are we talking one of the film adaptations where the characters have the same names and that's about it?

But it absolutely does not sodding well end with the coronation of George VI; it ends with the Silver Jubilee of George V, including a letter from the TB-afflicted socialist Communist explaining how the Jubilee symptomises all that's rotten in the state of the nation and Sarah Burton telling her girls that while I Vow To Thee My Country (which is what they are actually about to sing) is a great and moving piece of art, she finds the line "The love that asks no questions" severely Problematic and they must never, ever, ever take it literally.

That sounds delightful.

[legionseagle]

No; actually it's a film three-quarters of which is a reasonably faithful (within the limits of the time constraints and also the constraints of what could be depicted on film at the time as opposed to what you can do in a novel) adaptation of the book and then it takes a massive swerve into a completely different film which undercuts some of the key themes of the book -- it's as if someone had looked at Casablanca, heard the line "The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world" and gone, "No! That's the wrong moral! I need to rewrite it to centre the individual above the systemic issues!"

[sovay]

and then it takes a massive swerve into a completely different film which undercuts some of the key themes of the book -- it's as if someone had looked at Casablanca, heard the line "The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world" and gone, "No! That's the wrong moral! I need to rewrite it to centre the individual above the systemic issues!"

I have encountered that kind of swerve in Hollywood films, but perhaps wishfully, I had not realized it was transatlantically endemic as well. Well, I will be fascinated.

[edit] I loved the book, and the film ending is, from the perspective of the book, gonzo.

[legionseagle]

Well, quite. I had to dust off my Brian Blessed voice: "Carne's -- ALIVE??????"

[sovay]

I had to dust off my Brian Blessed voice: "Carne's -- ALIVE??????"

I mean, I also like Ralph Richardson, but.