Young Winston, Britain 1972

This film was written and produced by Carl Foreman, a successful Hollywood script writer who then turned to production. There is as distinct change of values from his early writing to his production career. Slightly earlier than this film is the gung-ho The Guns of Navarone (1961). Apparently, at  a meeting, Churchill suggested that his autobiographical ‘My Early Life’ would make a good movie; this fits with the known character of the man. Foreman recruited Attenborough as director. Attenborough liked the idea, writing later,

“whatever you  thought of Churchill politically he was a god-dammed hero. I genuinely did, and do believe he saved Europe and thereby saved Western civilization as we have become accustomed to it.” (Attenborough Dossier, page 49).

Two other leaders might have disagreed; Joseph Stalin regarding Europe and Mahatma Gandhi on the virtues of Western Civilization. Attenborough also disagreed with some of the aspects of the screenplay but he was the person who selected Simon Ward to play the protagonist.

The film opens on  Victory in Europe Day in 1945 with Churchill joining the royal family on the balcony of  Buckingham Palace to cheering crowds. After the credits we see Churchill in action in a British Afghan campaign; [what’s new in British imperial politics]. His reckless behaviour in combat is designed to garner attention, a point made in a voice over; voiced indeed by Simon Ward who gets close to the Churchill voice, one that always struck me as affected. He then writes a book and pesters is mother in particular to get him a place on the expedition to Sudan led by General Kitchener.  His mother is the North American wife (Anne Bancroft) of grandee and politician Lord Randolph Churchill (Robert Shaw).

A this point we go into a flashback within a flashback, chronicling Churchill’s early education and then his military training. His father is a distant figure and comes to suffer from an incurable decease [not identified] but which doctors tell the wife means the couple must avoid ‘physical relations’. Lord Randolph has also become a dissident in the Tory Party and later resigns from the cabinet. He will eventually succumb to the decease and some form of senility.

Churchill now succeeds at the Sandhurst military school passing out as a 2nd Lieutenant. His next major action is when he joins Kitchener’s expedition to the Sudan. There is the brutal battle of Omdurman, where the British use modern technology to massacre the indigenous army. Churchill makes his name at a subsequent skirmish involving troops and the cavalry.

He is also seeking to get elected as an MP. Then he goes to South Africa as a war correspondent, where the British are fighting the Boers. Again he distinguishes himself when the Boers attack a troop train; though captured he manages to escape. He returns to Britain a war hero and soon wins a Parliamentary seat. Elected as a Tory he is soon a maverick like his father. But he makes a successful speech in a key debate and is obviously singled out for a government post. The voice over goes forward for seven years to his marriage. And the film ends once more on the Balcony of Buckingham palace alongside the Royal family.

This is a somewhat episodic narration, and I thought that the use of the voice over was not really effective. The action sequences are well done. The drama is very much about the relationship between Churchill and his mother. Quite a few historical names pass by; Anthony Hopkins plays the young Lloyd George. But the narrative is primarily about Churchill and his developing career. The film did well at the British box office and won a number of nominations at the British  Academy Film Awards. The only success there was for Best Costume Design, Anthony Mendleson. However, there was general praise for Simon Ward’s performance and Anne Bancroft. Attenborough developed a real skill in working with actors; he regarded it as the most important aspect of a directors’ work.

Two craft people from Oh, What a Lovely War worked on the film; Gerry Turpin for cinematography and Don Ashton for Production Design. Attenborough throughout his career preferred working with familiar people. The visual work of both was excellent and the film displayed a characteristic of Attenborough’s film; close attention to historical accuracy. As with the other historical dramas and biographies this was an epic film, running well over two hours, in colour and widescreen. Yet the concentration on biography means that there is not a clear sense of the historical periods though which the story has passed. Both Attenborough and Foreman seem to take the imperial period at its own face value. The next film has a critical stance on the military establishment which is missing for the British establishment as a whole here.

Filmed in 35mm Panavision of 2.35;1 in Colourflex with black and white archival footage: the film was also released in a 70mm blow-up: the British release running time was 157 minutes but several versions, including in the USA, were shorter.

Richard Attenborough, 1923 till 2014

Richard Attenborough with cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth

August 29th sees the centenary of the birth of this actor and film-maker. It seems worthwhile to revisit all his films, which will follow this overview.

Attenborough came from a middle-class family with liberal leanings; solid supporters of the British Labour Party. He developed an interest in amateur theatricals and then won a scholarship to RADA. There he met his future wife, Sheila Sim. Both of them appeared on stage in the early 1940s. Then in 1942 Attenborough played a small but significant role for In Which We Serve; a film authored by Noel Coward and fictionalizing the naval service of Mountbatten. Attenborough’s role as a vulnerable rating who displays cowardice in battle set a persona that influenced a number of his later roles.

In the last year of the war he served in the RAF and was seconded to the Service’s Film Unit and appeared in Journey Together, directed by John Boulting.  This began an association that lasted through the 1950s. He starred in the Boulting Brother  memorable Brighton Rock (1947) as the psychotic gangster Pinky. This is one of the great film performances.

Richard Attenborough and William Hartnell

In the 1950s he was a popular young star, appearing as ‘the name above the title’. He made several war movies; and both comedies and dramas which varied considerably in quality. One of the best is The Ship That Died of Shame |(1955) where his vulnerability was replaced by  a devious criminal tendency. There was a variation on this in two Boulting Brothers satires, Attenborough appearing as a chancer on the make. The second, I’m All Right Jack (1959) had a stereotypical disparagement of working class union members; showing how far the Boulting Brothers had moved from their 1940s slightly radical films.

Attenborough admits that a number of his performances in the 1950s were in poor films, In 1959, together with his friend Bryan Forbes, he formed Beaver Films, where he acted as producer.  Their first outing actually worsened the anti-working class tendency of the Boulting Brothers. The Angry Silence (1960) has a union membership who are exploited like sheep by a subversive leftie. Three other films from Beaver were better including the praised Whistle Down the Wind (1961),  the final film Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) had a bizarre plot but a fine performance by Attenborough as a manipulated husband involved in a kidnapping. The other notable film required little from Attenborough as a jazz fan but splendidly offered numbers by the likes of Charlie Mingus and Johnny Dankworth.

On location for ‘Whistle Down the Wind’

In 1963 Attenborough played  a lead role in The Great Escape, a Hollywood large screen version of the POW narrative. Really successful, it led to Attenborough making fairly frequent appearances in big budget movies.

In 1969 Attenborough was approached by his friend John Mills to direct a film version of the stage  musical, Oh, What a Lovely War; scripted and produced by Len Deighton.  This film lacked the radical edge of Joan Liitlewood’s original Workshop Production but it was well made and well received. Attenborough bought the organisational skills he developed as a producer, and a good eye for craft people and a willingness to let them fully use their skills.

His directing career developed from here with a tendency towards the biopic or historical dramas.  These were fairly epic treatments, so Young Winston (1972) had an episodic quality. The same is true of A Bridge Too Far (1977), dealing with a failed military operation following the D-Day landings. This film was a success but raised questions of whose version of the events should be used on screen. It also showed another Attenborough tendency, to fill epic productions with familiar star faces. This was a factor in raising funding for such expensive movies, but tended to unbalance the narrative of events.

As John Christie with John Hurt

Attenborough continued acting in films, though less frequently. One outstanding performance was in 10 Rillington Place (1970) where played the real-life serial killer John Christie. Attenborough’s performance was suitably creepy and extremely restrained; providing a counterpoint to the more emotional performance by John Hurt as the innocent but executed Timothy Evans. The film was strongly ant-capital punishment and so fitted with the moral attitudes of Attenborough. The other notable film was Satyajit Ray’s The Chess Players (Shatranj Ke Khilari – 1977) as General Outram suborning an Nawab [prince].  This is in some ways the best film in which Attenborough appeared; he was delighted to work with the outstanding Bengali film-maker.

1982 saw the final production of a film to which he had devoted 20 years, including taking on acting roles in order to earn funds for this. Gandhi was a joint British / Indian production. it was filmed on an epic scale and resulted in an epic film, running over three hours. Despite the misgivings of some of the Industry it was a great success and won eight Academy Awards at the 1983 Oscars.  The centre of the film was a fine performance by the relatively unknown Ben Kingsley. But the film enjoyed fine production values in every department, relying to a degree on some of Attenborough regulars and people from the Indian film industries. It was a hagiographic portrait, and engaged in only a limited way with the complexities of the Indian struggle for Independence:  the British operation of its colony in the C20th: and the catastrophe that was partition.

Oscar winners: Art Director Bob Laing: Production Designer Stuart Craig: Cinematographer Billy Williams: Attenborough: Writer John Briley: Actor Ben Kingsley: Editor John Bloom: Costume Designer Bhannu Athaiya.

Attenborough also directed two Hollywood productions; Magic (1978) is a lot better than A Chorus Line (1985). He returned to the biopic and his aim to combine entertainment with important social issues next. Cry Freedom (1987) adapted two books by South African newspaper editor Donald Woods. the first was a portrait of the Black Consciousness Leader Steve Biko. Woods efforts to expose his murder by the State Security led to him and his family fleeing the Apartheid State; the subject of the second book. The problems of trying to match mainstream entertainment with a ‘message’ was demonstrated in this film; less than half deals directly with Biko and Black Consciousness.

Two more of Attenborough’s films were a biopic. He directed Chaplin (1992), a  portrait of the great Silent film comic. What stood out was the performance of Robert Downey Jr. in the title role. Whilst a  fascinating study the film was not really a success. Attenborough worked better with Shadowlands (1993), a portrait of the relationship between the writer C. S. Lewis and the US poet Joy Gresham. This is the best treatment of a personal relationship rather than significant public events in Attenborough ‘s film work.

In 1993 Attenborough more or less played himself in the successful Jurassic Park (1993). It likely had the biggest audience of any Attenborough film. His last film as producer and director was Closing the Ring (2008). Relating a war time relationship, it explored how this was part of later relationships and events. It was set between Michigan in the USA and the north of Ireland occupied by the British State.  The two settings  were uneasy partners whilst the film failed to properly handle the situation in the north of Ireland.

Receiving the Martin Luther Peace Prize from Coretta King in 1983

Attenborough was also active in public life and involved in many charities. He was at different times Chairman of the British Film Institute and Channel Four and President at the British Academy of Film  and Television Arts. This positions clearly gave him great influence in the film and television industries. And he also supported training in acting and film-making.

Looking back over his career his acting credentials are substantial. Whilst there are films best forgotten, The  Last Grenade (1970), being an obvious choice; there are memorable films which are among the best performances in a British film in the second half of the C20th. As a Producer he was clearly ‘hands on’, as actors working with him have testified.  And one of his real strengths in direction was his ability to work creatively with actors. Alongside this goes his organisational skills, and his skill in negotiating with producers and production companies. In his books he always carefully acknowledges the debt he owes  to the skilled craft people with whom he worked|. He favoured regular collaborators and on more than one occasion compared his role in film to that of a conductor of an orchestra. His other skill was to be able to focus on many different activates; giving each in turn his full attention.

In terms of the values and interests that are espoused in his work they tend to the ‘conservative’ with a small  ‘c’. Essentially his outlook was individualism. So he is at his strongest when he focuses on the portrait of one person: usually male: Tom Curtis in The Angry Silence is one: Mahatma Gandhi or Steve Biko are more celebrated examples: whilst  Jane (Leslie Caron) in The L-Shaped Room is a rarer female example. In terms of film he is a practitioner of the dominant western mainstream cinema. The basic criteria for these industries is the box office; less important are reviews and Awards. That is, films are primarily judged by their exchange value. One can see these values operating on Attenborough’s films. The primary focus of a screenplay and of casting is the access to finance and that resting on the potential audience. The most notable example of this is Cry Freedom. Other approaches place a primary value on the likely response of the audiences rather than its size. That is the case with The Chess Players, an alternative approach to representing the history of the sub-continent: whilst the representation of an African township in Cry Freedom can be contrasted with other movies that also use that location, central in the history of Apartheid.

Wikipedia has a biographical page on Attenborough with details of published works by or on him; and pages on his acting and film-making titles with links to online materials.

Jean-Luc Godard, December 3rd 1930 to September 13th September 2022

This seems like the end of an era. From À bout de souffle (Breathless, 1960) until Le Livre d’image (The Image Book, 2018) my cinema experience has been enriched, challenged and enlarged by the features of Godard. And there were numerous short films which generally I was only able to see some time after their release.

There was the beguiling insouciance of Michel Poiccard/Laszlo Kovacs (Jean-Paul Belmondo) in the opening sequence of À bout de souffle: the bleak and tragic final moment of  Nana Kleinfrankenheim (Anna Karina) in Vivre sa vie: a crumpled red sports car in Le Mépris: the never-ending traffic jam in Week-end: Sympathy for the Devil in One Plus One: the factory set in Tout Va Bien: the very funny ménage à quatre in Sauve qui peut (la vie): the back-to-front world of Éloge de l’amour: the provocative children in Film Socialisme: and many, many more.

Who has seen enough movies to identify the ‘greatest’ filmmaker? What I am sure of is that Godard has made the most notable contribution to cinema in the last part of the C20th, at least, in the industries of the advanced capitalist states in North America and Europe. We can no longer wait and wonder what will be next; what delight, amazement, frustration and cinematic pleasure Jean-Luc will regale us with. Cinema has changed radically over the last decade; even so, this is a seminal point in the world of moving images.

The Magnificent Ambersons USA 1942

Produced at the RKO Studio and scripted and directed by Orson Welles; this film is a flawed classic, missing about forty minutes of the original version. It screened on BBC 4 as one of the titles accompanying the six part documentary, The RKO Story Tales from Hollywood [Hollywood the Golden Years: The RKO Story]. This is a six part series, each episode an hour long, originally produced and transmitted in 1987. It made a welcome return to terrestrial television and was accompanied by a number of classic titles from the RKO Studio. The series was jointly produced by the BBC and RKO Pictures. The RKO studio closed in 1957 but had a reinvention in the 1980s as RKO Pictures Inc. This company controlled the archive of studio records and titles. These offer a wealth of information on RKO presented by Edward Asner. But what makes the series stands out are the interviews with surviving stars and production personnel from the studio era. This provides an impressive and fascinating account of the studio; something that is rarely offered in contemporary cinema programmes.

Part four of the series deals with the period in which Orson Welles worked at RKO. Following the seminal Citizen Kane Welles then made an adaptation of the novel ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ [Ambersons] by Booth Tarkington. Not that well known now in the early decades of the C20th Tarkington was a popular and highly respected writer; he won Pulitzer Prizes for two of his novels, ‘Ambersons’ and Alice Adams. The latter was filmed at RKO in 1935. In fact both ‘Ambersons’ and ‘Alice Adams’ were also filmed in silent versions in the 1920s.

Tarkington was the chronicler of ‘mid-western USA’; in another sense that central cultural artefact in US Americana, ‘small-town America’. As well as the two award-winning novels Tarkington also wrote a series of  ‘Penrod’ stories; following young boys growing up in a Midwestern town. Welles read these and other Tarkington works in his youth. He remained an admirer. Welles himself and his biographers frequently drew attention to the parallels between his childhood and characters and settings in the Tarkington novels. Simon Callow, in his biopic of the years leading up to Welles’ Hollywood ventures , ‘Orson Welles The Road to Xanadu’. quotes a description of a mansion in ‘Ambersons’ which was very similar to Welles’ first home.

In fact, Welles adapted the novel in his long-running series of radio adaptations; in October 1939 in the Campbell Playhouse on CBS. In this version Welles played the key protagonist, George Amberson Minafer. However, when it came to a film, with a character seen and heard, Welles settled for the narrative voice. In one of those innovations of which Welles was so fond, even the credits were voiced by Welles as narrator.

The story in the novel and the film follows the declining fortunes of the Amberson clan.

“Major Amberson had “made a fortune” in 1878, when other people were losing fortunes, and the magnificence of the Ambersons began then. Magnificence, like the size of a fortune, is always comparative, as even Magnificent Lorenzo may now perceive, if he has happened to haunt New York in 1916; and the Ambersons were magnificent in their day and place. Their splendour lasted throughout all the years that saw their Midland town spread and darken into a city, but reached its topmost during the period when every prosperous family with children kept a Newfoundland dog.”

Times moved on and the family fortunes declined as new social movements and new technologies arose. The Ambersons’ decline was symbolised in both novel and film by the arrival and rise of the motor car. The Major’s daughter Isabel was courted by a host of ‘ineligible’ young men. Finally she chose and married Wilbur Minafer,

“a steady young man and a good churchgoer…”

The marriage dashed the hopes of another young romantic, Eugene Morgan, who left town. The Minafer marriage was passionless and Isabel devoted her love and attention to the child George Amberson Minafer. He was bought up a spoilt and arrogant child and young man; one whose behaviours caused many townspeople to wait for his ‘comeuppance’. Meanwhile Eugene returned to town, a widower and with a daughter. He became a pioneer in the new motor-car business and grew wealthy. Young George disliked Eugene and his business but found Eugene’s daughter Lucy very attractive. Minafer suffered from bad investments and died. Eugene renewed his romantic interest in Isabel but George prevented the potential union. Later Lucy turned down George’s proposal of marriage, partly because of his behaviour, partly because of his arrogance.

After Isabel’s death it was discovered that family fortune has evaporated. The great Amberson mansion was sold. George and his Aunt Fanny, who for years has carried a passion for Eugene, were forced into lowly lodgings. George, for the first time in his life, was forced to work in manual labour at Eugene’s factory; ‘comeuppance!” Then George was injured in an accident and he was visited in hospital by Eugene,; but there the resolution in his relationship with Lucy changes from novel to film.

The older generation

The film of Ambersons was shot at the RKO Studio and around Los Angeles. When production finished Welles had directed a rough cut of approximately 132 minutes. Welles, in characteristic fashion, was already involved in a new film, It’s All True; to be shot in Latin America, mainly Brazil, and a film supporting the US war effort and its ‘Good Neighbour policy’ in Latin America. Welles accepted the full-length Ambersons needed cuts and entrusted this to the editor Robert Wise. After some editing and two previews the film was seen as a likely box office failure. Welles, who had the unusual option of a ‘final cut’ on Citizen Kane, had lost this option after changes in his contract. RKO bosses took over and Wise’s editing finally produced a version running only 88 minutes. There were reshot and additional scenes, [some by Wise, some by Fred Fleck]; moreover the finale of the film was reshot to produce a clear resolution.

Welles was appalled by the cuts and changes in the release version. Film critics and later audiences have tended to see the result as an example of Hollywood ‘commercial butchery’. What remains and what is known of Welles’ original version suggest a film that would have offered an equivalence to Citizen Kane though with a very different tone and some rather different stylistic achievements. The Studio later destroyed the original negatives so that a ‘director’s cut’ was not possible. In the 1970s Welles toyed with the idea of completing the film in some way but nothing came of this. There was a rough cut with sound sent for inspection by Welles as he worked in Brazil. This has never been found, though fresh searches are regularly organised, it remains  a lost ‘holy grail’ rather like Erich von Stroheim’s earlier butchered masterpiece, Greed (1924).

Welles wrote a number of letters and memos suggesting ways of reducing the film’s length; these were mainly ignored. Peter Bogdanovich in his ‘This is Orson Welles’ (1993, a series of interviews and supporting materials) provides a lot of detail and extracts. At one point Welles suggested a ‘happy ending’ which differs from that imposed on the film. Bogdanovich also includes records from the preview screenings and it is apparent that the audience responses were not as bad as suggested; a minority of comments were positive. However, there was new studio management, and as with Von Stroheim and M-G-M, there seems to have been a basic antagonism to Welles and his project.

Yet the surviving film is still a fine example of Welles’ film-making. The overall elegiac tone of the film is maintained until the changed ending; Welles reckoned the first sixty minutes were a reasonable approximation of his intent. Cinematically it has many bravura qualities reminiscent of Citizen Kane. There are great set pieces like an Amberson grandiose entertainment in the impressive mansion: a sleigh ride in the snow: the gloom of the decline as family members die and the fortune melts away: and the settings in the changed circumstances of George and Fanny. As with Kane the sets that Welles required to be designed and constructed are really impressive and innovatory; some of the ceiling effects late in the film are impressive. Many of the craft people are not credited in the film version. This includes the production design by Albert S. Agostino. Mark Lee Kirk gets a credit as Set Designer, which presumably included the Amberson mansion built with moveable walls to allow long tracking shots in the interiors. The cinematography by Stanley Cortez is excellent, there are Welles typical use of chiaroscuro and long takes: fine tracking shots: and the use of blocking and reflections in windows and mirrors.  But Welles found him too slow compared with Gregg Toland who filmed Citizen Kane and he was dismissed before the end of principal cinematography; a couple of personnel worked on late shots uncredited. The sound team are likewise only partially credited though their work is as impressive as the cinematography; both contributing to the powerful ambience created in the Amberson mansion and the later lodging house.  Wise’s editing is good, allowing for the studio imposed cuts: but the latter replaced a lengthy camera movement for the ball sequence with a number of cuts: and there was some more uncredited editing work. There is no music credit though the surviving music overall is fine: the score was by Bernard Hermann but his music was also cut down by the studio and replaced in places so he had his name removed from the credits.

The studio version  has material removed: added shots and sequences moved from their original place. In ‘This is Orson Welles’ the editor, Jonathan Rosenbaum, helpfully provides ‘The Oriignal Ambersons’ which  records the changes, deletions and insertions from Welles’ cut to the release version. So the magificently conceived Amberson ball suffers both cuts and the removal of dilaogue.  The less mauled snow ride still suffers cuts.  Reel nine has inserted close-ups in a meeting of George and Lucy which really does not fit the sequence. And in reel ten a later meeting betwen them has redubbed dialogue over one shot from the sequence. After George’s come-uppance three short scenes were moved from their original place in the narrative; this includes a discussion in a garden between Eugene and Lucy which seems oddly out of place. And the final sequnce of the film, especially a vist by Eugene to see Fanny in the lodging house, in reel fourteen is almost entirely replaced. Like earlier insertions the camera work, and to a lesser degree the sound, lack the quality of much of the earlier film. And the tone of this sequence is seriously different from Welles’ conception. Rosenbaum provides a description with dialogue of Welles original; the difference shows.

The cast are very good. Dolores del Rio really achieves Isabel and Tim Holt makes an excellent George. Richard Bennett is the Major and patriarch. Both Joseph Cotten as Eugene and Anne Baxter as Lucy make fine contributions. And there is an outstanding performance from Agnes Moorehead as Fanny; her late scene after the family collapse is memorable. Another Welles regular, Ray Collins, as Isabel’s brother Jack, brings a slightly caustic note in the decline. But dominating the whole film is the narration of Orson Welles. Unseen but with one of the memorable voices in Hollywood cinema, much of the tone of the film is down to this audio aspect.

The parallels between Welles himself and the Tarkington character are found in his childhood and subsequently as an adult film-maker. Ambersons seemed to many a ‘comeuppance’ for this young, thrusting and egoistical artist; this was especially true in the Hollywood studios. Welles never again enjoyed the control he exercised on Citizen Kane or during the actual production of Ambersons. In the 1970s Welles appeared in a lengthy interview on BBC television. At one point he commented,

“I always liked Hollywood but they never reciprocated.”

One can see this, not just in Ambersons, but in later projects made in Hollywood studios. The best of these was Touch of Evil (1957) but that film was re-cut and changed. Welles produced a long letter setting out how he had envisaged and filmed the original. In 1998 this was the basis for a restored version which approximates to the vision of Welles. But to date material for a likewise restoration of Ambersons is wanting. Charles Higham in his biography comments finally,

“some streak of anti commercialism drove him…”

I t is true that Welles was more interested in art than in commerce but recognising him as an iconoclast is better, as does Bogdanovich. He was iconoclastic about the studios: many features of genre movies: styles of management: and the dominant political discourse. Successful directors in Hollywood needed to love, or at least fit in with, the box-office, Alfred Hitchcock is a prime example. The ironies in the making of Ambersons in many ways parallel the ironies in the Tarkington original novel and in the film itself.

Higham also recognises Welles artistic talents, his biography is sub-titled ‘The rise and fall of an American Genius’; more accurate would be a ‘US genius’, but Welles achievement in theatre, radio and film do stand out in these arts. But he was a wayward genius. His ego interfered with his work with supporting artists. He often did not give due credit where due credit was due. Stanley Cortez was taken off Ambersons because Welles found his work to slow. But the many of the replacement shots after his exit were poorly executed.

Orson Welles with Stanley Cortez

And Welles was overly ambitious. He was always juggling a number of artistic projects; often too many even for his talent Thus in the later stages of the Amberson production Welles was involved in producing, scripting and acting in Journey into Fear (1943): He was producing an unfinished segment [Bonito the Bull] for a planned film It’s All True: preparing for his trip to South America for what was eventually the proposed but unfinished film, It’s All True: a CBS radio series The Lady Esther Show: and politically, with the Pacific war beginning, involved with the Roosevelt government in ideas for the war effort: and in addition a campaign to save Soviet diplomats in danger from the Nazis. This also was typical of Welles’ career.

Even so, Welles’ career, and this particular film, stand out in the world of film, radio and theatre. The story of the vicissitudes of The Magnificent Ambersons, told many times in various biographies and studies, is a depressing one. Yet the film that remains is still a fine experience and well worth watching many times. It is some years since I saw a screening on 35mm, its original format. However, the digital facsimile on the BBC was good video quality. And the impressive soundtrack of the movie was good. A flawed Orson Welles film is still a greater experience than much of the alternative product produced in Hollywood.

The RKO Story: Tales from Hollywood.

1. Birth of a Titan

The funding of the Studio as sound arrived and its early days and films.

2. Let’s Face the Music and Dance

The 1930s musicals, mainly Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

3. A Woman’s Lot

The woman stars, Lucille ball, Katherine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers

4. It’s All True

RKO and Orson Welles

5. Dark Victory

RKO and film noir [including HUAC] and Robert Mitchum

6. Howard’s Way

Howard Hughes and the studio; and its demise.

Each episode had two classic RKO title accompanying it.

Episode 1 King Kong (1933) and The Thing From Another World (1951)

Episode 2 Top Hat (1935) and The Gay Divorcee (1934)

Episode 3 Bringing Up Baby  (1938) and My Favourite Wife (1940)

Episode 4  Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Episode 5 Suspicion  (1941) and Angel Face (1953)

Episode 6 The BBC had already screened Hughes’ The Outlaw (1943) between episodes; now thte provided Cat People (1942) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943). Unbforetunately not any of the anti-communist titles that Hughes insisted on producing.

‘This Is Orson Welles Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich’ (1993), edited by Jonathan Rosenbaum has much interesting material on Welles and this particular film; including details about the different versions and some of the changes that Welles introduced to Tarkington’s novel.

Saudha International Satyajit Ray Congress

The centenary year of this outstanding film-maker started on May 2^nd. Happily the day was marked by the opening of this Congress which was operated via zoom. It is now available on You Tube. The Sunday session ran for three hours and a second session on Monday ran for two and half hours. The sessions were chaired by Ahmed Kaysher and  a series of speakers from India and from Britain talked about their experiences and study of Ray himself and of his film work; and some speakers also talked about his literary and musical output. The speaker included people who knew Ray personally, fellow film-makers in India and academics and archivists familiar with his films.

This was a fascinating and varied series of comment and portraits. Nearly all of the Ray titles received a mention, though unsurprisingly the trilogy that established his status was central. We also enjoyed the singing of songs connected with his films.

One got a sense both of Ray’s own views and values and the importance of the tradition of a ‘Bengali renaissance’ for this art. This provided a stimulating commentary for people revisiting or discovering his master-works.

There was mention of a complete retrospective of his films that is being planned by the British Film Institute. There will be celebrations with screenings in other territories as well so fans can anticipate a feast of fine cinema.

Sight & Sound have helpfully re-printed an interview with Ray from the 1950s. There is also a published edition edited by Bert Cardulla (20027) of interviews over the years with Ray. And one would hope that for people who will find such cinema screenings difficult to access that at least the BBC will transmit some titles; two, Mahanagar (1963) and Charulata (1964), screened on Film 4 and are still available on ALL 4. I should say that whilst waiting for cinemas to reopen I have watched the Criterion Blu-ray set of the Apu trilogy and it is very well done.

Satyajit Ray, born May 2nd 1921

So as 2021 opens we can hopefully envisage seeing films in theatrical settings and no longer suffering the inferior facsimiles of video, television and streaming. Optimists can plan for screenings to celebrate the centenary of one of the truly great film-makers in world cinema. From his pioneering neo-realist films in the 1950s, through his more modernist and critical studies of his home culture, Satyajit Ray has been a dominant force, both in his home cinema and in the wider world of art and foreign language distribution.

It seems unfortunately likely that many fans will have to settle for digital versions; whereas Ray’s impressive and poetic films deserve their original and proper format; 35mm prints. So it is worth checking national or even local film archives and badgering exhibitors to provide the ‘reel’ thing.

Happily the National Film Archive in Britain has a number of Ray’s finest films available in 35 mm prints. The condition of some of them is not great and it may be that not all are accessible for screenings. And the British Film Institution, which controls access to the archive, is not that diligent in enabling access. I have been denied requests for known prints in the archive: seen the lesser of two or several prints sent out to the provinces: and its published face of film, Sight & Sound, displays a cavalier attitude to works of art that originated on photo-chemical film.

Still the quality that comes from the 35mm print world, even with scratches and jump cuts, make the effort worthwhile. So these are the titles currently listed as held in the archive.

Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) is a 1955 Bengali film produced by the Government of West Bengal. It was based on Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s 1929 Bengali novel of the same name and was Ray’s directorial debut. The first film in ‘The Apu Trilogy’, Pather Panchali depicts the childhood of the protagonist Apu and his elder sister Durga and the harsh village life of their poor family.

I first saw this film in my early film society years on 16mm. It was a wonderful eye-opener to a very different cinema. One impressive sequence shows a first sight of a train thundering and smoking across the landscape; a trope that I have seen again many times in Indian films.

Aparajito (The Unvanquished) is a 1956 Bengali film and is the second part of ‘The Apu Trilogy’. It was adapted from Bibhutibhushan Bannerjee’s novels ‘Pather Panchali’ and its sequel ‘Aparajito’ (1932). It starts off where the previous film ended, with Apu’s family moving to Varanasi, and chronicles Apu’s life from childhood to adolescence in college, right up to his mother’s death, when he is left all alone.

The World of Apu (Apur Sansar) is a 1959 Bengali film and.the third part of ‘The Apu Trilogy’. The film is based on the later part of the novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay. Released in 1959, The World of Apu focuses on Apu’s adult life. Happily I was able to see this title in 35mm. This final part of the trilogy has wonderful sequences as Apu enters married life. There is a tonga ride back from an entertainment: a scene of domesticity of Apu and his young wife: and finally a sequence of father and son which is a fine expression of the humanist values that inform Ray’s films.

Jalsaghar ( The Music Room) is a 1958 Bengali film based on a popular short story by Bengali writer Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay. The fourth of Ray’s feature films, it was filmed in a village in West Bengal.. Jalsaghar depicts the end days of a decadent zamindar (landlord) in Bengal and his efforts to uphold his family prestige while facing economic adversity. The landlord, Biswambhar Roy, is a just but otherworldly man who loves to spend time listening to music and putting up spectacles rather than managing his properties ravaged by floods and the government’s abolition of the zamindari system.

Devi (The Goddess) is a 1960 Bengali film based on a short story by Provatkumar Mukhopadhyay. ‘Devi’ focuses on a young woman who is deemed a goddess when her father-in-law, a rich feudal land-lord, has a dream envisioning her as an avatar of Kali.

Rabindranath Tagore is a 1961 documentary film produced by Films Division of India in English about the life and works of noted Bengali author Rabindranath Tagore. Shot in black-and-white, the finished film was released during the birth centenary year of Rabindranath Tagore.

Teen Kanya is a 1961 Indian Bengali anthology film based upon short stories by Rabindranath Tagore. The title means “Three Girls”, and the film’s original Indian release contained three stories. However, the international release of the film contained only two stories, missing the second (“Monihara: The Lost Jewels”).

Kanchenjungha (Kanchonjônggha) is a 1962 Bengali film. It is about an upper class Bengali family on vacation in Darjeeling, a popular hill station and resort, near Kanchenjunga.

Abhijan (The Expedition) is a 1962 Bengali film. When a corrupt cop takes away Narsingh’s taxi license after an illegal car race, Narsingh finds himself reduced to poverty living in the outskirts of Kolkata. A practicing Sikh, he finds himself having to accept work from a dubious business man, Sukhanram, who employs Narsingh in dope smuggling.

Mahanagar (The Big City) is a 1963 Bengali film based on the short story ‘Abataranika’ by Narendranath Mitra, it tells the story of a housewife who disconcerts her traditionalist family by getting a job as a saleswoman. Shot in the first half of 1963 in Kolkata, this was also the first film directed by Ray set entirely in his native Kolkata, reflecting contemporary realities of the urban middle-class, where women going to work is no longer merely driven by ideas of emancipation but has become an economic reality.

The Lonely Wife ( Charulata) is a 1964 Bengali film. Charu lives a lonely and idle life in 1870s India. Although her husband Bhupati devotes more time to his newspaper than to their marriage, he sees her loneliness and asks his brother-in-law, Umapada to keep her company. At the same time Bhupati’s own cousin, Amal, a would-be writer comes home finishing his college education.

Chiriakhana or Chiriyakhana (The Zoo) is a 1967 Bengali crime thriller, based on the story of the same name by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay. Byomkesh Bakshi, a detective, is hired by a rich man to investigate the name of an actress appeared in a movie decades ago, who has eloped ever since. The case became complicated when the rich man is murdered by someone for that.

Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest) is a Bengali film released in 1970, based upon the Bengali novel of the same name by Sunil Gangopadhyay. The film uses humour to undercut the main narrative. A group of Kolkata city slickers, including the well-off Asim, the meek Sanjoy and the brutish Hari, head out for a weekend in the wilderness.

Jana Aranya is a 1976 Bengali film, based on the novel of the same name by Mani Shankar Mukherjee. It is the last among Ray’s Kolkata trilogy series, the previous two being, Pratidwandi (The Adversary, 1970) and Seemabaddha (Company Limited, 1971). The film portrays the economic difficulties faced by middle-class, educated, urban youth in 1970s India.

Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players) is a 1977 Indian film based on Munshi Premchand’s short story of the same name. Wajid Ali Shah, King of Awadh, is subverted by General James Outram, aided by the king’s obsession with chess..

Sadgati ( Salvation [or] Deliverance) is an 1981 Hindi television film directed by Satyajit Ray, based on a short story of same name by Munshi Premchand. Ray called this drama of a poor Dalit “a deeply angry film […] not the anger of an exploding bomb but of a bow stretched taut and quivering.”

There are many other fine film written and directed by Satyajit Ray and graced by fine performers and craft people. Maybe some will turn up in Britain [or in other places] to be enjoyed.

Sorry We Missed You, Britain 2019

This is the new title from Ken Loach and his regular scriptwriter Paul Laverty. As with the last title, I, Daniel Blake (2016), the production offers a bleak view of another burden falling on the working class. This title also is set in Newcastle upon Tyne, but this time it is a family rather than a single individual that provides the focus.

Ricky Turner (Kris Hitchen) and his wife Abby (Debbie Honeywood) live in rented accommodation with their two children, Seb (Rhys Stone) and Lisa Jane (Katie Proctor). Abby works for a sub-contractor to the NHS as a carer to a number of home-bound patients: two senior citizens, a young man with learning difficulties, and a middle-aged woman with a disability. There are likely others we do not see,

Ricky has been out of work for some time though he claims that he has not signed on. He is desperate to work but also he also wants to improve the family situation: specifically by finding the money to obtain their own house. Seb is in the last year at school but alienated from both education and adult society. He hangs round with a group of friends who are on the edge of legality in their activities. Lisa is the youngest; she takes after her mother and is more stable than Seb.

The film opens with a blank screen and the sound of two voices. The image appears and Ricky is being interviewed by a manager at a Delivery firm depot. As the latter explains the terms of the work, labelled self-employment, there is already an ominous sense of where this may lead. Ricky is neither the type of character nor in a situation where he is able to be properly critical of the contract on offer.

It is the merit of Paul Laverty’s screenplay that the premonitions this engenders for an audience do not materialise in a conventional manner.. The narrative not only presents the extremely exploitative nature of the work Ricky performs but also relates this to the problems and tensions within the family. To start with Ricky has to provide a van and he pressurises Abby to sell her car to provide a deposit. This means that she has to use public transport to visit a number of clients who seem to be some way apart, lengthening her working day.

Whilst Ricky owns the van the working arrangements mean that he is tied to a long day, with electronic supervision through the gadget that he must carry at all times. This is a relentless work schedule, with time of delivery set, lots of driving, and often unhelpful or absent recipients.. One occasion when Ricky tries to outmaneuvre a parking warden so he can make a quick delivery offers an example of this brutal work timetable. On another occasion, when Lisa accompanies him for the day, they have a charming moment of rest, sitting looking out over a pleasant landscape. Then the timer on the gadget calls Ricky back to the cab and work.

So both Ricky and Abby are working long hours and therefore absent from their children. We see Lisa and Seb on a number of occasions at home alone, with Lisa making their meals and coping without parents. It is a sign of Lisa’s greater stability that she is seen rousing the unwilling Seb so he is not late for school.

The downward spiral suggested at the opening does result. However, it does so in unexpected ways and with a sense of naturalism that is always one of the strengths of Ken Loach’s film-making. And his cast of characters are convincing and more complex than is the norm in British realist cinema. Chris Hitchen conveys well the driven desperation of Ricky. Debbie Hollywood has the more empathetic role, as the mainstay of the family and as a sympathetic carer. She delivers this with warmth and commitment. Katie Proctor is good as Lisa, seemingly mature beyond her years. Rhys Stone catches the volatile and sometimes erratic behaviour of the teenage Seb. However, this character does not convince in the same way. The changes from his warmth in the family at a meal-time does not quite fit with his later volatile and erratic behaviour. When a rare family meal occurs he is a warm member of the event. But this seems a long way from his malicious prank when his phone is threatened.

There are few characters outside side the family and none of them are fully developed. Their main function is to provide the plot development that impact on the family. The manager at the depot is convincing as a manipulator who must keep the workforce on track and on time. He seems approachable but when the rules require he is completely ruthless. Ricky’s only apparent friend is a colleague at the Depot who appears to fit into the requirements easily. We do see, briefly, another driver, who violently confronts the manager when the ruthless regime is imposed. But this passes with little seeming impact.

We see Abby’s clients’ on several occasion. They provide the needs which demonstrate her caring warmth and devotion. An audience is likely to wonder about other clients whose carers are less dedicated. We do see a school friend of Lisa and we see Seb together with his group, but in neither case are characters developed.

This tight focus leads to a number of limitations in the narrative. In ‘I, Daniel Blake’ a viewer encountered different examples of the state bureaucracy. Here the exploiting class has only one representative, the Depot manager. At one point he explains to Ricky the rationale of his management. He claims that the ‘depot’ is a golden example in the chain, with high rates of accuracy in deliveries. Unsaid is the cost to the workforce of his regime. In that sense the viewer is left to draw conclusions about the profitability of Ricky’s stressful job. One reviewer remarked how this film does not have one of the Loachian tropes; a sequence where the politics of the situation are discussed. In the famous BBC production, Days of Hope (1975), the role of capital and the state were clearly describe and analysed. I doubt that a substantial part of the audience will consider that relationship during this film. One can be appalled at the exploitation but think this is an aspect of particularly exploitative company or ‘the gig economy. In a similar fashion ‘I, Daniel Blake’ could suggest an uncaring bureaucracy without pointing to the role of state agencies in disciplining labour for capital.

The tight focus on the family means that we do not see a working class community. This is similar to the presentation of I, Daniel Blake where a constructed family is centre.  It is generally accepted that the traditional working class communities have, to a degree, fragmented. But they do still exist and there are newer ethnic communities in today’s Britain. The recent Loach films have privileged northern settings where identifiable working class communities can still be seen, always a tendency in the output. The early Laverty scripts had a sense of community. But this has not been maintained in recent films. The strongest communities were is period films like Jimmy’s Hall (2014), set in Eire in the 1930s.

In one way we are back to Ken Loach’s initial features like Cathy Come Home (1966) or Kes (1969), with a couple or individual alienated from a community by circumstance. But there are other films where the community is central to the narrative. Riff-Raff (1991)has a working community.

The latter film also exemplifies another absence, the organised working class; in that film autonomous. This too has suffered decline in recent decades but it remains a force in Britain. The gig economy represented in the film suffers from an absence of organisation for the workers; but the case of Uber drivers demonstrates that this can change. And an earlier title like Looking for Eric (2009)demonstrated the use of both community and working class organisation.

One factor in these absences is Loach choice of pitching his films in the mainstream mode, even if at its peripheries. Thus the films offer a limited number of key characters. Their story is centred around their actions and the actions upon them. The narrative tends to the linear and actions are clearly motivated. Loach rarely uses flashbacks or include reflexive sequences. His films are didactic; a point that repeatedly annoys bourgeois critics. The features are melodramas of protest, usually ending not in victory but at least in the torch of resistance being passed on. But a number are more properly described as melodramas of defeat, and the ending of Sorry We Missed You, while not closure, does suggest defeat.

It is instructive to remember the input by the sadly deceased Jim Allen. His Land and Freedom (1995) is a period piece to which The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) can be favourably compared. But the earlier Hidden Agenda (1990)treats of the colonial issue, in the north of Eire, from a contemporary point of view. And Days of Hope has an overt political dimension that is more potent than in any other Loach work. It was also a period drama but it relevance was clear from the attacks in the series, including the dubious honour a Times editorial. Along with other Allen scripts, such as for ‘The Wednesday Play’ like ‘The Lump’ (1967) and ‘The Big Flame’ (1969), it now seems that the early television work was more radical than the recent feature films; ironic in that Loach gave up on television because of censorship.

Ken Loach and his colleagues do produce films that provide and accurate and authentic representation of a common working class experience in the C21st. They do so with passion, warmth and attention to detail: whilst never mentioned in the dialogue the Turner house suffers [among other problems] from damp, the patches clearly visible on the walls in the large screen. And in a contrasting touch the stairwell is decorated with the family photographs taken mainly by Abby. In a complex plotting these same photographs dramatise the family tensions which clearly arise from their economic position. Whilst the political presentation is limited in a number of ways this film, like others by the company, are the powerful representations of contemporary working class life.

The film was shot by Loach’s now regular and excellent cinematographer Robbie Ryan. In is filmed in the typical Loach manner with much use of a long lens; sometimes producing a rather flat canvas but with a good depth of field. It is also shot on 35mm/super 16 but disappointing is only circulated in a digital transfer. But the quality of the chromatography shows through as does the attention to setting, editing and sound design. This is another remarkable milestone in a career now stretching back over fifty years. And it is a title that repays seeing it in a theatrical setting.

 

 

Rosa Luxembourg / Die Geduld der Rosa Luxemburg, Germany 1986

This is one of four films directed by Margarethe von Trotta being distributed in Britain by the Independent Cinema Office. The programme is titled ‘The Personal is Political – the films of Margarethe von Trotta’. The standpoint presented in this title has some justification. In her films von Trotta most frequently focuses on a female protagonist and presents their life [or part of it] by intertwining personal experiences with social and political events. However, I would counter to this a stance of ‘the political is personal’. I do this because whilst the films portray personal relationships the stories von Trotta uses are [to varying degrees] taken from historical events. In this way the social contradictions which made these stories prominent enough to justify a commercial film structure both the public and personal events involving the characters. This film, both a biography and a celebration of one of the outstanding revolutionaries of the early C20th, seems to me clearly to demonstrate such a relationship between the political and the personal.

The film, written and directed by von Trotta, has a complex and non-linear structure. On its release critics noted [and often complained about] the difficulties of making sense of such a narrative. I think this was more noted outside of Germany. One audience member at a recent screening was seeing the film for a second time and remarked that he followed it more easily this time as he had greater knowledge of the context and background of the film’s story. Indeed when the film was released in Britain,

“The Press handout implicitly recognises this by including a helpful chronology of Rosa’s life and substantial historical background.” (Pam Cook’s review in the Monthly Film Bulletin, August 1986).

For the same reason I set out here the chronology of the film.

It opens in 1916 with Rosa in a German prison.

Following the opening credits the film cuts a Polish prison in Warsaw in 1906.

There follows a flashback showing Rosa, and her lover Leo, arriving in Poland a year earlier; with the 1905 Revolution in Russia under way.

The film cuts to 1899 as Leo joins Rosa in Berlin.

We then witness a New Year celebration at the dawn of 1900 by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands – SPD).

The film returns to 1906, still in Berlin, and Rosa’s relationship with the leaders of the SPD and her personal relationship with Leo.

By 1907 Rosa has moved to the left of many of the SPD leaders, including her former mentor Karl Kautsky. And her relationship with Leo changes after she learns of his affair with another communist woman.

By 1913 Rosa has become a leader of a ‘left fraction’ in the SPD. Opposing ‘revolution’ to ‘reformism’. She has begun a relationship with, Kostja, the son of her friend Clara Zetkin. And she meets Paul Levi, a lawyer and to become another lover. She is tried by the German Authorities for ‘inflammatory behaviour’ in her opposition to the coming European war.

In 1914 she is working with Karl Liebknecht, another anti-imperialist war revolutionary. But the SPD supports the 1914 war by voting credits in the German parliament.

In 1916 Rosa is arrested and imprisoned. On release she and Liebknecht found The Spartacist League (Spartakusbund).

By 1916 she is back in prison where she remains till the end of the war. We see her visited by friends, in particular Liebknecht’s partner Sonya.

On release in 1918 she and Liebknecht, supported by Leo and others, return to revolutionary activity. Revolutionary actions by the German working class force an end to the war and the declaration of a republic with the SPD taking power. At this point the film interweaves it fictionalised portrayal [in colour] with black and white archive film from the period.

An uprising, led by the Spartacists, [who at the start of 1919 became the Communist Party of Germany / Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands] is suppressed by the Government using right-wing volunteer militia, the Freikorps, [proto-fascist organisation]. Rosa and Liebknecht are murdered. Rosa body is thrown in a Berlin canal.

The film ends though Rosa ‘s body was later recovered and given a proper burial.

This cutting back and forth can be followed but the actual period and characters have to be either recognised or surmised. It is only after several scenes in which she appears that Clara Zetkin is identified by her full name. Other characters like Karl Kautsky or August Bebel are identified by name and the dialogue gives a sense of their relevance to the events. But organisations such as the Second International, which Rosa attends at one point, probably need the viewer to already understand where they fit in events and political contest.

Rosa Luxemburg in 1918

An important point to note about the narrative is what of Rosa’s life and activism is left out. Thus the narrative presents Rosa when she is already involved in the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy – both under Czarist rule) and the SPD. We only see her early years in two brief flashbacks, one with her studying a flower with her mother, and the other teaching reading to her nanny. The cause of her lifelong limp [a hip ailment in childhood] is unexplained as is the point that the family was Jewish. The latter occasioned epithets directed at her by enemies just as was the case with Leon Trotsky. One important facet that is missing is that Rosa became active in revolutionary politics whilst she was till a school student. And her sojourn and studies in Zurich is only noted in the dialogue. Another important point that is missing is her marriage [of convenience] in 1897 in order to obtain German citizenship. And whilst the film identifies her relationships with Leo and Kostja, that with Paul Levi has to be surmised from his behaviour. The oddest omission for me was almost no reference to Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. The former is named once by Paul Levi. The latter do not get a single mention. Given both the common standpoints on imperialist wart and the impact of the Russian revolution on The Spartacist League, this is a serious omission. Rosa actually met Lenin in London in 1907 at a Russian Social Democrats Party Conference. Whilst this is mentioned in the dialogue, neither the title nor an explanation is provided.

This serious overlooking of people and influences of central importance to Rosa seems to be part of a deliberate playing down of the Marxism which was her political ;philosophy. In her struggles with the SPD there are references to her emphasis on the importance of organisation and of the General Strike; also of the need for the proletarians to control and push forward the Party leadership. But the content of this, set out noticeably in her 1900 article, ‘Reform or Revolution’ is missing. From 1913 the emphasis shifts to her opposition to the war. This is presented as capitalist but also militarist, so that the way that Rosa, along with Lenin, held to the prescriptions of Marx and Engels is not clearly set out. This seemed to me to result from a strategy of emphasizing Rosa Luxembourg as a feminist icon and pioneer. This is clearly problematic and the film has to recognise [in a comment to Clara Zetkin] that Rosa saw the struggle around gender as subordinate to that of class. But the emphasis in the plotting and characters continually emphasises Rosa’ work and friendship with other women, especially Clara and Sonja. Within the SPD her opponents are all men. Whilst Leon, Karl and Paul are all men who support her political standpoint; Leo is partially discredited by his affair and Karl by the film presenting his initiating of the Spartacist uprising as opportunist. The latter misrepresents both the events and Rosa’s standpoint. We do see French socialist, Jean Jaurès, making an anti-war speech but he is not actually identified. And, as noted, the most important revolutionary figure of the period, Lenin, is absent.

Pam Cook, in a very good review in the Monthly Film Bulletin, comments on the relationship between the political and personal;

“In effect, von Trotta has fictionalised Rosa Luxemburg, creating from real events of her life an idealised figure. This is particularly evident in the many sequences devoted to Rosa’s brilliantly evocative public speeches, which stand as spectacular ‘performances’ in their own right, almost like set-pieces in a musical bio-pic; and in the way Rosa’s actual words, painstakingly culled from her many letters and other writings, are abstracted from context and translated into intimate scenes with her cat, her woman friends, her family or her lovers.”

But Pam Cook also notes how the contradictions in this film and in its subject ‘strain’ the fictionalising process. This is apparent if we compare the film with a more conventional biopic of a revolutionary, Warren Beatty’s’ John Reed in ‘Reds’ (1981). The witnesses in that film are unidentified and their political viewpoint abstracted. In a scene where John Reed explains his politics to Louise Bryant he fails to finish a single complete sentence as several hours are transformed with ellipses into about five minutes, And, at the film’s end, this revolutionary internationalist is depicted as another homesick ‘American’. Rose Luxemburg avoids such failures. And the complexities of what is essentially an ‘art film’ treatment of the political bio-pic renders the narrative tapestry reflexive in a way that encourages viewers to notice those contradictions emerging in the fissures of the text. So the non-linear narrative produces a complex story telling. Whilst the political standpoints in the film are limited they are explicit, something that is fairly rare in commercial cinema.

One of the aspects that the film presents is the contradiction between the relative bourgeois life style of the leadership in the SPD and the proletarian situation of the mass of their members. In fact we only see proletarians in the prisons, as an audience in the public meetings where Rosa and others speechify, and at the end in the combat as the Spartacists battle the representatives of the German state. The film does not explicitly draw attention to the gulf that exists, but it is evident in the mise en scêne. The household of Bebel and Kautsky appear fairly affluent and they both have servants. The apartments that are used by Rosa and Leo and by Rosa and Kostja are also very comfortably furnished and ample in size. Rosa too has a maid and, later, a secretary. But the latter is called to participate in a political meeting by Rosa. This is an aspect of the film that demonstrates the importance of the contributions of the craft colleagues of von Trotta.

Music by Nicolas Economou

Cinematography by Franz Rath

Film Editing by Dagmar Hirtz, Galip Iyitanir

Set Decoration by Stepan Exner, Bernd Lepel

Costume Design by Monika Hasse

Make-up Department Bernd-Rüdiger Knoll

plus their colleagues working with them.

The film recreates the period with what seems to be great accuracy and detail. Sets range from the dark forbidding prisons to the comfortable households of the leaders to public halls where events are held and, at the film’s end, both the streets and the offices where the Spartacist organise and fight.

The cinematography is excellent. Varying from the noirish gloom of the prions to the bright, colourful public spectacles and, finally, the dark and dank resting place of Rosa’s corpse.

The visual detail in the film is impressive. There is one fine long shot of Rosa framed and dwarfed by the monumental Reichstag building as she leaves after the the SPD has betrayed the revolution and voted in the Reichstag for war credits. But the shots are not only dramatic but also ironic and even slightly humorous. The pre-credit sequence shows Rosa walking back and forth in a German prison with snow on the ground. She is first followed and then accompanied by a blackbird, who hops along in the snow.

The brutality and sadism of the reactionary state forces is clearly presented in the film. At the start we watch as women revolutionaries are distraught at the execution of male revolutionaries by the Polish military. This is followed by a mock execution of Rosa before an interrogation. At the film’s climax Liebknecht and Rosa are taken by the Freikorps, knocked unconscious and then shot. The reactionary hatred displayed to the revolutionaries by the right-wing militia and their supporters is clear.

In the closing sequences the film uses archive film to presents the revolutionary ferment that forced an end to the German war actions and then set the scene for a German revolution, which unfortunately failed. This is is well cut into the fictionalised representation and bring an elan to the drama. It is slightly unfortunate that this archive film has been reframed to fit the film ‘s own ratio, 1.66:1.

Rosa Luxemburg is a flawed and in some ways contradictory film. It shows the limitations of von Trotta political approach to film drama but also the way that the stories that she tells break free from some of the limitations of her approach. But I do not know of nay other filmic treatment of Luxemburg. She is both influential and frequently portrayed in literature, drama, painting, and music. It is a real credit that von Trotta has essayed this treatment. The screenings organised by the Independent Cinema Office included a short introduction by von Trotta herself. She explained that a fellow German film-maker and radical, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, originally planned a film treatment on Luxemburg and wrote a script. This was titled ‘Rosa L’ and was, apparently, found by his body after his death. One source suggests that he wanted Romy Schneider to play Rosa, another Jane Fonda; either suggesting a very different approach for that in von Trotta’s film. Von Trotta herself worked out her own script after a lengthy study of the sources on Luxemburg.

The British release [though limited] is opportune. 1919 sees the centenary of the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. A memorial demonstration was held in Berlin on the anniversary, January 14^th. Luxemburg remains an iconic presence in revolutionary history. Her writings are still published and republished. Her ‘Reform or Revolution’ is major text; read it with the capitalist crisis of 208 in min d, and see its relevance. Both Lenin and Trotsky, both of whom disagreed with some of her work, were full of praise for her.

Films by Margarethe von Trotta

This is a package of films from the important German film-maker distributed round Britain at the start of 2019 by the Independent Cinema Office with support from the Goethe-Institut London and German Screen Studies Network. This is a welcome initiative. Some of the titles, such as Rosa Luxembourg (1986), are rarely seen. Some, like The German Sisters / Die bleierne Zeit (1981), have not been available theatrically for years. The films are circulated in new digital versions; but German digital transfer are usually very good. What I find less happy is the title of the programme, ‘the personal is political’. This seems to me back-to-front; von Trotta’s films actually suggest that the ‘political is personal’.

 

 

In The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum / Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum (1975, co-directed with Volker Schlöndorf) the titular character becomes a victim of tabloid journalism. Whilst this results from a personal relationship what fuels her persecution by the media and the authorities is her supposed political connections. The focus of the film these reactionary aspects of West German culture.

 

 

One can see this in von Trotta’s first solo feature, The Second Awakening of Christa Klages / Das zweite Erwachen der Christa Klages (1978). The protagonist Christa is a young mother involved in running a free nursery. It is the problems of the nursery that lead to her actions, some of these being criminal. The film certainly addresses motherhood but this is in a social context. At one point in the film Christa and her friend hide out in Portugal where they work in an agricultural commune. It is this type of political and social context that dominates the film.

 

 

The political and social context is just as prominent tin her next film, one of my favourites, The German Sisters. Dramatizing in fictional form aspects of the famous/infamous Red Army Faction. One sister, Juliane, is a feminist journalist; the other, Marianne, is a member of a revolutionary faction committed to armed action. Their relationship, the travails and disputes that arise, all follow from their political rather than their personal positions. The film indeed dramatizes female relationships and [again] motherhood but this is within the political discourses in which the two sisters reside.

 

 

The fourth film is Rosa Luxemburg. This is a biopic of one of the outstanding revolutionaries of the early twentieth century. Luxemburg is a feminist icon and she fought against the patriarchal tendencies within the revolutionary movement. But her driving force was the class struggle and proletarian revolution. The way that she utilised bourgeois marriage is indicative of a stance that prioritises the political over the personal. The characterisation of Luxemburg emphasises the revolutionary standpoint, that the political informs the personal rather than the other way round. Luxembourg prioritised the class struggle over the struggle round gender. Whereas ‘the personal is political’ often tends to prioritise gender over class.

I am looking forward to revisiting these fine films by von Trotta. Apart from her undoubted cinematic and narrative skills this film director is unusual [in contrast to the majority of male and female film directors] in skilfully integrating fine film-making and story telling with the central political issues of our time.

Rosa Luxemburg is screening at the Hyde Park Picture House on January 15^th.

Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach Britain 2016

The film was produced by Sweet Sixteen films and funded by the BBC. It involved Loach’s regular collaborators producer Rebecca O’Brien and writer Paul Laverty. For a change Ken Loach appears in front of the camera rather than behind it. One strong features of the film is Ken’s explanations and comments, always interesting, often provocative. There are also a number of excerpts from a long interview with Tony Garnett, Ken’s collaborator and a major influence on the filmmaker. Garnett is given the space to talk at some length on Loach and his work and his comments are interesting and pertinent. Much of the film was shot during the filming of Ken’s new film, the winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, I, Daniel Blake. There is a certain amount of biography but the film’s main focus is the television and film work directed [and occasionally produced] by Loach. The coverage is fairly comprehensive, from Ken’s early days in BBC television to the recent series of films that have appeared almost annually in this century.

Whilst Ken Loach shoots his film chronologically, this study uses a varied time frame. There are also edits from filmed material like interviews to location footage. Some of this works well, as with the cut from the account of the suppression of Perdition to fog shrouded streets. However, some of it slightly puzzled me. Why do the team feature Ken’s early work as an theatre actor when we had reach the films of the late 1990s?

The film does address the controversial aspects of Ken’s films. There are extended discussions of a number of cause celebre’s. There is Cathy Come Home (1966) and, interestingly, there are excerpts from a television ‘balancing’ discussion chaired by Cliff Michelmore. There is discussion of Up the Junction and Nell Dunn is one of the interesting voices at this point. There are also features on the television films Rank and File and [particularly] The Big Flame (1969). One does get a sense of both the radicalism of these films and the controversy that they sparked. However, Days of Hope [equally important] is only treated briefly. There is also time spent on Ken’s early film work, especially Kes and Poor Cow. The problems in the early 1980s with television censorship over Questions of Leadership and Which Side are you On? get proper space. And it was refreshing to hear Melvyn Bragg owning up to the actual factors in the suppression of the latter, rather than the euphemisms that were trotted out at the time. There is a particular focus on the suppression of the stage production Perdition (1987) at the Royal Court. The abuse of the term anti-semitic at the time shows that not everything has changed over the intervening years. There is a well judged set of comments on this by Gabriel Byrne. Also welcome at this point in the film are several short clips of Jim Allen, such an important collaborator with Loach and a major writing voice for film and television of the period.

There are quite a lot of other voices in the film. There are only brief comments included from Rebecca O’Brien and Paul Laverty, without whom Ken’s recent output would not have appeared. At times some of these voices felt rather like the ‘talking heads’ found on television. There are some interviews with Loach’s family members, but they are cut with film extracts and do not get the attention they deserve. I felt that the television style was apparent in other ways, so that there is a tendency to have voices overlapping film extracts, but not always with any clear connection. And when we come to the chain of films, starting with Hidden Agenda in 1991, there is not the same depth of discussion. Some of the films sequences felt more like trailers than studies: this is true of the really important Land and Freedom (1995).

Land and Freedom

The latter relates to an omission in the film. Derek Malcolm appears briefly at one point and comments how Ken Loach enjoys a greater appreciation in continental Europe than in the UK. But this is not explored. There are several passages where the film includes footage of political events, such as the accession of Maggie Thatcher as Prime Minister. But there is not really an equivalent treatment of the European dimension, with the exception of the events in Paris in May 1968. Whilst Ken’s films are distinctly British there is also an important European dimension, witness that his major Cannes Awards have been for films with that focus.

We do see/hear a mention of the Czech ‘new wave’, when Chris Menges is interviewed. There are also clips from A Blonde in Love / Lásky jedné plavovlásky (1965). The distinctive style of this film is well versed as is the influence on Loach. He selected a clip from the above film as his contribution to the BBC’s celebration of the centenary year of 1995. However, there are other influences which are overlooked. Notable would be the influence of a long tradition for social realism and actuality filming in the British Film Industry. Apart from the documentary influence there are filmmaker like the Boulting Brothers or Alberto Cavalcanti in the 1940s and 1950s. These had an influence on British television. Garnett and Loach do comment on the ‘new wave’ in television in the 1960s, but there was much and varied experimentation at the BBC and at ITV in that decade. There is an interesting contrast to be drawn between Loach and  another filmmakers at the BBC [for a very short time]  Peter Watkins.

Equally this film is low on the form and style of Loach’s work. There is the reference to his working chronologically, and a number of actors/performers comment on his approach to their work. The film is scripted by Paul Laverty, though it is not clear how much his work has been changed. Certainly his screenplays allow for lengthy and often discursive sequences, where as this film is long on editing, montages and cross-cutting. And there is no mention of the emphasis that Loach places on the script, a point he has made in several earlier interviews. Then there are the cinematic techniques, the tendency to the long shot and the long take: the tendency to linger on a character or setting after the overt plot significance has passed.

In fact one oddity is that this film is shot in 2.39:1 [some screens will show 2.35:1]. No Loach film has used this ratio. His early films were in television’s 4:3, i.e. 1.37:1. Some of are in 1.66:1 and more recently in 1.85:1. A friend thought that the production picked 2.35:1 because it seemed more cinematic. This however, does not apply to the sequences from Loach ‘s own films. They are uniformly cropped. Sometimes this is more noticeable than others: heads only half seen and similar problems. There is one ironic moment when Garnett comments about some television footage and a grandiose ministerial room, which cannot be seen because the top of the frame is gone. Apart from the mistreatment of film footage this is a grave disservice to the many talented cinematographer who have worked with Ken Loach: Tony Imi, Chris Menges, Barry Ackroyd, to name only those who worked with him a on number of films. Roger Chapman’s cinematography for Versus:… is very good, with some striking shots at times, but the widescreen frame seems anomalous.

This documentary is actually weak on the whole collaborative form of Loach’s filmmaking. The approach is to treat Ken as an ‘auteur’. I feel this is a misnomer. He is really a metteur en scène, though unfortunately that word has acquired a value judgement since its use by Cahier du cinéma. But it applies in the sense that whilst there are recognisable themes and a familiar style in his films, this develops out of the collaboration. Jim Allen and Paul Laverty in particular have an immense input through their writing. Tony Garnett was mentor, both in terms of drama and in terms of politics. And cinematographers, in particular Chris Menges, contributed to the style that has become a hall mark. There is little from Rebecca O’Brien, his long-time producer. We only see her in the footage of the production of I, Daniel Blake: and most of this looks more like a ‘making of…’ than contributing to a profile.

The BBFC have given the film a 12A with a note regarding ‘infrequent strong language’. My sensitivities may be weakened but all I noted was a final ‘bastards’ from Ken. Given the illegitimacy of the whole political class this seems to me an apt comment. Another slight oddity is a short interview with Alan Parker in which he seems to confuse The Wild One (1953) with Rebel Without a Cause (1955). You would have expected the filmmakers to give him a repeat take. And one publicity listing gave Robert Carlyle as ‘himself’ when he only appears in a clips from Riff Raff (19921) and Carla’s Song (1996).