Monday, February 14, 2011

Films v's Live Entertainment v's Life

Films can irk me a little of late, especially those ones that everyone’s seen and everyone’s raving about.
They’re too lazy, too easy for the makers. They do something once, right, and that is served up hot and cold, moth eaten and old and weathered for years after to the millions. Someone tells you they’ve seen it, and you go to see it and you’ve both seen exactly the same moments, recorded.
There’s something magic about seeing people doing something in person. Even if you’ve seen Hamlet a hundred times, each time will be different, sometimes radically, sometimes just a tad, even the same production won’t be exactly the same, two nights in a row. Live performers writing their own stuff can be even more exciting, maybe no-one apart from (and sometimes including) themselves knows what they are going to say next.
The ultimate in live entertainment has to be, I suppose, talking to a friend or family member or stranger on the bus. What you are going to say during the exchange is totally unique, unplanned, anything can happen. The other person reacts to you, and you react to them and it’s all instantaneous, chemistry can make it brilliant, fiery, frustrating, funny, moving, or someone can drop a clanger and make it all fizzle out and die, when no-one knows what to say about what’s been said.
Facebook is like the movie-ising of our personalities, our quips and thoughts mass communicated. I don’t quip on facebook, I don’t know if I even like it as a thing (and no I haven't seen the movie about it yet), I guess I do, but it feels like marketing. Maybe mass communicating and marketing ain’t a bad thing – hey blogging is the same only longer, more monologue-al - as the tunnel I drive through every day now reminds me I can sometimes be a “South Bound Bore” and a “North Bound Bore” on the way home. Just once they should change that to “North Bound Scintillating Personality” – maybe on my birthday...
Re the Marketing – I guess we’ve all been doing that too since the first cave person ever thought to themselves,
maybe I should put that Bear Femur through my matted hair, to add a little je ne sais quoi - that'll catch Ug's eye for sure”
– but figuring out what’s going on with all of that is another exercise in brain work and will be left for another time.
Oh, and the film that sparked off this whole rambling post? I hear you ask... none other than "The King's Speech" - the much acclaimed film that has the happiest ever World-War-2-kick-off related ending that I've ever seen, and is all about how one man got over his issues enough to be able to perform live which was the one most important aspect of his job, and yet, I bet the actor in question didn't have to worry about getting it in one take, and I bet he doesn't care that I bet that either. Shoulda gone to see the amateur drama production of "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf" in a city centre community hall instead, but it was only on the once at 7, tickets not guaranteed because you show up on the door, hall possibly unheated, whereas the cosy
Mc-Cinema conveniently had the same things on at all these different times we could choose from....

4 comments:

Louise said...

Well done on the rant! I am with you on most of it including the King's Speech, which I would describe as an okay movie where little happens, with a tad of humour and a feeling on leaving the cinema, of not bad, not about to change my life, and as you said the irony of such happiness as a country goes to war!!!

Niamh B said...

Thanks Socks, twas a weird contradiction in my head alright.

Totalfeckineejit said...

I knew you had a new job. I didn't realize it was in a mine.

I liked The Kings Speech but then I haven't seen a 'real' film in the cimema for about 14 years.

Niamh B said...

I know TFE, me neither!

Kings speech is a head wreck, as it's a nice heart warming tale about one man overcoming his problems, while he at the same time seems to almost completely ignore or not care very deeply about the bigger picture of what's going on - maybe that's a true reflection of what happened, or maybe the filmy crowd just decided to pick their battles and focus in on his speech, but for me it was weird.