PATHEOS.COM
October 25, 2014 by Thomas L. McDonald
Writer/actor Mark Gatiss (Doctor Who, Sherlock, League of Gentlemen) writes and hosts this fine documentary on the greatest ghost story writer of them all: medievalist and Biblical scholar Montague Rhodes James. Special treats include locations from James stories (such as St Bertrand de Comminges, stuffed crocodile and all), a passing shot of a tombstone for “Mrs Mothersole” from his childhood home, some fantastic medieval illumination, and more. I have to give credit to Gatiss (who is himself gay) for exploring James’ sexuality while declining to impose modern ideas of homosexuality. (James is best described as wholly asexual.)
"If you get bandwidth on this, you’ve got maple syrup on your waffle at the get-go,” says Siobhan Sharpe, Head of Brand for the London 2012 Olympics. She runs her hands through her hair, smiles to herself, and looks over at her colleagues as if she’s just said something profound and life-changing. They look back at her as if she’s stark raving mad. The truth is that no one ever understands what Sharpe’s talking about. It’s hard to imagine she understands what she’s talking about herself.
I’m on the set of BBC2’s award-winning comedy Twenty Twelve, which returns for a three-part special this month, leading up to the Games. The mockumentary-style sitcom owes its success to clever, well-observed scripts by John Morton that blend the utterly insane with the entirely believable, and a cast who portray beautifully the madness and potential jeopardy involved in organising a major event.
Indeed, so close to the truth about Locog (the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games) has the show come that it has been suggested that writer/director John Morton has a mole in the committee feeding him true stories. The show even had a storyline about the Olympic clock breaking down, just as the real Olympic clock broke down.
“No. Honestly, it’s all made up,” says Morton. “The clock thing was luck! I’m flattered that people think I might have guys inside feeding me lines, because presumably that means they think the show is realistic… but I don’t… not at all.”
The first three episodes of the show were screened to Locog at a breakfast meeting in a London hotel. “I assured them that I didn’t have spies in the camp and that I have gone out of my way to make sure that the characters aren’t based on real people. I’ve created titles that don’t exist, like Head of Deliverance. Everything is to one side of the real world. The show isn’t about the Olympic Games, it's about human beings trying to interact and make things happen.”
MARTIN Clunes recently took a break from Doc Martin to front an ITV documentary about the lemurs of Madagascar.
"I never saw any of this coming," he says. "I used to worry about doing these factual things, I used to think that they'd damage my stock as an actor. But now I've got so far with them, I'd really miss them if I didn't.
" The places I've been, the people I've met and the things I've seen are just incredible. Next I'm flying off to Nairobi.
"It's so exciting. For two years I've been trying to make a film about Tony Fitzjohn who used to live and work with conservationist George Adamson.
" They lived at this place called Kora, where all the famous photos of George with the lions were taken. The Somalis burned the camp to the ground, but the last couple of years, Tony's rebuilt it, stick by stick, faithfully as it was. And we're going to collect the first lion cub and go down there and start the work of rehabilitating the lion. He's tiny, he needs bottle feeding."
WANT to cast a comedy drama or a sitcom? Then go no further than Martin Clunes, our foremost character actor. Not that he is particularly looking for other projects, mind.
In his year off from Doc Martin he is doing a documentary on Madagascar and a film for the Born Free Foundation.
After his series about dogs and horses, Clunes is never far from the animal kingdom but this week Cornwall is on his mind with the release of the latest DVD of the universally loved Doc Martin. We talk about “the baby”.
Clunes says: “I guess we have to put in new elements to stop it being really repetitive. Just ‘Man sees patient...’ wouldn’t work but we have to have that as well.”
The plot lines, he reveals, he develops with his wife Philippa Braithwaite, who makes the show with him. “She is the main brain,” he says. “We’ve started doing series six story lines now.
“I never want to meddle with the premise, warm him up, but we are very self-conscious about repeating ourselves with the relationship with Louisa, so we are always trying to do it slightly different.
Some celebrities have had such a huge impact on our culture that it's difficult to imagine them as individual human beings. But filmmaker Albert Maysles has built a career out of quietly capturing the character of each of his subjects, including American Bible salesmen (Salesman), Big Edie and Little Edie Beale (Grey Gardens), The Rolling Stones (Gimme Shelter), and The Beatles (What's Happening! The Beatles in the USA). Co-directed with Bradley Kaplan, Maysles' new documentary The Love We Make follows a former Beatle (and one of the most beloved figures in pop music) during the weeks immediately following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Paul McCartney spent that period organizing a vastly ambitious concert that would raise funds for victims' families while raising the spirits of the city (and the country) as a whole. Today, The Concert for New York City is remembered fondly as a mesmerizing, emotional experience. Maysles uses his filmmaking skills to bring us the emotional interaction behind the scenes. We see a genuinely compassionate and understanding McCartney speaking with fans in everyday situations as well as humbling encounters with other celebrities and public figures backstage at the show. We also see McCartney is his more relaxed and private moments. None disappoints.
Maysles and his crew were given free access to McCartney as he moved around the city, planning and promoting the show. The film is shot in raw black-and-white, although "quoted" footage from interviews and the concert itself is in color. This provides a visual juxtaposition between the private McCartney and the more public figure who appears in the color footage.
Roughly the first half of The Love We Make turns out to be about how McCartney manages his status as an iconic public figure, particularly in his relationship with his fans and the media. It's a double-sided game that McCartney skillfully maintains: We follow him through the streets of New York and the offices of major media organizations as he greets fans and fellow celebrities with equal effusiveness, approachability, and candor. We also watch him as he charges his driver to "get some distance" between trailing autograph-hounds and paparazzi cameras. Pragmatically, he understands that he cannot be responsible for dragging people into the bustling streets of New York and that he must protect his privacy as a matter of personal safety. He is cool and comfortable when thronged by fans, yet he takes a deep breath when finally ensconced in the relative safety of his limousine.
The second half of the film covers the concert itself. Color clips from the show help maintain the chronology of that evening in October 2001. But most of the remaining screen time consists of a massive parade of celebrities trickling through the green room at Madison Square Garden to pay their quite humble respects to McCartney (watch Jim Carrey practically stumble over his own modesty).
Each one thanks him and acknowledges the enormous undertaking that the show represents. That undertaking was lightning fast: The concert took place just a month after the attacks. The planning was no doubt eased by McCartney's ability to enlist the participation of David Bowie, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Jay-Z, Eric Clapton, Janet Jackson, and Elton John among dozens of others.
The footage of McCartney schmoozing backstage with the likes of Eric Clapton, Harrison Ford, former New York Gov. George Pataki, and President Bill Clinton does not consist of mutual ego-stroking. Instead it reveals the extraordinarily high regard in which McCartney is held by everyone who meets him at the show. Comparing these scenes to the footage of McCartney on the streets of New York earlier in the film reveals a common thread -- that McCartney is beloved by his fans as a performer and as a human being, whether those fans are strangers on the street, colleagues in show business, or powerful world leaders.
The Love We Make starts Friday (Dec. 16, and continues through Dec. 22) at the Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St. (at Valencia), S.F. Admission is $6.50-$10. On Friday at 7 p.m. is a special screening introduced by music journalist Ben Fong-Torres to benefit MusiCares; admission for that is $12.
Episode 1. Arena: George Harrison - Living in the Material World
Radio Times
Review by:
Terry Payne
George Harrison was the Quiet Beatle. Posthumously, and poignantly, he finds his voice. Director Martin Scorsese has pieced together a cinematic love letter to Harrison. And, boy, can you feel the love. The surviving Beatles, his two wives and countless friends all form a respectful queue paying tribute in this two-part TV premiere of the recently released film. It’s not, though, a symphony of sycophancy.
Their memories – spliced together with archive interviews, evocative home-movie film and some captivating early Beatles studio footage – are preserved, you sense, by the deep affection they clearly felt for him. But it’s the music – oh what joyous, uplifting music – that provides the stitching in this immaculately crafted tapestry. The moment you hear the opening drumline to Something or the jaunty acoustic intro to Hear Comes the Sun, you realise you’re in the company of genius. The Quiet Beatle is silent no longer.
About this programme
Part one of two. Martin Scorsese documentary tracing Harrison's early life in Liverpool, the Beatles' first gigs in Hamburg, the advent of Beatlemania, his psychedelic phase and his increasing fascination with Indian culture, both musical and spiritual. Featuring contributions from fellow group members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono, producers George Martin and Phil Spector, and musician Eric Clapton. Concludes tomorrow.
