Filmsoc trip to 'In Bruges'

Spoiler alert: this post will reveal plot points in In Bruges, so if you haven't seen it (and if not, why not?!) be warned. 

There is something odd about Bruges. You step off the bus and before your foot hits Belgian turf it has shoved a chloroform rag over your mouth and wiped all memories of the outside world. The place is beautiful, serene and incredibly neatly turned-out, and while she greets you warmly, openly and friendlily out of the corner of your eye you see her skilfully shoving reality under the rug with dainty be-clogged feet.

There’s a line in my favourite film, In Bruges, where Ken, played by Brendan Gleeson, bitterly describes Bruges to his boss, Harry Waters (Ralph Fiennes). “It’s like a fucking fairytale or something,” he shouts down the phone. Harry sends Ken and Ray (Colin Farrell) to Bruges to “hide out” after Ray’s first hit goes wrong, and Ken feels at peace walking among all the old buildings and that. He later finds out they are not in Bruges simply to hide out, rather Ken is in Bruges, on a job, on  a job in Bruges. Ken feels tricked by Harry, but also by Bruges itself for being too good to be true, and resolves to disobey orders even if that may have fatal consequences.

The four days I spent in Bruges were fantastic. When Filmsoc decided to organise a trip to Bruges, I didn’t even have to consider it for a moment. A flimsy reason it may be, but my love for In Bruges is such that I couldn’t say no. Imagine being invited to visit, say, Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings, or the Death Star. A perfect balance was struck between culture and fun, which involved canal trips and the like in the day followed by getting incredibly wasted and staying out with great friends until 4am two nights out of three (the first night ended at a feeble 2am). The magic of Bruges even took effect on my hangover, or lack thereof, resulting in a far more comfortable coach journey home than anticipated.

Our trip was at an unfashionable time of year, in a town not renowned for a thriving nightlife, on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, so perhaps it was understandable that there were few people around beyond 12am, but this resulted in the weird feeling that we had the run of the entire town. Now, alcohol-induced haze may have something to do with this, but I barely remember encountering a soul while wandering around with my mates. Consequently, it felt like the bars were there for us specifically, the locals mere further embellishments of the pretence of realism. There were some other decidedly surreal moments in our stay, too. We ended up in some backstreets, and while the main areas were thronging with people these streets were deserted; how strange then to come upon a huge cathedral, which, as we were walking past, began to emanate with song. We entered to find a twenty-strong youth choir performing enthusiastically to an audience of…two. As with the deserted late-night streets, it was like the town was putting on a show, literally and figuratively, just for us.

Elsewhere, shortly after arrival we were stood on a corner getting our bearings, a few of us slightly in the road. Horses and carriages are two-a-penny in Bruges, but this one, possibly the very first one we saw, was different. The driver, a woman, was forced to depart from her course by a few inches so as not to run us oblivious tourists over, resulting her in saying the most impressively and staggeringly sarcastic thing I've ever hear anyone say. ‘Keep standing there, well done!’ she beamed at us, ‘no need to move!’ Her sarcasm was so deep and flawless that it took me a moment to even realise she was being sarcastic. It was an odd moment in an otherwise completely smooth stay that in hindsight feels like a crack in the surface.

The last moment I want to recount is when we went up the famous belfry in the last few hours of our stay. At this point the illusion was still in place: I was convinced that Bruges was living in a postcard, or a film set, or a fairytale. The place is a photographer’s dream, point your camera anywhere are you’ll get a good snap, 100% guaranteed. Up the really windy spiral staircase I went, singing Raglan Road as I did so, and emerged at the top. Nearby, a man proposed to his girlfriend. She said yes. I looked over the main square, and it was lovely. I pretended to shoot someone down below, my fingers in the shape of a gun, as does Ken in the film. Then I looked up slightly, beyond the dusty orange rooftops and church spires. And I saw industry. I saw factories. I saw smoke. I saw the outside world, and felt like I had been duped. There is an element of exaggeration in this piece, but duped really is how I felt. It took a while to put my finger on it because when you’re in Bruges you don’t realise that you’ve fallen for its bewitching charm, but the power of hindsight indicates this is the case.

This is one of the things Martin McDonagh is getting at in In Bruges. Until this week, I had forgotten about something he once said about his first visit to Bruges, that it is perfectly wonderful but also the kind of place that would drive a man mad. Bruges is somewhere between heaven and hell: the film presents it as purgatory – it is where Ken, Ray and Harry go to be judged. I’m not so sure. Like the endless chocolate that fills endless chocolate shops, Bruges is fantastic in reasonable amounts. Not enough of Bruges and places like it and life would be too dull, too much and you’ll get fat and die of a heart-attack while navigating a windy staircase.

Spotters Guide: I slipped in In Bruges references liberally throughout this blog, ten points to Gryffindor if you spot them all.  

Censorship: A Necessary Evil

The above picture illustrates perfectly the role of censorship in our lives. For whatever reason, we naturally seek out things that are forbidden or unattainable - a trait so inherent in human nature that it made it into the Bible as the starting point for humanity. The questionable factual accuracy of Genesis is irrelevant but the metaphor is solid and it does absolutely nail the ever recognisable human trait of seeking the 'forbidden fruit' in our lives. Perhaps the most important element in this story is that the rule-maker (i.e God) acts completely arbitrarily. The apple is forbidden for no particular reason. Eve recognises this, and starts to wonder exactly why is the apple forbidden? There must be something about the apple that she doesn’t know, and this curiosity spurs her to ignore God’s warnings. She eats it and is cast, along with Adam, out of Eden, igniting humanity. If that isn’t a reward for disregarding authority then I don’t know what is.

                God’s decree that Eve shouldn’t eat the fruit is the first evocation of censorship. In this metaphor, God represents many forms of censors, and censorship. He can represent parents as censors, the State as censor or prevailing attitudes as censor – really any authority that enforces arbitrary rules over other people can be seen as a censor.  These entities are often extremely unpopular, unfair and oppressive. They restrict our freedoms, make things we like illegal or declare them to be immoral – and yet they are absolutely essential to society. It is no coincidence that all the things that the writer of the above picture likes are restricted, in fact, it is precisely because they are restricted that the writer likes them so much. I daresay that if God really did not want Eve to eat that apple (and as an all-knowing being which also created humans, thus having complete insight into their psyches) he would have gone ‘sure, yeah, whatever, just don’t bother me’ and gone back to reading the paper. The apple would then be boring and Eve would have left it alone, going on to live a life devoid of all the juicy bits in a sea of apathy, for all eternity. 

                Parents are the first censors that we come across in life. They don’t let us do fun stuff for any particular reason; they make us go to bed on time; they forbid swearing; they forbid sex; they forbid drugs; and yes, they forbid rock’n’roll too (or nowadays, dubstep). I’ve come to believe that it is absolutely essential that parents bring up their children in this way, and I imagine that when if or when I become a father it will absolutely kill me to be a boring tight-arse. We seek out the things that they forbid, and we overindulge. It is through this overindulgence that we discover what we really like and through making mistakes we learn our limits…and end up like our parents. It’s a cruel cycle. Liberal parenting, by which I mean a relaxed attitude to typically ‘forbidden’ things, as attractive as it seems (we all want to be the cool dad/mum, don’t we?) is probably a bad idea, and it produces spoiled kids. The children will have nothing to rebel against, and no boundaries will be pushed. 

                This need for something to kick against works on a societal level, too. We relish liking things that authority figures resent, which is why it is so thoroughly dispiriting when David Cameron or Gordon Brown claim to like the Arctic Monkeys or the Smiths. It is understood by absolutely everyone that they are just not allowed. Politicians, just like parents, have to accept that in assuming a position of authority they have to bite the bullet and be relentlessly uncool.

                Of course, an essay on censorship would not be complete without covering actual censorship. In the early 1930s, Hollywood introduced the Hays Code, which, in short, prevented the depiction of anything remotely controversial. Perhaps the most famous rule is that a woman must have at least one foot on the ground when kissing man, otherwise the audience might think that y’know, they might be doing it, but it also blocks drink, violence and derogatory comments against the Church. Looking at it nowadays the Hays Code seems incredibly restrictive and it is a wonder than any good films were made, but made they were. Filmmakers had to find clever ways to circumvent the censors and the result were films that could be read in several ways, allowing the audience to fill in the gaps. Bringing Up Baby (1938), taken at face value, is fairly unremarkable. However, a clued-up audience would easily be able to understand the endless euphemisms at work, making it into one of the dirtiest films ever made. One of the key signifiers in film noir is the lighting of someone else’s cigarette. This innocuous action is laden with sexual significance, and would not be the classic image it is today without the prudish influence of censorship. According to Janet Steiger, ‘censorship opens up, rather than closes down, confessions, talk, absolution, and resistive transgressions.’ Without censorship, there would be no pressure on the writers to invent new ways of getting a message across, and these circumventions created some fantastic films.

                 Another instance of censorship on the Arts is the Lady Chatterley’s Lover trial from 1960. Lacy Chatterley’s Lover is a novel by D.H Lawrence, initially published in 1928. Owing to liberal use of ‘fuck’ and ‘cunt’ and of the groundskeeper Mellors, ahem, fucking Lady Chatterley’s cunt, it was banned immediately. The novel was in high demand and was devoured in secret across Europe, until Penguin went ahead and published it in 1960. It was subsequently tried under the recently created 1959 Obscene Publications Act. Lady Chatterley won; a precedent was set. Just this year a group of pornographers  were tried for distributing videos of people performing very deviant sexual acts. Nothing shown was illegal between consenting adults, it was just weird, man, really weird. They were nevertheless tried for depravity. Of course, the pornographers won, thus effectively allowing anything to be film and distributed, providing the on-screen action was within the boundaries of UK law. Although these two instances seem similar, there are key contextual differences. With Lady Chatterley, the depictions of sex scandalised and excited because Britain at the time was sexually very restrained; with the ‘60s sexual revolution just around the corner Lady Chatterley represented art catching up with life. In 21^st century Britain, pornography is everywhere, including extreme kinds: this can be seen as an equivalent to the liberal parenting idea presented earlier. We govern what we look at and there’s not really much anyone can do to stop us, so the really hardcore, subversive stuff found in the recent obscenity trial just does not carry the same sensationalism as Lady Chatterley fifty years previously. Another good contrast with Lady Chatterley is a film like the Human Centipede. Whereas Lady Chatterley excited through obscenity, the Human Centipede generally provokes feelings of disgust, and a ‘eerrr, why did I just watch that?’ attitude. All restraints have been lifted, and we are worse off because of it.  

                In fact, the easy access of pornography on the internet is emblematic of how society has liberalised at large. In generations previously, artistic movements had the power to shock people. Romanticism, expressionism, modernism and most recently, post-modernism have all had the power to surprise and startle the public. These periods have all developed under the pressure of censorship, this time in the form of taste. People have been known to riot during the debut of certain pieces of experimental classical music so did they offend the taste of the audience. Consistent liberalising of attitudes towards pretty much everything has meant that the closest we can get to rioting off the back of a piece of art is from the ultra-shit like Rebecca Black. Furthermore, because it is so hard to be controversial any more no one is really sure what artistic movement we are going through, if there is one at all. The impression is that the winds on the cultural high-seas have died down, leaving us drifting aimlessly and directionless.

                This essay has put me in a tricky position. I consider myself to be liberal. I support gay rights, and have an open mind when it comes to music and film, and I even feel people should decide what they want to watch. And yet, here I am, advocating the opposite (EDIT - except that gay rights bit. That should always stand. Badly worded sentence). I think it’s time that the government started acting like the strict, boring, curmudgeonly parent it should be. It needs to ban stuff, even if logic says that it shouldn’t. Maybe the internet should be restricted, even though that would make me rage for months. Maybe political radicals should be clamped down on, just so that we can get wound up about something again. The apple must be forbidden once more.

Cloverfield and Hand-Held Camera Storytelling

Much like King Kong (last time I mention it for a while, I promise), Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008) is another film that divided audiences. Some found the hand-held camera nauseating, others described it as "gimmickry" or "YouTube storytelling" (quotes culled from Rotten Tomatoes, cba to fully reference them), or as just another way of telling a traditional narrative. The characters picked up a lot of slack, mostly for being boring yuppies with bad decision-making skills. Get your brains in gear, reviewers.

The most important thing to realise about Cloverfield is that it's not really about the boring New York yuppies. Cloverfield is about the wider picture, of which we get only the tiniest of glimpses: we are locked, from start to finish, into the literal view of ordinary civilians, and we know just the smallest amount more than they (thanks to the incredibly successful viral campaign). We may follow these people for the duration of the film, but essentially they serve as one small perspective on a much larger event. Criticisms that it "lacks tension" are deflected when looked at like this: horror is at its most effective when it is left to our imagination, and Cloverfield works in this same way. The Rob/Beth narrative may not be fantastic or tense, but the glimpses we do get of New York, of the lives of other civilians, of the actions of the military compensate fully. Take for instance the opening title that frames the footage as military evidence. It poses so many questions - what is the state of the US currently? Is the monster still alive? Did it win? Are there other such stories to be told? It expands the story hugely, but crucially this expansion happens only in our imaginations. We are able to create a far more cohesive world than the filmmakers could have, even if the film took a broader view of events.

For this reason Cloverfield is so much more than a "traditional narrative". Keeping the audience in a position of ignorance is fundamentally different from showing the wider picture with different angles and perspectives. Cloverfield doesn't really have an ending. The movie finishes when the camera is lost beneath a collapsed bridge, and while this concludes the Rob/Beth narrative, the story of the monster, which is the main narrative, is far from finished. The hand-held camera format can successfully be accused of "gimmickry" at times - see recent release Project X - but here it is just not the case.

I would go so far as to argue that because the 'monster narrative' is the real core of the film, it doesn't matter that the Rob/Beth narrative isn't that great. The characters are mostly boring, they're a homogeneous bunch taken from a section of society with which most of the audience would have little sympathy with: they're rich, pretty and self-absorbed. Only the Lizzy Caplan character has anything remotely interesting about her. What this serves to do, however, is increase the verisimilitude of the film. It is precisely because they're so mundane that it works - their lack of wit, their irrational decision-making and general helplessness makes them feel like normal people. In subservience to the 'monster narrative' it is more important that the characters are believable New Yorkers than fascinating people. If anything, it is good that the focus is on the wider events; if the 'monster narrative', a nuanced and beguiling character narrative and the audience assimilation into the film through the immediacy of the hand-held camera were all woven together it may well be that Cloverfield would be too cluttered, and the least important is the character narrative.

Had the film been shot like a normal film, yet kept the same level of audience ignorance, it would have been much less effective. We would get impatient, and start wondering why we're not being given any context. Then, when the characters die at the end and the film finishes it would feel like a con. The restrictions would seem incredibly arbitrary and frustrating. Setting Cloverfield up as camcorder footage circumvents this issue entirely - we are happy to accept this as how the film works, and it makes sense that we are left in the dark on the events unfolding in wider New York.

It is worth mentioning that Cloverfield has a 77% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so it was a far from reviled film. It was praised for the level of immersion and the spectacular set-pieces, but I felt that there is a general under-appreciation of how ably it uses the hand-held format. Hopefully this piece provides a counterpoint.

King Kong: New Versus Old

So after not posting for a few weeks, when I do decide to do another one it's on the same subject as the last one: King Kong. Now, for some reason I seem to end up talking about King Kong a lot, and I'm not sure why really. I suppose it's because I like it and seem to be one of the few able to sit through it without getting bored by its hefty runtime - the major complaint, alongside Jack Black as Carl Denham (who I actually like, more on whom later). Perhaps I'm a Kong apologist, who knows: onward regardless.

The 1933 original which I watched for the first time today is generally (universally?) seen as the best version, and indeed, one of the best films of all time. This view is seriously rose-tinted. It's all about empathy.

In the original, Kong is a wild beast. He's animalistic. He's insensitive. He lacks empathy. While pursuing the fleeing Ann Darrow in both Skull Island and in New York, Kong eats (or at least gnaws at) a fairly off-putting number of people. He just picks them up, chews them for a moment then flings them to the ground. Essentially, Kong is a more accurate - if you can even use 'accurate' in describing a fantastical creature - representation of what a giant ape would be like. That could be fine handled differently, but it presents a few narrative problems. Kong's attraction to Darrow is no more profound than a magpie's attraction to a shiny coin. He is fascinated by her whiteness: all previous sacrifices have been black girls who are apparently only attractive enough to eat (the 1930s were less than racially aware). He wants no more than to hold her in his mighty fist, and never looks at Darrow beyond her whiteness.

Because of this, Darrow shows no emotion towards Kong other than fear. She doesn't interact with him at all - in fact, she says almost nothing for the remainder of the film once taken by Kong, instead she shrieks and shrieks. Well renowned film critic Richard Corliss from Time Magazine says Darrow came to sympathise with the beast. This is simply untrue: there is no evident emotional connection between Darrow and Kong. She says nothing (verbally or physically) to him, and even in the climactic scene atop the Empire State Building her anguish is not for Kong being slowly killed by the biplanes but for being stranded 381 metres above the streets below supported only by an out-of-control beast. Jay Antani, who mounts the most persuasive case against the remake, takes the view that the tragedy of Kong is his role as 'an outcast/schoolyard bully who falls in love with the local beauty–a woman who will never accept him'. How two-dimensional is that? Their entire dynamic can be explained in one scene, with no further development needed: Kong likes woman, woman resists. It doesn't change for the rest of the film. Dull!

There is an empathetic collapse here, and the problems with that are obvious. There is no emotional pull for the audience. In the remake we, channeled though Darrow, slowly come to understand Kong. As a character he is far, far more complex than in the original; the Kong we see in the original is the same Kong that the supporting characters see in the remake - it is through Darrow's interaction and gradually developing empathy for Kong that we come to understand him. This window is lacking in the original.

The second problem with having no connection between Kong, Darrow and the audience is that the action scenes have no emotional weight. The T-Rex fight may be animated with great skill, but without empathy for Kong we don't know whether we should be rooting for him or not. Sure, if the T-Rex wins Darrow will get eaten, but it's not clear whether Kong has dinner plans for Darrow or merely wants to keep her around to do...what, exactly? Manhandle her until she slowly starves? That doesn't sound a whole lot better than getting eaten by a dinosaur.

In contrast, the T-Rex fight in the remake is driven by character. Rather than just being a fight scene in the shallowest sense, it is a way (a really awesome way, I might add) of developing the Darrow/Kong relationship. Kong is enraged that Darrow has escaped, so sets of in pursuit and in doing so winds up having to defeat three T-Rexes while keeping her safe. At this point we are far more invested in both Darrow and Kong than in the original: we see Darrow trying to entertain Kong, we see her gradual understanding, and we understand the simple enjoyment Kong gets out of watching her perform. By making it clear that the audience is on the side of Darrow and Kong, the fight becomes far more engaging: Kong has to viciously fight these enormous creatures while keeping her safe. In comparison with the original, Kong has a far greater task.

Furthermore, once the fight is over, Kong does not simply snatch Darrow up and carry her off again, he gets upset. She has offended him. The contrast between his bravery and power in battle and his sensitivity afterwards is fascinating. Perhaps this was enabled by technology: Kong is as expressive as any human. Would this emotional detail have been possible with the crude methods available to the original? In that film a close up of Kong's face caused ripples of laughter among my coursemates - he looked like a gurning moron. The remade Kong has infinitely more depth. I would argue that this is a rare instance of technology actually being put to use for narrative purposes, instead of just making things looks better.

Lastly, a few other quick points. As neatly articulated by Jay Antani, 'in the original, Driscoll was the ship’s first mate; here, he’s Denham’s screenwriter and, hence, the Denham-Darrow-Driscoll triangulation is made more taut.' Yep. The biplane fight is shot far better than in the original. Kong is shot from further out, emphasising his impotence against the aerial threat. Denham is actually really good, even played by Jack Black. In the original he's stiff and uninteresting, in the remake he's wonderfully flawed. Jack Black is very unheroic and quite ridiculous by nature and it suits this new Denham perfectly. There is also the question of whether Darrow loves Kong. It's not obvious, and I'm not sure of the answer.

There. That was my attempt at doing some serious analysis, Film Crit Hulk style. 

Just a bunch of things

Every now and again I feel the need to write about various things I've been thinking about in recent days, but usually they're not really interesting enough to warrant a full post. I've not done anything serious in a while because of a busy (sleeping) schedule but hopefully I'll be able to put out something about a defence of censorship (really) in a week or so. But in the meantime I'm going to blather about some shit.

King Kong and the length of films.

I've just finished watching King Kong (2005) on ITV and a few thoughts have crossed my mind.

It's been heavily criticised for being too long - it's over three hours - but I find in general accusations of being too long to be such an odd criticism. Films feel long not because they're lengthy, but rather there is a dearth of content. The first hour of King Kong admittedly could do with being put through a vigorous weight-loss programme, but once things get going with the appearance of Kong it does not drag at all. The film is not without its flaws, but merely judging it on the run-time feels just a little bit immature.

I like films to be able to compete with books, and no one would for one second think to complain about the length of a book. Is three hours really such a long time? Perhaps the nature of film is more fatiguing on the eyes than reading, but in my experience a boring book feels just as tedious as a boring film, and I've become accustomed to both (cheers uni). At least the boring bit in Broken Blossoms only lasted an hour and a half - the boring bit in Sense and Sensibility lasted about fourteen...

Similarly, why is 90 minutes the golden length for a film? That is extremely restrictive, and extremely arbitrary. The only important thing is for the run-time to suit the narrative: even 90 minutes can feel like an age if it's packing an underdeveloped script. Perhaps the best case for this is the Ridley Scott film Kingdom of Heaven. Ripped apart upon release, the DVD version contained the director's cut which restored 45-minutes of footage to push it up to a massive 194 minutes, turning a bad film into one of the best of the year. Often, director's cuts are over-indulgent but that was not the case here. Why the initial studio-imposed cut? Because it was too long. And too political. Despite being so much longer, the extended version feels so much shorter, because it is more engaging.


Radiohead

Let's stop prevaricating, Radiohead are one of the all-time greats. The established pantheon of The Beatles,  Stones, Dylan, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix etc. has been unchanged for decades; probably the last act to break into it is (debatably) U2. Put Radiohead toe-to-toe with the aformentioned musicians and they can hold their own.

There seems to be, broadly, four boxes that need to be ticked in order to be considered one of the best. These are:

An all-time great album:  The likely candidate album is OK Computer, widely seen as one of the best ever. Kid A and The Bends are also in with a shout, which brings me to the second point.

Consistency and longevity: The heavy-weight bands all enjoyed a period where they could do little wrong, and every release was met with acclaim. Pablo Honey aside, Radiohead haven't released a bad album. Even the one seen as the weakest, Hail to the Thief, is fantastic.

Popularity: Usually quality begets popularity, so it is unsurprising that Radiohead are popular. They sell out every venue they play, they draw thousands to festivals across the world, they sell huge numbers of albums, which keep selling beyond initial release.

Trend-setting:  Kid A changed music (moreso than OK Computer, which although outstanding, has spawned few imitators). Soft and sparse yet complex and dynamic has been a hallmark of American bands, such as Animal Collective, for several years now, which attempt to follow the Radiohead template.

A Pre-emptive strike against my mates attack on Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip

My mate is currently writing an attack on Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip, but is really slow and I can't be bothered waiting for him to finish so that I can write this. He really doesn't like That Shalt Always Kill, saying that the lyrics are superficial and condescending. He's wrong.

I was gonna post all the lyrics but it's really long and most of it won't be discussed. So watch the video.

Thou Shalt Always Kill does seem superficial and condescending initially. Who is this guy to tell me what to think? The fact that I agree largely with what he says is irrelevant - he is trying to shape society in the same way that Moses shaped Christian society, and with the same authority.

This is a simplistic reading. There are some obvious clues. Firstly, this is a personal list; "Thou shalt not go into the wood with your boyfriend's best friend, take drugs, and cheat on him"; "Thou shalt not return to the same club or bar week in, week out just 'cause you once saw a girl there that you fancied but you're never gonna fucking talk to." It is pretty plain to see that these relate to Pip personally; by including these it becomes clear that these are not commandments for the wider population, rather just things he thinks.

The more important message comes right at the end, with the couplet, "Thou Shalt think for yourself/ And thou shalt always...thou shalt always...kill." Both these lines essentially say the same thing, in different ways. "Thou shalt think for yourself" is the ultimate message of the song, showing the Pip is fully aware that his word is not to be taken as gospel, but rather we should look more closely at the world, ignoring what others may think - their opinion is of no greater value than your own - and form a set of opinions or morals individual to each person. The lyrics to the song are just Pips opinions, and he is aware of this.

"Thou shalt always kill" has the same effect. It's a subtle trick; he sucks you in with comments on Steven Fry and the NME with which the majority of his audience would agree, then he twists the most famous of the Ten Commandments "Thou Shalt Not Kill" into a distorted opposite. It's not simply "thou shalt kill": the 'always' makes it into a horrifying never-ending bloodbath. He's checking that you're listening and not merely going along with his spiel. In fact, one review I've read even refers to it hilariously as 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' - way to miss the point there, reviewer. 

Lastly, it's also a song about religion. It hardly needs to be said that the song is a riff on the Ten Commandments, but the theme of self-awareness outlined above is turned against the domineering nature of Christianity (specifically, but religion in general is also relevant). Religious imagery is used in a modern context, "Thou shalt not take the names of Johnny Cash etc. in vain," (interestingly he only uses musicians that share an initial with the big J-Dog, and also Desmond Dekker who sang 'Israelites'. And Syd Barrett (?)) and "Thou shalt not worship pop idols or follow lost prophets (Lostprophets)." There is a conflict in interpretation here, by using "in vain" is he elevating Johnny Cash et al to alongside Jesus, or is he bringing Jesus down alongside Johnny Cash? I'm more inclined to go with the latter, tying in as it does with the Jesus Christ Superstar image of recent decades. Bringing religion into the mix is another facet of the 'think for yourself' motto - they have no more worth than a set of values that you work out for yourself. 

Auden's Sunday Best

Too long for a twitter post (c'mon, "tweet" is lame) and too not-interesting for a status update, this undernourished post has thus been dumped unceremoniously here. Also it's about poetry. Yeah.

I get to read W.H. Auden in a module next semester. I'm actually quite excited. You can thank Christopher Hitchens for that. Anywho, there's one poem of his that I particularly like, so here it is:

"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum,

Bring out the coffin...let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle, moaning overhead,

Scribbling on the sky the message: He is Dead.

Put crepe bows 'round the necks of public doves,

Let traffic policemen wear black, cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East, my West.

My working week and my Sunday rest.

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song,

I thought love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now, put out every one.

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.

Pour out the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good." 

Lovely, in't it? Because my reading skills are surprisingly iffy for someone that studies literature at university, I've always read the line in the third stanza as 'My working week and my Sunday best'. It was with dismay that I found out otherwise, not because I felt illiterate, but because I actually prefer my version. I prefer the contrast of the weekly toil - the drudgery, the mundanity - with getting suited and booted and being at one's best. 'Rest' feels apathetic in comparison, lacking in purpose and decisiveness. 'Sunday best' even maintains the religious imagery - doesn't that tradition stem from looking nice for church?

S'all today, folks.