Reading/Watching Log #66

The theme of this month was the Middle Ages... give or take a couple of centuries. There’s also plenty of material left over from previous posts that I wanted to catch up on, from a movie that featured in Feud to a graphic novel holdover from last month’s Gothic Horror selection. And I only got through one book, though in my defense it was a Ken Follett, and those things are huge.

Terrifyingly, we are now halfway through the year.

Giselle (Isaac Theatre Royal)

I love the ballet, going is almost a spiritual experience for me, though these days I feel a little guilty about it considering so many countries don’t have the opportunity to enjoy it (though some are coming out of Covid-19 lockdowns at this point).

Giselle is possibly my favourite ballet, and even though this was only my second outing, there’s nothing like the thrill of seeing the veiled wylies first appear, or of Giselle disappearing at the dawn. Unlike Swan Lake, which oftentimes tacks on a happy ending, there’s no avoiding the inherent tragedy of Giselle’s story, and sometimes you just want the cathartic experience of everything ending badly.

Giselle is a young village girl who is being romanced by a mysterious stranger – unbeknownst to her, it’s the Prince Albrecht, who is already betrothed to a princess. The secret is revealed by Giselle’s jealous suitor Hilarion during the wedding of another couple, and Giselle – in the manner of young women in these types of stories – immediately dies of grief. (Though they try to compensate for this a little, by depicting her having heart trouble when she over-exerts herself early on).

The second half involves Albrecht and Hilarion going to visit Giselle’s woodland grave, only to get caught up in the dance of the wylies: the spirits of women who were abandoned by their lovers and who died of broken hearts. Led by their queen Myrtha, the wylies quickly dispatch Hilarion before turning on Albrecht, but Giselle (now a wylie herself) manages to counter the wylies’ vengefulness and free her love.

It’s a surprisingly short ballet: in just two acts it completely flew by. This particular production added a fantastic framing device that I’d never seen or heard of before: that an elderly Albrecht appears at the beginning and end of all the acts, still mourning for Giselle, and at the very last he returns to her grave. As the curtain slowly falls, the wylies appear and slowly advance on him. So they got him in the end!

I was amused by the fact that most of the sets and costumes were wholesale recycled from the production I saw over a decade ago (and surprised that I remembered it as well as I did, though there’s no forgetting some of the images in this ballet) and once again felt deeply exasperated on behalf of the bride whose wedding is the venue for all this drama. I mean imagine: it’s your wedding day, and some little floozy is dancing around with her feuding beaus, creates a huge spectacle when it transpires one of them is a prince in disguise, and then drops down dead with much flailing and thrashing.

If I were that bride, I would have been seriously pissed off.

Baltimore: Volumes 1 – 8 by Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, and various artists

This is actually a holdover from last month’s general theme of Gothic Horror: a graphic novel series that is apparently based on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Steadfast Tin Soldier (though there’s only one clear allusion that I could spot) involving a lone hunter and a world full of vampires.  

Originally an illustrated novel by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden, the story is expanded in its comic book format, and then continued. The premise here is that World War I ended prematurely because the ongoing carnage awoke various demonic forces, who unleash a terrible plague upon the world (or at least Europe). One vampire in particular is wounded on the battlefield by a soldier called Lord Henry Baltimore, and the usual vengeance is taken: yup, we’ve got a dead wife on our hands.

With his entire family dead, Baltimore is called to take up arms and not only destroy the vampire that killed his wife, but also vampires in general and their terrible god: the Red King. The stories that follow weave in and out of each other: sometimes situations or characters are seeded but don’t get very satisfying payoff, other times things are carried through to their logical conclusions.

In short, it’s very much like watching a television show that knows vaguely where it’s going, but hasn’t hashed out the finer details. There is a revolving cast of supporting characters that are a little difficult to keep track of, plenty of terrifying monsters (werewolves, vampires, witches, demons) and a fantastically stark and foreboding ambience. The artists do great work with solid blacks, sickly purples and blood reds in order to create an alternative Europe at the turn of the century, crawling with corruption and pestilence.

There are some interesting world-building details throughout. For instance, I liked that you have to kill vampires twice over: first the body of the vampire, then the spirit of the vampire, which emerges from the host body in the form of a small red bird. It’s creepy and effective – but it’s also completely arbitrary, and something that goes missing entirely in the final run of stories.  

Unsurprisingly, it’s not particularly kind to women. I was stunned that an early female ally made it out alive, only for her to be brought back later for the sole purpose of killing her off, and most of the female villains are witches and/or succubi. The spirit of real-life Helena Blavatsky might want to sue, as she’s portrayed here as a deranged little homunculus in league with the Red King, and of course, there’s Baltimore’s inevitable dead wife, who duly provides his motivation and manpain.

Okay, sometimes I enjoy an old school witch archetype (evil, sexy and unrepentant) and we DO eventually get the character of Gwen, a young girl who becomes a formidable fighter and is one of a handful to survive the series. Regarding female characters, it made no promises, and tells no lies.

A grim read, but an oddly fun one.

A Column of Fire by Ken Follett

By this point it’s pretty clear that Follett has a distinct formula when it comes to his Kingsbridge novels: an everyman hero, a spirited love interest, at least two sadistic villains, cameos from historical figures, at least one pair of divided lovers, and the unnecessary rape of the female lead. Every time. You’re either on-board with how he crafts these stories or you’re tired of the rote way in which they’re shaped.

I know what to expect when I start, and whatever else, his books are imminently readable – despite their length I fly through them every time, and his research is integrated into the story in such a way that you’re spared paragraphs upon paragraphs of irrelevant minutia.

This time around he moves away from Kingsbridge in order to incorporate his characters with some of the great historical events that took place between 1558 – 1620: the ascension of Queen Elizabeth, the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre, the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, the Spanish Invasion, and the Gunpowder Treason Plot (Follett even makes his protagonist the one responsible for thwarting the attempt!)

All of these seemingly disparate events are united through their connection to the Catholic versus Protestant tensions of the time period, with all of the characters aligning to either one belief-system or the other – though the true division is between those who want to worship in peace, and those that want to wage continual war on the “heretics”. As such, though Follett delivers a fairly even-handed depiction of both Catholics and Protestants of the time (each capable of great atrocities), the participants themselves are either wholly good or purely evil.

There’s never been much grey in any of Follet’s characterization, though I ended up enjoying what he did with Margery and Sylvie, two women who assist the Catholic and Protestant causes respectively, are furthermore each love interests to protagonist Ned, and yet are never pitted against one another, demonstrating more actual Christian compassion than any of the warmongering men around them. It’s still a rare thing to read about, especially when written by a male author.

There are plenty of interesting historical tidbits strewn throughout, though because of Follett’s desire to touch on several key events across various countries, the whole book feels less streamlined and interconnected than its predecessors. Characters like Alison McKay and Ebrima Dabo are a bit pointless in hindsight, though (correct me if I’m wrong) this is the first novel that takes its main characters from their youth all the way to very old age, lending the whole thing a sense of genuine poignancy.

I know the next book in the series is actually a prequel to The Pillars of the Earth – I’m sure I’ll get to it eventually.

Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)

SPOILERS

Having watched Feud a couple of months ago, I regretted not seeing this film beforehand (as I did with Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?) in order to better understand its context in the lives of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford – the latter of which dropped out of the film after faking an illness. But I had no idea the miniseries would stretch as far as Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte, and so had to catch up with it this month instead.

What was initially meant to be the grand encore of the Davis/Crawford team-up (going so far as to originally call the movie Whatever Happened to Cousin Charlotte?), the latter was eventually replaced with Olivia de Havilland, who makes the most of her chance to play against type as a conniving villain with a plan so elaborate yet simple that I almost wanted her to get away with it.

In 1927, young Southern belle Charlotte Hollis is planning to run away with her married lover, John Mayhew. Unbeknownst to her, Charlotte’s overbearing father has already approached Mayhew and demanded that he call off the elopement, and Mayhew reluctantly breaks Charlotte’s heart in order to save the pair of them from Sam Hollis’s vengeful nature. That same night, Mayhew is brutally murdered in the summerhouse with a cleaver, and naturally, suspicion falls on the shellshocked Charlotte.

Thirty-seven years later, Charlotte is a wealthy spinster, desperately trying to save her home from developers who want to demolish the house and run a highway through her property. She calls upon her cousin Miriam to help her, only for Charlotte’s mental health to deteriorate when strange occurrences start happening throughout the old Southern mansion.

Meanwhile, the unsolved murder of John Mayhew is being delved into by an insurance investigator called Harry Willis, who makes contact with Mayhew’s widow Jewel, Charlotte’s housekeeper Velma, and Charlotte herself, all of whom know more than they’re letting on about the original killing. All threads come together by the final act, though it’s a remarkably complex storyline all things considered.

It was also much longer than I expected it to be (but then, most old movies are surprisingly long) yet filled with memorable performances from nearly every cast member, each of whom chew up their scenes with relish. Hey, they all know they’re in a Grand Guignol-style Gothic Horror psychological suspense thriller, and they make the most of it.

It’s a little poignant to wonder what might have been had Joan Crawford stuck around, though perhaps the big reveal involving Miriam might not have been so shocking had sweet-and-lovely Olivia de Havilland not been in the role.

Arn The Knight Templar (2007)

Based on a best-selling book series that is apparently wildly popular in Sweden, there was some initial confusion over what exactly this film was, as IMDB lists it as both a film and a miniseries that was released not long afterwards. Thing was, the exact same cast featured in both, which meant that every single actor and actress must have signed on to tell the exact same story (in longer form) within three years. That... seemed very unlikely.

Turns out that this was filmed and released in Sweden as two distinct films, which were heavily edited for an international release that combined the two into one. Presumably the “miniseries” is the uncut version that contains the epic in its entirety.  

I’m pretty sure I watched the international release, as it’s pretty obvious that there were some serious cuts throughout. Certain scenes are choppily edited, and various members of the supporting cast disappear without explanation – which is annoying as I prefer to watch something in its entirety, even if it takes all day (see also: Red Cliff, which was released around the same time).

As a child, Arn is raised in a monastery and trained by a former Knight Templar in the ways of combat. When he returns home he quickly makes a name for himself with his battle prowess, and falls in love with Cecelia, the daughter of a neighbouring time. The two jump the gun and sleep together, resulting in an out-of-wedlock pregnancy and a harsh punishment: twenty years of penance for each of them. Cecelia is sent to a convent while Arn joins the Crusade, each one promising to wait/return for the other.

Arn’s experiences in the Holy Land see him come face-to-face with Saladin in a Friendly Enemy kind of way, even as he struggles with the arrogance and stupidity of his own commanding officers, while Cecelia’s story is one of quiet and prolonged suffering. I despaired of there being any other female character that was depicted in a positive light (she’s betrayed by her sister and tortured by the Mother Superior) but mercifully another woman is sent to the convent, and they form a true friendship over the shared injustice of their fates.

It’s beautifully filmed, with incredible panoramic shots of the desert and the forests in each respective country, and that distinctive “epic” feel that you find in stuff like Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven. You can tell this was something of a passion project from all involved; a story not only of a hero but the country he belongs to (again, like Red Cliff) and even at over two hours long I wish I’d seen the uncut version.

Covington Cross: Season 1 (1992)

Does anyone else remember this short-lived drama of the nineties, set in the Middle Ages and detailing the trials and tribulations of the Greys? Sir Thomas Grey is the family patriarch, a long-suffering widower living with his five children (four sons and one daughter, though there’s only ever three sons at one time) in the castle of Covington Cross.

Said children are all terrors in their unique ways: Armus has just returned from the Crusades and is still adapting to civilian life, Richard is headstrong and quick-tempered, Cedric is a lady-killer who refuses to honour his late mother’s last wishes and join the church, and Eleanor is a tomboy with no interest in being a lady, toting around a crossbow wherever she goes and declining to wear dresses. (There’s also William, who only appears in the pilot episode before being shuffled off-stage and never mentioned by name again).

Thomas obviously adores them, though he spends most of his time complaining about them to Lady Elizabeth, a fellow widow from the castle next door, with whom he’s enjoying a late-in-life romance.

The whole thing vibes pretty well with Robin of Sherwood, though there’s no mysticism and far less attention given to historical accuracy, instead playing out like a costume drama with a fairly inconsequential period backdrop. There are no overarching story-arcs, instead – as was the way at the time – nearly all of the episodes are self-contained, with little in the way of continuity between them.

If any of the siblings get a love interest, you can be sure they’ll never appear outside the episode in which they first arrive. There’s a longstanding feud with their neighbour John Mullens, but it never escalates into anything too serious (which is odd, since the Greys are responsible for his only son’s death in the pilot, something that bewilderingly never gets brought up again). The children gradually warm up to the presence of Elizabeth in their lives, but this is never anything but a minor subplot.

I had only one clear memory of it from childhood, and that was the show’s introduction to Eleanor (Ione Skye): her father opens the door to her room and nearly gets shot in the head with an arrow, having failed to realize that she’s practicing with her crossbow. Appalled, he cries: “you could have killed me!” She shrugs and replies: “you could have knocked.”

I would have been eight years old in 1992, but let me tell you: this was the coolest fucking thing I had ever seen in my life. I think Eleanor was probably one of those formative female characters of my youth, despite me only retaining this one memory of her... but wow, what a good one.

Regarding her character, I’ll start by sharing a seemingly unrelated anecdote: a while back I watched a clip of Vikings on YouTube, in which Princess Judith urges her sister to learn how to read. It was a fairly innocuous scene all things considered, but the comments were hilariously full of dudes raging about how obligatory feminism is destroying their shows and so forth.

What amuses me is the unspoken implication that this perceived “girl power” element (or whatever you want to call it) is something that has only recently started destroying the manly manliness of televised stories... so I can only imagine the conniptions they would suffer at the sight of Eleanor, in 1992, complaining about being a lady, running around with a crossbow, and finally being the one to shoot down the villain after he tries to stab her distracted father in the back.

I mean, even today female characters are seldom allowed to be this cool. I was genuinely gob-smacked that she was the one that the narrative permitted to take out the bad guy – it could just have easily been Thomas or one of her brothers. But nope, it’s Eleanor, standing there with her crossbow as the boys cluster around her, all pleased as punch that their sister is awesome.

Tim Killick as Armus also plays an unexpectedly strong character: you think he’s going to be the stereotypical Gentle Giant who eats a lot and does not walk but lumbers everywhere – and he is: but he’s also sensible and grounded, and easily the most self-possessed of the siblings. This character type is usually clumsy and unsure of himself, but when it’s his turn to take an interest in a woman, he’s actually pretty suave about it. He also gets a hilarious moment when he barehandedly breaks open a locked chest, looks around at his awed siblings, and as way of an explanation, tells them: “vegetables.”

Jonathan Firth as Richard isn’t quite as well-defined, something of a know-it-all and a hothead, but Nigel Terry as Thomas and Cherie Lunghi as Elizabeth are a complete delight. They played Arthur and Guinevere back in 1981’s Excalibur, and so it’s almost like their reincarnations have been given another chance at happiness: here their love story is supportive and flirty and totally charming.

It’s sad to watch Glenn Quinn as Cedric – he was such a beautiful young man (it’s easy to see why they cast him as the lady killer) and he would have been fifty-one were he alive today.

And of course, plenty of familiar faces. Alex Kingston! David Nesbit! Art Malik! Siân Phillips! And good old James Faulker, playing – you guessed it – the villainous John Mullens. Nice to know that he started as he meant to continue.

The show was cancelled after one season, and I have to admit that as I grew close to the end of the episodes, I felt an actual sense of loss. I loved spending time with this boisterous family, and there should have been more to come, especially since the scripts were so varied: a murder mystery, a Die Hard hostage situation, a missing child, a comedy of errors, family feuds, plenty of romances – the show had everything, and it was obviously just getting warmed up.

The Hollow Crown: Richard II, Henry IV: Part I, Henry IV: Part II and Henry V (2012)

Have you ever had something on your watchlist for an inordinate amount of time, and when you finally get to it you realize in horror that it’s nearly a decade old? Such was my experience with the first season of the BBC’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s histories (comprised of the first four plays of the Henriad).

That the series takes its title from Richard II’s speech about the hardships of being king (the “hollow crown”) sets the tone for the production: it’s grim rather than uplifting, exploring the cost of war and power, with even Henry V’s triumphant victories framed by scenes of his funeral at age thirty-five, and the reveal that John Hurt’s Chorus was a small boy who watched the events as they unfolded, now a grizzled old man.

Richard II makes the decision to play up the title character’s effeminacy and weakness, what with his bare feet, intricately embroidered robes, light colours and high voice, and yet repeatedly showers him with Christ imagery, leaning heavily into the theme that the line of kings that follows is cursed due to the regicide.

Even during his coronation, Harry Bolingbroke (a deliberate contrast to Richard not through manliness, but by how bland he is in comparison) is clearly having misgivings about what he’s just done, and the whole thing is wrought with irony: that Richard takes on a kinglier bearing after he’s lost the crown, and that Bolingbroke starts out trying to prevent treason, only to become a traitor himself.

To cast Jeremy Irons as Henry VI in later life is a bit strange, as he doesn’t bear the slightest bit of resemblance to Rory Kinnear, but I imagine the BBC popped a few bottles of champagne after booking Tom Hiddleston as Henry V, especially on the heels of playing Loki in the first Thor movie. It’s actually quite impressive that he went for relatively low-budget television instead of leaping straight into the Hollywood roles that I’m sure were all lined up for him in Marvel’s wake.

(On that note it’s funny how the BBC budget works: obviously they can get great costumes and set pieces, not to mention a plethora of British thespians to play everything from the leads to three-second roles, but it’s best not to hold out hope of any sweeping cinematography or epic battle scenes).

There are some great visual touches throughout, from Harry’s deliberately anachronistic leather jacket to how the golden warmth of the tavern is contrasted with the grey expanse of the throne room, and Hiddleston even manages to make the courtship with Katherine rather charming instead of excruciatingly awkward, as it usually is. Nobody but Simon Russell Beale could have played Falstaff in this particular production, and naturally he’s as hilarious as he is heart-breaking.

However, Joe Armstrong almost steals the show as Hotspur, who is always the more appealing of the two princes in the first part of Henry VI, and (since I still have BBC’s Robin Hood on the brain) is a natural follow-up to Allan-a-Dale. Heck, in many ways Hotspur is a noble-born Allan, with the same temper and impetuousness, and the same sad end.

We even get something of a mini-Robin Hood reunion considering he shares a scene with Harry Lloyd, who played Will Scarlett. Sadly, Djaq does not appear.

The women, unfortunately but unsurprisingly, are boring as shit. There wasn’t anyway around it, for as-written they’re required to react to their husbands and that’s it. The only one who manages to carve out an actual character is Michelle Dockery as Lady Percy: sardonic, refined, and bloody annoyed at the husband she loves dearly.

It took me long enough, but I finally got this watched. Now it’ll probably be another ten years before I get to season two’s The War of the Roses.

The Queen’s Gambit (2020)

It’s currently a neck-and-neck race between Anya Taylor-Joy and Florence Pugh as to which of the two are having the most exciting early years of their respective acting careers. I have a soft spot for Taylor-Joy since I was there on the ground floor of her ascension when she appeared as Cassandra in Atlantis, and was clearly going to be the Breakout Star of the ill-fated franchise.

Since then she’s been in The Witch and Emma., though her other most famous role (at least until she plays a young Imperator Furiosa) has been as Beth Harman in Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit. I watched this over the course of seven weeks with my mother, and it’s strange to think that we started it before a. I bought my first house and b. before my sister had her first baby. Funny what makes up the landmarks in your life.  

In any case, everyone was raving about this limited series when it first dropped on Netflix, and as in the way of things that are greatly hyped, I ended up a little ho-hum about it. That’s not to say it’s bad – it’s very good. But it’s also a little... I don’t know... hodgepodge?

Beth Harman is orphaned at a young age after her mother is killed in a car accident, taken into a Catholic school for girls where the students are subdued and controlled by a cocktail of drugs dished out like well-regulated candies. A sojourn down into the basement gives her a glimpse of a chess-set, belonging to the school janitor who begrudgingly starts giving her lessons and is astonished by how quickly she picks it up. So begins her life-long obsession with the game...

When I say it’s “hodgepodge” it’s because the show never settles on a singular narrative thoroughfare when it comes to the relationships in Beth’s life. She never gets closure on Mr Shaibel, the man who taught her how to play chess. Jolene, her only friend at school, is an almost too-perfect example of a Token Black Friend whose own life-story takes place entirely off-screen and who returns to Beth’s narrative only to lend emotional and financial support.

Her adoptive mother, who I thought was going to be the one stable element of Beth’s horribly disruptive life, dies abruptly in New Mexico and is seldom mentioned afterwards. She has a revolving door of love interests, none of whom are particularly memorable or who stick around for long. She never tracks down her father (nor he her) despite knowing of his existence.

Perhaps this was the point: that Beth’s only constant in life is the chessboard. But it means that there’s nothing for the audience to emotionally invest in, especially since her victories in ever-more illustrious competitions are never really in doubt. I’m sure you’ve seen the Tumblr post that pokes fun at what male writers think a woman’s mental breakdown might look like – and this show would have us believe that Beth is a substance abuser, something that culminates in her dancing around the house in her underwear.

There’s no puking in her hair, no memory loss or blackouts, no wasting effect on how glamourous she always looks, no onset of other illnesses brought on by a weakened immune system... nope, she just falls asleep on her couch and then decides to leave it all behind. That was easy!

And yet it still makes for compelling drama. Beth is a complex character who doesn’t fit easily into any prescribed boxes, and is obviously played to perfection by Anya Taylor-Joy. The sets and costumes are lavish, bringing the decade to life in a way I expect feels more sixties than the actual sixties. There’s some commentary on gender roles that is interesting without overwhelming the narrative, and plenty of strong performances in supporting roles, especially Isla Johnston as the young Beth. Keep your eye on her.

And there are little moments of warmth and kindness throughout: obviously Mr Shaibel choosing to teach her chess in the first place, but also the girl at Beth’s first tournament who tells her the rules and gives her a pad when she has her first period, the middle-aged men who are gracious losers when she effortlessly beats them, the excited Russian girls who line up for her autograph at the “stage door” of her final competition... there’s a surprising amount of wholesomeness to be found throughout.

And I don’t know if this is a reflection on me or the tired tropes that these sorts of stories usually utilize, but I kept assuming that Beth would be sexually abused at some point: first by the janitor, and then by her foster father. It doesn’t happen, and I’m profoundly grateful for that.

I’m glad I watched, but I doubt I’ll return to it any time soon.