Everybody knows the world's gone wrong
My mother referred earlier this evening to the state of my health as farshlimmert, which definitely sounds classier than my saying it's gone down the tubes. On the other hand, I do not apparently have TB, so we can hold off on the consumptive poet jokes a little while longer yet.
As a reworking of Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971) is trashtacular even beyond the whipsawing of its trans reading when it mixes the novella's Gothic horrors with historical ones—scrunching about six decades in the penny-dreadful process of folding in not only the Whitechapel murders but Burke and Hare, even without throwing in an allusion to Sweeney Todd or a street singer straight out of Val Lewton—but it dovetailed unexpectedly well with an article sent me by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
selkie about the obtrusiveness of AI-generation in art because it contains an in-camera effect so good that I stopped the film to gush about it to spatch. It's the emergence of the so-called Mrs. Hyde. One-shot, Jekyll wrenched with the effects of his absinthe-green potion buries his face in his hands, slowly straightens to perceive, in the cheval glass where a moment ago he was convulsing, a woman as severely dark-haired, night-pale and shocked as himself, who she is. It's not a trick of double exposures or duplicate sets or dissolves. While the camera tightly pivots behind the hunched protagonist, it looks as though a slight adjustment to the angle of the mirror allows an otherwise offscreen Martine Beswick to reflect beyond the identically dressed shoulder of Ralph Bates, their breath heaving in time, their hands slowly unmasking their shared face. It's very simple and uncannily effective. In some ways I find it more impressive than the red-filter transformation of Fredric March in the 1931 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde because it's all sightlines. He's never out of shot and she's suddenly in it. Especially to an eye distracted from consideration of the sets or the cinematography by the switch of actors in the glass, it looks impossible. And someone had to think of it, or at least translate it from a stage illusion. It has never broken a film for me to see how a practical effect is done, which feels different from the suspicion of how much of an image is AI-slopped.
The almost talking blues whose first two lines I missed tonight on WERS turned out to be Lucinda Williams' "The World's Gone Wrong" (2025).
P.S. And a random thirty seconds of Clive Francis mixed in with the bleak London ultraviolence of Villain (1971), why not?
As a reworking of Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971) is trashtacular even beyond the whipsawing of its trans reading when it mixes the novella's Gothic horrors with historical ones—scrunching about six decades in the penny-dreadful process of folding in not only the Whitechapel murders but Burke and Hare, even without throwing in an allusion to Sweeney Todd or a street singer straight out of Val Lewton—but it dovetailed unexpectedly well with an article sent me by
selkie about the obtrusiveness of AI-generation in art because it contains an in-camera effect so good that I stopped the film to gush about it to spatch. It's the emergence of the so-called Mrs. Hyde. One-shot, Jekyll wrenched with the effects of his absinthe-green potion buries his face in his hands, slowly straightens to perceive, in the cheval glass where a moment ago he was convulsing, a woman as severely dark-haired, night-pale and shocked as himself, who she is. It's not a trick of double exposures or duplicate sets or dissolves. While the camera tightly pivots behind the hunched protagonist, it looks as though a slight adjustment to the angle of the mirror allows an otherwise offscreen Martine Beswick to reflect beyond the identically dressed shoulder of Ralph Bates, their breath heaving in time, their hands slowly unmasking their shared face. It's very simple and uncannily effective. In some ways I find it more impressive than the red-filter transformation of Fredric March in the 1931 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde because it's all sightlines. He's never out of shot and she's suddenly in it. Especially to an eye distracted from consideration of the sets or the cinematography by the switch of actors in the glass, it looks impossible. And someone had to think of it, or at least translate it from a stage illusion. It has never broken a film for me to see how a practical effect is done, which feels different from the suspicion of how much of an image is AI-slopped.The almost talking blues whose first two lines I missed tonight on WERS turned out to be Lucinda Williams' "The World's Gone Wrong" (2025).
P.S. And a random thirty seconds of Clive Francis mixed in with the bleak London ultraviolence of Villain (1971), why not?
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Aww. XD
I expected her to be more actually boyish and was interested that she was not directed to be, but it didn't make me not enjoy her performance, especially her liveliness and color in the language and her rapport with Rees
Oh, yes, they're definitely great together! And it isn't that I didn't appreciate her, I just wanted a different version as well almost immediately. Thinking about it, I wonder if I was thinking of Viola, and my default for her is Felicity Kendall in the BBC Shakespeare, and they are kind of similar in appearance at that date, but also very different, although if so it wasn't conscious. BUt I can't remember which order I watched them in now, and I was so blown away by Helen Mirren in Cymbeline, so if I watched that first, it might also have made me think of Imogen first. Idk, I need to rewatch it sometime, now that I have got an alternative to play with as well.
But, yes, despite the weird setting, the Branagh one was really good! (idk, as I said before when I watched it, WHY he chose that; he does actually avoid being culturally appropriative as such, but whhyyy set yourself up for being very understandably assumed to be doing that by everybody who didn't read the intro text slides closely? It is a pretty setting, and it works, but so would a dozen other settings that wouldn't have thrown viewers and critics so unnecessarily. Also then there wouldn't have been a sumo wrestler in it. But, yeah, otherwise great, lovely, fab cast & the light touch I didn't quite get from the Beeb and was mentally trying to reach for. Must also watch again).
Did you get him?
No! That was when I realised that you apparently have to have seen Richard Pasco to like him or something. idk. I love him, anyway.
You have definitely pointed me in the direction of that production before,
It is SUCH a mix of genuinely awesome and hilarious 'bad day at the BBC' and I love it so much, but yeah. That much is obvious by now. I watched it when I was VERY ill indeed; so much so I ruined the plastic covering of the dvd case by falling asleep while hugging it one very bad afternoon. (The plastic goes wobbly on your favourite dvds if you show your love for them by hugging them for over an hour at a time).
I am now watching a very video-crackly rip of that episode on YouTube when I should be doing something else. Their attention to the sound of the lines reminds me much more of working on opera and art song than theater rehearsals I have sat in on, which is fascinating to me.
Aww. I started watching that very slowly one summer and I was really enjoying it, but I wasn't up to doing enough of it at a time, and I have no idea which episode I got to. Definitely not as far as episode 7, but it was all very interesting.
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I liked how much Rees' Celia hangs out, catlike, observing. And she does sell the sudden pair-off with Oliver—him smitten on sight, her more measuringly intrigued. The production cut one of her slashier lines to Rosalind, alas.
Thinking about it, I wonder if I was thinking of Viola
Hah—I second-guessed and deleted the phrase "Viola-like" from my expectations of her playing. But it is true that's my standard for gender-as-performance in Shakespeare and since As You Like It adds the extra layer of Rosalind-as-Ganymede-as-practice-Rosalind, just go all out with it!
and my default for her is Felicity Kendall in the BBC Shakespeare
I have seen gifsets of that production, oddly, which is how I know what Alec McCowen's Malvolio looks like. My default Viola is Imogen Stubbs.
(The plastic goes wobbly on your favourite dvds if you show your love for them by hugging them for over an hour at a time).
It's a permanent mark of affection! Like the scars accumulated from living with cats.
Definitely not as far as episode 7, but it was all very interesting.
I can report that Episode 7 can be watched in isolation if you want some excellent Judi Dench and Richard Pasco and Twelfth Night.
Swerving fandoms wildly, is there any chance that you have either a gif or a macro of Sanjeev saying serenely, "Couldn't give a shit" in the latest series of Taskmaster?
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I've seen and enjoyed the film too! Imogen Stubbs is also a great choice.
I can report that Episode 7 can be watched in isolation if you want some excellent Judi Dench and Richard Pasco and Twelfth Night.
That is indeed very tempting!!
Swerving fandoms wildly, is there any chance that you have either a gif or a macro of Sanjeev saying serenely, "Couldn't give a shit" in the latest series of Taskmaster?
I have reblogged just such a thing! so hopefully that will be of use!
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Brilliant! I shall direct
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That does sound inevitable.
(I assume the radio series is no relation to the TV Crown Court from which
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