Antigone (1986 TV Film)

 "When the state becomes one man, it ceases to be a state."

And so we come to the third and final iteration of Don Taylor's translations of Sophocles' Theban plays, made for the BBC in 1986. I was vaguely aware of Antigone by reputation, but this is the first time I've experienced the play. It packs quite a punch, to put it mildly.

The production retains the form of classical Athenian theatre, as with its predecessors, hence the slightly odd sight of the Chorus, with a number of very familiar British character actors speaking in unison. The costuming works well, evoking a dictatorship in the modern age, appropriately for the autocratic hubris of Creon who, this being classical Greek theatre, awaits his certain nemesis.

As with other plays, the visually dramatic moments (especially the deaths) happen offstage, with most of the drama consisting of an utterly enthralling dialogue of ideas. The premise is well-known- Antigone insists on giving her brother a proper burial despite Creon's newly enacted law making this a capital offence. And Creon is allowed to make some valid points- Antigone's brother was not only fighting against Thebes but wanted to destroy it and enslave its inhabitants, so Creon is entitled to feel aggrieved.

Yet his arrogance, his sheer insistence on his absolute power, is devastating and way over the top: at one point he tells the soldier who reports the illicit burial to either find the culprit or be tortured to death, which is a bit harsh! And the way he speaks to his son again shows such tyrannical hubris.

 In the cosmology in play here, the laws of the gods may not be overridden by the laws of men (yes, men- the dialogue makes the inevitable misogyny very, very clear!), and the arrogant Creon is doomed. His final downfall is almost as terrible as that of Oedipus.

The staging is, yes, a little flat, but that's the nature of the beast. Above all, the play is carried by extraordinary performances from Juliet Stevenson and John Shrapnel, who truly excel in a production that is devastatingly effective.

Dead of Night: Exorcism

 "Just my husband frightening the life out of me- it's quite normal">

You may be wondering what is this new series I've started to blog, because it's somewhat obscure. Dead of Night was a horrow anthology series broadcast on BBC 2 in late 1972. This being British television of the early 1970s, only three episodes exist of the seven which were made. I'm going to blog all three of them. Let's just say that all three may just be possible on a certain online medium known for pronouns and tubing...

Anyway, this is simply a superb piece of horror and social commentary, once you get over the shoch of seeing Clive Swift looking so young, with a full head of ginger hair. It's Christmas, it's a remote thatched cottage which is rather charming, if renovated with all mod cons such as, er, a rotary telephone, a big wooden television that needs to warm up, and (gasp) a stereo. And two rather posh couples in their mid-thirties are looking forwards to a slap up Christmas dinner with lashings and lashings of booze.

It's the most early '70s dinner party of all time, with talk of the mind's hidden potential, the recent three days week and the recent miner's strike, as well as lapsed Marxist views, something which will become relevant later. These couples are privileges, and know they are.

I won't spoil things, but lets say that odd things increasingly happen, and the bleak and brutal conclusion has a very pointed subtext about rich, poor and the evils of living in luxury as others starve. It's all so very astoundingly political, yet as horror it's no less effective. Superb.

The Island of Dr Moreau (1977)

"Are we not men...?"

...We are Devo. Sorry, although I'm told the film was an influence on said Ohio geniuses.

Anyway, It's a long time since I read H.G. Wells' novella and I remember nothing of it; let's just say that I'm forty-two and the copy I read belonged to the school library. So I'm unaware, after all these years, how faithful the film- made, after all, in 1977, thirty plus years after the dodginess of eugenics was very clearly shown- is to the novel. But it seems, on the face of it, to be a fascinating little look at the ethics of science, of eugenics, of reactions to the idea of evolution, which reminds one that the original novella was published but thirteen years after The Origin of Species.

There's a small main cast. The fairly elderly Burt Lancaster has real presence as the charismatic and chippy scientist, exiled from the academy to an island where he is boss and there are no ethical naysayers- certainly not the drunken and cynical mercenary Montgomery, or the mysterious and trophy-like Maria, who seems very much the token female. Into this comes the young Michael York, more D'Artagnan than Basil, shipwrecked and stuck on this island and acting as the eyes, ears and conscience of the audience- and yet, fascinatingly, when we first see him he performs his own ethically dodgy act in pushing a dying fellow survivor from a boat into the sea. That's a fascinating writing choice.

We gradually discover what Moreau is up to, undisturbed by Harvard's prying eyes- injecting animals and turning them into semi-human beast men in a quest to find ways to cure human ailments- what no one in 1896 would have called genetic experimentation. Such ethical areas, while not quite so dramatic, are an increasing part of life today and it's fascinating to see such ideas discussed by Wells so soon after natural selection was promulgated- although here it's assumed that, rather simply being the fact of the best random mutations passing on advantages, which over geological time causes differentiation of species, there is some kind of directional purpose to evolution, with humans at the top of the scale. This is, of course, not necessarily true, and nor is there any kind of barrier between humans and other animals- when Moreau turns Braddock into an animal towards the end he's not imparting any quality that he didn't already possess.

Nevertheless, this is an excellent and thought-provoking drama of ideas- not only of the above but of laws and justice-, with excellent acting and script, including the splendid line "You've been drinking for two days, Montgomery. I suggest you continue". A quietly superb film if you like yur science fiction to be about ideas as well as explosions.

Damien: Omen II (1978)

"Damien Thorn is the Antichrist!"

It's been quite a while since I saw The Omen, but it lingers in the mind somewhat, mainly because of the set piece deaths. This sequel follows a similar pattern; Damien is now thirteen, adopted by his aunt and uncle, and forced to attend one of those awful military schools to which the more abusive type of American parents send their children. There are the same types of people protecting him, the same types of people discovering what he is and trying to stop him, and of course the same types of grisly deaths for the latter.

Except... while still a pretty good film, it doesn't compare remotely to its predecessor. Partly this is because, although some of the set piece deaths are rather good, they don't begin to approach the spectacle of the first film. And the cast, while solid character actors all, lacks the charismatic star presence of a Gregory Peck.

That isn't to say that the story doesn't grab the attention, that the central conceit doesn't work as well as before or, indeed, that there's much wrong with the script; I suspect that a better director could have improved the gory set pieces which, while a decent enough spectacle, don't anchor this film as they did its predecessor. But it certainly has its moment- I enjoyed the reporter's death my raven and lorry, and the film has a bi of fun with the fact we all know where it's going. It's a solid but fairly by-the-numbers early example of the type of Holywood horror sequel that would become so fashionable over the following decade.