Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

 "This time it's gonna take more than killing me to kill me."

Well, thgis film blew me away. It's a huge fanwank treat. It's very Sam Raimi indeed. I love its continuation of the whole vibe of magic being really trippy, man, in the MCU, almost as thought it was some king of metaphor or something.

But, although very good, this film isn't great. It doesn't quite have the swagger and smooth greatness of the best Marvel films but- let me stress- this is no great critiscism. Merely being very good indeedcis no crime.

Plus, this film may be fanwank, but it's fanwank of the first degree. Rintrah! Clea at the end! A brief CGI hint of the Living Tribunal! Chthon! Earth 616!

But this is about the full realisation of the Multiverse- Black Bolt! Captain Carter! Reed Richards! Confirmation, for those of my generation, that Monica Rambeau is THE real Captain Marvel. And we have Professor X... played by Patrick Stewart"! This is a blatant tease about the former Fox properties, using the concept of the Multiverse to the full.

Yet this film is very human as well as high concept. We explore, through different realities, Strange's relations with Christine, and his rather lovely fatherly relationship with the orphaned America Chavez, presumably a comics character from after my time.

Yet also, after WandaVision, we meet Wanda... and she's the baddie, plausibly yet tragically: she's a loving parent, able to see her beloved children only through snatched, one dimensional, dreamlike moments which are better than nothing but no replacement for everyday physical parenthood. I get exactly where she's coming from. It means a lot that she does the right thing, in the end, through love of her children.

No, this isn't a great film. But just being bloody good is no crime.

Logan (2017)

 "Don't be what they made you..."

I'm going to do my best to watch the few remaining X-Men films from Fox in order. It'll be Dark Phoenix next, fairly soon, but for now we have this rather unexpectedly styled and surprisingly good film based on a limited series featuring Wolverine in the future (2029!) well after my time.

My knowledge of Marvel comics is fairly comprehensive up to circa 1993, and fairly nonexistent after them. So I know of Caliban- played here (and rather well) by Stephen Merchant of all people, and of course of Donald Piercxe and the Reavers, from the late 1980s stories by Chris Claremont in a rather differrent context.

But the situation here is different. Logan- more than two centuries old in a fairly depressing life- is dying of a myserious ailment; Charles Xavier is dying and suffering from dementia, a terrifying outcome for someone with his mental powers, and something which led, a year ago, to the "Westchester Incident" in which several, including multiple X-<Men died. And this is a world in which, for reasons ultimately explained, no mutant has been born for a quarter of a century. Oh, and, unexpectedly, by means of a test tube baby and sperm theft, Logan has a daughter. With claws.

This is a superb film, with superb acting elevating a quite good script to somewhat more than that. Hugh Jackman is excellentt but Patrick Stewart is sublime. The best X-Men film yet and, I suspect, unlikely to be bettered.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: How It All Fits Together

”One day that lack of moderation will be Karla’s downfall.”

Things are developing now, plot-wise, but plot is not, of course, everything. The slow pace allows for depth, character and, I think, commentary both on how youthful ideology fades into cynicism, as well as reflection once more on how Britain's place in the world has diminished into- to use a '70s phrase- managed decline. All so much more grown-up than the delusions of today's political class that we, a medium power since at least 1956, can somehow survive against the great powers of today without the solidarity of the European Union. But I digress.

Perhaps the central scene is the flashback to Smiley’s interrogation of Karla in New Delhi in the ‘50s, where Smiley talks and talks and expresses a cynicism about the Cold War and ideology that he assumes his counterpart shares- but Karla, a fanatical Communist, says nothing. And there is another interrogation- of Peter by Percy Alleline, who now knows of Ricky Tarr and believes him to be a defector. But this in turn proves to Smiley that the Witchcraft source is linked to the mile in that both are run by Karla. Soviet penetration of British intelligence is complete, and now we have to tell the Americans, who don’t trust us anyway. Such is our place in the world.

Not everything here is worthy of praise- there are once again no female speaking parts(!) and I note that Fawn, the only character not from the world of public schools and Oxbridge, has his accent mocked and is judged only in terms of his physical prowess. But things are heating up, and it’s all very compelling.

I, Clavdivs: Reign of Terror

“Do you know him personally?”

“No, but I have slept with his wife several times.”

This time I, Clavdivs channels the Ben Jonson play Sejanus His Fall, and does it much better. This is telly of the very first rank, and a classic study in tyranny.

We begin with Sejanus’ control over Rome deepened and Tiberius, with his mother and son dead, utterly oblivious to his own manipulation. He is being pushed further and further to remove potential threats to Sejanus’ rise- Aggripina is banished to the island where Julia was exiled with a similar fate for her eldest son, and when she refuses Tiberius’ sexual advances she is flogged. Her second son is arrested and starved in his cell, with only his depravity and closeness to Tiberius saving her theirs son Caligula- shown as delightfully decadent throughout the episode- from a similar fate, and Sejanus has plans for him too. This, Livilla’s affair with Sejanus, and Claudius’ distance from his own wife, lead Antonia to decry the modern world in reactionary style- but she has a definite point.

Tiberius, though, forbids Sejanus from marrying Livilla, instead suggesting he marries her daughter Helen, to which Livilla reacts with predictable fury, driving a wedge between them. This is the first crack in Sejanus’ armour. His tyranny continues unabated but the cracks widen, and Antonia discovers more and more, including that Livilla is poisoning her own daughter out of jealousy. And it is Antonia who manages to warn Tiberius over in Capri, behind Sejanus’ back.

In a wonderfully perverse scene, it is Caligula who suggests to a suddenly frightened emperor that he can use the ambition of Sejanus’ deputy Macro to get rid of him, and talk of the ensuing purge becomes instantly horrifying. We aren’t shown much other than the bodies, but what we do see and hear is sickening. Senators quietly flee the senate as Sejanus is denounced. And when a soldier complains to Macro about killing Sejanus’ children, with the girl being a virgin, he is simply told to “Make sure she’s not a virgin when you kill her”. We see Sejanus’ fatal stabbing from his own POV in a nice piece of camera work, the last thing he hears being that his children are dead. He is a monster, yet he is human, and the script allows us to feel for him.

This is, once again, superlative, and I’m already running out of ways to say that. Interestingly, Claudius’ wife, Sejanus’ sister, begs Claudius to protect her and, although he is busy expressing his revulsion at what is happening, he refuses. She survives in the end, but we are reminded that Claudius, while saner than his relatives, is no saint.

I Clavdivs: Queen of Heaven

“He’s building a prison here, stone by stone.”

Damn all this current telly and it’s distracting me from the antics of those naughty Julio-Claudians. Now where were we?

Cleverness, that’s where. This episode is really all about plot, plot, plot but it does so with wit and gusto. The opening scene has to tell us that Tiberius’ reign has now reached its later point of extreme decadence and tyranny, but it does so by showing the hostess of an enjoyable dinner party, attended by characters we know such as Agrippina and Claudius himself and has the gracious hostess (Judith Caroon from The Quatermass Experiment) dramatically reveals the circumstances of her rape by Tiberius- and then stab herself. BBC2 In 1976 cannot show these depravities so it must simply tell- but it does so dramatically, and gives us some spectacle anyway.

It also develops how Sejanus is slowly assuming power from Tiberius, encouraging him with his treason trials for such things as “treasonous utterances” and already ruling Rome as a kind of proto-totalitarian state. And he is deeply ambitious- in a hilarious scene Claudius slowly walks across a room while Sejanus gradually gets him to divorce his estranged wife and agree to marry his own sister. He is also having an affair with Livia which, it is implied, consisted of some rather rough sex, and the two of them contrive to bump off Castor, who happens to be Tiberius’ son and likely successor. All this is done with humour and style, and in no way feels like exposition.

We also meet Caligula, or Suetonius’ version at any rate, played with absolute sublimity by the great John Hurt. Already utterly depraved, he bonds with Tiberius over porn and ends up as the likely next emperor simply because Tiberius wants his successor to be worse out of sheer vanity.

But the episode is about the death of Livia, aware of her many crimes and desperate for deification to save her from eternal torment, with another extraordinary performance from the great Sian Phillips. Interestingly, a lot of the meat of the episode revolves around Thrasyllus’ horoscopes, with a lot of very intelligent people believing in this woo woo. But, in an age before our present conception of science, astrology was not necessarily a stupid way to try and understand the world. Interestingly, though, the Sybilline prophecy, and that of Thrassylus, are shown to be true. Caligula and Claudius will indeed be the next to rule, and one who is going to die soon will indeed become the only God worshipped in the Roman Empire one day.

Bloody superlative stuff.

I, Clavdivs: Some Justice

"That child is a monster!"

This episode takes what is perhaps an unexpected turn as a courtroom drama unfolds. This courtroom drama has wider implications, though, and acts as an ingenious frame around which to explore Tiberius' early rule- he is bitter, resentful but not yet depraved or tyrannical in spite of the baleful presence of Sejanus. However, the elderly Claudius' narration at the beginning (a rare bit of narrative clumsiness) makes clear that this is to change after Germanicus' death.

And the death of the dutiful, popular, republican Germanicus shapes everything here, from the raging desire for revenge of his widow Aggripina on the parts of Piso and Plancina who, as we shall see, are guilty of persecution but not murder, and were acting on Tiberius' orders in any case. Unknown to all, the real killer is the infant Caligula, who horribly terrorised and murdered his father by poisoning and a superstition which the genuinely clever and civilised Romans simply accept, to the incredulity of Herod, speaking for our own culturally Judaeo-Christian worldview. Nevertheless, Aggripina want revenge and the crowd id with her, and it becomes slowly clear that the appearance of justice is only a figleaf for what is politically convenient. Piso must die to save Tiberius, and he becomes increasingly doomed as the episode progresses. Deliciously, Plancina manages to do a deal with Livia, still at the centre of the web, to save herself and her children, and ends up "assisting" her father's suicide. This is delightfully, entertaining cynical. And we Doctor Who fans get the added thrill of Lady Peinforte wanting Monarch dead.

We also see how, thankfully, Claudius now has friends in Aggripina, Castor, Herod and others and, while hardly a confidant of the Emperor, has a degree of respect. Antonia, of course, despises him as much as ever, wishing he had died instead of Germanicus. So does Livia, who is increasingly exasperating her son with her antics and whose scene with fellow poisoner Martina (Nursie from Black Adder II) is a hoot.

This episode essentially sets the scene for the new reign, then. Hugely enjoyable though it is, it hints at much depravity to come. Utterly superb, as though that needed saying.

I, Clavdivs: Poison Is Queen

"Don't touch the figs..."

Well, even by the high standards of this rightly praised drama, that was exceptional. And this, more than anything, proves that the great Brian Blessed was an actor of incredible depth and subtlety, if not necessarily softly spoken while doing so, and it's such a great shame that he very shortly after became typecast as shouty barbarians.

So Germanicus returns to a warm and brotherly reunion with an unhappily married Claudius, and at last hears and believes the news about Postumus' framing for rape and Livia's misdeeds- although, I'm glad to see, not without a very #MeToo nod to the fact that actual rapists use such excuses all the time.

In the very next scene Augustus clearly knows everything, and is very cagey about Livia. Rightly so; his eyes may now be open, but will soon be closed forever. His secret reunion with Postumus is deeply emotional for both men, yes, although Augustus' tears are self-indulgent as ever, but they must tread with care and it is, in truth, far too late. Livia is running rings round them throughout, whether secretly getting access to Augustus' altered will, ensuring the despairing Tiberius is not far away, or finally managing to poison the rightfully paranoid Augustus to death. Too late. poison is queen, and Postumus is doomed, although in the process we meet the ruthless Sejanus, played with icy steel by a young and only very slightly balding Patrick Stewart. It's all moving towards an inevitable conclusion, but you can't take your eyes off it even if the whole thing looks absurdly studio-bound at times.

But Livia, blinded by her cruel dismissal of Claudius. never suspects his part in revealing the truth, and she constantly humiliates him throughout, culminating in that final scene where a somewhat pissed Livia, having achieved what she wanted, mocks Claudius while telling him too much. Sian Phillips is one of the great villains of television history. And what an episode.What writing. What acting. 

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

“Humanity has always feared what is different,"

 I've read a lot of Chris Claremont's run on X-Men (the comic book, of course) but not this seminal storyline although, of course I have a broad awareness of it. It’s a good choice of storyline for the next film and, course, offers a great opportunity for a bit of sneaky retconning; welcome back, Jean and Scott.

It’s all very much what we Doctor Who fans call “timey-wimey”, of course; Wolverine is sent back in time to 1973, with shades of Life on Mars, in order to prevent a Sentinel-riven hellish dystopia, and we follow the twists and turns as he does so. It’s an enjoyable concept and one not slavishly following the comics, as we find a disillusioned Charles who has clearly been taking hairstyle tips from me, while Magneto’s allegiances are again ambiguous and interesting. Michael Fassbender is, of course, superb, and it’s a shame we don’t see more of Ian McKellen but this film is crammed to the rafters with characters jostling for something to do.

The cast is superb, to the point that I’ve had to leave the likes of Elliot Page, Halle Berry and Famke Janssen off the tags through lack of space as the boys, alas, drive the plot and hog the screen time. There are some magnificent performances, though, the highlight being the interaction of James McAvoy and Patrick Stewart as the two Xaviers talk. Plus of course we have cameos from so many characters including an awesome-looking Bishop, Kitty Pryde and Colossus, and Peter Dinklage being superb as the villainous yet idealistic Bolivar Trask.

This may not be the greatest film of the series but it’s solidly entertaining, well-acted and full of surprises, so the Utopian ending comes as a surprise. The post-credits sequence suggests trouble to come, though...

The Emoji Movie (2017)

"Nobody leaves the phone! Delete them!"

Ok, let me make one thing clear from the outset; this film is pants. Oh, there are some films, such as Sausage Party, which seem at first as though they're going to be puerile and stupid but in fact turn out to be witty and clever. So I gave this film a chance. Don't make the same mistake; this film is half-arsed, boring and just plain bad.

It's hard to see whether the fundamental flaw is the concept or the execution. It's all set inside the phone of a kid called Alex, with emojis competing to be flavour of the month and the hero Gene, a "meh" emoji, gets into trouble for failing to always display a "meh" expression, only to save the day, predictably, for being in touch with the full range of his emotions and all that. Oh, and there's a token love story which, to be fair, has a genuine feminist subtext, and James Bloody Corden as the most annoying sidekick ever. We even get a deeply irritating dance scene purely for the purpose of letting Christina Aguilera do something.

The film is stupid, boring, feels over-long, and will inevitably look incredibly dated in not many years from now. And it gives rise yet again to that age-old question: why does America find James Corden funny?

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

"We’re gonna make you invulnerable. But first we’re gonna destroy you.”

Well, this film is ok, I suppose- it certainly looks good, and the montage at the start of “Jimmy” and Victor fighting in various wars is brilliant, but somehow it doesn’t quite catch fire and was ever so mildly disappointing.

Interesting start, though; we learn far more about Logan’s past than I’m sure the comics ever told us. He was a child in 1845, living in what we can loosely call Canadian frontier territory, and his name is James Logan- and the psychopathic Victor Creed (Sabretooth) is indeed his older brother- and they look out for each other, in war after war, for 130 years, until Vietnam, and Colonel William Stryker.

Stryker is, of course, a younger iteration of the baddie from X-Men 2, portrayed superbly by Danny Huston, and hires the brothers as part of a slightly rubbish gang of mutant agents, including a criminally wasted Deadpool, portrayed by Ryan Reynolds but certainly not in continuity with his later solo outing, a far better film than this one. Oh, and one of these mutants, for some reason, is portrayed by a surprisingly decent Will.i.am.

But Logan leaves, in final disgust at Victor’s bloodlust, and six years pass in which he settles down as a lumberjack in the native Rockies with the lovely Kayla Silverfox- until Victor arrives, and kills the woman he loves. The person who was taking him has gone, and he wants revenge against the brother with whom he spent thirteen decades.

And so we come to the pivotal scene, where he survives the agonies of having adamantium bonded to his skeleton. Only with his healing factor can this not kill him, and he seems to barely survive. This is an important scene, and it’s done well.

Except... from this point the film drags, and lots of random elements are included. Nice as it is to see Gambit and the Blob (in a particularly toe-curling scene), they are irrelevant distractions from the newly christened Wolverine and his revenge against Victor Creed, Stryker and their bizarre and vaguely purposed little Island of Dr Moreau full of kidnapped mutants- including, for no good reason, a young Scott Summers.

The last half hour is a mess, with even the revelation of Kayla’s duplicity lacking real emotional heft, although there is real pathos in someone so old and full of tears having his memory cruelly erased. And yet... the film is well shot, and would have worked well if better edited. Was there a clash between the director and the studio?

I’d like to see a director’s cut, but the film we have is unfortunately a bit of a mess, in spite of its good points.

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

"Oh, my stars and garters!"

You know how a film gets critically acclaimed, you're aware of this, and so when you come to see said film, however good it may be, it inevitably disappoints next to the Platonic ideal of cinematic perfection you were expecting? And you know how, when everybody tells you a film is pants, you can be pleasurably surprised? I call that Howard the Duck syndrome, and it definitely applies here.

Syndrome or not, I found this film to be far from pants. It's entertaining, well-acted and deals with the characters well. Yes, Vinnie Jones is Vinnie Jones, but the use of the character of Juggernaut I found to be fine. Yes, the direction is unshowy, but it does the job. Yes, the Phoenix saga is squashed into a film that's really about a mutant "cure" that works as a semi-metaphor for those awful gay conversion therapies that are still legal in certain barbaric areas of the world. But it's an action-filled film, if a simple one, and the characters ring true, even if Wolverine inevitably dominates. Some characters die (Scott is a shock, but the cinema version was always quite dull), but we get a cool, recast Kitty Pryde; Colossus doing the good old fastball special with Wolverine; Angel with daddy issues; Rogue getting cured and, let's face it, getting banged by Bobby after the credits roll; the genuine grief when Charles Xavier dies; the post-credit scene; the Beast as a successful politician; Madrox.

All this, and we also get an early cameo from both Stan Lee and Chris Claremont. Ignore the critics; this film is much-maligned.

X-Men 2 (2003)

"Bobby, have you tried not being a mutant?"

It's rare for a sequel to outshine its predecessor; X-Men 2, helmed again by Bryan Singer (whose reputation has suffered post-Weinstein, as have many, and such behavior in this and all other industries cannot be tolerated, but let us not derail ourselves) may well have achieved it with this adaptation of God Loves, Man Kills.

As per the comics, the film gives us a well-rounded and well-written set of characters, all well-acted and many of whom, handily, have already been introduced. Good writing means that the sheer number of characters does not feel excessive, although I wonder if someone less familiar with the source material would say the same.

While Wolverine is still prominent- and hints are dropped about his origins- there is a much more equal treatment of the characters this time around. Nightcrawler is introduced, and in many ways true to form, but it's a pity that the character's sense of humour is so downplayed. Rogue is more peripheral this time, but the love triangle of Scott, Jean and Logan is very much still there.

Magneto is magnificent and, while allied with the goodies for much of the film, gets his chance to be evil for a bit near the end. Xavier is shown as reasonable and charming, and once again we forgot just how bloody terrifying his mind control powers are. Bobby Drake is well-developed, wit the pathos of his brother betraying him just after he outs himself to his parents. Pyro, of course, joins Magneto's lot. And, of course, Jean dies at the end just as she did in the comics a few issues before returning as Phoenix.

Among all the action and set pieces- I love the epic fight between Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike- there are also plenty of character moments, and the film is gripping throughout. This instalment will be hard to top.

Dune (1984)

"He who controls the spice controls the universe."

Wow. That... was weird.

This is, I’m told, David Lynch’s least loved film. It certainly isn’t well regarded by fans of Frank Herbert, whose work, alas, I have not read. But it’s still cool, flawed though the film is, how David Lynch handles a sci-fi epic which, like Star Wars, has fantasy tropes underneath. I'm glad he got to make one, and that something akin to a David Lynch Star Wars exists. The world would be a worse place otherwise.

It's oddly paced and awkward, of course, Lynch is on record as saying that studio interference moved the film away from his vision, and I'm told that the extended TV version  is even worse. But I find this to be far from a bad film, flawed though it admittedly is. And how can you hate a film that has music by Brian Eno and, er, Toto, together at last?

The cast is superb, with Sian "Livia" Phillips as a kind of futuristic Pythia type, glorious performances by the likes of Paul L. Smith and Patrick Stewart that never tip over to parody but portray their characters with appropriate gusto. The design is superb; two years after Blade Runner establishes that future fashion can be cyclical we have a 110th century aristocracy which dresses like that of the 19th, something which works well and gives us an excellent shorthand for the kind of society this is.

The film doesn't only look good, either (well, some special effects may not have aged well); it's beautifully and druggily shot, as is Lynch's wont,  and there are glimpses of what Lynch intended in moments of excellent, if weird, storytelling.As things stand this is a curiosity rather than a masterpiece, but I'm left fervently hoping for a director's cut.

Lifeforce (1985)

"Columbia, they're all dead!"

 Well, this certainly isn't the sort of film you'd expect of Tobe Hooper, he of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist fame. Oh, it's well-directed and acted, with horror-like touches, but it's an oddly straight piece of very British alien invasion sci-fi, stuffed with British character actors such as Frank Finlay (always the Witchsmeller Pursuivant to me), John Hallam (Forget Light- he'll always be Sir Wilfred Death to me), Patrick Stewart, Aubrey Morris and even John Woodnutt.

The script, to be frank, is British sci-fi by numbers and nothing special, a very well-made film but with an average script. It's like an episode of Doctor Who with a Hollywood budget and more nudity, right down to the suspiciously large influence plot-wise from The Quatermass Experiment, only without any of Nigel Kneale's characteristic pessimism.

Still, the film is acted well and looks good, with some truly magnificent examples of stop-motion animation which seemed to reach a real peak in the immediately pre-CGI era. Steve Railsback and Peter Firth make decent if rather unhinged-looking stars and it's fun to revel in the '80s-ness of the space shuttles, computer screens and obsession with the return of Halley's Comet. It's odd that a contemporary film should feature such suspiciously advanced space tech, but heigh-ho. Arguably beginning to fade into obscurity from its cult status, Lifeforce is definitely worth seeing not only because it's a fun bit of '80s nostalgia but because it's actually quite good, although I wouldn't put it more strongly than that..

X-Men (2000)

"Well, what would you prefer- yellow spandex?"

I've blogged so many Marvel films but, Deadpool aside, no X-Men ones. The reason is simple, of course: my film-watching life didn't start when I started doing films for this blog back in 2011, and by that point I'd already seen the first three. But I now remember very little of them and it's time to go back to what was arguably, with Blade not being seen by the general public as a superhero film, the beginning of the Marvel cinematic age we live in.

And it's good, faithfully showing both the premise and the characters from the comics  Patrick Stewart is an obvious choice for Professor X, although it's odd that he doesn't adopt an American accent, but Ian McKellen was born to play Magneto. But what really works, I think, is the decision to use Rogue and Wolverine as POV characters to justify all the exposition, odd though it is to see a very young Anna Paquin as another Southern belle so soon after marathoning True Blood.

The film keeps the plot simple and allows the characters to breathe, benefiting, I think, from the fact that Chris Claremont's run on the title set a style of almost soap opera, with characterisation a strong point. In that sense, I suppose, you can argue that the franchise is more suited to TV than film, but the richness of the characterisations cannot be other than a benefit. Wolverine and Rogue are well-sketched here, and it's noticeable that there's only time to hint at the depths of the likes of Storm or Cyclops.

It's an interesting choice for Magneto's character to have an early Holocaust flashback, evoking Schindler's List by use of monochrome, but it adds texture. And the treatment of bigotry against Mutants is designed well to evoke homophobia rather than the original Civil Rights era metaphor for racism. It's gruesomely fascinating to see Senator Kelly get his heavily CGI comeuppance, mind, and turning him into a kind of mutant evokes the creepy conclusion of Freaks. But it's a solidly constructed film, with a suitably visual finale at the Statue of Liberty and a sequel-hunting coda with Xavier and Magneto. It's a fine beginning to the franchise.

Oh, and on an actor-spotting note... the Toad is played by the same actor as Darth Maul!!!

Richard II (Rupert Goold, 2012)

"For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground / And tell sad stories of the deaths of kings."

This is the first of four plays to be screened by the BBC under the title of "The Hollow Crown". Coming next will be Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, followed by Henry V, all of them, like this play, filmed as full dramas, with elaborate costumes, sumptuous location filming and the full visual feast of modern, high budget, television drama. And that isn't something that has been done since the 1970s, a very different age of television. This is not one of those occasional BBC 4 dramas, based on current theatre runs, which still have one foot in the theatre, with only limited use of the moving camera. This is the full medium of television being applied to Shakespeare. Modern methods of visual storytelling, unheard of the 1590s, are fully utilised. Realism is the rule; the locations and settings straightforwardly evoke the real world of the late fourteenth century. This is television, not theatre.

And that's very interesting, because there's a constant tension between the theatrical medium of Shakespeare's playscript and the medium of television to which that script is being applied here. Modern television drama, with its fast pace and fast cutting, adheres to a philosophy of "show, don't tell". This fits awkwardly with those scenes, so frequent in Shakespeare, where characters describe battles, gruesome happenings and other things which happen off-stage. This was a necessary device for the Elizabethan stage, of course, where it was best to avoid having to depict such things. But it sits awkwardly with the medium of television, where beheadings by the cliffside and location filming at real beaches, woods and castles are all possible. There are many scenes in which speeches are juxtaposed with a visual depiction of what is being described. On the one hand, all of this is brilliant. On the other hand, it is often made awkwardly obvious that Shakespeare was writing for a very different medium.

That isn't always the case, of course. The television medium can often serve instead to emphasise meaning; Richard's last minute decision to cancel the trial by combat between Mowbray and Bolingbroke is made all the more effective by the visual depiction of the sheer expense of organising the event. Nevertheless, there's a tension between the two mediums.

Ben Whishaw is superb as a fey and effete Richard, famously based on Michael Jackson and a little reminiscent of John Hurt's Caligula from I, Clavdivs.  It's a stand-out performance, showing us a Richard who seems to care little for affairs of state, and robs his nobles for his wars as but a casual afterthought. The pet monkey pretty much symbolises his fickle, pleasure-loving nature. This is a man who ill befits the rather warlike nature of mediaeval kingship. He's a camp king in a very butch world. I recall at University I studied this play in conjunction with Marlowe's Edward II. The parallels are strong in any case, but such a very camp Richard makes them all the more so. This is the first time I've seen Ben Whishaw (I've yet to see The Hour), but he's truly a revelation here. I don't doubt that his Hamlet would probably have been superb.

The rest of the cast is hugely impressive, too, from Rory Kinnear's troubled, more than usually conscientious yet determined Bolingbroke to Patrick Stewart's outstanding John of Gaunt. The "This Sceptred Isle" speech is delivered slowly, with deliciously bitter irony, in one of the standout moments of the production. Yet the highlight is undoubtedly Whishaw's self-pity, as power slips gradually away from Richard. David Morrissey's merciless Northumberland and Tom Goodman-Hill's anxious Sir Stephen Scrope are also worth singling out for praise. The play's awesomely rich themes of the nature of kingship, whether any subject has the right to depose a king anointed by God, and how Richard, in denying Bolingbroke his rights of succession, thereby undermines his own, are brought out anew by the performances. These themes may seem as if they belong to another age, but they don't really. They point forward, of course, to the follies and the death of Charles I. And we see the same power relationships everywhere, whether within the ranks of the Mafia, in the boardroom, or in the dynamics of teenage gangs. Because that's what mediaeval aristocrats and kings always were: gangsters.

This is only the beginning, of course. Henry ends the play in deep penitence, filled with a mixture of regret and paranoia. He's dismayed to hear of Richard's death. This original sin will lead to profound and bloody consequences…

Excalibur (1981)

“The one God comes to drive out the many gods. The spirits of wood and stream grow silent.”

There’s just so much to talk about with this film. Just so much juicy subtext. I love it when that happens.

The whole Arthurian legend is a bit of an odd one, isn’t it? Everybody tends to think of it as the quintessentially English body of myths, yet it isn’t really English at all. The earliest texts tend to indicate that Arthur, if he existed at all, was a native Briton who fought the invading Anglo-Saxons whose culture would become English culture. And once those rather unpleasant Norman chaps invade England then we get Normans like Geoffrey of Monmouth (part-Welsh, part-Norman) using the Arthurian legends as a sort of propaganda vehicle, to remind the English that they’re invaders too. Personally, I’m just Cornish enough to be on the fence when it comes to all that stuff.

But come the 12^th century we get the Troubadours, Chrétien de Troyes and all that stuff, including a rather large amount of new stuff (the Grail, Lancelot, etc) and removing the rather awkward Celt vs. Saxon ethnic conflict, to the point that the stories which form this film belong more to French literature than to English or Welsh.

This film is loosely based on the Morte d’Arthur, a selection of certain Arthurian myths by Sir Thomas Mallory in the 1470’s. How loosely I can’t say; I’ve not read the book since uni and that was a good while ago. But it’s interesting that the armour and general look of the thing seems to reflect the time of the book rather than the actual 5^th or 6^th century setting of the original legends. Then again, the historical basis of Arthurian myth is so vague that there’s no point in attempting anything like historical accuracy. It’s also interesting to note that Mallory was a highly dodgy sort and a convicted rapist. It’s interesting to bear this in mind when we consider how the film deals with sex, which we’ll come to in a bit.  

This movie is so postmodern and metatextual that I had a massive grin on my face through most of it. The characters aren’t one-dimensional by any means (the whole Guinevere / Lancelot adultery subplot proves that) but they’re very much characters from myth, larger-than-life people who belong in epics, and necessarily so. Otherwise it wouldn’t be possible to have such a fast pace and cram so much in. There’s a bit of fun to be had within this, though. Uther, for example, is as thick as two planks in exactly the way that many characters from myths would be if fleshed out. He makes a great contrast with Merlin, who is the only character with a modern sensibility and clearly an audience identification figure, right up to the point that he's conspiring with the audience in seeing these mediseval  personalities as a little absurd. Nicol Williamson portrays his wit, cynicism and delicious irony perfectly. He’s a slippery, postmodern individual who seems completely out of place in this genre and this, of course, makes him perfect as a wizard.

The nature of his “magic” is interesting, too, quite aside from the fact that he’s shown to be a druid-like figure, one of the last of an older, pagan age. All this talk of “The Dragon” seems very similar to the Force, and that strange dream sequence with Arthur and Merlin in the forest glade seems suspiciously like a slight mickey take of the similar scene with Luke and Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back. In fact, the whole take on mythology here seems to owe quite a lot to Star Wars, although always with a slight hint of the tongue-in-cheek.

Everything looks great, with lots of fog, stone circles, Cornish landscapes, and an interesting mix between Mediaeval grottiness and a more romantic take, with the knights all having very shiny armour indeed until it symbolically all seems to dull after the funny business starts between Lancelot and Guinevere. There are some nice scene juxtapositions, too. Uther rapes Ygraine at the exact moment that her husband dies (by being impaled by a massive phallic symbol!), and we constantly switch between scenes. Both events are extremely violent, and the Duke dies at the exact moment that Uther orgasms, and Arthur is conceived.

Different Arthurian tales almost trip over each other in this bizarre portmanteau of a film, so fast is the pace, but things take a turn for the dark once Lancelot and Guinevere get naked and Merlin is trapped by Morgana (Helen Mirren looks disturbingly young). Without Merlin, things start getting very, very surreal, and the Holy Grail stuff is extraordinarily weird. Percival’s being asked questions about the grail, and his temptation in the castle, have got to be a deliberate nod to the then-recent Monty Python and the Holy Grail, while the sight of a knight surrounded by peasants with plague can only be a nod to The Seventh Seal. This film may play it straight on the surface, but you don’t have to probe deep to find lots of metatextual fun.

Of course, the main point of all the subtext at this point is to demonstrate that Mordred is a right little shit.

Oh, and we were talking about sex earlier. Well, it’s rather interesting to look at the character of Morgana from a feminist perspective. We first encounter her as a little girl, watching her own mother being raped. Merlin is clearly an accomplice to the rape- in fact, arranging it seems to be the biggest and most draining act of magic he’s ever performed! Oh, and Uther (with Merlin’s help) has arranged a civil war in which loads of people die purely so that this can happen. All in all, it’s rather difficult not to see Morgana’s character as the revenge of the feminine against all this male violence. She entraps Merlin by asserting her feminine sexuality. She shuns the male world of fighting and turns to magic. She symbolically deceives Arthur and has sex with him to produce Mordred a rather symbolic act of revenge of Arthur who, as king, is the ultimate symbol of patriarchy. Oh, and if magic is feminine, what does this say about Merlin? He certainly seems to show no interest in women! I’d better stop there. I do have a y chromosome, after all. I wonder how much of this, if any, is intended as a commentary on Mallory’s own history as a rapist?

Oh, and all this stuff with the lady of the lake is fascinating. It seems to hark back to old Iron Age habits of leaving bits of treasure in lakes and rivers as offerings to the gods, something which possibly continues in Britain today with coins and fountains. Is this “lady” a goddess, part of Merlin’s world, and soon to vanish, just as Arthur vanishes, across the sea to the west just like the end of Lord of the Rings?