One Direction: This Is Us (2013)

One of my lodgers is a big fan of One Direction.  At first, she got into them ironically - this is the age of memes, so this is one of the most comfortable ways to enjoy low-brow art - but when her aunt got her concert tickets, and she went to see them perform, she was won over entirely.  You see, there’s something magical about Harry Styles.

Tea, in our house, is drunk from One Directon mugs.  I had to learn the basics of One Direction so the three of us could play ‘One Direction: The Board Game’, some of which requires rudimentary trivia knowledge.  Thus, I know the boys’ names and former careers, and can name the band’s first perfume.  My lodger's fiancée, who happens to be my other lodger, made her another One Direction game - a 1D version of Munchkin, that modern classic.  With almost 180 hand-designed cards, playing ingeniously on the band's lyrics and antics, it's an astonishing creation, a labour of love.

This Christmas my lodgers gave me the unauthorised biography of Zayn Malik, the handsome bad-boy of the group, the traitor.  This is not a book I ever desired, but I’ve been reading it, picking up the story of their X-Factor journey.  It’s a pretty poor biography, but not the worst I’ve read* - evidently it was written as a catch-all One Direction book, with a few tweaks to increase the mentions of Zayn, released to tie in with his surprise resignation.  An awful lot of it is statistics and speculation on what band-members were surely or probably thinking or feeling at any given moment.  I suspect that Zayn was the most talented of the five band-members, and I’ll be interested to read a more human biography of him in a decade or two, when we’re allowed to know the truth.

Harry Styles and Niall Horan

I’ve become rather intrigued with One Direction.  I’ve ended up knowing about as much as one could about a band without listening to any of their records.  I’m especially interested to see the results of their hiatus (announced in August 2015, and in force since October).  The five boys all entered ‘The X-Factor’ aiming for solo careers, so we’ll find out what happens when they get what they wanted.

 Harry has the style and charisma to prosper, regardless of his next move - and Zayn, who quit first, matches him for handsomeness and prospects.  Niall is beloved by his native Ireland, but I worry for the fate of Louis and Liam.  They can’t all become superstars in their own right.  This might yet prove to be a band with four Ringos.  I expect some of them to follow the band’s aesthetic of confident, glossy pop-rock with hint of autotune - a popular sound which has served them well.

But will any of them do something interesting?  One Direction, though sold as a wonderful party, has always been a very heavily managed band.  Will Zayn give us something more personal and human?  Will we get past the plastic packaging, to a raw wound?

For comparison: The Beach Boys are the other band that I really care about (out of proportion with my love of their music, which is sometimes great but mainly not).  Brian Wilson escaped their dominating management, and recorded some of his most honest (and alarmingly melancholy) works as a soloist, but then fell under the sway of an even more oppressive producer (and for the rest of that story, I’d recommend watching 2014’s ‘Love and Mercy’).  His brother Dennis Wilson produced his own solo album, ‘Pacific Ocean Blue’ in 1977 and it was far better than anything the Beach Boys would have dared release at the time.  Carl Wilson had a good voice, but nothing to say, and Mike Love never got around to releasing his ‘Mike Love Not War’.  It wouldn't have lived up to the promise of its title.

So perhaps my real question is: will we finally find out which of the One Direction boys are sad, and in trouble?  It feels a vulgar, voyeuristic sort of question, but sometimes I want some truth in my music.  I would like to feel something.  Sometimes I feel very sad, and if these world-famous recording artists could give me something to hold onto, something to feel with, and about, perhaps that would be good for me, and good for them too.  They have so much talent, and this is their chance to say something real.

One Direction's dad.

So, ‘One Direction: This is Us’ is the band’s 2013 film.  It’s directed by Morgan Spurlock, best known for ‘Super Size Me’ (2004) which I haven’t seen, and ‘The Greatest Movie Ever Sold' (2011), which I really enjoyed.  On the basis of that, I had high hopes for ‘This is Us’.  It’s certainly engaging, a well-told story, and it keeps the attention (even in the extended fan cut).

It’s fun, it’s clean, it contains no surprises and no great drama.  The two most dramatic events in One Direction’s history - Zayn Malik’s surprise resignation, and their decision to go on semi-permanent ‘hiatus’, happened after this film had been made.  This is a movie about some nice boys for whom things get better and better.  It's boringly pleasant.  There’s a great story to be told about One Direction, but it won’t be told for another decade or two.  When the contracts are ended, and everyone can look back and be honest, then their happiness will seem more sincere.  They'll be allowed to be themselves.  I'm sure that's what they were doing here - but only within permissible confines, and edited in accordance with their management's wishes.  This is their image.

It’s a film with two ambitions, and I think it fulfils them both.  First, it’s intended to make money (which is also the primary purpose of One Direction).  Secondly, and more generously, I think this was an attempt to give something, some kind words, back to the fans.  There are numerous stories from the band about how the fans love them, how the fans care, and write to them, and about them, and how they wish they could talk to every fan individually to return that warmth and affection.  I think the film is an attempt to do just that.  It’s not the most personal medium, but on this occasion it succeeds to the extent that it can.  So, that’s nice.

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P.S. If you're following the asterisk to find out the actual worst biography I've read, that's probably 'Michael Faraday: Spiritual Dynamo', a charming and terrible work.  It tried to relate all of Faraday's discoveries to his Christian faith, but it didn't have any quotes from him to back this up, so it spent a lot of time saying certain things were probably or surely or maybe inspired by it - I suspect the author chose their title before they did any research, and then realised they were working on a bit of a false premise.  It also tried to attribute a lot of other people's inventions to him, on the basis that he was in the same city at the right time, and must have been involved.  It also tried to disguise lists of facts as crowd-scene conversations.  I don't have the book now, but it had an awful lot of 'I say, said a man outside Michael Faraday's House, I've heard Michael Faraday is inventing such and such a machine.  Gosh, said a woman, I additionally heard that these are some specifications of it.  If that's so, evinced a young paper-boy, then I'm sure it will have sold between four and five thousand examples within an eighteen month period'-style dialogue, which was at once risible and delightful.  'Zayn: A New Direction' was not a million miles from this style.

Man Alone (2005)

Today I’d like to comment on an obscure student-film by someone who became famous for something else - ‘Man Alone’ is an ambitious piece of juvenilia directed by Jonathan Higgs, lead singer of British art-pop/electronic-rock band Everything Everything.  If you’re not familiar with the band, I can only recommend them: I harbour a burgeoning enthusiasm for their three albums, and I was fortunate to get along to one of the concerts of their current tour this weekend.  It’s prompted me to revisit this film, which my aunt passed to me about six years ago.  In those days the band had only put out their debut album, the similarly-titled ‘Man Alive’ (2007).

The director co-wrote this with Tom Astley, who I’ve found to be mysteriously ungooglable.  It shares quite a bit with senor Higgs’s musical career: for one thing, it regards humanity’s violence, self-destruction and numbing materialism - familiar topics from 2009 single ‘My Kz Ur Bf’, (which juxtaposed the America of war with the America of soap-operas), and large tracts of their 2015 album ‘Get to Heaven’; for another thing, the film contains a number of songs, some of them featuring fellow band-member Jeremy Pritchard, (presumably on keyboards, bass and backing vocals).  These songs are sadly few and far between, but they show off the singer’s ingenuity and falsetto, albeit in fairly crude forms.

Some Scottish monks rebuke God's second son.

The story opens with a song - one of five, which acts as its main info-dump: after world war 4, culture has become homogenised, and history has been banned.  The story begins after about 40 minutes, when God turns up, with an appearance which I will not attempt to describe for you.  He arrives in an extended flashback to a Scottish monastery in Roman times.  God speaks like a vocoder - sometimes beautifully, sometimes like an 80s Cyberman.  He occasionally uses ‘thou’ to mean ‘thee’, and declares that Jesus has failed, and that His second son, Timorous, must be raised in utter silence.  But as narration tells us, ’Timorous had a dark secret, the discovery of which changed the future for all mankind'. After a few minutes of monastic backstory, the story returns to the future, and switches to a hunt for a lost holy tune (like the lost chord, but hidden in a Roman latrine under a Horse of Truth), and God’s second son is ignored entirely - not so much as a mention - for the next hour.

Once the lost tune is found, it isn't really clear what we should hope for or expect from the remaining half-hour.  The main character goes on a bloody rampage for reasons that I didn't quite grasp.  Like a lot of the film, it reminded me of  ‘Na Srebrnym Globie’ (1977), a bleak, violent Polish sci-fi - in both cases I didn’t really understand what was happening, but knew that was probably my own fault for not paying close enough attention, but that was the film’s fault for being very long and difficult.

“Holy Hell!  The goddamn mainframe laid out before me like a kids’ playpen area on the back of some Kellogg Seafood Matey Cakes circa 1978.  Hell, a long time ago - but jeez!  No time for reminiscing!” - the director, as Jean Baptiste de Golde

The movie is two-and-a-quarter hours long, which is astonishing for a very-low-budget amateur work.  Back in the early 2000s, I knew a lot of people (some of whom were me) who talked big about shooting and editing a feature-length movie, so senor Higgs and his production team deserve credit for sheer persistence.  There are, of course, problems with very-long films by the bold and ambitious.

The film does astonishing things, but rarely in a way that any audience would ask for.  It achieves this on some fairly basic equipment - the sort of sound and picture quality you might expect from the end of the last century, compounded by some audacious colour-grading in post-production.  However, in contrast to most student films, it’s all splendidly focussed.  Individual shots show great promise and style.

An immortal monk (Tom Astley) reveals the truth.

There are genuinely interesting ideas behind the story, and a good ending.  I get the impression the thing was made in a very different order to the way that they're presented, and that the writers and cast had a change of heart about the kind of film they were making part-way through - at times, the script and performances believe themselves to be in a very broad comedy; at others this is a dour monastic horror to be taken as seriously as possible. Scenes of the delicious and delightful are interspersed with full hours of exposition, wondering and impotent crossness.  I wish the tone could have been more consistent in one way or another.  When it was all working, it reminded me slightly of 'Southland Tales' (2006), with its bizarrely satisfying mix of styles to present an action-packed near-future satire.

I do think there's a fantastic shorter film to be had here feature to be had here.  Jonathan Higgs went on to direct his own music videos, so we can be sure he has the necessary talent and vision, when he doesn't have to fill this kind of duration.  If it had been made a bit later, further into the Youtube age, this could have been broken into episodes; it's a fairly episodic storyline, and would be easier to palate in smaller chunks, and it could have made a merit of its developing tone.  Then again, perhaps I'm missing the point, and wanting an avant-garde film to be more accessible.  At this level, it's hard to know what parts of the production are deliberate art, and which are just convenience.

Mason Coop (Mike Carswell) plays out humanity.  A little googling tells me Carswell
put acting behind him and started making rustic furniture and besom brooms.

I'll reiterate the good points - the songs are excellent, and their proto-Everything-Everything sound is the film's great merit.  There's some good comedy, and some memorably bizarre scenes, as when the hero is beaten-up by a giant egg.  The film's very existence is impressive, and the film contains some good ideas and reveals.  The end - in which the hero suffers agonies for the chance to redeem humankind, but chooses not to - is a strong, well-presented concept, and I can see why so much of the rest of the film was produced to give it context.


P.S. To the best of my knowledge, this film is available to watch nowhere.  I've written about it here largely because it's a curio, and I think some people might like to know that it exists, or existed, even if they can't see it.  There's little or no information online about this film - perhaps it's been deliberately blotted out.  According to the closing credits, the soundtrack used to be available on CD.

P.P.S. I'm still unsure whether the film is 'Man Alone' because a man is alone, or because man, alone, is responsible for such depravity, or because the casting is overwhelmingly male.  'Man Alive' is much easier to grapple with, and much more rewarding.

Drowning by Numbers (1988)

Cissie Colpitts 2, Cissie Colpitts 1 and Cissie Colpitts 3

Peter Greenaway films always make me want to make movies.  I’ve watched a few of his films for The Penciltonian - ‘The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover’ (1989), and ‘The Baby of Macon’ (1993, but I didn’t write it up because it was too horrible), and they always fascinate me.  He was trained as a painter, and came to cinema as a visual medium (which is what it is); he’s dismayed (or so he tells us in every interview) that most films are illustrated versions of novels, presenting pre-existing prose stories, rather than making more original use of cinema’s potential.

‘Drowning by Numbers’ is a film about drowning and counting.  It regards three women, all named Cissie Colpitts, who realise they can drown their husbands and get away with it by asking the local coroner nicely.  He’s a friend of the family, and he’s in love with them all.  These are not the only Cissie Colpittses in the Greenaway canon - there are three more in ‘The Falls’ (1980), and one in the three volumes of ‘Tulse Luper Suitcases’ (2003-2004).  No relation.  Anyway, as it transpires, it’s quite easy to drown people if you don’t have a particularly good motivation to do so, as the victim doesn’t see it coming.

Cissie Colpitts (Joely Richardson), and Bellamy (David Morrisey)

The film opens with an unnamed child, a real Bonnie Langford type, wearing a flouncy dress, and skipping with a rope; with each skip, she gives a number, and names one of the stars in the sky.  We see and hear her render one hundred of them.  It's quite a long, methodical way to start a film.  The numbers appear again throughout the film, starting with a ’1’ in the next scene, right up to a ‘100’ in the final shot, often written on walls or signs or bees.  It’s a pattern to follow, a game in a film about games.  'Drowning by Numbers’ is an art film.

It’s a film you’d watch for the ideas, not for the emotion.  The actors are excellent (and rightly famous), the characters are engaging, and the dialogue is interesting and amusing, but the film is so deliberately odd, so overtly theme-led as to throw up a verfremdungseffekt, deliberately alienating the viewers.  The piece, the staging, the lighting and the plot are beautiful, but obviously artificial.  Characters’ particular obsessions pepper their dialogue very heavily, and everything comes back to water, and to counting.

Bees 45 and 46

I’ve heard it said that Peter Greenaway only has one film, which he keeps making again and again.  I’m not sure if I quite agree, but it has the ring of truth.  Since 1981, their plots have generally been very close - an artist, a cook, an architect, or on this occasion a coroner, sets himself a task, probably something which will set up a lasting legacy, which may involve sex as a perk, or payment.  There’s a big bed that serves as a stage, there’s a big meal, there’s a big conspiracy with all the subtlety of Hamlet’s players; and then there’s more sex, which is generally sad or awkward, never sexy.  And in the end our hero dies, and/or has their eyes put out.  But his films aren’t really about plot, they’re about lighting, colour, themes, patterns and decay.

If the films are all similar, then what makes this one stand out?  That’s a tricky question.  It might have the best roles for women.  As above, there’s normally a male protagonist at the core of the film.  There is here, too, but his story is very much secondary to that of the three Colpittses - Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson and Joely Richardson are each excellent as Cissie, and it’s those characters who make the decisions that drive the story (though it seems certain choices run in the family).  They're almost the only characters to have forenames.  What else is different about this film?  I’d suggest the thing with the numbers, except that ‘Tulse Luper Suitcases’ does something a little similar; or the great quantity of dead animals on screen, except that ‘A Zed & Two Noughts’ (1985) trumps all over that record.  The South Coast scenery, perhaps, and the particularly misty feel of the air.  I think ‘Drowning by Numbers’ is more overt about its artificiality than any of Greenaway’s classic works, though it has some stiff competition.

Cissie Colpitts (Joan Plowright) and Madgett (Bernard Hill)

It’s not my favourite of his films.  That honour goes either to ‘The Falls’ or ‘The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover’, but I’ve probably over-watched those two.  I’ve been really looking forward to seeing this one again.  Like ‘A Zed and Two Noughts’, it’s really enhanced by its new blu-ray release.  Normally I don’t care about the novelty of high-definition, but Michael Nyman’s music - always a star in its own right - sounds much richer when it’s less compressed, and the DVD release of this film was a particularly awful transfer.  The film is much clearer, now.  When someone puts this much attention into framing, lighting and cinematography, it’s good to be able to watch it as they intended.


P.S. 1988 was an exciting year for films.  This is the year that gave us The Last Temptation of Christ, A Short Film About Killing, Akira, Die Hard, Drowning by Numbers and My Neighbour Totoro.  Since it was also the year of 'First We take Manhattan', 'The Satanic Verses' and 'Remembrance of the Daleks', I'd be happy to see another 1988, at least in the arts.

Herostratus (1967)

The main reason I came to watch 'Herostratus', other than liking the title and cover, is that it came out in the BFI Flipside series of DVD/Blu-ray dual format releases.  It's a run of obscure, interesting British films from the archives, forgotten marvels given a chance to shine again.  'The Bed-Sitting Room' (1969), which I very much enjoyed, was one such release, and on the basis of it and BFI's release of 'Winstanley' (1975), I find the line very encouraging.

Then, of course, there's the film's basic idea.  In short, a young man goes to an advertising agency to get maximum publicity for his act of suicide.  It's an unpleasantly interesting concept, grim, but ripe for satire and social commentary.  I'd say the film grapples with both of these, but fares less well as a drama or comedy.

So, we follow Max, the main character, as he approaches the advertising man Farson, a very sixties businessman who comes across like a Number 2 from the same year's psychedelic stand-out 'The Prisoner'.  Farson puts Max up in luxury and sets about publicising a sellably bland version of him to win public support.  The film then intercuts Max's reclusive days in a comfortable black void with archive footage of Ginsberg, Roosevelt, Churchill and Hitler, and juxtaposes sexy dancing with swirling offal, while making ironic comparisons between Max's herostratic desire for suicide and the conspicuous death of Jesus.

It feels like an investigation of ideas, rather than a narrative- or character-led piece.  A discussion, and quite a long one, at two-hours and forty minutes.  At times I wished the film would hurry itself along.  Perhaps I'm too impatient to really engage with this kind of art, or perhaps the film was making its point more slowly than necessary.  I'm inclined toward the latter, as the release also features director Don Levy's 'Time Is' (1964), which wants to wow its audience with the suggestion that time, as we understand it, is a human construct, a point that it makes quite effectively in the first five minutes, but persists with for another 25 - perhaps appropriate, given the content.

'Herostratus' has a chilling lack of glossiness, making it resemble Eastern and European films more than the American sort that I've come to think of as cinema's default.  The blood red and golden lighting, and the frequent cuts away to black, made me think of the then-recent Ukrainian movie 'Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors' (1964).  (I feel pretentious comparing this art-film you probably haven't heard of to another art-film you probably haven't heard of; I'm only aware of them because I'm doing this film-based blog, and have deliberately sought out some obscure items in the hope of finding treasure.  Somehow it feels like it would be more acceptable if I was doing this with novels, because everybody knows books have an inherent cultural value).

I didn't find a lot of pleasure in 'Herostratus'.  It interested me, but stretched that interest very thin, and I found myself wondering whether I have too much love for the easy comforts of commercial cinema to really get on with art films.  Or maybe I just didn't like this one.  Never mind.


P.S. Herostratus, if you're curious, was an ancient Ephesian who set fire to the Temple of Artemis (one of the Seven Wonders of the World) purely because he wanted to be famous for something.  It worked, and his name lives in infamy, as 'herostratic fame' today means fame at any cost, even fame for atrocities.  Anything to make one's name linger in the public mind.

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The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)

Having watched ‘Ben-Hur’ (1959) on each of the last eleven Easter weekends, I’ve developed something of an intimate understanding of it; tiny details that I didn't notice at first now seem obvious and familiar - a few odd seconds where a line of dialogue has been partly redubbed, or small quirks to actors’ deliveries, like Jack Hawkins decision to stress the first syllable of ‘reward’ (a word he says twice).  I’ve no great desire to learn about the film’s production, and I’ve never listened to its commentaries - but repeated consumption to get at the story has made its ingredients, its composition, even the performance of its most minor roles, seem like bosom friends.

This year I thought I’d spend a little time looking up the CVs of the film’s cast.  As long-term readers may recall, I’m already well-versed in Charlton Heston’s filmography, but I thought I’d look up what Haya Harareet and Frank Thring did next.  I’ve seen Finlay Currie as Magwitch in ’Great Expectations’ (1946), and the aforementioned Jack Hawkins as the man in ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’ (1957) who wishes to explode said bridge (though I’ll need to re-watch that film to see if he gets to say the work ‘reward’ at any point) - and we’ve all seen John Le Mesurier, a grim surgeon in a scene after the famous chariot race, as Sgt Wilson in ‘Dad’s Army’ (1968-77).

Dan Taylor (Hugh Griffith) and Walter Valentine (Stanley Holloway) get drunk.

In my researches, I discovered a film which featured two of the cast of 'Ben-Hur’ together.   And the same day I learned about ‘The Titfield Thunderbolt’, it popped up on BBC4.  The movie stars George Relph, who had two scenes in ‘Ben-Hur’ as a rather avuncular Tiberius Caesar, a role in which he shows off his strikingly memorable teeth.  In ‘The Titfield Thunderbolt’, he plays a country vicar who decides to buy up a railway station to stop it being closed down.  He also drives the trains, accompanied in the engine by a surly poacher, played by Hugh Griffith, who six years later won an oscar as Best Supporting Actor, for his unfortunately blacked-up but otherwise highly enjoyable performance as Sheikh Ilderim, a major player in Ben-Hur’s second half.

So, let’s turn our attention to ‘The Titfield Thunderbolt’.  It is, in short, a nice film about a train.  Will the vicar and the poacher be able to run their train safely, and on time?  Will they be able to beat those villainous men from the bus company?  Probably!  It’s an Ealing Comedy, from the writer and director of ‘The Lavender Hill Mob’ (1951), so has a charming humour and a particularly British gentleness.  (I’d say a particular English gentleness, except that Hugh Griffith is always so very Welsh).  It features some fine works of engineering, and some ingeniously concocted solutions to the problems that arise, and it has enough mild peril to keep the audience thoroughly engaged for its 80 minute duration.  It also features a physical fight between the vicar in his stream-train and Sid James on a steam-roller - surely a sight worth seeing for yourself.

...and then who should turn up but the Bishop! (Godfrey Tearle)

Do excuse me resurrecting the Penciltonian to tell you about this small, gentle adventure.  I've seen plenty of exciting films over the last year, and have often wished to crack open the blog to tell you about them - you very nearly heard about 'Wings' (1927), a very engaging silent film that you can find on Netflix, and 'Twelve Angry Men' (1957), which lived up to its reputation.  But it's 'The Titfield Thunderbolt' that's brought me back.  It's a pleasant feature, with a very sunny optimism that seems to suit the current season.  I occasionally mean to come back and comment on another film from each decade.  I wrote up a late-sixties film many months ago and never posted it, so that may happen.

And since I've covered each year from 1913-2014, I'll certainly be back with a 2015 film in a month or so.

P.S. Other films featuring two or more actors from Ben-Hur include ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’ (1957, as mentioned earlier) which features Sextus and Quintus Arrius, and ‘El Cid’ (1961), which features Judah Ben-Hur and Pontius Pilate.  If you can think of any others, I’d be glad to hear from you.

P.P.S. It seems I really enjoy tales of vicars having light-hearted adventures.  See also, Father Stanley Unwin in 'The Secret Service', Reverend Charles Bentley in 'The Mundane Egg', and the kindly bishops (of Digne and Tatchester) who get involved in 'Les Miserables' and 'The Box of Delights' (the latter of which also involves a number of unscrupulous curates who fight magic with guns and flying cars).

Early films (1905-1908)

Rescued by Rover (1905)

So far as I can tell, this is the first film with a dog in it.  Like the more famous Lassie, Rover is a collie dog with a knack for seeking out lost infants, and calling the relevant adults to their aid.  It's a strong idea for an early film, as the sight of a dog rushing down lanes and through rivers is something one couldn't represent nearly so well on stage or in print.

The film was made by Cecil Hepworth, a British director who in 1900 made the wonderfully gruesome special effects film 'Explosion of a Motorcar', and in 1903 an excitingly early film of 'Alice in Wonderland'.  The man was evidently a smart cookie, realising the potential of the cinema and delivering a blend of narrative and effects (hitherto films had often been one or the other) with a really good framing and timing.  Watch it here - it's exactly the sort of melodrama one might expect from the silent age.

Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906)

‘Humorous Phases of Funny Faces’ contests with ‘The Merry Frolics of Satan’ to be the most immediately arresting movie title of 1906.  It’s a logical progression of the tricks we saw in ‘The Enchanted Drawing’ (1900) - faces are drawn on a blackboard, but come alive and interact with one another.  While the earlier film was about the relationship between the artist and the art, this one puts the emphasis on the picture, which suits the camera better.  The animated part now fills the whole of the frame, and the artist is a cameo, rather than a star.  Quite amusing!  Chortle at it here, if you will.

If you’re curious, ‘The Merry Frolics of Satan’ is a hand-tinted Méliès film, and has a much less exciting title in its native France  It has a great skeletal horse in it, and some fine special effects.  Not much Satan, though.

Ben Hur (1907)

Long term readers may know that The 1959 'Ben-Hur' is my favourite film.  It’s been shot a few times, and this was the earliest.  The film is most notable for having been made without the permission of the rights-holders, meaning the production company were sued for copyright violation.

It’s not a very satisfactory adaptation, even by the standards of the age.  The film assumes a familiarity with the novel, serving as moving illustrations to aid the imagination, rather than a narrative in pictures.  We’re given no reason to think or care about the characters, and when a slate falls from the Hur family’s roof, injuring Valerius Gratus, the camera pays it no heed.  If you don’t know the plot, the movie has very little to offer.  There are crowds and chariots, but no spectacle, no excitement.  Nobody has yet thought of moving the camera to follow the action, and since everything is shown in long shot, there’s no real detail to look at.  I suspect most of the cast are in splendid historical costumes of some sort or another, but they’re all just distant blurs.  You can watch the film here if you wish.

So, those Bens-Hur, in order of preference:

1. Ben-Hur (1959), a true epic, full of excellent performances and strong dialogue (though some Esther’s more religiose comments in the second half come across rather weakly).  This version has the best theology of all, and its chariot race is one of the most exciting sequences in all cinema.  Plus, Charlton Heston!

2. Ben-Hur: a Tale of the Christ (1925).  Many people favour this silent classic over the 50s talkie.  It certainly has style, and some fantastic hats.  One of the best American silents, and certainly the most expensive.  Its chariot race is pretty thrilling, though technological limitations of the time mean parts of it are too obviously faked in studio.  Jesus is manifested as a disembodied arm, which I’m inclined so say lacks his characteristic humanity.

3. Ben Hur (2003).  An animated version, which at 80 minutes does most of the things its far-longer predecessor did in 212.  It’s for children, so simplifies the story quite a bit, and gives Messala a happy ending.

4. Ben Hur (2010).  A TV miniseries.  I’m not a fan of this version, with its jerky slo-mo, its disappointing Jesus and its wilfully unmemorable chariots.  It tries too hard to avoid copying the 50s film, and so ends up lacking its merits.  A good cast, though ill-used.

5. Ben Hur (1907).  As above, this is limited by its era, but far more by a lack of imagination.  Edwin Porter or Georges Méliès could have made it beautiful.

A new version will be in the cinemas in 2016, so expect me to pop up then to provide heavily biased comparisons with my favourite film.

Japanese Butterflies (1908)

When I resolved to plug some gaps in my chronology, I asked friends if they could name any extremely old films.  Two of my lodgers had once seen a movie ‘about butterfly women’ in a museum in Berlin, and a little research revealed it to be ‘Japanese Butterflies’, a Spanish film from 1908.

Like a lot of very early films we’ve looked at, it eschews plot for spectacle (though, as mentioned in the film above, sometimes we’re presented with neither), and gives us a number of special effects and striking images.  Japan!  Some men!  Dancing butterflies!  A woman!  A chrysalis!  A giant butterfly!  A slightly different giant butterfly!  That’s really all there is to it - a  of Oriental beauty and mystery, its frames coloured-in by hand.  You can watch it right here.


Tune in again for 1909-1912, though since films start expanding from shorts to features (which is to say, films an hour or more in length), these years may be spread across a few posts.  Technology is marching on!

Early films (1900-1904)

A film for each year from 1913 onwards!  It seemed a good, clear concept when I began the project, but now that 1913 is no longer exactly a century ago, it seems a rather arbitrary start-point.  Shall we go a little earlier?

The Enchanted Drawing (1900)

I’ve been aware of ‘The Enchanted Drawing’ for most of my life, as it garners a mention in ’The Rudiments of Wisdom’ by Tim Hunkin, an excellent book of illustrated facts that probably accounts for a very large part of my education.  The film combines live action and animation (though not in quite the way Hunkin remembers), as an artist is seen sketching, then plucking his illustrations from the paper, like Smarty Arty in ‘ZZZap!’ (1993-98).  He draws some wine, then picks it up from his drawing and drinks it, somewhat to the chagrin of the face he has rendered.  He cheers the face immeasurably by granting it a hat and a cigar.

It’s a short, satisfying film, augmenting J. Stuart Blackton’s pre-existing live performance piece with the cinematic innovation known as the stop trick, or locking off (stopping the camera, adding or removing elements, and starting the camera again, making the elements appear or disappear as if by magic).  These days we all know exactly how it's pulled off and have the resources to do so ourselves, but this remains a very lively and effective example of it, with a pleasing sense of humour behind it.  You can watch it here, and marvel at such a thing being produced during the reign of Victoria.

Stop Thief! (1901)

The first chase movie!  The film is short, and the plot simple: a vagabond steals some meat from a butcher, and is pursued by dogs.  He hides in a barrel, but they join him there, and eat the meat.  The man is then caught and belaboured about the head.  For its time it was pretty technically impressive, joining together a variety of consecutive shots to show the man’s route - though this very soon became the standard, and within a couple of years a film so simple would seem crude and obvious.

The film is enjoyably silly, but ends with more violent aggression than the crime, or the genre, seem to merit.  It's the earliest British film I've looked at, and you can watch it here, though I wouldn't really encourage you to do so.

Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902)

Georges Méliès was an amazingly dedicated early director, building his own film camera, and making several hundred films between 1896 and 1913.  He was also a stage-magician, with all the ingenuity for trickery that comes with such an occupation.  He invented the aforementioned stop-trick, and makes thorough use of it here.

This is the source of that famous image of the moon with a rocket in its eye, though that shot makes up only a fraction of the wonders on display.  We follow a court of elderly wizards, or perhaps just wise old men who dress for a holiday, and climb into a capsule which is fired into space, where they witness several astounding phenomena, and tussle with exploding moon-men.  It's beautifully stylised, and feels like 'Mary Poppins' (1964) in ways that I can't quite pin down.

After the wizards' rocket arrives in the moon's angular marshlands, I worried about how they would take of again, since they lacked the telescoping launch contraption seen on Earth.  Clearly, I hadn’t grasped the charming naïveté of the science at play: the film seems to assume that all gravity comes from Earth, meaning one can land on the top of the moon, but make your return voyage by pushing the rocket off a cliff, and falling back to Earth.

It's certainly the best of the films I've watched for this entry.  At this point in history, Georges Méliès was the most exciting director on the planet, and it was quite a while before anybody caught up with his witty and surprising visuals, and genuinely attractive designs.  I can't think why you wouldn't look the film up on Youtube.

The Great Train Robbery (1903)

I’ve already written about a film from 1903, ‘La Vie et Passion de Jesus Christ’, which was in colour - albeit of the crudest sort - was most of an hour long, and was filled with special effects.  Given how rarely 1900s movies are spoken of, and how crude and terrible films from later decades could often be, I was astounded to find such technical and artistic competence so early in the history of cinema.

Edwin S. Porter’s ‘The Great Train Robbery’, at a more modest twelve minutes, shares some of its ambition, using techniques of compositing and back-projection to bring trains into the studio.  It also features a fist-fight on a moving train - something I’d been impressed by in ‘Dr Nicholas og den Blaa Diamant’ a decade later in 1913.

The film is the more urgent of the two 1903 works, and (unusually for so early a film) never holds its shots too long.  It has two highlights: the first comes around the five minute mark, when Broncho Billy Anderson plays a man who is shot trying to escape the bandits.  The flailing death he gives us is wonderful to behold.  The second is the final shot, the film’s only close-up, in which Justus D. Barnes pulls out a gun, aims it at the camera, and so at the audience, and fires.  The End!  Watch it here, if you dare.

Welding the Big Ring (1904)

I was disappointed not to be able to source any fiction films for 1904, indeed, the only footage I could find from that year was ‘Welding the Big Ring’.  I dwell in Sheffield, so feel obliged to take some interest in the history of industrial metalcrafting, which may have made the piece a touch more approachable.

At first it seems like nothing will happen.  Muscle-men stand with an urgent sort of attention, surveying a huge metal ring.  Suddenly, it’s all go.  The ring is pulled out of the flames and the men descend on it with long-handled hammers.  The thing’s obviously red-hot, but they leap on it, attacking with a rhythm that makes them seem mechanical.  The work looks perilous, but the men have no fear.  They’re machines!  The ring, I assume, was later handed over to Sauron.

It was a little uninspiring, after the works of ingenuity and excitement further up the page.  It presents real working men, rather than schlock or frippery, which is commendable, but isn't what I tend to look for in a motion picture.  In the future, documentary footage tends to be coupled with innovative editing as in 'Man with a Movie Camera' (1929).  But these were early days, and no amount of perilous hammering can make 6 minutes of static footage hold the attention.  You can watch it here, but I'd stick with the first two minutes.  Your time is precious, dear reader.

Tune in at an undisclosed later point for some films from 1905 to 1912 -- and beyond!


P.S. I'm particularly delighted to add 'Stop Thief!' (1902) to the Penciltonian roster, as it joins 'Shaft's Big Score!' (1972) in that most unusual sub-genre, films with exclamation marks in their titles.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

By merit of having gone to the cinema twice this year, I've already seen far more films there than I did in 2013.  I'd gone to Scarborough to present my grandmother with some lime-and-raspberry vodka conserve, and on the way back my parents (who were in the area) suggested we go to the movies.  They ventured either 'Gravity', which seems to be the talking-point of the decade, or 'The Grand Budapest Hotel', about which I knew absolutely nothing.  The latter had the advantages of being 2D, and hailing from 2014, thus making it eligible to fill a gap in my 102-films-from-102-years blog, as it has seemingly now become.

I came in with no preconceptions, not knowing the genre, director or stars.  The last time my mother compelled me to watch a film about a hotel I saw 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' (2012), which was nice, but left me with mixed feelings.  I expected something along the same lines, but found a film far more fun and exciting.

Those colours!

If you've been following the Penciltonian from the start you'll know that I have a thing for colourful films, anything that leans heavily into rich colour, stylised design and symmetrical shots.  Such things are here in well-saturated abundance.  There is nothing more this film could do to excite my eyes.  It even has a funicular railway, my transport of preference.

The content of the film follows suit, a ridiculous, heightened escapade.  It has something of a Roald Dahl or Edward Gorey grotesquerie, and the kind of 1930s adventure I enjoy in Tintin and its ilk.  There's a particular liveliness and gusto that leaves it feeling like a children's story for adults, with the only real reminder of the intended audience being the sweary exclamations that leap out of otherwise genteel conversations.

A cake-van, and fascists.

There's a fantastic energy to it, abetted by Alexandre Desplat's musical score, which seemed to be a star in its own right.  By turns jazzy, jaunty and apocalyptically ominous, with a bevy of Balalaikas to match the faux-East-Europe of the film's Zubrowka.  I suspect that both film and its soundtrack will have my attention many more times over the course of my life, as they currently leave me enthused and delighted.

It's in cinemas now, by the way.  Why not go to see it?

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P.S. Since there were no up-front credits, I spent the whole film feeling that I recognised the lead actors, but unable to place their names.  They were, in fact: Voldemort from Harry Potter (2005-2011), The Pianist from The Pianist (2002), Jesus Christ from 'The Last Temptation of Jesus Christ' (1988) and New Jersey from 'The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension' (1984).  And, of course, some young actors who aren't yet famous, but probably will be.

2013 Dies!

Well, that was the year of The Penciltonian.  What an exciting time!  What a world of adventures!  What!  Why?

I had hoped never to watch another film again, but the bright lights and colours have drawn me back.  Since the official end of the project and the blog, I've found myself compelled to watch the following motion pictures, which I report here in order to wrap up the year:

Iron Sky (2012)

This is actually a far more appropriate end to The Penciltonian than whatever the actual end was: an exciting Finnish/German/Australian/kinda-American film, riffing on a lot of the German movies I've been watching (even 1943's 'Münchausen', which I'd thought pretty obscure) and slathered in modern-style Wagner.  An action comedy about space-Nazis, an enjoyable and necessarily broad satire, which didn't end as I expected.

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

On St Christmas Eve's Day, I actually saw a movie on the BIG SCREEN, something I had failed to achieve through the body of the year.  It's an excellent telling of the story, and is pretty close to being a perfect film.  Attractive, exciting, amusing and moving, and the muppets work surprisingly well alongside human actors, without seeming unduly ridiculous.  I'm sure I had more to say about it, but Christmas.

Witchfinder General (1968)

What a jerk!  I've always liked the Puritan style, and have seen photos from the film and admired Matthew Hopkins' hat and fine array, but he was a horrid fellow.  This film sits neatly alongside 'Häxan' (1922) and 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' (1928) as a tale of misidentified witches being beaten up by unchristian Christians - and it joins my beloved 'Winstanley' in being an inspiration for 2013's surprise hit 'A Field in England'.  This is a film of really horrible, hard-to-watch violence (which seems entirely appropriate, given the subject matter), and Pertwee-era-style crash zooms (which seem less appropriate).  Vincent Price IS the Witchfinder General.

War and Peace (1956)

I watched the first hour of this, but became immensely irritated.  It wasn't terrible, but it was slow and unexciting, and I'm no longer obliged to watch slow, unexciting films.  I have the liberty to escape such things.  I also grew aware that the film was not at all the best way to take this particular story.  As much as a massive, massive book is daunting, a film that boils a massive, massive story down to a few hours and makes it feel like any other romance, is a less appealing and less helpful prospect.

A borrowed and wearying cat on me, and upon you all.

So, what does 2014 bring?  I tried to make a list of my predictions, but the list started out frighteningly bleak and full of catastrophe (which celebrities will die, this year?), before becoming a sequence of portents of doom and stars of ill-omen, so I stopped making the list and wondered whatever was wrong with me.  2014 will be very lovely.  Amen.

Two British films I was told were Indian films (2008, 2012)

A few months ago I bemoaned how white, how British and American the films I'd been looking at were - not that those facets are problematic in themselves, but that the films I was selecting lacked diversity.  The original plan for the blog was to see 20th Century cinema from all angles, but in the end I watched very few films from outside Western Europe and the States.  I put out a request for recommendations from less familiar nations, saying "these should be films conceived and made within the continent concerned," and, after seeing the American-Canadian film 'Life of Pi' (2012), I expressed an interest in some real Indian films, as opposed to films set in India but made for Western consumption.

The two I was lent were 'Slumdog Millionaire' (2008) and 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' (2012), and neither is really what I was after.  These are British-funded films with white British writers and directors (indeed the former is directed by Danny Boyle, surely the most famously British director there is, after his Olympic triumph).  They're both set in India, but have largely English dialogue, so they're Indian films to about the same extent that 'Das Herz der Königin' (1940) is a Scottish film or 'Shaft in Africa' (1973) is an Ethiopian film.

Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) under interrogation

'Slumdog Millionaire' regards Indian characters, and is based on a novel by an Indian author, so comes rather closer to being what I was after.  It's the tale of a man from the slums of Mumbai who lives an exciting and difficult life and makes his way onto 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire', with each question causing him to recall some part of his hectic youth.  'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' is about elderly white folks moving to India.  Dev Patel (who stars in both films) is its Indian lead, but he's the eighth billed on the poster after a catalogue of honkeys, and gets by far the smallest picture.

I was concerned that this film would show India only as an 'exotic' background, a colourful holiday location rather than a real nation of real people.  Thankfully the screenplay isn't so blinkered as I feared, and gives a rather more complex picture of India.  It's a mite more optimistic than 'Slumdog Millionaire', which tells of a nation rife with poverty and crime, while 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' is set in a country in which one can live without a door and yet have no fear of burglary.

Dame Judi Dench and Bill Nighy, and plenty of other stars,
old enough to have earnt their great fame.

Both films end cheerfully, with 'Slumdog Millionaire' turning either on either coincidence or destiny, and 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' giving an eyebrow-raising conclusion in which one of the British characters (Maggie Smith as Muriel) turns out to be more competent than Dev Patel's Sonny and relieves him of his responsibilities, so bringing prosperity and order to the white ghetto.  She starts the film as a disabled working class racist, and ends as a lovely able-bodied middle-class lady, and the film ties her moral transformation to a process of healing and rising from the wheelchair.  Alas, this is something one can find in a lot of fiction, the lingering implication being that one's impairment is a curse to be escaped through good deeds or a contrite heart.  It's a well-known trope, which upholds disability's massive stigma.  See also 'The Little Mermaid', 'What Katy Did', 'Avatar', and plenty more.

So, I still haven't seen any Indian films, at least by the criteria that I, and Wikipedia, like to judge these things.  These two were both enjoyable, well-made films, and present complementary pictures of modern India ('Slumdog Millionaire' giving us Mumbai on the coast and 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' showing Jaipur in the North), which I'm happy to put together with 'The Jewel in the Crown' (Granada television, 1984) to give a richer understanding, but I can't help feeling my knowledge of the life in the Indian subcontinent is very much tinged by Western interpretations.

The only other recommendation I've had for Indian cinema is 'how about some Bollywood'; would I just be embracing a stereotype?

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Unreported films

There have been a number of films I've watched during the period of the blog which for one reason or another I haven't written up for you.  They all duplicate (and in some cases triplicate) years I've covered with other films, but for reasons of completism, here's a brief run-down.

Vertigo (1958)

A third James-Stewart-starring Hitchcock movie, after my posts on 'Rope' (1948) and 'Rear Window' (1954).  Of the three, only this one isn't confined to a single room, meaning it can roam up and down the steep San Francisco hills, mainly down.  I was very taken by this film when I first watched it, as there's a point when it rather alarmingly reveals that it isn't in the genre you expected.  Rewatching, I was surprised, and not pleasantly, at what a sinister jerk the hero becomes toward the end.  And Kim Novak's eyebrows are strange and confusing throughout.

Bucket of Blood (1959)

I watched this and wrote it up for you, but then I watched it again.  It's good, it's short, and much of it is imitable.  I made a page of notes the second time, but apparently I've lost it.

The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977)

This is an absurd comedy written and directed by Marty Feldman, and it's a real pity it isn't better known.  It feels like a British Mel Brooks film, or a sillier and wider-ranging 'The Bed Sitting Room' (1969).  It's either an adaptation of a classic novel, or (as the title suggests) a remake of the 1926, 1939 and 1966 films, which ignores the original's lack of laughs and somehow comes out with a more interesting and satisfying resolution than any of those versions managed.  It stars Marty Feldman, Michael York and Peter Ustinov, and features (among many others) a memorable performance from James Earl Jones, who plays an Arab in the style of Terry Thomas.

Chariots of Fire (1981)

I picked up a copy of this film during the 2012 olympics.  I didn't watch any of the sport, but the opening ceremony had impressed me, and a rendition of the theme from Chariots of Fire stirred something within me.  It's music I've always associated with running in slow-motion, so I'd long held at least a little interest in watching the film.  Besides, it got the oscar for Best Screenplay, which tends to mean a film is worth a look in.  It's a fine thing, and well worth the attention given to it at the time, and isn't at all the film I'd expected.

Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (1988)

My cousin Alice recommended me this film, and I sought out a copy the following day.  I had meant to write it up for 1988, but somehow 'The Last Temptation of Christ', 'Akira' and 'A Short Film About Killing' all got in the way.  The occasion of my viewing is now eleven months ago, so I can't recall a great deal, except that the film struck me as extremely Italian, and felt much more like the stereotype I had in mind of European films than any of the German, French or Scandinavian films I'd seen.  It has a Summery, somewhat Catholic feel to it, like 'Cavalleria Rusticana'.  I meant at the time to watch the Director's Cut version, which came in the same set, that I might have a fuller idea of the film before writing it up.  Still not gotten around to that, but I imagine it'll happen eventually.

Ghostbusters II (1989)

After watching 'Ghostbusters' (1984) this was inevitable.  It's a mite less sweary than the original, but otherwise very similar in style, humour and production, and amply enjoyable.  It's a mystery to me why this sequel isn't held in the same regard as the original.

The Baby of Mâcon (1993)

Long-term readers will know I have a love of Peter Greenaway films.  Like so many of his movies, this fascinated me with its ideas and dazzled me with its beautiful cinematography by Sacha Vierny.  Its events show a play within a play - a vast audience, all dressed splendidly in what I'd count as an 18th century style, watching, and joining in with, a play about an ostensibly virgin birth and a tiny, all-powerful baby.  There's a lot of colour and blood and nudity, and it's quite astounding to behold.  The ending, though, was too unpleasant, and represented the first and only time I watched a film for The Penciltonian and resolved not to write it up for reasons of censorship.  If Peter Greenaway has ever gone too far, it was with the resolution to this film, which made for extremely uncomfortable viewing.

Hackers (1995)

1995 was an exciting year for movies, with 'Tank Girl', 'Toy Story', 'Goldeneye', 'Nixon' and 'Jumanji' (the latter of which is a film everybody saw, but nobody now speaks about) all in cinemas.  Saskia is a great advocate for the dream of nineties, so I turned to her for a recommendation, and was shown both 'Empire Records', which got a post of its own, and 'Hackers', an exciting story about the 1337 h@xX0r5, 7H05e co0l kiD$ wH0 C0UlD 7Urn c0mpu73r$ t0 tH3Ir pURp0$35, CH@Ng3 7H3Ir GR@des 0N $Ch00l coMpU73r5, $73@l m0n3y FR0m 8@nK5 (0n @ WhIM) @Nd dR355 iN 0U7l@NDI5h 0u7fI7s, HaPPy n07 70 C0nF0rM.

A Night at the Roxbury (1998)

An enjoyable, though often-scorned bromance, regarding two jiving brothers (Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan) who yearn to escape their jobs at their father's fake-flower shop and make it big in the dance club scene.  I'm not surprised it's less popular and less well-known than other Saturday Night Live movies as it lacks much of a hook to draw audiences in and keep 'em, but it seemed quite enjoyable enough, and an antidote to some of the heavier films I'd been watching.

Shaft (2000)

Having watched 'Shaft' (1971) and its two sequels, it was inevitable I'd get to this year 2000 remake, starring Samuel L Jackson.  It's a fair action movie - and is as explosive and slick as you might hope for, but it's not as incisive as the original, which seemed edgier and more dangerous.  I liked the soundtrack, which is by David Arnold who composed the music for the nineties and noughties Bond movies, and who revisits the original 'Shaft''s funky sound in his own glossy style.  I'm not so sure I can get behind the film's apparent glorification of police brutality, in which John Shaft, a cop, achieves what he needs to be beating people up and pistol-whipping unarmed suspects into respecting him.  We're meant to like the cops who turn a blind eye to these antics.  I guess it gets the job done, but not every violent police officer is so good at heart as John Shaft.  Noughties Shaft seems to have much less sex than the seventies Shaft did, too; perhaps it fell out of fashion.

Anchorman: the Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

An inevitable watch, after 'A Night at the Roxbury' (1998).  A bizarre and pleasing picture of the newsrooms of the 1970s.  Ron Burgundy's jazz-flute recital is a fantastic thing to witness.  The film goes for the old, slightly annoying convention of making all the male characters extremely amusing, but all female characters serious straight-man types who make no attempt to amuse.  Are there any films that reverse this trope?

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

It turned out I had absolutely the wrong idea about the Fast and the Furious movies.  I'd expected tales of car-theft, homicide, drive-by shootings and gritty America.  What I find instead, in this, the third in the series, is an extremely clean film about young racers, challenging one another to drive better and faster to win women.  Saskia described the films as chav-magnets, which might be a fair stab at the core audience.  Like 'The Transporter' (), the film reads like a story-board, each shot clinically chosen, rather than looking like a record of real events caught on camera.  It's an artificial style, but very efficient, very economical.  The script is tight and well-structured (as are, I understand, the others in the series), meaning that the story is well-paced and the protagonist's story engaging and satisfying.  Alas, the core of the film is that old, uncomfortable idea that the white man can go out to a foreign country and in a few short weeks become better than any native at whatever it is the foreign culture supposedly excels in.  See also 'Avatar' (2009) and, I suspect, 'The Last Samurai' (2003).

Das Weiße Band (2009)

I have as many Toms in my entourage as Mary Queen of Scots had Marys (which is to say, about four of them), and one such Tom urged me to seek out films by director Michael Haneke.  The very next day, 'Das Weiße Band' popped up the BBC iPlayer.  It's set in Germany in the early 1910s, and so neatly plugs the gap in my knowledge of 20th Century Germany that's so well filled by 'Heimat' 1-3, Fritz Lang's Weimar Berlin crime films (1922, 1931, 1933), 'Das Boot' (1981), 'Downfall' (2004), 'Der Baader Meinhof Komplex' (2008) and 'Goodbye Lenin!' (2003).  It's a rather unpleasant crime film, subtitled 'A German Children's Story', in which the children are known by name but the adults only by occupation.  Despite being set slightly before the First World War, the film has its mind on the second war, when these children will be running the country based on the lessons learnt in infancy.  Despite a pretty poor special effect of a horse falling over, this is a good film, if rather grim.  It's in black-and-white, too, meaning I have a wholly or largely monochrome film in every decade but the nineties.

Cosmopolis (2012)

Having watched 'Metropolis' (1927) and 'Persepolis' (2008), 'Cosmopolis' had to follow.  This is a story about a businessman in a car going to get his hair cut.  It looks like a blockbuster but is actually an art film, or something of the kind.  There's a wonderful artificiality to his limo's interior, and a daunting and real dirtiness to everything that happens outside it.  I really liked the vast majority of 'Cosmopolis', but wanted it to have a blunter ending.  The final confrontation felt too much like a final confrontation, and the film seemed to lose some of its fascinating individuality.  I'm told the book is deeper and more interesting.

Ted (2012)

I'd almost forgotten that I'd seen this during the course of the project, so long ago was it.  I'd initially meant to write this up, but, in a moment of belief that The Penciltonian was wholesome family reading, I censored this and 'The Baby of Mâcon' out of having their own posts.  Anyway, 'Ted' seemed just the thing to watch while visiting Big Dave in London, where we had been to a fine crêperie/crémerie combo for good pancakes.  The film is plainly from the mind of Seth MacFarlane, creator of 'Family Guy' and its ilk, and I know their comedy is fairly divisive, but it's a style I can enjoy, and which is used well here.  The film put me in mind of one I'd made and then destroyed, 'The Death of Pencilton' about an owl puppet which is obviously a puppet but which is nonetheless treated as being alive.  This did it better.

The Hunger Games (2012)

I enjoyed this, but wondered whether I would have liked the book more - not because the film was deficient, but because I thought prose might have afforded more intimacy to the actual Game part of the story.  A book could give an insight to Katniss's thoughts that was lacking here.  Her predicament might have been more genuinely daunting from her point of view.  As it was, I knew she'd be out of danger inside two hours and back for a sequel or two.  Nonetheless, I look forward to the next film, which I understand to be in cinemas now, but I can't think when I'll get to see it.

The Third Man (1949)

A few weeks ago I saw a very enjoyable amateur production of 'Travels with my Aunt', enjoyable because of the story: at every point I wanted to know what happened next.  Certain revelations were easy to predict, but I couldn't guess where they would lead the characters, and whenever I thought I had my head around it some complication would throw the plot in unexpected directions, and make the resolutions I expected far further away.  It wasn't just easy schlock, it was a morally complex and clever work of plotting.  Since the details, the characters and their dialogue were likewise very appealing to me, I praised Graham Green, who had penned the original novel, and resolved to re-watch 'The Third Man', as he wrote both the novel and the screenplay.

It's a British film about an American in Vienna, at a time when it was a divided and international city, a bureaucratic tangle, filled with crime, trouble and outlandish camera-angles.  It's an excellent noir, and I very much like noir, so long as it's excellent.

I like this shot of a bridge.  It looks so much more modern than
most of Vienna as we see it.  The city and the film seem to be
on the border between the old world and the present day.

My first viewing of the film was immensely satisfying, trying to work out the central mystery of the eponymous Third Man.  Subsequent viewings have been no less enjoyable, regarding the performances, the lighting and cinematography and the ingenuity of the story.

I feel a little guilty that I only have positive things to say about the film - I could probably be of far more interest if I condemned it, but it pleases me too much - a beautiful thriller with a great plot - it resists sentimentality and the temptation to grant a comfortable ending.  As it transpires, I've really enjoyed all the films I've watched from the 1940s (except the German ones, oddly enough, despite loving Weimar Republic cinema).  The great surprise of The Penciltonian is that this has turned out to be the best decade for films.  'Went The Day Well' (1942), 'Double Indemnity' (1944), 'Les Enfants du Paradis' (1945), all amazed me.  Of course, I haven't looked at 1948 yet, so perhaps it will al go wrong from here.

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The film, if you'd care to watch it from some optical media. And you might like 'Third Man', a song by The Duckworth Lewis Method. They're very good, you know.