Well I didn't say
anything about Margaret Thatcher did I? And why would I when the name
Thatcher was on the TV wall to wall 24 hours a day. I don't think
even Winston Churchill was mentioned that much when he died but there
again they didn't have cable and 24 hour news channels in those days.
What I thought was a bit
below the belt was the fact that politicians 'cashed in' on her death
and the funeral to make political points: we're all Thatcherites
now!! I don't think so. Before the Conservatives had anything to
do with the railways you could buy a ticket and jump on a train. Not
now – now you have to pay a lot of money for a relatively short
journey unless you book well in advance.
But it's all gone into
history and it's time to move on.
I remember the name
Thatcher as being one of the characters in Citizen Kane – I
can't remember what he was but I remember what the fella looked like
who played him.
A strange film, I have
always thought; dark and mysterious and then when I grew up I found
people saying it was their favourite film and then finding out that
they hadn't even seen it.
I appreciate some things
about the film; the fact that it was shot in long focus and that
there were ceilings in the shots. Doesn't mean a thing these days
does it as a lot of films and TV shows have ceilings in and because
of television there has to be 'close ups' in movies or the TV
companies wouldn't show them – so much for 'long focus.'
Some of the old films
are a bit frustrating to watch when there are no close ups; it's
because we're used to them these days and you can't see the facial
expressions and images a couple of inches high from your sofa.
Another film everybody
goes on about is Battleship Potemkin; great editing on the
Odessa Steps sequence but I remember at a lecture the lecturer
pointing out that soldiers were walking down the steps but up the
screen they seemed to be walking up hill from the bottom to the top;
how clever, I thought!!
That was when I did a
film studies O/A level Course and I have to say it was harder than
other subjects; maybe because they were my own opinions and not
necessarily those of the teaching staff.
So off I go to Los
Angeles for ten days and I'll write some news here when I get back –
I might even write from over there but I'm going to be busy so maybe
it'll be in May before I write.
In the meantime look me
up on Amazon and buy my novel – Who Was Gertie Ford?
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