In the Beginning of the End (serpent mix)

 

This is the end, beautiful friend
This is the end, my only friend
The end of our elaborate plans
The end of everything that stands
The end, no safety or surprise
The end
I’ll never look into your eyes… again

Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free?
Desperately in need of some stranger’s hand
In a desperate land

In the beginning
God created
The heaven
And the earth

And the earth
was without form
and void
and darkness was upon the face
of the deep

Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain

And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters

There’s danger on the edge of town
Ride the King’s highway, baby

Weird scenes inside the gold mine

Ride the highway west, baby
Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake, baby
The snake is long, seven miles
Ride the snake
He’s old, and his skin is cold

And God said: Let the waters bring forth abundantly
The moving creature that hath life
And God created every living creature that moveth

Be fruitful and multiply

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind
And cattle after their kind
And every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind
And God saw that it was good

Now the serpent was more subtle
Than any beast of the field
Which the Lord God had made

The Lizard King

King of the universe

So God created man in his own image
In the image of God created he him
Male and female created he them

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the East
In Eden
And there he put the man he had formed

The West is the best
The West is the best
Get here and we’ll do the rest

The blue bus is callin’ us
The blue bus is callin’ us
Driver, where you takin’ us?

And God said: Behold
I have given you every herb
And the earth brought forth grass

And God said: Let there be light
And there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good
And God divided the light
From the darkness
And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Divide the light from the darkness

The killer awoke before dawn
He put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall
He went into the room where his sister lived, and then he
Paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall
And he came to a door
And he looked inside
“Father?”
“Yes, son”
“I want to kill you”
“Mother… I want to… fuck you”

And God blessed them
And God said unto them
Be fruitful and multiply
And replenish the earth
And subdue it

C’mon, baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus
Doin’ a blue rock, on a blue bus
Doin’ a blue rock, c’mon, yeah
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill

What have you done?

In the middle of the garden were the tree of life
And the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

The voice of your brother’s blood
Cries to me from the ground!

This is the end, beautiful friend
This is the end, my only friend
The end
It hurts to set you free
But you’ll never follow me

He made the stars also

Let me tell you about heartache and the loss of God
Wandering, wandering in hopeless night
Out here in the perimeter there are no stars
Out here we is stoned
Immaculate

The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end.

What’s up doc?

 

Enjoyed the afternoon helping judge a Mediabox/FourDocs short documentaries competition. Also on the panel were Nick Broomfield (The Leader, His Driver & the Driver’s Wife; Kurt & Courtney; Biggie & Tupac), Molly Dineen (Heart of the Angel; The Pick, the Shovel & the Open Road; Geri), Peter Dale – Head of More4, and Patrick Uden (The Apprentice).

Media Box is a DCSF fund to enable 13 to 19 year old disadvantaged young people to use creative media to express their ideas and views, gain new skills and get their voices heard.

The winner was a real stand-out piece but I can’t reveal it right now as the film-maker hasn’t yet been informed. [I’ll come back here and update this once it’s officially announced.]

Nick was very generous in his appraisal of the films, spotting the seeds of talent in the smallest details. Molly was incredibly thorough and assiduous. Patrick chaired with his usual purist standards (thank God there are still some around). Peter also enjoyed the viewings, impressed by the finalists’ get-up&go. He set less store by the presence of narrative than me – he reckons that will come in due course.

I suggested that the briefing should consist simply of two bits of advice:

• tell a story that matters to you
• and that said, for the most part, show – don’t tell

Patrick sets great store on deconstructing other people’s films, especially really good ones.

It was a good fun, good will-filled couple of hours and, of course, a privilege to kick thoughts around with such seasoned documentary makers.

I first came across Nick Broomfield when he was making ‘Driving Me Crazy’ (1988). I was working at Solus Productions, a co-op whose partners included Roger Deakins (Sid & Nancy, The Shawshank Redemption, Brother Where Art Thou, etc.)). Nick knew Roger from the National Film School and wanted him to shoot the film (he didn’t in the end, Robert Levi did). ‘Driving Me Crazy’ is about a film project going tits up – a theme/device Nick has used throughout his career. Hearing some behind-the-scenes stories from a couple of the mentors on the Mediabox competition, it was evident some of the entrants had experienced that sort of documentary trial&tribulation. A film about a neo-nazi about to enter the British army turned into a parody wildlife film on chavs when he pulled out. A young woman’s film about the joy dancing brings her got hijacked by a specialist dance director. That’s the great thing about documentary film-making – the development and production is often a story in itself.

A Minute’s Silence for Marcel Marceau

 

 

 

He was inspired to act after seeing Charlie Chaplin.

He was born in Strasbourg. His father was killed in Auschwitz.

He spoke about Chaplin in Richard Schickel’s 2003 documentary:

Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin

22.iii.1923 – 22.ix.2007

 

Photo © Estate of Yousuf Karsh

Two Sevens Clash

Exodus: Movement of Jah people

1977
Bob Marley recorded Exodus in punk London (he referred to London as his “second home”). He took refuge in the city after having been hit by a bullet the previous year in a politically motivated assassination attempt. The record was released on 3rd June 1977.

1947
The ship Exodus 1947 sailed from the small port of Site near Marseilles on 11th July 1947. On board were 4,515 immigrants from post-war Europe, including 655 children. It was heading to British Mandate Palestine.

As soon as it left French territorial waters British destroyers shadowed it. In the wake of the Second World War, the British had severely restricted immigration to Palestine and eventually decided to stop illegal immigration by sending ships running the gauntlet of the British patrols back to their port of embarkation in Europe. The first ship to which this policy was applied was the Exodus 1947.

We know where we’re going
We know where we’re from
We’re leaving Babylon
We’re going to our Father’s land

On 18th July 1947, nearing the coast of Palestine but outside territorial waters, the British rammed the ship and illegally boarded it. Two immigrants and a member of the crew were killed defending the vessel, bludgeoned to death, and 30 were wounded. The ship was towed to Haifa and the immigrants were deported on prison ships back to France at the suggestion of Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin (better known for his role in establishing the NHS).

Men and people will fight you down

1977
The Exodus recording sessions, produced by Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, took place in two west London studios: a converted Victorian laundry at the back of Island’s headquarters in St Peter’s Square, Chiswick, and the Basing Street studio, a former church in Notting Hill.

The nightly recording sessions were attended by a sizable rotating posse including the young members of Aswad and their manager, Mikey Dread (who I saw perform with The Clash at the Electric Ballroom in Camden Town); Delroy Washington; and Lucky Gordon (of Profumo Scandal notoriety). Journalist Vivien Goldman remembers the sessions as being recorded “in a mood of exuberant creativity”.

1947
At Port-de-Bouc in southern France the Exodus passengers refused to disembark and remained in the ships’ holds for 24 days during a heatwave – this despite a shortage of food, the overcrowding and dreadful sanitary conditions. The French government refused to co-operate with British attempts at forced disembarkation. Eventually, the British decided to return the would-be immigrants to Germany. These people were mostly survivors of the concentration camps and Nazi German persecution.

So we gonna walk – all right! – through the roads of creation
We the generation
Trod through great tribulation

They were shipped to Hamburg, then forcibly disembarked and transported to two camps near the German port of Lubeck on the Baltic Sea.

World public opinion was outraged by the callousness of the British behaviour and the British were forced to change their policy. Illegal immigrants were no longer sent back to Europe, but instead transported to detention camps in Cyprus.

Open your eyes and look within…
Are you satisfied with the life you’re living?

The escorting British soldiers never returned to their units in Palestine. The ordeal had such an impact on them that a near mutiny erupted among them. The British army decided not to press charges and closed the matter quietly.

The events convinced the US government that the British mandate of Palestine was incapable of handling the issue of post-war Jewish refugees and that a United Nations-brokered solution needed to be found. The US government intensified pressure on the British government to return its mandate to the UN.

1977
Throughout the recording sessions, Bob continued writing songs – Exodus itself emerged quite late and, as Vivien Goldman recounts, “there was a fizzing excitement around that track from the moment it was first laid down.”

Many of the musicians were exiles. Beyond their Jamaican roots was the urge to return to Africa, a desire central to Rastafarian belief. Bob and the Twelve Tribes (a Rasta organisation to which he belonged) were actively exploring the possibilities of land made available by Haile Selassie in Shashamane, Ethiopia.

Goldman recalls: “When the night came to finish the Exodus track, the Basing Street studio was alive with excitement. From the start, the song had its own impetus … at four o’clock in the morning a moment hit when the whole room knew that this one was it.”

1947
Within a year, over half of the original Exodus 1947 passengers had made another attempt at emigrating to Palestine – most found themselves detained in camps in Cyprus. One witness describes the DP (Displaced Persons) Camps on Cyprus thus: “a hot hell of desert sand and wind blowing against tents and tin Nissen huts, a hell circumscribed by two walls of barbed wire whose architecture had come out of Dachau and Treblinka”.

Eventually, after the events around May 1948, the majority of the Exodus exiles made it back to Israel.

Exodus, all right! Movement of Jah people!

2007

The Future of Drama?

Girl Power – current episode from Kate Modern

[click above to watch – Bebo embed code not working and what do I know about HTML?]

Marks out of 10 for acting?

Marks out of 10 for writing?

And who is stalking Charlie with a video camera? Why?

What do people feel, as a potential audience members, about this?:
“At every stage that a user is involved with the story – whether they’re blogging, uploading photos or simply watching the latest episode – there will also be the chance to be involved with the brands that take part in the story.

No, I’m not talking about traditional product placement but the integration of brands from P&G such as Gilette and Pantene, Microsoft’s Windows Live, Disney and Orange into the plot in a way that gives users a reason not only to remember the brand, but creates a long-term relationship with that brand.”
(from a speech by Joanna Shields – President, International of Bebo – at an Royal Television Society Dinner in June 2007)

LG15 it ain’t…

Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
W. H. Auden

	dont nobody give a fuck,dis shit stupid S. C. Entertainment Street Certified Entertainment Presentz

Back to the Stone Age

I was last in the Millennium Dome back in 2000 when it was full of empty stuff. Before that it was in 1999 when I was filming in the empty structure – someone had parked a double-decker bus in the very centre where the performance area was located (where Peter Gabriel’s show was performed on millennium night). It was necessary to have that red bus there to get a real sense of the scale. We were shooting from the top of a three or four storey building, one of several such structures already within the Dome, and it still felt pretty empty.

Courtesy of Yahoo!, the other evening I had the pleasure of seeing the Rolling Stones fill the Dome in North Greenwich with their charm and charisma. I had low expectations. I’d never seen the Stones live before, reckoned it would be a good idea to catch them before they died or had hip replacements, but assumed they were long past their prime. As it was, they turned out to be plenty hip.

Mick performed with the enthusiasm and generosity of the best of them – he was having a good time and he was giving 100% to make sure we did too, right from the first strains of Start Me Up as he followed Keef and his opening riffs onto stage. It’s always struck me what consistently great openings the Stones have to their songs.

It was my great good fortune that this particular performance, my first, was itself a closing – the very last night of a two year tour, the Bigger Bang tour.

Keef played up to his Captain Jack image, at one point eating an unlit cigarette to take the mick out of Greenwich Council who had given them a hard time about lighting up on stage the week before. He reaffirmed his deep commitment to the Blues by performing vocals on a couple of old blues numbers in the middle of the set. That they hadn’t strayed far from their roots in their love of the Blues was one of the most striking things of a great night.

Besides how much of their 19 year old selves they’d retained (if you averted your eyes from the big screen you could imagine it being their young sixties selves – Mick still has the moves, which is as astonishing as Bruce Springsteen’s elder statesman energy), besides that, Ronnie Wood’s immense charm was the other surprise of the night, adding a distinctive warmth to the perfect chemistry of the band.

The undoubted highlight of the night was Sympathy for the Devil. What was striking about the Stones live is that at moments throughout the set you really felt rock’n’roll as the devil’s music, a sense of that dark, chaotic, dionysian vibe. Paint It Black followed to complete the crescendo. I was transported and stoned immaculate.