John Wayne

I hadn't realised what a great actor John Wayne could be when he gets away from the character he created in many films - "John Wayne". In the film I saw last evening on TV, "The Cowboys", he was at his best: hard, bitter, unforgiving of character blemishes (like a small boy's stammer), tough as nails, old and handsome.
"The Cowboys" is almost a great film, marred by an ending that must send shivers of disapproval in liberal minds: tut-tutting at the boys, enlisted by Wayne to take about a thousand head of cattle across 400 miles, who reek revenge on the villains who killed their leader; head shaking at the blood lust of boys because they have learned nothing of "love thy neighbour" and more of "an eye for an eye".
It is a beautifully photographed film with a masterful performance from Wayne and an equally thrilling performance in his best villanous role from Bruce Dern.
I could not believe my eyes that the film critic of The Radio Times gave the film only two stars. For God's sake they give some dreadful westerns four stars sometimes. This is a really tough western with outdoor scenes that are thrilling to see and action as brutal as anything Sam Pechinpah could devise.
Well done Mark Rydell for a great, well almost great film.

Modernism

Here are two interesting quotes:
1. "Success and failure on the public level never mattered to me; in fact I feel much more at home with the latter, having breathed deep of its vivifying air all my writing life up to the last couple of years."
That's from a letter written by Samuel Beckett.

2. "A gap had opened up between the ideal of modernism as the antithesis of mass culture and the reality of America as a marketplace in which absolutely anything could be bought and sold.... When someone happily observed that one of the concerts (Varese and Ruggles being the chief composers) had drawn a full house, Ruggles accused his own organisation of 'catering to the public'. As so often in the modernist saga, revolutionary impulses went hand in hand with intolerance asnd resentment."
That's from Alex Ross's "The Rest is Noise".

I used to be a tutor on a Creative Writing course and a good deal of time was taken up by would-be writers wanting to know or giving information about possible markets for their work: would Best magazine be good for the short story with a twist? How much would they pay? Is it worth trying Women's Weekly? What about Mills and Boon?

There was this insatiable desire to be published - somewhere, anywhere. I know what it's like. I've experienced it. Now I don't care..... Yes I do. Yes I do.
But never go to a vanity publisher or to a friend.... Why not? Samuel Beckett did.

Books for Children

In an article in The New Yorker someone reflects on the books he read when he was a child. I thought: I can't remember a single author of a single book I read as a child. I read (or rather looked at the comic strips) kids' mags like Beano, Dandy, Film Fun and whatnot, but books with words and stories - I can't remember reading any.
Of course, in school you had to read certain books that were on the syllabus. Though I have to say I don't think I read any of those right through. "Treasure Island" I half read so that when a question in an exam was "What do you think is the most exciting scene in the book?", I wrote about the attack on the stockade (?) because that was as far as I'd got.
Then there was "Prester John" by John Buchan ( a book that I guess would not make it on to a modern, PC, syllabus) which I read bits of. "David Copperfield" I read bits of.... though the bits might have turned me into, later, a bit of a Dickens freak - someone once wrote "if a stranger calls at my house I ask him if he likes Dickens; if he answers in the negative I lock away my silver and phone for the police". Well I'm not that much a Dickens freak.... but not far off!
This New Yorker writer mentioned Maurice Sendak - never heard of him; Paul Galdone - never heard of him; William Sleig - never heard of him.
And here I am a published author of a novel for children and I never read such books as a child. But probably I'm not much good because the book has been remaindered or is lying in a warehouse somewhere in Wales.
I once picked up a book in the library that was about authors who wrote for children. I didn't recognise any names. So I looked for the name of one I knew by reputation. It wasn't there. Roaul Dahl!

The Thrush

The ten most seen birds in gardens are the house sparrow, the starling, the blackbird, the blue tit, the chaffinch, the woodpigeon, the collared dove, the great tit, the robin and the long-tailed tit.
I had never seen a long-tailed tit until about a week ago when a couple of them appeared, not in the back garden where we have a bird table, but in the front garden (our neighbour throws food for birds into her front garden). Now, according to a report in The Times, there are many of them these days. I wonder why some birds seem to disappear for long periods then re-appear in great numbers.
And where, in that list, was the thrush?
In our garden about ten years ago there were many thrushes, now there are none. Plenty of blackbirds and thousands of sparrows, a few robins, a wren.... but no thrushes.
We had a red currant bush in the garden and one particular year it was heavy with fruit; but we left it too late to pick because when we took containers there to pick the fruit, it had all gone: the thrushes had swooped down on the bush and had eaten the lot.
Now, no thrushes.
A wonderful bird, speckled breast, a beautiful singer.
Brings to mind Robert Browning:

"Hark! where my blossomed pear tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge -
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
That first fine careless rapture."

Hah! but in the trees there are a family of magpies and I bet they love thrush's eggs.

Smokes and Oranges

Writing in The Times today, Michael Gove comments on the new film about Brian Clough, "The Damned United", with "we are back in a different world when ashtrays were laid out with oranges in the dressing room at half time".
I remember those days though not at the level of sport Gove mentions. A forward I knew who had not played rugby for many years was induced to play for the college third team, of which I was a player, only to give up the ghost at half time to relax and smoke a few cigarettes; he never returned to the field of play.
A friend of mine who was a sprinter once ran against Ken Jones, Olympic sprinter and famous Welsh wing three-quarter (who scored the winning try against the All Blacks back in the 50's). My friend was given a ten yard start. Ken Jones arrived, he told me, fag in hand; he placed the fag on the grass at the starting line and the race began. Half way to the finishing line my friend was overtaken. Then Ken Jones returned to the starting point, picked up his still burning cigarette and proceeded to continue smoking it.
There was, about fifty years back, an American tennis player (can't remember his name) who arrived on the centre court at Wimbldom with a cigarette in hand. I can't recall how far he went up the Wimbledom ladder but I'm sure he didn't win the tournament.
My favourite "oranges story" is that of the second rate rugby team at Tredegar back in the 1930' or 40's. In those days rugby was an amateur sport and it was "not done" for players to be paid. Yet it was well known that certain teams did pay players. Tredegar was one of those teams. So, when quality players got too old to play in the first class games they joined teams like Tredegar where they received financial rewards "in the boot". But how did the team managers cover up these payments? Well, half oranges were always distributed to the players at half time and at the end of the year this expense was dutifully recorded on the annual report of expenses - "Oranges £300".

Ozu

Anthony Lane in reviewing a new film called "Tokyo Sonata" said he couldn't help "but summon the ghost of Yasujiro Ozu, the serenist of Japanese filmmakers".
He certainly was. I have seen only two of his films, "Tokyo Story" and "Autumn Afternoon" and thought them both marvellous and, yes, serene.
There is no flashy camera work with Ozu: he films a scene with the camera usually at ground level and with the characters sitting at a table or squatting on a mat; the camera doesn't move, I can't recall much, if any, cuts - it's just shot in one scene and that's it, he then shoots the next scene.
The acting is always superb in a gentle, serene way; there's no wild displays of histrionics by these homely, middle-class people; the drama arises out of conflicts which are domestic. No one is murdered, no one is beaten, no one shouts at another; there are no chases. This is not Kurosawa with his raging battle scenes and strangulations and rages (Incidentally, when Kurosawa was asked who his favourite film maker was he said "John Ford of course"). No this is the cinema of serenity where relationships are put under a microscope and the little quirks the characters possess are revealed in a way that is gentle and, yes, serene.
I think he made about 16 films. He lived with his mother until her death. He smoked all the time and, I believe, liked a drink too. He was sergeant in the Japanese army. I can't imagine him killing anyone.

Tobacco Factory

I get the idea sometimes that, theatre-wise, there is more going on outside London than there is in the big city, certainly than in The West End which is pretty well full of musicals - and some, if not most of them, are not new.
We travelled to Bristol to a small theatre to see Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar". The Tobacco Factory, which is the name of the theatre (I assume it was once just that, a Tobacco Factory - certainly looks like a factory rather than a theatre from the outside), is on the outskirts of Bristol - if you think of going then get a good map first; we followed a route given by the AA and got lost!
The production was fine, the acting good, the theatre itself plain and simple but adequate. Some actors these days do not speak Shakespearean verse very well but these actors at The Tobacco Factory do. I believe the company perform a couple of Shakespeare plays per season. Well done! I wish there were others doing this.
Soon we will be going to Chichester to see a couple of plays: Noel Coward's "Hay Fever" with Diana Rigg and a play by Ronald Harewood called "Taking Sides". Neither play is new though Harewood's play was written only a few years ago; so Chichester is not a venue where new plays are usually done but it is a place where good quality plays are performed.
Won't get lost going to Chichester but will make sure I carry a good map just the same.