Shakespeare Service

Shakespeare in and on Love

Introit: excerpt from Shakespeare In Love theme by Stephen Warbeck (under fair/religious use)

https://shows.acast.com/between-the-stools/episodes/shakespeare-in-and-on-love

Welcome to Between The Stools on 28^th April 2024. This week is the 460^th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth, and the 408^th of his death. He may have been born and died on the same day – 23^rd April, which is the festival of England’s patron saint. Although George was Persian and didn’t visit this country, Shakespeare’s being connected to the dragonslayer’s day is significant because Will has become a national secular saint and our key cultural export, wound into patriotism. But we don’t know Shakespeare’s birthday for certain: one of the few facts that is established is his christening on 26^th April, from whence his birth is deduced.

Last autumn was the 400^th anniversary of his first portfolio’s publication (after his death).

This year is the 25^th anniversary of the film Shakespeare In Love being released in Britain.

And it’ll be Queen Dench’s 90^th, who starred in the film (and many Shakespeare productions).

Shakespeare in Love is a fictional fun romp through late Elizabethan London. Broodingly handsome Shakespeare is established as a writer, but he’s lost his mojo. His employer badly needs a good finished play to placate his money lenders. Will finds a muse in a disguised thespian who is betrothed to a rich, unpleasant stranger. The film is the writing and performing of Romeo and Juliet, where life and art converge in the manner of another play – Twelfth Night.

I clearly recall seeing it – and my reaction. It may surprise you – or not. This will be a no holds Bard look at the esteemed poet through the lens of film, our focus for this Year of Wonders.

Prayer

I’ve not chosen Shakespeare today because I think that we cannot look at story without him. (Shakespeare was a poet and playwright, and this is a year for screen). I’m not choosing him because he is my favourite, or that the movie Shakespeare In Love is a favourite. I’ve felt guided towards some films and television for this year that I don’t like, and I have always struggled with Shakespeare. I even wrote a provocative blog post some years ago, decrying him. I entitled it “Shakespeare Is Stupid”. And my reaction to a friend, wallowing in the sad end of Shakespeare In Love, was my first use of the f word: “He shouldn’t have fucked her in the first place!” I snapped impatiently, causing her to step in a puddle in shock at my language.

Some might already be shocked and ill-inclined to continue listening, or toward me. The first thing I would like us to consider is why we feel that there is only one opinion allowed on Shakespeare – at least to be aired publicly, if you want to be considered intelligent or cultural or taken seriously. (I am an author with 3 literary degrees). Why has this one man who died over four centuries ago become a god, the god, of literature, and put on such a pedestal? His writing spanned only about 20 years – are we to say that English writing reached its zenith in a score?

When people – usually actors and academics – say that Shakespeare is the greatest writer ever, at least in English, can they really claim to know all the writers that have been, before or since?

I’d like us to consider that. If any listeners are from another culture, and you have a Shakespeare equivalent (or one you consider greater), I would love to hear about him or her.

Not all writers are given equal airing for us to be able to discover and compare, and few come with such a train of gravitas and glory as this one.

Shakespeare is hard not to know about. I’m wondering how his rise came about. (Some of it does seem connected to empire and export, and Victorian poets). Why is he better known than contemporaries Christopher Marlowe or Ben Johnson? Why is he better known to the general public than the classical authors, or sometimes even the biblical ones?

We’ll pause to note that the best known English language Bible was issued during his lifetime, in 1611. Both are called wonderful literature which has influenced our language. I am not a proponent of the King James Bible, which wasn’t ‘authorised’, especially by God. I wonder about the extent of royal support and sense of ‘authorisation’ of Shakespeare’s work and status.

Considering there are few established facts on William Shakespeare, like many we considered in our History Year, quite a tourist industry has been created about him on pseudo truths.

Stratford Upon Avon in the west midlands is a town given to Shakespeare. I wonder what it’s like to live there? I read my guidebook thoughtfully, noting that the town’s many fine buildings are all spoken of in regard to the Bard. It’s called essential England, but I can think of many Tudor or older towns here (to be essential something, it cannot be unique). There are five 16^th C houses to visit, all with Shakespearean connections – I still have my ticket. But the associations are not certain. Is his birthplace really such? They claim the guildhall as his grammar school, although we’ve no record of Shakespeare’s education, which has given rise to some theories I’ll come to. Stratford has a particularly fine late mediaeval parish church, but I had only seen his monument in it; I was shocked that its West country style roof and unusual carved stone arcades are left out of guides, yes even church books. It has become a mausoleum to him and stop on a secular ‘pilgrimage’. The town is dominated by the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, and its live arts seem to be predominantly if not exclusively the 38* plays of He Who Died in 1616. [*There seems to be argument over authorship and thus number]

It is convenient that this pretty town has nothing and no-one else to vie with the Bard – not like nearby Warwick and Kenilworth who have significant castles and tales of long established throne-steering families; it isn’t the administrative or industrial centre like cathedral city Coventry (with the earlier Godiva legend); at around 30,000 inhabitants, Stratford is controllable, and thus ensurable that this market and river town remains an example of what we like to export as Middle England. Its chief product: William.

A place for Shakespeare has been carved out in central London, a huge old city with many alumni jostling for public attention. Shakespeare has regained a waterside and thus ringside seat in the area known for its world class-reaching arts institutions. Since 1997, the rebuilt Globe Theatre has joined the dozens of London’s theatreland, along the well-walked walkway that tourists and locals alike promenade. A second, year round, venue in late 17^th century style complements the Globe and its exhibition. The timber and thatch almost circle is easily the most recognisable and appealing building on South Bank. If it was for anyone else, would our safety conscious fire service and council allow such a structure again, when they were banned after the Fire of [do note the number] 1666?

Shakespeare benefits from constant repetition, a further ploy of his marketing campaign. I think I can assert that he’s an annual fixture for most theatres, not only in Britain but on other English speaking stages. He has long been compulsory on school curricula, from GCSE/O level (England’s 16 year old exams) for all students, and on A level (18 year old) and first degree English Literature courses. Thus one has to wait until masters or more to study literature without him.

Shakespeare in Love made a 40 minute featurette for schools. The key cast read their pre-set lines about how important Shakespeare is and how he is manageable to read. The film had twenty-odd year old leads – generally considered attractive; some characters were middle aged, yet there’s attempt to involve teens in a story that over here got a 15 rating for the sex and language. In short, it wasn’t school material but they tried to bring in school pupils anyway, and made the broad headed 50 year into a doe-eyed sensitive hunk of not yet 30. Think of how making it available to schools would enhance sales and lend to further marketing materials.

If you make a Shakespeare movie, you have definite possibilities.

—-Music from Stephen Warbeck’s original score – you may wish to ponder the below —-

I want us to pause and think about how we met Shakespeare – assuming we do have some kind of acquaintance. Were you, like me, made to study him in your teens? I wonder about our lessons, and wish we’d seen a performance before struggling to read him aloud to our bashful nascent peers. I was traumatised – as was family, we still recall it – by Roman Polanski’s 1971 Macbeth. Speaking of films unsuitable for young people and class viewing, this was too gory and upsetting to show us, and I dislike this notion that such content is cool and appealing. I note too that Roman has been the subject of abuse charges, and wonder if wonder if he’d still be shown in today’s Me Too cancel climate. Abuse comes up again in our considering Shakespeare in Love.

The first performance I saw of Shakespeare was Ray Fearon and Juliet Aubrey in The Tempest; this was the third Shakespeare play I studied but the first that I saw on stage. What I recall from night that is not something to put in an essay (I’m not sure it’s right here – I tell you in the audio).

Let me know your first Shakespeare encounter.

I tried to understand how other people like Shakespeare, if they genuinely do, and looked up stories of early and seminal encounter. I noted that noted Shakespeare actors Kenneth Branagh and Juliet Stevenson both had early powerful teen theatre experiences. In 2022, Juliet wrote for The Sunday Times that we should cancel two of his plays and update others. Her reasoning for the first was misogyny and anti-Semitism. I wasn’t able to read the whole article since the Times website makes you sign up and pay to read, which is their loss. But the next year, she was narrating a BBC mini series extolling Shakespeare!

Let’s think for a moment on that: that the British cultural export (other than the Royals) would be propounded by the official and original British Broadcasting Corporation.

Before considering this film and briefly some others, I want to consider how intimidating Shakespeare is: in dense verse, he is from another time that we (most of us) are not used to. There is a promise of greatness for you if you obtain this part (or the right to perform it), but you join the ghostly voices, like Hamlet’s father, of all those esteemed actors and directors whose very greatness is predicated on their superlative interpretations. Like quantum physics, there’s a sense that if you think it’s easy, you’re not understanding it. Like enlightenment, only a few attain mastery in this world. [Hear my snort]

–Excerpt from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet: Introduction to Romeo by Craig Armstrong–

Researching this, I sampled as many Shakespeare adaptations as I could: Prospero’s Books by Peter Greenaway, the naked experimental meditation; Julie Tamar’s 2010 female Prospero (Helen Mirren); Toyah in punky arty Derek Jarman’s take on The Tempest. I’ve seen the 90s Branagh canon and those American high school updates as well as the animated Lion King. Shakespeare has been converted to an alternative Third Reich Britain, a modern police station, the 1960s jazz scene, outer space, and homoerotic road trip. Several of these I had seen already; some I knew quite well. I enjoyed best those versions that did something innovative; perhaps Looking For Richard stands out (which I described last year) as a three in one commentary, making of documentary, and the abridged actual play (Richard III).

What interested me most was the line used by Derek Jarman to bring Toyah Willcox into his very unusual 1979 Tempest. He said that he saw this late Shakespearean work as having secret knowledge which the masses weren’t meant to know. I have been trying to find out what! If you know, please tell me as the BFI (Globe neighbour and keeper of the film) isn’t revealing it. Jarman was interested in John Dee, the Elizabethan astrologer and alchemist and (like others) believed that the character of Prospero related to him.

I also asked for the opinion of those I spoke to during this period. A published writer and lover of classics openly stated she dislikes Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet especially. I liked one friend’s take: Romeo and Juliet is not a love story, but shows how feuds can kill what you love. These typically passionate young teens may have soon moved on with their love if is controversy hadn’t egged them into tragedy. Yet I repeatedly hear Romeo and Juliet called our greatest love story by He Who Understood Humans Best.

For me, the greatest love story involves a man 2000 years ago – we thought about him last time. (How inappropriate that this service has ended up being almost twice the length!)

Like The Tempest and other plays, the love in Romeo and Juliet is rather daft. You see someone you are drawn to, you spout sonnets at or about them, you lose some sleep…and perhaps you dance or the other kind of tango. And then, they are somehow unobtainable. You mop brows, whine and opine, and depending what sort of play it is, you either get back together or you die/part. The latter is seen as deliciously, movingly tragic and thus more romantic and worthy.

I think that whether or not Shakespeare himself believed in such love, his work has been used to perpetuate what I see as a travesty and fallacy of it. It was what I was warned against as a young teen: this heady stuff isn’t what lasting relationships are based on. David Hawkins wrote of the energetic frequencies of our emotions in his Map of Consciousness; the kind of romantic love that Shakespeare depicts is extremely low… [more in audio] It is aiming for higher states and ways of communicating that has made me especially critical of Shakespeare.

He also delineates our darkest emotions, such as hate, rage and the desire for revenge; you might argue that these are deliberately exaggerated for the stage, but statements about Shakespeare’s superlative understanding of the human condition suggest that consuming jealousy and plots to avenge are normative, even if more suppressed in real life. I see the work of Shakespeare that I know as demonstrating base and coarse human feeling and behaviour. Much of his work contains horror and violence – Macbeth and Titus Andronicus especially – which has been freely shown in film adaptations; he may be supposedly universal but is not a universal rating.

There is also abuse in his work: Prospero is controlling of his spirit-slave, his ‘monster’ slave, his daughter and her suitor; and in Branagh’s Hamlet, he grabs Kate Winslet’s face and slams her against mirrors. Their friendship has lasted thirty years, but I wonder why such misogynistic violence is seen as part of a great performance and why it is considered part of love or even a tolerable facet of melt down. (Was this added by Branagh to his adaptation?…)

Then there’s the whole concept of The Taming of The Shrew, which Juliet Stevenson objected to, the ‘shrew’ being a certain kind of woman, subjugated and manipulated for entertainment.

The stories present as normative unpleasant and negligent activities. The priest in Romeo and Juliet is incredibly irresponsible with his sleeping draft plan; the apothecary is immoral because his wish for a fuller purse allows him to be the instrument of the death of two young people. In Shakespeare in Love, the person playing the apothecary (how hilarious, he can’t say it when drunk, not) is the torturing money lender, Mr Fennyman. This act opens the film; torturing for debts is held up to be funny and by implication, acceptable. This same character is seemingly moved, and thus redeemed, by theatre. It also presents as amusing that a person is publicly physically exposed by the Master of the Revels to humiliate and inculpate him/her. Again, there is no critique or punishment in the film for a major offence and trauma… [More in audio]

Then there is the offence and trauma in the making of this film, regarding Gwyneth Paltrow and the Oscars (not for the several famous male actors; not Mr-Triple-Surname titular lead).

A YouTube video by Cody of “Be Kind Rewind” (and a 2017 Vanity Fair article) shows how the now disgraced Weinsteins marketed heavily to ensure awards for their film company Miramax; how the voters (members of academy) were flooded and feted to ensure nominations (invited to parties, sent lots of mailshots and films clips). Note how these brothers were always thanked in speeches. Then Harvey’s abuse was made public. I look at Gwyneth’s emotional Oscar speech differently now we know what she endured to get it; it is known that she was one of his many victims. Weinstein made her a swift to rise poster girl in the latter 90s. Shakespeare in Love was set against Elizabeth (and created a 2 horse race for best actress) and the gory war film (focussed on US troops) Saving Private Ryan. Now why would that be an Oscar favourite, and seen by some as more worthy? I’ve commented before on there being themes and ideas to promote via the glory of receiving a little statuette. It creates a tier of extra worthy films and film makers.

I wonder if Shakespeare’s legacy began in a similar way?

00 (Another snatch of Craig Armstrong, also under fair use) 00

Shakespeare has been the means of obscuring our history. It isn’t just Ricardians who are upset with his influential depiction. I also see Richard III as being very negative about ‘deformity’. Shakespeare really has not only demonised this king, but put into our heads that physical disfigurement is an outer sign of moral depravity and an evil heart; and early on, Richard says that he doesn’t expect romantic love due to his ailments. It’s implied that he’s ugly to behold (‘not courting an amorous looking glass’) and thus gives the idea that ‘hunchbacks’ and people with cricked spines don’t get or can’t expect passion – only arranged political marriages. [No!!]

—-0000—-

I really resented Shakespeare In Love because I was told it was full of clever in-jokes that most of us won’t get. Listening to the DVD extras, I actually think that the filmmakers wished to make an inclusive and accessible Shakespearean story.

One aspect of Shakespeare’s myth that I do approve of is that he seemingly didn’t go to university and perhaps even not grammar school. He was not from a titled family. Good. But this has led to speculation that the person we esteem as genius cannot be William of Stratford; some blue blooded suitably educated person must be the real author, and there was a cover or mix up. I hate the snobbery and prejudice behind that supposition…[More in audio]. If we know few facts about Shakespeare, and there are 7 mystery years of his life, doesn’t this weaken the argument that he cannot have known things or been places?

One critic, with blue blood, sees Shakespeare as secretly against the establishment. I had read him as being part of it, which is another reason to dislike and reject him, but the notion that his works are subversive is far more interesting, and are perhaps actually against the very monarch commissioning his plays. One sees Queen Dench in Shakespeare In Love quite differently if Claire Asquith’s work is right. She is not alone in positing such a theory.

(After I recorded this, I watched more about that queen and what her, and certain earls, role might have been in using the stage for propaganda. I’m still not convinced by the 17^th Earl of Oxford theory but something rings true about ‘Shakespeare’ being a secretive steering device).

Kenneth Branagh

Gwneth Spinneth

Queen Dench and cast

If you’re wondering why I say Queen Dench, it is because of Adam and Joe’s brilliant toy take off. At the turn of the millennium in their Channel 4 comedy series, Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish used cuddly toys to recreate mini versions of current films – their Toytanic is another favourite. Shakesbeare in Love casts a duck in Gwyneth’s role – “Gwyneth Spinneth” as she removes the bandages to hide her bosoms – and she stars in Romeo and Juliet Bravo. This 1980s police drama about women in the force brilliantly captures the women in a man’s world theme of the film. Adam and Joe laugh at the poetry and sex – basically, writing and the other verb are one and the same. They write lines about thy walkie talkie and ungloved hands, and leave Gwyneth getting her beak stuck in the Sliding Doors of a London tube train – another recent role. Queen Dench is what they call Dame Judi’s Elizabeth I. I’ve referred to her as such since, affectionately. I consider Judi a national treasure. (I intend to honour her on December 9^th).

https://www.youtube.com › watch?v=3lkvX7Um7ww

—-More music from Warbeck’s score—-

Concluding thoughts on Shakespeare in and on Love (read, fornication)

At the heart of this film, which some feel is of its time, is a wager: could a play show real love? Despite Queen Dench’s verdict, the answer resoundingly for me regarding this one is NO.

Gwyneth’s Viola is in love with poetry; she’s fetishizing it. The poetry she quotes is moon verse (ie, mooning) – not especially deep or romantic. She spouts about 4 lines before Shakespeare chases her as a boy all the way home. They have 3 weeks shagging time before mum and dad get back and the arranged Wessex wedding takes place. It’s a quite immature love, more suitable for teens…just what I was warned against as a pubescent. Shakespeare’s love (like in The Tempest) has a test, but there’s no real communication or living together. Unlike others, I do not see Romeo and Juliet as twin flames (although their death did stop a family feud) – there’s just not the spiritual calling and inner work or mission – not that all love has to be compared to this notion…which I am also wary of. Romeo and Juliet die after days: for me, love endures over time and possibly place, with many challenges, including forgiveness.

I think that Juliet’s nurse shows greater love than the star-crossed fornicators.

——0000——

I think that like the Beatles, a champion was raised early in the genre. Pop music really only began in the 1950s and 60s, and we’ve looked at Elvis and Lennon being chosen from those decades as already the best of all time. Although plays are centuries older than Shakespeare – the ancient Greeks wrote them and there were mediaeval mystery plays – professional play making and theatres were just being established in the late Elizabethan era. Again, an early champion was chosen from that first harvest.

Shakespeare is much like our popular movies and Shakespeare In Love is no exception. Cameron’s Titanic was pitched as ‘Romeo and Juliet on a boat’; and the sweeping attempt to include almost all emotions and facets of entertainment was very Shakespearean – just without the ponderous poetry. I was researching another sermon just before I switched gear for this one, and felt that teen spirit, rivalry, jealously, plotting and regular fights and jokes were present in a contemporary American story as much as the circa 1600 stage.

What is different about Shakespeare is that his language is opaque. There seems to be a line between the adepts who claim to understand him, and the plebs of the mosh pit who weren’t offered seats. This division also applies to those who read code into his pentameter.

Thinking about the Plague and its affect on theatre, having lived through the covid period [which I critique], I wonder about what the authorities really worried about regarding theatre, and why they wanted to close them down. We’re told that the puritans especially didn’t approve of these iniquitous places, but I wonder if that is spin. Theatre took workers from their stations; there was a reason for employers to want the theatres shut. Theatre allowed people to mingle and to hear new ideas, different from the pulpit.

I note how little God and Christian office(r)s are mentioned in Shakespeare. Was he in fact secular (All Is True depicts mature Shakespeare as being in danger of church non attendance fines) or trying to please the widening spiritual landscape of his audience? It’s assumed he, like the establishment, was Protestant, but I’ve also read that his work had code for Catholics. In his era, Nonconformists began rising – he mentions the followers of Robert Browne (rudely) but the first Baptists had met by the time he died. There were also some Arabs and Jews possibly.

Did Shakespeare feel it safer to largely keep religion out of his work?

Conclusion: Is Shakespeare still relevant to an ascending world?

I’m wondering if we will start to seek very different stories as we mature. Shakespeare’s tales seem to be so full of darker, lower emotions, but the language and honours given him presents them as higher. How often would we say that Shakespearean characters have congruent conversations, or achieve deep and profound personal growth? He has famously obsessive loves on world stages, in all senses – “the triple pillar transformed into a strumpet’s fool”, who ends with sword falling and his partner by my favourite stage direction: “Applies asp to bosom”. Antony and Cleopatra are another set of famous suicides.

I realise that many people do enjoy Shakespeare and tell me that playing him makes him enjoyable and fun. I realise that some people see great depth in his work – and I’ve not mentioned his sonnets – and have found engaging with him a transformative experience that deeply chimes with how they feel. But I’m aware that many of his plots are not original – he took from Plutarch, for example; that there is a story to his fame and that he is presented as unquestioningably a, the, genius. I think that playing him can be a vehicle for awards and acclaim and quite egotistical. I like the thought that he might be subversive. I realise that Shakespeare In Love is different to Shakespeare’s own works. But the exaggerated whispers and gestures rankle me; and I don’t see the human truths and understanding in the works that others so praise it for. (Do you think I’ve missed something?). As I’ll be saying throughout the year, I’m questioning the veracity and depth of high brow depictions of humanity, and see them as oft set against the quest for a spiritual journey.

Apart from Stephen Warbeck’s score, the aspect I do like of Shakespeare In Love is the ending.

It wasn’t the tragedy of their being parted, but that the parting brings newness and opportunity for both. I like best Viola’s walking at Holkham beach in Norfolk – near where I lived at the time – seeking a new life, informed by the brief affair she’d just experienced; how a disaster (how Titanic of the year before) saved her and gave her a fresh start. (In fact, Shakespeare In Love is Titanic in breeches). Here’s me impersonating Gwyneth, thinking on new starts, the wideness of an empty landscape, thrilling and daunting at once, finding liberation in writing and imagination. Maturity and true love comes from that beach and the unwritten next act…

Next month, we meet on Sunday 26^th May…and its theme is TBC…

There are two likely contenders at the moment (probably not the promised biblical epics)

and then it’s 23^rd June (see my last post above) for an anniversary

Thanks for joining me, blessings, and goodnight

Do reach out to me, Elspeth, on BetweenTheStools@hotmail.co.uk if you want to tell me who and how you are, and if you wish to share a different way to understand Shakespeare

Closing music: Stephen Warbeck’s “The End” from that scene of the film

(Yes, the swell makes it feel epic, romantic and worthy)

Sunday’s service on Shakespeare

This Sunday 28th April is our next Year of Wonders service, based on the screen

It’ll be at 8pm British Summer Time, but isn’t being offered live again for tech reasons

The main focus is Shakespeare In Love

I may make changes to upcoming services – can you bear with me?

Themes will be chosen from:

Good Omens/Place

Matilda

Karate Kid/Cobra Kai

The Truman Show

Good Witch Oct

Superman Dec

Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

and I’d like to do something biblical with you… but the advertised “Biblical Blockbusters” is unlikely to be next month, on the last Sunday of May

Juliet Binoche and Marys Magdalene are likely this July

June‘s service may be the 23rd to match an anniversary

The film and TV theme is likely to inform next Lent (2025)

Easter 2024: The Matrix Resurrection

The Joy of the Risen One be with you! Welcome to Easter at Between The Stools 2024 – a birthday, for us, and our topic today.

This day – 31^st March – marks the 25^th anniversary of the US release of cult sci-fi film, The Matrix. In 1999 it was also Easter, which seemed not to be an accident, for the film and its follow ups have many christological elements (and coded messages).

https://play.acast.com/s/between-the-stools/

Tthe recording transfer made it faster, so slowing is recommended

Our title comes from the 4th movie. Today we think of THE Resurrection through the lens of this universe.

Even if you’re not that into science fiction, or even movies, you’ll likely have heard of the Matrix films and also of the central challenge: whether to take the red or blue pill. The red pill will awaken you to a shocking reality, but you can begin to publicly uncover it and fight it; whereas swallowing the blue will keep you in unknowing servitude. As I watched the first film in a concrete Odeon in Norwich, a companion said, “Why didn’t he take the blue pill, then we could all have gone huum [home]”!!

Even with such un-engaged co-watchers, I sensed that The Matrix had something real to say.

The films were near the truth for many in the New Age, Ascensionist circles. There is a still active website of that ilk called “How To Exit The Matrix” listing most aspects of our world as ways The Unseen Powers manipulate us, from tax to institutions, and yes, movies. One 2018 article begins: “Among those who have already woken up, the movie The Matrix has become like an icon. As a movie it is a fictional story, but as a myth it shows exactly what is, and reflects the changes that are going on with humanity’s consciousness and its connection to the Earth energy grids.”

There’s more than one YouTube video called “The Matrix was a documentary” – misunderstanding docs once again, which is a filmmaking genre and style, not truth – but I take their intended point. I’ve heard from more than once source that The Matrix is oft discussed in churches; I’ve read online Christian forums on it – this isn’t the first sermon on it. That Theology Teacher has a video subtitled “How the Matrix is a modern retelling of the Gospel”, referencing the 2003 book The Gospel Reloaded by Chris Seay. It is not the only such tome. But one Christian videographer sees it as Satanic and Gnostic (the same in his eyes); other evangelicals are critical of the Eastern philosophy.

I am disappointed in that; I hope we’re a community that doesn’t sweepingly dismiss and see things that are strange or opposite as being evil, especially before we’ve taken time to understand them.

The Matrix is also understood in secular circles as referencing societal truth. Popular philosophy book series quickly chose the franchise for its own; one was entitled “Taking the Red Pill”. The Huffington Post had an article in 2016 about The Matrix and the capitalist work rat race. Reviewers said of the 2010 book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism that author Ha-Joon Chang “has likened free-market capitalism to that of the brainwashed characters in the film The Matrix, unwitting pawns in a fake reality.”

Comedian JP Sears made a sketch in 2020 about “Blue Pill People” regarding covid. In March that year, just as shops closed, I sought out these films as intuitively, as they felt apposite to whatever was really happening. Indeed, with rise of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and talk of transhumanism (being part machine, and remotely controllable), The Matrix felt as apt to me as the Wachowskis’ later work V For Vendetta did (hence I preached on it).

There is huge analysis of the canon which includes a computer game and Animatrix prequel series; clearly it is a rich topic, and one I hope we can enjoy exploring together and feel is relevant to now.

SPOILER ALERT

PRAYER AND MUSIC: opening theme of The Matrix by Don Davis (as is all music today)

Some of you might feel a leap of heart at those now iconic brass dissonant chords; I’ve even heard them analysed musically (although I think wrongly) but it’s interesting that some claim that message and symbolism begins whilst still on the film studio’s emblem. I hear those horns like storm warnings: two realities signified in the pairs of chords. The ensuing rush of strings sounds like resurrection; the lines of code show it visually.

It repays close (re)watching, with colours of rooms and clothing reflecting the two famous pills, the green of the Matrix and its code (also referenced in rain) and the as yet uninitiated ‘copper tops’; the names of people, places and space ships infer underlying motifs and philosophies, as do numbers.

I’m noting the numerology in the dates of the release of the 1st film, 31.3.1999 (reduces to 8), the 4^th film (22.12.2021 reduces to 3) and when I saw it (6/6/2022 = 666, reduces to 9).

The screenplays have some beautiful ‘black stuff’ – the industry word for the descriptions between dialogue. The Wachowskis find ways to make even a screen of computer code come to life:

“A blinding cursor pulses in the electric darkness like a heart coursing with phosphorous light, burning beneath the derma of black-neon glass”. Later, they describe black clouds as “obsidian” and speak of Neo’s victory as “a brilliant cacophony of light” using one sense to explain another.

I recognise the love and respect for these films and that some listeners may know them far better than I. I hope I won’t alienate and disappoint when I admit that I struggled whilst preparing this, and I don’t mean intellectually.

What had appealed to me when I made not just Easter but the whole of this year based on a theme set by this quarter century anniversary?

I did so on intuition two years ago, but (like in the 2^nd film), it was a choice that I didn’t yet understand but felt that I should stay committed to. Some of that choice and draw, connected to the date of the anniversary, is a personal matter, and not all of that will be revealed here; but I’m trusting that my guidance to The Matrix at this time will be.

I’ll be honest that this isn’t often the kind of film I see: I’m not wowed by action or effects, don’t find sunglasses and flying fights cool, but do find the high octane antics and horror hard to watch. (Recall what I said in Lent about how movies make us feel). I realised too that the Matrix world view didn’t really fit with mine, and that I feel more limited preaching on it on Easter Sunday.

I found myself asking: what truly is Easter about? What should be its message? What is appropriate for this high holy day? I even found myself asking why I defended the notion of the One Saviour, against the prevalent tide that we are our own and should not give our power away to external Others. Why is death and sacrifice so important to any story, but especially to the Christian one?

Will you take a deep dive to uncode these with me?

——

There are many philosophies in The Matrix, but there is a 1981 book which is explicitly referenced twice [in scenes 12 and 39], and is rumoured to have been required reading for those on set. Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Paul Baudrillard – which I read – is based on nihilism, and felt convoluted assertions that conveyed little meaning for me, in either sense. I wonder if The Matrix is trying to be the new kind of science fiction of pages p119-24? Hence I soon realised that if this book was so integral to the Matrix films, that I was going to not acquiesce.

——-

What is the human condition?

Do the Matrix films literally try to tell us we’re enslaved by machines – or could be? Or is it the ‘programming’ and being unaware and the invisible slavery and manipulation by others?

The Matrix for the New Age is about conscience, not computers, but eons old clandestine control. Their tenets clash with Christian teaching and scripture: that we’ve been taken over by alien entities, seemingly leaving any God and angels helpless. I don’t like where this idea of aliens leaves God as Creator, for that’s a huge part of my theology and understanding of my self: that I was deliberately and lovingly created by a loving and powerful and good God.

I soon saw that there are difficulties in paralleling this film with the life and work of Jesus:

-No fall of humanity; rather, the rise of the machines; the human-built entities rebel against us

I don’t think The Matrix series explains where life on Earth came from: that Creator is missing

-Neo, the hero of The Matrix is grown by machines, whilst Jesus was born of God and a woman

-Neo is told and needs persuading that he’s the One; whilst Jesus knew…possibly even as a boy

-Jesus, unlike Neo, is never ‘asleep’. He doesn’t need a mentor to find, rescue and train him

-Jesus calls disciples to him; but Neo is called to an existing group headed by another

-Christ rescues and awakens Mary Magdalene, but in The Matrix, she (as Trinity) finds and awakens him, removing the ‘demon’ of the embedded tracer [a horrific couple of scenes]

-The Prophesied One in The Matrix was a foretold reincarnation of a human born inside the Matrix; he is in fact the 6^th ‘One’. Some posit Jesus in a line of the dying and rising saviour trope, but traditional Christian theology is that Jesus is unique. There is a Christian exploration of the pre-existence of Christ; this can simply mean that his spirit had already come into being, but some say he was in Melchizedek, Enoch and Elijah of the Old Testament, while he is more conventionally seen as being foreshadowed by Moses, Boaz, perhaps David, and even in Job.

-Much of what Neo does is inside a computer simulation, swinging unconscious in a hammock!

-Neo doesn’t do miracles which benefit the public, as Jesus did

-Neo fights physically, although Jesus is not recorded to have done a single kung fu move

-Jesus overcomes the world is through seeming submission to violence; Neo battles literally

However, I did wonder if the philosophy behind The Matrix’s signature “Bullet Time” – bending away from attack rather than returning it – was closer to the way in which Jesus overcame

-Neo has a mission to awaken the world after he’s resurrected (the first time) – Jesus teaches before

-There is a betrayer in The Matrix – Cypher; in the 4^th instalment, there’s a Jude. But Cypher betrays Morpheus, the awakener, anointer, father-ish figure, not Neo the Christed one.

-Judas betrays the One with a kiss; Trinity resurrects him (but see my Judas piece of 3 years ago)

-Can The Matrix main 3 characters be a trinity: Morpheus, Neo and Trinity, rather than just the last?

That Theology Teacher video I mentioned calls her the Holy Spirit, which is feminine in Greek; she does enter Neo as the Spirit enters Jesus and us, but I see Carrie-Anne Moss’s character as more Mary Magdalene, but not the Church’s view! I have more to say on Carrie-Anne’s character.

-No-one in The Matrix fits the Christian God: Morpheus, who is clearly mortal, is mistaken (regarding his power to create ones by anointing them); the ‘mother’ Oracle is a program who is swallowed by an evil character; and the Analyst and Architect are cold, egotistical, and ultimately malevolent: the first is proudly ‘efficient’ at destroying his creation, and the second manipulates humans for misery and energy. The Deus Ex Machina is huge, trying to overwhelm with its presence, speaking in capitals, spewing rage, and telling Neo “WE DON’T NEED YOU!”, recalling traditional Christian theology teaching that God is not contingent on humans for anything. These are the typically bad gods of prevalent understanding, which also appear in The Brand New Testament and Good Omens

-Neo’s work isn’t about bringing the world back to God, or out of sin, overcoming death and the devil. There is no fear of eternal punishment for not believing in the Matrix and following Neo; only a human life cycle in a pod, followed by recycling your remains.

One may point out that the Gospels don’t spell this out of Jesus: this is how he’s understood later.

I want us to pause here: Both narratives involve horror, but only in traditional Christianity does the Creator God inflict it on humanity as punishment. I’d like you to think on how strange that teaching is: that Jesus isn’t saving us from malevolent machinations, but his own Father, our father…doesn’t that sound like a trick of an Agent in Machine City?

-Could forgiveness – so central to Christianity – even be said to feature in The Matrix?

-Neo isn’t publicly executed on false charges

He’s only dead for moments (the first time) and then preserved comatose for over 60 years at the behest of a malevolent character in IV, via machines; Jesus was raised on the 3^rd day by God’s power

-Neo doesn’t die fully in the first film; I have rejected that about Jesus (see a post on Sylvia Browne)

-Neo becomes the One when he is rebooted. Jesus’ teaching and miracles indicate he was Christed before crucifixion….but might there be something to consider about the New, pre-ascension Jesus?

-I did see a parallel between the final city in Matrix Revolution and that of Revelation 22; but all futuristic cities I’ve seen are ugly and high rise (cf my Pom Poko post) and lacking in nature. I’d like to think the New Jerusalem has more in common with old cities.

I decided that it was more comfortable to see the Matrix as a superhero myth, informed by various philosophies (in names alone, there’s Hindu, ancient Greek, Egypt as well as the Bible and early European kings). The makers are purposefully silent on their work and wish to allow discussion without imposition.

I note that Matrix green is close to the colour of grass. Here, in spring, it’s lush and verdant, embodying the new life of Easter. And green is for growth; and the Matrix is about personal growth.

It’s also like the green screen technology that the cast will have spent a long time in front of. They have to hold in their heads a vision of something as yet unseen, or perhaps to act without full understanding, in trust. Is there any lesson there?

That green is The Green Lantern’s titular lamp and Superman’s kryptonite. The Green Lantern is told by other guardians that it’s the colour of will, which is key to his story. Isn’t The Matrix also about will?…will and the mind. We hear little about will in Christianity except God’s, and subduing ours. Can we seek God’s will and strengthen our own?

—-

When I looked at the first film as a myth, it felt classical more than original.

I noted the use of horror shock to awaken Neo in real world – is that fair or necessary in ours?

I was shocked to take in that the much lauded red pill is merely “a tracing program”. That hardly felt like what SARK might call an ‘alive choice’, or a call to adventure or taking up the gauntlet.

I am alarmed by the amount of tracing being done in our world!

Note that the manumission involves making the machines work against themselves (is that like The Art of War?)

Central to all the film is discerning who is true and truth telling.

Neo is told – especially regarding the Oracle – that’s he’s told what he needs to hear. That phrase is usually regarding tough love (which I’ve critiqued), but in The Matrix, it is the information that drives you to the next post and to fulfil your mission…which ultimately Neo and Trinity do.

In the fourth instalment, they meet old friends and foes in different formats, as if their soul’s development needs to encounter them again. The yin to his mission is separated and obfuscated, yet there was a draw to each other that went beyond ordinary sense.

It was that point which most interested me

I have spoken before of Twin Flames. I see Trinity and Neo as fitting this concept. Jesus and Mary can be viewed thus, although I have issues with Jesus being part of a couple. My understanding is that twin relationships don’t have to be conventionally romantic.

I have heard the male-energy unawakened twin called the “matrix twin”. Neo, the biological male, is literally asleep at the beginning of the first film, and the female (with much male energy) is integral to his awakening: she writes the message on his computer and talks to him at the party she persuades him to; she is also the enabler of his fulfilment.

I believe that like the parts actors play, we’re drawn to stories at particular times to help us heal things and learn things. Carrie-Anne Moss, who plays Trinity, said this in an interview (with Lewis Hows, posted Jan 2022). She said she looks at life ‘as an ongoing exploration of my soul’…and the things which get in the way. She accepted that The Matrix role would be hers if it was her destiny, and not if it was someone else’s. Carrie-Anne is clearly a spiritual, grounded person, and who facilitates others on their spiritual journey.

I noted how much her all black leather costumes recall that of Sarah Douglas as Ursa in the 70s/80s Superman movies (we’ll be with those in December). Ursa (who is part of a triad) and Trinity both have the same powers as the hero. Ursa is pure villain. Yet, twenty years on, the same outfit is that of a heroine.

I note how much Neo’s outfit looks like a priest’s cassock. Doesn’t this picture recall a priest, doing the ‘magic’ over mass? And yet many would suggest that organised religion, especially big chain churches, are all about keeping masses in the Matrix…in fact, the capital C churches probably designed it!

In the Matrix, characters emerge as grey from the second movie; unlike code, they are not binary. But there are still those who are evil, posing as helpers and confidantes. They appear when Trinity and Neo get near the truth or each other, pretending to rescue when it actually sabotages. Neo is fed blue pills and told he is mentally ill whilst Trinity is wrapped in a family life too busy for her to ask many questions. (I think the analyst is the husband). It’s revealed that Trinity and Neo have been kept alive to balance and power a new Matrix, and that their suffering and yearning but not sating is useful energy. Hence they may meet, even recognise each other – although both are given different faces – but not able to connect. The powers that be are frightened of what will happen if they do.

I wondered about this translating to our world. It’s not that I think we’re often steered with malicious intent. I believe that we have multiple important people in our lives, and not just one supreme beloved. But I have sat with the possible implications of the above.

I’d foreseen that Trinity is an ‘anomaly’ and thus jointly The One; at the very start, she can use a kind of bullet time in fighting that Neo learns to attain. She fuses with Neo by the end of the franchise, and breaks out of the controlling illusion put upon her via flying. The threat (of a helicopter trying to kill them on the roof of a tall building) actually facilitates Trinity and Neo learning to fly in the Real World, ascending as Jesus did, building a new Heaven and Earth.

I want us to spend some moments with that scene in Resurrections: in a world where the sun has been scorched into permanent darkness, Trinity witnesses a sun rise. It’s that sun rise that helps them have power; the power to turn the helicopter’s attack back on itself – is that what Easter victory is?

MUSIC from that scene

Play from 2.22m – no horror        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H4tIwIo1uU

(I don’t like signposting to YouTube)

from 56 sec

——-

The Easter Eggs of the Matrix

The first gift of The Matrix was making me reconsider what I actually believe and what its basis is, and whether the traditional teaching of the Gospel is good news. This is valuable and ongoing: I would love to be about to discuss this over a meal with you. (Write and tell me, until we meet).

My usual idea of an Easter message is one of hope and victory that we can relate to our world. It is about a unique, superlative long-expected saviour overcoming an evil enemy; a singular event and life that affects all life, including ours now. It is a story about freedom. It is about awakening, being called, living apart, spreading a message – although that all fits both The Matrix and Christianity, can The Matrix fit with Christianity?

I’m left with the question regarding the clash of the traditional Easter message, and the very different terminology and focus of other circles that I at least partly move in. I literally find myself between the stools.

What are we being saved from and awakened to?

Is salvation about personal growth and freedom?

I love that love is so central to fulfilment and salvation in the Matrix

and that in order to conquer, you have to break the rules; rules hamper

The popularity of the Matrix series means that people are thinking about deeper issues, and even if Neo isn’t exactly Christlike, it can point to the One who Is.

I’m intrigued by those of varying beliefs who see the film series as messages from the divine to us. Movies can be like mirrors in the film, a way to see and break out. I think that God has been sending us several quite similar mirrors – we may look at some this year together.

The films encourage us to exit the Matrix, to question, to support others living outside, to rebuild.

Might we consider to what extent we live in the Matrix, controlled by others, and how we might unplug and live differently? The Matrix as a real world concept resonates. Faith isn’t the full journey to being awake; there are, in my opinion and experience, other layers. I believe with many others that it is true that all aspects of our society are designed to control and numb us. I hope I help raise awareness of that here. I believe that energy is essential and can be used to power others. This is not in the Bible…but could that too be compromised? I also wonder if the films have been, and the pro-machine message worries me. I consider that AI is like the atomic bomb and I do not support the use of either.

For Neo, who talks to camera at the end of the first film (as much as us as the machines):

“I can’t tell you how to get there, but if you free your mind you’ll find the way”.

I’ll put his full speech below.

That’s quite different from orthodox Christianity, but I too don’t feel I can tell you; like the Wachowskis, I don’t want to dictate. I am still assimilating some new ideas.

I can say that there is need to awaken and be free. Unlike in The Matrix, it’s not too late, you’re not too old, nor is there only one chance (in fact he has two, the second in his mature years).

It might seem that with Jesus too, the accomplishment was short lived: why is the world at least as bad since his death and victory? Yet it has inspired working towards a greater, permanent time of peace.

I do think that is descriptive of these extraordinary times.

Despite efforts to stop them, Trinity and Neo do ‘remember us’ and complete their work.

I’d like to leave you with the words that they do. It’s clearly an invitation to a joint and corporate (and  I don’t mean company but concerted) rebuilding effort.

Free your mind – but also body, heart and soul

We’re back on April 26^th with Shakespeare in Love

Do let me know where you are, who you are and what you think

Blessings and love to you

and thank you for joining me

Elspeth betweenthestools@hotmail.co.uk

Neo’s words at end of 1^st Matrix:

Hi. It’s me. I know you’re out there. I can feel you now.

I imagine you can also feel me
You won’t have to search for me anymore. I’m done running. Done hiding. Whether I’m done fighting, I suppose, is up to you

I believe deep down, we both want this world to change. I believe that the Matrix can remain our cage or it can become our chrysalis, that’s what you helped me to understand.

That to be free, you cannot change your cage.
You have to change yourself. I DON’T AGREE
When I used to look out at this world, all I could see was its edges, its boundaries, its rules and controls, its leaders and laws.

But now, I see another world. A different world where all things are possible.

A world of hope. Of peace.
I can’t tell you how to get there,
but I know if you can free your mind, you’ll find the way.

Good Friday 2024

Usually, today is a crunch point in a story we’ve been following for some time.

We’ve perhaps, like Anna and Simeon, been watching for signs of the prophesies in the Scriptures. We’ve celebrated Jesus’ birth, his avoidance of the slaughter of infants, fast forwarded to the snippet of his childhood at the temple, and jumped twice as long again to the start of his ministry. We’ve witnessed him be baptised, begin preaching, calling disciples, doing miracles. We’ve seen him slowly reveal who he is and waited for the disciples to catch up. Meanwhile, a plot against Jesus begins. What is the turning point that made the so-called authorities come after him? And then, this week, Holy Week, has almost daily incidents. We waved palms at Jesus’s entry to Jerusalem, knowing that his public lauding will soon turn. We’ve eaten a final supper with him and our friends. We’ve seen Judas sneak out and receive payment. We kept watch last night in the garden and witnessed that insidious kiss and the arrest. And some of us have followed Jesus’ final day, almost in real time. We may have enacted it in a public square. We may have sat at the foot of the cross this afternoon, or even lain at one, literally, until Jesus’ final breath – for now.

And now it is eventide, and the Son goes down with the sun, and so here is my 7 Sayings.

In Between The Stools, now celebrating our 5th Easter, we’ve looked at that fulcrum of our faith through the lens of a worldly story. In my first Easter sermon, I mentioned Xena Warrior Princess: that Holy Week, I gorged on the 4th season where there are flashes of Roman soldiers putting our heroines on crosses, and we didn’t know if this would come to pass. Would they actually die thus? Was this the end? Or could they be resurrected? It was the most moving and deepest drama I’d seen.

It was also set against the first lockdowns, and includes material also relevant to this year’s theme.

All through our first Lent in 2021, we took bites of Chocolat, so that when Easter weekend came, it was the high point of a 7 week old story culminating at that festival, with the clash of freedom and a dark man’s attempts to control. Men in black feature again in this year’s Easter. Chocolat had different controlling codes – not source codes of computers, but moral ones.

Both Chocolat and Xena involve acts of forgiveness at the climax

I began the Titanic journey with you in January the next year, casting it as a fable with similar hidden forces, so that we watched with those on board overnight in 2022 as she sank on the 110th anniversary.

Last year, our History Year, we spent Lent with Henry VIII’s wives, ending with Anne Boleyn. Thus we also had someone to watch with, alongside Jesus, as we thought of their impending execution, but also what their life and death meant.

This Year of Wonders we’re with film and television as our theme, but not a single story.

I led into Holy Week with another mind-bending Keanu Reeves film. I knew that I felt should do The Matrix this year with you (I’ll explain why on Sunday) but I didn’t feel that there was enough relevant run up material to fill Holy Week, let alone Lent. But Sunday is the wonderful final act of a series we’re supposed to have been watching for 3 or 4 months at least. Sunday’s power comes from this week’s episodes especially, and so I need to set The Matrix up with you to be able to enjoy Sunday and make my, our, Easter service meaningful.

The Matrix is about a man who is The One; it is the story of how he learns this, learns the hidden truth about the world, and how he saves it, risking his own life to do so, and comes back to life.

Thomas Anderson, aka Neo, is a computer whizz with a secret second job. He’s had a feeling his whole life that something’s not right about the world. And in the shadowy world of computer hacking, he’s being watched by fellow hackers who do something and know something more extraordinary. He’s about to be invited to join them.

The world as he knows it has been enslaved with the majority never realising that their ‘real life’ is a computer simulation, whilst they asleep lie in pods, being drained of energy to power their self serving keepers.

As The One’s time comes to its first climax, he’s told that to save the world, he will need to choose between sacrificing his life or another’s. In a dramatic scene, a betrayer among them (I mistyped and the spell checker suggested ‘cyberthreat’!) who delivers into the enemy’s hands.

This One faces death twice during the four film franchise. In part 1, a kiss from a loved one will have a contrasting effect to that which Judas gave Jesus. In part 3, the visual above clearly invokes a cross. The hero, the son of man, has told a god that he will singlehandedly take on a mission and be willing to die to save the world.

In the movies, it was left open as to whether this son of man would return: it was more likely to be a second coming, rather than a resurrection, although resurrection there was – almost 20 years later for us, but 60 for him. As Christians we wait 3 days for the resurrection, which has already happened.

Friday is oft a day for reflection, for being; for music and silence; perhaps a few reflective words may be offered. Today, here, is the latter. There’ll be many more words on Sunday evening.

You may wonder why we’re not following Easter through one of the many biblically inspired films; it’s a valid question, but I find the crucifixion hard to watch, and felt drawn to this. It’s also a question I’ve wondered myself during my preparations. I also asked:

What is suitable for Easter? What would we expect a sermon or service to include?

Why is today so important?

Why do so many heroes need death and sacrifice to be worthy of the title?

Why do so many stories about invented heroes also follow this theme?

You may wish to just sit with these; to watch Gospel movies to help your devotions at this time; and if able or inclined, to revisit the Matrix series (since Sunday will involve spoilers). I recommend the 4the.

I trust that however you spend today, that it will be meaningful and God will draw nigh

and that we likewise experience that as we draw nigh to each other again on Sunday at 8pm BST

(note the clock change and that it’s not live due to practical issues – I so wish it were! So just look at this blog on Sunday)

I’ll take you deeper into that story and critique it, analyse how well this christologically themed franchise does in fact match with Jesus, and how it’s relevant to us on Sunday

The typeface I wrote this in is called Liberation!

Lent 2024 6: An Excellent Adventure

Bill and Ted Face the Music

This is a time where I needed my spiritual specs on, for as a movie in itself, this 2020 2^nd follow up to a zany time travelling buddy movie might not have appealed, or been memorable. But the soon leaving Netflix date made me watch it that day, and I realised that it fitted into my Lenten theme.

Bill and Ted were great music stars, but 3 decades on, their hopeful beginning has waned. They play to smaller and smaller audiences, and their fan base is all but depleted. I immediately was interested as an artist, musician and author as yet without the audience I’d like. Worse, their father in law criticises the man-boys for not having real jobs, like his police one, and the years of non ‘success’ and searching are tolling on their marriage (it does seem to be a singular partnership of 4 people). Now middle-aged, the duo are painted as potentially pathetic and puerile, needing to grow out of their pairing and that their incredible adventures as adolescents are neither believed nor suitable. They were called a poor rolemodel to their daughters, who were also music loving but unemployed.

Yet I sensed that by the end of the film, an alternative would be presented.

I hoped and needed it to be.

It seemed to initially go away from that: meeting their future selves, Bill and Ted are told they will become estranged from their exasperated wives, sport pescod bellies, or be ridiculously muscled but in prison. Called by The Great Leader of all worlds via a time machine, Bill and Ted have to create a hit song within a very short time limit, or the world will explode.

It seemed that even in the amazing realm that I hoped would exonerate them, that the dudes were being pressured and judged out of inactivity into compliance. Would they end up giving up on their musical dreams and excellent adventures?

It became apparent that the Great Leader was not living up to her name, for she was cold and closed hearted. She secretly believed that the eradication of this pair was key to saving the implosion of all things. She set a robot terminator to chase them and destroy them. However, this robot develops human emotions and is turned from his mission against them to become an ally.

Death, an old enemy of the duo, is sought out in desperation, but ends by hugging them and playing wicked bass together. I noted how a crisis facilitates healing. I also viewed another 80s film, The Karate Kid, and its recent sequel series, Kai Cobra. I have read that our issues of one era can be revisited in a cycle 30 years later; hence these middle aged men are confronting people from their late teens and twenties. Rather than desperate money-motivated rehashes, I find the popularity of later years follow ups as apposite and veracious. We are with one of those also featuring Keanu Reeves over Easter.

I loved how the daughters supported their fathers: their articulate and insightful praise that showed that the are as deeply informed about music as the understood their fathers; the innovative scheme to save them and the world (time travelling and collecting famous musicians to join the band).

I didn’t like that the daughters took over, as if to say by 50, faith and focus is on the next generation. I love to see support for the amazing young people in our world, but we only hand over the rei(g)ns when we die; I’m concerned that others step back into too early retirement (and I’m not speaking about dayjobs and pensions) to assume that their role is simply advisory and adjunctive hereon.

If we’re alive, we still have a job from God. You have a role that is vital and just for you.

The Great Leader’s daughter conversely worked against her, for her plan was not from Love.

The predictions from Bill and Ted’s future selves did not come to pass; their wives bore with them rather than criticising and leaving them. The police father ended by affirming them and joined forces, realising that there is work not just on the earthly plain

The song itself was less important than everyone playing it; it was about collaboration rather than the heroism of the few.

Curiously, I came across another science fiction film with Keanu in that deals with that theme of saviours vs universal pariticipation. To what extent do we participate in or have agency in our salvation? And what is it that we need saving from?

Lent 2024 5: Water Beasts INCLUDES DOCUMENTARY REVIEWS

I have done a Nessie length piece on the not so wee Bèiste and her kind, and I’d like to update that with the lens of some new (to me) films.

Loch Ness, Nessie, and The Sea Beast augmented the familiar tropes in children’s films about water dwelling monsters. In contrast to the several horror films, family films feature a lonesome misunderstood child who bonds with the beastie, and their single parent. Those seeking glory, money and capture, and who don’t care for nature, are villainous. The skeptics morph into believers through interaction with the child, the beast, and an attuned but outsider adult. New love, family, and openness ensue; thus encounter with the Beiste is transformative. As Loch Ness (1996) makes explicit, it is about believing in order to see. In young children’s TV show Jessie and Nessie, the urban dwelling child needs glasses to be able to perceive Nessie’s presence, who is available just outside her flat. Like with The Family Ness (note the Elspeth!), the beasties give the child a special device that helps connect them and call them up. All this can easily be adapted to faith.

Previously, I twisted with Nessie’s neck about what (never if) she is, and if she is a good creature. I realised that by spending time with horror, including nonfiction documentaries and books, that the language as well as images used easily lend themselves to steer the audience into seeing a diabolic denizen of the deep. I realised that I could choose how I looked and place it against the above children’s films and what I’m about to relate. I believe that whatever Nessie et al are, that by seeing fun and joy in them creates a light around them that diminishes any darkness which exists.

Nessie is a great topic to demonstrate documentary on. The best new example is something less than Lent-worthy, so I’ll review that at the bottom. The 2013 TV series Bogeymen – Monsters Among Us repeated information as much as its funky theme tune. Despite its title, ‘horror’,16+ rating, and scary screengrabs, the episodes I saw were fear free. It included various cryptological creatures from different countries, but I watched some lake monsters of North America and Europe. Although it tried to show different points of view and leave some mystery open, I felt that the filmmakers were with the skeptics as they gave them more screen time and often first and last words. These skeptics were always those with some kind of conventional kudos – academic, scientific training and a position. But the people who touched me in this series – mainly talking heads interposed with water shots – were not those. I noted that the aboriginal, spiritual point of view was largely excluded, except in Canada’s Okanagan, where First Nations have kind of copyrighted Ogopogo (whom they call N’ha-a-itk.) In Scandinavia, there is openness to the ancient and unknown, as their public watching station showed; in Austria, the Tadzelwurm is part of Klagenfurt’s town’s arms with a central statue (and misogynistic warning message, even for today’s young women), but how Britain dealt with its beasties was notable.

In Scotland – Loch Morar – locals were reluctant to speak of Morag, and a known professional skeptic dominated this episode. In NW England, Bownessie, despite only a few reported sightings starting from 2006, has a large, juvenile industry around her and yet locals were filmed as saying that none of them believed in her. (Then two locals reported seeing her in the next frame).

I observe that despite a continued Pagan tradition, and many other spiritual people, that Britain doesn’t have a First Nation equivalent; our Druids were apparently slaughtered by the Romans, and then the Normans tried to finish off any ‘heathen’ practices that the early waive of Christianisation hadn’t caught. I feel that this connects to the prevalent (but by no means entirely representative) depiction. These episodes felt the most disbelieving and least respectful and open to otherness.

In Argentina, that openness was apparent, although attempts to squash came via fake news of captured a plesiosaur who became a carnival feature. But a senior resident who had seen her town set up by Lake Nahuel Huapi in Patagonia was the most attuned and the one who had three long full body sightings. There was no fear in Carolina, but a joyful privileged memory in a clearly gentle, spiritual woman. I could understand why Nahuelito had chosen to appear to her.

The Sea Beast seemed set to be an animated, toned down version of those creature features like The Loch Ness Terror and Loch Ness Horror: catch and kill the terrible murderous creature. I became engaged when I realised that the story was going away from the glory of the royally discharged monster hunters to say something else about the awesome beasts, and the royals themselves. Carefully set in a timeless historic setting, with amazing architecture like none in existence, I saw a clear parallel to war. The ‘expendable’ lower classes were sent out to fight under the impetus of honour carried through families, which meant many lost lives. But the hero, son of an illustrious captain, realises that the fearsome creature can be a friend and that the enmity is of human making. Worse, that the source of this enmity – a record of the monsters’ terrible deeds – was untrue. This myth was put about by the king and queen, who are publicly exposed by a child; the hero breaks his harpoon in front of Red Bluster the beast, his new honorary daughter, and the whole kingdom. In a scene redolent of Evan Almighty where the Ark crashes into central Washington DC, Red smashes into the forecourt of the palace and he and his kind are hitherto left in peace.

I felt that this summer of 2022 Netflix release hinted at the end of an era, end of war, end of hatred based on deliberately pedalled untruth (who do the beasts represent?), and questioning of long running leaderships.

I’m wondering why and how this creature and their many international cousins, fresh and seawater, keep being reinvented. Despite more loch-down supposed factual films that she’s disproven, and another documentary feature last year, the Bèistes* rise up again to unite families, welcome outsiders, protect nature, question power and truth sources, and most of all: believe.

The parallel between faith in God and the attempt to posit scientists as minigods is clear, and it’s something I’ll take up again, perhaps as a full creative project.

*I’m aware that bèiste is Scottish Gaelic and that its real plural is Bèistean

——-

Less than Lently: my thoughts on Loch Ness: They Created a Monster and The Man Who Captured Nessie

These two documentaries, like the synoptic gospels, clearly share sources since there were large overlaps of material. The message was – with a tiny semblance at balance – that long time monster hunter and photographer Frank Searle was bad – in fact, his epitaph was rather like that of Byron.

If ever one needed a lesson in how documentaries mislead, are biased, and potentially make things up and invite libel, this pair is recommended. I wondered who sponsored them.

Although there’s a little vintage footage of Frank, who lived by the loch from 1969-c1984, he doesn’t get to speak: the person who seems to be him is an actor, it’s revealed (much in the same tone as My Old School, another attacking Scots documentary). I’ve been interested in Loch Ness for some years but I don’t recall Frank’s name, yet these documentaries suggest he is infamous. I did recall someone part of the establishment who had been part of ‘exposing’ him after Frank’s own exposures seemed to garner him better luck and fame than they, and independently of them.

I make clear that I’ve no personal connection with either party, and nor am I necessarily championing Frank Searle; but I am saying that the very angled axe to grind was very obvious and that it made me more likely to take the opposite view.

My dislike and judgement was reserved for those who stood to camera and said, “I am happy to call this man a liar”, a charlatan…and that he was a “disturbed individual” who shouldn’t have come to Loch Ness,­ and other insults which could easily echo back. They publicly accused him of a serious crime, for which there was only a hunch of suspicion, not evidence. Might the graffiti, which would be hard for him to have done with his lost foot, actually contain a truthful message?

It occurs to me that the Molotov cocktail incident – if it really happened – could have been a staged attack by their own to remove and discredit this clear rival, especially if he was on the cusp of exposing them. (Frank claimed this). The documentary said that the police were called – very early in the morning – to his lone caravan, but not that he wasn’t charged, as clearly they were unable to. The accusations were poor: the kind of boat was wrong, the bomb was in a plastic bottle which wouldn’t work; and Frank with long military experience would be able to do far better. His accuser was not a firsthand witness; unlike his watchers, he wasn’t camping but sleeping indoors elsewhere. (Searle states that these workers were paying to camp, and were lured on false advertising.)

These detractors used legal force and their influence with Frank’s publishers to withdraw his books. One teacher (who weirdly just took his class to the loch on a road trip) claimed plagiarism (from a school newsletter!) but the book isn’t available for anyone to verify this. The third book was stopped by an opposing Nessie watch leader, without having seen it, assuming it was about him.

This prevalent preacher of skeptical science, who states Frank’s approach was not suitably scientific to be allowed to go on, began as an ‘amateur naturalist’ who has not achieved academic titles.

The hoaxes were asserted rather than proven: it is possible to have doctored his Nessie pictures to make them more like the objects they claimed; the campaign from 1975 seems systematic. Frank’s books were halted partly due to potential libel, but those that destroyed his reputation were not.

It may be that Frank was able to attain better photographs because he worked alone and without technology other than his camera; perhaps groups and flashes and sonar put Nessie off.

I read his newsletters and heard his hour long tape; I didn’t see in them that which he was accused, although he does clearly speak against the rival crew, what he knew of them and what he was going to let out…just before the petrol bomb, and then a death threat note in his donations box.

Most worrying – and a show of just how much documentaries can manipulate – is the more recent film’s claim that Frank had disappeared in the mid 80s, never heard of again, presumed dead… maybe even in the loch. There was an implication of suicide or that his precious monster got him.

They gleefully reported that Frank had said Loch Ness doesn’t give up its dead. They showed his posters and caravan resting at the bottom of it in invented footage (one can’t see in the peaty waters), saying that now a monster really does reside in the loch. Such a statement was repeated by the perky Scots tour guide to an apparently rapt coach.

Even if Frank had done all he was accused of, I didn’t see that he was a monster. (The petrol bomb is horrible but I question if he did it – and why; no-one and nothing was hurt).

I wondered if this wasn’t evidence that they had attacked him and sent him to those depths. I took the film as a j’accuse with fingers pointing at themselves. Was the title actually about them?

A confession is enough to convict.

But the earlier documentary claimed to have traced Frank, just after he died, in Lancashire. His life had been ‘quiet’ and although apparently alone (we never are really) he had not done anything that could be critiqued, as far as the filmmaker could show. Yet reports such as highly biased Wikipedia and disreputable newspapers had tried to make out that his aloneness made him odd, and several attempts at swiping at Frank’s mental state had been attempted, including on user forums. That is as suspicious as it is wrong.

What could have happened to an ebullient man who welcomed people to his caravan and enjoyed limelight, to make him live so quietly? That is also another potential charge to answer.

Also, why had They Created A Monster (clearly suggesting Frank in the ogral role) ended with him being mysteriously disappeared, when the earlier documentary claimed that it knew 18 years previously that he’d died in quite an ordinary way, far from the loch? And that the source of that – quite dubious and intrusive research – clearly informed much of their own material?

Why has that 2005 filmmaker got to write Frank’s public obituary and influence other articles (whilst self advertising for his Channel 4 work)?

Why has Paul Harrison’s interview with Frank which asserted that he was threatened, beaten and his caravan pushed in the loch never been published? Is it not suspicious that around the time that book was due out, author Paul was also ‘exposed’ and went quiet?

I found Frank’s own words, and the images – added on to the audio – ended with a different gravestone, death date and lifestory.

The assertion that Frank disappeared after the petrol bomb incident is untrue: it occured apparently on 21^st August 1983, but he sent out newletters in Sept and Dec that year, citing sightings at Loch Ness. He was able to be contacted by witnesses and to send these out – or I’d not have seen them.

He’d said in June that year that he may run his Loch Ness project down and in Dec says he is leaving, and not because of the events he describes, to take up landbased treasure hunting.

Along with the unwatchable grainy footage, this was an angering experience for me and one I’m glad I didn’t rent or go to the cinema for.

It has set off a deeper enquiry, but I couldn’t help but see a parallel with the end of the Sea Beast and this beastly tale.

It also reminded me of Wicked Little Letters

Lent 2024 4: Moral messages of a different kind

To presumably celebrate its 30th anniversary, the Japanese animated film Pom Poko has appeared on Netflix and is listed as a top pick.

I’d heard of this legendary anime and the rather surprising antics – for a children’s film – of raccoons. Yes, I refer to the frequent sight and mention of testicles, which become huge mats and weapons, and something to sing about like the Seven Dwarfs sing of work. They seem to be a resource and source of power for the initiated master, which would correspond to what I’ve frequently heard about women’s counterparts. And yet this is still rated here as PG for parental guidance, mentioning ‘crude humour’, but although I think the t-mats are meant to be humorous, I also think there’s a lack of sordidness and discomfort on the subject, which I commend.

I am not sure if I commend the other aspects of this beautifully drawn film. I gave it a thumbs up at the end, but I am wondering if I wish to reverse the direction of those thumbs.

Is this film really saying that most humans should die?

It’s a sentiment that’s being propounded in various forms, and I’m noting that this film was doing so long before the more current climate.

Pom Poko – which refers to an era – doesn’t speak of climate change (which was still known as global warming in 1994) but of taking the natural habitat of animals. Raccoons, along with foxes, seem to be a spokes-species for all creatures. Japan’s capital is expanding at an incredible rate, looking as contrasting to the woodland and meadow it replaces as is possible. My idea of a beautiful city is fairly low rise – save for the odd special steeple – and made from natural things: bricks come from mud and straw; timber and thatch from trees and reeds; and stone is hewn rock. Old fashioned paving is also direct from nature – stones and bricks, which although not good for our current tyres (why make such tyres then) make cars slow in these parts of the city.

The World Heritage centre in Bath tells me that when Georgian Bath was conceived, they left the countryside in. Greenery was part of the design, with squares and crescents and parks. Those cities which give joy to me include lungs within them – gardens and squares, marshes and woodlands – AND have easy access to the country.

Of course, some of us prefer the country – small towns, villages, and even being outside of a built up area at all.

I commended Pom Poko for drawing our attention to the ugliness of expansion and the thoughtlessness for other creatures. I liked that a different kind of conurbation is built in Tokyo, thanks to the raccoons’ effort, which is less abrasive, more aesthetic and includes spaces for green. The film also says that these attempts – not unlike John Wood the Elder’s Somerset city two centuries earlier – are not enough for their kind to thrive in.

What I wasn’t sure was what Pom Poko is saying about humans and population. Humans are a vile selfish nuisance, a pest to control and wish away. The raccoons use trickery and fear to thwart humans. The raccoons plot to kill us, and are considered heroes when they send lorry drivers into rivers and to their death.

I wondered if this wasn’t a kind of Japanese answer to Animal Farm, and if some of the leaders were also becoming as warped as the beings they overthrew.

There was an interesting comment: that if this situation had occurred in another Japanese city, the human residents’ response would have been more favourable. These humans would have understood that raccoons are behind the disruptions and that shrine offerings in temples dedicated to the bushy beasties would have increased. Instead, in Tokyo, as is oft the way in our largest cities, there is rationalisation and disbelief.

The key part of the film is Operation Spectre. Raccoons have the ability in this film to shapeshift. They are far more intelligent and human-like than we give them credit – they even look different when we’re not around. And they bring over wise master raccoons of Methuselah-type age [Biblical reference] to teach them how to be more adept at this art. They then put on an incredible show for the humans one night, changing into flying ghouls and boobies, which no human is able to film. (How very Loch Ness Monster). But a company takes credit – I’m sure they were asked to – for the stunts. The raccoons feel deflated: their huge show hasn’t had the effect of scaring the humans away, nor giving them a platform on which to share.

Perhaps the cartoon was saying: your most powerful voice is not your disruptions, your violence, your fear, however clever and spectacular; it’s when you came out of the woods and spoke to camera, making a heartfelt plea that your target audience listened.

Is this a message to activists?

In contrast I think of All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, a documentary last year about Nan Goldman and her fight against the dangerous drug pedalling Sackler family. She too knew how to organise a spectacle – ‘prescriptions’ and medicine bottles falling into atria and ponds at major museums who’d been sponsored by this dynasty. And she got results, although not the lives back of those who died through the prescriptions of oxycontin. This might be the best documentary I’ve seen – I wished to whoop in the cinema. (I bet filmmaker Laura Poitras didn’t expect to be likened to these raccoons!)

What I took from Pom Poko that was entertaining and positive – apart from the sheer balls! – was that it made us question our violent responses, our disbelief, our arrogance that we’re the most important creature…and just maybe, animals are cleverer and more powerful than we can imagine.

I was disappointed in lack of Great Spirit, and that the creatures assumed that they themselves should be worshipped. Like many demi-deities, they wanted adulation and presents. Again, I think of the Loch Ness family, and how the Canadian First Nations say that Ogopogo (whom they call N’ha-a-itk) needs offerings to cross Lake Okanagan safely, or else. Even if that is a past myth rather than present advice, it shows a god that’s not worthy of the name – self serving, capricious…much like some versions of the Christian god. And none of these are like the God I believe in, although we may think he needs placating, at Lent especially, by deeds of sacrifice and all leading up to his ultimate sacrifice. It’s a concept that I continue to question.

There are some aspects of Japanese culture which I would love to understand – so if anyone Japanese is reading this, please get in touch.

Are raccoons sacred to you? Are there shrines and temples to such creatures? Are there myths of raccoons’ and foxes’ ability to shape shift – and why these animals?

Next time, we’ll be thinking of a shapeshifting creature that is both sacred and denigrated.

Lent 2024 3: How movies make you feel

This equally could be: how music makes you feel as that is a major factor in mood inducing in film and television. And not only does that tell you how to feel, but what to think. Thus movies are potential mood inducers, with loud white noise or astringent strings, calming music, or exaggerated sounds that are part of the film (known as diagetic) – the clumping clock or foot steps of Foley artists. There can be repeated gunshots, screams, flashes and fast cuts; constant adrenaline or ennui, constant stress in shouting as well as chasing. It can be found in nature programmes as well as horror.

I realised that the mood making is deliberate and perhaps not just as part of story telling.

I have often resisted that mood – reducing sound, turning away or even off, certainly internally.

Last week, I resisted what is thought of as a modern classic love film, which I didn’t consider very romantic. When I first saw cinema, I thought that films were telling you how life is, or should be. Then, as I came to study and write films, I felt that was not so: writing advice says not to give yours in the film. However, I do see that media has messages alongside story arcs.

As I wrote in my first Lenten post this year, there’s: what the story’s about,

what the story’s really about,

and then the third layer of the underlying but perhaps more coded messages.

I will say that romantic comedies, like many mainstream films, have a good end. Whether we’ve cried, laughed, shrieked, tapped or thrilled, we leave the cinema in a good mood. That was a good experience; and it’s been a cathartic piece of escapism. We may have felt helped by the film, which brought us hope when some was lacking. We do still believe in love. We can be in a loving family; our dreams and ambitions can be realised. The last children’s film I saw – Slumberland, featuring Jason Momoa – ended with the message that we can be whatever we want. I sadly heard a parent try to deny that – although their own kids had already become high achievers. Why not believe and encourage that it’s possible? Or did they mean that there are barriers yet to remove for that to be true? We see many films about removing those barriers, and I applaud that.

I’ve long been a supporter of arthouse cinema, but sometimes, I get fed up with them as the denier of hope and joy in favour of ‘reality’, which is another word for dreamstealing.

Reality is a choice we can influence. Why choose the miserable path and call that highbrow?!

I recall seeing Garage when I was unemployed about an unemployed person. Instead of leaving with hope, I watched a slow film about a lonely man who ultimately took his life, and the only hint of freedom and resolution was the horse walking out of the field. No, films don’t directly tell you what to do, and I’m a little cautious of the nanny state around that subject in fiction, but it felt a harsh hit, when a Hollywood version would have seen that man find some meaningful work, or perhaps peace in his nonworking. (I’ll be mentioning this subject in our last Lenten piece).

Arthouse cinema can eschew dialogue and make the viewer guess what is happening – but one can guess wrongly. I question that as a mark of a more intelligent film. An example of ‘watch my face and work it out’ is The Golden Door: a very different take on immigration to America. Instead of Italians finding the Land of the Free that they were promised, they are subjected to physical humiliating intrusions, and one older woman chooses to go home and be truly free rather than enter this Canaan at that price.

I noted that despite my joy at the older woman’s rebellion, that I felt oppressed watching it, as I have so many arty films. I felt it in Remains of the Day, which is such a contrast to a romantic comedy. I got frustrated with the lack of communication and emotion, and wondered what a Japanese author was saying of English culture. I also noted the political background and that an American buys up a long held family home that he has assisted in, shall we say, making available, and in his speech about ‘real’ politicians – like himself – running someone else’s country. The fact it was repeated and called right made me think that this could be the filmmaker’s message or at least belief, rather than a character’s. I was annoyed at waiting for the end of this long film, when the only journey taken is by a bus – nothing emotional or personal is resolved.

In Slumberland, the protagonist faces her deepest nightmares and losses, and comes through. Using the interesting trope of another persona (which I’ve seen in Fightclub) she and her new family are able to live as they wish…. although it didn’t follow through the statement that schools are unhealthy stifling places, as is mainstream work.

I know which sort of story I prefer, and which I think is ultimately healthier to partake in.

We vicariously take on the feelings of the characters, and I urge some caution as we pick up on the energy and it’s not all good for us, all of the time. I like to wind down with something pleasant, especially if a film has been challenging.

As I say of my own, I’m OK with being taken to the depths, but I won’t leave you there, and I don’t want to be left by other writers. Rather than a waste of time, TV and film watching, along with all the arts, can be such balm and catharsis, even therapeutic.

Hence I spend my life engaging, creating, and see them as intrinsic – not something to cut funds of.

But as much as I never want our funders – especially governments – to tell us what kind of films we can make and how they should end, I can choose where I put my focus and in what I fund by buying a film (or to watch it). I don’t want a world where we’re told that it’s grown-up and literary to have films with negative ultimate messages and which make us take on negativity. Unless the message is: don’t let us live in this world, then I don’t want to live in the world of those films.

I love the heart swell of a life-buoying film that has lifted me and been a timely reminder, when I’ve literally felt divinely guided to view. And those are the ones I’ll seek out more often, including during this year.

Lent 2024 2: Love

Last week, we had a well known Western (much commercialised) holiday – that of St Valentine’s. I noted that at holidays, cinemas often show the same old films: A Wonderful Life at Christmas (not our Christmas film), perhaps with The Wizard of Oz; at Mother’s Day they curate something like Bridesmaids; and on February 14th, I’ve seen more than one cinema choose Breakfast At Tiffany’s more than once.

I’ve only seen this once, over 20 years ago, and wasn’t able to again, but I did something comparable. Before I move onto that – and just how similar they are – I will share the line that stuck with me, and how appalling it is.

The A-Team’s George Peppard tells Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly that “You belong to me”. Not belong with, as we might state of a predestined soul connection, or even that our love and compatibility logically determine that we should live together from now on, but a clear statement of possession. Hence I am troubled that this 1960s movie has become not only an enduring classic but one that is regularly rolled out on this day that we focus on love, in its romantic form especially. In the source novella by Truman Capote, Holly states it in reverse: “We did belong to each other. He was mine.” (When actually, he now isn’t and won’t be).

But ‘you’re mine’ is a dubious concept, pumped from too many pop songs: Screaming Jay Hawkins’ insidiously seductive “I Put A Spell On You” repeats that ownership is linked to dark arts and blatant threats. Other songs invite the prey in question to “be mine” like those heartshaped sweets…except that the concept has nothing sweet about it.

Along with the other cringingly dangerous line from Jerry Maguire “You complete me”, films and other popular media can discharge toxic tenets about love, and other relationships.

Pretty Woman has “be mine” right at its heart, although I didn’t catch that line actually being spoken.

In an era before prostitutes were called streetworkers, and when mainstream movies of this genre could be conservative, it’s a little surprising that our heroine, Vivian, is, as she is frequently called, a hooker. Julia Roberts’ iconic early role deals with the subject without stigma or judgement, although it does contain a brief advert for ‘safe sex’ (later rebranded as ‘safer’) – more subtle than that in A Different World which got a long live audience applause for a statement. (This of course was useful to the condom industry…) More surprising is that the hero is a service user, although he doesn’t quite pick Julia’s Vivian up in the usual sense. Her job is softened by her need – and we’re reminded of those streetworkers who die in that place; he asks for directions, and gets a ride, then a ride…

Of the two leads, I object far more to Richard Gere’s Edward’s job. It is he who preys on others and – as Vivian points out – offers no service or product (unlike her). Edward’s work is not something that you seek – he seeks out you as a target, enjoying the hunt and successful killing, as this movie admits. I’m not aware that the likes of Vivienne impose on or trick clients, but Edward, a buy them up and break’em up of financially vulnerable companies, doesn’t have clients – only victims. And with this immoral industry, he has amassed great wealth.

He assumes he can buy Vivian with it, just as he expects that by hiring a posh hotel’s best room and throwing money at swanky shops that he will receive sycophantic service. Is he questioning tipping? I did.

He actually under-pays her: isn’t her $100 an hour worth rather more than his $300 for a night, therefore; and isn’t around 168 hours of her time over a week closer to $16,000 than the 3,000 he actually pays her?

He expects Vivian to conform; he replaces ‘slutty’ outfits that mark her profession out (including a wig) with those that made her blend in to his world, which is about contacts, not friends or pleasure, and showing off the status that his ill-gotten gains afford. I wasn’t convinced by his opera loving, and even less by his piano playing. That scene – presented as sexy – is all about his quiet control, not only of his bought lover, but the acquiesence of the other guests in the bar. The were asked to leave to allow them to alternatively tinkle the ivories. Get a room, I wanted to retort for them – you’ve got the best in the house – use it! The bar isn’t your space.

The opera too shows a particular kind of love – exaggerated weeping and obsession.

Edward has no thought for Vivian’s comfort – that she doesn’t have the right clothes nor will the shops that sell them treat her well; that she doesn’t know how to eat in a posh restuarant, or what to do at the opera or the racecourse. She is as much on cheap display (although it may come with a pricey tag) as she was on Hollywood Boulevard – as she sometimes remarks.

Edward tries to control Vivian by buying a new life for her of his choosing, without consulting her.

Vivian rightly walks away twice in the film, but I’m not convinced that Edward had learned enough to deserve her to have him back. His idea of an apology is a one time single line: like a delete button, that should erase the issue and Vivian should need no more from him when he’s wronged her.

Like Jane Eyre, it’s the male love interest that goes on a journey here, but I’m not convinced by the transformation.

I see that Vivian and Edward were a catalyst for one another, with (in personal development terms) Vivian offering the greater service, and he gave her funds enough to do something else with her life if she and her roommate and business partner Kit wished. She has warmed his hard heart and humanised him and stood up to him, so that he assists not annihilates a struggling company.

But like in the book of Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Edward ought to have let Vivian go and stepped back, perhaps with the hint that they could meet again. The supposedly romantic end felt added on for audience appeasement, rather than belonging to the film, or actually a satisfying story arc.

Ooh – now I discover that there was an alternative end: as “3000“, Edward leaves Vivian sobbing in the gutter with money, saying “don’t let me regret picking you up” before she gets on a bus with Kit. The story seemed to be given literally a Disney treatment, distorting the original message (re the ugly behaviour of financiers) into something that feels to me as messy as it is mushy.

And finally – the movie’s name, taken from the vacuously lyriced song by Roy Orbison. Vivian is pretty, and something the male observer would like. She’s a desirable, intoxicating plaything to enhance his life like a nice accoutrement (and perhaps be soon tossed). Richard was quite alot older than young Julia (born a generation apart) at the time: this also says: mature men can (like Pepard did to Hepburn) help themselves to young adults that they fancy, if they are wealthy and deemed charming and attractive.

Although I hoped that this film might actually critique some long held values, it seemed to end by perpetuating unhelpful myths. This story – of abuse of power via money and commodification – is not a fairytale or a shining knight rescuing a caged princess, as I’ve seen this movie called, even recently.

I hope that we’re in a time of expanding expressions of love and celebrating all its forms, and this Valentine’s story is a poor party for just one (and a bit – of friendship).

I hope that as we head towards remembering Ultimate Love at Easter that we look critically at films and TV and other sources (yes opera) and the One who threw the tables of those who abused money.

If you have any thoughts on Pretty Woman or Breakfast At Tiffany’s, let me know

Interesting facts: Richard Gere’s middle name is Tiffany and he played a gigolo in 1980 (10 years before this) although it was a crime drama – so not quite reversing the roles.

Lent 2024 1: Overview

The Year of Wonders has begun!

2024 is a film and television themed year

I wanted to start Lent with my thoughts around these media

I hope that it is apparent that what we are told by the media is heavily curated: and not just news and advertising. It’s also in our internet search results – many engines use a bubble that shows us what they think we should see. Try criticising a pet topic and you will have to be creative to find results that allow us to explore the opposite opinion to the one set out for us.

Even puzzles and quizzes contain subtle ‘truths’ and opinions.

This is also true of dramatised media, and documentary. I’ll repeat what I said last year that documentary is not a greater source of truth; it is not less biased. Fiction has an underlying message as much as magazines. Some topics don’t get funded; some TV series disappear from channels and shelves whilst others are on regular re-runs; some issues will win playwriting awards and publishing deals. Also note who is award-winning, and for what. Cast your eye over an Oscar nomination list by year and see that some film subjects garner awards and how there are unspoken themes.

These films get shown often at all cinemas – possibly for a second run. They’re faced out in best selling displays in shops and libraries and top of streaming sites, along with any tie-in books. Whereas I’m not necessarily stating that these films and their makers are undeserving or without merit, I am saying that these films are curated to tell us what a particular body wants us to hear. You may feel that the message is very worthy and true and applaud it – and at times I would agree. I just want you to be aware that there’s a message.

Sometimes, it’s an overall theme – such as Netflix’s Don’t Look Up, a multi-cast Christmas-launched film on the authority of scientists and unstoppable natural disaster, both about climate crisis and the fading pandemic. Sometimes, it’s subtler digs – at those with privacy protecting email addresses (and not that of the invasive big tech giants who may sponsor such slip-ins); at certain politicians (Trump is a common target) or famous contemporary business people.

I wonder if the recent Napoleon by Ridley Scott isn’t a Trump attack cloaked in European historical drama. You may agree that canons ought be aimed at him: my view is an objectively curious one, aware of the passions and hopes of both sides; but I invite you to observe how a world conquering, belligerent megalomanic of circa 1800 might recall one of circa 2020, released just as the election campaigns begin. One of my circle asked if this epic “bang bang in both senses (me)” wasn’t the Arthur Wellesley cut of France’s famed emperor. Note that this was made by Americans. I hear that France felt differently about the movie. Whereas I grew up in Britain with statues to the men that led the battle which repelled him from here, and parks, streets and pubs named for them, Napoleon was known as a diminutive demagogue with a famous declination of his wife; but France put their first post-revolutionary ruler in the national mausoleum and left him there. We spent last year on depictions of history, but I’m conscious of films telling us who to admire and who to boo.

I’ve recently seen a comparable epic, this time from France, adapting one of their most loved novels. (The tell me it’s the most read fiction ever). The story of The Three Musketeers has been altered in some popular views as some films have added things which were copied by subsequent ones. I have also noted this in Jane Eyre: the haircutting scene that appears in so many screen offerings is not in Bronte.

I wish us to look for the timing of particular films. In Sept, I spoke of the Shekhar Kapur Elizabeth sequel made at the time of terrorism and Islamophobia, explicitly asking for tolerance (but then I wondered if The Golden Age didn’t have an opposite message). So why is Dumas’ story being filmed again now, by France and in such a similar palette and tone to that of the award-winning Hollywood stalwart? Who is our Cardinal Richelieu, and Milady? What does loyalty to the crown mean – and to a country who violently deposed its last monarchs? The first film came out close to the time that Britain received a new one.

During this year, I invite you to observe with me what may lay beneath the overt meanings of films. In the industry, a pitching writer is asked: what’s the film about?

And then: what’s the film [really] about?

The second question is usually meant to reveal the themes of the subject material.

I’m very interested in character development, in healing and resolution, in bringing up matters sometimes directly (eg films about racism and slavery or homophobia) but also how some kind of fantastic removed element allows us to critique our society and understand how we got here. It – especially arthouse – rarely tells you where to go next.

We’ll be thinking of not only the second but a third “what’s the film really about?”

I’ll be exploring that next week with films popular on a festival we’ve had in this one

Our next service is at Easter on 31st March at 8pm, British time (beware clock changes)

More mini-messages throughout Lent

and further announcements about this year’s Between The Stools Services

Do get in touch if you’re interested

Elspeth

betweenthestools@hotmail.co.uk

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