Hey! What Troubles You?

Theme for the week’s titles is obviously an exclamation followed by a question! Or is it?

Drama overload here at the moment. I finally felt flush enough to splash out on the boxed set of To Serve Them All My Days which is waiting patiently for anything more than the quick scan I did last night. The reason for a not-instant viewing is that we had the DVD of Vera Drake to watch last night. I think I had the normal male jitters about a film with such a subject matter. However, despite the downbeat ending, the little details and implied connections (surprising for A Mike Leigh film I thought) bring about a feeling of colour and evocation of the period that lifts the story above the sordid tale it could have been given the water-cooler thumbnail sketch of the plot that most people know. I’m not sure it would change the mind of people with particularly polarised views on abortion but then I suspect Mike Leigh does not ever try to change opinion, rather he presents a story and lets you make up your own mind. The only point that this film could make legitimately, is that possibly the only ‘wrong’ in the film is that society pressurises people to do illegal things simply because what they enjoy is deemed immoral. You may say we have gone too far the other way in our search for hedonism but that is just the old fuddy-duddy in me I suppose.

I had to bite my tongue when the policeman read the caution to Vera Drake. Life On Mars has caused me to say “That’s not how it goes” at every arrest caution I hear. My wife said she heard me say it in her head but I promise my internal censor stopped me.

You will not believe this but a seventies-style phone ring has just gone off at a desk close to here. I assume it is on a mobile. It is exactly like the one at the start of The Rockford Files.

What I did watch of To Serve Them All My Days did not disappoint. The colour is faded, the sound is mono but the screenplay, the acting, the emotion that pervades it all is glorious. It struck me immediately that you could not get away with such long pauses in a drama today. This seemed like believable real life. Think about your life and how much of it is hanging around waiting for something to happen. This seems to evoke this reality without letting the plot stagnate; walking on the moors, calmly looking out to sea, all done without words, let you get an idea of the internal feelings of the characters without having to voice them explicitly with junk phrases. Very few TV writers these days seem to be able to do this; everything has to be said forcibly without pause for thought. Of course, they had 13 episodes to do TSTAMD and I suspect that this would be too much for a programme commissioner these days. Life on Mars is eight episodes. The only programme with such length now is Casualty (and its sister show of course) but this has long retreated from being able to leave unresolved endings and turned into soap where the only people who really seem to matter to the writers are the staff. I remember the complex thoughts that were sparked by leaving a situation unresolved for a patient or relative who was not going to be in the next episode. I don’t really watch now so I don’t know how much this still happens but it seems to just be a big game of Doctors and Nurses from what I have seen.

I’ve just seen the time so it is goodbye for now.