And a ceiling that's peeling all over the floor
Today has been very quiet and characterized by cats. This is a good thing.
1. In this week's issue of The New Yorker, Anthony Lane writes about Churchill and movies, including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) from a perspective I had not previously considered:
Certainly, "Colonel Blimp" presents no detriment to morale. Indeed, the gist of the plot is that the future and the defeat of Hitler lie squarely in the hands of modern soldiery. Did Churchill fear that viewers might see in this fuchsia-faced, harrumphing old grump a trace of their determined leader, his jaw jutting out like the prow of a dreadnought? Did he maybe see that trace himself? "War, which used to be cruel and magnificent, has now become cruel and squalid," he declared in "My Early Life," in an outburst of pure Blimpery. He added, "In fact it has been completely spoilt. It is all the fault of Democracy and Science." He and Wynne-Candy even attended the same boarding school, Harrow. In other words, Powell and Pressburger had conjured a fictional life that veered perilously close to Churchill's, as dense with derring-do, divisiveness, emotional extremes, and lurching reversals of fortune as his had been. By showing the ages of Blimp, they made the Churchill film that never was. And what they omitted, perhaps to his dismay, was his extraordinary late bloom. That would be more than enough to hurt the Prime Minister's pride.
2. I can see that I will have to check out Joseph Losey's Blind Date (U.S. Chance Meeting, 1959), because a rather inefficient search for "film noir" and "blind date" just threw this recording at me of Hardy Krüger singing "Blind Date (I'm a Lonely Man)." I had no idea that was even a thing. My favorite what-the-hell-they-can-sing moment will probably always remain Peter Lorre bouncing along to "Ja, die Polizei" in Was Frauen träumen (1933) with the recent discovery of Anthony Perkins coming a close second, but I still want to know the context here.
3. Plans for this evening have to do with meeting![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rushthatspeaks for Track of the Cat (1954) at the HFA. It's the next-to-last night of the Wellman retrospective. I would still like to write about the three pre-Codes I saw last week. If I can't get a time machine, maybe a pocket dimension?
1. In this week's issue of The New Yorker, Anthony Lane writes about Churchill and movies, including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) from a perspective I had not previously considered:
Certainly, "Colonel Blimp" presents no detriment to morale. Indeed, the gist of the plot is that the future and the defeat of Hitler lie squarely in the hands of modern soldiery. Did Churchill fear that viewers might see in this fuchsia-faced, harrumphing old grump a trace of their determined leader, his jaw jutting out like the prow of a dreadnought? Did he maybe see that trace himself? "War, which used to be cruel and magnificent, has now become cruel and squalid," he declared in "My Early Life," in an outburst of pure Blimpery. He added, "In fact it has been completely spoilt. It is all the fault of Democracy and Science." He and Wynne-Candy even attended the same boarding school, Harrow. In other words, Powell and Pressburger had conjured a fictional life that veered perilously close to Churchill's, as dense with derring-do, divisiveness, emotional extremes, and lurching reversals of fortune as his had been. By showing the ages of Blimp, they made the Churchill film that never was. And what they omitted, perhaps to his dismay, was his extraordinary late bloom. That would be more than enough to hurt the Prime Minister's pride.
2. I can see that I will have to check out Joseph Losey's Blind Date (U.S. Chance Meeting, 1959), because a rather inefficient search for "film noir" and "blind date" just threw this recording at me of Hardy Krüger singing "Blind Date (I'm a Lonely Man)." I had no idea that was even a thing. My favorite what-the-hell-they-can-sing moment will probably always remain Peter Lorre bouncing along to "Ja, die Polizei" in Was Frauen träumen (1933) with the recent discovery of Anthony Perkins coming a close second, but I still want to know the context here.
3. Plans for this evening have to do with meeting
rushthatspeaks for Track of the Cat (1954) at the HFA. It's the next-to-last night of the Wellman retrospective. I would still like to write about the three pre-Codes I saw last week. If I can't get a time machine, maybe a pocket dimension?
no subject
(Sidenote: given that Jack Churchill, the future Duke of Marlborough, started his career by sex with Charles II. mistress Barbara Villiers, complete with jumping out of Barbara Villiers' bed and into the dungheap beneath the window when Charles II. showed up (I always loved Charles' commentary: "Young man, I do forgive you, for you do it for your bread."), and indeed Barbara's 5.000 pounds for that jump found the Churchill family fortune, Nye certainly had a point. *g*)
So yes: definitely sounds like a man who could see himself caricatured as Colonel Blimp, overlooking how sympathetic a character the hero of that movie is.
Incidentally, re: Churchill on screen, Lane missed out one (admittedly tv, not movie) example of where he came across as human rather than as a collection of famous moments and mannerisms, which was the series about his Mum, scripted by Julian Mitchell, with this tongue-in-cheek gem in the last episode, in a post WWI party:
Supporting Character A: Everyone keeps saying "Freud says" or "according to Freud" - who IS Freud, do you know?
Supporting Character B: The chap who claims all men are really in love with their mothers.
Camera: pans to Winston, watching Jennie dance enchantedly
Supporting Character A: How ridiculous.
no subject
Same, but I hadn't seen it before: most of the accounts I had read of Churchill's objections focused on political rather than personal grounds. (The extras on the Criterion DVD include memos between him, Brendan Bracken, and Michael Powell.) I do not always agree with Anthony Lane—he persists in treating science fiction and fantasy like inherently trashy genres, where every now and then he shockingly acknowledges there might be something of value in a not strictly realist film and more often his criticism misses the point completely—but I enjoy him as a critic, partly because he comes up with thing like this.
contrary to what The King's Speech claims, Churchill sided with Edward/David 100% in the abdication crisis, tried his damn best together with Lord Beaverbrook to keep him on the throne, and declared Edward would "shine in history as the bravest and best beloved of all the sovereigns who have worn the island Crown", I kid you not.
I know you don't! I don't think Timothy Spall does a very good Churchill, either, but that is less of a historical objection and more a matter of him doing an impersonation when everyone else in the cast is being a character.
which was the series about his Mum, scripted by Julian Mitchell, with this tongue-in-cheek gem in the last episode, in a post WWI party
Nice.
no subject
I see what you did there.
One of the best bits in Plot Holes of WWII is the complaint that Churchill was only in one episode of WWI, where he was a bumbling comical general, and when he comes back for the sequel he’s suddenly been rewritten:
“he's not only Prime Minister, he's not only a brilliant military commander, he's not only the greatest orator of the twentieth century who can convince the British to keep going against all odds, he's also a natural wit who is able to pull out hilarious one-liners practically on demand. I know he's supposed to be the hero, but it's not realistic unless you keep the guy at least vaguely human.”
no subject
I have never heard of Plot Holes of WWII, but this is wonderful.