strokeofbadluck

3) Headway East London

3rd time lucky: a good Headway! Just the architecture makes you feel good, a vast open-plan room on the junction of Kingsland Road and the canal. I can’t actually be a member (not living in East London), but I do from time to time go to Headway Eats, a supper club at which you all sit together, so you never know whether you’ll be sitting next to a brain-injury ‘survivor’ or a friend.

Last time (caribbean cuisine) I sat next to a man, 30s, whom I assumed to be a friend. But he had hypoxia for 8 minutes following a van crash. He was like me in that he said waking up every day was as if he’d had a bottle of whisky the night before. When all he’d done was go to bed.

I said: Snap! Only for me it’s as if I was stoned…

The sort of conversation only a brain-injury survivor could appreciate.

(Thanks to Rupert for introducing me.)

Remembering the Lawrence Of Arabia editor…

… Anne V Coates, whom I interviewed in 1998, when she was ‘only’ 73… She went on working till she was 90 (her last credit was 50 Shades Of Grey, 2015…) – and died this May at 92.

When you’re watching a film, as Anne Coates is the first to agree, you’re usually only conscious of the editing if it annoys you. Every now and then, however, a film is put together with such conspicuous verve that you can’t help sitting up and taking notice.
— Read on www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-the-hand-that-rocks-the-cradle-1185851.html

The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

First things first: the big-band theme tune by David Shire. Wow! The best ever, in his best ever year. He also did The Conversation for his brother-in-law Francis Coppola. He drifted from the top rank in the 80s, until David Fincher brought him back for his kind of thing in Zodiac (2007).
The wise-cracking script was by Peter Stone – who did Charade (1963) and other lighthearted thrillers – from a 1973 novel by John Godey, to which he added lots.
The director is Joseph Sargent, who did only one film I’ve seen – the ball-breakingly dull MacArthur (1977) – and another 90 for tv and film including – notoriously – Jaws: The Revenge (1987) with Michael Caine, which gets 2.9 out of 10 on IMDb… But he does a pretty good job here. It certainly looks authentic.
The cast are good comedians: Walter Matthau, Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo (Pretty Woman), Tony Roberts (a Woody Allen regular) and Jerry Stiller (Zoolander). (It’s certainly a lot funnier than the terrible Travolta/Washington/Scott remake.) But there’s also Robert Shaw, coolly scary as a British colonel-turned-Africa mercenary-turned ‘Mr Blue’ (in charge of Mr Green, Mr Brown and Mr Gray, beating Tarantino by 18 years).
The train leaves Pelham at 1.23pm, and the last visit by the cops is still within the working day, so the whole film last about 4 hours, I reckon.
The plot and tone have echoes of Inside Man and Speed.

An eleven-year-old

He’s so tall. Even the big band teacher says ‘you’ve grown’ as a reflex…

He just grunts – not really the word. He just makes a little ‘huh’ noise… But he must like it. He keeps on coming to big band and trumpet and drums. It’s just ‘normal’, I suppose, week on week.

He has a really short haircut. It looks good but he HATES it. He’s lost his fringe! It’s my fault. I booked them into the new hairdressers’ in Mistley – and paid for them (it’s so near for them). But I didn’t actually GO. And Luke got scalped! And being so shy – just like me at his age – I bet he didn’t actually SAY anything. I bet he just grunted when they showed him what they’d done – and went home, slammed the door of his bedroom and CRIED…

Well, that’s what I would have done at 11. But I didn’t have two big brothers. Luckily, 1975 was a ‘long hair era’. So I didn’t have to go more than 3 times a year…

And – having no fringe – it shows off the scar from when he cracked his head open on the wall in the hall. Luckily I was there (it was 2015). I felt USELESS! K and J (aged 14, already over 6 foot) carried him to the car and went to A&E. And I waited with A and the guests, and ordered fish and chips for 7. Which of course I didn’t pick up…

The big band – about 20 10-18-year-olds – are playing the Muppet theme tune. Maybe some of them know it from The Muppet Movie… But they don’t show any sign of it…

The bandleader/conductor is a marvel. She’s about 70, has short hair, is totally gung ho about being a bandleader. I said to her before the beginning how much I liked the concert they did in July. In particular the bit where she said ‘let’s try something new’ and gave them a piece THEY’D NEVER SEEN BEFORE! Which they played phenomenally well… and she said: the trick is just never to tell them how difficult it really is! And then – sooner or later – they just get it! Instead of failing and going back to their computer…

She’s entirely Essex and just SO GOOD!

A Farewell To Arms (1932)

Talking Pictures just showed this to honour the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI. *

Which means EITHER the programmer only read the logline (it features a climax at 11 o’clock, 11 November 1918) OR s/he is a radical pacifist…

Based on Hemingway’s 1929 novel, it’s less a faithful adaptation than the ultimate Frank Borzage doomed romance. Gary Cooper plays a deserter from the Italian army (not very Armistice Day…) and Helen Hayes is the nurse he loves. Being pre-Code, it’s startlingly frank about their desire for each other. It even includes a first-person kiss (from Gary Cooper’s PoV)! (Also there’s about a foot difference in height between the two – but it just doesn’t matter. They’re in love…)

Equally good are the support: Adolphe Menjou (even more right-wing than Cooper!) as the nonchalant Italian officer who calls Cooper ‘baby’; and Mary Philips (the first Mrs Humphrey Bogart) as Hayes’s fiercely loyal fellow nurse. Philips was more of a stage actress, but her occasional films included her unforgettable mother in Leave Her To Heaven, quite unable to do anything with her daughter, Gene Tierney, except to look on and despair.

The strangest thing about this as a ‘lest we forget’ film isn’t the pacifism but the fact that Hayes dies and Cooper survives. There are so many films when the military hero dies in the end. So to go with this one probably just means carelessness…

Anyway, it’s a great opportunity to see the absolute no. 1 Borzage movie. He was born in the same year as my (WWI-decorated) grandfather – 1894 – and died in 1962, the year before I was born. He was the son of an Italian immigrant (surname BorzagA) to Salt Lake City, one of 14 children. (His younger brother Daniel played the accordion and was a member of John Ford’s repertory company; he can be seen in the almost-wedding scene of The Searchers, among others.)

Lest we forget… 😏

* Also available for free on YouTube

Sleepless (2017)

This is a remake of the French thriller Nuit Blanche (2011) which I’ve never actually seen. But I HAVE had a long Skype conversation with its writer-director Frederic Jardin, about a project called TWIST on which I was the (sixth) writer, and to which he was (briefly) attached as director. It was the last project I worked on (gainfully employed!) before the stroke, and I still get a postcard from the producer about its prospects, from time to time. (The producer’s father had a stroke as well, so he KNOWS…)

Well, I wish I could have forgotten Twist and just gone: I am not worthy… And proceeded to fantalk about his film! (Since Nuit Blanche, Frederic Jardin’s just been on the cop tv series Spiral and Braquo. Which is a shame…) Nuit Blanche (aka Sleepless Night) is for hire on Amazon Prime for £2.49, so I’ll get to it…

As for Sleepless, it’s – currently, AMAZINGLY – FREE on YouTube (but it won’t be for long). It’s set in Las Vegas and is in the subgenre of ’24 hours in the life of a criminal and/or cop’ (Die Hard, Snake Eyes, The Lineup (1958) and – in a small way – my own Liability etc). It fell foul of the 2017 Las Vegas massacre, which happened shortly after its release.

Jamie Foxx is absolutely fine as the corrupt (or is he?) cop. But it’s the supporting cast who really take the biscuit:

Michelle Monaghan – the honest cop.

Dermot Mulroney – the dishonest but lovable casino owner.

David Harbour (Revolutionary Road, The Equaliser, A Walk Among Tombstones – and whom I spent the whole film thinking was Michael C. Hall…) – the crooked cop.

Scoot McNairy (Halt And Catch Fire) – the Serbian villain, oh boy…

And – last but not least – the direction by Baran bo Odar, who was born in Switzerland and of whom you may not heard. But you may know his Netflix series Dark or his excellent (but grim) German-language feature The Silence (2010). The only thing wrong with Sleepless is (possibly) the complete lack of humour. Which either means that Odar is borderline autistic OR that he just thinks the twists and turns of the plot are humorous enough…

It’s not QUITE up to the standard of John Wick (2014 – what is?). But boy oh boy… I want to watch it again…

On or off

It’s not easy being mother to 3 boys. And for her it’s particularly hard. Pre–kids we always assumed we would have girls. She didn’t really like straight boys at all, except for – strangely – me and Andy. And I didn’t really like straight men, in those days.

My father struck me as very strange. He was either ‘on‘ – being the life and soul of the party with his ‘clients’ (he was in advertising) – or ‘off‘ – sitting in the sitting room with the curtains drawn to shield the tv screen from sunlight, watching the racing…

As with you, films were the thing I found that connected us, specifically Errol Flynn movies on BBC2 on Saturday afternoons…

He made lots of money in his career, and I always felt: Well, making money did absolutely NOTHING for his state of mind… (He’s always been depressed, if you ask me.) So I will do something else… ART (for want of a better word…).

Since I got ‘better’ this year, I can’t help feeling quite pleased with myself. I moved back here, partly to ‘be there for the kids’. But she just won’t accept it. She could feel glad – it’s certainly made her life a little bit easier. But it wasn’t ‘her idea’, me moving back like this.

When I was ill, I just gave her all my ESA and PIP, and lived for free at my parents. I was always going to die next week, at the latest, so I didn’t want them. But – moving back to the Green – I actually needed them for myself.

She has just got stuck in a groove being ‘outraged’ by how selfish I’m being ‘spending all that money on myself’. But state benefits are a pittance! I live quite cheaply anyway, with free movies and free music. Everything takes me ten times as long as a ‘normal’ person. I occasionally go to London. I don’t buy clothes. I haven’t been abroad since 2015. It’s fine by me (and a lot better than at my parents‘!).

So her reaction – how selfish I am! – just seems hilariously wrong-headed. But it’s HER reaction…

Plots which WORK

I have a 50s strategy as a (n ex) screenwriter.
Clarity is all important.
I know it’s not for everyone.
The Big Sleep and North By Northwest are ‘modern’ screenplays in the Shane Black/Quentin Tarantino mould: they aren’t remotely bothered by coherence. Just as no one – not even the screenwriter – knows who killed the chauffeur in The Big Sleep.
But I like – even more than these films – OTHER 50s films even better: like The Searchers or Sweet Smell Of Success. Films in which the plot ACTUALLY MATTERS.
That’s what really turns me on about movies: a plot which works, in an ingenious but – most importantly – understandable way…
(eg Liability! Not really, but…)

The whole thing is: to make a whole film subtle, you have to make the constituent parts UNSUBTLE.

I watched Lawrence of Arabia last week, with a totally obsessed friend, and I realised that Lawrence says (in almost so many words): I’m going to Arabia to find King Feisal… Gosh, it’s strange here. What can I do?… (After Aqaba…) Ooh, I’m good at this. I can pretend being a hero and even a god… Oh dear, it’s all gone wrong, I just need to go home… (and after Allenby doesn’t ALLOW him to go home) Right, I AM a god now! No prisoners! (Alternating with…) Get me out of here! (I want to drive my motorbike into a tree…)

And suddenly he’s not ‘useful’ (in Claude Rains terms) – and he’s gone and the film’s over, just like that!

Put like that, after the event, it seems trite.

But of course as a viewer – who doesn’t know exactly where the screenwriter is taking you – it’s not.

So – even as a (n ex) fellow screenwriter – I have to see it 5 times over 40 years to have an inkling what (in screenwriting terms) is going on.

(That, incidentally and amazingly, was Robert Bolt’s first produced screenplay!)

I must say I like story-editing. The parts of my brain which AREN’T damaged include the screenwriting theory side (I just re-bought the Alexander MacKendrick ‘On Filmmaking‘ book…).

But what has gone is the ‘voice-in-my-head’. Pre-stroke, I always had imaginary conversations with people, notably my parents.

I’d think: I’ll say A, and she’ll reply with B, and then I’ll say C…

But of course when I tried it out for real, I’d always get thrown by the complete non-sequitur-ness of the replies.

I’d say: A…

To which he’d say: Z… something completely unrelated!

Now I just don’t have that anymore (or maybe I’m just beginning again…). My brain is a blank whenever I don’t consciously put something in it. (Which has its compensations…)

New Order song titles from films

I haven’t seen all of them (* means I’ve seen). Neither has Bernard, I bet. I think he just had an old copy of Halliwell’s in the rehearsal room…

Ceremony (Nagisa Oshima, 1971)
In A Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950) *
Temptation (Irving Pichel, 1946)
Cries And Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972) *
Thieves Like Us (Robert Altman, 1974) *
Age Of Consent (Michael Powell, 1969) *
Ecstasy (Gustav Machaty, 1933)
Also (possibly) [On] The Beach (Stanley Kramer, 1959) *
Sunrise (F W Murnau, 1927) *
[Scarface: The] Shame Of The Nation (Howard Hawks, 1932) *
Vanishing Point (Richard C Sarafian, 1971)

And then – around 1990 – they moved to a new, hopefully better rehearsal room, or they had their own studio, and Halliwell’s was left behind or forgotten…

(Inspired by Age Of Consent, 1969 version, being on Talking Pictures…
NB: the song is MUCH BETTER.
For more on Michael Powell, see Peter Hook: Substance – Inside New Order, p425)

Competitive boredom

I just had a weird ‘class A’ moment…

I saw white powder on the sidetable. It was too fine for sugar, I thought. I had a brief fantasy: in spite of everything she’s said about her partner, she’s a recreational coke addict! She’s snorting coke RIGHT NOW (it must be when I go out of the room…). But she DOESN’T WANT TO TELL ME (for some reason….). She thinks just spliff will be enough, in my imagination… She’s basically PROTECTING me… (And if you add coke to the mix, no wonder she’s so skint…)

I reach out and have a taste…

Not coke but… icing sugar!

And suddenly I remember: Strawberry scones! Yesterday…

And I’m glad, sure – but also just a teeny-weeny bit disappointed….

(I last had coke at a neighbour’s 40th, in Fassett Square in 2001 or 2. And I thought: I just don’t get it! Boring people – who don’t listen in the first place – just get MORE AND MORE BORING – competitively…)