Peter A Clarke

The down side of ducking a warrant is that one must be careful where one visits.  The local constabulary can get quite excited when they find an international fugitive in their midst.  The usual practice is to arrest first and then work out the extradition issues.  And in the belt and braces stakes Switzerland is formality writ large.

So what was Roman Polanski thinking when he wandered into Zurich to pick up an award and the only thing shiny he gets are  matching and linked bracelets.

Last year I saw three documentaries of note at the Melbourne Film Festival: Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, Trumbo and Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. The subject of each documentary were (and in the case of Polanski still are) remarkably talented but flawed individuals; Trumbo, a brilliant script writer and author who was remarkably naive and child like in matters of every day life, Hunter S Thompson, a brilliantly evocative journalist who invented gonzo journalist but who quickly became a drug  abusing utterly self indulgent caricature of his early promise.  The HBO documentary on Roman Polanski is a very professional piece of work.  It covers his troubled early life, his creative genius, his fairytale romance with Sharon Tate, his compulsive cheating, her death and the effect on him and…. of course.. his agreement to plead guilty to the statutory rape of a thirteen year old.

Where Wanted and Desired fell down badly Read the rest of this entry »

The Australian’s Luhrmann’s Australia saves local box office from record low sets out the grim, grim news about Australian cinema takings last year.  But for Australia it would have been an all time bust.  The sad and sorry story is summarised in:

The 22 Australian feature films and eleven documentaries released in 2008 represented 11 per cent of the 301 films released theatrically last year.

American films accounted for an 84.2 per cent share of Australian receipts, an increase from 2007’s 77.7 per cent, with British films taking 8.0 per cent of the Australian box office.

The second-highest-grossing local film was The Black Balloon, which earned $2.3 million, followed by Australia’s first-ever official co-production with China, Children of the Silk Road, which grossed $1.2 million.

Peter Duncan’s Unfinished Sky earned $1 million and tween comedy Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueburger earned $0.8 million.

The article ends on a postive note:

Expectations are higher for Australian films this year, with a number of commercially appealing films slated for release including the adaptation of Li Cunxin’s memoir Mao’s Last Dancer, Balibo, Scott Hicks’ The Boys Are Back, Disgrace, Charlie and Boots starring Paul Hogan and Shane Jacobsen.

I hope so but I am not holding my breath.

David Stratton weighs in with the traditional year that was in film piece titled Baz Luhrmann leads the way in 2008. No huge surprises. Even his “by the numbers” defence of the Australian film industry has an oft repeated theme: Read the rest of this entry »

Ann Savage, one of the great femme fatales of film noir has died. For anyone who has seen Detour would nod upward in grateful appreciation for the contribution of a great actress. Her malevolent Vera Read the rest of this entry »

We all have moving moments in our childhood when we stumble upon a beautiful image or wonderful prose, so magnificent to our young eyes that we feel we can move mountains and want to change the world to meet that image. One of those moments for me was reading the “Yes Virginia” editorial. It captured what clear, pure prose should be with a wonderful imagery. It is described as one of the most famous editorials ever written. A big call. But in the cynical issues driven world of OP ED and editorial writing it stands out. What also inspired me was that a big city newspaper was prepared to take the innocent inquiry of a young child to heart and respond.  Sure there was probably an alterior motive, it made everyone look good.  But it didn’t have to be done.

Now that I have a blog I can go all misty from time to time. And Christmas day is the time to do it. Here it is:

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

It is written in in the 19th century style, it was written in 1897, so appears a little stilted to our eyes. I love that slight formality. It remembers a time when people love working language for its own sake, for the cadence and rhythm. For more information about this wonderful story and the author of the piece have a look here.

A Merry Christmas to all who read this. May you have a happy and holy festive season!

Tom Ryan’s round up of the year in movies is an interesting analysis, though more about him than the movies. In my view he tends to be of the indy obsessed inner suburban viewer.  Hardly representative of the type of person who goes to the flicks.   He tends to sneer at US mainstream movies.  Sometimes, if not often, they need a good sneer.  He also infuses his reviews with a solid dose of political prejudice.  How that is justified in a review I find harder to accept. 

His  top 10 movies of the year, and honourable Read the rest of this entry »