Coincidences No.s 455 and 456

No. 455 Howdah

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We are in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire exploring its history as a New Town (established in 1949). There’s a map by the water gardens showing how they were designed to look like a serpent with a seat on its back,  the seat marked by a flower garden. The name for such a seat – the sort people sat in on the backs of elephants in India – is a ‘howdah’. I’d never come across that word before.

That evening we  go to the Cineworld in Hemel to see ‘Poor Things’. Queuing up for drinks and Minstrels I spot some snacks in crisp-type bags. The brand is called Howdah. They seem to originate in Warrington, Cheshire. They donate a school meal in India for every pack purchased.

Serpent head at bottom, Howdah just above on left (flower garden)

No. 456 Howzat

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I meet Worthing-based TV director Nicholas Ahlberg at Brighton Beach House and we walk over to a newish bar/restaurant off East Street, Brighton for a drink (in my case a first very pleasant draught of Ascension Sour Cherry Cider made at Ringden Farm, Etchingham, East Sussex). It is called The Permit  Room and was set up by the people behind Dishoom.

In Bombay back in 1949 alcohol was banned in the city. “Enterprising Aunties” set up shebeens in their houses. A boiled egg seller was stationed outside as a sign for those in the know. In the 1970s the law was relaxed and permits became available for citizens to buy liquor (“for the preservation or maintenance of health”) in these Permit Rooms.

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The next morning I am looking at Facebook when a group pops up called Classic Captures. Today it offers “Vintage Color Snapshots of Brighton in the 1970s”. These include a photo of “East Street, 1974.” The building it shows, set back from the street in a small yard, is the one which now houses The Permit Room. Back then it was called Zetland (a suburb of Sydney, Australia or an archaic spelling of Shetland).

The Question of ‘Work-Life’ Balance

Lee Miller, Self-Portrait (1930)
Photo: Salvador Dali Museum

Kate Winslet’s film ‘Lee‘ about the life of American photographer Lee Miller, which premiered at TIFF in Toronto last September, is due to arrive in cinemas and on Sky sometime this quarter or thereabouts.

The movie is based on the biographical ‘The Lives of Lee Miller‘ by her son Anthony Penrose, who I had the pleasure of meeting when it came out in 1988 and I was reviewing the book – he gave me a tour of  Farley Farm in Sussex (where the Lee Miller Archives are now based, it had been Lee and Roland Penrose’s home, which then was passed on to Anthony and his late wife, who together welcomed me warmly to their cosy kitchen). Anthony later pulled various prints out of plan chests to show me. The moment I particularly remember relates to Holocaust Memorial Day which was this weekend. Lee, working as a war correspondent for Vogue, was among the first to enter Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps. She felt she had to telegraph to the editor this message once she had sent back her photos: “I IMPLORE YOU TO BELIEVE THIS IS TRUE!” Anthony recounted to me that his mother had told him in relation to these pictures that the one thing she could never forget, more than the sights, was the smell.

Following the bijou ‘You Will Not Lunch In Charlotte Street Today‘ exhibition of her work which closed a week ago at the handsome TJ Boulting building in London’s Fitzrovia, I visited another Lee Miller show at Brighton Museum, ‘Lee Miller: Dressed‘ (also well worth a visit – 59-minute train from London, closes 18th Feb). It explores Lee’s life through clothes, given that Lee was a celebrated model for the likes of Vogue, becoming a fashion photographer in her own right after training with Man Ray in Paris, the clothes lens makes perfect sense. The exhibition was prompted by the recent discovery of boxes of Lee’s clothes in the attic at Farley Farm, including a number of items by top European couturiers.

A quotation caught my eye (and imagination) near the exit:

When I fired up LinkedIn this morning I noticed a post by Fanatics Live CEO Nick Bell about work-life balance, prompted in part by a video of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos on the subject. My late mentor, veteran documentarian and polymath Roger Graef, was always a brilliant help and support but work-life balance was arguably his one blind spot, he was a ferociously hard worker who rarely seemed to switch off. It’s a fascinating and nuanced issue, and my jury is still out on whether Bezos’ argument – that it’s actually a work-life circle – and Nick’s – that being happy at work makes you a better spouse and parent – is on point or has an underlying post-rationalisation. As another Jeff (Goldblum) says in another movie, ‘The Big Chill‘:

“Michael: Don’t knock rationalization! Where would we be without it? I don’t know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They’re more important than sex.

Sam: Ah, come on. Nothing’s more important than sex.

Michael: Oh yeah? Ever gone a week without a rationalization?”

I directed a film years ago about creative thinking and I remember a line from it which was broadly: “No one on their death bed ever thought ‘I wish I’d spent more time in the office’.” Perhaps the starkest factor: you can’t ever get back time with your children once it’s passed.

So I find Lee’s reflections resonant – why not be more focused on and bold with our ideas, our physical being (less time in our heads) and our love in its myriad forms (romantic, parental, familial, environmental, spiritual, for our fellow human-beings…)?

Lee Miller by Man Ray (1929)

Lee as war correspondent :: Lee Miller – Normandy, France (1944) :: Photo: Lee Miller Archives

Lee’s most famous wartime shot, illustrating her love of Surrealism

Lee Miller and Picasso after the liberation of Paris, by Lee Miller, Paris (1944) :: Photo: Lee Miller Archives

Lee Miller, SS Guard in Canal, Dachau, Germany (1945)

Let’s Hear It for Audio

With the announcement of the BAFTA Best Film nominations last Thursday as always there was a notable omission. Jonathan Glazer’s ‘The Zone of Interest‘ is by a country mile the best movie of the year, in what is a pretty strong year. It carries a credit to my late Film4 colleague Sue Bruce-Smith, who sadly passed away way too young early in 2020, indicating how long it’s been in the making (Glazer optioned the not-yet-published, eponymous Martin Amis source novel in 2014). That decade of development resulted in a highly original, brilliantly crafted, important film.

I’m currently working on an Auschwitz documentary with journalist Martin Bright with a not dissimilar story so was intrigued to see how Glazer dealt with the two spaces – the Commandant’s house and the concentration camp next door. What is most striking about the film is how it puts so much emphasis on the audio of this premium audio-visual medium and portrays the death camp primarily through sound, enabling the director to convey both spaces simultaneously.

From the moment at the start of the film when Commandant Höss returns from a bucolic picnic to his family home adjacent to the camp a low rumbling subtly enters the soundtrack, the sound of the furnaces on the other side of the wall efficiently burning up bodies round the clock. As the film goes on, life on the domestic side of the wall with its pretty flower garden and idyllic countryside is punctuated by gun shots, ferocious barking, occasional screams and every so often a steam train pulling in (loaded with we know what). Gradually these hellish sounds render the inhabitants of the domestic space soul-sick, from the young son to the Commandant himself, who pukes on the stairs he eventually descends into the blackness of eternal damnation.

Before any pictures, the movie opens with a (long) couple of minutes of music over a dark grey screen – or rather ‘music’ as it is more like composed noises, deeply disturbing. The film ends in similar style, with distorted choral voices cutting through diabolical noises. The music composition and sound design are defining and brilliant, indicating why the picture picked up both the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and the Soundtrack Award.

Audio is often overlooked or underused in film, TV and audio-visual media. When we made ‘MindGym‘, winner of the first ever BAFTA for Interactive Entertainment, “brilliant sound” was one of the key principles we kept on a sticky note on the office wall throughout production. In ‘Screen International’ Glazer described the movie’s audio as “the other film” – “arguably, the film”.

Johnnie Burn and Audio Mixer Tarn Willers have been nominated for the Best Sound BAFTA. A remarkable Sound Designer, Burn compiled an extensive list of pertinent events at the death camp alongside witness testimonies, from which to draw realistic sounds for an authentic sound library deployed on the film. They used a detailed map of Auschwitz to calculate the distance and reverberation of the sounds.

‘The Zone of Interest’ is in some cinemas now but is officially released in the UK on 2nd February (and on 9th February in Poland where it was shot, primarily at Auschwitz). Not to be missed.

Sandra Hüller (Hedwig Höss) – Jonathan Glazer (Director) – Christian Friedel (Rudolf Höss) at Cannes

Important Television

Mr Bates & Mr Jones (Alan Bates & Toby Jones) – ‘Mr Bates & The Post Office‘

The UK media have been full these last couple of weeks with stuff about ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’ and it has been uplifting to see such an outstanding example of ‘important television’. Where a few dogged, committed journalists kept the embers smouldering – notably at Private Eye and Computer Weekly and, of course, Nick Wallis on his website through crowdfunding and on ‘Panorama’/BBC – the flame finally burst into public consciousness due to the ITV drama series, due to good old-fashioned TV.

Ray Brooks & Carol White – ‘Cathy Come Home’

It’s the latest – and perhaps greatest – in a tradition of Important Television drama in Britain. The poster boy is ‘Cathy Come Home’, the 1966 BBC drama about homelessness and descent into poverty, written by Jeremy Sandford, produced by Tony Garnett and directed by Ken Loach. Loach shot the television play on 16mm film on location rather than in the studio making it look more like a current affairs programme than drama. His direction has actors Carol White and Ray Brooks come across very much as real people in real situations.

The impact of the programme was unprecedented. It boosted the launch of the homelessness charity Shelter that same year (1966) through its 12 million viewers on BBC1 (25% of the population). Another homelessness charity Crisis launched shortly after (1967) and then the housing/youth homelessness charity Centrepoint. In addition, it influenced government policy in the 1967 Housing Subsidies Act and then the 1969 Housing Act. As incorporated in the plot, the policy of splitting families – wives from husbands, parents from children – when people became homeless was ended.

Channel 4’s ‘Queer as Folk‘

At the other UK Public Service Broadcaster, my alma mater Channel 4, the programmes most in this heritage include Russell T. Davies’ ‘Queer as Folk’ (1999), set around Canal Street in Manchester, which significantly changed people’s attitudes in the UK to the gay community, and Peter Kosminsky’s ‘The Government Inspector’ (2005) which had a profound impact on how the Hutton Inquiry into the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003 and the death of weapons inspector David Kelly played out. Kosminsky (with whom I was on the BAFTA TV Committee, where his rigorous attention to detail was very evident) employed drama-documentary techniques to clarify complex matters for the public.   

Also the early years of ‘Brookside’, the soap set in Liverpool which started the day Channel 4 launched on 2^nd November 1982, had real impact on the national conversation, not least in the lesbian kiss between Anna Friel (Beth Jordache) and Nicola Stephenson (Margaret Clemence) in 1994. That iconic kiss was included in Danny Boyle’s brilliant 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, streamed live to 61 countries (including places where homosexuality is illegal), making it the first lesbian kiss many people around the world had ever seen on TV (or at all).

ITV, although established in 1955 to provide a commercial balance to the public service broadcasting of the BBC, still has PSB obligations which it delivers through a variety of genres including news, drama and sport, forming a vital part of the unique British PSB system. Sir Peter Bazalgette, Chairman of ITV from 2016 to 2022, argued that the defining cultural purpose of PSB is original content “made by us, for us and about us” (“us” being the UK – UK talent and industry, UK audiences, and UK citizens). ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’ is their greatest ever triumph in this realm, proving how drama and fiction can make the hugest possible impact on reality and fact, succeeding where other media and institutions fall short.

It is a very timely reminder – with the BBC under pressure and on the back foot regarding the licence fee (which could end as soon as 2027); with Channel 4 largely suspending commissioning; with Channel 5 equally under the cosh due to the TV advertising slump – that we really need to value and look after our broadcasters. By the time UK viewers realise what they’ve lost, it will be too late. TV still matters, is essential to our democracy and at its best is truly important.

Change, Chaos & Opportunity

“Probably the only thing one can really learn, the only technique to learn, is the capacity to be able to change.”

Philip Guston (1913-80)

These are the words of painter Philip Guston who operated mainly in L.A. and New York – he began his career as a figurative painter, very influenced by Picasso and the Surrealists; went on to embrace Abstract Expressionism in the 50s and 60s; then returned to figurative imagery but in a very different style (see below) for the remainder of his life. The themes that cut across these phases remained consistent: brutality, war and violence, sin and injustice, evil  and upheaval.

‘The Studio’ (1969) by Philip Guston :: Philip Guston photographed by Genevieve Hanson

If you live in or near London or can travel to Tate Modern, you can get to see a large solo show of his work until 25^th February – and it’s well worth the trip.

Picking up on the previous post about having the courage to try new things, the first work day of the year for many is a good moment to acknowledge the importance of innovation and change for growth, both personal and societal. On the day Channel 4 announced massive job cuts, after a year of commissioning very little, the disruption to the television industry since 2020 in particular, but with its roots still further back, bring to mind the words of that poster boy of the pithy quote, George Bernard Shaw:

“Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

I remember being in a meeting with the Chief Creative Officer of Channel 4 the best part of a decade ago and saying to her that the dog of television and the tail of digital would flip over sooner than she thought and quicker than she thought. In changing the Channel 4 app from being called All4 to Channel 4 last year the channel finally acknowledged the observation – the tail had become the dog. (But it might have been too late.)

Change, even in the form of destruction and disorder, is essential to development and growth. When edifices crumble, the gaps between the ruins offer spaces to be filled again. Whether anyone actually reads cover to cover The Art of War by Sun Tzu is a moot point, but ol’ Sun can give GBS a good run for his money on the quotations front:

“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”

2024 opens with chaos aplenty, so by extension opportunity aplenty…

 ‘Painting’ by Philip Guston (1956, Museum of Modern Art)

First day of the year

 

 

That back to school feeling never really fades. The first day back at work every year is a bit of a challenge however much you like your work. Despite the promise of new beginnings, fresh slates, new directions the contrast with hanging out with family and friends, enjoying entertainments, walks, sleeping in is never easy.

The Christmas holidays are synonymous for BAFTA voting members with the first round of the Film Awards voting. This year – a very good year – IMHO was crowned by the astonishing The Zone of Interest directed by Jonathan Glazer. Loosely based on a novel by Martin Amis, it tells the story of the Holocaust at Auschwitz through a domestic drama set in the commandant’s house just over the wall from the death camp. The acting is flawless, the sound design a revelation and the direction perfectly judged. It has clearly been a long time in the making as I spotted in the credits my lovely old Channel 4/Film 4 colleague Sue Bruce-Smith who very sadly passed away way too young in 2020 in Dublin.

Untimely death and the Holocaust both bring us back to a quotation from Anne Frank which for me gives a clue as to where to start the new year of work…

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

Anne Frank in Anne Frank’s Tales from the Secret Annex: A Collection of Her Short Stories, Fables and Lesser-known Writings

Given that, hidden in an Amsterdam attic with the threat of violence and death all around her, she was facing something far more challenging than a new year of work and making a living, her positive perspective is very striking and inspiring.

So the new work year is beginning for me today, by happy coincidence, with a documentary film about witnessing the Holocaust from close quarters through the barbed wire. I have been working on the project for a couple of years with journalist Martin Bright and it feels like this is its year. The release of The Zone of Interest can only help as the stories are very complementary.

For this project and others this year the other words I am going to keep in mind are these from the American author William Faulkner… 

“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”

William Faulkner

Having the courage to try new things and realising that exciting new work which makes a real difference in the world can begin this second is my suggestion for where to begin…

Sandra Hüller, Jonathan Glazer, Christian Friedel – The Zone of Interest

Other thoughts on the best of cinema in 2023 can be found here