So, I rewatched Shooting The Past by Steven Poliakovf over the weekend. My ironing needed doing.
But I enjoy reacquainting myself with these old programmes of which I have a hazy rose-tinted gloriously childishly fond memory.
So, how I remembered Shooting the Past: an amazing, intelligent, intricate winning of the Brainy, articulate and cunning Brits, over the dumb, consumerist, exploitative Americans. I remember a really subtle sub-plot, a very complex plot, a devastating turn-point and a lovely, unexpected resolve.
What did I stumble upon?
Now, I have to remember that it was filmed over 10 years ago, and wasn't a 'film' film, but a straight-to-tv film. Not only is it surprising how any film ages very, very quickly, but moreso how straight-to-tv films reflect the quirks of the ages, the fashion of the moment.
And it is always much easier to critique an item on the second appraisal - when you already know the story, you can concentrate on other aspects.
On the first occasion you are too heavily concentrating on what is being told, rather than how it is being told.
So what we have is actually a tiny smattering of incredibly extreme characters.
The Oswald character is reclusive, anonymous, crazy, frankly ridiculous.
Then there is the tiny, quiet, insipid, reclusive Nick - so young that he can't appreciate the photographic collection, and yet so quiet and unasuming he could get no other job.
Spig - a character as much defined by expectations from her name as from anything other. She is the red-haired, pierced exclusionary - silent and yet still subversive.
Then there is Veronica the tiny, quiet, unassuming woman, who - obviously - has a pivotal role in exposing the 'key' fact in a single moment. That appears to be the only reason she is there and is a bit of a cliche
The cold melodramtic antiheroic American who provides the "comfort" and "reappraisal" pieces as he is told the story; who fulfils the need for there to be a story and who provides the reason for the resolve in a very 'turnaround' and a 'he's not as bad as you think' conclusion. Well, there has to be a villan and a happy ending
And then there is Maralyn, the main character. The normal person. The person who grounds it: who makes you think you are her, if only because all the others are so unbelievable. Hence her being the main character and not some bit-part. She's the one that you are to empathise and associate with: you encourage her search for the truth, you demand her success.
The actual story is a half-decent one. It is one of those "ok, but could've been better" stories. But then I often think that. And until I actually prepare my own I don't think I will be satisfied with any movie. And even then I won't be happy. I'm so ridiculously a perfectionist that perfection itself will not suffice, and my own movie would be far frrom heaven.
Essentially the full set-up, development and resolve could have been done within a nice two-hour film, even if a straight-to-tv film. There is so much superfluity, excess, and inexplicable content to fill it out to three hours; but the main problem isn't the 'filling' but the flatness of the characters, the simpicity of the story.
There are such extreme characters, engineered to provide what are almost winning monologues; to eulogise and silliquoise; to ramble the personal agenda of the writer's perspective on various topics (notably Americans lack of history and therefore lack of respect for it; and the consumerism rapant these days where even art is overridden by financial interests). Probably the most annoying thing was the crazy polarisms of the characters: it made the whole thing so unbelievable that even if the story had a moral it could so easily be dismissed as a charicature at best; and a flamboyant personal experiment otherwise.
But I enjoy reacquainting myself with these old programmes of which I have a hazy rose-tinted gloriously childishly fond memory.
So, how I remembered Shooting the Past: an amazing, intelligent, intricate winning of the Brainy, articulate and cunning Brits, over the dumb, consumerist, exploitative Americans. I remember a really subtle sub-plot, a very complex plot, a devastating turn-point and a lovely, unexpected resolve.
What did I stumble upon?
Now, I have to remember that it was filmed over 10 years ago, and wasn't a 'film' film, but a straight-to-tv film. Not only is it surprising how any film ages very, very quickly, but moreso how straight-to-tv films reflect the quirks of the ages, the fashion of the moment.
And it is always much easier to critique an item on the second appraisal - when you already know the story, you can concentrate on other aspects.
On the first occasion you are too heavily concentrating on what is being told, rather than how it is being told.
So what we have is actually a tiny smattering of incredibly extreme characters.
The Oswald character is reclusive, anonymous, crazy, frankly ridiculous.
Then there is the tiny, quiet, insipid, reclusive Nick - so young that he can't appreciate the photographic collection, and yet so quiet and unasuming he could get no other job.
Spig - a character as much defined by expectations from her name as from anything other. She is the red-haired, pierced exclusionary - silent and yet still subversive.
Then there is Veronica the tiny, quiet, unassuming woman, who - obviously - has a pivotal role in exposing the 'key' fact in a single moment. That appears to be the only reason she is there and is a bit of a cliche
The cold melodramtic antiheroic American who provides the "comfort" and "reappraisal" pieces as he is told the story; who fulfils the need for there to be a story and who provides the reason for the resolve in a very 'turnaround' and a 'he's not as bad as you think' conclusion. Well, there has to be a villan and a happy ending
And then there is Maralyn, the main character. The normal person. The person who grounds it: who makes you think you are her, if only because all the others are so unbelievable. Hence her being the main character and not some bit-part. She's the one that you are to empathise and associate with: you encourage her search for the truth, you demand her success.
The actual story is a half-decent one. It is one of those "ok, but could've been better" stories. But then I often think that. And until I actually prepare my own I don't think I will be satisfied with any movie. And even then I won't be happy. I'm so ridiculously a perfectionist that perfection itself will not suffice, and my own movie would be far frrom heaven.
Essentially the full set-up, development and resolve could have been done within a nice two-hour film, even if a straight-to-tv film. There is so much superfluity, excess, and inexplicable content to fill it out to three hours; but the main problem isn't the 'filling' but the flatness of the characters, the simpicity of the story.
There are such extreme characters, engineered to provide what are almost winning monologues; to eulogise and silliquoise; to ramble the personal agenda of the writer's perspective on various topics (notably Americans lack of history and therefore lack of respect for it; and the consumerism rapant these days where even art is overridden by financial interests). Probably the most annoying thing was the crazy polarisms of the characters: it made the whole thing so unbelievable that even if the story had a moral it could so easily be dismissed as a charicature at best; and a flamboyant personal experiment otherwise.
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