Farewell, Neil Innes

A true original and one of my heroes. See you in Shangri-La, sir.

© Amnesty International

 

Neil Innes

(9th December, 1944 - 29th December, 2019)

Sketches from Memory: G20 Christmas Party Special

Click to enlarge

24th December, 2019

At the G20 Christmas party. Owing to the current political climate, this year's event is a much more restrained affair than usual. Instead of pâté de fois gras, dwarves carrying trays of cocaine and, of course, the ever popular wet t-shirt competition, guests are treated to a gluten-free vegan buffet, a Secret Santa present trail and a chance to show off their vocal skills on the karaoke machine. It's underwhelming to say the least.

The evening kicks off with the usual meet-and-greet session, where heads of state get to catch-up and welcome new faces before the real festivities begin. Narendra Modi confides to me he hates this part because he always gets mistaken for a waiter.

"I'm not just some bloody dogsbody, y'know," he says grumpily, handing me a glass of prosecco. "I transformed India into a potential superpower, d'you hear? A SUPERPOWER!"

He starts comparing India's rising GDP next to that of European nations, but breaks off when Donald Trump catches his eye and beckons him over.

"Hey, Jeevsie!" he shouts, waving an empty glass. "More tigers' piss over here!"

As Modi goes to get him a top-up, Boris Johnson grabs my arm and asks if I'll settle a dispute he's having with Emmanuel Macron. Citing Agincourt as a precedent, Boris reckons that a handful of navvies with a couple of bull terriers could easily take on the French President's proposed European army and deliver a spectacular win. When Macron refers to this as an ethno-nationalist fairy-tale, Boris calls him a garlic-munching turd who can't even handle a bunch of irate Parisian lollipop ladies. An offended Macron drops his trousers and aggressively waves his penis at Boris, calling his mother a hamster and speculating that his father smelt of elderberries. Boris rolls up his sleeves ready to plant a couple of punches when Angela Merkel and Justin Trudeau rush over and separate them.

"Fighting won't get us anywhere!" Trudeau says, flashing a look at Merkel in the hope his virtue-signalling will gain her approval. "We've all a got to work together if we're ever going to achieve global peace and prosperity..."

Scott Morrison suddenly bursts into a mocking rendition of "Old Man River" complete with jazz hands, causing everyone to explode with laughter save a red-faced Trudeau. When Mauricio Macri asks him if he's imitating a Red Indian now I decide to step in.

"Come on, this is meant to be a party," I remind the assembled guests. "Let's just get on with having some fun, okay?"

Jean-Claude Juncker seconds this and announces that it's time to reveal who won this year's raffle. Two functionaries carry a picnic hamper onto the stage and open it to reveal a treasure trove of gifts, including a copy of Stomzy's new album, a signed photograph of a scowling Greta Thunberg, and a large plush toy of Ru-Paul.

"And the winning ticket is... number 636," Juncker says, pulling a reel of raffle tickets out of his pocket and meticulously scrutinising them one by one.

"I win! I win!" Xi Jinping squeals, waving a ticket above his head. Pockets of polite applause patter softly across the room accompanied by the sound of groans and raffle tickets being screwed up.

"This is bullshit!" Trump says. "That bastard's ticket is only one number up from mine."

"C'mon, Don," I whisper. "It's the luck of the draw!"

"Face it, Trumpman, you beaten!" Xi chuckles, motioning a personal assistant to take the hamper. "All your prizes are belong to us!"

"How much do you want?" Trump asks, pulling out his wallet.

"Fifteen hundred dollar," Xi replies.

Trump licks his thumb and starts counting a wad of banknotes, grunting with annoyance when he realises he's $400 short. He scans the room looking for someone to borrow the money from, but the other delegates indignantly fold their arms and turn away. Thinking on his feet, Trump rummages through his pockets for an item of value, only to find a half empty, well-chewed biro. He looks back at the guests and picks out an easy mark stuffing his face at the buffet.

"Boris, c'mere! I got something for you..."

Boris scoops up a handful of Dukkah-crusted squash wedges and waddles over to Trump.

"You see this pen? This pen, Boris, is a piece of history. You know who this belonged to?"

Boris shakes his head blankly.

"Abraham Lincoln," Trump says slowly. "Can you imagine that? Abraham Lincoln. The greatest statesman the world has ever seen. This pen, Boris, is a political heirloom, passed from one President to another. Ulysses "The Hulk" Grant, Roosevelts One and Two, Dopey Eisenhower, Tricky Dicky, The Gipper - they all used this pen, Boris. Great men acting in the service of their country. And before all those guys, those giants of the American political scene, Honest Abe, himself... You know he wrote the Gettysburg Address with this pen? Used it to sign the National Banking Act? Not to mention the greatest proclamation of liberty the world has ever seen: the Declaration of Independence."

"Gosh!" Boris exclaims, signalling Modi for another drink. "Must be worth a few bob, then!"

"Oh, millions," Trump says, putting his arm around Boris. "But between you and me, Johnny Boy, with a national debt of twenty-three trillion dollars you've gotta be prepared to make sacrifices. Besides, if all goes to plan next month and you guys finally cut yourselves free from those jokers in Strasbourg, you're gonna need a little something stashed away to help you through the transition period. You know - until we put our heads together and come up with something more permanent..."

"How much?" Boris asks, practically slobbering all over his shoes.

"Two thousand dollars," Trump sniffs.

"Sold!" Boris says, reaching for his wallet.

"Well, we like to help our friends, don't we?" Trump smirks, snatching the money from Boris' hand. He quickly peels off $1500 and gives it to Xi.

"Chángmìng băisuì!" Xi smiles before gesturing his assistant to hand the hamper over to the President. Trump leans over to me conspiratorially.

"You make your own luck in this world, Dicky Boy," he says with an emphatic nod. "Now get that fat, defeatist ass of yours humping, okay?"

As I lug the ill-gotten gains towards the elevator a delighted Boris shows his new treasure to Merkel, who promptly slaps him and enquires if his parents ever thought about asking Eton for a refund.

* * * * *

10:30pm, and a sleepy Mohammad bin Salman, thumb in mouth, all tuckered out from the Secret Santa trail, is being carried from the main hall by members of his entourage. Normally I'd say this would be for the best as we're now in the cabaret slot before the karaoke and some of the entertainment gets a little blue, but this year former comedian turned statesman Volodymir Zelensky has volunteered himself to liven things up, and the atmosphere is proving to be anything but raucous. He opens with the one about the man who complains to the doctor that his penis has turned orange, but loses his thread halfway through and messes up the punchline about the man sitting at home all day watching porn and eating nacho cheese Doritos. He cocks up joke after joke, each one failing worse than the last, until one member of the audience decides they can't take any more.

"My wife's just come back from the West Indies," Zelensky offers, waiting for someone to give him the feedline.

"What, Cuba?" Vladimir Putin shouts with mock credulity.

"No, the other one..." Zelensky half-whispers, taking in the sea of disgruntled faces glaring back at him as a bead of sweat trails from his brow.

"Haiti-?" Putin asks, toying with his prey.

"JAMAICA!" Zelensky snarls.

"No, I thought you did," Putin deadpans, spreading his hands as sniggers ripple through the hall.

"Well, it... it doesn't matter, anyway," Zelensky says, trying to regain composure as his lip begins to wobble. "The wife and I have been fighting a lot recently. She threw a lettuce at me the other week, and that was just the tip of the iceberg..."

"That one's older than Peter the Great!" Putin heckles, rising to his feet despite Recep Erdoğan urging him not to make a scene.

"LET'S SEE YOU HAVE A GO, THEN, YOU FUCKING MIDGET!" Zelensky screams, throwing the microphone to the floor. "COME ON! CRIMEA 2.0: RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!"

Putin nods solemnly before walking up to the stage. He motions one of the functionaries for a fresh microphone, casually slips a hand into his pocket and lets rip.

"At the entrance exam for the KGB they asked me what I'd do if I had to arrest my own mother-in-law. 'Only what any other married man would do,' I answered. 'Call for backup...'"

Boris, Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Giuseppe Conte and Mark Rutte all let out an enormous belly laugh as Trudeau shakes his head dispprovingly, looking once more to Merkel as his moral barometer.

"How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris?" Putin continues. "Fuck knows, they've never even tried."

Merkel falls about laughing, slapping Macron on the back so hard it looks as though all those spicy sweet potato wedges and glasses of Tignanello are about to take their toll all over the floor. Trudeau turns round to see Boris rocking backwards and forwards in his seat with mirth.

"Quel dommage!" Boris says, wiping the tears from his eyes. "It's enough to make a man piss himself, bwana!"

A broken Trudeau suddenly launches himself at the PM, overturning the table as he forces Boris to the ground and subjects him to a series of pathetic bitch slaps. Putin watches the scene from the stage, a wry smile playing about his lips.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he announces, “you’re witnessing the very definition of a neoconservative: a liberal who's just been mugged...”

Thunderous applause fills the hall, punctured by whoops and whistles. Putin turns to a green-faced Zelensky watching from the wings.

"Comrade Wolf knows who to eat," Putin quips, eyes darkening with feral intensity. He thanks the other guests for his warm reception and asks Juncker if it’s time to fire up the karaoke machine. No sooner has it been set up, Putin launches into a spirited rendition of “Yes Sir, I Can Boogie”, shaking his hips with uncharacteristic abandon.

I slip out the fire door for a cigarette, practically climbing over Pédro Sanchez and Christine Lagarde as they enjoy a good smooch on the stairs, when I discover Modi on the phone to Ram Nath Kovind, informing the president in no uncertain terms that if he expects his PM to spend the next summit waiting on people all night then he can fuck right off.

He finishes his call and I offer him a cigarette, which he almost burns right down to the filter with one drag. I ask him if the G20 is doomed to failure because everyone's pulling in different directions and protecting their own interests, but he tells me he's had a hard night looking after self-important pricks like me so I can shove my geopolitical musings up my fat, pampered arse.

With that, the fire door suddenly swings open to reveal a shirtless Trump, breathless with excitement.

"Where the fuck have you been, Dicky Boy?" he pants. "You're missing the party! Merkel's just done a striptease to Nicki Minaj, and now she's firing apples out of her pussy..."

Introducing the WordJam Message Board!

Lonely this Christmas? Fed up arguing with friends and family members about gender pronouns or the pros and cons of Brexit? Perhaps you just wish the festive season would GET A FUCKING MOVE ON so you can get back to normality for another year, away from the orgy of commercial excess, faux-spirituality and asinine trivia?

Either way, the WordJam Message Board is here to help! You're just one click away from making new friends, discovering whole new vistas of philosophical thought, and maybe even a renewed sense of purpose in this crazy, unpredictable world of ours. So what are you waiting for? Log in to join the conversation now!

* * * * *

Today's topic: Will you watch the Queen's speech this year? 

JUstinBieberLover3988864592 - December 22, 18:43

Y shud we hav to here wat that misererble old witch ses jus cos its her birthday? 

MelGibsonIsGod - December 22, 18:44

Its Jesuses birthday, retard.

JUstinBieberLover3988864592 - December 22, 18:50
oh yeh

RainbowPrincess456 - December 22, 19:06
The next Queen should be Trans like Princess Michael. The lack of LGBTQIA+ representation in the British royal family is disgusting. The only openly non-heteronormative sovereign we've had was Edward II, and he got a red-hot poker shoved up his arse.

WhoWatchesTheWatchmen9/11 - December 22, 19:11
Wonder if (((Jeffrey Epstein))) ever visited Buckingham Palace? Home of the (((Saxe-CoB(E)RGS)))! While we're on the subject, do we know if (((Prince Andrew))) is friends with (((George Soros))) and (((Mark Zuckerberg)))? Does he own a (((Soda Stream))), or does he just like (((JUICE)))? The (((Queen))) must tell us: (((she))) can't (((hide))) the (((truth))) any (((more))).

RussiaBot1917 - December 22, 19:16
How can Jesus exist if we have dinosaurs? Evolution, peeps. Watch Jurassic Parck.

FrogoBaggins6699 - December 22, 19:21
Jurassic park is a piece of shit. Totally unbelievable and just stupid. Theres more evidence that hobbit's exist than dinosaur's.

justiceleague11939 - December 22, 19:22
What's you're evidence?

RussiaBot1917 - December 22, 19:23
Yeah.

FrodoBaggins6699 - December 22, 21:04
Neeanderthals, stupid.

MelGibsonIsGod - December 22, 21:05
Theres nosuch thing as dinosores or neelanderthals. Read yore bible idiots.

FrodoBaggins6699 - December 22, 21:06
Fuck you, jesus boy.

MelGibsonIsGod - December 22, 21:07
Thats offensive.

FrodoBaggins6699 - December 22, 21:11
Its not offensive its FACT. We got bone's for neanderthaal's but no bones for jesus.

justiceleague11939 - December 22, 21:17
Maybe Jesus was a Metahuman like Wonderwoman or Aqua Man?

RussiaBot1917 - December 22, 21:18
Or Superman.

justiceleague11939 - December 22, 21:23
Super Man isn't a Metahuman. He's from Krypton.

RussiaBot1917 - December 22, 21:24
Same diff.

justiceleague11939 - December 22, 21:26
It's not the same. Metahuman's are born on Earth. Super Man come's from an other planet.

MelGibsonIsGod - December 22, 21:28
Jesus didnt come from a nother planet. Hes from heaven.

FrodoBaggins6699 - December 22, 21:31
Youre missing the point. Jurassic park is unbelievable and hobbits exist. Accept it.

JUstinBieberLover3988864592 - December 22, 23:49

They shud dig up prinsess diana an clone her. she wouldnt mind.

Anyone want to buy some books?

 

Somehow I don't think I'll have much use for these any more.

Dr. Caligari, or: "How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love Silent Movies"

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (d. Robert Wiene, 1920)

I was no more than seven years old when I saw my first silent movie: Buster Keaton's American Civil War comedy The General. Having watched few films up to that point, I had no way of knowing what to expect once the opening credits faded into the story. The fact there was no 'natural' sound puzzled me. I assumed there was something wrong with the TV and switched channels, only to discover everything else was in working order. Returning to the film I saw a gaunt-looking man in eye makeup. The sight of him filled me with a strange anxiety. I thought this was supposed to be a comedy? That's what my Dad told me when he suggested I give it a go. It wasn't until the pratfalls began I started to settle down and relax. As a typical lad hungry for adventure I thoroughly enjoyed the shoot-outs between Confederate and Unionist troops and the perils of halting a runaway train, but more than anything I found myself pondering the unusual style of the film itself. The sweeping orchestral score that seemed to express more emotion than words ever could, the curiously jerky picture quality, the sepia-tinted film stock and the intertitles that explained what was actually happening all gave the impression of watching something beamed in from another time and place.¹ When I consulted the Radio Times and discovered it was made in 1927 I remember being quite amazed. To this day I'm not sure why that was (presumably because I assumed movies didn't exist until some point after that date), but I knew I wanted to see more films like this. After pestering my parents to buy me a video of Charlie Chaplin's The Kid (1921) for Christmas I watched and rewatched it obsessively until February the following year. I stayed with silent comedy at first. Keaton led to Chaplin, Chaplin led to Laurel and Hardy, who, in turn, led me to Harold Lloyd. When I finally saw a serious silent film, D. W. Griffifth's Broken Blossoms (1919), I was bored out of my immature skull - although I do remember falling hopelessly in love with lead actress Lillian Gish. It would be many years before I watched another silent movie.

 Broken Blossoms (d. D. W. Griffith, 1919)

What revived my interest in silent cinema was nothing more than a horror movie marathon one drunken night at university. No sooner had Evil Dead II reached its brilliantly ludicrous climax, a friend staggered over to the video cabinet and selected Rupert Julian's The Phantom of the Opera (1925) as our next port of call. Despite the copious amount of Jack Daniels flowing through my system, the atmosphere of the production immediately gripped me, just as it had done eleven years earlier watching The General. As something of a cineaste by this time, it seemed only reasonable I should broaden my viewing habits to take in an era I still knew relatively little about. This article is the result of a 20-year fascination with the development of early cinema, the achievements of silent pictures and why the form remains rooted in our collective imagination. But first, if you'll forgive me, it's necessary to lay out some essential groundwork before we rediscover the curious magic of silent movies and appreciate their legacy in film production today.

Although the actual method of creating moving images originated with Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope peep show machine in 1889, it was not until Louis and Auguste Lumière premiered the Cinématographe, a combination camera, printer and projector, in Paris in 1895 that the art of motion pictures caught the world's attention. Their film, Train Entering the Station, caused panic amongst the audience, many of whom believed that the locomotive heading towards them would become derailed and crash into the auditorium. At first, people were unsure how to refer to the medium. For a time they were known variously as 'Tin-types', 'Life-motion'd Pictures' and 'Shadow-plays'. By 1899, however, the novelty of seeing 'living photographs' projected onto a silk screen had worn thin and the public quickly lost interest. This turn of events can be understood when we remember that early motion pictures consisted of documentary shorts about everyday life (Demolition of a Wall, Sea Waves, Beavers at Play, etc.) and re-enactments of biblical scenes. If the Lumières believed that the Cinématographe created "a window onto the world" in which the sole purpose was to inform and instruct they had sorely underestimated its potential. Had it not been for the release of George Méliès' Cinderella in 1900, motion pictures would have met their demise in the back rooms of penny arcades and peep shows.²

Consisting of 20 tableaux, or scenes, Cinderella was the first film to employ a basic three-act structure comprising a beginning, middle and end. Clocking in at just over eight minutes, it was the longest motion picture produced up to that point. As a celebrated magician, Méliès brought an illusionist's eye to the art of movie making. In adapting Charles Perrault's fairytale to the screen, Méliès introduced the first optical effects ever to be seen on film to an amazed and delighted audience. This was followed in 1902 by the even more ambitious A Trip to the Moon, the first science fiction film. Méliès' influence led many early filmmakers to focus predominantly on fantasy, one of the most notable being British director Cecil Hepworth's Alice in Wonderland (1903), which was shot with several distinct edit-points so smaller theatre houses who couldn't afford to buy films with extended running times could choose which sections to purchase and screen the excerpts as standalone subjects. The success of this commercial initiative led many filmmakers to allow the running order and continuity of their pictures to be placed at the discretion of theatre management, most notably the scene in Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery (1903), now considered the first 'proper' Western, where a gun is fired point blank at the screen. Sometimes this was shown at the start of the film, others at the end, but either way it gave the audience an iconic image to take home with them.

 The Great Train Robbery (d. Edwin S. Porter, 1903)

Up until 1908, movies were funded either by filmmakers or photographic laboratories as a means of supporting their businesses. Within a year, a range of independent companies had sprung up who were solely committed to the production and distribution of motion pictures. In America, these early studios were spread as far and wide as Detroit, Pittsburgh and Arizona. In 1910, the Biograph Company was set up in California and turned the small town of Hollywood into arguably the filmmaking capital of the world. Among the directors contracted to Biograph was D. W. Griffith, who would become the most important filmmaker of the silent era. Between 1908 and 1913 he produced over 450 short films, including the first gangster film, The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912). What separated Griffith from his colleagues at Biograph was his inclination to experiment with camera placement, lighting and editing. He also believed that film running times could be expanded to allow for more complex plot development, leading to a dispute with Biograph that resulted in Griffith parting company with the studio and forming D. W. Griffith Corp., taking his stock company of actors and crew with him.³ The resulting film, The Birth of a Nation (also known as The Clansmen; 1915), was 190 minutes long and would ultimately prove that feature length pictures were commercially viable. Moreover, Griffith had single-handedly invented the blueprint for modern cinema.

The Birth of a Nation employs many of the techniques Griffith experimented with at Biograph, notably cross-cutting, close-ups, and panning and tracking shots, to tell the story of the Deep South in the built up to and aftermath of the American Civil War. At the centre of the film is a tender love story involving the clash of rival families. What brings them together by the end of the picture is not love conquering all but the necessity of joining forces against the enemy within eating away at American society following the abolition of slavery. This 'enemy', of course, is the blacks. Due to its unfortunate plot, Birth of a Nation maintains a paradoxical position as being simultaneously one of the most revered films of all time as well as the most reviled. Griffith described the film as a critique of the "Scalawags" and "Carpetbaggers" who rose to prominence after the death of Abraham Lincoln and set about dismantling the liberal reforms brought about by the War. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) saw it as a glorification of the Klu Klux Klan and campaigned for it to be withdrawn from distribution.⁴ No matter which interpretation one chooses to view it from, the film broke box office records and became the most highly regarded film of the silent era.⁵ Griffith, however, was vexed by the criticisms directed against the film from liberal organisations and devised his next picture, Intolerance (1916), as a response.

 The Birth of a Nation (d. D. W. Griffith, 1915)

Intolerance explores persecution through the ages, cutting between four different scenarios ranging from ancient Babylonia to the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. It was the most ambitious project Griffith had attempted, not to mention his most impassioned. He could not shake off his disappointment when the film became a box office flop. Although it's tempting to blame the film's epic length for this failure, being somewhere in the region of around 220 minutes, depending on the cut, it does not do the first audiences too much of a disservice to suggest that it was the film's complicated narrative structure that led to its poor performance in theatres. Watching it now, Intolerance appears very much ahead of its time, with intercutting and symmetrical scene changes strongly anticipating Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) and Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950). As with The Birth of a Nation, a special orchestral score was composed for the film - another innovation for the medium - and the result created a form that aspires less towards traditional narrative than it does to music. Griffith switched focus for his next few films, concentrating on Victorian melodrama, with the noticeably more small-scale Broken Blossoms and Way Down East (1920) taking the art of cinematic lighting to a new level. Sven Nykvist, cinematographer for Ingmar Bergman and pioneer of the 'soft-bounce' lighting effect, once claimed that had it not been for Broken Blossoms, in which oil was smeared onto the camera lens and diaphonous gauze hung from the studio ceiling to accentuate the haunting, dream-like quality of the film, he would never have elected to go into pictures.

The achievements of silent film not not end with America, though. In Europe, a vital pockets of talent were starting to emerge that pushed the nascent form away from commercialism towards the pursuit of art itself. Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), one of the key works in the canon of German Expressionism, took cinema back to the model formulated by Méliès in Cinderella and A Trip to the Moon, aiming to capture the illusory power of the form. As such, everything in the film is highly stylised and theatrical, from the sharply angular and deliberately artificial-looking sets to the make-up and costumes worn by the actors. On the surface, the picture appears to be about Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss), a mesmerist charlatan and former asylum director who has succumbed to insanity, bringing murder and mayhem to the small town of Holstenwall. The story is related to us from the perspective of a young man called Cesare (Conrad Veidt), whose testimony we have no reason to doubt. In actual fact, our 'hero' is an asylum inmate and the people he describes in the story are characters from his daily life. Dr. Caligari himself, far from being a deranged lunatic, is revealed to be a kindly man who seeks to restore Cesare's sanity. In its meditation on the fine line separating fantasy and reality, Caligari became a crossover success between high-brow critics who regarded it as an art film and mass audiences who saw it as a horror movie. Similarly, Swedish director Victor Sjöström's The Phantom Carriage (1921), filmed in a series of double exposures to create the three-dimensional illusion of a ghostly netherworld, enjoyed both poular and critical acclaim while establishing itself as a forerunner of Magic Realism.

Perhaps the most unusual film to emerge in Europe during the silent era was Häxan (1922), made by Danish filmmaker Benjamin Christensen. Purporting to be a documentary about diabolism, the film is actually a re-enactment of Nordic folk tales with some highly disturbing visuals. A woman gives birth to demons in one sequence, while another features a witch unearthing a severed hand from a tinder-bundle. The stream-of-consciousness structure of the film was applauded by the Surrealists, with Salvador Dalí and Luis Bunuel later paying homage to Häxan in Un Chien Andalou (1928). In 1968, the film was re-released on the midnight movie circuit with appropriately sepulchral narration from William S. Burroughs, where it was enthusiastically received by the new counter-culture.

 Häxan (d. Benjamin Christensen, 1922)

The 1920s was the golden age of silent cinema, heralding a number of films which have since passed into the popular imagination. F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), Raoul Walsh's The Thief of Bagdad (1924), King Vidor's First World War drama The Big Parade (1925) and Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) all delighted cinema audiences while the biggest stars of the era (among them Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Lon Chaney and Buster Keaton) were enjoying their greatest successes. The release of Chaplin's The Gold Rush in 1925 caused uproar in cinemas when audiences demanded projectionsts rewind their favourite comedy routines - something virtually unimaginable today, and a dangerous thing to do in the days of highly flammable nitrate-based film stock.⁶ The tide would soon turn with the introduction of sound.

Although the synchronisation of sound and film dates back to the Edison Laboratory in 1896, the technology available for successful playback was crude. By the 1920s, improvements in sound recording, as exemplified by gramophone records, saw rival companies locked in a race to implement full sound on film capability. In October 1927, Warner Brothers released Alan Crosland's The Jazz Singer, the world's first feature-length sound picture. The film contained only a handful of songs and a few snatches of dialogue - including Al Jolson's now famous "You ain't heard nuthin' yet, folks!" - but the novelty caught the imagination of the movie-going public and heralded a new dawn in motion picture entertainment. The film studios, on the other hand, remained cautious, and the majority of films produced between 1927 and 1928 remained silent.⁷ By 1929, however, sound had overtaken silence and cinema was changed forever.

Many silent filmmakers were unable to adapt to the new format.⁸ Mary Pickford chose retirement, while D. W. Griffith's only two sound pictures, D. W. Griffith's Abraham Lincoln (1930) and D. W. Griffith's The Struggle (1931), fell victim to the public's newfound hunger for musical comedies and floundered at the box office. German director G. W. Pabst's sole concession to popular trends was to cast American actress Louise Brooks as the lead in Pandora's Box (1929) to appeal to an international audience: needless to say, it remained a silent production.⁹ Perhaps the most defiant critic of sound cinema was Chaplin, whose City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936) were box office successes despite remaining firmly rooted in silent film comedy. His son, Charles Chaplin Jnr., remembers that this decision made him a laughing stock in Hollywood: "Everyone thought he was crazy [...] People began to think of him as a has-been, unable to adjust himself to the new techniques. He was finished in pictures. You heard that all over town." In 1940, thirteen years after they hit the screen, Chaplin finally decided to make his first talkie with the wonderful anti-Nazi satire The Great Dictator.

 Pandora's Box (G. W. Pabst, 1929)

But it was not just the people behind the camera who were to suffer. The emphasis on exaggerated body language and facial expressions prevalent in silent cinema was a result of both the audience's need to understand character and the stage experience many actors brought to the screen. Douglas Fairbanks, often described as the Errol Flynn of his day, and Gloria Swanson were especially noted for their 'large' performances and, consequently, all but vanished from motion pictures. The only actors to survive in the sound era were those whose acting style suited the intimacy of sound movies. Of all the silent era stars, Lillian Gish would last the longest in a career spanning her debut in 1912 to her swansong in 1987. Intstrumental musicians, who were required to provide live scores in theatre houses, perhaps suffered worst of all. Music was an integral part of silent cinema, propelling the narrative forwards and providing the appropriate emotional cues for the audience. By 1929, sound cinema was able to utilise recorded scores which rendered live performances unnecessary. The effect was devastating, especially as this coincided with the Stock Market Crash and the onset of the Great Depression. Many musicians found themselves seeking employment as private tutors in order to support themselves; others resorted to whatever work they could find.¹⁰

Hollywood would occasionally reminisce about the silent era, but it was usually a way of emphasising the glory of sound: Stanley Donen's Singin' in the Rain (1952) is a case in point. Others, like Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1957) and Mel Brooks' Silent Movie (1971), have tried to mimic the conventions of silent film comedy. The most fitting elegy, though, not to mention the most pointed, is Billy Wilder's marvellous Sunset Boulevard (1950). Starring Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a 'retired' silent movie star living in isolation in her crumbling mansion, dreaming of her big comeback, and filmmaker Erich von Stroheim as her butler and, as it turns out, first husband and former director, the picture is a barbed comment on how the film studios cared more about bankability than the cost of discarding talented people into the annals of history. The murder mystery at the heart of the story acts as a useful metaphor. Although Norma's monstrous, unhinged behaviour is brought to account at the end of the film, the picture business that made her this way manages to get off scot-free. During a meeting with Norma, D. W. Griffith's friend and protégé Cecil B. DeMille, playing himself, insists that the industry has changed - yet Wilder makes a point of concluding the scene by drawing attention to his riding boots and ridiculously outdated on-set strut. Swanson and von Stroheim understood all too well the message that screenwriters Charles Brackett and D. M. Marshman were communicating and bring genuine pathos to a movie that recognises all too painfully what has been lost with the coming of sound.¹¹

Watching a silent movie now is at best like leafing through an elderly relative's photo album, and at worst a 1980s Freeman's Catalogue. But we forget all too easily - and conveniently - that what we refer to now as the art of motion pictures was built upon the work of pioneers who rose to the challenge of creating a whole new medium without having models to build upon themselves. If sound and vision had been successfully synchronised any earlier, not only would cinema as we know it disappear but we would not be able to enjoy this canon of films which prove that cinema is a truly universal language. Don't watch them with a nostalgic eye, watch them as they were meant to be seen: works that transcend barriers and boundaries to communicate something about what it means to be alive. I would not be surprised if you find they transport you to somewhere you've only ever dreamt of.

City Lights (d. Charles Chaplin, 1931)

Footnotes:

¹ Silent films were shot at slow speeds, usually between 16 to 23 frames per second, as opposed to the standard 24 fps rate introduced in 1927 and still standard practice today. Unless screened at their original running speeds they appear jerky and over-paced. Most silent films were shot on hand-cranked cameras, so even in a single film there can be considerable variation in the frame rate. Projectionists were dependent upon the musical cue sheets provided by the film distributors to check how fast particular scenes, or reels, should be shown. As it is almost impossible to exactly gage what their running speeds ought to be, silent films are often shown at erroneous frame rates.

² In his autobiography My Life in Pictures (1971), Charlie Chaplin recalled that one of the few escapes from the squalor of life on the poverty line in Victorian London was a visit to the penny arcades - not so much for the entertainments, but to take advantage of the cheap food on offer: "You could get a cup of coffee and a piece of cake and watch the crucifixion of Christ, all for a penny."

³ According to Lillian Gish, Biograph executives thought a long movie "would hurt the audience's eyes." Mack Sennett, whose Sennett Studios launched Chaplin's career, was equally as suspicious of the move towards feature length, believing that the average moviegoer had the intelligence of a ten-year-old and the attention span to match. Sennett believed there was only one rule to filmmaking and, according to producer Tom Ince, would remind his directors of it every morning: "Keep it fast - the faster the better. If anyone stops to question us we're sunk." Despite these reservations, he went on to direct the first feature length comedy film, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914).

⁴ Oscar Micheaux challenged Griffith's depiction of blacks in Within Our Gates (1919), the earliest surviving feature by an African-American filmmaker. Its release coincided with the Chicago Race Riots, prompting distributors to edit out all scenes containing racial violence. The print was finally restored 70 years later.

⁵ In an interview with film historian Kevin Brownlow in 1985, Lillian Gish remarked "We lost track of the money we made." Among those to profit from the film was Louis B. Mayer, who bought the rights to distribute the film in New England. With this smart investment, Mayer was able to branch out into film production and in 1924 set up Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios with his business partner Samuel Goldwyn.

⁶ It was precisely because of these health and safety issues that by 1910 films were no longer licensed to be shown in fairgrounds, arcades and brothels, leading to the establishment of local authority-approved movie theatres.

⁷ Joseph Schenck, President of United Artists, effectively wrote his own obituary by declaring to The New York Globe, "[It's] a phase. A sham. Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? And, in any case, how are they gonna understand them in Peoria?"

⁸ Working for Gainsborough Films and mastering his craft, Alfred Hitchcock would later reveal that his directorial career would have ended abruptly had he not decided mid-way through production on Blackmail to reshoot the film as a sound picture. Gainsborough were incensed, but, as Britain's first talkie, it went on to become the highest grossing film of 1929. Of the few other directors to recognise they had to adapt to survive was John Ford, who came to the realisation that westerns would be enhanced if audiences could hear the gunshots.

⁹ Aleksandr Dovzhenko, alongside Sergei Eisenstein one of the USSR's chief exponents of Socialist Realism, was instructed to keep his masterpiece Earth (1930) silent for political reasons. A memo from Kiev Studios to the filmmaker states that this decision "maximises the universality" of the film's message as language would "alienate our Motherland from the misguided drones of Hollywood."

¹⁰ The knock-on effect of sound pictures had a major impact on the music industry. Singers who learned their craft through vaudeville and music hall were compelled to project their voices to reach the back of the stalls. Advances in sophisticated sound technology did little to curb this tendency. Of the new generation of popular musicians to emerge in the 1920s, it was Bing Crosby who recognised the intimacy afforded by the microphone and developed the smooth-style voice that would prove massively influential. Like the silent stars who could not adjust their acting styles to sound, the older generation of singers, among them Ethel Merman and, ironically, sound cinema's first true star Al Jolson, became yesterday's news.

¹¹ Lost in both a figurative and concrete sense. When films reached the end of their theatrical run they were considered to have no further commercial value and either destroyed by the studios in space-saving exercises or left to crumble into dust. Nitrate stock was highly unstable and no sooner had a picture been committed to print the negative would start to deteriorate. As a result, between 80 to 90 per cent of films made during the silent era no longer exist.

The Four Chinamen Sketch (After Monty Python)

Four well-dressed, elderly Chinese men are sitting together on the balcony of a penthouse apartment in Beijing, sipping from crystal goblets as they watch the celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. "March of the Volunteers" is playing in the background.

ZHOU: Ahh... Very passable, this. Very passable.

FENG: Nothing like a good glass of Wuliangye, eh, Genjo?

HUO: You're right there, Jiang.

ZHANG: Who'd have thought seventy years ago we'd all be sitting here drinking Wuliangye liquor?

ZHUO: Aye. In those days we were just glad to have a cup of tea.

FENG: A cup of cold tea.

ZHANG: Without milk or sugar...

HUO: Exactly. None of that bourgeois Western crap.

ZHUO: Aye. Drinking cold tea out of the landowner's discarded, cracked cup.

ZHANG: We didn't even have a cup... or tea. We used to have to make do with drinking stagnant rainwater out of the rice paddy.

FENG: I didn't even know what water was until I turned twenty-one.

HUO: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

ZHOU: No, we weren't. My old Dad used to say, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son, but it'll do until happiness comes along."

ZHANG: Which it did with the glorious revolution.

They clink their glasses together.

ALL: Aye! Here's to the revolution.

HUO: There was still no money, though.

ZHANG: No, well, we were just starting out, weren't we? Times were tough everywhere. We grew up on a collective farm with one hundred and thirty-seven other families, having to make do with meagre rations and poor sanitation.

FENG: Collective farm? You were lucky. We grew up in a forced labour camp with inadequate clothing and the threat of death through malnutrition or disease hanging over our heads.

ZHUO: Oh, we used to dream of being interned in a forced labour camp! We grew up in a poverty-stricken village miles from the nearest collective farm or gulag, living in perpetual fear of summary execution for daring to wonder if Chairman Mao was more of a Leninist than a Stalinist.

ZHANG: ...Aye, well, when I say collective farm it was more a patch of open ground on the outskirts of nowhere. But it felt like a farm to us. Even if we couldn't grow anything...

FENG: Our patch of ground was destroyed during the Civil War. We had to go and live in a sewage pit.

HUO: You were lucky to have a sewage pit. We had to live on a pile of corpses.

ZHUO: Kuomintang soldiers?

HUO: Aye.

ZHUO: You were lucky. We had to live on a pile of rotting Japanese corpses left over from the Second World War. We'd get up in the morning at seven o'clock, scape off the maggots, boil them for breakfast pretending they were grains of rice, then head off to the collective farm for a back-breaking eight-hour shift with only a five-minute toilet break to look forward to.

FENG: Luxury. We used to have to get up in the morning at six o'clock, photosynthesise for breakfast, empty the sewage pit using only our mouths, pay the authorities every Yuan we had to work at the forced labour camp, and when we got home after a dehumanising twelve hour shift, Dad would test our knowledge on socialism, withholding sleep from us if we scored less than nine out of ten.

ZHANG: Right. I had to get up in the morning at five o'clock, three minutes after I'd gone to bed, toil for nineteen hours at the forced labour camp with no food or toilet breaks, digging mass graves for dissidents while fighting off my daily bout of tuberculosis and hepatitis, memorising the works of Chairman Mao for a written examination, then once I'd passed I'd jump on my bike, peddle to the nearest collective farm, work another nineteen-hour shift, change into my army uniform, cycle to the local PLA barracks, spend the next twenty-four hours crawling on my belly through mud and barbed wire in anticipation of the final battle between capitalism and communism, and when I got home, Dad would report me to the Central Investigation Department for seditious activities.

ZHUO: Now you try telling young people in the West that... and they'd probably believe you.

ALL: Aye.

What You Didn't Miss: Fleabag (BBC One, 2016-19)

We open on a ladies' toilet in a fashionable London nightclub, grunts and gasps coming from one of the cubicles as the door rattles on its hinges. Suddenly-

MAN'S VOICE: Uh- AHHHH! Oh, fuckin' hell...

The door opens to reveal Fleabag, hair mussed, shirt half-unbuttoned and lipstick smeared across her cheek. She gives a coy smile to camera before crossing to the mirror and touching-up her make-up. A bequiffed, cocky-looking young professional in a slim-fit suit emerges from the cubicle. He struts over to Fleabag, places his hands on her waist and kisses her neck.

MAN: That was, like, totally boss, yeah? Just boss. [Sings] Riiide the pu-naaa-ni!

FLEABAG: [To camera, grimacing] We didn't talk much. It was... more of an instinctual thing.

Cut to flashback, twenty minutes earlier: Fleabag standing at the bar, waiting to be served. The young professional wanders over and looks Fleabag up and down.

MAN: D'you want a drink?

FLEABAG: I'd rather have a fuck.

Cut back to present.

MAN: Did you say something?

FLEABAG: I said how about that drink?

MAN: Brewski Conan?

FLEABAG: Yeah, whatever.

He slaps her arse before heading back to the bar, pausing to click his tongue and wink at her on the way out. Fleabag's sister Claire suddenly appears in the doorway, almost bumping into him.

CLAIRE: [Indignant] Excuse me, this- [Then-] Fleabag-?

FLEABAG: [Surprised] Oh my God! Hi, Claire! He was just, erm...

CLAIRE: [Frowns] You didn't?

Fleabag bows her head, lets out an exasperated sigh and starts roughly combing her hair.

CLAIRE: Unbelievable. Why don't you just hang a sign around your neck saying 'Three Holes to Let'? You're sex mad!

FLEABAG: [To camera] I'm not obsessed with sex, I just can't stop thinking about it. It's like when you're walking down the street and there's a rogue pube tickling your fanny. You can't fish it out there and then because nothing screams 'I have no dignity or self-respect' like rummaging around in your knickers in the middle of Portland Place. So you accept it, make friends with it, and resign yourself to the fact that as long as there's a gash between your legs there'll always be something that wants to get inside it.

CLAIRE: Who are you talking to?

FLEABAG: ...No one. Just thinking out loud. Anyway, it's easy for you to criticise with your perfect life in your perfect house and your perfect husband with his perfect job. You don't know what it's like being an angry, confused, sexually voracious young woman trying to come to terms with the death of her best friend and business partner while simultaneously attempting to find herself in an era of fourth-wave feminism and identity politics.

CLAIRE: Maybe. But I do know a sweaty liaison in a West-End toilet isn't the answer. If Boo was here she'd say the same.

Cut to flashback, two years earlier: Fleabag and Boo sat in the café they run together, taking a coffee break.

BOO: So, what was he like?

FLEABAG: Like a bricklayer at the Apple Store. It still hurts sitting down. [Thinks] Does all this wild, care-free sex make me a bad feminist?

BOO: No, just a slapper.

They burst out laughing, covering their mouths in mock surprise at the edginess of this well-scripted retort. As they compose themselves, Fleabag reaches across the table and gently takes Boo's hand.

FLEABAG: I love you, Boo. You're the emotional centre of my crazy, unpredictable universe.

BOO: I love you, Fleabag. You're the kookiest, most well-crafted character I've ever met.

They gaze at each other with deep, sisterly affection when the sound of a flushing toilet suddenly punctures the scene. Cut back to the present. Claire exits one of the cubicles and washes her hands.

CLAIRE: Sorry, you froze up for a minute there. Listen, me and Martin are here with some old friends if you want to join us. It might help take your mind off things. [Smiles] And keep you out of trouble.

FLEABAG: Thank you.

They hug.

FLEABAG: I'll see you out there, okay?

Claire kisses her on the cheek and heads back to the bar. Fleabag returns to the cubicle and is about to close the door when she notices the toilet paper dispenser is empty.

FLEABAG: Shit.

She rummages around in her handbag, dropping a seemingly endless number of TCA, BAFTA and Emmy Awards as she goes. Finally, she pulls out a copy of Luke Jennings' Codename Villanelle, the title and author's name crossed out and replaced with 'Killing Eve' and 'Phoebe Waller-Bridge' in red biro. Half the pages have been torn out. She winks to camera as she closes the cubicle door.

Boris Johnson Becomes Prime Minister, or: "Waiting for the Worms"

I've spent the best part of eight hours trying to write a satirical piece about Boris' victory in the Conservative leadership election, but my sense of humour gave up on me.

Instead, on behalf of all my readers in Belgium, Egypt, France, Germany, India, the Republic of Ireland, Israel, Italy, South Korea, Palestine, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, I'd like to apologise that this utter waste of skin and organs has become the voice for the UK on the international stage. This man hates you, but not as much as he hates his own people.

As for my UK readers, specifically those who thought this "infant in a man's clothes" would be hilarious as Prime Minister (because nowadays everything is showbiz, even politics), let's see how amusing it is in 18 months' time. I'd like to say I find the prospect of Johnson stood next to genuine statespeople such as Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping, Merkel, Macron and Putin at the next G20 pants-wettingly funny (like Mr Bean at a science fair), but if I've got to step over corpses in the street to do so the price far outweighs the punchline.

© Pink Floyd/EMI Records (UK)

The Flowchart of Fear

In a one-to-one talk at the G20 summit, Theresa May informed Vladimir Putin that Russia must end its "irresponsible and destabilising activities." The corpus of this discussion involved the allegation that these two men:

using this nerve agent:

were responsible for the poisoning of these people:

and the tragic death of this person:

May claims that the UK government has "irrefutable proof" of Russian state involvement - which, rather than coming from British intelligence services, was actually supplied by this man:

who founded this 'civilian' (ie. non-professional) investigative journalism website:

after dropping out of college and working as a shop assistant in a store similar to this one:

and who, by his own admission, educated himself on geopolitics by watching these movies:

The allegation of Russian state involvement isn't exactly watertight, and since the case will never be tried in an open court any evidence beyond the photoshopped bullshit published by Bellingcat is going to remain firmly under wraps. Let's face it, though: with all the inconsistencies in the UK government's narrative we know there's nothing behind it other than blatant Russophobia and their vested interest in destabilising the Russian economy because... reasons. (Nord Stream 2, perhaps?)

But let's return to May's comment about "irresponsible and destabilising activities" for a moment and her specific description of the Salisbury poisonings as a "truly despicable act." Lest we forget, May is married to this man:

who is employed by this company:

who own shares worth over $6 billion in this arms manufacturer:

whose munitions are sold by the British government to this country:

governed by this man:

to use in his neighbours' country:

and do this:

So do us all a favour, Mrs May, and wipe that fucking pious look off your nasty, waspish face.

Coming Soon from WordJam Publishing for Christmas 2019...

 

Pre-order your copy today!

 

Price: just a little dignity and self-respect, I imagine.

Also available:

 

Because life's too short for virtue-signalling and self-hatred.

What You Didn't Miss: Chernobyl (HBO, 2019)

Control Room 4, the early hours of the morning. Technicians are drinking vodka, dancing the kozachok and giving each other bear hugs. Senior turbine operator Vyacheslav Brazhnik suddenly rushes in, waving his arms wildly in a state of heightened panic.

BRAZHNIK: CHIEF-ENGINEER DYATLOV, IT'S A DISASTER!

ANATOLY DYATLOV: That's comrade Dyatlov, I think.

BRAZHNIK: IT'S A DI- Sorry?

DYATLOV: Call me comrade Dyatlov, shithead.

BRAZHNIK: ...But we only call each other comrade at party meetings.

Group supervisor Pyotr Palamarchuk swings round in his swivel chair.

PALAMARCHUK: He's right, chief-engineer. And in Hollywood movies, too.

DYATLOV: Who's in charge here?

BRAZHNIK AND PALAMARCHUK: [Saluting] You are, comrade Dyatlov.

DYATLOV: Right. Now, what the fuck's going on?

BRAZHNIK: Well, comrade, do you remember those power outage tests we did? When we attempted to develop a safety procedure allowing reactor water to keep circulating until the emergency generators kick in?

DYATLOV: I could hardly forget: we tried it three times. We're in the middle of a fourth test right now.

BRAZHNIK: And do you remember how each test took a whole minute for the coolant to circulate, running the risk of the reactor core overheating?

DYATLOV: 'Course I fucking do. Why are you telling me things I already know?

BRAZHNIK: Sorry, comrade, I... sort of had to mention that. [Winks to camera] Well, FYI the current test: it looks like there's been a teensy snagette...

Beat.

DYATLOV: Well, spit it out, then, you simpering twat. What's the problem?

BRAZHNIK: [Screams] THERE'S BEEN AN EXPLOSION IN THE REACTOR CHAMBER!

DYATLOV: Bullshit.

BRAZHNIK: IT'S TRUE! [Breathless] It's true... Oh, Maria, mother of Lenin: SAVE ME!

Dyatlov slaps him.

DYATLOV: Screw your fucking head back on, comrade. We're talking about Soviet engineering here: the finest in the world. Remember the R-7? Sputnik? Vostok? Salyut 1? The... [Thinks] Oh. Okay, look: if there is a problem - and I stress 'if ' - why don't you pop down to the reactor chamber and just give it a quick looksee, yeah?

BRAZHNIK: But... I've just come from there. I'm telling you, the reactor's KAPUT!

DYATLOV: What's the matter? Chicken-?

BRAZHNIK: You're the chief-engineer. Why don't you go down?

DYATLOV: Bollocks to that, mate. I'm staying put.

BRAZHNIK: Well if you are I am, too.

DYATLOV: Listen, either you go down there right now or your fat, sorry arse is on the next freight train to Siberia. It's your choice.

PALAMARCHUK: [Whispers] Er... we don't do that any more, comrade.

DYATLOV: What?

PALAMARCHUK: We don't do that any more. Perestroika, remember-?

DYATLOV: [Sighs] Fine. All right, how does 500 rubles sound?

BRAZHNIK: Do you really think I can be bought like that? As though the only reason I'd put my life on the line in this, the Ukrainian SSR's darkest hour, and with the lives of millions of people across Europe hanging in the balance, is for the sake of financial benefit? Is it so hard to believe that there is such a thing as basic human dignity? That people can act altruistically without their emotions being circumscribed by the cynicism of self-interest?

DYATLOV: Okay, 800 rubles.

BRAZHNIK: You're on.

 

Don't forget to tune in to next week's exciting episode, where excessive swearing continues to substitute for dramatic tension, characters gradually morph into walking Wikipedia pages and the production team make it painfully obvious that everything they know about life in the Soviet Union comes from repeated viewings of Rocky IV and Red Heat. That's Chernobyl, coming to every awards ceremony near you...

Coming Soon from WordJam Publishing: The Collected Tweets of Chairman Mao

To mark the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, WordJam Publications brings you The Collected Tweets of Chairman Mao: an extensive compendium of the political icon's personal thoughts.

From the dizzying highs:

To the shameful lows:

See the lives he touched along the way:

Experience the wit:

The wisdom:

The poetry:

His thoughts on the world today:

And the women in his life:

Discover all this and more in The Collected Tweets of Chairman Mao! Coming... Oh, pretty soon, I should think.