The Seventh Seal

This post is named for the opening track on Scott Walker's magnificent 1969 album, Scott 4. It was inspired by the 1958 film of the same name directed by Ingmar Bergman, who has died today at the age of 89. Of his 60-or-so films, The Seventh Seal, currently on re-release in British cinemas, is the only one I've yet to see. It will not be the last.

The film follows a knight, played by a pre-Jesus, pre-Ming the Merciless Max von Sydow, travelling across a medieval countryside ravaged by plague. It is best known for, and most powerful during, the scenes in which the knight plays chess with Death, gambling his life upon the outcome of the match. Shot in inky black-and-white, the film captures the sense of loneliness and disorientation felt by characters facing death, and who find no deity to turn to for help.

Written by Bergman, the film examines notions of death more closely associated with then-current existentialism rather than medieval folklore, and for me there's a dash of surrealism thrown into the mix. Its powerful and unnerving; the final image haunts long after the film has finished.

Hopefully it won't be too long before the BBC show a series of films celebrating Bergman's long and prolific career. I will be watching; until then, I may have to make do with catching The Seventh Seal on it's current re-release. I'd advise anyone reading to do the same.

Heaven Help The New Girl

Sorry, but this one's going to be a bit of a rant. If you've seen the nominations for this year's Mercury Music Prize then maybe, like me, you might take issue with some of the choices.

Okay, so maybe Jarvis Cocker, as much as we love him, was never going to get on there for the fourth time. And no, Fields' album didn't really live up to my expectations. Everyone's sick of Damon Albarn, so maybe that's why his supposedly untitled side project didn't get nominated. But for me, there are two major omissions.

Firstly, where the hell is Patrick Wolf? Surely his manic third album deserved a spot of recognition from a panel supposedly appreciative of a range of musical genres; instead they nominate insipid scenesters like The Young Knives, New Young Pony Club and The View.

But if there's one album that really deserved and needed a nomination this year, it was Someone To Drive You Home by The Long Blondes. Achieving near universal acclaim on its release last September, this brilliant album only managed to crawl to number 41 in the charts. The publicity gained from a Mercury nomination would introduce what should be a hit album to a much wider audience. I'm frankly baffled as to why it did not receive a nomination.

Maybe its because the cover looks like it was designed by a blind, stupid, friendless five-year-old.

The Magnificent Seven

This is the seventh post on Curious Quill, and seems like a good time to talk about Shichinin no samurai, or Seven Samurai to me and you, Akira Kurosawa's masterful epic from 1954.

I watched this on Wednesday as part of my pointless DVD marathon, along with the last two episodes of the Dekalog as described in the previous post. I'd also rented Ran which I didn't get round to watching; I reckon one three-hour epic about samurai in ancient Japan is enough for one evening.

I had no idea that slow-motion had been used as early as 1954. I mean, it wasn't like watching an inane, plotless, self-indulgent and deeply unsatisfying Michael Bay film, all of which are crammed to the ears with needless slo-mo sequences, but there were a couple of bits in there. (Incidentally, don't expect a review of Transformers on Curious Quill. And no, I couldn't be bothered to link to the Bad Boys films.)

Anyway, Seven Samurai was a complete delight. For a film of its length, I was astonished how engaged I was for the full three-hour duration. The characterisation of the eponymous heroes, as well as a spread of farmers and villains, was astonishingly strong, and the script sharp enough that I imagine even the most subtitle-intolerant could be swept up in the story.

Watching the film reminded me how much I love Japanese cinema. I can't claim to have seen much - this is so far my only Kurosawa, and I've seen a few Miyazakis and a couple of horror flicks. I also have eight Takeshi Kitano films on DVD, they are my comfort food. It would be pointless and belittling to characterise all of Japanese cinema with one simple characteristic, but I do think the best films contain some intangible quality not found in Western cinema.

Promise the next post won't be so cinephilic.

Underground Movies

Finally finished watching Kieslowski's Dekalog this week. For those of you whom I have not rambled at about its brilliance, its a sequence of ten one-hour films, each loosely based on one of the ten commandments, and all set in the same apartment blocks in Warsaw. Two of them were expanded into feature-length films.

I really very strongly recommend them to anyone with any interest in watching a series of intelligent human dramas. Beyond this though, there is a meditative quality to each film, and a beauty in their realisation, both visually and structurally. Recurring motifs such as the mute figure who appears and watches in most of the episodes at some point tie together Kieslowski's "cycle" of films which each deal with different protagonists.

When asked, Stanley Kubrick named the Dekalog as the only masterpiece he could think of in his lifetime. Its tempting to think he was right.

America Is Not The World

In three weeks and four days I will be going to the States. Yes, I really am counting the days. It will be hurricane season in Florida when I get there. I'm confident the weather will still be better than it is here in the U.K. at the moment. Pleasingly, I have discovered I will have Wi-Fi access, so consider this post a teaser for the twice-daily posts that I will start writing once the novelty of sun and swimming wears off. Be assured I will not be posting garish photos of my skinny frame lounging in the sun.

Part of me is infuriated that I holiday so frequently in America. This will be my fourth visit, and I believe one trip shy of the times in living memory that I have gone to Spain. I am no old-fashioned nationalist, quite the opposite in fact, but I do feel occasional nostalgia for the times before Britain was so absorbed into the American social machine. The last decade or so has seen America come to dominance over our culture, politics and now our holidays. It seems to me that we spend all our free time watching American television, American films, reading about American politics and increasingly listening to American music.

Its not that I dislike America. Its a huge country with a diverse culture that produces some great music and cinema, as well as a lot of tosh. But it saddens me that the most popular place for us to holiday is the source of most of the entertainment we now have over here. Through a combination of shared language, a favourable exchange rate and general American dominance over world culture, politics and economics, we have gradually found ourselves as the fifty-first state.

Mind you, I'm looking forward to topping up my tan.

Waiting For The Sun

Reckon I'm getting the hang of this now. Short sentences are the key.

Been a couple of days since I last posted. In that time have continued to fill void time with film, television and music. I am plugged into the world. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly was an undisputed classic I watched for the first time, and is clearly one of the best films I've ever seen; in contrast Kundun seemed a bit stale, Scorsese at his most patronisingly simplistic. Pretty, but maybe not much more.

Far more satisfying was watching François Truffaut's Le Dernier Métro yesterday. This, I think, is in part because I have always been somewhat underwhelmed by Truffaut's films. His part in the French New Wave of the 60's has always seemed overpronounced; as much as I enjoyed Les Quatre cents coups and Jules et Jim, I've never thought they had the same revolutionary bite as Godard's Bande à part or Resnais's L'année dernière à Marienbad. And the less said about the frankly terrible Fahrenheit 451 the better.

So Le Dernier Métro was a very pleasant surprise. Witty, exciting and well acted with strong characters, it had all the things I thought Truffaut's earlier films lacked. This is not a review, and I'm not going into the plot details, but the film concerns a theatre in occupied Paris in the 1940s, and follows the lives of the various characters involved. Part of me knows that the film lacks the invention of Les Quatre cents coups or the intelligence of Jules et Jim, but it was the first film of Truffaut's that I have warmed to, which in this case was a very good thing.

An Alright Start

The 'difficult' second post. Hopefully Curious Quill is starting to look a bit more attractive. Not that anyone's going to read any of this anyway. Amusing myself with obscure injokes to own life that no one else can get. This is fun.

Spent most of yesterday writing my curriculum vitae, now just have to send it off to the ubiquitous 'they'. Seems ridiculous; here is two sides of A4, and on it I have summarised the sum of all worthwhile activity in my life. If its not worth putting on here, I was wasting my time. Still, its done.

Sinking in now. Not a student anymore, there's real work to be done. Saddle up and hit the highway to cash. Ironic raised eyebrow. Sentence fragment.

Might go and mow the lawn now. The grass must be kept short.

Introducing The Band

Welcome to Curious Quill, a blog written, managed and edited by someone with opinions, informed or otherwise, and an arrogant need to inflict these opinions on others. Over time ground rules may be established for what is to be posted on this site, but for the time being it could be anything. Music I've listened to, films I've watched, bands I've seen, television I've endured or otherwise, books I've read, photos I've taken, people I've met, places I've been, thoughts I've had; anything really.

As with any of these things, feedback is greatly appreciated. This is my first blog, so if I commit some terrible blog faux pas, such as using italicised French phrases, please tell me. Is it acceptable to ever use the word 'blogosphere'? Will I be blackballed by the blogging community if I mention watching QI last night? Should I be using question marks so frequently? I don't know. You do. Tell me.

Here's looking at you, kid.