In Defence Of The Meta-Text: Two British Examples

You have to give it to the BBC, its iPlayer streaming service is a treasure trove. I have just finished watching two Le Carre adaptations with quiet enjoyment: Smiley's People (better as television than as a novel); and A Perfect Spy (a notably good novel and a less satisfactory, though stil meritorious, television series). But that is not what I want to talk about. My main concern today is two films that can be found on iPlayer.

You won't (or at least shouldn't) need telling that the Beatles are brilliant. I use the present tense because their music remains as fresh as the proverbial daisy. I'm listening to it now. Their first venture into film, A Hard Day's Night (1964), is a stylish, bordering on brilliant, film about a band called the Beatles, played by (and credited as playing - that point is important - pay attention at the back) John, Paul, George and Ringo. The meta-text - it's about their trials and tribulations on their way to making a television show. It is consistently good-natured and Richard Lester's direction is superb. A real treat and, oh, that music. 75/100. 

An even more self-aware piece of meta-text is presented by A Cock and Bull Story. This is a film about the making of a film of a famously unfilmable metatextual novel, Sterne's Tristram Shandy. If this was done with anything other than a very deft touch, it would be in danger of disappearing up ts own fundament. It doesn't. It is very, very clever without being alienating. There is a great line (delivered by the excellent Steve Coogan) about Shandy being a postmodern novel written two hundred years before there was any modernism to be post of. Also 75/100. 

 

Cultural Artefacts

When the break-up of the Beatles was still a recent thing the beastly, avaricious record company moguls put out two compilation albums respectively covering the periods 1962-1966 and 1967-1970. They are seared into the minds of those of a certain age as the Blue Album and the Red Album. They are brilliant and still the most effective primers for anybody who needs to be persuaded that the Beatles are important - incredibly bloody important.

 

So anyway I was saying - incredibly bloody important. And I would venture that it is the band's later catalogue that today attracts the most attention - the difference between the two periods perhaps best summed up the track counts and running times of these two albums. The Red Album clocks up twenty-six tracks and a running time of just one hour and two minutes; the Blue, twenty-eight tracks clocking in at one hour and thirty-nine minutes. Well what I rediscovered today is that early Beatles should not be disdained. I played the Red Album as the background track to some research on Antony and Cleopatra, of which play a little more anon. The Red Album? Well, compilation albums are not generally important cultural artefacts - these are. Has pop ever been done better?

As for Antony and Cleopatra - well obviously another significant cultural artefact. Arguably dear old Shakespeare's best (depending on my mood and the quality of the production), a play that is, to steal from another favourite cultural artefact (answers on a virtual postcard), polymorphously perverse. 

So after a slow start (the early stages of a new chapter of research are always a tad woeful) today has been a good day. In addition to the artefacts already referred to, you will, dear reader, be on tenterhooks about the theme for this year's Overgraduate Advent Calendar. I'm excited so goodness only knows how you're feeling. More to follow as December approaches. No teasers. You'll have to wait. 

Cultural Artefacts And The Zone Of Sanity

You have heard me whinge before about the world going to Hell in a handcart and in the past ten days we have had to bear the twin peaks of desperation that are the party conferences of our benighted major parties. First up we had Labour who announced a new piece of state sponsored larceny dressed up as widening share ownership. Hopeless and gormless as the Tories can appear (actually it's not an appearance - they are hopeless and gormless) it is them to whom we must look if we are going to avoid the Labour wrecking ball being taken to the economy. Cue an assembly of forced rictus smiles as the Tory party faithful attempt to put on a brave face whilst they destroy each other over Brexit. The brazen Boris Johnson makes shameless play for the leadership and poor old Theresa May essays as dignified a stab as one can manage at retaining some dignity. What a complete shambles.

So here are things to cheer us up. I've been listening to The Beatles blue album while I work - some paid labour and rather more work on the old thesis - will it ever be done? Quite possibly not. Now I know that the cool kids don't approve of compilation albums but the blue album can be excused since it reminds us just how sodding brilliant The Beatles were. Go on, search it out, ideally using it as a gateway to their entire oeuvre.

And another artefact to recommend. The Martian is the cheery and comprehensible side of sci-fi. Beatifully shot and deliberately not as portentous as the genre can be at. Behind the science (and there is a lot of it) there is a story of human endeavour and redemption. There are even some well constructed jokes. Worth a look. The bigger the screen the better. 7/10.