A good war
Much better, this week, obviously. I particularly liked it when I made the observation that prisoner of war films are like prison breakout films, except in wartime. That's the kind of insight that's been lacking in previous weeks. (At least I wasn't Simon Weston, Falklands hero, singing the Dambusters theme while pretending to look through binoculars. At least I have that.) In case you missed the programme, here's a recap:
posted by Andrew Collins @ 3:07 PM
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Two doses of Collins last night, one time travelling from 2005; red tee-shirt, black tee-shirt - same trousers?
It was a better program though the way it moves through the different sub-headings and jumps back a forth in time makes it look like a random bunch of clips and talking heads unless you really concentrate (how terrible to have to concentrate on a Saturday night). Perhaps it tries to do too much too fast.
I don't like supposedly factual films that mess with the truth too much and this program did leave the impression that Bridge on the River Kwai for example was largely fact based. It may have been a great ending but it didn't happen like that. Reach for the Sky rather over states the Bader contribution to the Battle of Britain. It did mention the civilians killed by the Dam Busters but not the fact that they had the dams back working in a few months. Does it matter? I suspect lots of people get their impressions of history from films so to me it is important to separate fact from fiction.
Clive
A far better episode than the others. For once they picked relevant films. And that was a great clip of Michael Powell talking about Colonel Blimp.
After catching a bit of Enigma I flicked over to Channel 4 for the end of The Ultimate Sitcom and who should be there...
I'm sure that some rudimentary research would help me, but I got the impression that:
a) Carve Her Name With Pride was based on a true story.
b) The real person who Virginia McKenna plays was executed at the end. However:
c) Virginia McKenna actually met this person, some years later.
And I'm surprised that Phil Jupitus can't tell the difference between a Spitfire and a bomber.
Did you watch the Arena, tonight? Covered a lot of the same ground as this series, with a lot of the same clips. I didn't feel so much of an urge to throw things, even though it purported to be uncovering something secret, and then showed us what we already knew about all along.
I think I was relieved by the lack of talking heads (no offense, Andrew ) - when they wanted to say something they just put it in the voiceover, rather than waiting for a celeb to say it for them.
Virginia McKenna must have been talking about someone else because Violette Szabo was executed at Ravensbrück.
Yeah, poor old Phil Jupitus obviously hadn’t watched A Matter of Life and Death that month. When he said it was a Spitfire and the clip shows a De Haviland Mosquito roar over David Niven’s head... yikes!
I think there was few a minutes when AC was on at least 3 channels (see also the 100 pop videos!) hurrah!
Re: war films 2 things firstly whatever people think of Douglas Bader making a pun about "leg pulling" about double amputee is just wrong.
JOHN, the programme didn't make it clear but there were two real life SOE agents called Odette. The one Virginina Mackenna played was executed by the NAZI.
Lastly can Amanda Donahue have an award for the shortest, most out context and random comment on any clip show ever.
Mark Steel's looking skinnier, don't you think?
I'd only just got away from you on one channel and there you were on another talking about pop records. Can't we get this kind of thing blocked?
I apologise for the multichannel pile-up, although it's clearly out of my hands. That's the nature of these things. They exist in a perpetual loop. If only we got paid every time they were on.
It's a shame they didn't make the superior Arena programme into a series, instead of this sad joke.
By the way, anyone still smarting from last week's horror programme, should pick up Jonathan Rigby's English Gothic.
I probably wasn't paying attention re: Odette.
Oh, and good one getting a comment in about the opening of A Matter of Life and Death - I had to go and make a cup of tea in case they played the "I love you, June - you're life and I'm leaving you" bit, and I had to explain to my wife why my eyes were watering and I'd lost the ability to speak. Gets me every time.
Mind you it was difficult when I was living with Germans and I had to explain why some of my favourite films - AMoL&D, Col Blimp - were WWII propaganda films.
Every quiz show I've been on (and there have been many) I was told I couldn't wear red because it "bleeds" on the screen!
Still makes a nice change from your usual black!!
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