Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 27, 2020 8:33:43 GMT -8
1984’s Another Country may be interesting because it is one of Colin Firth’s first movies. He plays a budding Communist who is the friend of (mostly open) homosexual, Guy Bennett (Rupert Everett). This is an early movie for Cary Elwes as well ( The Princess Bride) who plays Guy Bennett’s boyfriend. This is Eton College, after all. Or at least where the movie is set. Boys will be boys…some more than others. The whole movie is reminiscent (a bit) to a serious version of Animal House. For instance, it’s clear that Tristan Oliver, as the head of one of the houses as Fowler (and that character is a disciplinarian hoot), is the Neidermeyer character, but played without the laughs. Apparently Guy Bennett is the stand-in character for real-world traitor, Guy Burgess, who was one of the Cambridge Spies. But this is not central to the movie. In fact, I don’t even think it’s mentioned. The performances are good even if the plot is thin. Eton College certainly is an outstanding character just as a backdrop. Yes, it’s certainly another pro-homosexual, aren’t the English such bad guys type of movie. Even so, watching Bennett get the lashes he has so well earned is satisfying. He probably should have been beaten a bit more as it turns out. How much this is a caricature of British school life, I don't know. But the movie keeps moving forward and the characters are well-acted all around. The problem here is there isn’t a lot of depth to the story. Countless opportunities are missed to perhaps bring some more detail (and story) into it. As one reviewer noted, “you hardly ever see a master in the school, and you never see the boys in lessons: this shows Eton not as merely a school, but as a microcosm of society with its own specific hierarchy.” This same reviewer goes on to write, “There is a lot about this film that is hackneyed - the bullying, sadistic prefects, the angelic boys with floppy fringes singing chapel anthems, the stock rebellious phrases etc, (and I won't even mention Guy Bennet's ludicrous old-man makeup) but overall it is a beautiful piece of cinematography with some good acting from the young Mr Everett and Mr Firth.” One reviewer notes about the historic aspect: We face the same situation with all these Antifa turds running around, not to mention the racist-based “Black Lives Matter” and a whole lot of other subversive elements. The “elites” are programing kids to be instruments of destruction. And it’s apparent this has been going on for a long time and in a lot of places. But you won’t unfortunately gain any insights into this with this film. Like I said, although it’s mostly interesting, it is rather thin in content.  |
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Post by timothylane on Jun 27, 2020 9:04:02 GMT -8
George Orwell went to Eton and wrote about it in one of his essays, "Such, Such Were the Joys". It's available in some collections of his, and I think I did read it, but don't recall much. I don't think he liked it.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 27, 2020 9:16:33 GMT -8
Many Brits hated such Public Schools. Churchill, apparently, did not much like Harrow until later in life after he had mellowed a bit.
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Post by artraveler on Jun 27, 2020 9:19:41 GMT -8
The fallout from the Philby treason was not just in the UK. The birth of modern American intelligence was based on what we learned from the brits in WWII. Most of the OSS received training from the Brits and many friendships were developed during the war and after, especially in CI, counterintelligence.
Philby and Angleton were good friends and James had no suspicions that Philby was a double agent, although all the elements of suspicion were there. Somebody eles friend can be a crook, but not yours kind of blindness. However, the treason of the Cambridge circle resulted in Angelton searching for moles in CIA as early as the 60s. This was a subject that he was obsessive about and ultimately led to his firing by Colby. There was even talk in CIA that James was using the mole obsession as cover and that he was the real mole. A theory I give no credit. He was my boss for 4 years in CI and although we did't hang out at Gilbert's in McClean. I knew him well enough to be sure. He even arranged for me to leave the agency and work contracts from 75 on.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 27, 2020 9:33:10 GMT -8
I understand the Americans significantly cut back the amount of information they shared with the Brits as a result.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 27, 2020 10:02:01 GMT -8
Best line in the film is something like, “Well, the house master should know better than to go into the athletic changing rooms.” A little blame shifting, but it’s funny because in the context it probably makes sense.
A couple guys are caught doing something naughty with each other in one of those changing rooms in the early part of the film. It’s not giving away the plot at all to note that one of these kids (one or both were expelled) was soon found hanging from the rafters in one of the main corridors at the school. You know at the outset that it will be this kind of movie so you know that scene is coming. And sure enough, it did.
Firth is good as the young Communist. It’s probably not right to say that these guys are caricatures because I think a true portrayal of one of these meat-heads is going to look little different. We might laugh at the inanities that pass for thought from Black Lives Matter, Antifa, or the Democrat Party member of choice, but they are indeed walking, talking caricatures. And although I wish the movie would have explored Colin Firth’s disgruntlement and why he became so enamored with Communism, the movie doesn’t dare to be deeper than just showing a couple of homos hugging each other.
I suppose that is depthful and daring film-making in some quarters. But Firth’s character certainly could have been fleshed out a little. But all he does is spout slogans. And perhaps that is indeed true to life. Still, one senses there is an untold story there. He actually would have made a better center for the film, showing how rich, spoiled kids could be turned against their own country.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 27, 2020 10:05:23 GMT -8
Timothy, I found Such, Such We the Joys here. I may read this when I get a chance. Okay, just FYI, I downloaded the epub version for my iPad and it worked great. The Mobi version should work well with the Kindle reader. Kindle doesn't do epub. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 27, 2020 13:43:43 GMT -8
I read a bit about St. Cyprian's School at Wikipedia. It would seem many of Orwell's contemporaries at the school disagreed with him. Apparently, he also later said he exaggerated somewhat.
It is interesting the way memories are recalled. Of course, many details are lost over the years, but certain feelings/lessons can stand out and become clearer. Orwell says as much in the essay.
Whether he was conscious of this or not, to my mind George had forgotten many of the actual details, but the feeling of grievance had stayed with him, and grown through the years to the point that it was grievance which was true, while the rest of the story may have been somewhat cloudy.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 27, 2020 14:47:35 GMT -8
I tried reading a little of that. Let’s just say it wasn’t interesting reading nor was it particularly compact.
I would truly be interested in a movie or book that accurately portrayed the English school system without exaggerating things too much. Maybe the reality is just too boring for a movie. It wouldn’t surprise me.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 27, 2020 16:03:25 GMT -8
I believe, like most organizations/institutions in life, the English Public School enforced conformity, promoted cooperation within and engendered loyalty to the group. The Public School was probably more extreme in its work as it got hold of its members at a very young age and at a time of life when it was difficult for them to protest or protect themselves effectively.
Many people do very well in such systems, but for the shy, sensitive or those who are inclined to being loners, the system can do much damage.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 28, 2020 7:50:06 GMT -8
That sounds likely. In the case of Guy Bennett (the homosexual), he wasn’t particularly shy or sensitive. He loved the system and worked it. He was hoping to become a “God” in the administrative hierarchy. Nobody (fellow students) particularly cared that he was a homosexual (and apparently several took convenient advantage of this, later to be blackmailed by Bennett). But what Bennet wanted was all the privileges and none (or few) of the responsibilities. In the end, he earned his beating twice over. Maybe another film along this same line (indictment of the British for being British) is If…. with Malcolm McDowell playing his usual role as the hoodlum. And although not about British school, Rushmore looks interesting. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 28, 2020 8:34:56 GMT -8
Having lived in British and ex-British colonies as well as having done a fair amount of business with Brits, I know a number of men who attended British Public Schools, which are of course private schools. My comments regarding the nature of such schools are derived from what I have heard about these schools from these men as well as from what I have read about the schools themselves.
Perhaps the best books about the system are the early volumes of C.P. Snow's "Strangers and Brothers" series of nine novels. These follow the life of a boy who in pre-WWII Britain, gains access to the public school system through a scholarship, as a I recall, and follow his career into the government "Corridors of Power." I believe Snow was the first to coin that phrase. The books are at least partially biographical.
It has been over thirty years since I read them, but I found them excellent. So excellent that they were my favorite books. At the time, I thought they did the best male character studies of any novels I had ever read. As it has been over thirty years since I read them, I would have to go back over the series and see if they still meet that standard.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 28, 2020 8:59:04 GMT -8
Right now I’m watching “If….” on Amazon Prime. I’m 44 minutes into it and it’s fascinating so far. It feels far more like a documentary at present. Again, having no direct experience, I have no idea how much this is an exaggeration. But it looks fairly authentic. Whoever wrote Lord of the Flies didn’t have to go too far for their material. Unfortunately I don’t see Strangers and Brothers available in Kindle format. There are several movies versions of Tom Brown’s Schooldays which show the harshness of life at a Rugby School in Victorian England. This 2005 version seems to have the highest marks. Here’s a short that might be worth watching: Zero for Conduct: “In a repressive boarding school with rigid rules of behavior, four boys decide to rebel against the direction on a celebration day.”It occurs to me that if you want to run an empire, this hierarchical system (brutal though it seems to be) has its benefits. You can see in all these movies that those who are brutalized by the system tend to want to move up in the hierarchy so they can dish it out to others. After all, how can you build an empire if you don’t think you can run things better than others and that you should do so? And the entire system must have been terribly attractive to Indians, for instance. You could join the power structure and boss around other people. You’d get a piece of the pomp and circumstance. Better than (as noted in “If…”) one person every eight minutes dying in Calcutta from starvation. And, yes, there was a sense of patriotism that drove the American Revolutionaries. But wasn’t there also a grand sense of offense? Here they thought themselves the equals of the English only to be treated like second-class citizens, or worse. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 28, 2020 9:14:23 GMT -8
One Brit who I know touched on this point tangentially. He ruminated that there was probably no one in the world more insufferable than a late nineteenth century British Colonial officer. I think that applied equally to a late eighteenth Brit as well. Both were on that ancient but ever-changing long list of "Masters of the Universe.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 28, 2020 9:30:14 GMT -8
I couldn't either. I will keep trying.
One thing I noticed while doing this, is that the series is eleven books, not nine. I know that I do not have at least one of the series, but believe I have the rest in one of my book boxes.
In general, it is not a series I recommend as 1) most readers would have to have more that a passing interest in and understanding of things English, and 2) It is nothing like the "action-packed" novels one reads today. It is not light entertainment like that which one finds in the Connelly books. As I have grown older, I find I go to history and other non-fiction books for "serious" reading and to the classics or detective and mystery novels for entertainment. This being the case, I wonder how I would react to the series today.
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Post by timothylane on Jun 28, 2020 9:50:21 GMT -8
Note that Fraser wrote the Flashman books as a sequel of sorts to the Tom Brown books. There are a few scattered references to them in the series, most notably the first. There's a decent chance that Fraser knew, either first or second hand, what such schools were (and perhaps still are) like.
One of the Sergeant Cribb episodes on Mystery! also deals a bit with this -- Cribb's superior, Inspector Jowett, is having a reunion at his old school that leads to a murder. I don't think this was one of the episodes based on the original books by Peter Lovesey.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 28, 2020 10:39:59 GMT -8
Virtually anyone who was at the top in Britain attended a Public School. Everyone in the bureaucracy, most MPs, writers, intellectuals, etc, etc. where Public School products. This is one reason they all sounded alike. The Public Schools forced all students to speak "received English" i.e. regional accents, intonation and other differences were banned. It was these people that the Colonial and Foreign Office sent out into the world to rule an empire. Twenty-somethings, who had been educated at Rugby, Winchester and numerous less well know institutions, could and did rule districts populated with hundreds of thousands, during the British Raj.
The military caste attended Woolwich, if they were bright, and Sandhurst if less so.
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Post by artraveler on Jun 28, 2020 12:01:44 GMT -8
I don't think there is much different in the English Public school system from Victoria to about 1980. If you have the time Anthony Trollop's novels provide some insights to the entire English class system. There was a PBS series based on The Pallisers that I recall was quite good. It covers almost the entire Victorian era.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 28, 2020 12:03:27 GMT -8
I finished If…. and liked it. It’s probably not giving up too much, considering the title, to say that there are portions of this that are the mere imaginings of Mick (Malcolm McDowell). The film shifts from color to black and white several times. And I don’t know that the b&w is necessarily the fanciful parts. I couldn’t keep track. One reviewer (as well as giving some interesting comments) might set us straight on that point: This certainly isn’t Clockwork Orange (which I find thoroughly over-rated) set in the British school system. There’s a teeny bit of that. After all, it is Malcolm McDowell, although this film was shot three years before that. Certainly you can see where one role or casting influenced another. I have no idea as to the authenticity of this portrayal of the British public school system. But unlike the more pompous (but better acted) Another Country, If… didn’t seem over-the-top with completely blown-up caricatures all around. But there may have been some. But then again, some of those characters may have been representative of the real thing.  |
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Post by timothylane on Jun 28, 2020 13:50:26 GMT -8
According to the IMDB synopsis of If. . . ., there was an alternate reason for the black-and-white scenes, involving light reflecting off the large windows. They also mentioned the financial reason.
An interesting American variant on this might be The Trouble With Angels, which also deals with rebellious students (well, mainly one, who's just chock full of scathingly brilliant ideas). It's set at a Catholic boarding school for girls.
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