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Sorry for the lack of posting - I’ve been on holiday (by mistake), in Provence. A million miles away from the scene of this clip which Hunter Gatherer has once again sifted from the pile of crap that is the reality of the once great British television.
Enjoy
and read Hunter Gatherer’s analysis, here.
For Memorial Day, Hunter Gatherer posted an excellent piece on the 1963 war film, The Victor. I recommend reading what he has to say in full, but here is the snippet that accompanies the clip above:
“The particularly strong portrayal of the less heroic side of war’s consequences was shocking given the year that the film was made. One scene in particular, purportedly inspired by the execution of Eddie Slovik, set the execution of a deserter in the last months of the war to Frank Sinatra’s rendition of ‘Have Yourself a Merry Christmas’.”
This is an absolute gem and an almost forgotten one - a documentary version of Alvin Toffler’s classic 70s book, Future Shock presented by Orson Welles.
The premise of Future Shock was that the pace of human progress had achieved a level which would create a pathological reaction, a metaphorical motion sickness caused by the fact that nothing seemed permanent.
Unlike most past views of tomorrow, which look hopelessly obsolete (’nothing dates like the future’), the premise of Future Shock can only get stronger since not only progress itself, but the derivative of it, its increasing rate of change, exacerbates the core phenomenon.
Stylistically, however, Future Shock is a definitively dated period piece, an early 70s, Jumbo Fonted, psychedelic trip full of deliciously obsolete technology that conjures up wistful nostalgia where it is intended to do exactly the opposite. Even the poor quality of this video with its wavering audio track and bleached imagery actually adds to the effect.
Future Shock is both a perfect piece of vintage cultural nostalgia and still relevant scientific prophesy. It’s Everything retro-futurism should be.
Above is the trailer for Errol Morris’ most recent film, Standard Operating Procedure, which is now available as a watch on demand feature at Netflix.
It takes the premise that all that will be remembered of the Iraq war in decades to come will be the photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib and dissects the role of photographs in how what went on there was ultimately judged.
Lynndie England, the person often held most culpable, because of her appearance in photographs appears least guilty under analysis. She was a child below the legal drinking age who was easily influenced by another reservist, the sadistic alpha-male, Charles Graner, who was often behind the camera in the most incriminating images.
No matter how horrifying the imagery of Abu Ghraib the people interviewed point out that the real violence was perpetrated by CIA interrogators who murdered prisoners during questioning, but whose crimes were not photographed or prosecuted.
The underlying point is that images will always carry more weight than written testimony, but that they are often taken at face value. The most iconic image of Abu Ghraib, the one which turned public opinion more than others, is the crucifixion-like image of a prisoner standing on a box with his head in a sack and arms outstretched. The electric wires hanging from his fingers are fake and the exercise in sleep deprivation rather than physical violence is deemed ‘Standard Operating Procedure’. But the image, with its religious overtone, speaks of something else. .
(BTW for those that wonder why I am posting a link to Netflix. The aim of this site is to point to great TV/movies that are available directly via the Internet. I’m a particular fan of Netflix’s watch it now service, which has increasing good movies available, after a slow start).
Part 1 embedded, Part 2 here.
Total running time: approx 40 mins
This documentary is an absolute gem, in the tradition of Errol Morris it finds the profound in the utterly banal, without resorting to postmodern sneering. The subject is a sleepy English seaside town, one of those places where uptight, keeping up appearances, Edwardian sensibilities hang by a thread, appropriately enough at the nation’s edge. This is a culture that was satirized in Dad’s army as being obsolete 40 years ago and which Orwell railed against even earlier in Keep the Aspadistra Flying, but it still lives in Frinton on Sea.
This calcified culture that has only recently begun to emerge in America, where middle class people, or to paraphrase Evelyn Waugh, ‘upper lower middle class’ people emulate the veneer of respectability displayed by the public face of the powerful, without enjoying the private debauchery. Its a sick joke that is played by the rich on the modest, the world over, where ordinary people suffer humdrum in exchange for a caricature of dignity.
When people talk about the hypocrisy of suburbia, as if the few people who are secretly sleeping around and snorting coke after church on Sunday are proof of endemic problems, they miss the point. Where I have encountered it, this Janus like culture seems to be the norm in the upper echelons of society, from the Hamptons to Hampshire, whereas in places like Frinton-on-Sea there are many people who actually live the lives that the Victorians pretended to. Its a raw deal.
Here, a BBC team pokes back at the ‘twitching net curtains’ of exburbia, to examine the traumatic impact of the decision to automate the town’s railroad crossing and the resulting local outcry. The result is a small socio-anthropological masterpiece.
