Film goes where print cannot follow

Books that are made into film are rarely better in that form.  Too often a film races through complex networks of action and relationship, keen to get the story in a straight line and tell just enough of it to make sense.  In some the story resembles a series of ticked boxes as familiar events are assembled like hooks on which to pin the visuals, while the real sentiment is left out.  In others the action and characters are so altered that readers who have loved the books barely recognise their old friends.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is especially guilty of this latter sin, distorting the Elrond into a jealous father who wants to draw his daughter away from Middle Earth and leave its allied peoples to their terrible fate.  The stately Aragorn becomes lovesick and doubt-ridden, and even Treabeard the Ent withholds his help until he is brought face to face with the destruction of his forest.

But the Lord of the Rings has moments of filmic splendour that manage to transcend even Tolkien’s breathtaking vision.  One such is the moment of despair in The Return of the King when, just before the turning of the tide, all appears lost and hope seems at an end.

Denethor, steward of the city of Gondor and an angry and embittered man, sends his second son Faramir into a hopeless battle to punish him for the death of his more favoured older brother, Boromir.  Sadness and fear accompany the departure of Faramir and his army.  The wizard Gandalf watches in shocked silence while the women of Gondor strew the  men’s steps with flowers.  From this battle none will return save Faramir himself, gravely wounded.

As the army rides out Denethor is shown shut up in his great hall, occupied with peeling red fruits which he does not share with Pippin, the hobbit who has sworn him allegiance.  Instead he orders Pippin to do something that seems tragically inappropriate to the hour: to sing.  Pippin, while Denethor tears at the fruit with his teeth and lets the red juice run down the corners of his mouth, produces a song of melancholy sweetness that becomes the soundscape of the doomed fighters lining up to face the orcs.

The scene ends with Pippin in tears, unable to continue, while Gandalf sits in the courtyard weighed down with foreboding.

As an expression of injustice and despair, it takes some beating.

Moleskine mania

I wrote the following on 2nd September 2008, at 12.40 precisely:

“I have just bought my first Moleskine notebook and I can already feel the romanticism oozing from it. I’m sheltering in an arcade from the rain that has kept up all morning. Canterbury (Kent, UK) is a dirty grey and groups of bedraggled pensioners are forced to pause before launching themsleves on the weather, umbrella to the fore. I’m sitting on a borrowed café chair to eat my lunch and write, and I’m trying hard to keep the famous acid-free pages dry.”

After trawling the internet on the the subject of Moleskines, I have struggled to find something new to write about the little “cahiers” whose cost (£9.99 in WH Smith) is out of all proportion to their size, 9×14cm. Neither the sturdy cover, the closing elastic nor the back pocket would seem to justify the expense. It was even surprisingly tough to find, tucked away on a special carousel dedicated to travel notebooks and even that, said the sales staff, was an experiment. So why have I pursued this object throught the pages of Bruce Chatwin’s writings and several journalist blogs that have sung its praises?

The Italian manufacturers, Modo&Modo, declare to anyone who will listen that their product is the inheritor of Chatwin’s favourite notebook, despite a 12-year gap in production after the writer himself was last able to locate one, and the fact that the originals were made in France. They would even have us believe that the very same was employed by Van Gogh, Hemingway and Picasso for random jottings that became major works of art. These claims are dismissed by detractors as so much humbug.

It is a fact of modern life that marketing a product to a niche customer base is likely to involve the internet, preferably via an interactive website for users to exchange ideas. After endowing the Moleskine with a romantic pedigree no one is seriously in a postion to argue with, Modo&Modo must feel their attempts to do just that have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. On their own website moleskine.com as well as others such as ‘SkineArt and even Flickr and YouTube, the artistic contents of the Moleskine, that epitome of private journaling whose symbol should be a writer hunched over in private concentration, are laid bare. The challenge seems to ring out: what can you do with this?

So what do I think about it? Expensive it is, but classy and highly portable. It opens well and has a pleasant feel in the hand while writing. Now I’ve got it, I’m already using it for brief notes written on the move, to develop later. Whether I’ll buy another one when this is filled is a different question.

At least Chatwin’s belief that “the Moleskine is no more” is no longer true. The Moleskine, or a version of it that may or may not be recognised by him, is here to stay.

Ice boy

I met a boy at the ice rink once. I liked to go to the rink after school and circle with the best of them. I tasted the ice with my feet, scraping to keep my impetus as I swivelled and shifted direction. I could propel myself just by forcing my blades inwards, outwards, inwards, outwards, angled just right, then perform a quick turn and be off.

There were a few of us who went for the company as much as for our fascination with this cold, unforgiving surface. We could never really speed because of the crowd heaving round, with its jokers and its wobbling beginners clinging to each other. The sounds were magnified by the expanse of white now scored a million times – the shrieks of children, the latest pop on the sound system, The Police. Don’t stand so close to me.

He and I would be forced together each time we left the ice to make way for the real dancers. They revolved in pairs, the ladies sporting thick thighs under short skirts, cold sneers under bright lipstick. We would watch as they rode the waltzes and the foxtrots, showing us how skating ought to be done.

And so we didn’t resist the pull as we gravitated around each other. A girl who chatted to us soon sighed: “Don’t let me get in the way of you two lovebirds.” There, it was said for us and we left the ice rink together.

He was tall and thin and dark haired and could hold me easily on one knee. His upper lip wore a hint of down and his kisses tasted of tea. When he said: “You’re good company to me,” he meant: “I love you.”

He came from a council flat with ten younger brothers and sisters and his housebound Ma. I met her once but she barely seemed to register I was there, or perhaps it was me who didn’t register her. Two of his sisters came with him to the flat I shared with my mother. The lobby must have looked to them like a smart hotel, with its porter and its carpeted hall and lift. On our ninth floor they silently marvelled at the French furniture and the space.

He had left home, though, and shared a flat with an older mate we called Geordie. There we could relax together and shuck the expectations, and be ourselves. Geordie fed our burgeoning love with biscuits with raisins and scalloped edges, washed down with sweet tea.

I knew it couldn’t last, long before he did. My mother had been careful not to carp. I don’t remember how I let him down but I hope it was softly, more softly than he would have hit the ice after a false move. He was capable of love and at that time I wasn’t. I can picture him so clearly. And yet I can’t remember his name.