Early Modern Notes

Ooh, a new English Civil War drama. (After all, it’s been a long, long time since By The Sword Divided.)

And Peter Capaldi as Charles I?!

No, not Mayor Boris. That’s just absurd.

No, this is the shocker I discovered yesterday: Mel Gibson is to star in a movie remake of Edge of Darkness.

It’s just a surprise it’s taken this long.

BBC4 is screening a new version of Fanny Hill; adaptation by - well, who else could it be? - Andrew Davies.

If you ever get the chance to see either of these films at the cinema, just go. They are the only features made by Kevin Brownlow (in collaboration with Andrew Mollo), with whom some of you may be familiar as a historian of silent film and documentary-maker (on Monday we also saw his recent documentary of Cecil B De Mille, which has only been broadcast in the US so far; talk about a story of two halves).

I’m familiar with Winstanley, their beautiful, haunting film about the Diggers, released in 1975 but begun in the late 60s (and it is very much a film of its time), from the video release. But seeing it on the cinema screen was a new experience. The opening battle scene - impressive even when TV-sized - was awesome and deeply moving. Quite different in pace from the rest of the film, but it sets up the trademark loving closeup shots of the human face and figure; it was devastating then to see those individuals cut down in battle. The sacrifices and expectations raised by the wars and overthrow of the monarchical order set the context for the main part of the film, Gerard Winstanley’s attempt to create a self-supporting communitarian society at St George’s Hill.

I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say that you know - even if you don’t know the history - that this is going to be a tragedy, that the attempt is always already doomed (even the environment is their enemy; it’s rare that you will see such a stark, harsh south-eastern England). The film, its making and its subsequent history, in some ways mirrors its subject. It was made on the tightest of budgets, largely reliant on volunteers and almost entirely on non-professional actors (some of the acting can seem very stilted; bear with it). It has subsequently been virtually unknown outside a small circle of worshippers - and early modern historians like me (I doubt I would otherwise ever have encountered it; even lefty devoted film-going friends who knew Brownlow’s documentary work and writing had not seen it before I showed them the video…).

However, I hadn’t seen It Happened Here (1964, but again the release date follows several years of production work) until last week. Fact: most counterfactual history is tosh. This is the real deal: it makes you think afresh about what did happen in history in the light of what might have. It’s dark, disturbing, terrifying, often blackly humorous; and it was made by a pair of teenagers. It is 1944; Britain was invaded by Germany in 1940. We see events from the perspective of a nurse, Pauline Murray (the actress’s real name, and it’s quite astounding to learn that she had never acted before, for her performance is remarkable and largely holds the sometimes very loose-knit fabric of the film together). She becomes a ‘collaborator’ in the belief (with many others) that the war is won and what matters now is to help put her country back together, despite the repugnant ideologies of the Nazis - and the sight of the Jewish ghetto.

The film was controversial when it came out; Brownlow and Mollo were forced to remove the most disturbing section of the film. It’s a sequence in which a group of real English fascists give spontaneous answers to a set of scripted questions. It probably will, and should, make you feel slightly ill. But this is only the most obviously shocking part of what made the film too uncomfortable for this country to stomach at the time: it challenged post-war complacency, the belief that we the British, the ‘bulldog breed’, were somehow different from those other Europeans who gave way to Nazi ideas and invaders so easily. Indeed, there is a superb ‘film within a film’, cleverly imagined and perfectly presented propaganda re-presenting the legendary Christmas Day football game of the First World War within a narrative of the closeness of the historical links between German and British - had it not been for the evil Bolsheviks and Jews causing them to fight each other.

But, for all that, it’s clear that much of the population’s compliance is sullen and fragile; sometimes their real feelings are expressed in terrible, spontaneous violence against collaborators, sometimes in more mundane ways, eggs ‘accidentally’ spilt on Pauline’s smart new uniform on a bus. The facial expressions of the observers give away nothing, and everything in their nothingness. They are the masks of those who live with hated conquerors. They are not rebels; few of us have the courage for that. And besides, the rebels too are hated by many. Pauline sees her closest friends killed, needlessly and senselessly, by them. One character observes grimly that the only way to destroy Fascism is by adopting its own methods. The film is clearly anti-fascist; but it is also, throughout, an indictment of the corrupting, brutalising, sickening effects of war. (Further articles.)

***

Originally posted September 2004

OK, there’s a lot of crap on our TV screens under the title of historical documentary. I particularly dislike the ones that tell us how everyone until now has got subject X all wrong and now this programme will in fifty minutes tell us the TRUTH. Blah blah blah. Or there’s all that heavily-trodden superficial ground of ‘The most evil men in history’ type rubbish (Channel 5, are you listening?). But I’m currently reading History and the media (ed. David Cannadine, Basingstoke, 2004), and I can only agree with Tristram Hunt in ‘How does television enhance history?’:

The question should no longer be, does TV enhance or diminish history?; it should be, how do we produce the highest quality history programming? (p. 99)

To which his answer is that we as academic historians must be involved working with programme makers and that we need to ‘assume as much editorial control as possible’. (Though I didn’t much like Tristram’s style on the box, if I’m honest. Shouty shouty, look at me, aren’t I a pretty blonde boy. Go away, brat. Er, I think I might be showing my age.)

TV history cannot do the same things as carefully, deeply researched and debated written history. Fine. It has other strengths. It can bring to a wide audience the fruits of that scholarship; it can engage the public with their past. It can tell stories about that past in different ways; it can often be more sophisticated in showing the problems of source material and interpretation than it’s given credit for.

One of my recent favourites was a recent Channel 4 programme – part of its Georgian Underworld series (2003) - on the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, which was unusual in being entirely a dramatic reconstruction, based on court records. (Well, we all love a courtroom drama, don’t we?) It was beautifully written and acted, deeply moving and utterly compelling. Or there was Channel 4’s Plague, Fire, War and Treason series (2001); moving away from my period, the BBC’s superb Pompeii: The Last Day (dramatic reconstructions - a great cast - as well as amazing CGI effects); I’ve written (gushingly) before about Meet the Ancestors and Terry Jones’s Medieval Lives; and now there’s Tony Robinson’s Worst Jobs in History (both the latter using humour to convey some serious messages; but there was a lot less piss and shit in Terry’s series…). Simon Schama’s History of Britain series had its faults, but it was nonetheless great viewing, and brought a wide sweep of British history to a vast audience.

There’s always something new and wonderful to watch, a vast array of techniques and a huge range, too, in terms of intellectual depth. And, as many of these links show, the TV programmes are increasingly complemented by high quality websites that provide background, develop their subjects and, at their best, also provide outstanding stand-alone learning resources (Channel 4’s Time Traveller’s Guides are wonderful, though mostly restricted to British history; the BBC’s History website is a wide-ranging treasure trove).

Considering the examples I’ve just given, it strikes me that ‘reconstructions’ of various kinds – by actors, by amateurs in ‘reality’ shows (which can be extremely variable, I agree, but I really liked The 1940s House), using computers – has really come of age in recent years. Reconstruction seems to have been considered deeply inferior as a technique by those who brought us the seminal documentaries of the 1960s to the 80s (The Great War, The World at War, etc).Working mostly in recent history, they created a formula that revolved around archive footage, interviews with participants and talking heads. Reconstructions were a last resort to be used only when ‘primary source’ film footage (which also had the virtue of being cheap) was unavailable, and industriously avoided even when it wasn’t. Jeremy Isaacs in the History and the media volume, comments on making a series about Irish history in the late 70s: ‘We set our face against reconstructions’ (p. 48) – problematic since half of the series covered the period before the invention of film.

Of course, bad reconstructions are really bad things, but good reconstructions bring home the ‘living’ past in a way that nothing else can. That’s why I so loved the Peterloo programme; or in a totally different vein, when Tony Robinson rolls up his sleeves and, trying not to gag – or in a few cases, freeze with fear – gets right in there to show us just what those awful jobs (many of them vital for society’s survival; or filthy tasks that made possible things of sublime beauty) really involved.

And all of that is why I love television history.

***

Originally posted September 2004, this seemed apt following my post the other day. (I haven’t checked that all the links still work.)

Tristram Hunt criticises recent history TV programming for becoming too cosy and self-indulgent. The first half of this decade was a great time for history programming in the UK; that has probably peaked now and, yes, there have been a few too many poor reality TV shows. And yet I have no problem with family history having a place in the schedules, and I can’t help feeling that Hunt exaggerates.

He couldn’t be trying to drum up publicity for his new show on the Protestant Reformation, could he?

Update: make sure you read Alun’s post, in which he says everything I thought about Hunt’s article but was too lazy to articulate. It’s great. Also, check out the youtube link. WE ARE HISTORY!!!

From the Guardian’s media blog:

Before Dumped it had never really occurred to me that when you throw something away it actually goes somewhere.

It made me feel suddenly very very tired.

(Yep, Channel 4 is running a show about rubbish [AmEng: trash]. Stop laughing at the back.)

While I’m still honking hysterically from the previous scene. Sadly, looks like it’s our last dose of Green Wing (repeated tonight on More4 thankfully, since the first showing while was while I was staying with my parents who don’t like these “modern” comedies… Bless).

Anyway, it’s that yummy-new-schedules time-of-the-year again! So, don’t try to get hold of me at:

Sunday/Monday 9pm: Waking the Dead. TV doesn’t get much funnier (unintentionally, I mean) than this.

Monday 10pm: ER. Yeah, it’s a bad habit after all these years. What is it about fake blood and guts?

Tuesday 9pm: The OC. They killed off Marisa! Huzzah!

Tuesday 10pm: Shameless. Yay yay yay! Even if it isn’t as good as the first two series, who cares? It’s still better than 98% of everything else on the telly.

Wednesday 10pm: Desperate Housewives. Looking very promising, what with Kyle MacLachlan being sinister ‘n’ all. (But does clash with the repeat of The Thick of It, which I also missed last week. [What’s this I hear about iPods?] Will have to work this out.)

Friday 9.30pm: Ugly Betty. Yep, I was sceptical. But this is shaping up to be deliciously wicked stuff.

A few burning questions. When is Life on Mars back? Sarah Jane (please nicely Auntie Beeb)?

Oh, and there is an outside possibility I might watch the odd minute or two of Celebrity Big Brother. If only because it’s bloody hard to avoid.

One of my favourite blogs for the last few months has been separated by a common language. I don’t know what it is about mutual incomprehension between Yank and Brit, but it generates infinite amusement (on this side of the Atlantic, at least). So I was, as you can imagine, much entertained to discover the surprisingly prolific UK/US Translations thread in the Dr Who Forums at the rather lovely, though very American, Television Without Pity.

[I want to point out that a) baked beans on toast are yummy and b) Marmite is DISGUSTING. (You can get Marmite-flavoured baked beans. I think this is some sort of sacrilege. When the revolution comes…)]

But: just how funny could you imagine a joke based on a confusion between the words ‘freesia’ and ‘Friesian’ can be? When it involves a tattoo? (On a scale of 1 to 10?)

If you’ve been watching Green Wing, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Otherwise, oh well, nevermind. But I am not kidding when I say: My. Face. Hurts.

(Yeah, proper blogging will resume shortly…)

Brilliant, weird sitcom out on DVD, at last. Play.com has it for a tenner. Man, that ordering process is just too damn easy.

(Oh, and I see Life on Mars will set me back nearly £30 when it’s out on DVD in May. This may act as an incentive to tape the rerun on BBC4 this week…)

There I am at Amazon buying useful books (and I get a special offer on a pair of books I wanted both of anyway. Yay!) and being all sensible and well-behaved … and then there’s this on sale…

Fun programme that I forgot in last night’s list: Balderdash and Piffle. Could anyone but the BBC get away with a programme that’s an extended plug for the OED?

Most interesting word this week was nit nurse. Interesting because the word has clearly been around for as long as the nit nurses themselves (from the early 20th century) - I knew it, and the Welsh grannies the presenter talked to all knew it - but as a word coined and passed along by kids themselves, and not at all popular [that’s an understatement] with the adults it refers to. (But nonetheless the word hunters managed to find a reference over 40 years older than the OED’s previous earliest known usage.)

Good stuff always comes at this time of year. New OC (boo to the Evil Dean!)… Desperate Housewives… Shameless… ER… catch up on missed episodes of The Thick of It… House… Gunther von Hagen likes to cut people up (Tonight: everything that can go wrong with your liver and kidneys)… John Simm is angsty cute…

Excellent (for a single girl with no social life).

But what is the point of having control of the remote again? Despite finally getting in Ken Stott to do the job, ITV has some bizarre alternative Rebus universe (recognise the names, er, what happened to the story?). And Channel 4 has a programme lamenting the ‘death’ of British sitcoms, which appears to be blissfully unaware of the simple truth that at least 95% of British sitcoms have always been deadly. (Including (…especially…) the most popular ones, very often.) And the other <5% have always been brilliant. Who really cares that the evening schedules are no longer stuffed with shite like George and Mildred, Terry and June, (heresy alert) Bread, etc etc?*

And now the stupid pretentious pre-Christmas perfume adverts have been replaced by stupid a) ‘exotic’ holiday adverts and b) cheap furniture adverts. Sheesh.

Me, I’m going to watch that dead thing at 10pm on BBC2. (And no effing ads!!) Then I’m going to catch up online.

Happy New Year folks. (Blwyddyn newydd dda o Gymru!)

………

*Well, the writers who used to make a packet out of them, obviously. Carla Lane must be down to her last few million.

Little Britain. Is. Not. Funny.

Yep, those very special people at Popcorn & Chainmail have done their work on the Virgin Queen.

They’ve made my weekend.

Word is that ITV is going to try to boost its ratings with some Jane Austen. Mansfield Park (why is it that I can never bring myself to like that book?), Persuasion (a personal Austen favourite) and the Gothic novel spoof Northanger Abbey (silly, but I’m fond of it). They’ve called in - who else? - Andrew Davies.

I do wonder how the Grand Master of Costume Drama plans to pull off Northanger Abbey given that it’s so centred on the inner workings of the heroine’s over-fertile brain?

I wouldn’t dream of buying a newspaper for the free DVD, now would I?

On the other hand…

The Beeb is starting auditions for a new Robin Hood.

Who do you think should be the next Robin, then? And other casting suggestions?