A treat: Lee and Dirk in The Vision, 1987

A thousand thanks to Colin for finding this - one of my Holy Grails - a 1987 BBC film with two of my top favourites, which was only ever shown once by the BBC and since unavailable. It is now on dvd, so thanks again Colin - just what I needed after a few days in hospital. 

Dirk Bogarde and Lee Remick head an outstanding cast (including Eileen Atkins and Helena Bonham Carter) in this powerful drama from the creative team behind SHADOWLANDS. Originally screened (in January 1988) as part of BBC2’s acclaimed Screen Two strand, THE VISION is a disturbing reflection on an era of televangelists, burgeoning satellite channels and ruthless media manipulation – quite timely then for 30 years ago.

Bogarde plays James Marriner, a faded, unhappily married for TV presenter, reduced to margarine commercials and opening supermarkets, who is persuaded to front The People Channel – a right-wing, evangelical satellite network poised to launch in Europe. Determined to recruit “Gentle Jim” as a reassuringly familiar anchorman, the network’s steely, seductive boss Grace Gardner (Remick) proves hard to refuse.

As the network’s first live transmission looms, Marriner – whose personal life is now under surveillance – has become deeply uneasy about its aims. Garner, however, makes it clear than any attempt to alert viewers to her organisation’s true agenda, will bring about a devastating retribution. 
Written by William Nicholson and directed by Norman Stone. 

Eileen Atkins (in another of her then Mrs Glum roles) is Bogarde's unhappy wife, and Bonham Carter their daughter, Dirk and Lee play perfectly together, at this late stage in their careers - almost their final work. I met them both (separately) at the BFI in 1970 (I was 24) and got to talk to them both, as per other posts on them (see labels). Its a great role for Remick, which she plays with relish and looks great here in her early fifties, a few years before her death in 1991. (We also saw Atkins on stage then as Elizabeth I in Bolt's VIVAT REGINA with Sarah Miles as Mary Queen of Scots).

I suppose it now too much to expect to get Lee's other BBC productions, SUMMER AND SMOKE in 1972 and Henry James' THE AMBASSADORS, with Paul Scofield, in 1977, finally on dvd too? - in the meantime, great to see THE VISION again, and it is so timely, even if the 80s technology looks so dated now.  Then there are Bogarde's other TV productions, like THE PATRICIA NEAL STORY with Glenda Jackson ...

Cinderella, 2015

We liked it, we liked it a lot. Kenneth Branagh's retelling of the fairytale was a pleasant Sunday evening flick to unwind to, with a drink or three, after all that drama and excitement from Rio. Cate Blanchett as ever looks divine in some stunning creations that drag queens would kill for, and it all looked a treat - add in a deliciously ditzy turn too by Helena Bonham Carter as the Fairy Godmother ...

I missed this last year, but it is interesting now, after seeing Branagh's production of ROMEO AND JULIET (see review below) last week, which had some of the players here - is he starting a new repertory troupe? - Lily Allen and Richard Madden as Cinders and Prince Charming; he was supposed to be Romeo to her Juliet but injured his foot, leading to Freddie Fox taking over at 48 hours notice. Branagh regular Sir Derek Jacobi (that VICIOUS old queen, who was great as an aged Mercutio in R&J) is also here and in stately mode too, as the King. 

I felt a distinct vibe from Visconti's lush ballroom waltz in THE LEOPARD in the ballroom scene here; and there seems a nod too to Demy's magical fairytale DONKEY SKIN (PEAU D'ANE) especially with Bonham-Carter (right) seemingly channeling Delphine Seyrig's Fairy Godmother there. All in all, very good fun. 

I may now have to go back to Ken's 1996 all-star HAMLET, Sir Jacobi is Claudius in that, with Julie Christie as Gertrude - its overlong and stuffed with names, but time to get it on ... Ken is tackling Olivier's THE ENTERTAINER on stage next, we may see that before the end of the year, cast includes John Hurt and Greta Scacchi. 

Summer re-views: A Room With A View

Back to 1985 for this still charming treat, and perhaps the most popular Merchant-Ivory production till then, A ROOM WITH A VIEW from E.M. Forster, still delights now. Ok, its a perfect period costume drama, but its ideal for a warm Summer evening. The BFI in fact screened it in the open air, under the stars, projected on the wall of The British Museum in London a couple of summers ago (along with Hitch's BLACKMAIL, which actually used the Museum as a location for the climax back in 1929).

Here is what I said about ROOM a few years ago here:

A ROOM WITH A VIEW from 1985 - how we liked this at the time (one of my date movies in Brighton), one of their best films and the first of their E M Forster triple, followed by MAURICE (time for a re-view of that soon) in 1987 and then HOWARDS END - the definition of the much derided heritage cinema,
but they are all marvellous costume dramas with great performances, like their THE EUROPEANS (Lee Remick), THE BOSTONIANS (Vanessa Redgrave), HEAT AND DUST (Julie Christie, Greta Scacchi), QUARTET (as reviewed here, Maggie Smith label), as well as their earlier oddities like SHAKESPEARE WALLAH or SAVAGES. What a fascinating team they (director James Ivory & producer Ishmael Merchant, with scriptwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala ) were and the many stories of how they made those films and attracted all those casts, on meagre budgets ....

When Lucy Honeychurch and chaperone Charlotte Bartlett find themselves in Florence with rooms without views, fellow guests Mr Emerson and son George step in to remedy the situation. Meeting the Emersons could change Lucy's life forever but, once back in England, how will her experiences in Tuscany affect her marriage plans?

Maggie Smith and Judi Dench are perfection of course as the spinster aunt and the novelist Miss Lavish, Florence looks marvellous, the period detail looks perfect, there's wonderful Fabia Drake, Daniel Day Lewis as the prissy Cecil Vyse, Rosemary Leach, Denholm Elliot and that amusing scene where the Reverend Beebe (portly Simon Callow - I almost said Cowell !) joins George and Freddy (Julian Sands and Rupert Graves) for a naked swim as the ladies walk by .....  England and Italy both look great and the soundtrack and music and captions are ideal, as of course is Helena Bonham-Carter as Lucy Honeychurch. It all ends very satisfyingly with our couple back at their room with a view and the spinster aunt happy for them in her single bed. It all though makes one want to run off to Florence right now ...

There was another ROOM WITH A VIEW, a tv version in 2007 right, scripted by costume veteran Andrew Davies (also responsible for the great BBC 1995 PRIDE & PREJUDICE and the filleted new version of BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, see Costume Drama label). There is no ambiguity about the Reverend Beebe (Mark Williams) in this one ("not the marrying kind" according to Forster), he chats up Italian youths and has a leer in his eye as joins the boys stripping off .... Cecil in this one is James Fox's son Laurence .... like the recent tv version of SENSE & SENSIBILITY it amuses but is not as good as the film. It did though tack on a meaningless coda showing Lucy back in Florence in the '20s, George having perished in WW1!

Love is not the sweetest thing !

A trio of mesmerising star turn impersonations:  Derek Jacobi as painter Francis Bacon; Michael Douglas as Liberace; Helena Bonham-Carter almost as Elizabeth Taylor .....

I had been putting off seeing LOVE IS THE DEVIL and BEHIND THE CANDELABRA for some time, as I felt one may be too grim, and the other too camp - but they make up an astonishing double bill with a similar story arc: naive young man gets taken up by older artist who turns out to be a monster who tosses him aside when he has tired of him ... both stories capture facets of British and American gay life in the '60s and '70s and into the '80s perfectly .

In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992) surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, 30 years Bacon's junior, accepts. Bacon finds Dyer's amorality and innocence attractive, introducing him to his Soho pals. In their sex life, Dyer dominates, Bacon is the masochist. Dyer's bouts with depression, his drinking and pill popping, and his satanic nightmares strain the relationship, as does his pain with Bacon's casual infidelities. Bacon paints, talks with wit, and, as Dyer spins out of control, begins to find him tiresome. Could Bacon care less?

or as I said, on IMDB the other week: 

LOVE IS THE DEVIL, 1998. More artistic temperament in spades in this study of the painter Francis Bacon, and the man in his life, George Dyer, a small time crook. Again the casting is the thing: Derek Jacobi is uncanny as Bacon – as mesmerising as he was in I CLAUDIUS, while a pre-Bond Daniel Craig seems just right as the working class man out of his depth with Bacon’s Soho drinking pals who include Tilda Swinton - young David Hockney is depicted here too. John Maybury’s film  - I see it as a filmic version of Munch's "the Scream" - though cannot depict any of Bacon’s art but the film suggests their nightmare quality. The destructive relationship between painter and muse is caught as Dyer falls into alcoholism and pill popping, before his suicide. Grim is the word, at least Frear’s film on Joe Orton, another gay maverick artist, PRICK UP YOUR EARS had a lot of humour among the increasingly grim dramatics. 

John Maybury's film astonishes on many levels, capturing the selfish artist and the untidy (putting it mildly) studio, and all that drinking at the Colony and other drinking clubs. Jacobi is astonishing, whether cleaning his teeth with Vim detergent, putting shoe polish in his hair and applying mascara and powder before he heads off for an afternoon on the razzle, as Dyer sinks deeper into misery and booze and pills - Craig, as he was in LAYER CAKE and THE MOTHER and ENDURING LOVE is as solid as he was as Bond, James Bond.

BEHIND THE CANDELABRA, 2013: Before Elvis, before Elton John, Madonna and Lady Gaga, there was Liberace, pianist and flamboyant star of stage and television. Scott Thorson, a young bisexual man raised in foster homes, is introduced to Liberace and quickly finds himself in a sexual and romantic relationship with the legendary pianist. Swaddled in wealth and excess, Scott and Liberace have a sx-year  affair, one that eventually Scott begins to find suffocating. Kept away from the outside world by the flashily effeminate yet deeply closeted Liberace, and submitting to extreme makeovers and even plastic surgery at the behest of his lover, Scott eventually rebels. When Liberace finds himself a new lover, Scott is tossed on the street. He then seeks legal redress for what he feels he has lost. But throughout, the bond between the young man and the star never completely tears ...

Another terrific HBO movie (see THE NORMAL HEART, gay interest label) this Liberace movie is played for laughs as well as dramatics as ageing predatory older man ensnares rather naive young man. Scott (as depicted by Matt Damon) does not seem quite on the make, but is soon revelling in the glitz and glamour of the Liberace lifestyle. It is a shock to see Lee without his wig, as he and Scott get more involved, with Scott too having plastic surgery to look more like Lee, who talks of adopting him. 

Both actors turn in mesmerising performances, plus I did not recognise Dan Ackroyd or Scott Bakula (who delivers the zinger line to Scott: "Right now you are Judy at the Sid Luft obsese era"), while Debbie Reynolds was initially unrecognisable as Lee's mother, and Rob Lowe is the hilarious plastic surgeon. The tackier side of American showbiz is nicely depicted too. It is everything that Soderbergh's MAGIC MIKE should have been (see Mike label) ... while Damon has maybe his best role since THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY and Douglas is truly extraordindary as the great faker and master showman. Left: Soderbergh with Douglas. Liberace's 1955 film SINCERELY YOURS is reviewed at Liberace label. Also, its hardly unfair to depict Liberace like this, after all he had the nerve to sue - and win! - that British paper for casting aspersions on his masculinity! Douglas and Reynolds knew Liberace and his mother, so I imagine their portrayals are spot on. 

More camp showbiz excess is provided by BURTON AND TAYLOR, the BBC's 2013 biopic on the 1983 final teaming of the Great Lovers, who were selling themselves to the public, on stage in a doomed revival of Coward's PRIVATE LIVES. It was a last throw of the dice for Taylor to get Burton back into her orbit, even though he was poised to marry again. Helena (aided by great make-up, wigs, and those purple and lilac outfits) captures the capricious great star, forever late for rehearsals and seemingly not taking it seriously, to the annoyance of Burton and their director, but she delivers when she has to. She is also never far from the drinks trolley .... 

as Burton tries to avoid the booze and do the work. Bonham-Carter is fine as Taylor, but Dominic West suggests nothing of Burton's looks or voice to me, but does radiate a powerful presence, as he becomes horrified at the circus their play has become as the public come to see The Burtons ...

I saw The Burtons up close in 1970 at that Cinema City exhibition in London, as I have detailed previously - Taylor label - where they were with director Joseph Losey and critic Dilys Powell (left) as they were annoyed their SECRET CEREMONY film was a flop and being re-edited and sold to television. Eliizabeth looked marvellous in a gypsy type dress as she flashed that diamond, while Burton was in ranting mood in a safari suit!  The BBC film direted by Richard Laxton, captures a lot of their charisma and is jolly good fun. 

I Am Love / The King's Speech

Intoxicating, rapturous cinema is back with I AM LOVE (IO SONE L'AMORE), made in 2009 starring Tilda Swinton and directed by Luca Guadagnino. This is a stunning, absorbing drama about a wealthy Milanese family and recreates the great cinema experiences of the early 70s with those extraordinary films like Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST or De Sica's GARDEN OF THE FINZI CONTINIS. Tilda has described the film as being "Visconti on acid" but there is also a lot of Antonioni influences here.

We start with some widescreen images of the wealthy Recchi family coming together to celebrate the founder's birthday as servants prepare the dining room at their opulent villa, and he is going to announce who is going to replace him (shades of Visconti's THE DAMNED) - to the family's surprise he names his son Tancredi and grandson Edo (whom the rest feel is not really ready for such responsibility). Grandfather is played by Gabriele Ferzetti (Sandro in Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA) and his wife is the still very elegant and beautiful Marisa Berenson - so we have all these assocations with Antonioni, Visconti and Kubrick. Tilda Swinton's Emma (Tancredi's wife) is Russian actually but now part of the Milanese high society and she looks trememdous here, as dressed by Jill Sander. The music too is rapturous and engrossing and has introduced me to John Adams. In fact I shall have to get the soundtrack as an introduction to his work.

Emma gets to meet Antonio, a chef - Edo's friend whom he is going to open a restaurant with and they become attracted to each other which, after years of her staid marriage, leads to a passionate affair which will have far-reaching consequences [rather like that other Russian housewife discovering passion, Anna Karenina]. Antonio is a bit of an enigma, we don't really get to know him. Complications arise with the sale of their textile factory after the grandfather has died, and Emma and Antonio try to keep their passion secret, but Edo begins to suspect and realises when at a banquet Antonio serves up his childhood favourite soup Oucha which Emma used to make for him. They quarrel but he falls and hits his head .... and it all begins to spiral out of control. Emma is also fascinated by her daughter who comes out as a lesbian and starts a passion of her own. There are lots of marvellous moments, with great images and sound and Tilda is totally in control here - it is her best role since THE DEEP END. There are some great locations too around Milan and San Remo, and those Italians in London. Swinton is regal and looks terrific. There is a wonderful scene where she experiences the rapture of food as she eats a dish which Antonio has prepared for her before they get together - one can feel the look and taste of the dish she is savouring. I also like little touches like the light shining on those green glasses at the dinner table among those stunning interiors.

It is all impeccably directed, elegantly shot and is a sleek, polished upper-class melodrama with a great music track which all makes for fascinating cinema full of references to Italian cinema at its best. Highly recommended and I can't wait to experience it again. There is also an interlude with Swinton on the roof of the Milan cathedral, which has been used in many films (like Visconti's ROCCO) and which I visited myself back in '74. And the title? It could refer to the power of love to unlock passion leading to tragedy: "I am love - behold my terrible power to change everything".

THE KING'S SPEECH - the hit of the year here in the UK - is pretty conventional by comparison (I saw it and I AM LOVE the same day), but is marvellously well done, as directed by Tom Hooper, great period detail both with the Royals and ordinary folk, showing that social life back then was sitting around watching the wireless, in those 30s decors. Colin Firth dominates as the stammering Bertie, Duke of York, later King George VI - once his brother has abdicated to marry Mrs Simpson - and his developing relationship with the unconventional Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue, well played by Geoffrey Rush. Their scenes are really the core of the film and around them a great cast play out the other parts: Helena Bonham Carter is spot-on as the later Queen Mother - the two little princesses and the corgis are just right, Claire Bloom has a few moments and is perfect as the unbending Queen Mary, Derek Jacobi, Timothy Spall, Anthony Andrews, Michael Gambon, Jennifer Ehle (Elizabeth Bennett to Firth's Mr Darcy back in that excellent '90s BBC version of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE) round out the cast, with Guy Pearce as the new King besotted with the American divorcee. It does show the fear facing the Duke waiting to make his first speech in public at Wembley Stadium and the isolated life with no friends which is a monarch-in-waiting's lot and the destiny which he has to face, without much help from unyielding parents.



I had a childhood/early teen stammer myself so was unsure how I would react to the King's problems but it is handled very well - and not depicted as painful to hear as a real stammer can be (I just don't like and can't use that word stutter). The end credits tell us it is all true but some liberties have been taken - I would imagine there weren't the crowds outside the Palace as the King makes the climactic speech - but some artistic licence has to be allowed to create a rousing finale! Not though since Helen Mirren as THE QUEEN has an actor been so on course for a certain Oscar win - Firth is perfect here, and of course after being nominated and losing last year for playing gay in Tom Ford's A SINGLE MAN as well as playing royal and overcoming a disability! He must now be the pre-dominant English actor of our time. It would be nice to see Helena get some recognition as well, she has turned into a fascinating quirky presence.