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

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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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Parallel inspiration – or propaganda in Autumn 2023 films

Titanic for Lent 6

April 7th

Our final thoughts, before we enter Holy Week… and before my book is published.

The final theme hasn’t come easily. I know what I’ll preach on in a fortnight, and something of what I’ll say at my launch on Sunday (8PM GMT – email me on betweenthestools@outlook.com for a link if you wish to attend live).

There is the link of disease between now and then. Did you know that 3rd class passengers had to pass a health check to board? These weren’t new – I was shocked by what the 19th C passengers in the film The Golden Door had to endure at Ellis Island before being allowed to become citizens of New York. In 2020, I wrote of the treatment of other immigrants coming here, and that the belief that they were disease-ridden was an excuse to contain these Irish folk seeking asylum during famine. I begin to wonder what the real cause of the failure of their potato crops was, and just how right the Irish people were to look to their big sister for who was culpable. And the last couple of years…

I also am aware that Titanic is an image, a parlance: “Rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic” is a phrase about doing irrelevant small things in the face of disaster. I’ve seen pictures of the Titanic sinking with extra labels, representing ideas or institutions which are about to go under. I saw one recently…

I wonder if you’ve expected me to mention arrogance, pride, and the tiny-ness of humans as compared to God and nature. I even wonder if you expected me to talk about judgement. I did last year, and it wasn’t about that kind of judging. I do think that we can be pulled back when we go too far – or perhaps it’s simply the outcome of our actions playing out. I do think that pride and arrogance and greed were very much part of the Titanic. But I am not happy that many people who died were not part of that greed and arrogance, whilst some who were lived. Thus it cannot be a divine judgement, for it is not just.

Why the wicked don’t seem to suffer as much as the good might also be a theme to take up from the Titanic. I was speaking of this with friends and I feel that the wicked prosper in a wicked system. But there might be other kinds of comeuppance, or rather balancing out; and tragedy is NOT about desserts commensurate with worthiness or behaviour. God isn’t a Santa Claus, rewarding and punishing depending on how he deems we’ve behaved and how authority figures have reported on us. I think that we move beyond blame and the diluted understanding of karma to more about experience and growth. I talk about this in my book, and hope to discuss this more here.

I continue on Sunday with the launch – sailing day, a day of hope and beginnings, and the start of holy week. We have other events this week:

Thursday 14th is the watch night from 1140pm GMT; a Sundown sermon on Good Friday at 728pm; a short written reflection on Easter Eve; and a dawn thought and a service at 8pm on Sunday 17th

Titanic posts will continue into next year, on specific dates connected with her.

Titanic for Lent 5

March 31st

Today is a day for birthing and beginnings. This day in 1909, Titanic’s keel was laid. Perhaps you too might be surprised to learn that she took so long to build; I have heard that her 36 months were in fact unusual. I was shocked to take in that 15,000 people had built her – that the workforce required a small town. And that over 200 were injured badly whilst making her, and that some even died. I hear differing numbers, from 2-8, including a boy. We don’t even seem to know the names of all of them.

Thus Titanic caused harm before she sank – before she even left dock.

You might think that a birthday ought to be the day of coming down the slipway into the water – which was the end of May, 1911. The tradition is to launch the hull and what exists of the superstructure – the bit sticking above the hull – from the place it was built (now the Titanic museum), and sail round the corner. Titanic then took almost a year of preparation in the dry dock before being ready for passengers.

The Thompson dock, Belfast. Titanic stood here – so did I!

My thoughts today are on beginnings and preparation; on projects which take a long time, perhaps longer than we would expect; and what we become.

It is also on the cost – more than fiscal; it is on the people who are damaged by individual and corporate pursuits. It is on the untold, half covered tragedies.

I find it hard to fathom why the Titanic wasn’t the end of White Star line or her builders, especially after her younger sister’s sinking soon after. There in fact was a catalogue of accidents and problems, but I’ve rarely seen a throughline discussed and why the same captains were at the helm, and yet still called popular and given high rank.

I also note the rushed sea trials: I’ve heard that Titanic’s were only half a day, but that her elder sister had two days. The trials for Titanic began this weekend, 110 years ago, on April 2nd… just as my book is going through its sea trials for a launch on the same day.

(I’ll put something out on Saturday to mark this).

It’s by coincidence that the day of Titanic’s birth should be the day that my first proof arrives – the opposite of a birth – a completion.

I learn that Titanic was completed on the same date that she was started. In this Lent period, by date, we veer between beginnings, completions, and endings of Titanic and other ships, but life is not linear, and time is an illusion and a construction. It can feel like a fractured narrative as we return to points and don’t always learn about things in a sequential, logical order – not to the part of the mind that we are often trained to most value.

Much about Titanic is a left brained story – that of mechanical design and, even as the ship floundered, the rescue I think was mechanical and military-minded. It was also contrived.

Truly, I am navigating something personal today, my own ice floes, and I may need to revise this…

I’d meant to link in last week’s post about service…and to the stewards who served.

I still don’t have clarity on my ice floes, but I do have a sense of ends, beginnings, circles and cycles.

This day is a new moon – a time of darkness, where what is beginning is yet unseen; a time in a cycle of fulfilment and fulness, of falling away and starting afresh.

There will be a last Lenten post next Thurs, and then we’re into Holy Week from April 10th

Book Launch event 8pm GMT Sun 10th (note we’re on British summer time now) – please email betweenthestools@hotmail.co.uk for a link as numbers are limited. It will be recorded and posted here for everyone later, permanently – no sign up necessary.

Thurs-Fri 14th-15th 1140pm,-220am Watchnight for Maundy Thursday/Titanic sinking anniversary

(There will be music at either end: otherwise, just sit together in prayerful silence)

Friday 15th Sundown sermon for Good Friday (time TBC – 7pm-ish)

Sat 16th written reflection for Easter Eve

Easter Sunday 17th Between The Stools service 8pm

There will be continued Titanic related posts for a year

 

Titanic for Lent 4

My favourite real life Titanic person is someone in whom I have a locally connected interest. I’ll respect privacy and not spell out exactly where, but the cottage which this person retired to is near to some of my family, and indeed, my family once lived there. I have been inside this lovely rural cottage, now adorned with a plaque carrying extraordinary information.

Here lived a stewardess who survived the disasters on all three Olympic sisters, as well as being a nurse in the first world war.

Her name was Violet Jessop.

I’m reading her memoirs at present.

And I note several things. One – that plaque singles out three single days and a short era of her long life. I do not know why Walter Lord entitled his book “A Night To Remember” – for surely it was a nightmare that many involved would like to obliterate, yet we make survivors serve up their suffering for our own eager consumption.

Perhaps Violet was glad that she allegedly flew under the radar until the end of her life. The man who annotated her memoir posthumously, John Maxtone-Graham, claimed that his single visit of summer 1970 was Violet’s first interview; she died the following year.

However, seeking out her name online, and even statements in the memoir suggest that she’d given comment for at least two decades. So what was John’s distinction or definition?

I have not yet found any footage of Violet – if others know if it or other interviews, I’d be glad to hear from you.

It seems that John became a bit of a keeper of the history of Violet, based on this single day. He wrote articles about her in local papers and his name in has become associated with the Argentinian born Irish woman. He edited and annotated her memoir, too heavily in my opinion; one wonders what was lost. He tells us that her manuscript does not contain the Olympic/Hawke incident, but that he cut down her childhood and some of her phrases that he assumed a modern American audience wouldn’t understand. I often feel that Americans have a low opinion of their public, and choose for them.

I comment in the back of my book that Violet didn’t mention the Titanic splitting in two before she sank. Is it possible that she did, and it was removed? What [else] was redacted, or did she self censor?

I noted how staff on these ships were treated. I wondered why Violet continued as a stewardess, having been through so much; the answer was her need to earn money. She says so explicitly, but it does not sound as if it were much as she said she struggled to find the downpayment to buy a piano – one she feared she’d never get to play as she huddled in a tiny lifeboat. The stewards’ hours seemed terribly long; they ate standing up, and had little space, privacy or rest. She speaks warmly of designer Thomas Andrews, saying how rare it was for a designer to consider or consult staff, or visit them – ‘Tommy’ did all three. Steward’s quarters are called glory holes – more hole than glory, in stark contrast to the passengers they served. Nearly nine hundred staff were needed to make Titanic run – I wonder if the ship had been full, if an even greater staff would have been required. Yet many of them were unseen – I will mention the firemen on Easter Eve. The ones who were seen were treated abusively by their employer and the passengers. Violet tells of the many boxes of flowers that rich passengers carried as boarding gifts – much to every steward’s dread, who were given a vase limit inadequate for the floral profusions of guests. Stewards were expected to deal with the demands of the rich, who expected them to make any problem disappear, and to summon them at any hour. They expected this because of the belief in their own status, and that tips mean you can get someone to do anything. Alternatively, you can buy their service altogether and employ them yourself as your personal staff. Violet reports having several such offers from those she waited on; she was unsure that they would be followed through. Hence, she kept sailing, despite the treatment she received. I note that Violet was not keen to apply to White Star, for it had a poor reputation – one that was about to deterioate. What I’m about to tell you has not yet been shown in a feature film and is skipped from many documentaries.

So many of the crew were lost in Titanic’s sinking, but those who had survived had not only prepared a new ship and worked for much of its first voyage – exhausting enough – but now endured trauma and probably loss. White Star’s response was to bundle them swiftly back to England – although another sea journey must have felt terrifying.

On arrival in England, you would think that staff would be supported, thanked, apologised to, and allowed to quell the frenzied minds of their loved ones and to rest. No.

I took a break to continue this next section as it is delicate.

Staff were held in Plymouth (note, not the town they sailed from and quite probably hailed from) given strict instructions not to talk about the event, and made to sign papers.

The Daily Telegraph gave them money; so did Southampton’s mayor – for many crew lived in or near to the city. But when the latter heard about the former, the mayor asked for the money back!! Violet tells us this in her memoir. Although staff were paid for the whole voyage – usually you are not if a ship sinks! – they were expected to replace their uniforms at their own expense.

This is my difficult segue. We may think of ships such as Titanic being far from those who had people kidnapped and kept in chains and forced to work, under threat of violence. I wonder if the couple of comments in Cameron’s Titanic on slave ships would be tolerated now, as the African slave trade of the c1700s is so emotive at present. And we might feel that any passenger or crew on Titanic cannot compare to the wicked abuses of the centuries of real slavery.

But I am reminded daily of the other kinds of abuses that we live with and that we are enslaved. Many of us do work that we do not want because we need to earn. Like Violet, we may have taken a job to support loved ones following death or incapacity; and we may have not only ourselves to maintain, but others. Violet speaks of paying the rent and the coalman: providers of home and fuel are two of the key people to satisfy, along with governments. But there are now slogans about these being thieves and abusers, helping themselves to a right they don’t have to control us and in some ways own us. No, I don’t meant the individual coal merchants so much, but the big energy and fuel companies? The tax office? We are almost compelled to work via need and social pressure, even though there is much to say about what work really is and who it benefits. Often, it is not the worker: you ae the means to someone else’s profit, and you are held into having a position. Like Violet, we can apply and potentially resign but many of us feel that we must sell our labour to somebody and in that sense, we do not belong to ourselves. That need for money means that much of our time is consumed in the activity through which we earn it.

There is much talk about society really operating under law of the sea – a commercial code which commodifies everything and makes most of us unequal. I am coming to see how much that affects us and the links between the Titanic and now. Legally this covert system has made bonds of us all.

I have had and will have more to say about these matters: but it is time for exposure and breaking chains.

I have one more link about Violet’s work – service vs servitude. Christianity can encourage the blurring of the line: that our menial work can be done cheerfully, for Jesus. I believe that Paul’s letter to Philemon implies this to a slave! We can also be taught to self give, to pour out ourselves, to our detriment, and it has been made a spiritual virtue as much as moral one. But although Jesus was the Servant King and washed his disciples’ feet, it doesn’t mean that abasement and lack of rights, and unquestioningly following orders, is what God expects or what we should do. I rather think that has been twisted to suit those giving the orders and doing the abasing.

After the Titanic, Violet was less willing to be misused and more courageous, for the sinking changed her values.

I will post each week of Lent between Weds-Fri

On April 10^th – Palm Sunday – I launch my book with a special service at 8PM GMT

On 14-15^th April, 1140pm-220am GMT, I’ll be having a watch night service, which is the night the Titanic sank, and also Maundy Thursday

There will be a sundown sermon on Fri 15th – time TBA (7pm ish)

and a short written reflection on Easter Eve

Easter is 17^th April, when we will also gather.

There will be online opportunities and possibly in person ones throughout the year.

There will be other Titanic related posts beyond that, including 31^st May, and other important dates

Titanic for Lent 3

17^th March

On Sunday, it may seem as if I took a long detour from this theme with my service on Anne of Green Gables. Yet she is not so far: Canada – which has been on my mind due to world events recently – is the nearest land to where Titanic sank; most bodies are buried there. There were several Canadians and those bound for Canada on board. Titanic and Anne Shirley are pretty contemporary: Anne began in 1908: the same year as the Olympic sisters; Titanic was started the following year. Thus they are both considered Edwardian inventions of the British Commonwealth. And both have a Canadian who attaches his name to the topic: Cameron and Sullivan.

But aren’t their stories utterly different, you might ask: one is bucolic and gay, where nothing really nasty happens: it’s very much for universal or general viewing; nothing to offend or be shaken by in these fantasies of a bygone age. Titanic is intrinsically about horror and tension and a sad end, one might say; but such a commentator isn’t really familiar with Anne or Titanic stories.

Like other comparable tales – Lark Rise To Candleford, for example – the Anne saga includes plenty of real life drama; life’s sorrows and tragedies as well as its joys and jocular moments. There is abuse, abandonment, heartache, bereavement, poverty, illness and accident in these turn of the century series. And in at least some of the Titanic stories, there is also humour, love, forgiveness, silliness, kindness and friendship.

It’s something of the last which I wish to speak of today. Titanic based dramas are a vehicle to show us clear character arcs. This is not only good writing, or something interesting for actors; I believe that it’s something we can see in our own lives. I appreciated those stories where characters on the Titanic learned something. It was not just a horrible tragedy to have endured; in some cases, it even brought better things. I understood why Kate Winslet’s character dreaded the voyage that ended her liberty, because she felt compelled to marry someone and enter a life she did not thrive in. But often, Titanic tales begin with joy and hope: a new life, a special holiday; something to celebrate. And then as Wednesday turns to Sunday, we know that the joy is about to end and that all the relationships we’ve been growing to love are about to be ripped apart.

My own story, The Jury In My Mind, is very much about a relationship which develops on the voyage, but I allow the development to continue after docking at New York. Tragedy strikes in the middle: it is not the end, but the catalyst. I realised that we rarely get a clean wrap: don’t people later reoccur, especially in our minds? One of the things I appreciated in Jim Cameron’s movie is that 84 years on, Rose revisits that event; and it’s not just seeing the ship via an underwater camera; it’s about remembering the man she met who gave her life.

I hesitate to make this week’s segue with that comment, because I don’t see Jack Dawson in any way as Jesus, but I am aware that those who met Jesus, sometimes even briefly, were changed by the encounter profoundly. It caused them to do new things; to give up the old and live life to the full. As Old Rose falls into slumber at the end of the movie, and I believe, into the next world, we see the photographs of a full existence, which she completes on that journey. Other than my book, this is the only Titanic story I know of where a passenger goes back to the events. Rose doesn’t do any analysing; I don’t think she has new insights, although her listeners do.

I think we are coming into a new time when we will seek more depth in our stories. We will seek greater maturity and character development; plot and thrills and laughs will not be enough to drive the story and satisfy. I think we will look for new perspectives, for a bird’s eye view, or a view from a tower – remembering that Magdalene means tower. Or you call it a crow’s nest view; a storyboard of arcs and themes and motifs; a view high above even the ship, where the dark deep ocean which envelops it becomes translucent.

I will post each week of Lent between Weds-Fri

On April 10^th – Palm Sunday – I launch my book with a special service at 8PM GMT

On 14-15^th April, 1140pm-220am GMT, I’ll be having a watch night service, which is the night the Titanic sank, and also Maundy Thursday

There will be a sundown sermon on Fri 15th – time TBA (7pm ish)

and a short written reflection on Easter Eve

Easter is 17^th April, when we will also gather.

There will be online opportunities and possibly in person ones throughout the year.

There will be other Titanic related posts beyond that, including 31^st May, and other important dates