A review of the 1946 classic movie “Gilda”
April 13th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
This classic film noir is largely set in an illegal casino in Buenos Aires just after the Second World War and its point of view is that of the American narrator and gambler Johnny played with style by Glenn Ford. However, all the best films in this genre have a femme fatale and the eponymous fellow American comes in the delicious form of Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Carmen Cansino) who was then just 28. The love-hate relationship between Johnny and Gilda is at the heart of a story revolving around the owner of the casino and criminal mastermind Ballin Mundson (George Macready).The conclusion is a little too neat and contented for this to be a totally hard-boiled film noir but, along the way, there is crackling dialogue and plot twists that will delight the viewer. There is more than a hint of the earlier “Casablanca” (1942) with its static scenes, evocative music, and sharp, heavily ironic, exchanges. The two most memorable scenes both belong to Haywood: the hair-tossing introduction to Gilda and her performance of “Put The Blame On Mame” (actually sung by Anita Ellis).
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A review of the book “Black And British” by David Olusoga
April 12th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
There are many way of presenting the history of a nation. One is through a series of great characters and, in the case of British history, this is typically kings and queens. Another is through a series of great events and, in the instance of British history, this could be characterised as ‘1066 and all that’.British-Nigerian Professor Olusoga takes an utterly different approach: he gives a narrative account of Black people in British history. His original work on this theme was titled “Back And British: A Forgotten History” (2017) and it is quite a tome of over 600 closely-typed pages. Conveniently he has created “Black And British: A Short, Essential History” (2020) which is only 200 widely-typed pages with lots of illustrations. This shorter work is aimed at children but is equally attractive to busy adults.
Olusoga explains that Africans first came to Britain with the Roman Empire some 2,000 years ago. He then jumps around 1,500 years and tells us about Black characters such as John Blanke, a trumpeter at the court of Henry VIII, and the five men of Shama, visitors from the Gold Coast (now Ghana). But the Black story becomes huge with the advent of the Atlantic Slave Trade (1640-1807). England was the world’s biggest slave-trading country, shipping some 3.5 million Africans to America and the West Indies.
Olusoga explains how long and hard was the struggle to make slave-trading illegal by the British. Then it took another 30 years after the abolition of the slave trade before there was the abolition of slavery itself. Eventually 46,000 slave owners were well-rewarded by the state but former slaves received nothing.
The world’s first Industrial Revolution (around 1760-1840) took place in Britain and it was powered by the cotton industry located around Manchester (my home town), but this industry was so profitable for the factory owners in large part because the cotton came from the plantations of the southern United States where slavery persisted until the American Civil War (1861-1865). Olusoga tells us about the ‘Scramble for Africa’ following the Berlin Conference of 1884 and then explains the contribution of Black soldiers to the British military effort in the two World Wars.
In 1945, there were probably fewer than 20,000 Black people in Britain. Today’s British Black population stands at around 2 million, a little more than 3% of the national population, with London (my home for over 50 years) being “the most diverse city on earth”. Olusoga explains how and why this happened and brings this history up-to-date with references to the Black Lives Matter movement and the removal of the Edward Colston statue.
Of course, the story is far from over as, only now, are institutions from the British monarchy to “The Guardian” newspaper (on whose board Olusoga sits) beginning to research and acknowledge the role that they played in the exploitation of Black people and the need to make some kind of restitution for this. History shapes who we are, but it is not fixed and needs to be constantly studied and reassessed.
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A review of the 2016 film “The Whole Truth”
April 11th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
This is a courtroom drama that follows the standard tropes of the genre. It is Louisiana and a man has been murdered; his son confesses to the crime and it seems like an open and shut case. But this is a movie so we know that it is not going to be as simple as that and, sure enough, a series of flashbacks gradually reveal more and more about the death and, in the end, we have the inevitable reveal in the form of an unexpected twist.There are a couple of features which make this rather traditional work quite watchable. First, the actors, especially Keanu Reeves – looking much more presentable that in his John Wick persona – as the defending attorney and Renée Zellweger – looking utterly different from her Bridget Jones character – as the victim’s wife. Second, it only runs for an hour and a half which is a refreshing change from the glut of movies that last too long.
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A review of the 1963 epic “Cleopatra”
April 8th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
Was “Cleopatra” a classic? Well, it was far from being a brilliant movie, but it deserves to be appreciated for its infamously troubled production and its gloriously grand staging. As the film critic David Thomson wrote in his book “Have You Seen …?”: “You have to see ‘Cleopatra’ if you have any remote interest in film history”.The eventual director (and co-writer) was Joseph L Mankiewicz who created a film that became the most expensive ever made up to that point and almost bankrupted the studio. The story is familiar and three major stars fill the three key roles: Elizabeth Taylor as the Egyptian Queen, Rex Harrison as Caesar and Richard Burton as Mark Antony. Taylor and Burton had an affair during shooting and went on to have two marriages.
It is absurdly long at four hours and there is only one real action scene (the sea battle of Actium), but the costumes are wonderful, the stages are magnificent, and the scene of Cleopatra entering Rome visually spectacular.
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The three great crises of Christianity: what is God? what is the Church? what is man?
April 7th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
“The situation was summed up by the Cambridge historian Richard Rex, who suggests that there have been three great crises in the history of the Church. The first, in its early centuries, revolved around the question ‘What is God?’. That is to say: how many natures were in Jesus Christ, how many persons in the Trinity, and so on. Then, during the Reformation, ‘What is the Church?’. The third crisis, he argues, is happening now, over the question of ‘What is man?’. This relates – as he memorably puts it – to ‘an entire alphabet of beliefs and practices: abortion, bisexuality, contraception, divorce, euthanasia, family, gender, homosexuality, infertility treatment…’This is a quote from an interesting article in the “Spectator” magazine.
I feel for my Christian relatives and friends because I see another great schism on the horizon. For me as an atheist, the answer to the first question is: there is no God. Therefore the second question does not matter to me. The third question needs to be answered with tolerance and acceptance and respect as people decide who they are and what they want to do with their body.
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A review of the Chinese film “So Long, My Son”
April 5th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
This 2019 Chinese film is a revelation. It tells the story of two couples, friends and fellow workers at the same factory who have boys on the same day who also become friends. The two couples prove to have very different lives and the actions of the two sons have powerful and long-lasting implications for both families.This is a large film in several respects. The filming ranges from Inner Mongolia in China’s far north to Fujian province in the country’s deep south. The time period covers some three decades from the 1980s to modern times. And the work itself runs for just over three hours.
Wang Xiaoshuai created the story, co-wrote the script and directed the film. The structure of the narrative is a series of non-chronological flashbacks which is somewhat confusing (especially for a non-Chinese viewer), but it is all told in a captivating manner with moving insights into both political and personal experiences.
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A review of the classic novel “Orlando” by Virginia Woolf
April 3rd, 2023 by Roger Darlington
Having seen the 1992 film version with Tilda Swinton in the titular role and the 2022 theatre adaptation starring Emma Corrin, I thought that I would tackle the original 1928 novel. The eponymous hero is a male noble man and poet in the early 17th century who lives until the time of Woolf, about half way through this period of more than three centuries changing gender from a man to a woman, along the way meeting a succession of poets, writers and critics.I confess that I did not find it an easy read. There is minimal plot, only six (untitled) chapters, and lots of long sentences and really long paragraphs (the lengthiest paragraph is almost three pages). The writing is impressive but the language is flowery, even flamboyant. The novel is inspired by, and dedicated to, Woolf’s lover Vita Sackville-West and there are multitudinous references to literary characters and works plus Sackville-West’s life and family. The Penguin Classics version of the book that I read had over 30 pages of notes.
The work is presented as a biography, complete with eight photographs, but the elongation of a lifetime and the gender transformation of this life make it a most unusual and unreliable biography. The whole work is a satire and there are some humorous characterisations. Woolf wrote of her book that “it is all a joke” and called it “a writer’s holiday”.
However, Orlando has two periods when he falls asleep for a week and has “his moods of melancholy”, while Woolf herself was subject to breakdowns throughout her life and eventually drowned herself in the River Ouse. I know that the novel is a classic, but there were times when I almost fell asleep or contemplated throwing myself in the River Thames.
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A review of the 2020 action movie “The Old Guard”
March 31st, 2023 by Roger Darlington
Charlize Theron in combat mode is always a sight to behold. After her stand-out performances in “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015) and “Atomic Blonde” (2017), she has the lead role in “The Old Guard” which, as a Netflix movie appearing at the beginning of the pandemic, went straight to streaming. Theron plays the leader of a small team of immortal mercenaries who, in the present day, are about to gain a new recruit, if they can stay ahead of big pharma which wants to exploit their special genetics. The story is based a on graphic novel by Greg Rucka who is the debut screenwriter.This is quite a progressive work: Theron is not just the lead actor but a co-director; the female director Gina Prince-Bythewood and two of the main actors are black; and there is a gay scene between two of the superheroes. This would not be enough commend it but, in addition, there are plenty of exciting acting sequences and a decent screenplay. The final scene neatly sets us up for a sequel and it looks like there’s a franchise in the making.
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A review of the new action movie “John Wick: Chapter 4”
March 28th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
Oh my, what a blast. If you enjoyed the three previous John Wick movies, you’re gonna love this one.Former kickboxer and former stuntman Chad Stahelski once again directs this latest contribution to an action hero franchise that continues to be both popular and profitable. Keanu Reeves is back as our suited, laconic, titular assassin, a one-man killing machine, seemingly indestructible whether pummelled, slashed, shot or simply knocked down an endless flights of steps.
This time, he takes on the High Table big-time in the form of the Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård), but there are plenty of other formidable opponents, such as the blind Caine (Donnie Yen) and the huge Killa (Scott Adkins).
As we’ve come to expect, the work is endlessly stylish, as one thrilling action sequence follows another with dramatic sets, splendid choreography and raucous music. There’s usually neon lights or falling water or lights and water and there’s always bodies, dead bodies, lots and lots of them.
The action moves from New York to Morocco with long sojourns in Osaka, Berlin and Paris. There are some fabulous sequences, including a one-shot, bird’s-eye perspective of murder and mayhem.
Of course, it’s too long – almost three hours – but this seems to be almost standard for ‘big’ movies these days. Of course, it’s utterly over-the top, but this is what Wick’s fans expect and want. It is just so mindlessly entertaining. This time, stay to the very end: for the first time in a Wick film, there is a clip after the credits
I always finish my review of a John Wick movie with an estimate of the death toll. This one sets a new record score: 140.
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What is time and who controls it?
March 27th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
I once went on a one-day course on time held at London’s City Literary Institute. The morning speaker was a physicist who explained that time was everything that had happened since the ‘big bang’ 13.8 billion years ago until now. The afternoon speaker was a philosopher who declared that there was no such thing as time.Currently, in the troubled small state of Lebanon, there is a disagreement over whether the clocks have gone forward or not, so that literally some people are expected to be in two places at once. You can read more about this odd state of affairs here.
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