They'll Love Me When I'm Dead

I've found another interesting thing on Netflix. If you haven't yet taken my advice and watched Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons on iPlayer, I urge you to do it now and then go to Netflix and take in the fascinating but infuriating documentary They'll Love Me When I'm Dead. It is the fractured story of the making (or not) of Welles's  last film The Other Side of the Wind, a picture only released thirty-three years after Welles's death. I've not yet seen that film but will track it down and let you know. But for the curious cineaste the documentary is, despite its weaknesses, a treat. It jumps all over the place (apparently a nod to the atmosphere of The Other Side) and unless you are very up on Welles you will wonder who the numerous contributors are - their names are not shown in subscript and some voice contributors - I noted Simon Callow's distinctive tones - go unattributed altogether. It is though, as Welles himself, beguiling and an insight into the creative process. 77/100.

The Road To Unfreedom

The Road to Unfreedom is one of those tomes that American academia can produce - the outpourings of a suave professor (in this case Yale no less) that can knock on the door of the bestseller lists. And, as it happens, quite right too. Enticingly written it ranges over Trump, Putin, Brexit and much else and has serious things to say about serious subjects.

Snyder and I would disagree over Brexit (like most Americans he doesn't get it) but we can park that because my enemy's enemy is my friend. And Snyder clearly loathes Putin and the man he regards as that rogue's Manchurian candidate, our old mate Donald Trump.

We are in the realms of Right Hegelians (Lenin) and Left Hegelians (Ilyin and latterly Putin). We are in the danger zone where an inevitablist view of history disappears up its own behind and abandons the field to the eternalists. We are in the death-zone for individualism.

The politics of eternity cannot make Putin or any other man immortal. But it can make other ideas unthinkable. And that is what eternity means: the same thing over and over again, a tedium exciting to believers because of the illusion that it is particularly theirs.

 

 

A Speculation On Faith

Don't worry this is not me getting all theological though I can't promise never to bother you with my half-formed views on the mysteries of faith. No, for today I am concerned to review The Two Popes. There are serious critics who are bothered by the entry into film production of the big streaming services. The Two Popes is a Netflix production, a very good one. There is nothing LCD about this, nor does it tip over into morose seriousness. It is a speculation on the meaning of faith, most particularly the meaning of faith to successive popes. It invents a dialogue between Popes Benedict and Francis, the pair played brilliantly by Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce respectively. It is warm, occasionally funny, and adult. Highly recommended. 85/100.  

That Tricky Second Album Syndrome

Orson Welles' first picture was Citizen Kane which I think we have to agree was one hell of a debut. Next in line was The Magnificent Ambersons, a film legendarily maimed by RKO Studios who took the final editing out of Welles's hands and left us an eighty-five minute film whose ending is hurried and unsatisfactory. That much is unfortunate (particulary since the excised hour of footage was destroyed - a considerable act of vandalism) but what is left is nonetheless arresting. Welles is a master of shadow and his chiaroscuro palette is on fine display, as in Citizen Kane and as it would be deployed so brilliantly in the later Touch of Evil. All in all we have what remains a great (yes I use that term advisedly) movie but one that leaves that sensation of what might have been. 83/100.

Both Kane and Ambersons are currently available on BBC iPayer. Reason enough to pay the licence fee. Well nearly.

Croeso - Encore Une Fois

How's that for a polyglot heading? Admit it you're impressed - a Pig of hidden depths. Well you will probably have guessed that Big Fat Pig is at Casa Piggy Cymraeg again, ostensibly to meet a roofer to get a price for a new roof - the original seventies roof is now held together by a lot of moss. That moss is much loved by the pestilential gulls who are once again nesting on the roof, their offspring now thumping around on the flat section and shitting everywhere. Possibly a shiny new roof will be less attractive to these flying vermin.

I say ostensibly here on account of the roof but of course I need little excuse to decamp here, even if it does separate me from the Groupie who puts the Pig to shame by her work ethic.

Anyway enough of my domestic arrangements - here's the news: for the second week in a row the Pig took his long run in Anglesey, this time heading inland and back to Benllech. Ninety-two minutes (and two seconds - it all counts) in a refreshing (for the runner at least) drizzle. Oakleys were worn, otherwise I doubt that the Pig could have made it. Thus continues the fitness drive - the Pig can now pull his unbelted trousers down without having to undo them. He does not, naturally, do this in polite company - mind you he does not often keep polite company.

Whilst writing this I have been listening to a brilliant album by the most disappointing act I have ever seen live - the album (taut and compelling) is Armed Forces, the band Elvis Costello and the Attractions. I am pleased to say that that evening at the Hammersmith Palais was more than rescued by the two support acts - John Cooper Clark, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids. It is not a little frightening when I realise that this all took place more than three decades ago.

It is also nearly twenty years since the Pig and the Groupie took Daughters Number One and Two on a four week Australian holiday. It was completely fantastic. But I won't bore you with the details, instead I will refer to one small episode that sticks in my mind from that vacation. We transited via Paris Charles de Gaulle and were in the Club lounge (Groupie had a lot of air miles from her business travel - the major factor in the Pig's predilection for turning left when he gets on planes) where the decision to shut the smoking area was causing an uproar. The area in question was merely a demarked section of the room, no physical separation being in place. In short the room was (as we had found when on our outward journey, the closure occuring in the interim) Passive Smoking Central. The Pig is not a vehement anti-smoker, indeed enjoys the occasional crafty cigar, but there is a world of difference between endangering your own health and the freedom to infect your fellow man. As something of a libertarian (admit it, you'd noticed) I wrestle with these sorts of things but at some point common decency ought to intrude - first do no harm. What am I getting at? Well, take  a look at this video of boorish libertarians in the States - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-53411955/you-call-me-selfish-for-not-wearing-a-mask

They have a point - but that point is wrong. First do no harm. Primum non nocere. Which by my count means that smart arse Pig has now used four languages in today's tirade. Pig out.

Croeso

And lo did it come to pass that the English were let back into Wales, there to visit the properties they own and in respect of which they dutifully pay inflated Council Tax charges. One of the little commented upon effects of Coronavirus has been that this virus has achieved what Plaid Cymru have so signally failed to achieve and Wales has stood lonely and peopled mainly by the Welsh. Now I know that those two preceding sentences exaggerate the position a little but there is a kernel of truth in there and so it was lovely to be able to be back in the land of my fathers, for all its botherations a beautiful place. The cares fell off my shoulders (what cares you prat, you don't even work - yes but I feel things insensibly) as I pulled back the blinds in Casa Piggy Cymraeg (as the country estate will henceforth be known) and saw the magnificence of the ocean. I love Ynys Mon. While I think about it a large shout out to our neighbour NH who kept an eye on things while we were banned from visiting.

Big Fat Pig was very virtuous on this visit (of the flying variety, just two nights) - yesterday morning he donned his lycra and his Oakleys and meandered at what passes for running pace around Benllech before heading off up the A5025 and getting all the way to Moelfre, whence he returned and satisfied the aim of a ninety minute excursion. This morning, before a breakfast of toast and honey, he headed towards Red Wharf Bay in a half hour burst of energy. All very gratifying especially since BFP stayed off the booze despite the siren call of the bottles stashed in the utility. This is the age of the diminishing Pig.

The Pig tends to favour easier reading when at Casa Piggy Cymraeg, thus did he pull from the shelf Cardinal of the Kremlin by Tom Clancy - a discarded hospital library copy liberated from a dusty bookshop shelf for a princely one pound. Clancy is by way of the Pig's guilty literary secret. The writing is sometimes risible but boy does Clancy do plots and the Pig has to say that he found it easier going than the Thomas Hardy that continues to vex him back here at the main Casa Piggy.

One mild disappointment  - last night I watched Withnail and I, a film about which people rave. Perhaps its moment has long since passed and the trope of men behaving badly has exhausted itself. I found it mildly amusing but, sorry, not a thing of cinematic genius. Oh well, what do I know? 63/100. 

Quiet Nights In

The country yesterday took its biggest step yet towards emerging blinking into the daylight of normality (I was toying with 'normalcy' there but decided that it is too transatlantic) - this giant leap for British mankind was the reopening of the pubs. The police were on full alert apparently. The Roberts family (we have Daughter Number 1 here with us this week) opted for a night in but we did greatly enjoy fish and chips ordered online (click and collect) and collected from the estimable Mere Green Chippy.

Last week we had re-watched Inception - the third time of asking for me. Visually stunning and with a thunderous score this is a tour-de-force from director Christopher Nolan. Due deference to DN1 is needed here and I must point out that Nolan read English at her alma mater University College London. We will generously forgive them both this defect. This is a film which is a feast for the eyes but one does also have to concentrate because the plot is labyrinthine - there is much play with levels of consciousness, dreams within dreams within dreams and onwards down as in a hall of mirrors. On third viewing I think it made more sense to me. Highly recommended. 81/100.

I mention our choice of viewing because yesterday evening (after the chips) we fired up the neglected big screen upstairs (when we bought it it was expensive state of the art, now it is unexceptional) and watched a very different movie, Greenbook. The fact that this won Best Picture at the Oscars might usually disconcert me but, no, this is a bloody good film. Its two stars, Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali, are on brilliant form and, yes alright, it does sometimes tip into the sentimental but its message of racial tolerance and friendship is uplifting. Catch it if you can. 88/100.