If it’s what you do, why stop?
Given the remit and mission statement of this esteemed organ, I thought that readers of The National Rust might enjoy this article by Nick Hasted, published today on the website of THE [...]
Arts
Jamaica Inn
Unless you were in the drama department of the BBC, you might have thought that audibility is a prerequisite of an actor. However in Jamaica Inn the publican of the Inn was incomprehensible with a combination of muffled diction and Cornish burrh. Given the success of Nordic noir, they might even [...]
The Hurricane bows out
The boxer Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter has died aged 76. He was primarily famous for two things – in the 1960s, when I was an impressionable schoolboy who followed the Noble Art largely through the pages of Ring magazine, he was a mini-hero of mine as a sometime contender for the world [...]
Religious films
I was searching around for a topic for my film list and was greatly aided by Front Row, the Radio 4 arts programme, which considered this genre. It put the theme in historical context with the two celebrated versions of the Ten Commandments by Cecil B De Mille. It continued to explore sun & [...]
Fall of the Roman Empire
Yesterday I had to babysit for the grandchildren. They are good kids, by which I mean as long as they can play AngryBirds they leave me alone. I was going to work on some articles but saw that the Samuel Bronstein sword and sandal epic Fall of the Roman Empire was on the television. The critics [...]
Fingers crossed …
Previews and advance notices has begun appearing for Tommy Cooper: Not Like This Like That, a two-hour drama based upon the life of the comedian, written by Simon Nye and starring David Threlfall as Cooper, plus Amanda Redman and Helen McCrory, which will be transmitted on ITV at 9.00pm on Bank [...]
The Crooked Maid by Dan Vyleta
Dan Vyleta has acquired quite a reputation, which he has done much to foster by comparing his latest novel to Dostoevsky and Dickens. I was initially excited by the thought of a novel set in Vienna in 1948. I have never visited Vienna but I feel I know it well. Weaned on Graham Greene’s The [...]
Les Valseuses 1974
In the Seventies our set of Jewish adolescents went to see this daring movie with its explicit scenes of sex and nudity. One of our group, being derided as prim although all of us were inexperienced, did not like the film and after she left she came in for some patronising criticism. Forty years [...]
L’Enfer (Hell) 1995
Last year I compiled a list of films featuring the mentally disturbed. It did not feature L’Enfer but it should have. The director is Claude Chabrol, the French Hitchcock. Like Hitchcock he is master of filming technique, Hitchcock learning his in the German new realist school of Fritz Lang [...]
Jeune et Jolie
Francois Ozon is amongst the most celebrated of French directors and he is on form with Jeune et Jolie. The film, set over four seasons, depicts Isobelle (Marine Vatch ), a 17 year old who loses her virgintiy in the summer on holiday, becomes a prostitute in autumn, is revealed as such in [...]