Petty ailments of the season: a twitchy left eyelid, return of the slight numbness in my left hand that plagued me last year, and general unfitness & tiredness. I’ve already had the hand looked at by a specialist – nothing serious, perhaps go in for physiotherapy if it’s a problem (it isn’t). An NHS search online suggests that the twitchy eyelid is probably down to caffeine, alcohol or stress, or all three. So I’ve started switching to decaff coffee and camomile tea.
Spent the afternoon preparing for the Writing London module’s seminar. This time – the film Finisterre. Went over my notes and the tutor’s handouts, and watched the film again courtesy of the Birkbeck DVD reference library – you have to sit and watch it on the premises, using one of the computer stations and headphones. Didn’t realise the Astoria Theatre was in the film – people are seen queuing outside for a concert in 2003 by The Hives (I think). The Astoria is now vanished, of course, erased into the crater that will become the central Crossrail platforms.
By the time of the seminar, I’d typically scribbled down enough things to say to take up the whole session. Once again my problem was knowing how to edit my class contributions to that tricky area between not saying anything and saying too much and making my classmates hate me (thankfully I’ve not yet reached that dreaded moment when the tutor says ‘Someone else!’). So I limited my pipings-up by pointing out that the film’s script – everything said by the main ‘narrator’ of Michael Jayston – was written by Kevin Pearce, and that his role is often overlooked in articles on the Saint Etienne films. Then I offered the idea that the film was not so much about The Tourist Gaze, more The Thoughtful Fanzine Gaze, and mentioned Mr P’s 1993 book Something Beginning With O (now worth £65 online, I’ve still got my copy and it’s not for sale). And I mentioned how some of the references to songs in Finisterre are pretty obscure indeed – I suggested that I was probably the only person in the class who knew that the phrase ‘Use A Bank I’d Rather Die’ was a song by McCarthy (and I was).
Chatted online afterwards with Mr Pearce himself about it. He finds the idea of having his words studied for a degree ‘surreal’. Too modest. I can heartily recommend his blog about London songs, The London Nobody Sings and his more recent online music fanzine Your Heart Out.Â
Next week we do Henry IV Pt 1. Which will be a lot harder. I’m definitely not a Facebook friend of the scriptwriter there.
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Afterwards, to the Odeon Tottenham Court Road to see The Iron Lady. It’s not worth the hype, and not as good as the recent BBC TV films on Thatcher, particularly Margaret with Lindsay Duncan. And certainly not three times as good as The Queen (see previous entry).
Attempting to cover a whole lifetime of such a famous life in a single film can only frustrate. It’s far better to zoom in on a particular incident like the 1997 Diana crisis in The Queen, or the 1990 leadership challenge in Margaret. Plenty enough there. Zoom out any further, and surfaces are skimmed.
But what people are really going to see is Ms Streep being excellent as usual, just playing the part, and that’s what you get. Just as Resident Alien was really about seeing John Hurt playing Quentin Crisp again. Both films are not proper films, they’re turns. Is that enough? Yes, if that’s what you come for. Undemanding, no surprises, nothing you didn’t know, you just enjoy the turn.
Tags: birkbeck, finisterre, kevin pearce, the iron lady
