A review of “The Talented Mr Ripley” by Patricia Highsmith
September 27th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Crime fiction is a massively popular genre, but I generally avoid it. I made an exception for this 1955 psychological thriller because it has become such a well-established classic: it won a number of awards, it resulted in four sequels, and it has been the subject of many radio, television and film adaptations. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It is an unusual crime novel in that the point of view is that of the criminal himself and, somewhat implausibly and certainly audaciously, he manages to deceive just about everybody.
Twenty-five year old American Thomas Ripley, a loner with seemingly no morals and dubious sexuality, is above all a fantasist and the chief object of his fantasies is a fellow American, now resident in Italy, one Dickie Greenleaf.
Ripley is prepared to take incredible risks to fulfil his infatuation: “It was as if he were really inviting trouble , and couldn’t control himself.” We learn that: “His stories were good because he imagined them intensely , so intensely that he came to believe them.”
Highsmith clearly chose the name of her protagonist quite deliberately. Ripley’s Believe It Ot Not! was a newspaper panel that highlighted strange and unusual events and this novel is imbued with strange and unusual occurrences, the credibility of which is mooted over by a range of supporting characters.
The author plays with the emotions of the reader: we admire Ripley’s ingenuity, we share his fear, but do we want him to be caught or not?
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Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World?
September 25th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
This is the title of a new eight-part series which has just completed broadcasting on the BBC and is now available of the BBC’s iPlayer. An impressive array of senior figures speak with knowledge, candour and regret, making this one of the very best documentaries on global politics that I’ve ever seen.
It looks at a succession of international crises, where mass casualties were involved, and considers what happened when the international community – most notably the USA – did or did not intervene: Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Darfur, Libya and Syria.
Huge humanitarian, military and political issues are involved and there are never any simple options or answers. Intervention can have consequences which make matters worse (think of the invasion of Iraq). Non-intervention can lead to mass slaughter (think of the genocide in Rwanda). Even when there is a measure of success, there are massive complications (think of Kosovo). All decisions involve major uncertainties and unanticipated consequences.
I believe in principle that there are times when we should support liberal intervention by other nations in a nation state’s internal affairs. Such occasions are where mass loss of life is threatened or happening and, in those limited circumstances, the United States, ideally acting with UN authorisation and with allied support, is best equipped to make such intersessions. But clear objectives, skilled execution and a plan for ‘the day after’ are all vitally necessary.
There will never be a wholly successful action, but it is honourable to do all that one practically can to make a global crisis a bit better and to save some lives.
Posted in American current affairs, World current affairs | Comments (0)
What do you know about dementia?
September 20th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Here, in the UK, nearly a million people are currently living with dementia. This figure is predicted to increase to around 1.4 million by 2040. Worldwide, some 55 million are living with dementia. That figure is predicted to rise to around 150 million by 2030.
More women than men are affected by dementia. There are reports that the risks for dementia affect Black and Asian populations more than white people.
There is no cure for dementia.
The main factors determining the incidence of dementia are genetics and age, but the Lancet Commission on Dementia produced a model of 14 potentially modifiable risks over the life span and suggested that up to 45% of dementia cases could be prevented if these risks factors could be eliminated.
These 14 risk factors are: (early-life) less education; ( mid-life) hearing loss, depression, high cholesterol, physical inactivity, traumatic brain injury, smoking, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and excessive alcohol; (later-life) social isolation, air pollution and visual loss.
For six and a half years, I have been a volunteer participant in a research project called CHARIOT PRO – an abbreviation for Cognitive Health in Ageing Register: Investigational, Observational, and Trial studies in dementia research: Prospective Readiness cOhort Study. The study is based at Imperial College in London and led by the world-renowned Professor Lefkos Midd
First, I was a member of a study looking at the possible connection between dementia and a protein in the brain called beta amyloid. Then, I was a participant in a study looking at the possible role in dementia of a different protein in the brain called tau. I have just volunteered for a three-year longitudinal study.
Today we had a seminar at Imperial College to hear about the latest thinking on dementia and the current plans for the CHARIOT PRO study.
If you would like to be involved, go here.
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A review of the 1973 ‘classic’ film “Zarzoz”
September 19th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
It may be a bit of stretch to call the science fiction tale “Zardoz” a classic but, over the last 50 years, it has certainly become something of a cult favourite. I’ve seen it on the big screen three timse: first, on its release at the Odeon in Leicester Square; second, in the early 1980s at the then National Film Theatre; and, most recently, at the now British Film Institute following a question & answer session with the writer, producer and director of the film, John Boorman, then aged 91, in a wheelchair and struggled to give coherent observations. Along the way, I’ve even read the novelisation by Boorman which, as a mark of the story’s durability, was reprinted in 2024.
The timing of the film’s production – it was shot entirely in Ireland – is interesting. Boorman had just achieved a significant commercial success with “Deliverance” which allowed him the freedom to make the much more personal work “Zardoz” which had none of the success of his earlier movies. The star, Sean Connery, had just given up his screen tole as James Bond after massive success in six outings as 007 and he wad keen to do something different – anything more different than Zed, the lightly-dressed Brutal Exterminator in a post-apocalyptic Earth of 2293, is hard to imagine.
It has to be admitted that this original and compelling film often totters along the dividing line between imaginativeness and farce and it is best viewed as a satire on the human obsession with eternal youth and the search for immortality. Visually the work is often stunning with amazing imagery, while aurally the music of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony is haunting, especially in a final murderous sequence. At the BFI showing, Boorman received a standing ovation, even though his interviewer admitted that the film was “nuts”.
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A review of “The Old Man And The Sea” by Ernest Hemingway
September 17th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Santiago is an experienced but elderly fisherman in a Cuban fishing village who has had a prolonged run of bad luck, having failed in 84 consecutive days to catch anything. His luck is about to change dramatically, but at what cost and with what consequence? This novella of less than 100 pages won Hemingway the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and it was the only work explicitly mentioned when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 (this was his last work of fiction and he died in 1961).
Many regard this work as a classic of American literature, although some critics have claimed that it is overrated. Certainly it has a deceptively understated style – what Hemingway himself called the ‘iceberg theory’ with deeper meaning not evident on the surface – but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved the physicality of the narrative and the positivity, nobility and resilience of the titular old man. When talking to himself, he declares: “But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
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A review of a new bio-pic on the life of American war photographer Lee Miller
September 15th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
For British actress Kate Winslet, it has been a nine-year passion project to bring to the big screen the story of American war photographer Lee Miller (1907-1977). It was a remarkable life: after working as a fashion model in New York and a fashion photographer in Paris, during World War II she served as war correspondent for the British “Vogue”, covering events such as the blitz of London, the liberation of Paris, and the discovery of the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau. Yet, in the following years, she never talked about her work, even to her son who only discovered her photographs after her death and subsequently wrote the memoir on which the film is based.
“Lee” the film is deliberately the work of women. As well as Winslet in the eponymous role and rarely off the screen, other important positions are filled by actresses including Andrea Riseborough and Marion Cotillard, while both the writer (Marion Hume) and director (cinematographer turned debut director Ellen Kuras) are women. Lee was a brave and resourceful photographer with a back story which included rape as a child and promiscuity as a young woman, so this is a fascinating story. Winslet is simply wonderful as a witness to history who is both driven and tormented and she is presented as a free spirit distaining conventional gender roles.
Yet, the film is not as engaging as it should be, primarily because the bio-pic is framed by Lee, as an elderly woman, narrating her exploits to an unidentified interviewer with frequent and prolonged flashbacks which means that the work lacks the necessary pacing and drive.
Few viewers will see “Lee” on a large screen, as I did, because it has a very limited theatrical release and then goes to the platform of Sky who partially funded it. Between 2 October 2024 – 15 February 2025, Tate Britain will be exhibiting the most extensive retrospective of Lee Miller’s photography yet staged in the UK.
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Should assisted dying be legal?
September 13th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
More than two dozen jurisdictions around the world – including New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, 10 states in the US and all six states in Australia – allow some form of assisted dying.
Bills to legalise assisted dying are now going through parliaments in the Isle of Man, Jersey and Scotland. What about the rest of the UK?
The Westminster parliament is expected to debate the issue in the coming months. The Labour peer Charlie Falconer, a former Lord Chancellor, has published a Lords’ Private Member’s Bill to legalise assisted dying, and the Labour MP Jake Richards is considering bringing forward a Commons’ Private Member’s Bill after coming 11th in a ballot last week. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has backed a free vote on the issue.
This week, we learned that a citizens’ jury has overwhelmingly backed the legalisation of assisted dying for terminally ill people after hearing from experts over a period of eight weeks. Twenty out of 28 jurors based in England agreed the law should be changed, with seven disagreeing and one person saying they were undecided. More information on that citizens’ jury here.
I would support the legalisation of assisted dying in particular circumstances with appropriate safeguards. Now aged 76, one day I might want it.
Posted in Social policy | Comments (3)
Kamala Harris vs Donald Trump: the first (and last?) debate
September 11th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Fascinated though I am by American politics, I was never going to stay up and lose sleep watching live the ABC one and a half hour presidential election debate between current Vice-President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. But I made a point of recording the debate and watching every minute today.
I rather enjoyed it. It was reasonably coherent and civilised and we saw the clear differences of both character and policy between the two candidates. I thought that Harris won the debate easily with a confident, fluent and empathetic performance. But the vagaries of the Electoral College mean that, while I am certain she will win the majority of votes nationwide, I can’t be sure that she will the president.
I’ve been a fan of Kamala Harris since I first blogged about her seven years ago. When Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race, however, I was not sure if she had proved herself ready to be president. The last two months have surprised and delighted me. We can now but hope – but I believe: yes, she can.
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of the classic 1949 film “The Third Man”
September 10th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
We tend to think of film noir as primarily a genre emanating from America and typically set in Los Angeles, but this classic of the genre is a British production shot on location in post-war Vienna. Written for the screen by Graham Greene and directed by Carol Reed, the cast is a mixture of American (Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles), British (Trevor Howard and Bernard Lee), Italian (Alida Valli) and German (most of the support characters).
In fact, Welles, as the ‘third man’, does not appear until well into the narrative – his first appearance is an iconic shot – and is not on screen that much, but he steals the show, not least with a short speech that he himself wrote:
“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
Shot largely on location, war-ravaged, occupied Vienna – corrupted by widespread black marketing – has a starring role of its own in this black and white film full of ruin and rubble, dark streets, gloomy buildings and grotesque shadows. Reed frequently deploys sharply tilted camera angles reminiscent of the work of German Expressionism. Even the music is unusual: in the hands of Anton Karas, the zither provides a haunting backdrop as well as a memorable theme.
This week, I saw “The Third Man” in a cinema when a newly-restored version was screened for the 75th anniversary of the work.
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A review of the classic novel “Goodbye To Berlin” by Christopher Isherwood
September 6th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
This 1939 novel by Anglo-American writer Isherwood has long been a classic and was the inspiration for the musical and the film “Cabaret”. In many respects, it is an unusual novel.
It is substantially autobiographical, based on the author’s time in the German capital during the dying days of the Weimar Republic in 1929-1931. The central character has the author’s name and all the other leading characters are based on actual persons that Isherwood encountered in Berlin, notably the flamboyant Sally Bowles – inspired by teenage cabaret singer Jean Ross – who became the centre of the “Cabaret” story.
Furthermore, although clearly a novel, it was first written as six, loosely-connected pieces, most of which were previously published in separate form, and the whole work has no real plot, being instead essentially a set of portraits of various colourful characters.
The obvious claim to fame of the novel is that it is a beautifully-written early work from a gay writer who went on to develop an important canon of literature. Additionally, it is a fascinating book because it chronicles the seedy nightlife of Weimar Berlin and the growing influence of the Nazi movement.
In fact, initially Isherwood – both the character in the novel and the author himself – was so apolitical and self-absorbed that he was barely aware of the incipient political crisis but, as the narrative develops, it is less about his socialising and hedonistic lifestyle and more and more about anti-semitism and casual violence with the bland observation “Hitler came, and the Reichstag fire, and the mock-elections.”
Ultimately, the novel can be seen as a warning. At a charade of a boxing match, Isherwood notes: “The political moral is certainly depressing: these people could be made to believe in anybody or anything.” As he is about to leave Berlin, he notes how people are already adapting to the new regime, saying of his landlady: “She is merely acclimatizing herself, in accordance with a natural law, like an animal which changes its coat for the winter.”
As I was reading the novel, a far Right political party won a regional election in Germany for the first time since the 1930s.
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