Tonight to the flicks to see Of Time And The City, Terence Davis's film about Liverpool.I was really looking forard to it as the plaudits have been massive but found it curiously disengaging and disappointing. This film charts my childhood: Mine was in Manchester but it's a parallel experience if you're a working-class kid from that era The slums being knocked down in favour of high-rise flats, the images which look more akin to the 1930's than the 1960's The poverty, collapse of working-class communities . Etc. There is great footage from the North West Film Archive and much to appreciate.
But Davies's rather dismissive attitudes to the Catholic church, popular culture and lack of political analysis are rather a let-down to anyone who grew up in the environment he is clearly now so distanced from. If, like me, you remember the terraced streets , close communities, the things which are so much a part of your life that affection and class solidarity, rather than ascetic appreciation, is stil the overriding emotion, hard to be impressed.A view share by my companion who grew up in similar circumstances in Scotland. And Davies's plummy delivery, frankly,put the lid on it.
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4 comments:
Couldn't agree more. Lefty film critics have over-rated Davies when he is just a pretentious, pompous bore. Derek Jarman Anthony Minghella were also overrated bores overpraised by the lefties.
My gripe against the Davies film is not his politics - it was the lack of them. Cities like Liverpool basically died in the 1980s because of Thatcher. I suggest, anonoymous, you watch Boys From The Blackstuff by "lefty" Alan Bleasdale. Now that WAS brilliant......
Blackstuff was brilliant. But Bleasdale's politics are realist not sectarian. I met the man a couple of times in the late 70s and mid 80s.
I suggest you watch GBH and his portrayal of the Hattonistas in Liverpool.
Bleasdale's hero was Lennon, not Lenin.
Of course Alan Bleasdale is left - wing - but I would agree that he isn't sectarian. Read the interview with him in the Independent in 2006 if you doubt his politics
As for Terrence Davies - yes, I know what you mean. However, i share his view of the catholic church, which i think has done more harm to the world than any other institution ever created. I think the product of that is Davies' own self-hating and inability to like himself as a gay man.
Wonder why so many on the left are so soggy about Catholicism? Accepting its sexist and homophobic views as legitimate just because they are attached to religionism and imaginary friends? he day that we have a proper secular political option where religionism is seen as inimical the better!
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