A Canterbury Tale, Richard Rorty and Stanley Kubrick

Guy Stagg understands A Canterbury Tale:

A Canterbury Tale suggests that love of country does not mean some romanticised retreat into the past, but rather drawing on England;s heritage to navigate the uncertainty of the modern world. 

As a result, the film floats free from its origins as wartime propaganda to become one of cinema’s most beautiful explorations of history and belief. 

Though the pace is slow and the plot dreamlike, it finds space for art and nature, friendship and love, nation and faith – all the things people sacrifice their lives for.

I'm reminded of something the American philosopher Richard Rorty said:

National pride is to countries what self-respect is to individuals: a necessary condition for self-improvement.

Stagg does get something wrong though. He tells the always-moving story of how Martin Scorsese sought out Michael Powell, who by then was living in obscurity and near poverty, and told him his films had inspired a whole new generation of American directors.

But then he adds:

The best evidence of this influence is Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the film’s opening sequence, a prehistoric ape throws a bone into the air; as it falls, the camera jump-cuts to a satellite floating in space. 

The trick was lifted from Powell and Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale, which begins with a group of pilgrims making their way across medieval England. When a falconer sets a bird of prey into flight, it soars from his arm and sweeps through the air, to become a Spitfire diving from the sky. In a single cut, the viewer is carried from Chaucer’s England to the Battle of Britain.

I don't think Kubrick can have got this idea for his jump-cut from A Canterbury Tale. In a footnote to an article of his own on the film, Paul Banks says:

Ian Christie has recently pointed out in a letter to the Times Literary Supplement, 6023 (7 September 2018), 6, that even if Kubrick had seen A Canterbury Tale before making his own film, it would have been the "severely truncated and re-ordered US version", the only print available between the late 1940s and 1978, which omitted the sequence in question.

Still, Stagg's short post on Engelsberg Ideas is well worth a read.

Alexander Mackendrick and Sweet Smell of Success

At Ealing Studios, Alexander Mackendrick directed one masterpiece, The Ladykillers, and four more of the best films made there: Whisky Galore!, The Man in the White Suit, Mandy and The 'Maggie'.

When Ealing folded he went to Hollywood, where his first film was the noir Sweet Smell of Success. Though it failed in America on its release in 1957, it is now recognised as another masterpiece and is the subject of this superior video masterclass.

Mackendrick then suffered the indignity of being taken off two consecutive films and so did not complete another until 1963, when he made Sammy Going South for his old Ealing boss Michael Balcon.

Realising that he was no Hollywood hustler, Mackendrick turned, as you will see in the video, to academia. He became the founding dean of the film school at the California Institute of the Arts (now the CalArts School of Film/Video), giving up that position in 1978 to become a professor there.

A collection of his hand outs and lectures was published as On Film-Making: An Introduction to the Craft of the Director in 2005, with an introduction by Martin Scorsese.

When I mentioned another Ealing film, Hue and Cry, in a piece for Lion & Unicorn, I suggested that it "feels more Roberto Rosselini than Ealing." What I didn't know when I wrote that was that the wartime British official who gave Rosselini permission to shoot Rome, Open City was Alexander Mackendrick.

The Joy of Six 1546

Toby Buckle argues that it's time for liberals to throw John Rawls under the bus. In his philosophy he guided the creed toward neutrality, but we can no longer afford that in the age of Trump .

"After huge reductions in first-time entrants and custodial sentences in the youth justice system in recent years, a smaller, more complex cohort of children remains. Their offending behaviours mask deep vulnerabilities including earlier childhood abuse and trauma, poor mental health, school exclusion and poverty. This cohort need stability and care to rehabilitate and change. Yet the custodial estate has seen an alarming deterioration in conditions in recent years, with two secure training centres, a young offender institution and the country's first secure school all closing on safety and quality grounds." Ann Graham on the need for reform in the treatment of children in custody.

Ekaterina Balabanova and Gemma Horton report research that finds the British press has undermined the European Convention on Human Rights over many years: "Arguably, the government’s current approach reflects some of this coverage: conceding ground on specific criticisms of the ECHR in order to salvage its overall legitimacy. But looking at the long history of press coverage, we suggest that this strategy will continue to erode legitimacy, rather than bolster it."

"On one level, perhaps, that is down to a regionally specific reluctance to seem overly expansive on certain topics ('No mysticism please, we’re British'). But I spend quite a lot of my time in a church context where talking about spiritual matters is normal, even encouraged – and, remarkably, even there very few are willing to open up; mundane matters swiftly return as the main subject of conversation whenever a spiritual matter comes up." Francis Young asks why we find it so difficult talk about numinous experiences.

"The football games we obsess over are the ones that tell a story." Natasha Chahal says this World Cup has been full of them.

Maysa Monção watches Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver: "More than the cab driver, the taxi is a character. It is the car that sees underground New York. It is the car that chases the scum of the earth: the pimps and hookers. From inside the taxi, there is a perspective of New York that must be eliminated. The marginalised inhabitants of New York don’t fit in Travis’s reactionary idea of a 'clean city'." 

Martin Scorsese defends British cinema

Yesterday on Serendib I quoted Gilbert Adair's review of Shepperton Babylon from the Spectator. What I did not quote was the part where he upheld the critical orthodoxy that British films are no good.

In today's Sunday Times Martin Scorsese does not share this view. The interviewer Jasper Gerard reports (you may need to register) that Scorsese is planning a documentary on British cinema:

His documentary will focus more on earlier British films that influenced him: "Everything from The Shape of Things to Come, to Green for Danger to The Happiest Days of Your Life to The Carol Reed films, particularly The Third Man." He reels off an impressive list - from film noir to Ealing comedies - with such enthusiasm you almost find yourself agreeing when he says he can't understand why so many British directors seek to ape big-is-best Hollywood style.