What would I have done?

David Aaronovitich in an article in The Times today writes about how maybe we shouldn't make judgements on people who have behaved in a way that, now, we might condemn. He points to a film called "The Reader" in which the character played by Kate Winslet is brought to trial for Nazi crimes and when asked why she did a certain vile act she replied "What would you have done?"
About 20 years ago this thought came to me when I was in the pub one night: I looked at some of the men there of a certain age who might have been alive during the 2nd World War and I wondered what they might have done if this country had been under Nazi occupation.
I wrote a poem on the subject called IF THE GERMANS HAD COME TO WALES :

If the Germans had come to Wales
Would Tom and Mel and Bert and Dave have been collaborators?
Would Tom have stayed in local government
And helped with transportation of the Jews?
Would dear old Mel, ex training officer,
Have lectured on indocrination of the young?
Would Bert, smart Bert, who once (he said)
Had walked to John O'Groats - would he
Have walked behind them to the trains?
Would Dave, who's full of fun and jokes and puns,
Would Dave have closed the door on them?

Would I have helped?
Would I have given talks?
Would I have walked behind them to the trains?
Would I have closed the door?

Sometimes I feel the guilt of knowing what I would have done
If we had lost the war and Germany had won.

Con Artists

In the last blog I wrote I mentioned a few films by Orson Welles; I forgot to mention one of my favourites of his, not fictional but a documentary (sort of). "F for Fake", says a review, "is about the nature of reality, celebrity and art." I'm not so sure about that. Welles always gives the impression that he is deeply serious about things when he is talking, being himself, not acting, but I wonder if, as in this film, he has anything profound to say about "the nature of reality, celebrity and art"; nonetheless it is an entertaining work with characters in it who are less than real in that they may be role-playing, certainly celebrities in a criminal way and not so much artists as con artists.
One is Clifford Irving whose fame rests on a fake biography of Howard Hughes, the film producer (and flyer). Another is Elmyr de Hory, a forger of famous artists's paintings - though he never copied other painters' works but invented works in their style. And sold them, through agents, for lots of money (his agents, naturally, pocketing the most).
They are an engaging pair of rogues. Why is it that rogues are usually more interesting than ordinary people? Can't answer that but I do believe that there is a general fascination with rogues such as these who can pull fast ones on establishment figures who set themselves up to experts.
One of the most amusing features of this film is the fact that most of the information that was obtained about Elmyr de Hory came from a biography by none other than Clifford Irving. Elmyr de Hory was a living person alright; I know that because he was in the film..... Mmmm! What can you believe? Was he real? Or was Orson Welles pulling a fast one on us?
On the subject of forged paintings it was said that Cezanne painted about 120 works, 200 of which are in the USA.

Marlon Brando

There's a new biography of Brando just published; the review inThe New York Times quotes Brando himself on his art - "It's a bum's life."
His best work was done early culminating in "On the Waterfront", then there were ten years of duds (making enough money to pay his shrinks), then a magnificent comeback in "The Godfather".
"Why do great ones," mourns the reviewer, "so rarely have the capacity to handle their genius? Brando is not the first talent to invite the question - his contemporary Orson Welles preceeded him on the path of brilliant promise, wobbly mature work and self-sabotaging obesity."
Orson Welles never surpassed "Citizen Kane" in brilliance of filming technique; but it is a difficult film to like: it's as if the techniques overshadow the story so that you never get involved, there is no "willing suspension of disbelief."
I wonder if Orson Welles, achieving so much in the art of film-making in this, his first film, didn't have anything further to contribute in later work - he'd done it all. Yet there are some good films of his one of which is on TV tonight - "The Stranger". This is a thriller with a simple conception: an investigator is on the trail of a Nazi war criminal who has ingratiated himself into a small university town and is about to marry a young woman who believes him to be an all-American guy. It's fast moving, it has strong performances from Edward G. Robinson and Welles himself (the Nazi of course) , and it has brilliant touches in the script which, you feel, must be contributions from Welles (e.g. the paper chase scene). And you do get involved in the story with an end that is exciting and wonderfully staged.
I like this film more than most of Welles's. I like "On the Waterfront" better than most others of Brando's.
They'll both be remembered for their greatest work but, like "The Stranger", some of the lesser stuff is worth a look at too.

Robert Burns

I've been singing Robbie Burns's "Auld Lang Syne" all my life at various times - the New Year usually - and suddenly realised I didn't know what it meant. What, for example, is the meaning of "Should auld aquaintance be forgot/ And never brought to mind?/ Should auld aquaintance be forgot/ For old lang syne?" Well, they are questions: should we forget old friends and the good old days? No, he answers in the chorus: "For auld lang syne my dear/ For auld lang syne/ We'll take a cup of comfort yet/ For auld lang syne." That is: we'll remember the good old days and have a drink together to celebrate them.
I think. One can never be sure with Burns. His poems can be interpreted in many ways.
My grandfather, at weddings and such celebrations, never failed to get to his feet to make a speech and he always had an appropriate quote up his sleeve from Robbie Burns to emphasise a point he was making or a sentiment he was expressing. The trouble was that no one ever knew what it was he was saying because he always recited the words in what seemed like an impenetrable broad Scottish accent. The fact that he wasn't Scottish but of Irish stock (with maybe a touch of gypsy in there somewhere) didn't worry him or anyone else; it was the feeling the recitation of the poem inspired in the gathered host that impressed.
January 25th is Burns Night, not just in Scotland but all over the world where there are Burns societies or social gatherings of people of Scottish descent (and other hangers-on who like a tipple). What a night that is going to be this year, the year that is the 250th anniversary of his birth!

Fred Astaire

I saw Fred Astaire being interviewed tonight on a History of RKO films. At the end of the interview he was asked if he thought he was, at the time, making films that would be considered in later years to be works of art. He grinned in that modest manner he perfected and said "O no, nothing like that; we were just trying to make a buck."
Often works of art come from some crafstman's effort to do a job of work successfully. I am thinking of Mozart who was described by a learned musicologist a few years ago as a "jobbing composer". In other words he was just trying to make a buck.
I feel there are too many "artists" trying their damndest to produce a work of art regardless of whether or not it will be liked and enjoyed; they tend to think in terms of "how will it be received by the critics?" rather than "how will the general public receive it?". Sometimes works of art are produced when artists follow either of these precepts, sometimes not. As William Goldman said of Hollywood: "No knows anything." No one can tell if a work of art is produced by design or luck but if one is it is usually the result of a good deal of hard work.
I think it was Pauline Kael who was offended by the central idea of the film "Amadeus": that unlike his rival he was able to produce his compositions as if he were doing something easy. It is never easy. Which brings to mind the reply Whistler gave in court, when defending himself against the charge by John Ruskin of "throwing a pot of paint in the public's face", to the question: "How long did it take you to paint one of your Nocturn's?" Whistler replied to the effect that while it didn't take long to execute, it was the result of a lifetime's work experience.
He won the case.

John Buchan

When I was a boy in secondary school we studied a novel of John Buchan's; I think it was "Prestor John". I very much doubt if that novel would be studied these days, or even read, or even mentioned with its politically incorrect views on "blacks" and Jews and other matters which most people now find distasteful. "The Thirty Nine Steps" also has some of this stuff in it (if memory is correct) but it's such a fast moving story that you can read it now without lingering on Buchan's old fashioned ideas on race, the Empire and so on.
I think I recall that his publisher did not at first want to publish it, thought it slight (which it is) and without much in the way of serious ideas but just a chase story. Well Buchan was on the board of his own publishers so, no doubt, that had something to do with its eventual acceptance.
It is, of course, a fine read though I don't regard it as in any way a classic - except in the sense that it may be a classic in the genre of "chase stories", if there is one.
I still see Hitchcok's film version in my mind's eye with Robert Donat as Richard Hannay; he was more charming a character than either Robert Powell or Kenneth More, the first too much the English gentleman, the second too much the caricature of the English gentleman. Donat was, of course, Scottish (which Buchan was) and that might be a clue to his playing the part so well.
Hitchcock changed the end much to its improvement.
I read once (may have been in the book of interviews of Hitch by Francois Truffaut) that Hitchcock chose novels which were not very good so that he could do what he wished with them, not have to be true to the literary quality of the book. Did he have this in mind when he made "The Thirty Nine Steps"?

Pinter

Sean O'Casey said of Pinter's plays: "Pinter wears gloves so that not even a fingerprint is deposited in the writing."
Does he mean that there is nothing of the playwright himself in the plays, or that there is nothing human in the plays? Not quite sure.
His plays are a bit Kafkaesque in that characters are introduced, usually ordinary people, who are subjected to torments for which there appears to be no reason why they are committed. You can put your own interpretation as to why they are being tormented - is it real or imagined? Is the State involved? Actors like playing the roles because they can imagine what they wish to appear to be, and so can be mysterious and, therefore (in their eyes) profound.
I am reminded of what Arthur Schnabel said about playing the piano when I hear the word "Pinteresque", referring to the pauses he is famous for : "The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where art lies."
I never much liked Harold Pinter's plays, though "The Caretaker" is rather good. "The Homecoming" is dreadful I think.
I saw "The Homecoming" in its first production on tour, in Cardiff. I recall there being a "box" with children and their parents in it. The kids laughed a lot during the play and I could not understand why; now I think I know the reason: the actors' response to a remark made by another is not to say the most reasonable or expected thing but the opposite - the least logical, the least expected - and this can be amusing. People laugh at Pinter's plays but it's not at the way the play is dramatically effective in the way Shaw, say, or Ibsen is; no, it's at the way it isn't. Which was why those children found "The Homecoming" amusing. The exchanges were, to them amusing, like those between two comics.
But the play is not amusing at all. I think Joan Bakewell, a former girlfriend, called it pornographic. I found it not so much pornographic as nasty with not a trace of humanity in it.