Two things stuck out the last week, and it seems that to my tastes, filmed Britishness is still superior to other forms of entertainment as long as it doesn’t fall to the theatrics of a filmed play.
The best of TV, was my finishing (finally) watching 2018’s The Terror on the BBC iPlayer, that only recently finished on BBC1 (I believe).
Charting the ill-fated, mid-19th century British expedition to find the Northwest Passage, the series suffered from, once again, overuse of colouring (brown and blue again!), a ridiculous sub-plot involving a polar bear from hell, and succumbing to a new-age, Jim Morrison type of mutineer character, in the final stages.
What could have been great, ie, show it like it was!; was in the end only quite good, except for the exceptional, even heroic acting of Jared Harris, as one of the ship’s captains. Though when compared to most, it’s a 10 out of 10.
The ten-part series, with each episode only about 45minutes, flew by.
For my film, I caught on BBC4, The Elephant Man, which I have seen several times before, both when it originally came out, and on several other occasions. Though I could have sworn that this version was longer? Is this so? Not sure. In addition, I had forgot that David Lynch had both co-written and directed it. Maybe the black and white, or use of a slight industrial score was a giveaway.
It’s a sad and moving piece; with the Doctor / Patient interchanges both subtle and moving.
FFS, they don’t make films like this anymore.
CB
Curious Bystander 