Once Upon a Time in the West

I managed to get to see Once Upon a Time in the West last night at the National Film Theatre. If I’m not mistaken, this film was Sergio Leone’s first western made outside Europe. Although he had used American Actors in his Spaghetti westerns in Spain and Italy, he had never filmed in the United States before OUTW. His use of Charles Bronson and Jason Robards in familiar roles was reasonably safe casting but Henry Fonda as the evil Frank smacks as very risky.

Fonda, known mainly for more wholesome roles, plays directly against type and looks like he relishes the role completely. His tall, slim frame is mainly clad in black throughout the film and he chews tobacco and spits in the true spirit of the evil, rough, tough, gunfighter that he represents; his brilliant, tortured blue eyes caught magnificently in the extreme close up shots that Leone made one of his trademarks. It really is a terrific performance by one of Hollywood’s greatest Actors.

The film itself is a simmering, epic story that takes its time to deliver a typical good versus evil yarn in the true sense of the Western genre. It’s triumphant and sprawling and self indulgent and grandiose and takes such a long time to get going that at one point I almost gave up on it. I’m glad I held on.

Loosely speaking, it’s a tale of a man’s ambition to join the Atlantic with the Pacific by building a railway line from one seaboard to the other. However, the main themes in the film are really about the smaller tales of the men and women that get in the way of this ambition.

Charles Bronson plays Harmonica, Jason Robards plays Cheyenne and the beautiful Claudia Cardinale plays Jill McBain – the wife of the tragic Irishman who invites her to live on his humble farm with its rich secret. The musical score from Ennio Morricone is incredible and the first time we hear the piece that introduces Claudia to the audience must go down as one of the most beautiful film accompaniments of all time to one of the most gorgeous looking Actresses; it really made the hairs on my neck stand up.

The best line in the film has to be the one by Jason Robards. Upon receiving a first cup of coffee in a while from Jill McBain, he says, in his usual sardonic style, “You remind me of my Mother. She was the best whore in town and made my Father, in his hour or whatever amount of time he had with her, the luckiest man alive”. Brilliant stuff.

Getting Around London

In a city with such a good transport system (some might disagree), it doesn't make sense to the people I work with that I choose walking as my preferred mode of transport rather than the myriad of choices that London offers.

I have touched lucky for the time being in the place I'm living in Lambeth near the Oval Cricket ground. The Oval Kennington is just across Vauxhall Bridge south of the river Thames. The walk is approx 3 miles and takes 45 minutes from the flat to the office which is near Victoria railway station. The equivalent journey on the tube would take me probably at least 30 minutes including the walk to and from the tube stations and waiting for trains. It's a no brainer for me and from next week I'll have my Leica with me to take some photographs along the journey, which is another reason to keep walking.

However, as I found out last night, I shouldn't rely on walking too much especially after I've had a couple of beers after work and I'm on a mission to the BFI Southbank to see Sergio Leone's epic western - Once Upon a Time in the West. There aren't many toilets on the way that I'd choose to use and the walk from Victoria to the BFI was as much an epic as Mr Leone's film.

Suffice to say, three quarters of the way into the expedition I decided I'd missed too much of the first part of the film and I'd write off the £9 I'd spent on my pre-paid ticket; put it down to experience I told myself. Now I have the dilemma of whether to pay another £9 and therefore £18 in total to see a film I've seen many times and even own on DVD.

I think the chance to see such a great movie at the home of the British Film Institute (somewhere I haven't been before) is enough to inspire me to try again.

Sam Rockwell plays ‘Beaten Up’ really well again in Zowie Bowie’s film directing debut

I first saw Sam Rockwell in a film called ‘Confessions of a Dangerous Mind’ – a film my friend Matt introduced me to. It was a film directed by George Clooney about Chuck Barris(played by Rockwell), an average comic who famously invented the Gong Show and was suspected of working for the CIA. Sam Rockwell was superb as Barris, a man whose accelerated fame and predictable fall from grace was part comic and part tragic. Sam Rockwell’s ability to play Barris as a schizophrenic, womanising misfit called on all of Sam’s deep and comic acting abilities. I wouldn’t have said he had a dangerous mind but he did give us an insight into how Rockwell’s, if not Barris’ mind, works.

Equally, playing another Sam, this time in Moon (Rockwell’s latest role), we get another insight into what’s going on in his head. He gets to play a contractor on a lonely moon base whose coming to the end of his solitary 3 year contract. Sam has a tall order in getting over to the audience the feelings of a man who has been away from his young family for three years without anybody to communicate with other than an unsophisticated robot called Gerty. But it says something of the charisma of the man that he carries it off without losing the audience’s attention.

Human interaction does enter into the plot further on in the film and without giving too much away, it’s a clever method for showing several sides of the man’s talent without increasing the acting budget if you get my meaning. It’s also a good vehicle for showing how well Sam Rockwell plays a beaten up, knocked about, downtrodden, world weary person. He did it in Confessions and he does it equally well in here especially in the shot of him puking up blood and teeth into the stainless steel bowl of one of the moon bases’ lavatories.

A special mention must be given to the robot Gerty who made me laugh a couple of times. Gerty is voiced by Kevin Spacey in a typically dry, cynical style. Apart from the tone in Gerty’s voice, the only way we are made aware of how Gerty is feeling is by the animated smiley face on his shoulder which represents his mood. Being a subservient robot to the only human on the station, he has a very limited range of emotions which are mainly negative. These are represented by a smile (sometimes with teeth), an animated look of worry which uses a frown and diagonal mouth to good effect and a look of puzzlement which is a real rabbit in the headlights look. It’s a neat little trick and works to good effect.

Sam Rockwell also had a part in the recent Jesse James film with Brad Pitt and, although it was only a small part, he stood out in an average film with a very strong supporting cast.

Apart from the excellent performance by Sam Rockwell, Moon is a very good film directed by David Bowie’s son. Go see it.

More Words of 'Wisdom' from David Beckham

I like David Beckham as a Footballer but as a spokesman he is a complete twat. Kids out there should be inspired by his ability with a football but I hope they don’t trust his wisdom. I make a point of not listening to his interviews because I don’t believe his words. However, I couldn't resist reading an interview in today’s Times in which he advises John Terry to stay put and resist the lure of money. Also, I couldn't resist a bit of a rant at Mr Beckham’s expense.

John Terry is the Chelsea Footballer and England captain who is supposedly considering a move from his Champions League qualifying club. Manchester City, a mid table Premiership team who won’t be playing European football this season, but have big aspirations backed up by pots of money from their Arabian owners and high profile board members – the famous Gallagher brothers, has offered to buy John and increase his weekly wages from £125,000 to £200,000.

David Beckham is reported in the Times as offering this advice to John Terry: “If you’ve got passion to play for the club you’re at and if you’re at the club you have always wanted to be at (sic), then that goes beyond any money”. What utter shite Mr Beckham. Are you expecting us to fall for that one? Who are you trying to kid?

I remember a certain Mr Beckham offering advice to another Footballer whose ability with a ball I admire, but whose other human attributes are extremely questionable. Wayne Rooney was a player who lived and dreamed Everton (my club), and famously exposed his undershirt after scoring a goal that read “Once a Blue, always a Blue”. Wayne was a young passionate kid off the rough streets of Croxteth who had dreamed of playing for his team – Everton, for all of his short life. He didn’t want to be anywhere else other than Everton and when he played, he played with enthusiasm and zest which often boiled over into over-exuberance and, on lots of occasions, very bad behaviour. For all his faults, you could never question his commitment and passion for doing the thing he loved and playing for his devoted club. I really admired that level of passion. Money, fame and fortune would surely not get in the way of the man’s passion for his club which would help to elevate our once great club to dizzy heights yet again.

Then there was talk of disharmony between Wayne and our great boss – David Moyes. Wayne decided he wanted to go and cited a breakdown in his relationship with the boss as the reason for him wanting to leave. And then along came Mr Beckham with his famous advice, which I will paraphrase: , “Yo Wayne, if you want to play at the top level geezer, you gotta aim higher than Everton init?”. What about this talk of passion for playing for the club you always wanted to ‘be at’ Mr Beckham?

Manchester United (Beckham’s ex club) came knocking and Wayne was sold for close to £30 Million. At the time I was disappointed that Wayne left but I would never hold it against anyone who wanted to better themselves and Everton is much bigger than one man as has been proven since Rooney left.

The whole point of this rant is to say, John Terry don’t take any advice from David Beckham because his belief system is confused and motivated by how he feels on one particular day at one particular stage in his career. Also, the possibility of Terry moving to Manchester United’s city rivals wouldn’t have anything to do with your advice of the day would it Mr Beckham.

Bill Brandt

A new exhibition of Bill Brandt’s photographs is on display at the Chris Beetles gallery in SW1. I went along during my lunch break and endured the masses of people around Piccadilly circus for the first time. It really was worth a look though. I’ve seen some of Bill Brandt’s work before on the web and in books but the pictures are truly memorable in the flesh. This is partly down to the exceptional job that has been made by John Wells who is the Master Printmaker behind the reproductions on display here.

Bill Brandt, German by birth, went through life shunning his roots and pretending to be English. He certainly captured facets of Englishness that suggests that he was truly assimilated into our culture. I love his abstract nudes, mostly set on Sussex beaches, but his wonderful pictures in minimalist London flats are fantastic too. The picture of the bleached female legs extending towards the open French windows is a memorable image. I also love his bold graphic style which is in evidence in his pictures of the Bermondsey copper and Battersea bridge. Bill was a real advocate of gritty, high contrast images, all black blacks and white whites. This is a style that I also like.

All images in the exhibition are silver gelatin prints with prices from £2300 to £6900 per print. They are all limited editions of 35 per print. So, there is good business to be made in printing. Not sure whether dead Bill will see any of it though. It’s great to see prints using traditional methods being hung in galleries in this digital age. Bill Brandt’s negatives have been around since the 30s and are still producing excellent prints. The detail in these prints at such a large scale is excellent and really inspires me to do more printing in the darkroom. If only I had the time.

Street Art

Bristol's reputation as a centre of Graffiti and Street Art is well known. I'm a bit reluctant to photographic it as I feel the art is with the Painter in painting the subject not in it's reproduction in a photograph. What do you think?