Ensnared Melodies

June 22, 2014, 5:22 am

≫ Next: The British Playboy - Review of "The Look of Love"

English: Original oil painting by Pappi, 2008. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Introduction

As with poetry, aspects of a romantic relationship are regular topics in songs. From longing to heartbreak to the joyfully unique feelings a person experiences when they are with a loving companion, popular music has it all covered. Relationships are very complicated self-imposed institutions and no one knows how they will turn out. Worse still, the majority of the stories we have told each other throughout time present too much of the “happily ever after” ideal that never happens. It little prepares us for the many twists and turns that lie ahead both in our partners and in ourselves. Sometimes those twists lead to a bizarre perversion of what was a loving romance. The following songs I have selected reflect on this perversion. Words like “trap” and “abuse” are used to describe something that other songwriters, more often than not, beautify and society, driven by our instinctive impulse to breed, venerates as our ultimate purpose. “Love” and “heart” are in there too, but they take the form of vulnerabilities that are being used as instruments of torture.

Sweet Dreams – The Eurythmics

This song really sets the tone for twisted relationships of all types. Despite having very few lyrics, the words convey a powerful message about how people interact. Keeping it generic, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart could be talking about business, family, friendship or romance. It is rich for interpretation and different artists have given many unique slants on the song’s meaning. Marilyn Manson probably provided the most memorable cover, claiming a big chunk of the song’s legacy for his band. The slow creeping instrumental has been used for scenes in TV dramas and TV commercial to convey mounting darkness and danger. Manson, of course, revels in the song’s lyrics, singing them as a willing giver and receiver of sadomasochistic stimulation. I used his version of the song in my final live performance of my Dead Souls martial arts/dance act to make a dramatically eerie entrance. My fellow artistes and I walked through the doors with hooded cloaks draped over us. The cloaks were pulled back to reveal we each carried a gigantic live python to complement our Gothic costumes and make-up.

However, despite Manson’s excellent cover, credit has to be returned to the original masterpiece. The synth pop industrial instrumental might date the work squarely within the 1980s, but few can deny the impact of the initial vibrating initial beat. Lennox opts to sing the song with an icy coldness playing off the very mechanical nature of Stewart’s synthetic sounds. She delivers the words with a factual resolve. The Marquis de Sade would have approved.

I first heard this song on Saturday morning TV. It was long before I grew to realize the brilliance of the track, but Annie Lennox is visually striking throughout. She is most typically beautiful later on in the music video, but she will always be remembered for the assertion she strikes in her androgynous guise at the song's commencement as she lays down the law. Abuser or abused. What is it going to be?

Running up that Hill - Kate Bush

It is a great shame that this classic pop music hit did not get the title Kate Bush had intended. However, all agreed that calling a song “A Deal with God” would kill its airplay in Catholic countries like Spain and Italy. Nevertheless, this title better represents what the song is all about. Here we have a Faustian prayer not put to Satan, but God, asking for a gender reversal. The passion conveyed in the lyrics of this song separate it from the normal yearning and loving songs we are accustomed to hearing. It breaks heterosexual relationships down to their very core, demanding a deeper level of empathy that twists reality.

Sadly the song’s re-release for the closing ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012 show how badly the song’s meanings have become distilled. A song about the struggles between the sexes in a relationship had become a motivational song for runners. Its use seemed as ignorant as the Republican’s use of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” as an anthem for the Ronald Regan election campaign. I was first drawn to “Running up that Hill” when it was used for the children’s TV drama series, “Running Scared”. Although the instrumental worked very well for the series opening credits the song’s title was being used purely at face value. Why the song was used again for the closing credits of the wimpy adaptation of Robert Cormier’s children’s classic novel, “The Chocolate War”, which is set in a boy’s only school, completely escapes me.

Curve’s “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” takes this idea further and moves on to describe a battle between the sexes that seems inevitable, and I like to think of that as a better tribute to Bush’s original vision than its most common interpretations, whether or not Tony Halliday and Dean Garcia had “Running up that Hill” in mind.

Suspicious Minds – Elvis Presley

The song that is often cited for resurrecting Elvis “The King” Presley’s career was penned by Mark James. Jealousy can twist a relationship, especially when there is a degree of justification for the feeling. The song describes a dysfunctional relationship, where the narrator is distrusted by his partner. It was written by Mark James who felt he and his wife were caught in a trap due to his confusing feelings over a childhood sweetheart. It’s a simple song expressing the torment of the narrator who feels there is no future in a relationship, where his partner has so much suspicion and yet he cannot leave due to the love he feels for her.

Thin Line Between Love and Hate – The Persuaders

The title says it all and the song delivers. It opens with a lover returning home, presumably from an illicit liaison, late at time only to be greeted by an attentive female partner. The narrator muses over how the lover doesn’t give a second thought to the care being shown by the female partner, as she hangs up his coat and asks whether he is hungry. Later he will wake up in hospital with dressings all over him and incredulous to his partner’s act of cold revenge.

Written by Robert and Richard Poindexter and first recorded by The Persuaders, as the title states, the song looks at how close the emotions between loving someone and hating someone can run, and overlap. Crimes of passion are not uncommon. History and mythology are full of them. I see this song as a counterpoint to “Sweet Dreams”, explaining the consequences to the abusers, liars and manipulators in this world.

Tainted Love – Marilyn Manson (cover)

So why do so many people seemingly find themselves in destructive relationships again and again? “Tainted Love” is probably the most obvious song for addressing twisted romance. The lyrics speak of desires that butt up against common sense. The singer is repelled as much as he is drawn to a certain individual. It might describe the symptoms of obsession or addiction in their most emotional form. The singer lays out why the relationship is not working in a factual way and he regularly states he desire to be free, as the love seems to have consumed and taken everything out of him, but the listener is not convinced.

The 1965 original written by Ed Cobb and recorded by Gloria Jones is often forgotten. It is now probably best remembered as the synth pop classic covered by Soft Cell. Again, Marilyn Manson took the lyrics and ran with them in the sleaziest interpretation possible. Nevertheless, he conveys the anguish and stimulation present in the song’s essence in a type of tortured relish that seems to scream at the seeming irrationality of human emotion.

Melt – Siouxie and the Banshees

I guess a couple’s sexual preferences and tastes are really a bit too subjective to be called “twisted”, but if we are to follow the rather boring adage “kinky in the bed means crazy in the head” then I guess I can warrant the inclusion of one song. Consider the inclusion to be more in line with my warped and ironic humour than any sort of stuffy conservatism. That is my excuse anyway.

There are several rock and pop songs about sadomasochism. Despite the deliciously subversive territory there are few that are actually very appealing. I enjoy most of Depeche Mode’s work, but their “Master and Servant” is too obvious in its lyrical content yet also rung through the pop filter that it lacks any form of risqué impact. “Strangelove” is more subtle and a better song by them, but it’s still not quite right.

Select Magazine said of the song:

"The sensual lyrics of "Melt!" compare an intense sexual interlude with a lover to dying. Its lyrics can also allude to a S&M encounter

"The Baudelairean imagery of 'Melt' evokes claustrophobic scents of opium, sex and sickly flowers, and lapses into morbidity with lines like, 'You are the melting man and, as you melt, you are beheaded,'"

Ava Adore – The Smashing Pumpkins

When it comes to romance The Smashing Pumpkins are a bunch of sick puppies. “Ava Adore” plays with a mixture of conflicting emotions and juxtaposition of ideas. The singer seems as much at the mercy of his feelings as he casts himself in a dominant role. “Ava Adore” twists and turns from conventional affection to disrespectful lust. There seems to be a feeling of consuming chaos and imperfection that the singer is struggling to put right as he both fawns over his lover and is challenged by her influence over him.

Unlike “Tainted Love”, the singer is trying to convince himself he has some control over the consuming feelings of adoration he has for his lover. He doesn’t play the role of the victim, but as one of Lennox’s wannabe abusers.

The Perfect Drug – Nine Inch Nails

Trent Reznor’s songs often fall on the subject of obsessive love. Perhaps his greatest piece from his debut album, “Pretty Hate Machine”, “Something I can Never Have”, is a beautiful ode to loss love that builds towards the frustrations present in us all when we are reminded of the damage a relationship can do to our very sense of identity. The same album also has “Sin”, which describes what sounds like a volatile combination of distrust and physical abuse. However, “The Perfect Drug”, released as a single from the Reznor orchestrated multi-artist movie soundtrack for David Lynch’s “Lost Highway”, does not immediately address loss. You get the impression that the singer is right in the depths of a twisted relationship. The ground rules of “Sweet Dreams” are now irrelevant and the wishes for change, suggested by “Running up that Hill”, have fallen on deaf ears. The fears of “Tainted Love” and the pathetic attempts to regain control of “Ava Adore” have all now been passed as darkness envelopes the psyche of the lover in “The Perfect Drug”.

Like “Tainted Love”, we have someone who gives everything to their lover and suffers for his self-sacrifice. This is a song about complete descent into obsession and emotional dependency. The song has three parts. It begins with quick fire lyrics and choppy chords, as we find our lead protagonist losing control of his mind that appears to be on speed. As he races up to the object of his feelings we get a typical Trent Reznor outcry, which then slows things down. With a sense of dangerous foreboding he slowly restates what he wants before launching into the song’s chorus, a repetition of the song title.

The Game – Disturbed

“The Game” runs with the twists shown in “The Thin Line Between Love and Hate” towards almost hate-filled obsession via some of the masochism we have seen in songs like “Vow” and “Tainted Love”. In many ways, this song exemplifies the concept of a one-sided twisted relationship. The song narrator builds up his feelings of resentment towards his lover, implying his dangerous personality as he goes. He sees what she has done to him as being a type of game that he has allowed her to win. Expressing his liking for the pain she has caused him he wants to give her a taste of the same. He describes their relationship in unambiguously combative language and provides us with a portrait of potentially violent domestic abusers. The narrator progresses through his rage and implies actual murder. Whether or not that is a metaphor we are left to wonder, but he also possibly suggests she isn’t his first “victim”.

Everything about You – Ugly Kid Joe

Possibly further on from even this type of relationship is when one partner actually loathes the other. “Ugly Kid Joe” did it with a humorous poppy rock anthem. The narrator reels off a list of all the things he hates, including things that directly relate to his partner. The vocals are sneering and drip with acid. There is no reason given at all for why he feels this way. If the narrator is upset or hurt, he doesn’t show it. This is not a song about retribution or revenge. The narrator is a misanthropist who has a general hatred for everything in life before he closes in on the subject of the song. Despite such consistent and relentless negativity, the narrator is gleeful about his position and it is good fun in that respect. The song did remarkably well in the UK. I certainly found it to be a welcome antidote to an era in the 1990s that saw such painfully sickening love anthems like Bryan Adams’ “Everything I do” topping the UK charts for 15 miserable weeks.

Self-Esteem - The Offspring

The other side of the coin revealed a narrator who suffered at the hands of their partner. The Offspring’s “Self-Esteem” gave us a story of a downtrodden person in a relationship. It begins late at night with the narrator’s lover returning home intoxicated. He cannot resist her despite suspecting her of being unfaithful. We then hear about her lying and serial cheating with his friends. This poor guy is not the vengeful monster of “The Game”, but a clear martyr to his circumstances.

No Feelings – The Sex Pistols

The Sex Pistols were never going to give us anything but warped love songs. “No Feelings” is a huge savage joke on just about every love song written. The narrator only loves himself and is proud of that fact. It is hard to ascertain the status of the relationship being described. The narrator just shows his total disdain for the person who follows him around and the song is a virtual catalogue of callousness.

Vow – Garbage

The suffering victims in “No Feelings” and “Self-Esteem” do not resemble the narrator of this song. Garbage’s debut single included improvised opening lines by lead singer Shirley Manson who immediately revealed the narrator’s desire to abuse her lover. However, we learn that she has been abused too and yet keeps coming back, but there is a strong line of vengeance in the lyrics. This is exactly what the songwriters in the band wanted to convey. We really don’t know the vengeance she has in mind, but it seems to be far more in line with the rules set down by “Sweet Dreams” than the crassness shown in “Thin Line Between Love and Hate” and “The Game”. This avenger is going to destroy everything in her partner’s life including their very soul.

I already had Garbage's brilliant debut album and had played the tracks on a continuous loop in my car for ages. It was a blossoming time in my life. I was just shy of 20 and driving the length and breadth of the country teaching kickboxing for a corrupt teacher. I had just finished my first serious relationship and been given (not necessarily learnt) some cold hard lessons. Retreating into the seductive embrace of materialism, I jumped at the opportunity to work at a Versace photo shoot at Luton Hoo. Whilst a procession of top of the range status symbol cars drove past I spent most of the evening having something of makeshift slumber party with the models. It was hardly a night of decadence. We all had a job to do. But it was less boring than the usual waiting around you have to do on a shoot. A lasting memory of that night was hearing "Vow" coming over the speakers in the stately home.

Piece of My Heart – Janis Joplin

It comes across as a charming melancholy song, but there is darkness throughout the lyrics. The narrator is telling her partner to continue destroying her by taking more of her heart. It is masochism of the least titillating kind. As with “Self-Esteem”, the narrator pretty much defines her relationship as one where she is abused. Almost conditioned to take it, unlike “The Game” and “Vow” she does not look forward to exacting revenge in kind. This is no violent Instead she begs for her lover to hurt her heart some more. Although I cannot personally relate to this type of condition, I have seen it too often. The narrator seems to have gone far beyond someone who will take negative attention over no attention. In the disturbing theme of Tammy Wynette and Billy Sherrill’s “Stand by your Man”, the song’s narrator seems to wear the hurt she endures as a type of medal. However, whereas Wynette might have a point that her little country tune is more about overlooking her male partner’s shortcomings, Joplin’s takes it to a far darker level and reveals the damage that can be done to a person’s character in a one-sided relationship.

Love will Tear us Apart – Joy Division

The song’s title is the epitaph for its tragic songwriter. Ian Curtis, who was the lead singer for Joy Division, was a deeply troubled man and his anguish is represented in the dark tone of the band’s work. “Love will Tear us Apart” is a veritable anthem for twisted relationships. It is a step much further on from “Suspicious Minds”, but like James before him, Curtis was singing about actual events happening in his life at the time. Here the narrator is actually having an affair and is feeling the death of his relationship with his wife. Love does tear them apart, as it is far from being a clear cut matter. This is at the essence of destructive relationships before it ends. The lyrics describe the unbearable coldness and estrangement a once loving couple experiences and I can completely relate to the experience. The depression he felt led to Curtis’s eventual suicide.

Perish - Curve

This song spoke to my heart and, like “Love Will Tear us Apart”, it resonates deeply with me. It describes co-habiting with an ex-lover, at least in the early stages. The narrator describes the former partners as ghosts; two people living together, but who have clearly drifted apart and are irreconcilable. It discusses the folly of two people staying together for the sake of their memories. The result of this is that they will lose their souls completely. It’s a truly beautiful and tragic song. However, unlike other melancholy songs that speak of lost loves this is more about the loss of one’s own identity and a trap that is arguably much worse than one described in “Suspicious Minds”.

Barbed Wire Love - Stiff Little Fingers

What better way to conclude than with Stiff Little Fingers' wonderfully metaphorical description of love. Twisted as the barbed wire in the song title, the very simplistic yet ingenious song uses the props and scenery of life in war-torn Northern Ireland to present the story of a relationship. Pain, sex and heartbreak is all described as two lovers meet and hold hands across no man's land, uncovering the booby traps and severe wounds that love can inflict. It perfectly bookends and summarizes the world that "Sweet Dreams" laid out at the beginning of this list.

Conclusion – Selection Justification

Putting it in simple terms, I love all the songs listed. Billy Ocean’s roguish “I Sleep Much Better (in someone else’s bed)” might have qualified, but I grew out of it when I was about 14 and it doesn’t really qualify as a twisted relationship, it’s just about a serial cheater. This differs from The Offspring’s entry, where the focus is on the cuckhold partner’s twisted willingness to accept his cheating partner’s behaviour. There are plenty of others and several of the artists listed mainly sing about twisted relationships. However, I wanted to hit various points of a destructive relationship and find songs that best represent them without repeating the point. I tried to keep songs about jealousy being directed towards partners and not outside of the relationship, as it really doesn’t tell us much about the twisted nature of a relationship. Dolly Parton’s wonderful “Jolene”, which has been covered so well by Queen Adrena, gets excluded on this basis. However, this also disqualifies horrible hodgepodge creations like “Feel it” despite their interesting premises.

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

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The British Playboy - Review of "The Look of Love"

July 21, 2014, 6:47 am

≫ Next: Batman at 75

≪ Previous: Ensnared Melodies

Plot:

This is the biopic of Paul Raymond (Steve Coogan), the British millionaire publisher, club owner and real estate developer. “The Look of Love” takes a reflective look through the eyes of Raymond after he attends his daughter’s funeral. We see his rise to success as a night club owner and publisher of “Men Only” after discovering how to create publicity stunts in the 1950s. The film looks at the eventual price Raymond will have to pay for his self-indulgent lifestyle as a playboy and the impact it will have on those closest to him, his wife Jean (Anna Friel), his lover Fiona (Tamsin Egerton) and especially his daughter, Debbie (Imogen Poots).

Review:

Firstly, I submit to you a confession. I want my readers to feel confident that my reviews are as fair as possible and although we have our biases and prejudices, I do my very best to be dispassionate, give praise and critique where it is due, and review in context. My confession is that I have several strong connections to this particular film. My hope is that my review will provide some insight rather than tarnish my opinion. My father appeared in the film, playing the part of a lion presenter, and he is listed sixth in the cast. Being a biopic, my father’s character is rather strange, as it is fictionalized replacement. He is called “Jim” in the film, which is his real name, whereas in the real-life the presenter was called “Nikolai” and he presented Dennis Rosaire’s lions. I know the Rosaire family very well and they feature a lot in my first book. Secondly, I knew a fair few circus people who worked with Paul Raymond and knew him well, they include members from the Sandow/Konyot family and the Smarts family. I never met Paul Raymond. This was the second Steve Coogan film we worked on that year.

I and the rest my father’s staff saw the film very late during its theatrical release. No red carpet premiere for us. However, the setting was very nice. We watched it at the Chipping Norton Theatre, which is a very pleasant and atmospheric little theatre in the Cotswolds. Somehow the wooden seating and scenery added a veneer of decadence to the film we were watching. Despite the amassed wealth of Paul Raymond – the film has him down as the richest man in the UK at the time of his death – and his huge properties, the setting helped convey the atmosphere of the pokey Soho clubs that we see in the picture.

“The Look of Love” is familiar territory for Steve Coogan and director Michael Winterbottom, and the whole film has this sense of comfort throughout. The duo had successfully paired up in the very entertaining “24 Hour Party People”, which was the biopic of television presenter, journalist and record label owner, Tony Wilson. Winterbottom is known for working with the same actors, so this is of little surprise. Nevertheless, besides the clear smooth flow that underpins the action of “The Look of Love” Coogan and Winterbottom do not attempt to remake their previous effort, which must have been tempting. The parallels between Raymond and Wilson are evident. Both were heavily involved in aspects of British culture that promoted hedonistic and drug-fuelled lifestyles. Raymond, in many respects, was Wilson’s prototype. Both understood sensationalism and how to turn the underbelly of British society into financially successful enterprises.

Steve Coogan has done well to keep his straight acting roles going whilst still going back to comedy and even the role that made him, that of Alan Partridge. Although he has used accents in roles, Coogan does well to keep things simple and is very good at generating sympathy for his character. His performance in this film is not marked down as very special, but I think the critics do miss something. Paul Raymond’s actions, it might be argued, are worse than those of Jordan Belfont of “The Wolf of Wallstreet”. Belfont, for all his selfishness, ruthlessness and law-breaking, did not help actively contribute to his child’s drug dependency and subsequent death. Nevertheless, at the end of Scorcese’s film Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance provides us with little sympathy for the man outside the fact that he had energy and charisma. Maybe it is because Paul Raymond’s career was all about entertaining people whereas Jordan Belfont’s was about ruthlessly taking their money with no interest in a happy result for a client. Maybe – and this might be closer to the crux – it might be because Coogan and DiCaprio were simply portraying very different characters. However, it might be that Coogan’s ability to show vulnerability and love alongside a selfish desire to indulge in a playboy lifestyle trumps even DiCaprio’s triumphant performance.

Michael Winterbottom’s style is certainly laid back and it works with source material. We are taken through the development of Soho during its most formative years in the 20th century as well as the emergence of British mainstream pornography. All of this is done with a steady hand and a wry smile at the censorship laws, and the many ways surface British frigidity was played against to ensure successful sensationalist publicity. This is in stark contrast to Miloš Forman’s more joltingly political “The People Versus Larry Flint”. Maybe this is just the British nature of the piece – and it is a very “British” movie – but I still think Winterbottom succeeds in allowing the audience to feel they are witnessing the real life behind the sensationalist life of his lead character. Having known and worked with and around this type of environment I can testify that the director gets that tone right. Unfortunately that might not quite match up to the expectations of Hollywood, who want their hedonistic millionaires to be the 24 hour embodiment of the public persona we all see.

The cinematography of Hubert Taczanowski is perhaps one of the film’s weaker points. The sets and costumes are great and a lot is done to help propel the audience back to Paul Raymond era of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. However, there is definitely something missing through the camera lens. We don’t’ get the punch that movies like “Scandal” provided when it cast its eye on the swinging ‘60s or even the restrained view of the ‘70s that we saw in “Cemetery Junction”. The soundtrack is well chosen, although it doesn’t dominate in the way most period films covering the second half of the 20th century do.

“The Look of Love” is an underrated biopic with a good cast, an excellent starring performance and very interesting subject matter. It keeps a relatively light tone despite touching on very tragic matters and never loses its sense of humour. The film seems to have not been successful in lighting up the box office or the critics in any way, fading into obscurity. This is a shame. All the performances are strong even if the visuals aren’t especially striking. I can’t pin all of this on the somewhat drained colouration of some shots or the fact that the film didn’t go in for the dramatic Scorsese/Prieto style sweeping and panoramic shots that worked so well in “The Wolf of Wallstreet”. Sadly it might be Winterbottom’s desire not to hit us with sharp scenes echoing Raymond’s sensationalist side, but to opt for a gentler approach to show us his humanity and, despite all his selfish flaws, the love he seemed to genuinely possess for his family, that made it less attractive to the mainstream viewer. Don't forget to check out

Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

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Batman at 75

July 23, 2014, 11:17 am

≫ Next: Ripper Retrospective - Revew of the classic "Jack the Ripper: Summing up and Verdict"

≪ Previous: The British Playboy - Review of "The Look of Love"

I have loved Batman from almost as early as I can recall. As I push the ever aging and failing mechanism I call a brain to recreate the images of my past, I am filled with a sense of happiest during those earliest of years. One of my happiest memories was being four and a half years old on holiday in Florida. It was the only true holiday I recall as a child. Even then the model for what I like best about a “holiday” was set during that dreamlike time. We were a circus family, in the middle of running our own circus, and so we saw circus people and circus-related places. I got my head stuck in the railings at SeaWorld and I saw Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. I remember our Mexican driver and my amusement that the steering wheel was on the other side the cars. These were all great recollections, but some of my most comforting memories came from staying at the hotel. I wasn’t used to staying in any other accommodation than a wagon (caravan). I remember falling in love with two icons that have stood the test of maturity: Charlie Brown and Batman.

I first saw the Caped Crusader, the Gotham Guardian, the Dark Knight Detective in one of his less than admirable incarnations: as a member of the Super Friends. Knowing how I loved the show so much, my parents kindly bought me a slide show for my View-Master. However, besides this and the single episode I saw that was my last interaction with this not-very-great DC commissioned venture. However, for me the single scene that struck me the most was appearance of Batman and Robin. I recalled Batman descending his Batcoptor and noted the sailor-like way the animators had him grip the rope. For the following Easter I received a miniature Batmobile car instead of a chocolate egg. I became intrigued by the heavily edited anime cartoon “Battle of the Planets” because the series main antagonist, Zoltar, had a pointy eared mask that resembled Batman’s.

The circus knew I was Batman mad. The only superhero who would match my enthusiasm for him was Marvel’s Spider-Man. I speculate that it is because both of these hugely popular and enduring icons – which I think resemble the gods of Greek, Roman and Norse mythology – were inherently very fallible compared the majority of American comics superheroes, but in my heart it was simply the look and their respective worlds. The artist who first got me into writing, even created a book for me with stories where I featured as a Batman character.

I recall when we stopped touring being read a Batman pocketbook that contained three excellent stories I relished. The first pitted Batman against Captain Boomerang. Little did I know then this character was traditionally an enemy of DC’s lightning fast superhero, The Flash. Despite a scene where Batman threw his batarang against one of the villain’s namesake weapon of choice, this story least excited my imagination. I loved the story that introduced Catman and Batman stuck in a gigantic web that forced him to tear his costume in order to escape. The final story featured Barbara Gordon’s Batgirl and was a dark entry even at that time. I loved the elaborate (and rather ridiculous) way Batgirl faked her death with a dummy when a gunman shot her and she was seen fall from a building. Superheroes always seemed to be falling from buildings at the end of episodes when I was child. I recall being on the edge of my seat when I saw the live action TV version of Spider-Man being gorilla pressed off one at the end of one episode.

The early ’80s saw Batman’s continued development into the more mature character that had first appeared in Bob Kane’s original comic strip of “Detective Comics”, issue 27 in 1939. I wouldn’t read these original strips until I was into my early 20s and started buying collected editions. As a child I was vaguely aware of the apparent contradictions between the Batman in the comics and the one that was generally featured in British media. Just about everyone who wasn’t a child or a comic fan associated him with the 1960s camp TV show. I admit to loving it as a child and still have a contextual affection for the programme. I saw the movie when I was very young, coming in at the famous scene where Adam West is trying to dispose of a bomb. I later watched the whole series with mother when it was shown on morning television before school.

The TV show was the eventual result of the path Batman had taken since the anti-comic hysteria and the subsequent self-imposed censorship laws were brought into force. Bob Kane’s original Batman had shown little concern in using the same type of weapon that downed his parents, but the 1950s saw a complete revamping of all the DC superheroes to fall in line with the Comics Code. Batman and Superman just about survived. Batman had to embrace fighting aliens and the regular villains - like The Joker and The Penguin - became far more comical and light-hearted versions of themselves. By the time the TV show was commissioned, you can see why producers would go with a camp take on Batman. Before the strong establishment of mature comic books, superhero comics have floated in a peculiar limbo, where they are scared of losing their child audience, but want to write stories for adults. I guess the 12a or PG-13 certificate is the most perfect symbol for this paradoxical world. On that subject, I recall Tim Burton’s “Batman” being the first film to be given a 12 certificate in the UK. “Spider-Man” would be the first to have the altered 12a, over a decade later.

It wasn’t until I read Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” not long before the release of Burton’s film that I realized just how much this character had to offer. From this point on I wanted him dark and I expected ever increasingly complexities. I got it with Alan Moore’s “The Killing Joke”, which saw the first Batgirl get turned into a quadriplegic and the wondrous juxtaposition of Batman with The Joker so brilliantly lain out. When Burton’s film came out I took full advantage of acquiring all the republished and re-released material I could find. Two thick collections of short stories – “The Further Adventures of Batman” and “The Further Adventures of the Joker” – were commissioned, producing a fascinating array of different interpretations of the Caped Crusader. Having got to like the streetwise Jason Todd as the new Robin – although I have never really liked the concept of a Robin – I was struck by his death, decided by the reader voting, at the hands of The Joker in the superb globe-spanning saga, “A Death in the Family”. Frustratingly Todd would be brought back, seemingly defying one of the very few times a character didn’t follow the clichéd “comic book death” gimmick. Even more annoyingly he came back in a very good story that was turned into an entertaining animated movie, “Under the Hood”.

Burton succeeded in redefining Batman in the eyes of popular culture, bringing him closer to the darker form he had been re-taking in the comics since the demise of the TV show. He tried to push the idea further with his own brand of Gothic in the sequel, “Batman Returns”. This was even better than the original, despite some rather ridiculous elements relating to Danny DeVito’s otherwise great depiction of The Penguin. I just wish we could have been spared the reared by penguins and having penguins armed with rockets aspects of the film. Michelle Pfeiffer, of course, stole the show, even from the great Christopher Walken in a rather redundant role, as the incredibly sexy Catwoman. Sadly Burton’s film, despite being a box office success, did not do as well as his first attempt. He might have been ahead of his time and it wouldn’t be before Marvel started making headway at the turn of 21^st century in mainstream with scope outside of campy heroics. Warner Brothers’ response to the disappointing box office return was to employ Joel Schumacher for this particular franchise’s third instalment.

Despite a scene in the circus and the only U2 song I have ever liked, Schumacher pretty much undid everything Burton was setting up in “Batman Forever”. Long before the like Sam Raimi and others were carefully plotting their fantasy franchises so that sequels would be carefully thought out and plausible continuations of plots set up in previous films rather than the transparent cash-in efforts that have long dominated genre pictures, Tim Burton had several elements put in place in his films. One of the most notable examples was Billy Dee Williams playing the newly elected district attorney, Harvey Dent, a character set to become the scarred coin-flipping villain know as Two Face. Schumacher would bulldoze over this completely as he cast Tommy Lee Jones to play the role. The whole film brought Robin into the frame and it was intentionally made to be a ‘90s update on the 1960s camp TV show. Having spent several decades trying to bury this image, there was again full in the fans’ faces. With this picture being a bigger hit than Burton’s previous instalment, Schumacher camped things up even further with the final part of this particular franchise, “Batman and Robin”. The film has gone down in history as one of the worst blockbusters ever made.

“Knightfall” and “Knightsend” proved to be among the strongest stories of the 1990s, allowing the new villain, Bane, to join Batman’s most popular rogue’s gallery. The decade also saw the great work of Alan Grant who gave us Scarface and the Ventriloquist. The early 2000s ushered in a wonderful array of interesting stories, including the issue spanning “Cataclysm” and “No Man’s Land”. Greg Rucka did an excellent job in condensing the huge story arc of the latter into a very entertaining novel. He also the type of framework I feel works best for superheroes when converting them to a medium outside of comics. He kept Batman within his own reality. There was no guest appearance of Superman or mention of any science fiction. This was exactly the direction Christopher Nolan took with his own Dark Knight trilogy of movies. Nolan completed what Burton had touched, but took it a stage further. Staying true to his own vision and using the material of Frank Miller and Alan Moore’s solo Batman masterpiece, Nolan knew how to handle the Gotham Guardian on his terms. Heath Ledger even topped the great Jack Nicholson with his interpretation of The Joker as a nihilistic lover of chaos, defined beautifully in the line spoken by Batman’s butler, Alfred: “…some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn”. Besides the casting of Liam Neeson and the rather spasmodic fight cinematography of the first instalment and the mistake of having the fully costumed Batman duke it out in daylight in the third instalment, Nolan pretty much gave me the Batman I wanted.

This isn't to say that there haven't been other wonderful incarnations of Batman. His earliest renditions - give or take the post-WW2 racism against the Japanese - are worth remembering for a foreshadowing of the 1960s series. However, some of Batman's most loyal renditions come via the various animated incarnations that have been produced since the 1990s until the present day. The animated series that followed in the wake of Burton's films created a wonderful noir punk reality combining modern technology with a type of 1930s backdrop. They executed the Harvey Dent/Two Face slow burn in the way it should have been done. "The Mask of the Phantasm" remains a triumph of that particular era of Batman. Since then there has been two very faithful adaptations of Frank Miller's most famous and influential Batman story arcs, "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Batman: Year One". Other animated feature length films on Batman have taken varied approaches, Warner Brothers and DC allowing a type of liberal freedom with the filmmakers that we haven't seen since the 1970s, as a 12a and even older age certificated audience are appreciated as legitimate consumers of these movies.

I haven’t dipped into the stories of the Dark Knight for a while, but the iconography continues to fascinate me. Alan Moore did an ingenious job of explaining that Batman was really just as demented as The Joker. He was just demented towards crusading against crime. Batman is a normal human being albeit one with a high intellect and the genetics to be able to hone Olympic standard athleticism. He present us with a look at fanaticism for good, and many of his writers have explored what happens when these firm ideals come against others. His utter distaste for Marvel comics own rather more extreme vigilante, The Punisher, provides an interesting exploration. However, it is not unfamiliar territory. DC has had the Dark Knight face several other vigilantes that overstep his own moral line, including Alan Grant’s political figure, Anarky.

Suspending the ridiculous idea that a man would dress as a giant bat, the main premise makes Batman a very interesting portal to explore the realities of crime in psychological, political and moral terms. Some of Batman’s most fascinating qualities are the lines he will not cross and his own unyielding code. In perhaps one of DC’s most brilliant sagas, “Identity Crisis”, we see an exploration of the moral dilemmas faced by those who choose administer justice. Despite being the least super-powered member of the Justice League of America team, he is the one who most resolutely stands by his principles. The graphic novel, “Night Cries” and the novel, “The Ultimate Evil” even pitted Batman against paedophiles, once again testing Batman’s own ideas about justice.

Maybe it is the slight Gothic level of absurdity of Batman that makes him that much more of a mirror and a symbol for many of our own views on vigilantism than his more grittier counterparts in films like “Death Wish”. He is a noble man, but hugely judgemental. His alter ego as an ultra-rich playboy provides some Freudian temptations to explore in terms of repression. In many ways he is a compartmentalised James Bond. He is, of course, not a pure creation in the first instance. Batman and his rogue’s gallery were clearly inspired by the Dick Tracy comic strip, as well The Shadow, Zorro and the French film, “The Bat”. Like Superman, who was created a year before, he represented the spirit of hope for justice in an America that was coming out of the Great Depression, seeing the rise of organized crime and the threat of a second world war.

Today we live in what seems to be an ever more complex world. Taking a wider view and looking back to the characters cast alternately as heroes and villains of the past, we can understand how fanaticism can take hold of individuals and their followers. People just need a cause and then it needs to be decided whether the means justify the ends or that the ends are good in the first place. Fiction has absorbed this with its ever more ambiguous characters. Batman, more or less, stands for the consensus of what the majority of his readers believe to be fair justice. However, the stories reveal that even this has consequences and these consequences often involve the deaths of innocents. Batman has evolved over time. We are currently at a time where writers are allowing themselves to blur the lines ever more with fictional villains and heroes. It is a delicious temptation to see how far you can test your readers’ loyalties to the person wearing the white hat and how much sympathy you can illicit for someone who began being cast as the villain. I wonder how far we will see Batman’s writers delving into this ambiguity. Will Batman go deeper into the darkness or are we going to see another variation of him pulling out the shark repellent spray?

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

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Ripper Retrospective - Revew of the classic "Jack the Ripper: Summing up and Verdict"

July 25, 2014, 4:55 am

≫ Next: Demonic Possession, Hauntings and Such Like - A Review of "The Conjuring"

≪ Previous: Batman at 75

Ripper Bridge (Photo credit: STINFLIN Pascal)

1988 was a hell of a year for Jack the Ripper enthusiasts. Being the centenary of London’s“Autumn of Terror”, few producers, publishers, historians, writers and professional criminologists missed a trick. From movies about a copycat serial killer called “Jack’s Back” to a wide commissioning of any work that was tied into the Whitechapel Murders, the year was full of old and new theories on the identity of the killer and every self-respecting bookshop made sure their respective section was stocked up. I was only 12 at the time and fell in love with the shamelessly melodramatic and lavish ITV miniseries, “Jack the Ripper”, which for all its thrill and wonderful cast and production values did not yield a convincing theory on the case. In his amazingly explorative “From Hell”, comic-book writer, Alan Moore, touched on the whole the institution that now surrounds Jack the Ripper and pretty much nailed how it has become virtually impossible to unmask the fiend of Victorian London. He echoed in the century of the sadistic serial killer and, as sharp as the weapon he wielded, tore open the British Victorian veneer of pomp, prosperity and conservatism. In the tradition of Arthur Conan Doyle – was consulted at the time of the murders – and the institution that Agatha Christie would start, the Ripper also provided us with a real-life whodunit. Amidst the flow of reprinted books on silly theories, I was lucky enough to obtain a copy of “Jack the Ripper: Summing up and Verdict”, which had been commissioned for release in 1988.

My copy is the 1990 one. A friend of mine had chanced upon a copy and I was fascinated by the way the book presented such a varied collection theories. I only barely started and leant it to my grandmother. She was a vociferous reader, who could plough through a book at far greater speed than I could ever hope – no matter what Tony Burzan will have you believe. Given the detailed accounts of the murders, you can imagine her horror at the thought of her 14 year old grandson reading the text. I forgot how long it was before I got the book back, after she had reported it to my mother, but I didn’t start reading it again until 2013.

Colin Wilson and Robin Odell are very old hands at criminal history. Like Martin Fido, Donald Rumbelow, Richard Whittington-Egan– who wrote this book’s foreword - and others, they are well known Ripperologists. It has become almost a given that any British crime historian must have a special interest in Jack the Ripper, and few can resist the challenge of investigating the case with gusto.

The book is a very thorough overview of the Whitechapel Murders. The authors’ preface provides us with details on where they have collaborated and which chapters were solely written by the individual authors. I am grateful for this type of organization and the authors explaining who did what in the preface is very helpful. Often non-fiction can appear clumsy when two people are actively involved throughout the work and in the case we spared by the unattractive speaking in the third person narrative.

Colin Wilson’s introductory chapter the “Psychological Portrait of Jack the Ripper” is something of a misnomer. It doesn’t so much as present to us a generic view of serial sex killers - the psychological mould of which many crime historians, criminal psychologists and criminologists would be cast by the “Vampire of Dusseldorf”, Peter Kürten, when he provided the world the first in depth interview from such a murderer – but rather explain why the nature of the Ripper’s crimes impacted so much on Victorian society. Wilson traces a peculiar theory on sexually motivated murders, often tying it up with the conservative belief it was somehow influenced by burgeoning pornography and tracing it back through the literature of Lewis and Richardson via the man who get the term sadist from in the first place: the Marquis de Sade. Falling in line with Eliot Leyton’s ideas – and ideas that were seemingly confirmed by the writings of the Moors Murderer, Ian Brady – Wilson sees sexual serial killing as a type protest against conventional society. The Victorian outrage – which had shown a lot of indifference to the huge sufferings of the underclasses – is presented as a reaction to the way the Ripper staged his killings. It is a curious and interesting chapter, but far from the last word on such psychological profiling and cultural observations. Wilson, an extremely prolific writer, is clearly the least detached and with the strongest personal opinions of the two authors.

This contrast can be seen by Robin Ordell’s more dispassionate first chapter, “The Ripper at Large”, which provides us with the basic outline of the case from the first to the last of the canonical victims, and the second chapter, “Interlude” provides us with the story of the Ripper’s first investigators. This second chapter is especially interesting and we can see where the roots for many theories taken up by the Ripperologists began.

The defining feature of book is the chapters that cast a spotlight on six very popular theories about the identity of Jack the Ripper. All but one (“Royal Jack”) of these particular chapters is described collaborative effort. However, “Doctor Ripper” echoes Wilson’s view on the Victorian unfamiliarity with sex murder, explaining that this was probably why the idea of a murdering doctor or surgeon was so plausible and popular. As the chapter explains, it’s an opinion that had contemporary support via three of the medical men who examined the bodies of the Ripper victims, who although didn’t actually suggest a surgeon and doctor said implied that the killer had a good deal of anatomical skill. It’s a view that has persisted and, along with a cloak and top hat, the black medical bag makes up the clichéd image of the Ripper in popular fiction. However, many criminal historians have concluded from an overall view that the skills and method of removing organs the Ripper used was probably far more in common with a butcher than a medical practitioner. Nevertheless, the very lengthy chapter is very thorough in its presentation and debunking of the various theories, including the story of vengeful doctor who was on a mission to track down and kill the prostitute who infected his son and the convicted serial poisoner Dr Thomas Neill Cream who allegedly said, “I am Jack the-“ just as he fell through the hangman’s trapdoor to his death.

“Jill the Ripper” is a much shorter chapter. The various theories put forward that the Ripper might have been female are pretty silly and the book convincingly dismisses them with speed, but I wonder whether we are being guilty of a type of well-meaning sexism. In its final line, the chapter summarizes its view that the Ripper couldn’t have been a woman with a quote from an 1891 edition of “The Spectator”, saying “no woman could deceive so many of her own sex”. It’s a patronizing tone worthy of Kipling. The clumsy or vengeful midwife theories deserve little respect, but I wonder whether the authors should be so cavalier in their complete dismissal of an entire sex. Although it is likely her crimes have been exaggerated, Countess Erzsebet Bathory still retains the Guinness World Record as history’s most prolific sadistic serial killer. Contemporary (and unlikely suspect) of Jack the Ripper, Amelia Dyer murdered numerous infants, possibly 400, at her infamous baby farm. Likewise, another contemporary, Belle Gunness mercilessly killed 25 to 40 victims, including her two daughters. This is before we discuss latter day killers like Myra Hindley and Rosemary West. Criminologists have rightly argued that there are scant cases of lone female serial killers tracking down other women to kill for perverse pleasure, but we are beginning to see more cases of women and child sexual predation, so it might be that we aren’t looking in the right way. Nevertheless, given the material at hand, serial recreational murderers in the style of the Ripper are overwhelmingly male.

Colin Wilson’s “Gentleman Jack” tackles perhaps the most convincing theories on offer. Of the suspects put forward, Montague John Druitt, seems very plausible. Certainly he was enough for eminent Ripperologist Keith Skinner to pin his reputation on. Druitt’s place as a suspect can be traced back to the memoirs of Sir Melville Macnaghten and a handwritten note he left to exonerate Thomas Cutbush. Macnaghten never investigated the Whitechapel Murders, only gaining his appointment as Assistant Chief Constable at Scotland Yard a year after they abruptly stopped. Druitt’s body, weighted down with stones, was found in the Thames not long after the murder of Mary Kelly. He had left a letter, fearing he was inheriting a congenital madness.

With little warning, Colin Wilson then goes into an in depth analysis of the theory that Sherlock Holmes might have been the murderer. This is off the back of the BBC’s “The Case of the Unmentioned Case”, where Holmes is put forward as the killer. I love faction. It is a wonderful artistic exercise and great entertainment for geeks like me. Nick Rennison’s “Sherlock Holmes: The Unauthorized Biography” along with Tom Holland’s historical vampire novels are favourite examples for me. However, it really doesn’t have a place in a work like this one. Wilson, who has written a lot of fiction, is clearly having a lot of indulgent fun in his tangent, but it goes on for several pages, is at odds with the rest of the book and really serves no purpose in a sensible summing up of the case.

“Royal Jack” explores the most popular, extravagant, persistent and silliest of all Jack the Ripper theories. The whole royal conspiracy theory is not nearly as old as many believe. Despite what my old favourite “Jack the Ripper” miniseries would have you believe, Scotland Yard never worried about the Duke of Clarence being a suspect. The idea of connecting the royals has its origins in the 1960s and was first popularized by the hugely successful and rather ludicrous “Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution” by Stephen Knight. Knight’s theory and its subsequent varied offspring have become the foundation for many Jack the Ripper films and TV programmes, including the aforementioned ITV production, the Sherlock Holmes thriller, “Murder by Decree”, a rather awful adaptation of Alan Moore’s “From Hell” and the very clumsily executed “Ripper”. A wide range of characters are brought together. These include a coachman called John Netley, Sir William Gull, who is often a suspect, the Duke of Clarence, who Knight has as the reason for the murders being committed and other have cast as the actual Ripper, J.K. Stephen, who’s roles vary, and the artist and prototypical Ripperologist, Walter Sickert. Sickert is sometimes part of the conspiracy and has been labelled as a suspect by the crime author, Patricia Cornwell, following her expensive investigation into the case. It’s an interesting chapter and is something of a sequel to Robin Odell’s “Interlude” chapter in its insight into Ripper investigative culture.

“Black Jack” may be down as collaborative effort, but it has Colin Wilson’s fingerprints all over it given the subject material. We are led in with the idea that Jack the Ripper might have been a black magician sounds on the surface to be “preposterous”, but are then assured that the evidence to support this claim is “more detailed and convincing than in most theories of the Ripper’s identity”. It’s a familiar trick, similar to when you hear a “converted” person tell you that they were “at first sceptical”. The great charlatan and thoroughly entertaining father of modern occultism, Aleister Crowley is at the root of this theory. Crowley, like many of his cultural descendants, Gerald Gardner, Anton LaVey and L. Ron Hubbard, enjoyed a lot of celebrity interest and cultivated quite the counterculture of his time. It is little surprising that he would have a theory nay a direct connection to Jack the Ripper and that connection, of course, would involve black magic. The murders were sacrifices and Crowley said he had been possession of a set of blood-stained ties worn by the Ripper when he undertook his grisly murders.

Humans are naturally pattern seeking animals and false patterns can easily be grasped and justified through our highly developed cognitive process. Just as “Royal Jack” provided us with the human belief in conspiracy theories, “Black Jack” provides us with how mystical patterns can found through geometry. It was yet another aspect of the Ripper mythology that Alan Moore, given his own tongue-in-cheek love of magic, could not resist inserting in “From Hell”. Colin Wilson is less tongue-in-cheek in his statement about his belief in the supernatural, but thankfully it does not tarnish the chapter’s very sober conclusion on the matter.

“Jack of all Trades” differs from the rest of these core chapters in that it deals with genuine contemporary police suspects as well as those nominated after the murders had ceased. This is Robin Odell’s territory in many ways, given his personal theory that the killer was probably a Jewish slaughter man or shochet – although, unlike other equally well-respected criminal historians, like Martin Fido, he doesn’t feel compelled to name his candidate. Going by criminal profiles of most serial killers, it is very rare to find the killer amongst the gentry, the doctors, royalty or even genuine occultists. Serial killers usually kill within a comfortable radius of their permanent base, so it was not unwise of Scotland Yard to look to the local tradesman who occupied the East End. We begin with “Leather Apron” the nickname given to an individual who “The Star” newspaper reported had been threatening up to a hundred prostitutes that he was going to “rip them” around the time of the Mary Ann Nichols murder. Wilson and Odell take us through arrested suspects Jack Pizer, the boot finisher, and Joseph Ishenschmid, a butcher who suffered from mental illness. Both suspects were exonerated at the time. We also get the case put forward for the common-law husband of the final canonical victim, Mary Kelly, and Frederick Bayley Deeming, a man convicted of murdering his wife and four of his children in Australia. The chapter finishes with another whimsical look into ideas put forward by a Victorian medium, but with tongue placed firmly in cheek.

This chapter provides an excellent review of likelihood versus hard facts and evidence. The following paragraph is a great example of the thorough objective of the two authors and a stern, humbling reminder to sometimes pompous rational sceptics like me about how Ockham’s Razor really cuts:

“It is tempting to seek to counterbalance the tendency to unfold Jack the Ripper in Masonic plots aimed at protecting royal honour with the simple explanation that he was, like Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, an ordinary man with the motive, means and opportunity to commit murder. Yet the simple explanation, while it may be instinctively believable still requires proof to raise it to the realms of credibility.”

The “Summing Up” chapter provides us with the setting of a court and all the named suspects in the book put forward. The authors discuss how many of them match up against what is known about the psychology of serial murderers. It’s a very entertaining and insightful chapter that presents a sensible overview of the murders, once again showing how confirmation bias influenced by prior ideas can easily lead Ripper investigators astray. However, the plausibility of certain candidates, such as Druitt, is not overlooked nor is the fact that Odell’s own theory rests on an unknown candidate who could have appeared in the “Jack of All Trades” chapter. The chapter finishes with author’s collective opinion delivered within the framework of a defence lawyer.

“Jack the Ripper: Summing up and Verdict” has two very interesting appendices and also an excellent third one that masquerades as a bibliography. “The Ripper’s Disciples” takes us through the emergence of the modern serial killer across the world following the Whitechapel Murders. The evidence does seem to show that this type of criminal is very much a product of industrialized society, but that is a subject for another article. The complete notes of Sir Melville Macnaghten are reprinted for the second appendix. The bibliography provides us with a detailed list of a century of Ripper literature as well as fiction and drama on television and in film. Again, the authors demonstrate a keen awareness of how the culture and institution of Ripperology has taken over the investigation into the case. The book was written before the so-called “Diary of Jack the Ripper” surfaced and the media storm that followed this work, which is most probably a fake; before Patricia Cornwell commanded a huge “investigation” largely based on the Jack the Ripper letters and before the Tony Williams laid claim that his ancestor was the killer in his book, “Uncle Jack”. As the authors predicted, the interest would not wane and the institution would just continue to flourish.

Perhaps the most pertinent line provided in this book was not written by either author, but by their editor who wrote the book’s preface and died before its publication. It is a line that Martin Fido quoted in his “To Kill and Kill Again”. J.H.H Gaute joined the Hutchinson publishing house 1928 and explains that one of the first books he worked on was Leonard Matters’ “The Mystery of Jack the Ripper”. Since then he wrote several books with Robin Odell. He was then involved in the editing and publication of several very influential Jack the Ripper titles. After several decades building a crime library that presents so many different angles on the case and yet more evidence, Gaute tells us:

“I have always had the feeling that on the Day of Judgement, when all things shall be known, when I and the other generations of ‘Ripperologists’ ask for Jack the Ripper to step forward and out his true name, then we will turn and look with blank astonishment at one another when he announces his name and say ‘Who?’”

“Jack the Ripper: Summing and Verdict” is a book that deserves a place on your bookshelf if you have a passing interest in the case. Some have argued that it is not for beginners, but I think it is comprehensive enough if said beginner is, at least, used to reading lengthy history books in general. It was written for the centenary and therefore a good deal of the information is outdated, but this isn’t to say we are any the wiser to the identity of the killer or that any of the various theories do not persist to this day. One has only to listen to some of the guests on episodes of the excellent true crime discussion podcast, “Rippercast”, to see that even intelligent crime historians can be seduced by rather daft ideas. The black and white photographs and reproductions of newspaper reports are in a designated section in the middle of the book with a few other illustrations sparsely scattered throughout the text to show a particular point. Despite some Wilson’s peculiar wonderings into his supernatural beliefs, the book stays true as an objective analysis of facts and likelihoods. At the very least it lays to rest a good number of fanciful ideas and red herrings that still persist to this day.

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

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Demonic Possession, Hauntings and Such Like - A Review of "The Conjuring"

July 30, 2014, 2:26 am

≫ Next: A Lazy Cat? - Review of "The Cat's Meow"

≪ Previous: Ripper Retrospective - Revew of the classic "Jack the Ripper: Summing up and Verdict"

Lorraine Warren (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)

Plot:

In 1971 the Perron family (Lili Taylor, Ron Livingston, Shanley Caswell, Hayley McFarl, Joey King, Mackenzie Foy, Kyla Deaver) move into an old farmhouse. A series of unusual events lead the family to enlist the help of psychic investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Famiga respectively). The Warrens discover a history of suicides and murders that have taken place on the surrounding land that once belonged to the owner of the Perron’s house. This owner had been accused of witchcraft who had tried to sacrifice her child to the devil and eventually killed herself in 1863, cursing all those who lived on her land...

Review:

Not being a person who is typically in sync with populist or intellectual taste, I guess I should not have been surprised by the response that met “The Conjuring”. Whenever someone discussed horror in social media circles this film kept reoccurring with favourable reviews of the possession/haunted house hybrid horror. The general public seem to have found it to be a genuinely scary movie, which has hit the right nerve at a time when so-called “reality” shows like “Ghosthunters” and “Most Haunted” and misleading partisan documentaries about possession have established a strong mainstream following ripe for this type of “true story” horror. The canny team behind the film’s modest $20,000 appear to have got their timing right. With minimal thought “Found Films” and “Torture Porn” along with gory B-movie send-ups saturating the horror genre for well over a decade, someone clearly thought it was time to go back to the 1970s and unearth a few more tricks. That person might well have been the film’s director, James Wan, who first found fame with the original “Saw”. The academic critical response seems to go along these lines. From what I have read their consensus of opinion is that the film executed “old school” proven concepts well, making up what it lacked in originality with sheer style. Even so, I was flabbergasted to discover that “The Conjuring” is one of the highest grossing horror movies of all time and the high praise being heaped upon in horror and general movie review magazines and websites.

It is my guess that a lot of the things that made the film the darling it has become, grated on me. The fake true story premise is a long established method. The 1974 “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is perhaps the most notorious example of using this method with its film having even less tenuous links to the murderer and body-snatcher, Ed Gein, than “Psycho” or “Silence of the Lambs” (neither of which used this device). “Inspired by true events” is probably a less deceptive description of such films, but I guess it is all in line with the oral tradition of telling campfire urban legends. The film heavily dramatizes the events in the Perron household, which is only to be expected, but it the way the film really tries to force you to believe in the film’s heroic psychic investigators that I find annoying. Early on we have a rather clumsy scene created to demonstrate Ed Lorraine’s integrity. We are shown that he knows the supposed difference between a haunted house and natural phenomena that a client mistakes for a haunting. Needless to say, this was much better handled in 1999’s “Stigmata”, where we see a world weary caught off-guard.

Ed and Lorraine Warren get the dubious credit of taking the archaic practice of demonology and combining it with Victorian Spiritualism and turning it into a business. By giving it a type of mainstream religious respectability via Christianity – especially Catholic exorcism - and actively publicising their various sensational-sounding cases, they laid the seeds for the blossoming ghost hunting industry we see today. Indeed, many of today’s psychic investigators were trained by this duo. Looking back through their history, we see they rarely missed a trick. The Warrens career included them tackling various different colourful spiritual entities, including a werewolf spirit and the case of “The Amityville Horror”. Of course, “The Conjuring” is the witch episode. The witch, in question, turns out to be Bathsheba Sherman, a relative of Mary Easty, one of the many unfortunate victims who were hung for witchcraft at the infamous Salem Witch Trials. The implication here is that Easty was a witch, which is an outright insult to her memory and the other innocents who perished in a time of terrible ignorance and superstitious belief. With Ed Warren now deceased, Lorraine was a consultant on this film and even got a cameo. Imagine being involved in such a deeply disturbing case, where you were taken to your mental and physical limits, and then coming back to appear in a Hollywood dramatization of said event to appear like Alfred Hitchcock/Stan Lee for your fans. The mind boggles.

From dolls and music boxes to the type of demonic possession scenes that haven’t moved on a great deal since the original “The Exorcist”, the film seems to be a buffet of paranormal horror clichés that lacks any sort of charm. I don’t like the effort that is made to suspend disbelief, which seems to be worryingly preachy. Even “The Exorcist”, which was backed and pushed by the Catholic Church, and based on a novel written by a believer who had been inspired by the story of a young boy’s exorcism, did overtly push this onto its audience. Like any art, it is often spoiled if we feel like we are being persuaded. As if to undermine this serious approach taken throughout the film, we get special effects that are reminiscent of “Paranormal Activity” and seem at odds with the 1970s atmospheric style of movie James Wan seems to be trying to recreate.

My review has come across largely as negative, but I think that is more of a reaction to balance the overzealous response I fee has been heaped upon a largely uncreative picture. The acting is reasonable if not outstanding in any particular way. The dialogue is unmemorable. The sets are excellent. The visual effects look set to date very fast and out of sync with the movie’s feel. This is not always the case, as can be seen in the most recent adaptation of “The Woman in Black”. There is certainly flow between the scenes and tension is built relatively well, which is no less than I would expect from this particular director. There is no denying James Wan’s ability at handling genre films, but his recent work on “Fast and Furious 7” appears to show that he is probably closer to the Michael Bay cynic than the Peter Jackson geek in this respect.

Beelzebub's Broker Articles on Salem Witch Trials and modern day witch hunting:

Remembering the Salem Witch Executions
Modern Witchfinders: A Reflection

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

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A Lazy Cat? - Review of "The Cat's Meow"

August 8, 2014, 4:43 am

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Marion Davies (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cover of The Cat's Meow

It is 1924, at the height of the jazz age, where the Charlston is all the rage, Prohibition is en force and silent cinema has made Hollywood. On 15 November newspaper publishing magnate W R Hearst (Edward Herrmann) leaves San Pedro, California on a cruise to San Diego with his luxury yacht filled with a veritable who's who of Hollywood. These include his mistress, the up-and-coming actress, Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst), the world famous comedy actor Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard), the English novelist and scriptwriter Elinor Glyn (Joanna Lumley), Hearst's film critic Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly) and movie mogul Tom Ince (Cary Elwes).

The cruise and its onboard partying have all been arranged in honour of Ince's birthday. However, Ince is after a bigger present than a luxury cruise and some cake. His film business has been in steep decline for the past five years and he sees this as his opportunity to convince Hearst to go into partnership with him. Meanwhile Chaplin has his eyes on Hearst's starlet mistress who longs to play comedy roles instead of the stuffy period dramas her lover pushes her into. She and Ince are not the only one trying to climb the ladder to the career of her dreams, as Heart's film critic is desperately trying to get foothold in somewhere.

All the while Elinor Glyn watches. With careers at significant turning points for all concerned, Ince's machinations are set to have life-changing results for most and a life-ending result for one...

Review:

I hired "The Cat's Meow" on the basis of what I felt would be an imaginative and fun bit of alternative or what if history telling. Having no knowledge of the urban legend that the events of November 1924 cruise of the Oneida brought about, I just thought this was an imaginative piece of writing bringing together famous historical figures of the jazz age. Look up the names mentioned in my plot and you will see how much of a huge impact they individually had over western or even global culture. For example, WR Hearst inspired both Ayn Rand's character Gail Wynard in her novel, "The Fountainhead" and, more controversially, Charles Foster Kane in Orson Welle's film, "Citizen Kane". I later discovered that the incident depicted in the film was based on Steve Peros' play of the same name (he also wrote the screenplay for this picture) that was possibly inspired by "Murder at San Simeon" written by Hearst's granddaughter, Patricia Hearst, and all of it stemming from what amounts to celebrity conspiracy theory.

Despite this sensationalist angle and the very colourful collection of characters the film moves along at a restrained pace. Awkward moments are often punctuated by the mass hysteria of the Charleston and the story then returns to intimate sub-plots as each of the characters fight with their personal and inter-personal problems. We have seen much of this before and it can provide a very entertaining drama, especially when the characters are real historical personalities and the writer speculates about what drove them. Unfortunately this isn't the case with "The Cat's Meow". Most are superficial caricatures of their popular images and yet are also surprisingly dull.

The only characters that really come alive are Dunst's Marion Davies and Izzard's Charlie Chaplin. Our attention is prone to drift through most of the other events when these two aren't around. I appreciate that this might be because the roles they are playing are those with the most youthful energy, but this shouldn't mean the rest of the performances make the home DVD viewer consider breaking out the coffee.

For example, despite the onscreen time and gentle pace of the film, the evolution of Parsons into the most feared gossip writer of her age is not very convincing. A lot of this is probably down to Peros's writing and here I have to concede that despite my love of many film adaptations of plays we find a fundamental problem. With a play we have an almost set-in-stone depiction of events, which prevent much flexibility and deviation by the director and actors. In fact, matters are perhaps made even worse with the writer of the play also being the screenplay writer, as they are in "The Cat's Meow". Having said this, Tom Ince being portrayed as something of an Iago who seeks to use Chaplin and Davies's affair to ingratiate himself with Hearst does provide a good dramatic device and is mildly entertaining.

Aside from Izzard, who I argue does do justice to the role of Chaplin without looking in the direction Robert Downey Jnr's iconic portrayal and Dunst's fine performance, the film's other main attraction is its soundtrack. The jazz music, particularly the playing of the Charleston, is at the film's very essence and core. Its presence as method to convey the wilful madness all the characters indulged in during that cruise.

All in all, "The Cat's Meow" is definitely not a film without its charm and is certainly worth seeing for its novel value. It is, as one critic sited, some of a tonic when compared to other more gimmick-laden pieces that were growing in prominence at the time of its release and more present now than ever. As a speculation of an historic event about celebrities for some quirky reason it brings to mind Ken Russell's "Gothic". However, Russell's film did a better job of drawing you into the collective madness of his romantic literary circle of Regency era poets than director Peter Bogdanovich's small cruise into the heights of Hollywood escapism.
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Robin Williams Shines Brightest in an Unusual Light - Review of "One Hour Photo"

August 12, 2014, 8:14 am

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Cover of One Hour Photo (Widescreen Edition)

Plot:
“One Hour Photo” is a psychological thriller starring Robin Williams as Sy Parrish, a photo technician working at a large supermarket’s one hour photo developing clinic. Living a lonely and solitary life, the painfully shy Sy becomes obsessed with his regular customers, the Yorkin family (Michael Vartan, Connie Nielsen and Dylan Smith), and fantasizes about being “Uncle Sy”…

Review:

With the death Robin Williams I was inspired to look back on this very original thriller, which immediately impressed me when it first came out on video. Rather than going the route of most psychological thrillers, which inevitably involve a lot of overt sexuality and vivid depictions of violence, this took a very different and more sympathetic approach.

Sy represents the alienation of individuals in modern society. The film’s ending provides us with a strong negative motivation for Sy’s desire to be a part of the perfect family, but the bigger picture is a story about how we often treat other members of our society. Sy’s narration discusses the false representation offered by photographs. The tragedies are rarely seen. Instead family albums of photographs are tapestries of smiling happy faces. Sy accepts this is not the true face, but he wants to believe in this utopia. The inspired set designs of the movie depict his workplace as a sterile and emotionless machine that affects a “heaven-like” hyper-reality and his home, where he keeps his shrine to the family he is stalking, is symbolic of Hell. Humans are naturally social creatures but Sy has no family or friends. Humans are driven to improve and be creative, but when Sy gets passionate about maintaining a certain standard in his workplace he is scalded and reminded about his position in the order.

Given the way digital and social media is today, the film hints at the horrors that lie in wait. Stalking is so prolific now the term has been partly accepted as normal behaviour. A world entertained by reality television has pushed the boundaries of privacy further than the most persistent of paparazzi photographers. However, Williams’ performance conveys the tragedy of the loner who is socially inept and longs for a sense of belonging. Between Sy’s collage of photographs and the false world of his workplace we can see a parallel with the interactive multimedia we use today. The sadness is not just that our society shuns loners like Sy and encourages them move in a dangerous direction, but that the enforced solitary activity of “social” networking with its pseudo-relationships and instant gratification might mean we might all end becoming like him.

The true genius behind “One Hour Photo” is, of course, Mark Romanek who wrote and directed the picture. Romanek took the “Taxi Driver” lonely man idea popular in 1970s films and delivered a far more sympathetic character in a brighter environment. Rather seeing the dirty, gritty and dingy world of the hard-boiled thrillers of this era we see a far less honest world of veneers and artificiality, masks hiding complicated feelings and emotions. The more overtly darker look was something that Romanek obviously played with when he originally booked Trent Reznor to do the soundtrack. Despite being a big fan of Reznor’s work, I definitely think the direction Romanek took paid off.

To many, the idea of Robin Williams playing a sinister part was a surprise. He had already played the role of an obsessive and murderous psychopath in “Insomnia” and his performance had not been very well received. He won a Golden Raspberry in the Worst Actor category for that year. It seemed to be a step too far for Williams. However, I would argue that “One Hour Photo” is perhaps Williams’ finest moment.

Much of the persona that audiences had come to expect of the actor was down to his success as the alien Mork in the “Happy Days” sit-com spin-off “Mork and Mindy”. Willaims established himself as a comedy actor and comedian. He became known for being this zany, fast-talking character that could do various funny voices and brought unrelenting energy to the screen. Despite handling many adult topics in his stand-up act and having little prudence regarding the use of foul language, there was something of the man-child in Williams. He could project a vulnerability that has made so many clowns loveable. “Good Morning Vietnam” opened up the possibilities for a deeper Williams. This was despite the fact that he had already shown a lot of promise in the 1982 comedy drama, “The World According to Garp”. Sadly, knowing the depression he suffered, he has fulfilled the cliché so many tragic comedians and comedy actors fallen into. Early reports on his death indicate that he might join Tony Hancock, Paul McCullough, Richard Jeni and possibly Kenneth Williams in that his depression led him to the ultimate conclusion of suicide. The obvious question remains how much of Williams’ pathos on the screen was connected to the depressive flipside of his otherwise jovial personality?

In “One Hour Photo” we see Williams possibly learning from the mistakes he made in “Insomnia” and balances the dangerous side of his character with tragic empathy. His role in "Insomnia" is unfairly criticized. Most dangerous psychopaths are really quite pathetic individuals, but perhaps Williams' performance in an already tiring movie just didn't pay off in the dramatic sense. Here we get a far more intelligent dark exploitation of Williams' accessible performances. I was not an easy convert to many of Williams' performances. He seemed to be hitting that annoying middle brow area of art that always included predictable sentimental scenes. His characters seemed to suffer from bipolar personalities and were prone to take drastic actions, often compromising the welfare of children. As some wry observers have put it, "Mrs Doubtfire" has an unintended disturbing message regarding obsession.

Strip away the romanticism of "Dead Poets Society" and "Good Will Hunting", and are these characters really on the level? This picture brings together ideas from several of Williams characters and holds a more realistic mirror up to them. Sy can almost be seen as innocent, yet he is a stalker, a fantasist and an obsessive with the potential to be lethal. On the surface the film appears to be a psychological thriller that works off the cuckoo premise seen in “Fatal Attraction”, “Single White Female” and “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”, but there is far more to the picture than this concept. It goes in a very different direction and a lot of that is down to Williams’ performance.

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Folklore as a Tool

August 24, 2014, 4:13 am

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I am currently reading "Dracula: Prince of Many Faces - His Life and Times" by Radu Florescu and Raymond McNally and I came across this wonderful passage:

"Although folklore has to be used with caution by the historian, it can be a legitimate tool. There are perhaps more reason to trust collective folk wisdom, because people can be more discriminating on what they chose to remember, than the memoirs of statesmen, diplomats, and kings, who often to chose to deceive posterity to enhance their reputation."

It reminded me of my deceased writing colleague, Heather Vallance's urge to look to culture and tradition as much as cold hard data. We need to have the tools of logic and rationality to hold information together. We must use critical thinking as a filter, but Richard J. Evans did a sound job of showing us why the historical document-based approach to researching history is fallible.

As the BBC Radio series, "This Sceptred Isle" stated in its opening premise, the history of people really starts with people. When I was researching "The Legend of Salt and Sauce" I certainly went through my fair share of frustration disentangling apocryphal tales and filtering out exaggeration, but collective tradition can often do a lot of valuable work in helping shape the picture of our research. In "Dracula: Prince of Many Faces" the authors explain that only by using information taken from passed down oral traditions did chroniclers learn of the story behind the creation of Dracula Castle by enslaved boyars. According to the story, these were the boyars who betrayed and killed Dracula's elder brother and were worked to death in the construction of his castle. Also the story of the suicide of Dracula's first wife (or mistress), which became a key point of Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula", came from similar tales.

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

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Sheridan La Fanu Honoured on Google

August 28, 2014, 6:49 am

≫ Next: The Lines Before the Score: A Reflection on "Jaws" the novel

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“But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.”

― Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, “Carmilla”

I am delighted to see that Google has decided to celebrate the 200^th birthday of the Irish author, Sheridan Le Fanu, today. Le Fanu was a prolific writer who is best remembered for his mystery and horror fiction. Unlike other several other Gothic writers of the 19^thcentury, such as Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker, Le Fanu was totally dedicated to a career in writing. He studied law at Trinity College, Dublin and was called to the bar in 1839, but already had his mind on journalism. A year previously his first ghost story, “The Ghost and the Bone Setter” signposted where Le Fanu’s literary influence would lie. From 1840 he would become the owner of several newspapers and would go on to write many books and short stories.

“What a fool I was! and yet, in the sight of angels, are we any wiser as we grow older? It seems to me, only, that our illusions change as we go on; but, still, we are madmen all the same.”

― Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, “In a Glass Darkly”

Le Fanu is known for the constant development of his works, something I find very inspiring. Later works can be seen a direct progressions from his earlier material. A lot of the clichés and standard ideas we have regarding supernatural and Gothic fiction can be found in Le Fanu’s stories, but there is still a lot that can be learned from his approach. Like one his latter day fans, the great M.R. James, he relied a lot on creating atmosphere and subtlety than going in for direct shocks. He was the master of “indirect horror”. This is much harder than one might expect and many horror creators struggle with its usage or in adapting it for drama. Many authors have chosen to emulate him and some the greatest ghost and horror story writers were clearly influenced by his approach.

My generation of geeks has demanded an almost Tolkien-esque amount of backstory and tapestry in our mythology. The development of comic books has allowed long expansions of storylines and characters and heavier demands on the creators to deliver. We might look back on previous decades of movies, comics and books, and laugh at the amount of exposition on display as fantasy writers do their best to convey ludicrous ideas to an apparently more critical audience. However, we must a good amount of this responsibility. It is a by-product of our desire to know more from what was created to stimulate our imagination. Even space opera franchises like “Star Wars” have books with technical cross-sections on the plethora of fantasy science that is on display. I wonder how much these demands have compromised new authors who could learn from Le Fanu’s true stylistic legacy.

For example, one of the most fascinating things I learnt from listening to the commentary on the original “The Omen” was that the events in the story could all be explained without their being any supernatural occurrences. In fact, it is the plausibility of this that allows the sequels a degree of strength and we can suspend disbelief in the majority of other characters not buying into the supernatural story. If we don’t assume that Damien is the literal antichrist, the whole story could be about religious hysteria, a conspiracy, a few unfortunate coincidences and a dodgy birthmark. This is the sort of thing Le Fanu presented to his reader. He left much unexplained, leaving the reader to wonder and stimulating their creative impulses to imagine. Such an approach is not only present in horror and mystery works, but can also be a great way to tackle moral drama.

“The stream of life is black and angry; how so many of us get across without drowning, I often wonder. The best way is not to look too far before-just from one stepping-stone to another; and though you may wet your feet, He won't let you drown-He has not allowed me.”

― Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, “Uncle Silas”

I haven’t read all of Le Fanu’s many works and I look forward to correcting that folly. It is amazing to think that stories which feature all the stock Gothic clichés of decayed castles and monasteries as well as all the dreamy devices he uses to play with psychology would have any impact on a modern day reader. Yet they do and I would encourage any reader to sample his ghost stories. Le Fanu might have had a huge impact on ghost, horror and mystery stories, but his style is very hard to emulate. So far, “Carmilla” remains his masterpiece and it is as much a part of the development of modern vampire fiction as John Polidori’s “The Vampyre”, James Malcolm Rymer’s “Varney the Vampire” and Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”. The seductive female vampire of the book’s title allowed a type of sexual freedom few other mainstream pieces of literature could explore in Victorian England. The character, Carmilla, open the gates up to Stoker for the creation of his Dracula brides and is the prototype for the vast majority of female vampires we see today.

“There is a faculty in man that will acknowledge the unseen. He may scout and scare religion from him; but if he does, superstition perches near.”

― Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, “The Haunted Baronet And Others: Ghost Stories” 1861-70

Google Doodle Sheridan Le Fanu

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The Lines Before the Score: A Reflection on "Jaws" the novel

August 29, 2014, 9:53 am

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Jaws (novel) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I recently picked up my copy of “Jaws” and I have to admit that the opening passage is very hard to beat. Consider these very famous lines:

“The great fish moved silently through the night water, propelled by short sweeps of its crescent tail. The mouth was open just enough to permit a rush of water over the gills. There was little other motion: an occasional correction of the apparently aimless course by the slight raising or lowering of a pectoral fin -- as a bird changes direction by dipping one wing and lifting the other. The eyes were sightless in the black, and the other senses transmitted nothing extraordinary to the small, primitive brain. The fish might have been asleep, save for the movement dictated by countless millions of years of instinctive continuity: lacking the flotation bladder common to other fish and the fluttering flaps to push oxygen-bearing water through its gills, it survived only by moving.”

Opening passages to novels are vital. It intrigues me how a good author can draw his reader in at the get-go. Anthony Trollope, in his “Autobiography”, puts it very simply: “Of all the needs a book has the chief need is that is be readable”. Maybe it comes from being born into a family that performed without the privilege of being given grants or being patronized by wealthy indulgent benefactors, but I believe strongly that all artists owe something to their audience. A great novel, no matter what a critic will tell you, should have some very attractive first few lines. Please forgive my obvious simile, but Benchley’s words in this passage are siren-like. You are immediately drawn into the depths of the sea and propelled along with the instinctive movements of the story’s lead antagonist into the primal terror that awaits you on the next few pages.

I first read the novel, “Jaws”, now superseded in fame by the Steve Spielberg masterpiece of film, in an abridged form in my secondary school library. Later I was in conversation with my grandfather, who had read the book when it first came out in 1974, and he said what I was feeling at the time, it’s a book that is very hard to put down. A lot of different factors are responsible for the enduring success of “Jaws”. The film’s expert suspenseful direction, cleverly adapted screenplay, excellent cast, beautiful cinematography and who could forget the primeval chords of John Williams’ memorable score. The movie, as we know, has been heralded as the first summer blockbuster and has gone onto inspire a huge range of films, from its own sequels to many clones involving sharks and other predators of the deep to less obvious masterpieces in their own right, such as 1979’s “Alien”. Part of the book’s own success might be down to the book’s editor, Tom Congdon, suggesting “Jaws” for a title.

The copy I ended up purchasing cost me £3 a few years ago from a second-hand book shop in Cornwall. It’s a worn hardback – not abridged this time - and was published for a book club on the year of the novel’s initial release. Although this doesn’t quite make it a first edition there is something nice about possessing an edition that was published ahead of the huge success that would follow. This edition was out before Bantam had even bought the rights to publish it as a paperback let alone before it was picked up by film producers. Knowing this helps me appreciate the essence of what became a bestseller before it became the prototypical summer blockbuster. The next time someone tells you that the plot of “Jaws” is not very good and really it was just Spielberg’s direction or John Williams’ score that made it a success, draw their attention to the fact that the novel was immediately accepted by Book of the Month Club, when it was first submitted, and was subsequently picked up Reader’s Digest before staying on the bestseller list for 44 weeks.

Sadly “Jaws” has suffered from the critics and several relegate it as purely populist success. This is in somewhat contrast to the movie, which although it was an enormous commercial success and spawned some very silly sequels and imitations, has received a lot of favourable criticism. There have been several scholarly dissections of the movie and the Library of Congress selected it in the United States National Film Registry for as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

I disagree with the critical consensus of the book. That opening passage speaks volumes about the author’s literary skill. The art he has chosen may be sensationalist, but then so was Sheridan Le Fanu’s and Edgar Allan Poe’s. They still knew how to play their populist pieces with style. Yet again, I find myself looking at the artificial lines of artistic merit and finding then being little more than snobbery. I will go more into detail on this in another essay. For now, I ask that you look at that opening passage again and consider the brilliant way it immediately engages the lay reader with looming terror yet fascinatingly interweaves Peter Benchley’s knowledge of marine biology. The idea that a book’s main protagonist is this perfect killing machine that has evolved yet little changed over millions of years gives the sensationalist genre a type of gravitas that easily suspends disbelief. This seriousness and scientific awareness is present throughout Benchley’s story. He was famously against the dramatic and explosive ending that Spielberg insisted on because this did not resemble the behaviour of great white sharks.

However, despite being inspired by real life events such as the capture of a 2,060kg great white shark off the shore of Long Island in 1964 and the 1916 Jersey Shore shark attacks, “Jaws” is an exercise in mythological influence. Benchley was working off the theories of the time on sharks. His novel and the movie would prompt an unprecedented amount of interest in sharks, and a greater understanding of these fascinating creatures. Benchley has said that he couldn’t write “Jaws” now knowing that the vast majority of shark attacks were accidents whereby the animal had mistaken a human for its prey. Indeed attacks on humans are considered to be freak occurrences by most marine biologists. Nevertheless, as has always been the case, sensational fiction indirectly ends up creating more awareness about an issue than just about any other media.

At least Benchley’s work does not enforce a type of pseudoscience or pseudohistory on you, as is the case with Dan Brown and at least “Jaws” isn’t some partisan documentary. Instead what you get is a 1970s take on the Leviathan (a name Benchley considered a few of his title ideas) and Cetus ideas from ancient mythology. As more exploration has been done and more incredible examples of fossilized remains have revealed the existence of the giants of prehistoric times, we see that “Jaws” reflects that fearful wonderment. Although the shark of the book is diminutive compared to its Cenozoic ancestor, it is part of the Megalodon legacy. On that note, I encourage you to read the less scientific but fun novel, “Meg” by Steve Alten, which also has an excellent opening chapter.

Although Benchley wrote the first three drafts of the script that became the movie, “Jaws”, Howard Sackler did uncredited work and comedy writer, Carl Gottlieb, was brought on to lighten the tone. Benchley’s book has a decidedly darker tone than Spielberg’s movie and it works well as a novel. All of the novels three main protagonists were unlikeable to Spielberg and I guess might have been ahead of the audiences of the time, even 1970s audiences who were into gritty thrillers and dramas at the time. I find them to be simply more complex and I think an audience that has accepted the moral ambiguity of “Game of Thrones” and “Dexter” would possibly buy into these less clear-cut characters if anyone dared to make “Jaws” the mini-series.

I consider the movie “Jaws” to be one of the best films made and certainly one of the best horrors movies in history. However, the book also deserves to be re-appraised. Like “The Godfather”, a piece of classic fiction that is overshadowed by its brilliant movie adaptation and often snubbed by literary academics, “Jaws” is a true “page turner”. Both books have subplots that were completely dismissed in their movie versions, but work well in a literary sense. Despite being in a simplistic thriller mould, “Jaws” is almost a tragedy with the three main protagonists heading towards a type of final reckoning with a force of nature.

I recommend you go back before the movie and before the rousing score, and consider the original novel. It is great in full, abridged or to listen to as an audio book, especially at night.

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

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Thomas Cromwell Revised

September 10, 2014, 8:53 am

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Portrait of Thomas Cromwell. New York, Frick Collection. Oak panel, 76 x 61 cm. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"The ambitious have no friends" - Brian Taggert and Faustus Buck

Thomas Cromwell seems modelled for the role of the devious and manipulative power behind the throne. He is depicted as a ruthless and power-hungry man of ambition who destroyed several notable figures on his ascent to the position as Henry VIII's chief minister. Virtually every portrait I have seen of the man is unflattering. He scowls from his seated position with cold eyes over a long and sharp nose. Danny Webb's depiction of the character in the TV series, "Henry VIII", takes this image and runs with it in perfect style. He is seen as a scheming and overly-ambitious man. Yet his latest biography challenges this view, presenting a man who was loyal to his family and loved by the common people. He was the most hated man in England, but this may have been as much to do with the influence of his aristocratic enemies, led by Duke of Norfolk as it was to do with his ruthlessness.

The fascinating thing about history is that, like science, there are no absolutes. We not only uncover new evidence, but new perspectives too. I recently read "Dracula: Prince of Many Faces" in my pursuit of sifting out the bloody propaganda surrounding Vlad Tepes and in hope of finding the real man. It always interests me to see challenging and compelling evidence that shifts an accepted perspective of an historical figure. History is all about storytelling and it is only natural that humans feel secure using a simplistic moral approach, and this is often actively encouraged either by political powers of the day or partisan revisionists.

On that note, being a critical thinker, I am not easily swayed on a controversial viewpoint. Conspiracy theories and pseudohistory must be given no quarter in our condemnation, and their relegation to the faction or outright fiction sections of our libraries. This is why I thoroughly enjoyed Ian Mortimer's "1415: Henry V's Year of Glory", which did an incredibly thorough job of re-evaluating the character of Henry V. Mortimer's account of Henry V. Mortimer's conclusion was certainly controversial and challenged an English view of Henry V that seems to have been held since his lifetime. Yet Mortimer's primary sources were excellent and thorough. He had access to royal archives few others could obtain. His researching methods were those of a disciplined and dispassionate historian. He was fair with his subject and his conclusion was very convincing. Likewise, Tony Thorne's even-handed account of Countess Elizabeth Bathory does touch upon the possibility of a conspiracy. However, this is based on established conspiracies at the time and also is not presented as the only conclusion on the Bathory case. Again, Thorne appears to be fair to his subject and this was no blatant lionization.

Now Thomas Cromwell, a man who is often cast as Henry VIII's most despised advisor, seems to be receiving a much needed review. Tracy Borman's new biography on the chief minister argues the case for a man who was vilified due to his low birth. He is revealed to being loyal, a strong family man and extremely charitable. He was not only one of the main driving forces behind the English Reformation, but also proved to be just as influential over the creation of modern Government as his latter day namesake was over Parliament. However, she doesn't dismiss his ruthless ambition, for which has earned him his reputation as an amoral schemer. The execution of Anne Boleyn was the result of Cromwell's handiwork. He had a network of spies to rival that of the great spymaster, Walsingham, who would be at Elizabeth I's side. Nevertheless, Borman puts forward the persuasive argument that Cromwell's tactics and attitude were little different from anyone who moved in his circles. Ambition and ruthlessness were the order of the day. The son of blacksmith, Cromwell climbed from poverty, even begging in the street, to a position of extreme influence in the Royal Court. Along the way he made enemies, which is inevitable, but by lacking a noble background he had a distinct disadvantage compared to the other power-hungry aspirants.

Cromwell's reputation seems to have followed a similar course to his life in some respects. Up until Geoffrey Elton's study of the Tudors, Cromwell was downplayed as a mere agent of the overbearing tyrant, Henry VIII. Since then evidence reveals how massively instrumental he was in the King's affairs, the running of the country and the reforms that have shaped modern England. This may have elevated the collective opinion on his abilities and strength of personality, but it only blackened his image. Now Henry VIII's acts of tyranny were shared more fully by his chief minister. The deaths of Sir Thomas Moore and the aforementioned Anne Boleyn are undeniably lain at the feet of Cromwell. He was often portrayed in novels, plays, such as Robert Bolt's "A Man for all Seasons" and other works of historical fiction universally as a conniving Machiavellian villain. However, Hilary Montel rode against this image in her Booker Prize-winning 2009 novel, "Wolf Hall". This depicted the rise of Cromwell as that of a talented pragmatist. The sequel in her Cromwell trilogy, "Bring up the Bodies" also won the Booker Prize. Tracy Borman cites them as inspiration for her own research and the subsequent biography. Yet again history proves itself to be very much about people and stories.

As an icon, Cromwell seems to be the prototype of the Machiavellian schemers we were to see in Shakespeare's plays. He is the ambitious and cruel sidekick of many a fictional villain. He could be the wily Mafia consigliere or the ambitious military lieutenant or the devious henchman we see perched at the side of any proverbial or literal throne. In recent times we might find him in the form of Lord Petyr "Little Finger" Baelish in George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" fantasy saga (televised as the hugely successful "Game of Thrones"). The stories here are noted for the moral ambiguity running throughout, where the most noble are dispatched and only those who learn the rules of power play can thrive. Baelish, like Cromwell, rose from a low rank, cultivated a network of informers, and controlled the lives of many by using ruthless tactics. However, here and there he missteps and his own mortal weaknesses are revealed. He boastfully tells the mother of the King, Cercei, that "knowledge is power" only to be quickly shown that "power is power". Later his desire for Sansa, daughter of the woman he loved, places him directly in Sansa's power. In an over-reaching attempt to solidify the Protestant Reformation in England, Cromwell set Henry VIII up to marry the German Anne of Cleves. The disastrous matchmaking humiliated the king and it gave Cromwell's enemies, in the form of Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Gardiner, to pounce. It wasn't difficult to have Cromwell sent to the Tower on a list of trumped up charges that saw him being beheaded without a trial. According to Tracy Borman's research, Cromwell was very popular amongst the commoners and was known to be very charitable and Henry VIII regretted having his close friend executed.

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

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Behold... Vulvatron!

September 19, 2014, 4:44 am

≫ Next: Vigilante Thriller with Pedigree? - Review of the Brave One

≪ Previous: Thomas Cromwell Revised

I was delighted to hear that the Thrash Metal band, Gwar, announced Vulvatron (played by Kim Dylla) as their new front-woman. Never a band to take themselves too seriously, Gwar took horror rock theatrics, popularized by the great Alice Cooper, to a new and different mutation. They were ahead of Death Metal, Black Metal and Nu Metal, effectively sending up the genre before it had had a chance to take itself seriously. They were never really a brand of Thrash Metal I especially liked from a musical perspective, but I loved their imaginative live sets and the sheer audacity of their ideas. The 1980s were a time when the mainstream ignored the beautifully ornery reaction to 1970s rock stage shows presented by punk rock, quickly developing into corporate rock and glam metal. Gwar rode these over the top theatrics into a crazy mythology of science fiction, horror and fantasy, attacking media censorship and revelling in the fun. They were never a band's band in the respect that their line-up has been a consistently revolving array of artists, including those who work diligently on the bands costumes, staging and SFX. However, I like the fact that despite delivering interviews in character they refreshingly admit they are playing parts. This makes a change from many rock stars (including some of my favourites) who think they are method actors and get absorbed into their manufactured persona.

Metal is a genre of music, which along with rap, has often been criticized for being misogynistic and characterized for being very masculine. In an act of inspired genius Gwar have shown a direct reaction to the much publicized global abuse and oppression of women. In a world where real social and physical horrors are being enacted on women on a daily basis in every country, often based on ridiculous ideology it is great to see such a defiant move. The creation of "Vulvatron" - a brash Amazonian warrior who shoots fake blood from her prosthetic breasts - is an inspired and bold decision to replace front-man, Oderus Urungus (played by the deceased Dave Brockie). The character is both unashamedly brash and tongue-in-cheek. She also starkly different from the false empowerment figures that masquerade as feminist icons, but really are diluted down figures that titillate misogynistic ideas rather than oppose them. On a personal note, I just love the name. It makes me think of a feminist Decepticon. Answers on a postcard as to what she could transform into...

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

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Vigilante Thriller with Pedigree? - Review of the Brave One

September 30, 2014, 8:12 am

≫ Next: Restrained Twist on the Cuckoo Thriller?

≪ Previous: Behold... Vulvatron!

Cover of The Brave One [Blu-ray]

Plot:

Erica Bain (Jodie Foster) is an outspoken radio host. Her expressive opinions on her late night show have recently been focusing on the decay of her neighbourhood. One night she and her partner are victims of a vicious and unprovoked assault. Both are serious injured with only Erica surviving the attack. Struck by fear, she illegally purchases a gun. Finding herself in another violent incident she uses it and begins a life as a vigilante. Meanwhile, Detective Sean Mercer (Terence Howard) is appalled by the corruption he sees around him...

Review:

I always find it interesting to see what a very high calibre and respected artist can do with a simple and sensationalist genre. The last 15 years or so have seen an increasing number of writers, directors and actors decide to see what they can do with a populist medium. I would like to think that they were all inspired to do this in the same artistic vein that Alfred Hitchcock, considered by many to be history’s greatest director, decided to tackle a horror with “Psycho”. However, I cannot see Wilhelm Defoe and
Kevin Bacon convincingly make this argument, as their respective agents raised invoices for their work in commercials. There is an entire episode of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson’s “Hancock’s Half Hour” radio show, where Tony Hancock tries to retain respect as a theatre actor after a commercial appears that seems to have him doing the voiceover. Alec Guinness never seemed to stop moaning about how he became associated with his role in “Star Wars” despite appearing in all three of the original trilogy that were filmed in his lifetime. The same could not really be said for Patrick Stewart who successfully took the place of and rivalled William Shartner’s position in the other lucrative science fiction franchise, and has gone on to retain the respectability he originally won through his Shakespearean acting. We live in a different age now. Most of the big budget superhero movies star serious dramatic actors rather than bodybuilders and athletes, and not all of them are directed by cynical corporate hacks known for big explosions and zero storyline. Kenneth Brannagh and Christopher Nolan prove this point very well. Despite this, I was still intrigued by Jodie Foster and Neil Jordan deciding to take this particular material on.

As far as I am concerned, Foster is up there with Bette Davis, Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren and Vivienne Leigh in the best actress category. She has also proven herself to be a more than competent director and has won universal acknowledgement for her work. Foster’s education at Yale University, her linguistic skills and the way she has managed her life in general seems to represent an image of someone who is not desperate for work. Her work is certainly regular, but we are not talking Nicholas Cage here. The projects vary, including taking a French-speaking part in “A Very Long Engagement”, and she is not easily dragged into big budget action movies. However, despite a career that defied the tragic child star cliché and has been shining through her teenage to adult years with best actress nominations that have culminated in two Oscars, three BAFTAs and three Golden Globes as well as several other awards, Foster’s selections are not those of a snob. She might yet to have been pulled into a big budget franchise blockbuster, but genre pictures have never been beneath her and she seems to like science fiction. I guess it is worth remembering that at “The Silence of the Lambs” might have all the techniques of a sharp psychological crime thriller, but at its heart it is a horror and Foster’s second Oscar win came her performance in this picture.

Neil Jordan also counts as one of my favourite artists in the movie-making world. Jordan is grounded and yet imaginative. He always plays to the right side of surreal and has enough control not to pretentiously self-indulge. This level of discipline alone puts him above David Lynch and even Ken Russell. Jordan is accomplished and award-winning screenplay writer and it is this ability that makes most of his works so well rounded in execution. Like Foster, I have been a long-time fan of Jordan’s work. Although, being behind the camera and I didn’t always realize I was consistently enjoying his projects. Now, looking back at his wonderfully eclectic range of material I find myself not being surprised why he would take on “The Brave One”, but rather whether it was a wise choice.

Revenge tragedies are a pretty old and established institution with many of the greats, including Shakespeare, tackling them. However, the movie world often distils them into gory action thrillers that range from B movies to hard boiled blockbusters. Personal justice is a strong and emotive universal theme. From this genre we have seen emerge the subgenre of the vigilante thriller. These stories of avenging individuals who set out to take on the wrongs of the world that the official authorities cannot or will not handle has proven hugely popular. They tend to take two very rough forms. The superhero vigilante fiction sprung from the Dick Tracy era of comic-strips, when the corrupting influence of gangsters and racketeers over official authorities made the general public look towards “untouchables” to enforce justice. I am in agreement with many who see the superheroes of the 20th and 21st century to be latter day manifestations of the multiple gods found in various mythologies. Of course, this is evident in characters like Thor, Hercules, Wonder Woman and Aqua-Man. The other type of vigilante is a more relatable figure. These people are usually unaided by many advantages, and are merely following the line of wish fulfilment that the average enraged member of the public may feel each time they read about injustice. Depending on the writer and director, this second genre can be a massive wet dream for the enraged masses or a moral or psychological examination of what happens when unauthorized people take the law into their own hands.

On paper, “The Brave One” does not stand out as an especially interesting project for Foster or Jordan to handle. The unique slant on the story is that the main protagonist vigilante is a famous radio presenter. This does make the story somewhat interesting by the way it rips open the veneer of untouchability that we can assume surrounds celebrities. Erica Bain, like anyone else, is just as likely to be set upon by thugs when she walks her dog down a subway. The nature of the attack is made more horrific by the totally unpredictable nature of the killing, the extremeness of the violence, the voyeuristic element brought in by one of the thugs who video tapes the whole attack and the way her fit and capable partner is so brutally disposed of. This latter point, of course, brings up the other unusual twist. The vigilante is a woman. There is nothing new in this – I remember a very low budget movie called “The Sisterhood” from the ‘80s – but it is still not common. Most vigilante films are masculine fantasies, empowering regular men to reclaim their position as protectors. However, this film argues that women also have the same insecurities. It doesn’t go the route of maternal rage either. Erica Bain is angered by what has happened to her and when she discovers the ability in herself to take some power back she gets the bug. Unfortunately this is not fully explored. Instead we pretty much go the revenge route with a degree of debate regarding the morality of vigilantism. This gets a bit more analysis than is usual in this type of genre due to Erica using the radio to voice her opinions.

Certain clichés are avoided. We get an affectionate platonic male/female relationship between Erica and Sean Mercer that does not even hint of going in any other direction than one that is borne out of a desire to see justice served. It is quite refreshing to not be bothered by the tiresome will she/will he device going on to please a certain perceived public demand. Terrence Howard should be given a lot of credit here and both he and Foster work well together. Like all the best screen actors, they can convey powerful moments by a look or a pause. There are key moments in the story, particularly in the film’s climax where this is very evident. However, the scene that sticks in my head is the late night telephone conversation. The violence is not excessive, but it is certainly realistic and works well to horrify when needed yet does not linger unnecessarily.

Sadly all these good points cannot suspend disbelief enough. It's an interesting premise that Erica, who is used to presenting herself to an audience on the radio "becomes someone else" and this is a worthy theme, but it is not strong enough to support the actions of her character. It is not that Foster does not infuse Erica with enough passion and need to become what she becomes, but the storyline is not credible. We are supposed to accept that a traumatized victim of a near-death assault, on the verge of complete agoraphobia would, on her first day out alone following the assault, go with a confirmed criminal down a back alley to illegally purchase a pistol. Surely the trio of writers could come up with a more plausible device than this scene. Then we have to accept that a completely untrained and inexperienced individual can go forward and dispatch violent criminals with said pistol. There is an attempt to make it all sound credible with Sean Mercer telling his colleagues that Erica’s first shooting looks like it had been done by someone who had never fired a gun before. This makes it the flukiest gunfight in history. Finally, we then are expected to believe that Erica, who has spent all of her life up until the assault never being involved in a violent altercation, to suddenly find herself getting into trouble again and again.

“The Brave One” came out the same year as two other vigilante thrillers, “Death Sentence” starring Kevin Bacon and “Outlaw” starring Sean Bean. Neither of these were particularly remarkable examples from the genre with the former, despite having a literary basis, appearing to be little more than a depressing imitation of “Death Wish” and the latter, despite having some empathetic potential, being a mess of ideas. However, despite not lighting up the box or receiving a lot of critical praise, “The Brave One” earned Jodie Foster another nomination for best actress and it is easily better than “Death Sentence” and “Outlaw”. Two years later Michael Caine would join in with “Harry Brown”. Not long ago I overheard a conversation between middleclass mothers, where they were saying how “surprisingly good” “Harry Brown” was. There was definitely something in the air. We worked on a low budget film called “Vigilante” that was inspired by the 2011 London Riots. “The Brave One” is generally better than most found in this genre, but this nearly entirely reliant on Foster’s performance and Jordan’s direction. The storyline wobbles between gritty reality and outright implausibility. Rather than pursuing the psychological angle provided, it takes the moral route. This does not conclude anymore satisfactorily than the majority of similar films.

As far as Jodie Foster’s foray into crime dramas go, “The Brave One” is better than “Panic Room”, which was another puzzling choice, and on a par with “Flight Plan”, but no way near as good as “Inside Man”. The closest thing Neil Jordan has ever done to this film is his 1986 classic, “Mona Lisa”, and there is no comparison. “The Brave One” is an above average vigilante revenge thriller with strong acting, fluid direction and an interesting if unoriginal premise.

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

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Restrained Twist on the Cuckoo Thriller?

October 7, 2014, 8:44 am

≫ Next: Showing up

≪ Previous: Vigilante Thriller with Pedigree? - Review of the Brave One

I guess I have been interested in the concept of cuckoo stories since I first studied Emily Bronte's only novel, "Wuthering Heights", for my English Literature A level many years ago. The novel's driven Byronic hero, Heathcliffe, was uncharacteristically attractive compared to many cuckoos in fiction. Typically they are malignant spirits that seek to usurp the order of a loving family and often use tactics such as deception, intrigue and accumulating violence. This eventually concludes with a siege-like situation with our sympathetic heroes fending off the antagonistic cuckoo in a life and death struggle. In these respects, "Chloe", the subject of the below review differs quite a lot from the norm...

Plot: Dr. Catherine Stewart suspects her husband is having an affair. She enlists the help of call-girl, Chloe, to test his loyalty. The experiment results in Catherine discovering far more about herself than she realized existed. This is before she has taken into account the nature of Chloe...

Review:Based on the French film, “Nathalie...”, “Chloe” comes from a type of erotic film genre I have come to refer to as “Cuckoo” thrillers. This is acclaimed Canadian director, Atom Egoyan’s biggest money-maker despite being a financial flop. Draw your own conclusions there. I see strong thematic similarities in “Single White Female”, “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle”, “Fatal Attraction” and even the horror, “Orphan”. However, unlike all those mentioned the film elicits a degree of sympathy from its antagonist. This serves keep the viewer guessing regarding how much of what Chloe says is real or delusional. Like “Fatal Attraction”, there is also something of a moral message running through the story and it raises a few questions regarding personal responsibility.

The film has been criticized for not being erotic enough, despite its premise, but I think the restraint in this respect works well. Egoyan understands restraint and allows strong character interaction, which draws the audience into the collective psychology. It’s a nice trick. Furthermore, Erin Cressida Wilson’s screenplay is less crass than “Nathalie…” She makes some good decisions regarding the relationship between Catherine, David and Chloe. Unfortunately “Chloe” doesn’t deliver high on the actual drama and rather fizzles than explodes. The film’s dramatic climax is disappointing and seems somewhat rushed, even if its final frame is a saving grace. I have never been a fan of Liam Neeson’s work and often feel like he is in the wrong film. I tend to place him just above Nicholas Cage, Richard Gere and Kevin Costner on my bland scale, but he is quite believable in this role. However, the primary drama rests on Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried. Their scenes and the complexity of their relationship carry the film.

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

↧

Showing up

October 13, 2014, 8:48 am

≫ Next: All Change!

≪ Previous: Restrained Twist on the Cuckoo Thriller?

“If today was the day you were finally going to win, did you show up?”

- Daniel Waldschmidt

The above quote was randomly selected on my email provider. It is an interesting mutation of a statement attributed to the comedian/actor/director Woody Allen in 1977 by his partner Susan Braudy, “80 per cent of life is turning up”. In 1989 Allen discussed this attribution, correcting to be something more specific:

"My observation was that once a person actually completed a play or a novel, he was well on his way to getting it produced or published, as opposed to a vast majority of people who tell me their ambition is to write, but who strike out on the very first level and indeed never write the play or book. In the midst of the conversation, as I’m now trying to recall, I did say that 80 percent of success is showing up."

When it comes to writing, I can completely agree with Allen. I have received emails and been a part of many conversations with prospective writers. Sadly the vast majority will never get their work published in any format. Despite this being the case, I encourage everyone to write. Writing has been my favoured medium for as long as I could string letters together. I love reading stories and have an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Unfortunately for me, not everyone is so enthusiastic about this medium. Some people have little pleasure in reading, let alone writing. However, of those who do have enthusiasm to write their book or to have an idea very few of them will actually do anything about it. I can relate to them. I have been there and I often find myself there. In truth, so do most writers and creators. Like the elite fighter who carries the same fears as the rest of us regarding his match, the creator is constantly tempted by distractions. In fact, I would argue it is in a creative person’s make-up and therein lays the cruel paradox.

The effort required to act is considerable. It is what allows so many truly awful works of art, literature, music and entertainment go onto become mainstream successes whilst the world loses some remarkable works to the graves of those who could not act upon their talent and ambition.

History is full of examples of people who struck lucky simply because they made the decision to turn up for an event. Actors, such as Ray Winstone, auditioned virtually on a dare. Having worked in most areas of showbusiness, I have often seen how much timing has to play regarding an individual’s success. It is easy to see it all as something of a tournament with luck playing a big part of the entire process. There are several factors that will give you certain advantages, including education, but none of it is relevant to a non-attendee. There is a type of equality for guaranteeing you will not achieve what you want there and it was aptly described by a villain in the boxing movie, "Gladiator", "Everyone is a no show until they show".

The Waldschmidt quote is something of a sequel to Allen’s well-known saying. Waldschmidt not only explains the importance of showing up, but its continued importance. Mileage needs to be put in to make progress. Obviously being objective-driven and mindful of what you are turning up to do is far more productive than just turning up in hope of being successful, but nevertheless it is still a question of being there even when you feel certain you are going to fail. Experience of failure is not something we should shy away from if we see some value in whatever it is we are trying to achieve. Some of my best life lessons have come from complete failure and have gone influence things I have succeeded in doing. At other times having no expectations has lowered my stress levels and allowed me to perform better in some area. However, when I look back, it is probably all those badly remembered non-event events that I attended to put the hours in that are responsible for allowing me to achieve the larger goals in my life.

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

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All Change!

October 14, 2014, 4:44 am

≫ Next: Champion Charlie Brown!

≪ Previous: Showing up

Professor Stephen R. Covey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"People can't live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value."

Stephen R. Covey

In recent years I have found that I have come almost diametrically in opposition to the views I once held on a lot of self-help. It is not good enough to simply apply positive thinking and sometimes it can be outright dangerous to do so. A lot of self-help is over-marketed snake oil mysticism tangled up with a type of smiley faced bullying and it has seeped into many aspects of our culture. Having said that, I am not one to completely dismiss everything that has been said by all these self-appointed gurus. When I first started reading into the gaping flaws of psychoanalysis it did not lead me to consign my copy of Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" to the bonfire. Rather I looked more into his personal philosophy and certain observations on human nature that I feel do stand up to scrutiny. I was less drawn into his logotherapy, but that is a topic for another day. Likewise, I found myself looking back over the work of Stephen R. Covey, a giant in the motivational field who is often listed alongside the likes of Tony Robbins (a regular target of all self-help critics), and I have to say a lot of what Covey has to say is still pretty sound stuff.

He preached some great ideas regarding how an individual should make himself independent before becoming interdependent. He explained the difference between leading people and managing them. His basis for creating principles and how they relate to a workforce made sense too. You have universal rules that everyone agrees upon and then each individual writes up his own mission statement. Covey believed this type of idea could be carried over into any community, including the family. Although, despite his examples, I am always wary of one method for all approaches. Nevertheless, the collaborative ideas were pretty hard to knock. I was personally influenced by his objective centred approach. This became a part of my coaching methodology and enabled me to individualize training routines better. "Begin with the end in mind" might seem corny now, but I struggle to find another approach that will keep an individual focused on their task. I speak as a seasoned procrastinator and an individual that is very easily distracted.

The man was a devoted member of the Church of Latter Day Saints. I am not a religious person and am very sceptical about religious influence, even if I do have a libertarian sense of respect for most moderate belief systems and that an individual has the right to believe in whatever he or she wants. My fellow sceptical friends had trouble distancing Covey from his religious beliefs and somehow felt they filtered into and influenced his secular work. They might have a point. However, I don't think that is necessarily wrong. I have often held that one should separate the individual from their art. This is a common theme of mine and if I couldn't do that then my choice of entertainment would be a very sad and extremely limited range of material. Today when I see an individual I respect saying things that I am opposed to, I try my hardest to see their work as a separate commodity. Fundamentally I might not agree with the religious belief system of the Mormons. I might find their origin story totally unbelievable and their prejudices to be unacceptable, but the same points might apply to virtually all religions if they are taken in their literal sense. Nevertheless, certain principles they have might be universal principles we see across world society, so if those are what Covey preached in his secular work then I don't see a conflict of interest.

As it is, I don't believe in every single thing that Covey preached in the three books of his I have in my library, "Principle Centred Leadership", "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" and "The Eighth Habit". However, there are some excellent pieces of information in there and one of them prefaced this post. The strength to adapt and the ability to change is still an under-rated quality. Yet humans climbed to the top of the food chain based on their evolved adaptive strengths. Our ability to admit when we are wrong and making a conscious effort to correct the error is what progress is all about. To make it relevant to my starting point, self-help, which came in via my involvement with the martial arts world, had an impact on me. I understood the importance of self-motivation and being a motivator for others. Being sceptical about the self-help mystique has helped me rectify a lot impractical beliefs I have had and to go further with my scientific learning. However, now I feel I can go back and revise the good material that was contained within the various texts and lectures I listened to over and over again, and filter it out from the nonsense. My proverbial gag reflex is now much tougher with words like "empowerment", proactive" and "alignment", although I promise to never over-use them again.

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

SHAM -review
Bring me Cordelia!
Justify This!
Strength Through Error
The New Martial Arts Mystique
Taking it on the Chin and Listening to Fools

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Champion Charlie Brown!

October 16, 2014, 9:11 am

≫ Next: New Book by Luna Ballantyne

≪ Previous: All Change!

Charlie Brown, created by Charles Schultz, is the USA's most profound and simple antidote to the culture of competitiveness. Charlie Brown's genesis was as a single strip cartoon for Sunday newspapers. His creator continued producing these witty, simplistic yet thoughtful stories told completely from the point of view of children up until his death. Along the way these iconic little stories inspired numerous TV specials, series and feature films. This was the first feature film outing for him and the rest of the "Peanuts", and it stands up today, in a time of 3D and adult animation, as a wonderful comment on "every kid in every town".

The film focuses completely on the crux of Charlie Brown: his perpetual failing. From the very beginning Charlie Brown fails at everything whether it is being able to spot impressive images in clouds, baseball games, flying kites, floating boats in a bath or even playing noughts and crosses in the dirt. He can't even win an argument to have the dandelions removed from his baseball pitcher's mound. Matters are not made better when his best friend sister's psychiatric service decides the best way to treat him for his lack of self esteem is to project all his faults onto a screen via a slideshow! His best friend, Linus, decides that the only way for Charlie Brown to gain confidence is to win at something. Against the jeers of his fellow schoolmates he decides to enter the class spelling competition. However, success might offer more unforeseen problems that make his failures seem small by comparison...

The film has a wonderful simple style to it that echoes the comic strips and the TV series perfectly. However, despite lasting almost an hour and 20 minutes it doesn't fall into the trap of becoming an overstretched episode. The plot is nicely laid out with plenty of entertaining asides showing the various comical antics of the other Peanuts and some interesting musical interludes. These interludes showcase psychedelic sequences popular in the 1960s (the film was released in 1969), used to show the dreams of the various characters. As from the earliest animated cartoons, the music is a big part of Charlie Brown's appeal. It creates a warm sense of nostalgia throughout the film. The main score for the piece is provided by Jazz composer, Vince Guaraldi, but also includes music by Beethoven, performed by Ingolf Dahl, songs sung by the cast (including a pretty complex spelling rhyme accompanied by Snoopy on a makeshift Okzark harp) and the affectionate whimsical title song by songwriter/singer Rod McKuen. However, the piece that ironically will probably stay in your head the longest is the triumphant all-cast singing of "Champion Charlie Brown".

Charles Schultz, of course, not only created a deeply sympathetic and lovable human character of Charlie Brown he also surrounded him with other unforgettable characters. There is Linus, Charlie Brown's more intellectual best friend who is bonded to a literal comfort blanket. Then there is Charlie Brown's younger sister who is constantly in love with Linus. Linus's elder sister, Lucy, is the strong-willed, popular and sometime antagonist of Charlie Brown who charges five cents for psychiatric advice. Schroeder is a dedicated pianist and the focus of Lucy's amorous intentions. Pig Pen, the dirtiest and dustiest kid in town, also makes an appearance. Last but not least there is Snoopy, Charlie Brown's multi-talented yet delusional beagle, who appropriately is perhaps more famous the franchise's luckless lead character. Other classic characters that don't make it into this film are the tomboy, Peppermint Paddy, and Snoopy's bird friend, Woodstock. These two were both present in the comic strip three years ahead of the film, but weren't members of the early cast.

I first saw this film when I was four and a half years old and on holiday in Florida. I was a Charlie Brown fan for life, which might seem strange given that a lot of my writing and working is concerned with motivation. There is just something beautifully sobering and human in the character of Charlie Brown, which speaks of life's hard lessons. True, even though this film was made at the end of the 1960s, Schultz's original late 1940s/1950s feel is there in the innocence of childhood. Adults do not appear, save for the unintelligible monologue of the school teacher; and it is if the children live alone in their own little community. Long before there was South Park, Charlie Brown does not deal with children in a naïve way, but shows them for all their flaws and quirks.

This DVD edition has no special features. Some documentaries or at least a commentary track would have been very welcome. I don't know why an anniversary edition wasn't released in 2009. It is a real shame given its significance in cartoon history.

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

↧

New Book by Luna Ballantyne

October 21, 2014, 3:50 am

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Luna Ballantyne (pseudonym of fantasy novelist, Ingrid Hall) has released her new erotic novel, "Freedom", which book one of her "Sensual Liaison Series". The story is a time-spanning fantasy centred on the character of Max, the Highwayman, a 400 year old immortal gigolo, cursed by the one woman he loved, who was subsequently executed for witchcraft. The first novel focuses on Max's involvement with a recent divorcee, keen to explore her new found freedom and her natural dominatrix desires.

I confess to not being an avid reader of erotic fiction, although I have often considered writing it. I believe it to be unpretentious and more honest than a lot of blatant pornography that has posed as art. This particular book has a well-crafted sales blurb that I am sure will excite its targeted readership. This includes a vivid description of the author's pseudonym's approach to life, which will add titillation to the reader's experience. The storyline sounds original. At first I thought the lead protagonist was going to be yet another vampire, but Ballantyne appears to have taken a different tactic.

On a personal note, I am fascinated by classic Gothic literature and, of course, am acquainted with the work of libertines of the past. I haven't read this particular book, but it already looks to be a universe a part from the filtered down twee drivel that became the phenomenally successful mummy-porn "50 Shades of Grey". That particular book apparently has its roots in fan-fiction connected to that other awful insult to a sub-genre, "Twilight". However, I digress. "Freedom" appears to be a ballsy and direct exploration of erotic fantasy, possibly aimed at a female audience. Having said that, I am sure there are plenty of males who might want to imagine themselves in the lead character's role...

Advance Review of "Freedom"
Write a review on "Freedom"

Disclaimer: The below works are only suitable for readers aged 18 years and over. Obviously being an erotic novel, it will contain explicit sexual content.

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

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Shelley, Storms and Frankenstein

October 21, 2014, 6:54 am

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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Stipple engraving. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"[He] then proceeded, with much eagerness and enthusiasm, to show me the various instruments, especially the electrical apparatus; turning round the handle very rapidly, so that the fierce, crackling sparks flew forth; and presently standing upon the stool with glass feet, he begged me to work the machine until he was filled with the fluid, so that his long, wild locks bristled and stood on end. Afterwards he charged a powerful battery of several large jars; laboring with vast energy, and discoursing with increasing vehemence of the marvellous powers of electricity, of thunder and lightning; describing an electrical kite that he had made at home, and projecting another and an enormous one, or rather a combination of many kites, that would draw down from the sky an immense volume of electricity, the whole ammunition of a mighty thunderstorm; and this being directed to some point would there produce the most stupendous results."

If you don't know already, my guess is that if I told you the above description was taken from another novel based on Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" you would not challenge me. Besides his wild eyes, Mary Shelley offers us no physical descriptions of Victor Frankenstein in her novel. However, the above text comes from Shelley's biographer, Thomas Jefferson Hogg when he describes the famous poet during his time at Oxford University. It's an interesting image. Like Victor Frankenstein, Shelley combined an avid interest in the metaphysical and the occult with the ways of modern science. His spirit and manic enthusiasm paint the very picture many actors would take on board when they portrayed this character.

I have read Mary Shelley's most famous novel, "Frankenstein", a number of times now throughout my life. It first made its way into my life via the Universal monster movies that were The novel, the history of its origin and its legacy fascinate me. I don't think I am overstating the novel's status by calling it an enigma. The novel breaks with the conventions of the Gothic fiction of its day and is considered by many to be the first example of a science fiction novel. Since its first publication, the novel and its author have been thoroughly dissected by fascinated academics. She was apparently born during an electrical storm, the genus of the novel occurred during an electrical storm and Percy Shelley, her poet husband, was killed when his boat ran into a storm at sea.

Reginald Easton painted this miniature portrait of Mary Shelley, on a flax coloured background. It incorporates a circlet backed by blue, the same seen in the Rothwell painting and a shawl. Seymour, p543 Abinger Collection (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mary Wolstonecraft Shelley lived a life of rich influence. Both her parents were independently famous. Her mother, Mary Wolstonecraft, who died not long after she gave birth to Mary, pioneered the feminist movement and her book, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects", is perhaps one of the most influential books in the history of the English printed word. Melvyn Bragg certainly thought so. Her father, William Godwin, was a no less famous radical political writer and novelist. Mary came of age in the Romantic movement and was very close to some of its most famous poets. She married Percy Bysshe Shelley and, like him, was a close friend of Lord Byron. Combine these intellectual influences with a life of tragedy, including the death of her mother after Mary was born, the premature death of her husband and the deaths of all four of her children and any psychologist is going to have a field day with the content of "Frankenstein". There is a type of energy that drives the work. It is difficult not imagine the story without seeing fork and sheet lighting strike and blaze around it.

Cover of Percy Bysshe Shelley

However, it is interesting to note that much of the imagery we have of "Frankenstein" might have a lot to do with Percy Shelley. He was very interested in the sciences and conducted experiments involving kites, which are not mentioned in the novel, but are present in film adaptations of the work. The later scenes of Universal's "Bride of Frankenstein" come to mind. In his introduction to the Penguin Classics' edition of "Frankenstein", Maurice Hindle notes that the more one considers the contemporary observations of Percy Shelley and sets them beside Victor Frankenstein the more apparent it seems that the character was directly based on the famous poet. It is a very convincing argument. Shelley wrote a preface to Mary's book and had actively encouraged her to write the novel. The book was originally released under a pseudonym and many speculated then, just some historians have speculated today, that Percy Shelley was the novel's real author. However, the evidence does not really stack up well. As one rather unkind critic remarked after highlighting certain ludicrous plot points, the tale of a creator who suffers so much at the hands of his monster and yet does not destroy it, is in line with a maternal psychology we can see in Mary.

There is a parallel case with John Polidori's hugely influential novella, "The Vampye: A Tale" (which is contained as an appendix in the Penguin Classic edition). The work was attributed to Lord Byron and Polidori felt the need to write a short preface to a later edition of the work to state that this wasn't the case. Nevertheless, the character of Lord Ruthven is clearly based on Byron's scandalous image and one of his conquests seems to be have been inspired by his ex-lover-turned-stalker, Lady Caroline Lamb. Lamb had already written her own novel three years before Polidori with another character called Lord Ruthven, a rakish figure that was blatantly a unflattering fictionalization of Lord Byron.

The character of Victor Frankenstein is a sympathetic and human role, but he is also an example of the overreacher and his life resembles the legend of Faust. The meeting between Frankenstein and the explorer, Walton, that bookend the story make the strong argument against the perils of become obsessed with challenging nature. Despite the progressive radicals that surrounded and clearly impressed Mary (she dedicated the novel to her father), her tale is a cautionary one. Hindle quotes Mary eventually becoming a staunch moderate who warned against extremism in any direction. It might be concluded that she saw the dangers of radicalism around her and Shelley's own forceful attitude spoke to her fears. Polidori wrote "The Vampyre" after he had fallen out with Byron and he models the story's mortal opponent of Ruthven on himself. It might be argued that Victor Frankenstein is Mary's subtler and kinder critique of her electrifying husband...

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com

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Jonas Salk's 100th Birthday

October 28, 2014, 3:41 am

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I am going to come straight with you on this one. When it comes to leading lights in vaccinations, most of my historical knowledge ends with perhaps the man we could call the Godfather of Vaccinations, Edward Jenner. Jenner, of course, invented the vaccination for smallpox and started a revolution in medical science. As with an appreciation of the role bacteria play, vaccinating distinguishes itself to the majority of medical treatments in its proactive nature. It puts into the practice the principle that prevention is always better than the cure. By administering a controlled dosage of a disease - in Jenner's case cowpox - an individual's immune system can be activated and thus prevented from contracting a debilitating or potentially fatal disease - in Jenner's case small pox. A continued campaign of vaccinations can completely drive out a disease in a country, as it has done with many deadly diseases we all feared on a relatively short time ago.

Today the world's most powerful search engine, Google, has chosen to honour Jonas Salk with a celebration of his birthday. I for one am grateful for a larger appreciation of this man. It not only serves to get individuals like to me look at more pioneering vaccinationists, but hopefully it will serve to better educate people on the importance of vaccinating. Sadly in this enlightened age we still have to fight a type of ignorance that is comparable to many who were initially sceptical about vaccinations when the concept was new. Conspiracy theorists, the odd fringe scientist, the paranoid, irresponsible politicians and misinformed parents have contributed to slowing down the vaccination process and even reversing it to some degree. I caught measles when I was very young and was lucky to get over it, but I wish my parents' concerns over the period I suffered from the disease could have been allayed by a simple vaccination procedure. 20 years ago vaccination had almost won the battle in the UK in ridding our country of this disease, but there is direct correlation with the rise in anti-vaccinating that has led to deaths from this disease again.

1802 caricature of Jenner vaccinating patients who feared it would make them sprout cowlike appendages. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Photo of newspaper headlines about polio vaccine tests (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Salk's place in history is a very important one. It is difficult for the current generation of people to appreciate what life was like when polio was a genuine threat in the developed world. I have met people who weren't vaccinated in time and have had to live their lives with the paralysis that polio can bring on. Poliomyelitis was one of the most dreaded diseases to attack infants in the developed world. Although 90% of polio infections cause no symptoms at all, a range of symptoms can be exhibited if the disease enters the bloodstream, particularly if it enters the central nervous system. This can lead to diseases such as spinal polio that can leave a patient with asymmetrical paralysis, usually affecting the legs. Knowledge of how the disease was spread led to better education and schemes to improve sanitation, and there was a determined race to create a polio vaccine. When this was developed in the 1950s by Salk the number of global cases of polio was drastically reduced. His efforts have continued to push for the total eradication of the disease, mainly spearheaded by organizations like Rotary International, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF. However, the disease is still a threat to many children in the world, including new cases occurring in Syria in 2013 and recent outbreaks in Africa and Asia. Another good reason to celebrate the life and efforts of Salk is to draw attention to the fact polio has not been totally eradicated.

I note that amongst the various links that are battling for priority place on Google's search is this interesting post on "The Real Reason Why Salk Refused to Patent the Polio Vaccine". Salk is quite rightfully praised for his immense contribution to world medicine and the subsequent saving of lives of countless numbers of people. He is also further lauded for his refusal to not patent his vaccine, which appears to be one in the eye for "Big Pharma". However, the article brings into question the morality of the vaccinatist's statement, "There is no patent. Can you patent the sun?" The article explains that Salk was not in a position to patent the polio vaccine and therefore his comment did not carry the altruistic connotations that won him the hearts of so many.

Photo of Albert Sabin from Its First Fifty Years, by Theodore E. Woodward, M.D. of the United States Armed Forces Epidemiological Board. http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/itsfirst50yrs/sec1-3pic02.jpg The original uploader cropped out the massive in-photo caption. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In truth, there were many people involved with development of a polio vaccine and it is often the case in such matters that we have a lot of unsung heroes. One of these heroes, Angela Matysiak has argued, was Albert Sabin. She makes this argument in her 2005 dual critique of Jeffrey Kluger's "Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio" and David M. Oshinsky's "Polio: An American Story". Both books were launched to correspond with the anniversary of the day that the US Public Health Service licensed Salk's vaccine. Matysiak conceded that Salk's three injections and a booster slowed down instances in middle class Americans. However, she puts it that Sabin's oral cure, licensed in 1962, is really responsible for the cost effective and efficient way that polio was properly brought under control in the US. I have Mr Sabin to thank for the somewhat yucky sugar cube I had to devour as a child.

These are relevant pieces of information and I am keen to keep history accurate. As is the case with just about any important figure in history they are going to lionized or vilified because that is human nature. History has sought to raise Salk's status to that of a hero, which is still a fair comment in spite of these apparent criticisms. His research and development of a polio vaccine deserves recognition. The continued fight against this dreadful disease worldwide, in Salk's name, is a worthy cause. Whether his decision not to patent the vaccine was a further act of extreme altruism or not his decision to make does not diminish the undeniable good he did in developing the vaccine the first place. Likewise, the fact that Sabin's huge contribution does get the recognition it deserves is no slight on Salk's breakthrough in the previous decade. This is a day to highlight the huge debt we and past and future generations owe to medical science, and to celebrate the good that a pioneering individual can make to the rest of the world.

Don't forget to check out Jamie Clubb's main blog www.jamieclubb.blogspot.com