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Try to make yourselves a work of art
To the best of my knowledge, none of Powell and Pressburger's short wartime films involved a young, slightly overconfident Navy officer who goes home with a girl on shore leave and loses nearly two months in a night, because her family are gulls and time does not pass for them as it does for human beings, but that didn't stop me from dreaming about it. It was included with another nonexistent short as a bonus on the DVD of Contraband (1940), a seven-minute film in flickery black-and-white and that kind of slightly brass-faded color, having had to be restored from several different prints; her family looked like anyone else in pre-war suits and utility dresses, not fantastic or even maritime at all. There were no special effects, but in one sequence on the open water, rounding a buoy in a small sailboat, we saw the wings unfolded from their shoulders, hanging like a pilot's badge, the bright greyscale of a sunny day without Technicolor. They did not look real and were all the more convincing, because they were not trying to be. And his face on finding his ship gone from port without him—somewhere on convoy duty in the Mediterranean—like a man desperately dreaming, knowing he should wake up. Gulls are scavengers, but she wasn't predatory. Or if she was, it had nothing to do with him.
(Speaking of the Archers: I understand why Squadron Leader X (1943) is among the BFI's top ten Most Wanted, but I wish someone would find it already. On the bright side, it appears The Silver Fleet (1943) has just come out on Region 1 DVD.)
I think the Halloween party last night went well. We were missing some regulars, but on the other hand some people turned up whom I hadn't seen in months, and many pumpkins were eviscerated aesthetically. There may be photographs, if any of them came out. Today, I go back to spending too much of my time working.
(Speaking of the Archers: I understand why Squadron Leader X (1943) is among the BFI's top ten Most Wanted, but I wish someone would find it already. On the bright side, it appears The Silver Fleet (1943) has just come out on Region 1 DVD.)
I think the Halloween party last night went well. We were missing some regulars, but on the other hand some people turned up whom I hadn't seen in months, and many pumpkins were eviscerated aesthetically. There may be photographs, if any of them came out. Today, I go back to spending too much of my time working.
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Story?
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I have already a story in progress with a sailor and a siren in World War II—stalled, I think, because it threatens to become a novel—but maybe I should try throwing myself at it again.
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And then a few nights ago I watched Powell's Red Ensign (1934) and was astonished by the clarity of its exposition of the economics of 1930s-era shipbuilding and of industrial espionage amongst shipbuilders. Have been meaning to write about it, but am not sure I have much more to say than that. Considered to by his first stylistically idiosyncratic film, and I can well believe it. Fascinating, and, at 66 minutes, highly and effectively compressed.
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I don't think so. I dreamed of some nonexistent Britten settings once.
Perhaps dreams could be intermixed with reviews of their real films...
That would be fun.
And then a few nights ago I watched Powell's Red Ensign (1934) and was astonished by the clarity of its exposition of the economics of 1930s-era shipbuilding and of industrial espionage amongst shipbuilders.
Please write more about it! I've never seen that one.
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Nine
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Hah. Thank you. If you can get someone else's brain to give me money . . .
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I'm glad the party went well. I would be grateful to see photographs.
I hope the work goes well and is at the very least not completely unpleasant and/or boring.
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It was very short, but I wish it existed, too. I wish I could make movies.
I would be grateful to see photographs.
I shall see if my mother's recovered any.
I hope the work goes well and is at the very least not completely unpleasant and/or boring.
Thank you.
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Excellent!
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I wish I could show you!