Sunday, April 11, 2004
Just back from seeing Shaun of the Dead. It's a pleasant enough film with some good jokes in it. If that sounds a bit of a weak recommendation, it is, as it bills itself, a romantic comedy... With a battle against zombies in the middle of it. Most of the young British comedy establishment, most of the cast of Spaced, obviously, League of Gentlemen, Black Books and Little Britain have at least walk on parts. And it does have some chills and shows what you can do when you need to do it cheap. If it does feel a bit slight at times, well it is a pastiche/homage to horror films that weren't exactly the most taxing examples of the genre and you will enjoy scenes like arguing over the musical merits of vinyl albums to use to attack zombies or beating up a zombie with pool cues in time to the drum beat of Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now'. I haven't seen the films they are referencing, so I don't know if the deliberately sudden climax is a comment on them or just needing an end to the script.
Meanwhile, in the news this morning was a report that Hollywood will be producing a film that shows how it was Americans that won the Battle of Britain. A couple of years ago I wouldn't have minded. I didn't mind the fact that Mel Gibson made two wildly inaccurate films in which he got to kill lots of Englishmen. I didn't mind the RAF in Independence Day saying "Thank God" when the finest examples of minority actors that could be found worked out how to save the world. British actors playing baddies in Die Hards 1 and 3? They were good actors. So almost all the upper-class English scum on the Titanic drowned? Well, that was accurate, at least. U-571 and Saving Private Ryan? Didn't care.
But now we have a situation where we don't know our past, we're forgetting what was truth and what was fiction and I think that's dangerous. The argument over The Passion showed, people do seem to think what they see on the screen is some kind of literal truth, "It is how it was"? Jesus Christ... Fifteen years ago the Prince of Thieves was played by an American who at least attempted an English accent until he was through the opening scenes. In a few years time I genuinely believe that it might be explained that even though America wouldn't exist for another five hundred years still a good old boy came over from Texas to kick medieval English ass. Hands up anyone who saw the episode of Monkey Dust where they did the film about the Crusades and all the 'English' knights were Americans and the 'Arabs' were all played by English actors, and the knights find the Cup of the Grail and get it past the Arabs by playing American football?
I don't know who's at fault here. Tom Cruise? Hollywood? Mrs Tamplin, my fifth year History Teacher? Tick all or none of the above? What can we do if history is insufficient for the task of American chest-beating and the need of the more conservative (please note the small 'c' Patrick) elements of the American media machine to reassure itself with stories about how good and noble a place America is? We did something similar when we were fighting our war, but Laurence Olivier doing Henry V or The Douglas Bader Story were somewhat closer to the truth, or recognised as fiction. If American politicians conspire to keep their people in a state of perpetual war, sooner or later they were bound to run out of genuine stories to tell about themselves. Does it matter if, in a film, an American wins the Battle of Britain, when in real life it was British fighter pilots? Or is this just another example of how our close association with the United States is detrimental to our feelings of self-worth? If all white England is allowed to own is a legacy of murder, rape, torture and repression from it's past, where's our motivation to change that in our present or future?
I'll be coming back to this topic again some other time and will try to make sense then.
Meanwhile, in the news this morning was a report that Hollywood will be producing a film that shows how it was Americans that won the Battle of Britain. A couple of years ago I wouldn't have minded. I didn't mind the fact that Mel Gibson made two wildly inaccurate films in which he got to kill lots of Englishmen. I didn't mind the RAF in Independence Day saying "Thank God" when the finest examples of minority actors that could be found worked out how to save the world. British actors playing baddies in Die Hards 1 and 3? They were good actors. So almost all the upper-class English scum on the Titanic drowned? Well, that was accurate, at least. U-571 and Saving Private Ryan? Didn't care.
But now we have a situation where we don't know our past, we're forgetting what was truth and what was fiction and I think that's dangerous. The argument over The Passion showed, people do seem to think what they see on the screen is some kind of literal truth, "It is how it was"? Jesus Christ... Fifteen years ago the Prince of Thieves was played by an American who at least attempted an English accent until he was through the opening scenes. In a few years time I genuinely believe that it might be explained that even though America wouldn't exist for another five hundred years still a good old boy came over from Texas to kick medieval English ass. Hands up anyone who saw the episode of Monkey Dust where they did the film about the Crusades and all the 'English' knights were Americans and the 'Arabs' were all played by English actors, and the knights find the Cup of the Grail and get it past the Arabs by playing American football?
I don't know who's at fault here. Tom Cruise? Hollywood? Mrs Tamplin, my fifth year History Teacher? Tick all or none of the above? What can we do if history is insufficient for the task of American chest-beating and the need of the more conservative (please note the small 'c' Patrick) elements of the American media machine to reassure itself with stories about how good and noble a place America is? We did something similar when we were fighting our war, but Laurence Olivier doing Henry V or The Douglas Bader Story were somewhat closer to the truth, or recognised as fiction. If American politicians conspire to keep their people in a state of perpetual war, sooner or later they were bound to run out of genuine stories to tell about themselves. Does it matter if, in a film, an American wins the Battle of Britain, when in real life it was British fighter pilots? Or is this just another example of how our close association with the United States is detrimental to our feelings of self-worth? If all white England is allowed to own is a legacy of murder, rape, torture and repression from it's past, where's our motivation to change that in our present or future?
I'll be coming back to this topic again some other time and will try to make sense then.
