Though Cowards Flinch

I don’t see much TV, so it was simply by chance that I came upon one of the best  films I’ve seen in many years last night.

‘Moving to Mars’ was a full-length film documentary covering the story of two very different Karen families living in a Burma/Thai border refugee camp, and then coming to live in Sheffield.

It did what a documentary should do, in my view.  Within the necessary constraints of the medium – the following people and cameras which, however unobtrusively they come across in the finished article will nevertheless always intrude – it allowed people to speak for themselves. 

No ‘celebrity narrator’ seeking to display their versatility and/or whackiness in the interests of extra crowd pull.  No heavy voiceover telling us how to feel (though just occasionally the backing music intervened a tadge too much).  Just two Burmese families, getting on with it.

Alongside the excellence of the whole, there were two features in particular which I think reflected the integrity of the film makers. 

First, a considerable section of the film took place in the refugee camp, before the move to Sheffield.  Rather than simply seeing the families thrown into an alien world and portraying them as helpless dependents, it showed them for what they were – capable, caring family units making informed decisions about their life chances, and getting on with it.

Second, any temptation there might have been to portray the ‘system’ they found themselves in once they arrived in Sheffield as a hostile bureaucracy was set aside. 

While the difficulties of transition and status change (especially for the civil engineer-educated father) could be painful to watch, the small, passing kindnesses of their English hosts and new co-citizens  were often warmly affirming.  From the JobCentre woman standing to shake the family by the hand and wish them her sincere best, to the welcome of their new ‘Korean’ teammate (a reference to a Korean player at Man U) by a teenage footballer, the film showed that, whatever the hostilities and hatreds of Asylum Seekers fostered by the Daily Mail, there is another reality of common decency and understanding.

There’s so much more to it than that.  But go watch it (there’s a quick trailer here too, and a twitter account here).  It’s not one of those ‘worthy’ documentaries you feel you have to watch to feel good about your own virtue levels.  It’s a joy.  And I hardly ever watch TV.

(Other reviews I’ve now spotted here and here from proper reviewers, and BBC story here.  In fact, everyone other than me seemed to know all about it already.)

Slavoj Žižek appeared on the BBC’s Culture Show a few days ago. I’d been meaning to write it up and am only now getting around to it. His performance is dazzling, as per usual, and we socialists do like our in-jokes, but I thought that this time, rather than just show the video, I might pick up on a point or two of what he says, and how it relates to his wider oeuvre and his practice of what he preaches.

In the interview, Žižek maintains that the purest form of ideology is in cinema, that it is ‘more real than our everyday reality’. It is with this in mind that most of Žižek’s written works must be read – and to this is then applied the unique blend of Žižek’s systems of analysis: Marxist, Lacanian psychoanalysis and so on. I can see how certain ideologies can be evinced through certain movies. Žižek uses blockbuster ’2012′ as one of several examples he gives.

One message from the film suggests that ‘in order for one stupid American family to come together,’ most of the world’s population must be wiped out – that solidarity under current conditions is impossible, that even imagining is pointless, for the individual as much as for Hollywood.

There is a logic here; it is a motif repeated in almost every Hollywood disaster movie – the disaster wreaks a personal effect, which is almost universally good, presented as the exposure of the people underneath the day to day existence. Except that who we are day to day is who we are; the normal processes of the system are what the system is.

What Žižek is suggesting, and where I agree with him, is that in this repeated motif, we can see a function of ideology. It is the argument that we should disregard banality, disregard our day to day drudgery, because who we are, and who other people are, underneath sets us apart from all that. The moral of the story is a sedative.

Thus the constellations of message produced by Hollywood takes on the role of one more arm of the hegemonic ideology. Here is an opportune space to query Žižek’s epistemological assumptions. Žižek does not believe in an objective reality; what decides between competing interpretations is the “master-signifier”, a resistance to the infinite regression of over-intellectualized reason, “It is so because I say it is so!”

The concept of hegemony is based on the idea that one can know the real processes at work through the system of socio-economic organization we call capitalism. Having gained further knowledge of cinema and this particular movie, we can then suggest how its message might relate to this broader process that we’ve observed, i.e. the attempt to normalize as common sense everything that upholds values conducive to the smooth running of that system.

We can argue over the meaning of ’2012′, much like people argued over the meaning of Avatar. Yet we do so within the universe of the things actually contained within the film. Moreover we do so in the context of pre-existing ideology, the common sense factor, and mechanisms of dissemination controlled by the gate-keepers of the common sense factor (the press), all of which will have an effect on interpretation.

So the reality of the processes of capitalism have an effect in determining the interpretation. It doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it’s not limitless. It is not merely raw material to be warred over by competing factions wishing to hegemonize it and utilize its popular appeal for their own ends, much in the way that some Left groups tend to approach nationalism or ethnic identities.

It will contain the same contradictions as the ideology (or some part thereof) of the system which created it. We resolve those contradictions using the fundamental analytical categories provided by Marxism. It’s only when looked at in this way can we avoid what seem like wanton extrapolations from a film, however tightly packed it might be with ideology, however closely it may be linked to how capitalism thinks about itself, to the whole world or a whole ideology, or a whole socio-economic system of organizing.

In the interview, Žižek continues, “If you want to approach how beliefs function today, I claim, the best example I can imagine is that stupid cartoon which I’ve seen five, six times, because of my small son, Kung-Fu Panda.” Žižek goes on to link in the Marx brothers and how these explain the appeal of Silvio Berlusconi:

“This guy looks as an idiot, acts as an idiot, but this shouldn’t deceive you, this guy is an idiot”. Berlusconi is wealthy, his corruption is the subject of much debate, much like his links to the fascists and his many affairs with beautiful women and his changing of the law to suit his private interests. People, it seems, simply don’t believe that one can act like such a moron and yet be a moron.

This type of analogy seems different the previous one, more straightforward, assuming that what we can see in day to day life is real, and that we may look for reflections and distortions of the ‘real’ in cinema.

Whereas in the previous example, Žižek was taking a specific film and generalizing to the form in which capitalist hegemony attempts to oppress people, in this one it is mere metaphor for what we can see with our own eyes. An opportune film demonstrates a phenomenon we’ve all wondered about over George W. Bush and Berlusconi.

Simply put, how can people continually elect a moron? Žižek calls this the ‘double-cynical wager’, that if someone acts like what they are, then people will expect them not to be that. The explanation of this surface-phenomenon might be complex, but we’re still working within the confines of empirical data.

When attempting to explain such phenomenon, using cinema as a means to extrapolate meaning, whether by analogy or some other process, is as valid as reaching for any of the other items in our shared cultural universe. Cinema is as common a language as any, and there’s the added value that it’s entertaining – though even here, I think, we locate a flaw in our esteemed theorist.

He suggests that the current situation demands that we wake people up to the ideology that they live and breathe as part of their daily routine. Yet there are very few people who are going to read the tracts of any of the current shower of academics – Marxist, liberal, libertarian, whatever. Presumably it is through this entertainment, which include several visual endeavours and lecturing at a rubbish tip, that we might wake people up.

I think this loses sight of the need to approach people where they are, in languages with which they are familiar.

Žižek also suggests that if he were taken seriously, it would mean that he is ‘integrated’ into the cosseted, cultural buffer against revolutionism that universities so often form. While this is probably true, and Zizek’s antics make him stick out like a sore thumb, being taken seriously and being integrated need not mean the same thing. It really depends on who Žižek wants to take him seriously.

If it’s fellow academics, then being taken seriously and being integrated often are the same thing. One need only compare the lives of academic socialists such as Hobsbawm and E.P. Thompson. However, if Žižek wishes to be taken seriously by the people he wishes to carry out the revolution (however he wishes to define them, assuming they’re not an intellectual elite), then he needs to get his hands dirty at public meetings and on the doorsteps as well as writing such stylish prose.

That will prevent his integration to the Academy.

Okay, so I have an admission to make. I first read Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes character when I was about eleven. It was one of those summers I spent lounging at my gran’s house. Maybe it’s nostalgia, but I remember those days very fondly.

Since then I’ve collected all the Sherlock Holmes stories – and other authors and heroes, from Buchan’s Hannay to Fleming’s Bond, are only marginally talented (in Fleming’s case, plainly unimaginative and rubbish) compared to Conan Doyle’s cold, arrogant and brilliantly penned genius.

With that in mind, it was probably a bad idea for me to go see the new Sherlock Holmes movie, which I did tonight. It was, frankly, dreadful. One could have changed the names of everyone involved and never known it for a Sherlock Holmes movie.

Conan Doyle’s pantheon of characters, including Irene Adler – who Holmes, usually uninterested in women, ever referred to with distinction, even if in typical stoic Holmesian fashion - was ruthlessly pillaged in the interest of a rather staid, predictable plot complete with love interest. How boring.

The cinematography and special effects were, without question, marvellous. Yet they were the crutches of the movie, distractions rather than complementary to the plot. In fairness there were patent attempts to fix this, but rather clumsily in Downey Jr/Holmes’s summation of the case, as he tries to draw something from each event.

A final battle between Holmes and Lord Unmemorable and Camply Sinister Villain atop the half-built Tower Bridge was just silly.

Minor chronological irregularities, such as the story being set in 1891, despite Conan Doyle’s Watson having been married in 1887, are easy to ignore and I shan’t bother with them except to wonder what size of penis all these directors have, that they feel insecure enough about their craft to pointlessly change all manner of details about the story they pillage.

Greatest among Guy Ritchie’s sins, however, was his remorseless caricature of Holmes. Whilst Conan Doyle lent his central figure a logical mind and a rigorous attention to detail. which Ritchie attempts to copy (though again in ways which assume the audience is ignorant), I’d struggle to find the camp, flirtatious, one-line cracking Holmes anywhere in the literary canon.

Quite disappeared is the tall, gaunt, opiate addict, whose single-minded dedication to solving mystery is all that lifts him  out of apathy. Gone is the often humourless pedant. In his place stands the clichéd larger than life figure it seems audiences require.

Also gone are the nuanced mysteries of tension-heightening intensity, traded for pacy archetypal Hollywood-style take-over-the-world nonsense.

On the way home, a friend queried why this was important, why we shouldn’t simply have a Sherlock Holmes written for the 21st Century. I have two answers. The lesser is that it seems somehow an insult to pinch someone else’s idea and then imagine that, leaving aside necessary adaptations of making a book into a film, you can do it better than authors who have been enormously popular for a century.

The greater is that I find it unspeakably conceited for members of the artistic elite of our century to implicitly declare that our era has nothing to learn from the past, thus we may butcher it as we please. The particular quirks and traits of Holmes and Watson in c19th century are interesting of themselves; this was London at the height of British imperial power, with a rich culture (both aristocratic and working class) that Conan Doyle evinced.

Guy Ritchie seems to be satisfied with the standard literary tropes of a corrupt and weak politician, a megalomaniacal genius to balance the ‘good’ hero, and the awkwardness of a brotherly love between two heterosexual males. The latter doesn’t fail to provoke a laugh at how ineptly it is depicted in the film.

Then there’s the question of the themes the film addresses.

If it had been my choice, and Ritchie had wanted to put his 12 year old’s faith/reason dichotomy front and centre, I’d have chosen the Study in Scarlet. The villains are still villainous whilst giving us every reason to believe they are human, instead of being Mussolini impersonators.

Indeed, who could forget the building tension and danger of the midnight escape from Salt Lake City. This could easily have been reworked to forego Conan Doyle’s misconceptions about the Mormons and to escape the literary tactic Conan Doyle adopted of splitting the story into two (apparently, in the beginning, unrelated) parts.

I forget myself however. It is not on the possible but on the actual I wish to dwell. The movie rounds off with an attempt to set up Sherlock Holmes II, by the introduction of Professor Moriarty. Guy Ritchie must have had dollar signs in his eyes, else how does one explain the crass Batman Begins-copying manner of the segue to Moriarty’s crimes?

In sums total, I thought the movie was garbage. A.O. Scott of the New York Times rounds off my feelings perfectly, in his own review:

“[I]ntelligence has never ranked high among either Mr. Ritchie’s interests or his attributes as a filmmaker. His primary desire … has always been to be cool: to make cool movies about cool guys with cool stuff. Yes, ‘Sherlock Holmes’ is kind of cool. But that’s not really a compliment…. There are worse things than loutish, laddish cool, and as a series of poses and stunts, ‘Sherlock Holmes’ is intermittently diverting.”

Indeed.

In short, disappointing. Whilst the action-adventure genre might not be the best area in which to try things like a believable plot, nevertheless that’s what I expect from the movies I go to see. Either a story is interesting of itself, or the story has a point to make. Unfortunately for Quantum of Solace, neither was the case. Indeed I felt that the new James Bond movie went a long way towards squandering a lot of the interesting possibilities thrown up by its predecessor, Casino Royale.

Casino Royale set the scene; low-tech, an MI6 agent operating far from help, his role investigation. Mixed with the “new” Bond persona, excessively violent, to create an untameable agent who comes into conflict with his own side. I had imagined the sequel would indeed use this underlying tension, but Quantum of Solace tried to extend it in a rather hamfisted way. The death of Mathis, for example, was both overdramatised and unnecessary.

If one considers that Bond had Mathis tortured and didn’t spend a huge amount of time with him even before that, how exactly Mathis turns emotional counsel to Bond on the subject of Vesper is something of a mystery. Character depth and realistic motivation are important, but at that point I thought there was a danger of over-complicating Bond. I felt similarly when M was reproaching Bond with his “inconsolable rage”, a scene matched when Bond admits to M that she was right regarding his feelings for Vesper.

The death of Vesper obviously could not be ignored, and it could very easily have formed a complementary motivation for Bond’s interest in and enmity towards the Quantum organisation. However by playing it so hard in Quantum of Solace, I felt that it was being worn threadbare. It was also rather squandered by Bond’s kiss with Camille. Which brings me to another subject; the return of those excessively kitsch pieces of screenplay involving the Bond Girls.

In Quantum of Solace, those would be exemplified by Agent Strawberry Fields and her tripping up of Dominic Greene’s henchman on the way down the stairs, followed by her death in a welter of oil. I appreciate the references to Goldfinger, the interchange of Pussy Galore with Strawberry Fields and the death of Jill Masterson in gold paint with Fields’ death in oil. Yet I thought that the new departure with Casino Royale was an attempt to escape the old franchise, which had become worn.

The Pierce Brosnan years faced similar difficulties with the Bond girls. In Goldeneye, which was a reinvention of Bond for the post-Soviet years, Bond is occasionally morose, withdrawn and a lot is made of the fact that he buries himself in women, but then Brosnan’s Bond went on to be emotionally very close to a string of women, whom he often risked his own life (and the success of his mission) to save. Bond’s serial monogamy rather undermined the credibility of his emotional damage.

Similarly with Daniel Craig’s Bond, a woman he had decided to leave MI6 for betrays him, and is subsequently killed by Quantum people. Bond’s capture of Mr White at the end of Casino, the cold smile when he introduces himself and ends the film, frames perfectly his rage at the death of Vesper and against the people who took her from him. Yet straight away he’s in bed with Agent Fields and there is serious sexual chemistry with Camille. Bond’s part is rather unrealistic.

Either, to quote Vesper herself, Bond treats women as “disposable pleasures” (in which case he wouldn’t bother rescuing Camille multiple times) or he isn’t quite so distraught over Vesper’s death. Alternatively, it might have been the case that Bond sees Vesper in every woman he comes across, which would fit nicely with the motor-oil Bond leaves Greene, a reference to Fields’ death. If that’s the case however, Bond would hardly be playing the happy warrior in his bed sequence with Fields.

One of the huge Casino Royale successes, the creation of a believable enemy, was slightly extended through Quantum of Solace. The Quantum organisation, which we’re all hoping is a front for an as yet unknown organisation known as Spectre, played on the wheeler-dealing we all suspect goes on in banana republics, it played on the current tensions between the left-wing governments of South America and the United States. It was set in Bolivia, where there are seriously well-organised and wealthy separatists.

Quantum didn’t have nuclear weapons, it wasn’t leading a charge into space so that it could kill off mankind, it was completely believable – and more importantly, there is still a lot of suspense about what exactly it is. Dominic Greene was Gustav Graves as he should have been – without the unbelievable technology. His death, not at the hands of Bond but at the hands of some unknown associate of his, leaves no doubt that he was but a pawn of Quantum and that more will yet be heard from them.

Nevertheless, the usual shoot-out at the end, the collapsing building and exploding fuel cells, was a return to a well-tread Bond pattern. Casino Royale had used gambling to good effect, playing the sophisticated atmosphere against the brazen, uncultured physique and wit of Bond. Quantum has no equivalent. M’s disgust that Bond kept killing every lead was well played, and it fitted with Bond’s rage about Vesper, but this element of Bond not yet being polished was completely missing.

I liked that the film began and ended with an interrogation; that of Mr White and then of Vesper’s supposed fiancé who was making a living out of preying on female intelligent agents. It set the scene nicely; deprived of Mr White by the infiltration of MI6, all of Bond’s efforts only managed to acquire a different lead into the new enemy. The real disappointment was simply that in the main story, Bond was so unambiguously successful. With America and Britain fighting wars, one man can hardly do all that, can he?

Finally, apart from a few pointless and irritating character changes (e.g. the disappearance of the ever-pleasing Tobias Menzies as Villiers, and his replacement by Rory Kinnear as Tanner) my disappointment was capped by the rather ridiculous and two-dimensional figure of Felix Leiter’s boss, the section chief for South America. Certainly there are corrupt people in high positions, but the news that he’d been replaced by Leiter made the whole part of this sub-plot simply too neat.

Leiter had a credible motive to disobey orders, having worked with James before, but these are intelligence agents whose job it is to work in the national interest. The very idea that a CIA section chief might be dismissed for playing an angle that would have seen their country corner oil supplies is ridiculous – it is a crowd pleaser for the naive. Overall, I thought these matters, both small and large, rather ruined the whole movie – but I remain a loyal Bondian and hope that more will come from the next installment.

One of the advantages to having a blog, or being a political pundit, or writing an op-ed pieces in a newspaper is that one can pontificate on whatever subject one desires. Those who read my blog will know that there is a regular staple of subjects which are likely to get me fired up: religion, philosophical currents in history and politics, the reflection and relevance which the literary arts often have for real life.

On the other hand, there has to be a line somewhere between simply talking a good show and being active for the benefit of society. This is where I think the vast majority of the media completely loses relevance and interest. It fails to draw such a line and drops into the abyss beyond, the land of Paris Hilton and celebrity gossip columns, of shallow condescension at the misfits produced by contradictory elements in our society.

Almost worse than all this as a symptom of the descent into tabloid gossip mongering is the use of supposed experts to give their opinion on matters so utterly trifling as to be unworthy of comment in the first place. This fortnights Private Eye contained the example of Dr Raj Persaud, made notorious for his plagiarism, commenting back in the Nineties on the tendency of men with beautiful girlfriends to seek out ugly prostitutes.

I should forgive any reader if they thought that by that stage, journalism had reached the abyssal plain – and indeed its what we expect from the Daily Express (in which these speculations were originally contained I think). Yet surpassing even this is the recent and multi-article commentary by the BBC on the likeness between Gordon Brown and the character Heathcliffe from Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.

Not only has Brown’s admission, in a New Statesman interview, that he doesn’t mind the comparison received several articles of comment, the BBC has wheeled out a psychologist from Westminster Business School to make some glib comments about what the whole thing really means deep down in the head of the Prime Minister. And what would my own commentary be without a quote to illuminate this execrable practice:

“It seems as if he is floundering and is grabbing onto a strong, granite-jawed character that someone’s suggested to him…People like to identify themselves with a character when they lack a sense of their core identity. This is happening more and more as we give too much away about ourselves and try too hard to please others.”

I would be the first to admit that I’m not a psychologist, but this sounds like so much waffle. This woman who has not been spending long periods talking to the Prime Minister is basing what seems to be a fairly damaging judgment of the Brown psyche on a flippant comment made to a Labour-affiliated political magazine. The loss of perspective evident in whatever BBC flunky made the decision to include this is shocking.

Most of us, I suspect, at one time or another enjoy likening ourselves to our political heroes, or the characters in our favourite books – not from a loss of core identity but rather because of whatever affinities we share with them that made them our favourite in the first place. For me, reading Deutscher’s biographies of Trotsky, I’ve always flattered myself that I share something of the great man’s character and principles.

Certainly I’d like to think that despite overwhelming opposition, I’d cling to the principles I currently hold rather than abandon them for position or influence. Whether or not any of that is true is unknowable for a variety of reasons, but I would hope it doesn’t reflect an uncertainty about my ‘inner core.’ That psychologist seems to be conflating news of Brown’s depression with the perfect storm in his political fortunes with this one comment.

Such commentary is fine for a rather insipid dinner party amongst wealthy professionals in London but hardly for the country’s flagship news service. It’s even more pointless than the American networks getting retired Generals onto their payroll so that come a major battle or war they can be wheeled out to speculate on matters that anyone with a decent brain could work out for themselves.

I’m tired of this intellectually toned-down media. Setting aside academic matters for a moment, this country is full of normal people who have a brain, though it’s not often they get treated like they do. Sure, half of them are in a stupor induced by the soporific nature of ‘entertainment’ or news or any of the other narcotics with which we drug ourselves but a wake up call doesn’t have to be an economic recession.

It could simply be the reports of a News at Ten anchor who might report the news plus a few concise, trenchant observations rather than all the graphical gimmickry they indulge in. I feel like the modern equivalent of a Luddite sometimes: down with TV, smash the digital networks, away with 24-hour rolling news. Maybe in the peace and quiet that resulted we might actually be able to concentrate on what matters.

Members of European Parliament have narrowly voted to insert a progressive amendment on piracy into the Bono report, a story at the BBC reports. In devising punishments for persistant copyright pirates, member states of the EU are encouraged to:

“avoid adopting measures conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness, such as the interruption of internet access.”

I must confess to being absolutely thrilled by this. Copyright is not one of those things which I defend tooth and claw. Recording artists, movie makers and so forth have every right to survive on the proceeds of their efforts. I don’t think anyone disputes that – but copyright is a way for corporations to make many millions of pounds, which, frankly, no one deserves.

In making a movie or producing a record, no actor or artist works harder than my local postman or binman, the people who keep the wheels of society ticking over. That is not a critique of how much effort Coldplay, or whoever, put into producing records. It is a criticism of the division of labour in the current socio-economic system.

In order to sustain creative producers, I absolutely accept the need for certain elements of copyright law. It’s no good generalising the right of other people to make fantastic amounts of money from the labour of an artist or actor. A corporation that had nothing to do with spotting or cultivating young talent shouldn’t be able to rip-off their work.

On the other hand, individuals who download music, who stream television programmes and who create sites where people can acquire films, shouldn’t be prosecuted, or liable to damages. Copyright should only extend to preventing profiteering off the back of someone else’s work. Copyright violation forms a neat way to control the original profiteer(s).

Certain strands of economists maintain that capitalism results in everything being cheaper due to competition – but competition is not always extant. In towns where there is only room for one cinema theatre, that cinema will charge whatever it wants for tickets and foodstuffs – unless it is put out of business by a cinema which undercuts it. Once it goes under, the cinema which undercut it can then raise prices. It’s a cycle.

A really good way to interrupt the cycle is to decrease the number of people going to the cinema due to having no other ways to see movies. This could force down prices. Copyright theft, through downloading movies, is a good way to do that. It’s equally good for the price of CDs. And for television streaming, well most broadcasters are beginning to introduce concepts like BBC’s iPlay, so it doesn’t matter what streaming does.

Overall, this is a great move by the EU; they could have gone further, but at least they went this far.

A recent BBC op-ed contends that historical distortion in Hollywood films doesn’t matter all that much. I know people will think that I’m being much too stuffy about history but this is something with which I really must disagree. In schools, we use history to teach moral lessons – SMSCD as the short form has it. Spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is integral to the National Curriculum. As far as I’ve ever been concerned, this involves direct personal engagement with history, to consider what the actors must have gone through and to determine one’s own orientation vis a vis historical events.

Just as we have recently been having the debate on monarchy through this website, so the other week I was teaching one of my year 7 classes about the results of 1066. The class was set up to represent the barons of the Witan, the council of Saxon nobles; since the King had just died, they were set the task of proclaiming a new king.

This moves on to more theoretical questions such as how the state is underpinned by force – though they aren’t taught it in that way. As far as many of them are concerned, all it means is that there’s going to be a bloody great battle or two. At least the foundation is there should they ever wish to return to it.

The aim of this is so that when confronted with the issues of the present, they can see them both as obstacles to be overcome and in their wider historical context. A goal not helped by the cheap plundering of the tapestry of history for spoils which shouldn’t belong to whatever lazy writer and lazy director end up with them.

One of the things that particularly irritated me about the op-ed was the author’s declaration of admiration for Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of Elizabeth I. That is not enough in itself to bother me – personally I thought both Elizabeth films were dry and lacked a certain je ne sais croix but each to his own. What really annoyed me, galled me in fact, was that this admiration is apparently evinced because the author of the op-ed piece didn’t have the imagination and confidence to define the ‘spirit’ of the Elizabethan age for herself.

I have described this is an awkward fashion, so allow me to clarify. Poring over documents, the author laments that she could not get to grips with the emotions of the participants. Thus she excuses the expropriation of history by screen writers because they can do for her what she declares she was not able to do for herself.

Personally I think this amounts to laziness. The reason I became an historian is because I do get caught up in the emotional whirlpool of the societies I study. I do not look down on anyone else who cannot engage so deeply with their subjects – but I would expect anyone to admit that the truth is often more stirring than the fiction. One of the examples I’ve given when this subject has come up in the past is the stand of the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae.

Admittedly this sounds like the ramble of a disgruntled octogenarian, irritated that his pet subject is being played with outside his supervision. Believe me, that is not what this. Truthfully I enjoy many historical narratives remade by Hollywood, despite their departure from the truth. What concerns me is that the moral elements which I can see and discard at my choice are presented with the full force of history to other people. These people might not be so able to see the incongruity of the narrative and the morals Hollywood has displaced in time and space.

At least in a classroom, there is an environment in which discussion is positively encouraged and the moral can be challenged. This happened today. In a class on the early Nazi programme, the teacher was playing fast and loose with the definition of socialism and one of the pupils pulled him on it – and the two competing narratives were displayed side by side for the rest of the class to see, each attached to different arguments.

The might of Hollywood admits of no competitor in this regard.

Quite some time ago, a film was released entitled “V for Vendetta.” This was a film I and my friends enjoyed immensely. What wasn’t to like? A knife wielding super man in a Guy Fawkes mask makes a fascistic government look foolish then unites all the people of London by blowing up the Houses of Parliament.

Some curious comments by right wing commentators surround the film. The most strange, so far as I am concerned, is the accusation that the film in some way represents a Marxist viewpoint. These accusations can be run to earth by anyone who wishes to go over to the Wikipedia entry on  the film version of “V for Vendetta.”

It occurred to me whilst walking home tonight that rather than attacking the people who labelled the film Marxism, one should more properly attack the film for not being Marxist. It is in fact an Anarchist film. The central plot is based around the concept of “propaganda of the deed.” Bakhunin amongst others is noted for his support of propaganda of the deed.

The concept basically suggests that by political assassination or acts of terrorism, one can inspire revolution amongst the toiling masses. The ordinary, oppressed people rise up when they see that the possibilities of opposition are not lost, that freedom is not dead and so forth. For a Marxist, propaganda of the deed can in many respects mean the opposite in reality to what the Anarchist posits in theory.

As with the Narodniks and Socialist Revolutionaries in Russia, acts of terrorism were not products of a wide base amongst the organised proletariat but were respectively the work of rigidly organised and secretive cadres or of the backward peasantry, airing its impotence on the stage of social reform. Bolsheviks and Mensheviks each spoke against such tactics.

They believed that propaganda of the deed lessened the political consciousness of the worker by leading to expectations of revolution ‘from above’ – where a skilled and principled selection of people would take control of the state and lead it back to righteousness. Anarchists would agree that this is a bad thing, though many of them would dispute that it is the historical reality provoked by propaganda of the deed.

In the context of this film, the eponymous character “V” is a terrorist who informs London of his plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament a year hence. This he does, after a huge crowd storm the barricades of the British fascist government and arrive in Parliament Square, to watch the display. No doubt the reference to the Fifth of November is well met by the historians among you; and the invocations of Guy Fawkes are explicit throughout the film.

The point is that the film ends with the destruction of Parliament, yet at that point no mass movement exists that could topple the government. The destruction of Parliament is really a false crescendo. Without strikes, councils of soldiers and worker’s deputies or basically any organ by which to carry through an insurrection, the fascist government is unlikely to relinquish power.

In true Anarchist form, the film concentrates upon the anti-heroic character of “V” and upon his relationship with a woman thrown into his world, Evey. To paraphrase an old socialist, Anarchism is basically bourgeois individualism turned inside out. The film is not Marxist; it does not advance a real solution nor offer even a basic analysis of society except through a liberal guise.

Being a Hollywood movie, this much is probably self evident to most people. Yet it is still worth pointing out where the critics on the right miss their target.

I must confess to being somewhat puzzled by the verdict in the recent case in Kent where a school governor took the government to court over the decision to put the film “An Inconvenient Truth” into schools.

The verdict basically records that, unless seen with guidance, some scenes in the film constitute a breach of certain sections of Education law dealing with the responsibility on the government to correctly represent factual information to students.

All very well, but if I recall correctly, most of the books in my school’s library weren’t of a factual nature. Oh, they were in the non-fiction section, don’t misunderstand me. Yet the first time I read The Communist Manifesto was by taking it out of the school library. Same for Mein Kampf. Neither of these works are factual.

Similarly, one would have thought that children watching “An Inconvenient Truth” would be able to consider it as Al Gore’s opinions on climate changed, backed by selected climatologists etc. Nowhere in Marx’ work does it say “well, actually this is my own opinion and most people in the discipline of sociology will disagree with me vastly.” Yet it still is, and should be, available in schools.

Likewise, in history textbooks, despite some glaring historical omissions (and particularly in the case of Roman history for Year 7′s, outright errors), it does not say that the matters printed are the view of the historians who wrote them. These books are even worse because they are represented as the alpha and omega of history to Years 7 to 11 pupils.

All in all, I can’t really see what the hue and cry is about. The character who has raised the issue in court is a member of the quixotic organisation known as the New Party. No doubt there is a political dimension in there somewhere; a party that espouses “economic liberalism” so openly can only be crypto-right wing, one suspects.

Such people are prepared to complain about this film, and yet aren’t prepared to complain that Christian religious dogma is taught in schools as fact (as are the dogmas of other religions in their own respective faith schools) and that it’s still a legal requirement to conduct “collective worship” in schools (though I have yet to see whether or not that clarifies what collective worship refers to).

What a sense of priorities.

I was watching the film Bulworth this evening and I think it provides an interesting and fruitful subject for discussion. Written by Warren Beatty, who also plays the title role, it traces the last few days in the life of fictional California Senator Jay Billington Bulworth. Bankrupt and looking like he will succumb to a primary challenge, the Senator takes out a massive insurance policy with an insurance executive by promising to keep an insurance regulatory bill in committee. Bulworth then takes out a contract on his own life.

A lack of sleep, lack of food, a failed marriage, a couple of joints and a general miasma surrounding his life help Bulworth to shake off his previous persona and become a charismatic, rapping white boy who decides to stand up for the American people against insurance tricksters, big oil and the corruption of the media and political parties. All in all, it’s a good show – by turns moving and amusing. I’ve included one of my favourite rhymes, which Bulworth sings during an interview.

I wonder how the audiences that saw it in the cinema received it, whether in the USA or here. Probably many of them laughed and then dismissed it – and it is easy to do so. Though a biting satire, that a dyed-in-the-wool Senator would suddenly decide to support a lot of populist causes is unlikely. That a two-bit gun-and-drug gang boss would suddenly arrange for his posse to clean up the ‘hood’ because of the charm and righteousness of a Senator is equally unlikely.

There are a bundle of relevant messages contained within the film however. It answers those who claim the days of socialism and powerful trade unions are gone by pointing out that the working classes are too busy looking for jobs to produce the leaders of old. Though old fashioned insofar as “state control” is seen as a better alternative than the profiteering private sector, it still makes a clear case that “private sector efficiency” is largely a myth. In the UK, with millions of pounds worth of government subsidies poured into many supposedly private ventures, we’re in need of that particular message.

Set during the ’96 primary campaigns, the film points out through one rap that the Democrats would pay for deindustrialisation in the ghettoes. That is also something we’d do well to listen to over here, with our increasing gun crime in urban centres.

The film is an old one and I first saw it at “socialist summer camp” at Portlaois in the Republic of Ireland. The Socialist Party had rented a hotel and invited a bunch of Green Party figures and Anarchists and others on the left to come and debate “left alternatives” with the usual crew from the SP, while the Socialist Party Youth observed and chimed in occasionally. We watched that on the Saturday night and upon the line, “let’s hear that dirty word now…socialism!” everyone cheered.

I think, for me, that is the final message of the film. Politics requires its own culture – and that’s something we’ve lost in the British labour movement. Where are the steelworker’s reading groups and the Miner’s colliery bands? Probably out looking for jobs with the would-be great left wing leaders.

Anyway, to end on a better note, here’s that rap I mentioned.

Obscenity?
The rich is getting richer and richer and richer
While the middle class is getting more poor
Making billions and billions and billions of bucks
Well my friend if you weren’t already rich at the start then that situation just sucks
Cause the richest mother fucker in five of us is getting ninety fuckin’ eight percent of it
And every other motherfucker in the world is left to wonder where the fuck we went with it.

Obscenity?

I’m a Senator
I gotta raise $10,000 a day every day I’m in Washington
I ain’t getting it in South Central
I’m gettin’ it in Beverly Hills
So I’m votin’ from them in the Senate the way they want me too
and-and-and I’m sending them my bills.

But we got babies in South Central dying as young as they do in Peru,
We got public schools that are nightmares,
We got a Congress that ain’t got a clue,
We got kids with submachine guns.

We got militias throwing bombs,
We got Bill just gettin’ all weepy,
We got Newt blaming teenage moms,
We got factories closing down.

Where the hell did all the good jobs go? Well, I’ll tell you where they went
My contributors make more profits makin’, makin’, makin’, Hirin’ kids in Mexico.
Oh a brother can work in fast food
If he can’t invent computer games.
But what we used to call America
That’s going down the drains.

How’s a young man gonna meet his financial responsibilities workin’ and motherfuckin’ Burger King? He ain’t! And please don’t even start with that school shit.
There aint no education going on up in that motherfucker.

Obscenity?
We got a million brothers in prison.
I mean, the walls are really rockin’
But you can bet your ass they’d all be out
If they could pay for Johnny Cochrane.
The constitution is supposed to give them an equal chance
Well, that ain’t gonna happen for sure.

Ain’t it time to take a little from the rich motherfucker and give a little to the poor? I mean, those boys over there on the monitor
they want a government smaller and weak
but the be speakin’ for the richest 20 percent when they pretend they’re defendin’ the meek
Now, shit, fuck, cocksucker, that’s the real obscenity.

Black folks livin with every day
Trying to believe a motherfuckin word Democrats and Republicans say

Obscenity?

I’m Jay Billington Bulworth
And I’ve come to say
The Democratic party’s got some shit to pay
It’s gonna pay it in the ghetto.
–Warren Beatty and Jeremy Pisker, Screenwriters