Film and TV – Page 2 – The Book Blog

Nina Simone 1933- 2003

I Put a Spell on You: The Autobiography of Nina Simone

Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), better known by her stage name Nina Simone, but also known as ‘The High Priestess of Soul’ was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music. She composed over 500 songs and recorded over 40 albums. Simone aspired to become a classical pianist while working in a broad range of styles including classical, jazz, blues, soul, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.

Born the sixth child of a preacher’s family in Tryon, North Carolina, Nina’s prodigious musical talent prompted her ambition to become the first black concert pianist, but the realities of poverty and racial prejudice forced her to redirect her ambitions. Her musical path changed direction after she was turned down for full scholarship at a prestigious music institute, the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia. She then began playing in The Midtown Bar & Grill in Atlantic City to fund her continuing musical education, after realising a pupil was earning more than she was by teaching piano, but the bar required her to sing as well. She was approached for a recording by Bethlehem Records, and her rendition of “I Loves You Porgy” became a smash hit in the United States in 1958. Over the length of her career, Simone recorded more than forty albums, mostly between 1958, when she made her debut with Little Girl Blue, and 1974…

Continue reading Nina Simone 1933- 2003

The Long Walk

The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom (1956) by Slavomir Rawicz

Rating:

The Long Walk, first published in 1956, is a gripping account of a Polish officer’s imprisonment in the Soviet gulag in 1940, his escape and then a trek of 4,000 miles (6,437km) from Siberia to India, surviving unimaginable hardships along the way, testing the seven men and their companion, a seventeen year old girl they came across on the way, to the limits. Its dramatic passages tell of extremes of exhaustion, starvation and thirst as they survived snowdrifts and storms and even the pitiless Gobi Desert.

“In the shadow of death we grew closer together than ever before. No man would admit to despair. No man spoke of fear. The only thought spoken out again and again was that there must be water soon. All our hope was in this.”

Australian director Peter Weir, celebrated for contemporary classics such as ‘Dead Poets Society’ and ‘The Truman Show’, decided the account deserved filming. “As a feat of endurance and courage and the tenacity of human beings to survive, I thought it was superb. I asked, ‘Does it stay with you enough to want to pursue it as a film?’ And this was the case.” The film, inspired by the book, but not a straight re-telling, was released December 2010 as ‘The Way Back’.

The subtitle of the book is ‘The true story of a trek to freedom’ but there is a controversy over this. There was evidence that suggested that Rawicz had not told the truth about his past, and that although he had been a prisoner in the gulag, he never escaped, but was released under an amnesty in 1942, and the documents, discovered by an American researcher, Linda Willis, in Polish and Russian archives, also show that rather than being imprisoned on a charge of espionage as he claimed, Rawicz was actually sent to the gulag for killing an officer with the NKVD, the forerunner of the Soviet secret police, the KGB. This could of course, be a fabrication.

Peter Weir researched the controversy. “It was enough for me to say that three men had come out of the Himalayas, and that’s how I dedicate my film, to these unknown survivors. And then I proceed with essentially a fictional film.”

Continue reading The Long Walk

Heavens Fall- 2006 DVD

Heavens Fall [DVD] (2006) Starring Timothy Hutton, David Strathairn and Leelee Sobieski

Rating:

“Years from now, people will hear the word Scottsboro and it will mean something.”

This is the courtroom drama that depicts the same events that inspired the Robinson trial in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. I post the following review for these reasons. Firstly,the interesting character of Samuel Leibowitz, who had a long career as a criminal defense attorney, secondly, the depiction of prejudice and its wider implications, and thirdly, the damage done to the lives of falsely accused individuals. It is all the more harrowing for being a true story, and a relatively recent one.

On March 25th 1931, nine young black men were pulled off a freight train by an angry Alabama lynch mob. Eight of the nine (the ninth was only twelve) were accused of raping two women and subsequently sentenced to death in the electric chair. The United States Supreme Court eventually granted a re-trial for all the defendants. Skilled New York defence attorney Samuel Liebowitz went to Alabama to defend the Scottsboro boys at the behest of the International Labor Defense. His journey into the Deep South symbolized the deep racial divide of the times and set in motion a legal battle that ultimately changed the course of American jurisprudence. The Scottsboro case was a tragic chapter in American history and a story of epic injustice. From their arrest in 1931 to the release of the last Scottsboro defendant in 1950, the rights of nine young black men were violated. During the re-trials, one of the alleged victims, Ruby Bates, admitted going along with the rape story and asserted that none of the Scottsboro Boys ever touched either of the white women. Certain that the strength of the evidence would win the case, Leibowitz wasn’t prepared for the deep racial prejudice he found. Heavens Fall is the tragic true story of jurisprudence undone by racial prejudice. The case is now widely considered a miscarriage of justice and also led to the end of all-white juries in the South..

Continue reading Heavens Fall- 2006 DVD

Jean de Florette & Manon des Sources by Marcel Pagnol

Jean de Florette & Manon of the Springs

Rating:

A French literary masterpiece, Jean de Florette, along with the sequel Manon des Sources creates a single unbroken narrative. It is a two-part epic tale which spans three generations, building to an inevitable, yet completely unexpected conclusion.

In the first part, Jean Cadoret (Gerard Depardieu), a former tax collector, moves his family to the country to create a pastoral idyll in a rural Provencal village. From the neighbouring farm, Cesar Soubeyran (Le Papet), and his only remaining relative, nephew Ugolin, cast their covetous eyes on the adjoining property. They need its spring water to grow their own carnations and vegetables, and so are dismayed to hear that a new owner from away has moved in. Conspiring against the stranger, imagining themselves somehow justified as locals, they mischievously block up the spring, and watch as Jean desperately tries to keep his crops, his means of living, watered throughout the long, hot summer from a source miles away across the rugged terrain. Le Papet does not allow for Jean’s tenacity. Though they see his back-breaking efforts are ruining his health, and breaking his wife and daughter’s hearts, they turn a blind eye as events reach a tragic conclusion.

The story is a timeless one, a compelling triumph for justice and good, and reflects the revenge themes of the Viking sagas, or a Biblical parable unfolding, or perhaps the poetic justice of Greek tragedy, and it is satisfying to see the outcome, the inevitable futility of the Soubeyran’s scheming. It was heart-warming too; that by the end, you could feel for Le Papet, and even Ugolin, for how many times have any of us begun an unwise course we cannot reverse?

Continue reading Jean de Florette & Manon des Sources by Marcel Pagnol

Music from another room- 1998 DVD

Rating:

Music From Another Room [DVD] [1998]

‘Music from another room’ is a 1998 romantic comedy dependent on fate to drive the main storyline, the pretty predictable one of no-hope underdog Danny (Jude Law) trying to win the hand of already engaged Anna (Gretchen Mol). As a brown eyed five year old, he helped deliver her, and decided he would marry her. Twenty five years later, blue eyed Danny heads in the right direction by returning to his hometown, to move in with girlfriend Sarah. As he arrives, she is moving out, clearly intending to be gone before he gets there. Danny: ‘I thought you loved me.’ Sarah: ‘Really? What made you think that?’ Danny: ‘Probably when you said you loved me.’ Sarah: ‘You take things too literally..’ Probably as well to walk away, Danny.

At least he is in the right town. Soon, by accident, Danny meets Anna, attractive, unavailable, but far worse, cool, highly strung, and seeing herself as the emotional caretaker of the family. Danny is not deterred, even as he finds himself entangled with each of the eccentric Swann family members including the blind and sheltered Nina (Jennifer Tilly), the cynical feminist sister Karen (Martha Plimpton), bullying brother Billy (Jeremy Piven) and neurotic wife Irene (Jane Adams), eccentric academic father Richard (Bruce Jarchow), and mother Grace (Brenda Blethyn). For Grace’s personality, think Jane Austen’s Mrs Bennet.

Continue reading Music from another room- 1998 DVD

The Boys are Back- 2009 DVD

Rating:

The Boys Are Back [DVD] [2009]

Based on a true story, Clive Owen stars as a successful Australian sportswriter cast into the role of single parent to six year old Artie after the tragic death of wife Katy. He had another son, teenage Harry, by a previous marriage, living in England. How does a widowed man, cope with a job and running the house? For me, the story was really about how a husband and father, and a child and son, and equally apparent in them both, dealt with their grief, and coping without wife and mum for all the ordinary things we all take too much for granted.
Resolving to reach out to Artie, he comes up with his own style of parenting, ‘just say yes’, no rules, no chores..

Continue reading The Boys are Back- 2009 DVD

Cast Away- 2001 DVD

Rating:

Cast Away (2 Disc Set) [DVD] [2001],

One might describe the character of Chuck Noland, played convincingly by Tom Hanks, as the latest reincarnation of Robinson Crusoe.

FedEx employee Chuck Noland ( C No-land?), an inveterate trouble-shooter, workaholic and clock watcher, finds himself alone on the shores of a tropical island following a horrific plane crash.

The plane crash sequence for me at least, appeared so terrifying I imagine the in-flight movie market for this film was severely affected. Reminds me of watching ‘Titanic’ on a cross-channel ferry once..

He is the sole survivor. First, frustration at the predicament gets to him and then, as hopes of rescue fade, it dawns on him that his chances of getting back home are slim.. Four years go by; and Chuck has learned how to survive on his own, with only the natural resources of the island and several Fed-Ex package contents that he uses. He vows to himself to deliver one someday, and leaves it unopened..

Continue reading Cast Away- 2001 DVD