Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)

Compared with Kings and Queens of yesteryear the current royal usurpers have it very easy. The odd expenses paid trip, interference in the odd referendum, right off an expensive Land Rover. No cold and bleak castle for them, a warm and rather large council house in a popular part of London, and they don’t pay for their extra bedrooms. You always know when they’re at home because there a Glasgow Ranger’s flag flying from the roof. You only have to watch a queenly costume drama to prove my point. Your life constantly at risk from some relative who wants your job, army’s to raise, wars to fight, and the expenses paid trips take a lot longer.  

With the recent release of the 2018 Mary Queen of Scots I thought it would be the ideal time to revisit Charles Jarrott 1971 version. It’s quite an enjoyable royal romp that’s crowning glory is the acting of the two leads, Vanessa Redgrave, who plays Mary and Glenda Jackson, in the role of Queen Elizabeth of England, were both nominated for acting awards. The worst part of the movie was the Scottish accents that were varied and unconvincing.  Following this viewing I await to see how the new, highly award nominated version, stands up.

Foxcatcher.

Saying too much about Bennett Millers latest movie would, I'm sure, spoil it for many of you, as the movies climax was quite a shock for someone like me who knew nothing about the story before seeing the film! Based on a true story Foxcatcher (2013) was written for the screen by E Max Frye and Dan Futterman who also wrote the screenplay for Capote (2014), which Miller directed. The movie involves two different subcultures, wealth, money and self conceived power and the sport of wrestling, a rather under appreciated sport in modern day America.

 

Mark Ruffalo plays Dave Schultz.

When Bennett was originally approached with the story he knew immediately that this was a movie he had to make but it took some time to come to fruition. No one from the wrestling community wanted anything to do with the movie until John Giura joined the team as a trainer/technical adviser, which brought many other members of the wrestling community into the production. Giura was eventually given a producing credit.  Set on Du Pont's 880-acre estate in New Town Pennsylvania, and with the original mansion Liseter Hall having been demolished, the filmmakers used Morven Park in Leesburg, Virginia for the exterior filming and Wilpen Hall an 1899 mansion in the suburb of Sewickley Heights Pennsylvania for the interior filming.

 

Channing Tatum as Mark Schultz.

The story concerns the relationship between two gold winning Olympic wrestling brothers Mark and Dave Schultz, played by Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo, and the American munitions multi millionaire, philanthropist and wrestling enthusiast John Eleuthere du Pont, a very different role for comedian Steve Carell who is almost unrecognisable with his ‘Roman’ nose. Du Pont sets himself up as the main benefactor of the US Wrestling team to take part in the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games taking on Mark and then Dave to train Team Foxcatcher. It's a self indulgent project for one of the riches men in America at that time and demonstrates what he imagines his vast wealth can allow him to get away with.

 

Steve Carell as the multi millionaire du Pont. 

Offering a great story, although slow paced and intense, it allows the three main leads to demonstrate career best performances with both Ruffalo and the unnerving Carell both receiving acting nominations at the 87th Academy Awards while Bennett was nominated for Best Director, an award he won at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. Also in the movie are Vanessa Redgrave as du Pont's domineering horse loving mother and Sienna Miller as Dave Schultz wife Nancy.  Don’t worry if you’re not a fan of wrestling, as I’m not, it will not spoil your enjoyment of this finely made, if somewhat gloomy, movie. Just treat at it as a metaphor for life - how the rich exploit people who are not fortunate enough have the same privileges they have. 

Song for Marion.

When I wrote my blog about The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012) I ranted my displeasure that the film industry in Britain seem to take pleasure in pigeon holing a section of the public in what I see as their quest to demean people of a certain age whom they imagine cannot enjoy a movie that’s challenging and/or graphic in its contents. We’ve recently had Dustin Hoffman’s Quartet (2012) described as a comedy and happy to show a fantasised Care Home with out a hint of reality. European and even American filmmakers can make films without patronising adult audience. Take for instance Michael Haneke’s award winning Amour (2012) or Yaron Silberman’s A Late Quartet (2012) not the best film I have ever seen but one that does not treat its audience as a bunch of maroons.

Arthur and Marion share a joyous moment.

Director Paul Andrew Williams has a good pedigree for films with bite, including London to Brighton (2006), a social realistic crime drama about child prostitution and runaway youth, and Cherry Tree Lane (2010) where a prosperous middle aged couple receive unexpected visitors to see their son about a wee matter of grassing up one of his friends and take out their frustrations on the parents while waiting for his return. Now we get him trying his hand at what’s can only be described as promoting a movie aimed at an undemanding audiences of a certain age, people who are believed not to require a great deal for the price of a cinema ticket. Song for Marion (2012) would have been a far better film if it had concentrated on the three way drama between a retired couple, the grumpy misanthrope Arthur (Terence Stamp), his wife Marion (Vanessa Redgrave), who is diagnosed with terminal cancer and they’re grown up son James (Christopher Eccleston), who has a daughter but apparently no wife. Instead Williams concentrates on a cranky implausible choir called the OAPz, led by a young condescending music teacher (Gemma Arterton), that the wheelchair bound Marion is a member of. 

 

James with his daughter.

This movie demonstrates how bad the British film industry can be at times.  

Its safe, unimaginatively gutless and completely predictable, trying far to hard to bring a mawkish tear to your eye. An embarrassing sugar rush that wastes the acting talents of those involved.

Blow-Up.

The classless photographer indulges in his fashion shoot.

It wasn’t until Michelangelo Antonioni ventured to the UK and made his first English language film that he becomes a truly international filmmaker. Blow-Up (1966) was the Italian directors biggest commercial success. It was based on a short story Las Babas del Diablo by the Argentinian writer Julio Cortazar. Shot mainly in South London it tells the story of glamorous fashion photography, inspired by classless snapper David Bailey who divides his time between serious shoots and sessions with fashion models. The film opens with Thomas (David Hemmings) dressed as a transient leaving a Salvation Army Hostel, a place that would then have been referred to as a doss house, with reels of 35mm stock showing the men and the conditions they lived in, all of which are to be used in a forthcoming book. Leaving the area in a convertible Rolls Royce he goes back to his studio to photograph the German model Veruschka and a fashion shoot for a magazine. Later whilst waiting for the owner of an antique shop to return so he can make an offer for the property he enters Maryon Park and starts taking photos for a future project.  He see's a young women (Vanessa Redgrave) and an older man petting and intrusively starts taking pictures. The woman is furious and tries to get hold of his camera, eventually tracking him down to his studio. Thomas can't understand why the woman wants the negatives so much until he develops and enlarges the prints.

The films release was blocked because of some explicate images.

If the film does nothing else it shows what the mid 1960s were perceived to be like underlining the hyped up feel so beloved of the media at the time. But in fact there was a significant discrepancy between most people's experiences and the colourful dream that was the swinging sixties. Most of us were earning our living in a far less romanticized fashion than the well-heeled individuals portrayed in the movie. It did however show the beginnings of the celebrity culture, note the two young girls (Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills) notoriously going to any length to get a famous photographer to take their pictures with perhaps the hope that some of his fame will rub off on them. Certainly, for a main stream British film at that time, the nudity was quite explicit, including Redgrave removing her blouse and wondering around the studio with only her crossed arms protecting her modesty, the films initial release being blocked because of it. It also shows the acceptance of the drug culture, the casual sex, and the fashion consciousness of the time and of course music concerts, all of which was available to those that could afford to indulge in the life style. Incidentally the film has a great soundtrack from Herbie Hancock and also includes the track performed by The Yardbirds with a classic lineup that included both Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck.

The Swinging Sixties wasn't like this for us all!!

Antonioni's film was said to influence Coppola's 1974 movie The Conversation and after seeing both film’s recently I would beg to differ. Coppola set out to make a thriller where as Blow-Up was neither suspenseful nor a thriller. It was really a portrait of what was to become known as a swinging London movie but like many of them had the addition of some disturbing undertones involving the mystery of what our aggressive young photographer saw or did not see in a dog less South London park. 

The mystery of Maryon Park, South London.