Westvleteren - Happy new year!

From over two years ago. Better late than never...

Film Review : Empire of the Sun (1987)

Against my philosophy of life, Spielberg's films always seem so dead and uninteresting; watching one is like viewing coloured patterns on the screen and nothing much more. When this process is made on the semi-autobiographical book of one of my most seminal authors, the effect is quite seriously disorientating.

The main theme of the Spielberg-led story of this film is of a boy losing his parents, losing his innocence, then finding his parents again. The parental bond comes totally to the fore, and this is so, so wrong in terms of the book. The parents in the book are the typical 1930s upper middle class family where the offspring are brought up by the nanny. There is considerable distance between the parents and the offspring, that to make this bond the central part of the film is just totally out of context of the period. Spielberg just didn't get this English cultural fact.

Right at the start of the film things depart from reality - the nanny for the boy is a chinese woman. This again is just so wrong and it made me spend the first ten minutes annoyed by this fact. In the book the nanny is a Belarussian, Olga. It is important that there is a separate layer of staff coming between the Chinese and the English. A Chinese woman would never have been allowed to have such direct and important contact with an English boy. I felt annoyed as this simplifying move was clearly made to dumb-down the story for an American audience.

The secondary theme of the loss of innocence is out of place here also. The narration of the book clearly indicates that this is an adult recounting his childhood through adult eyes. There is no rite of passage or moment when the narrator loses his innocence. The entire narrative is made from the point of view of an adult, and this 'journey' does not form part of the story.

Other annoyances include the waste of a good many decent actors' parts. Miranda Richardson just drifts around the screen looking wan, Robert Stephens gets very little screen time, Leslie Phillips is there but only occasionally. Only John Malkovich and Nigel Havers have anything interesting to do, and they do it well - a surprise for Nigel Havers who has had most of his career on the small UK screen.

Spielberg of course cannot resist an occasional descent into the mawkish - the Japanese teenager in the adjoining airfield and his subsequent death being the worst example.

Christian Bale's performace I have no problem with. The talent he has shown later on in his adult career is there to be seen. One can almost imagine the lead character in American Psycho being an adult version of the boy in the internment camp.

For the things that I did enjoy - one moment gave me goosebumps, and that was the attack on the airfield by Mustangs, and the realisation of the part of the book when the boy is standing on a building and sees an American pilot wave at him as he flies past. It almost got the hallucinatory feeling that J.G. Ballard described in his book. The scene set in the abandoned stadium where the Japanese had stored all the valuable furniture and cars from the westerners was suitably surreal, as was the sequence set in this arena where the flash of the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki is depicted. In this book this is clearly figurative rather than factual, but the hallucinatory rendering of this event and the tieing of it to the death of Miranda Richardson's character worked.

The final scene of the reunification of boy and parents, and the closing of the boy's eyes in the arms of his mother is the required happy end to the story. What I really missed from the end of this story as was described in the book was the torture and death of the young chinese youth by the four bored Japanses soldiers - an event that clearly changed the life of the real J.G.Ballard and an event that resonates through all of his writing. This is the most likely event that caused the loss of innocence in the book's author, though the actual moment when he loses innocence is probably many years later, after his children have left home. Anyway, this is the sequel of the book which I am sure will never be made into a Hollywood movie. These days it would be staggering for the BBC to make a mini-series out of it, even.

Billy

To see your face
As it tells me how many men in this place
Would be foolish not to want me.
And after we have kissed
I can smell impressive aftershave
On my lips
For hours afterwards.

Rest Assured

Best - Gestern. Abend verlassen.
Thinking, being, doing good.
Timeshare compartments of my body.
My telephone seems a stranger to passions
Once past through its eager ear,
Its moulded mouthpiece.

Gravel - grains on the track.
The noise that fed that dream
About the daisy chain and
Oven-ready chips. Slips into a hairline fracture.
Traps in the door to the next view.
Hidden from sullen light, but no darkness.

Greying skies like Russia or the Fens.
Pale trees and make-amends of yours.
Pastures soggy, coffee-black earth.
And the ditches and drains
Pass by the dykes of my countenance.
These words are for your reference.

Well meant, well healed.
The working day has ended.
Reeled in now, I must go out to drink
For moments lost, for times too far to think
Of. Parametric decoupling of my sensibilities.
Wife swapping would be more fun than this.

I must go now.
I don't want to go out.
What gain, what interest
Can I get from my further humiliation?

No Rheum at the Inn?

"I don't think I can quite stand it,"
He said, as he looked askance in the mirror.
Hairs in his nose protruding again - hankers
After a safe but effective method.
He then thinks of spermicidal jelly
And how the mouth yawns.

The grey marks on his collar and cuffs
Remind him of his lazy iron.
And half eaten apples rot
In terrifying unison
On the bedside cabinet.

Path to past, hashish to thrushes.
Madness, anger at his life's rushes.

Motorway Madness

Do I exchange my MG Metro
For some rusting, coughing metal
From "Fabbrica Italiano Automobile Torino?" -
FIAT as a formal command. But rather
Than blow my wanda on a Panda,
I really do feel I should go for a Lada.

Buy a Russian car? Some'd say I'd be batty.
But I like the image of the car from Togliatti.

And if Italian Communists are beyond perimeter
I could ease myself into a red Reliant Scimitar
And head for the hill in a ragtop retro.
But my aunt would rather see me in a Rover Metro.

I guess I'll keep the cash in the bank - moreover
Anything's better than being seen in a Skoda.

Thursday Night

Thursday night. Too tired to think.
Spilling patterns over the carpet.
Room a mess now, cold too.
Wasted and spaced without a drink.
It's already gone midnight.
Weary and uptight,
It rains on the outside.
This is the downside.

Cambs

We only see the city incomplete.
Snatches of architecture, a table
In a favourite cafe. Trees in the
Mist. Some half-unseen, as if a
Crowded station passes by.
The great mass of knowledge, lent
By my few friends. Usury, small
Portion of the common entirety of
This City. I cycle my streets,
Drink at my pubs. And in a
Blink, a speck in the eye, we
See something unrecognisible and
Our Mind forgets - peripheral amnesia.
In my mind's eye, a shrub, just by
The Cam, halfway between Magdalen
And that disused barge, that
Used to be a gallery.
You've been there?

Crossing the Field

All of a sudden we were volleying,
Batting, bowling, aiming and Rallying.
I turned to look at my friend
In some disbelief and worry
That I may be overcompensating,
Overacting in a hurry
And forcing the game's end.

But the food came, and more beer.
The company, alcohol and Stilton cheering
Me on. Then off we were, walking
Through fields flat and immense.
The conversation diverting, diverse.
Worries then at the current expense
Subdued by the joys of talking, talking.

A junction. the line of conversation stalls.
Disorientation, skipping through fields.
Lagoons of doubts, drones of engines.
Back to the path as it greys, rains.

Home in the car and a breakdown.
Coffee and conviviality with Viv and velvet.
The rest of the day in tiredness.
Damp walk home, food and the down
Train to London, home of the restless.
Looking back, then being glad we met.

I, as ever, the fool
Asking more questions
Than getting answers.
Mixed feelings
But positive about the chances.
The fool dances.

Consummate Durables

More books for breakfast.
Sometimes I wonder if I,
As in my times past,
Will ever have the time to buy
Enough time to scan these words,
These shards of thoughts,
Ideas, quests that have been fought
For, for me to stack and waste.
My only contact with these books, my dust.

What of my plastic coated aluminium disks?
I never seem to have the time to study,
Examine or even risk
Disliking them. Somebody
Should stop me buying CDs.
I should apportion cash to needs
And stop these dirty transactions and deeds.
I must now amortize my waste
Before my mind and chattels turn to dust.

Meditation on a Cambridge Past

I fell asleep at three this afternoon
And woke at seven. It was dusk
At seven, in this late August in my room,
In this late year, ninety-three.
And I felt a feint unease
At the thought of summer
Suddenly coming to an end;
The morning nip, the browning trees.
The night before briefly reeled
Before my eyes. Dancing, sweating
To music of twenty years ago. High-heeled
Boots, collars, nylon, dacron, polyester -
The camp burlesque of "Year-yester,"
Boogie nights, nineteen-seventy-three.

Cambridge, I believe you are
My first real home. The first place
I have throughly inhabited, more
Than anywhere in years past.
I've become comfortable with your face,
As one does of routine beauty.
I kick against your perpendicular,
Renaissance, Gothic less now, now I
Am older. In the present, in particular
An aspect of your past days
To me acts as an indicator of the malaise
Of this society, England in
The inevitable 20C fin de siecle.
My vital lifetime lies herein.

It's almost as if I am sixty not twenty
Years back. Europe, cradle of all we have
As we dizzily spin into the next millenium,
My Europe is in war again. Plenty
Of times this century, peace's tedium
Has been shattered by Europe's clamour.
Amongst the Cambridge I know now,
Touristed, jail-bait-thronged, no glamour,
Ghosts of nineteen-thirty-three speak
In what we laughingly now call innocence.
Speak to me now ghosts. I'm tired of our
Cynicism of your patronage of communism.
Tell me of the facist atrocities in Spain.
Illustrate to me Picasso's canvases of pain.

Tell me now, who is the despised hero?
Tell me of your thoughts on the appeasement
Of the Czechs; the Jews and Queers and
Intellects under Stalin, Hitler. Sarajevo,
What of it? Tell me soldiers, tell me Owen,
Butterworth and Brooke of the games at hand
From the time you died with Ferdinand.
Tell me all you ghosts of this horrific century,
Tell me what is wrong with us? Bosnia
Exhibits it's demon's wares on our TV screen.
Papers sell and the publishers get rich.
In Cambridge, the tourist trade is seen
As a necessary evil, for local prosperity.
Moral bankruptcy, forgetting our legacy.


Where is the Cambridge of thirty-three?
Are we now really so wise, so superior, so happy
That we cannot be idealistic, innocent again?
Men from this town fought and died in Spain.
Now Cambridge men drink, play laser-quest,
Trampoline onto velcro walls in velcro vests.
I'm angry and upset, that in this media
Saturated world, Bosnia is not cause for avid
Action, what-must-be-done; now tedium
Is our collective response. War in the Balkans
Makes us middle-classed think more of
Emma Thompson, blue stockings. And how to avoid
The queue at Branagh's "Much Ado."
Mostar has fallen. Barbarity. But who

Cares now? The IRA bomb the past away.
Great architecture of our civilisations blasted
Into obscure dust. Twyford Down, for example.
Even British Rail is being dissected, drowned
In the loch of noble privitisation. For the first
Time in my life, I really feel that society
Has run it's course, as it embraces all pretence
Of knowing where it's going and what it's doing.
I was frisked last night, This never
Happens at a socially unacceptable queer event.
On gay nights, the bouncers are there to keep
The violence out. So this is my life. Society
Accepts hate and despises love. My
Hands sweat. I exhale. I cry quietly.

Thursday Night

Second book of poems.

Copyright Benjamin Barrier (c)1993

Thought on falling asleep.

Between the paper clips and discarded cups of tea,
In the moment caught between the pain and memory,
After the curtains' close on the dreary day,
Behind that screen, erected to try and make it go away,

Before me, now, in this reflective twilight, sits
A man, who impresses me yet, all the more
Because we, who from him benefit,
Can now more clearly understand the score -

The how, the what, the ways and wherefore
We do this; all preconceived thoughts made forlorn
And small. I find a word I kick against
Time to time. This word invokes defence

So strong - reactionary. In the mess of my room
I berate myself for hating this thought, this dove
That you have freed in me in this gloom.
This answer, bird and revelation? This love.

Cambridge, 31st May 1993 - to Billy Scott

Dream Man

In the darkened spheres of eyes,
In the doughnuts of the corpuscles of blood
Exists a space that is beyond time
And the temporal word.

A man walks down the street in early May,
In his head Chopin can be heard to play.
He's fighting his way to school
Through a muddied pool of thought.

The events in his life have all but superseded
The child. The recollections of a 'fifties house
Send shards of shattered past to the gutter.
The yellow lines blur his line of sight.

Aghast from spirits drunk in false glee,
Reeling against the tumult of the skies,
The man falls over, falls again.
His mother's arms waste sickly as he slides.

Home again for half-past-six and news
Of rain or murder or tales of whose is whose.
Flesh yields to fork, flesh fields of pain.
The whole damn business repeated once again.

Who is this man? more than half his life already lived.
A dream I had, I guess.

Cambridge, May 1993

Overexpressif. Undemanding.

Overexpressif. Undemanding.
Through the fields we gaily tread.
Over five bar, under hedges,
Toying with same fears and dread.
To the castle, on the hilltop,
Faster, faster still we walk.
To the gate and onward, onward.
Ladies' gentlemanly talk.
Forest hills and streams sublime,
Gleaming glades and celandine,
Striding forward, hills of chalk.
Facing gusts and zephyrs westward,
Mending hearts and sacrament.
How jolly we, how far to go
To say that this is all I know,
Forgive, forget and then forgo
The pleasure, the pleasure.

Cambridge, November 1992

Cambridge Pink

There's mud on my boots. Yet
I know I have not really lived today.
The dusk gave me regret;
The shafts of pink assumed the task of that
Which modifies and ridicules the grey.

Time passes like the stream.
The chasms seem to loom up all around.
I felt the fear of dreams
And all the things that that cause me to react
Against the popular consent. Profound

Are thoughts which give us pause
And now illuminate my Cambridge skies.
The bare trees stand, perhaps, despite the fact
That wind and rain and grey can be the cause
For choking in the throat, and tears in eyes.

Cambridge, Late November 1992

Inland on a Sunday

Through my window coldly falls
Sunday afternoon's dreary pall.
Who said that it had to be
As grey as stone, bark of tree

As gaunt as flesh
Without life?
The curtain's mesh
Means all that I

Can see, the street, the cars
The wan people, wrapped in lonely clothes
Blown by winds they don't request
Sourced in seas they have not missed.

And here I
Peer from the gods.
My mind's eye
Records the tides

Of this far ocean, swelling now
Without a why, nor where nor how.
White horses leap, and so subside.
The horses race, and now I ride.

Cambridge, November 1992

On Returning to Cambridge, September 1992

The landing gear jerks as it hits the ground.
The coach wheels pound the M25.
Why does it feel so good
To be alive?
All my journeys lead here: home I am bound.
There where all my stories are told,
And so tongue-tied I speak of these.
I wish I could speak Welsh.

My simple pleasures transcribed to banalities.
My mind sending me signals. I have to laugh.

The sun warms my room, and I see
Through net curtains a scene,
A past spring, a well of
Knowledge. How far have I come
To return from where I am?

My face is wet, and I feel ecstasy.
The trees drip and wash away my vanity.
Water-logged, the Green forgives
And I forget, and that is good.

Tempting clouds gather above.
I trip and slip in the puddles.
The light from in me dances.
I feel I've beaten the odds,
Confounded the chances.

[Written on returning from three months in the USA. The Green here is Jesus Green.]

"The seventh wave shall come to take us all."

"The seventh wave shall come to take us all."
Believing in talking about doing good,
When good is as is a brick wall.
This brick wall doesn't exist
Unsupported.
Changes in the colours of the hair
Compared to l'annee derniere.
Simple now. Only foxes and hounds to face.
Smattering of enchantments,
That's all it takes.
Confluence of wasted harmony.
Bisection of the life before.

We wait on this beach, oil bedecked,
Smiling at passing liners, not waving.
Only as sensible as our trousers.
These trousers don't collapse
When supported.
Stages in development, whilst growing.
Yesterdays coming into being.
But now, with all these cries for money to face,
Scattering of structure,
Why do we accept
Half baked excuses, insults
Of what has been done before?

Failing this we rewind
And repeat the whole damn thing
Again.

Cambridge, late spring 1991

[Looking back at the Gulf War, and the waste of young lives]

In black and black

In black and black
My face turned away
In disbelief and strange calm,
Forgetting not that unique way
He slowly crossed his arms.
Some comments made
In unwanted pause
Means nothing, but cannot
Be divorced from concern.
How little it takes
To have what little you have
Taken away.

Cambridge, Easter 1991

Hear the breath of the earth.

Hear the breath of the earth.
Will I cry, laugh or sing?
Will I be alone or part of one
Whole? I cannot know. I fall,
And as I fall, and call, I think.
I think of ascent. To float, to
Feel the brave tug of surface tension.
To hear the rush of free air -
The wind in the tall trees,
The cry of an owl. To be born,
Again. To know gravity, without
The contamination of buoyancy.

Leeds, late 1989

Torn away from these lonely landscapes

Torn away from these lonely landscapes
We must all find what is ours
And see what is others'.
Fighting for some borderline,
Some territorial sublime.
I've seen fire on a winter's night
And ice on an aeroplane,
But through all of this, something must remain.
Desolation - a rose on a gravel slope,
No light, no time, no single hope.
I've seen this on a wild dance,
An aimless journey, aimed by chance.
Yet something still remains,
Stays the same.
Desperation halts the march,
The dart for an opening.
A quiet field or a groaning city
Gives small solace away.
But still something stays.
I can't go on, can't go on.
Give me another song, a day,
A route to get away
For my time is no longer today.

Birmingham, spring 1989

For the first and last time

For the first and last time
Life seems angelic, pure, unknowing.
Foreseen, all the pasts of this stinking flesh.
Passed by the contents of the gutter,
Crying
Utter tears of pity, then self-pity.
Urine-stinking bus home, urban lights wink,
But not at me.
Faces in the window, discussions, discursions,
Games, fallacies, want to turn and face them.
Time to get out of the bus.
Eyes meet. Messages between strangers.
Do I give compassion, do I patronise?
Mock?
I cry on my bed.
I cry until all gravity is cried out.
The night again, my only mistress.
Black lady in a shimmering, shrouded dress.
The lady who waits.

Birmingham, summer 1989.

[This one's about a bad journey home from the centre of Manchester one
night in 1988 - The contents of the gutter was a psychiatric patient
begging for money - The strangers on the bus were a crabby old queen and
two rent boys he'd picked up. I was very drunk and on my own.]

Oh, blood of my blood - the forgotten aeons.

Oh, blood of my blood - the forgotten aeons.
The faceless boundaries of my mind.
Lips like forests, violets, lilacs on an autumn mist.
A time for sweet wine, flagons of beer, cans of lager.
Fevered sweat on my brow, blood on paper,
Tang of graphite in my mouth and in my body.
Cell mates, torn from limb to precious limb.
Lifeless analogies, contend, contention, contribution.
All the follies of the pasts, sweep away like lost leaves.
New ventures come my way,
More poetry it seems.
Such delight, such utter brutality.
Loneliness on a summer night.
Flight of moth 'round lamp,
Spinning towards infinity, immortality, intangibility.
The rush of images, two sides of brain part.
Lush hillsides and grey valleys of yesteryear.
Spilt redness on sunny, snowly slope.
Eyes meet again, in painful stare;
Pricks in the back garden - night.
Oh, the endless oppressive night.
My dreams, eidolons of my fantasies,
Perversions of my interiors,
Contusions from my realities.
Specific credit where specific credit due.
Dry now, my belly draws in.
The aftermath of the shimmer-storm.

Birmingham, summer 1989

Forgotten dramas and faded pictures

Forgotten dramas and faded pictures
Haunt my thoughts this night.
Hands run through greasy hair,
Tea tastes of tannin.
These things have no place, position,
All dislocated in time, tide and treason.
I move, chimera-like from one backdrop
To the next backdrop,
Learning my lines badly, always
Missing my cues. Each evening
I die. Tomorrow another play.
Fortune favours the brave, but fame
Led to the days of summer.
But I am older now.
Blossom wet, brown, forlorn at my feet.
Damage all done.
Wastage amortized.
Misdemeanours forgiven.
Christmas cards, well meant, heighten
The bad tastes in my mouth, the redness
Of my eyes. The tiredness of my bones.
No tomorrow IS another day.
But tomorrow is tonight.

Birmingham, summer 1989

There's a fever from your foolish brow

There's a fever from your foolish brow,
But it's all right, don't fret.
There's an ache and you don't know why.
But don't worry, something will come.

If there is hope, and the world is real
Then how can you believe anything you feel?
It's all right, don't you cry.

And where the darkest hour lays
There will still be one burning light.
It's all right, don't be frightened.

Time is just a marching sea.
Flowers in the snow is all I think of.
Trembling alone in a sunset sky.
This will not last forever
If you don't want it to be.


Birmingham August 1989 - for anyone in pain.

I'm walking with my eyes closed

I'm walking with my eyes closed
Past railways and bridges
In a city that I'm supposed to love.
I feel blind and detached
And I can hear Joni Mitchell
Singing a survival song.

I'm not grateful to you or anybody.
I could die, or fly away.
I can't even remember your face
Or the way you said goodbye.
But deep in my mind
Where daylight is never found
Is a warmth, a glowing coal
Or a setting sun
Where my spirit will run
Together with someone.

I guess I don't want to see you again,
But I feel the decision's not mine.
With you I felt like a tiger
But the paper's discoloured with time.
When I think of the times we had
The places we saw and walked through,
I can only see them as a movie
Seen on some TV in a lonely room.

I guess I don't want to hear your voice again.
It echoes like in some deep cave.
It's a noise that reminds me of rainfall.
I've cried more that grey skies ever gave.
When I think of the people I've hung out with,
You're just another down the line.
Your feelings were something I cared for
But I can't go on disregarding mine.

Manchester, early 1988 - to RH

Manchester - February 1988

Here in the belly of this city
I cannot see.
I hear, and imagine.
I'm so blind to your beauties,
So asleep to your presence,
So thoughtless about your conscience.

I close my eyes and I can see
Stone buildings
Shrouded in a cold, blunting mist
And my weakness.
Neon burning, and Mr Lowry stalking by.
A view of steam and snow,
Of box grids and girders
And echoes of seawaves.
Stark skytower scraping, grating sun.
Strength, and pain.
Concrete, grey, pain, and acceptance.
Dull acquiescence, from destroyed damp-course
And meccano set block roof.
This is not as it's bigger brother,
A different animal.
A different latitude, maybe.
Maybe I'm learning, maybe it's my attitude.

What do I imagine?
Might have beens, I suppose.
Dancing, dining, discovering.
I have only discovered
Rediscovery.
Complete.

Reasonable

You know it makes me want to cry
So much beauty and so much ugliness.
Essential as bread and water
Eating off each other,
Playfully.

I know, yes I know about my eyes.
So much desolation and so much celebration.
Depth as fathomable as is reasonable.
Like no other,
Feasibly.

The city knows it, the trees know it, the hills know it.
I know it,
Yet why is nature so determinably beautiful?
Why is the weather so irritatingly seasonal?
Why is it my face looks so bloody awful!
And why do I cry when I say something reasonable.

I can feel the stream, entering me, washing through me,
Scouring the dirt and revealing what's underneath.
I can feel myself as an exhibition - people pay to enter,
To look around, to observe.
I can see mountains, like the backs of rested cats.


On Manchester, Summer 1988

Liverpool 1988

Let me float away on your big river.
Let me dissolve into your stonework.
Let me lean on your railings,
Walk your streets
And watch your flow.

Let me watch your ferry on the river.
Let me look at your verdigris birds.
Let me sit on your steps,
Think of your past
And watch people flow.

Fist of Wrought Iron - Clasp of sand

Fist of Wrought Iron - Clasp of sand
Strong as a child, weak in mother's arms.
The terraces, turrets, all blackened with time
Symbolised uplands, comfort and harm.

Rocks, like those which surround me now, fluid,
Cast at an angle, repose for my eyes.

On Edinburgh, Fort William July 1988

Foal, ferret, fickle-fancy.

Foal, ferret, fickle-fancy.
Name on no-one - necromancy
Twittery twist too thrushlike
Salty Sooty. she is stonelike.

Fort William, July 1988

Stilllike

A chocolate box of clouds: Melodies in grey.
Rain; tears waxlike.
Sun, sea, salt, sand: Out for the day.
Vales valleylike.

A sense of rhythm in a song, diluted
By my memories.
Emotions once accepted now disputed.
Time's felonies.

The time for cold, long walks in white.
Tears frozen standstill.
Fireside evening - warm toast, toes, frostbite.
Body sleep, soul vigil.


Fort William, July 1988

Be a Person

Here is a sound
Can you hear it?
Here is a feeling
Can you wear it?
Here is emotion
Can I share it?
And here is devotion
Should I keep it?

Where are my hands
Can you see them?
Where are my tears
Did you drink them?
Can you understand
Why I'm dying?
Where are my fears
Now I need them?

Who was that man
In the darkness?
Who gave that man
Warmth and shelter?
Who said out loud
That I love you?
And who stood out proud
And was falling?

Which path to take
Which to not take?
Which mistake to make
And sink under?
Which dice to throw
Does it matter?
I never know
If I love you.

How can a diamond
Be so ugly?
And how can a man
Be so unkind?
How did you know
I was listening?
Look at the snow
As it's glistening.

There was a time
When I slept well.
Now I can't find
Warmth and shelter.
Each time I cry
No-one's hearing.
Now I will die
For the weekend.

This little pig
Went to market,
This little pig
Stayed at home.
How can it be
That I'm coughing
When I'm supposed to be
The one that's laughing?

For every time
That I see you
I wish that I
Could deceive you.
Now I can see
I was waiting
For you to say
Can I go now.

Out in the park
Trees are swaying.
Here in the dark
I am saying,
"Why must I always
Be alarming."
You say you find it
Often charming.

Here on my lap
Is a postcard
Of a wide open beach,
It's from Marty.
He said the weather
Isn't that bad.
I wish I could
Be a swimmer.


Thirteen times seven
Isn't eighty.
I wish I knew
Why you hate me.
Each time I write
You a letter,
You reply without
Saying thankyou.

My window ledge
Is quite dirty.
I only vacuum
The blue carpets.
Now that my hair
Has been blow-dried,
I cannot go
To a party.

We have all eaten
Well and hearty.
Now I must go
To the toilet.
Coffee is on
Its way, don't fear
We have skimmed milk
And brown sugar.

Violence is
Such a bad thing.
I only kill
What is nothing.
We have no sexual
Inclinations,
But you will find
Us amusing.

Trevor who works
On a bus now
Used to sing songs
At the theatre.
Now when the traffic
Is quite heavy
Policemen are out
Getting stroppy.


Sing me a song
If you would, dear.
I'm going out
To go walking.
Why when the sky
Is a steel grey
Does the pavement beneath
Feel sticky?

Mountains are big
Don't you think so?
The Statue of Liberty
Is in New York.
My socks are from
A well known men's store.
Do you have french toast
For breakfast?

Television is
Quite appalling.
I wish that I
Could stop screaming.
I'd like to wear
Your pyjamas.
I couldn't care
If it rained less.

Chairs can strike quite
Delightful poses.
Life is no
Bed of roses.
Spectacles are
Quite expensive.
I have a space
For an armchair.

People who don't
Ever listen
Are people this world
Can't discipline.
Here in my hands
Is an insect.
I bet that you
Can cook Chinese.


Close both your eyes
And imagine
A shop full of dogs,
Do they bite you?
Sleep is a funny
Way of dancing.
I can only
Be a person.



Birmingham, spring 1987

The Prisoner

The sun pours in through some chance
Against all probability.
This only happens once or twice a year.
This only lasts ten minutes at the most.
This is the only sun he ever sees.
He moves his head.
Briefly, he is uncomfortable.
Briefly, he is sun-blind.
His pale skin burns,
His lips part,
Pleasure breaks through
In the form of a sigh.
Then it is gone.
Damp walls are as before.
Bare bed is returned to
For another year.
He waits for the memory
To repeat itself
Once again.


Birmingham, spring 1987

I don't mind losing a friend

I don't mind losing a friend
If I'm gaining another,
And I don't mind gaining a friend
If I'm losing a lover.

Some people meet and they both find it easy
Even if for different reasons.
But if that difference is greater than the seasons
Then the people must treat each other
With affection
But realise that each is finding their own direction.

Some people touch and they both find it easy
Even if for different reasons.
But if the difference is wider
Than the oceans and seas on
Which we all sail and remember,
Then the people must treat each other as a safe harbour.


Birmingham, spring 1987 - for GR

Deviation

Looking over the Paris skyline, trying to kill some valentine.
Maybe I was wasting my time.
Maybe I was investing in some interesting emotion
Or fuelling a devotion.

Looking over the Birmingham skyline, trying to break the outline.
Maybe I was committing some crime.
Maybe I was exploring. I was deploring emotion
Or disclaiming my devotion.

Looking over the London skyline, trying to hit the headlines.
Maybe I was missing some deadline.
Maybe I was travelling. I was wrestling emotion
Or creating the diversion.

Honestly Mr

Scream
Shout
Give it to me straight.
If you don't give it to me straight
Don't wait
Don't give it to me late.

Rave
Rant
Please be adamant.
I haven't got the patience
To hear out a sycophant.

Scratch
Bite
Just don't be contrite.
You know I haven't got all night.
Fight
Don't doubt you're doing right.

Hit
Spit
Don't give me that shit.
I can well do without it.
I don't doubt a bit
This sentiment isn't your favourite.

Punch
Kick
Try not to make me feel sick.
I'm not thick
And I could do without you being so pedantic.


Birmingham, 1987

Moving Northwards

I'm in the water - floating.
I'm in a boat - am I dreaming?
I see the crowd - arriving.
I can hear the crowd - applauding.

They're applauding for me.
I am important.
I am in the middle of a lake.
It's a clear day
And the vans are driving on the shore.

I am leaving, moving on
But part of me remains,
Dust on the carpets?
Memories of the people
Who no longer know me?
No, they never knew me.

I'm in the field
Below the mansion.
I see the castle.
The trees are warm now.

This is my home.
This is my duvet.
Here it is warm.
Prey, come and join me!

Manchester, 2nd August 1987

[Based on a very vivid dream - I can still remember the make of the vans
driving around the lake shore!]

The One that I Love

I cooked a meal and I threw it away.

Wrote you a letter but I tore it up.
Went to bed but I couldn't sleep.
Went for a walk but I had to turn back.

When someone's in your head
There are many things that are never said.
And when someone's on your mind
The things you feel are hard to define.

When the one that I love is far from me,
When the one that I love doesn't talk to me,
When the one that I love never finds the time,
I wish I could change my mind.

I 'phoned up my mother, but the 'phone's engaged.
I poured me a drink but I can't face another.
I sit in a room full of memories,
I pass the time in a reverie.

In pursuit of indifference I have been.

In pursuit of indifference I have been.

The quest for neutrality has been my scheme.
You're not part of the plan, just part of the dream.
And I'd love to say sorry, but would you know what that means?


In a moment I could tell
There's no real reason to go to hell.
But why be sent to heaven instead?
I suppose it doesn't matter unless you are dead.

For the moment I will wait.
In all probability until it's too late.
There's no way of knowing what the future will hold;
Wet, dry, light or darkening. Black, white, hot or cold.

No Friend of Mine

You're out of your mind,

Do you know that?
I'm not being kind,
Can you see that?
You're wasting my time.
Can you hear me?
You're no friend of mine.


These promises are only strangers
That hate me.
They only placate me.
I only wonder how lowly you rate me
To think you can patronise me!

These lies are only searchers
That find me.
They only remind me
Of how often you try to undermine me.
To think you can sympathise with me!

These words are only daggers
That assist me,
Bring out the sadist in me,
So how are you going to resist me?
To think you could fraternise with me!

What can I do when my analyst doesn't understand me.

What can I do when my analyst doesn't understand me.
What can I do when my dog won't shake hands with me.
What can I do when people look right through me.
And what can I say when old ladies won't talk to me.

I'm walking in circles and scaling extremes.
I'm squaring the circles and following dreams.
I'm fathoming mountains and climbing the lakes.
I'm drifting in the future and making mistakes.

What do I do with the people who care.
What do I do with those people who dare.
What do I do when I've nothing to share.
And what do I feel when I'm never there?

Glass and Concrete

I'm walking through the streets

And wandering in the parks,
Through burning arcades,
Past statuettes and
Under colonnades.

Concrete is my womb
And you are my lifeline.

I'm driving through the rain
And swimming through the fear.
In rotting leaves
I fall and fall
Never hitting earth.

Glass towers are my guardians
And you live in them.

There's mud on the pavement.
There's blood on my hands.
But buried in my head
Are seeds and
Many things sacred.

The crowds are my cover,
The lights, my beacon.
You are in the city.


Birmingham, late 1986

If I closed my eyes for a month and a day

        If I closed my eyes for a month and a day
        And opened them
        What would I see, and could I say
        That things have changed?

Would attitudes be different, would people love
A little bit more?
Or would I discover soon enough
That things are still the same.

        Would the world be a better place
        For one and all?
        Or would the same sad faces
        Fill the TV's frame.

Would I be a kinder man
With no doubts,
Or would I still not understand
The rules of the game?


Birmingham, February 1987

Chance IV

I saw you in the hall

Surrounded by people
I wished I didn't know at all.
In a pool of silence
I lost all my pain.
I even believed I'd never get depressed again.
For six months I was yours, alone.
I wouldn't have lost you
If you had known.

I saw you in the street
Surrounded by traffic.
How I longed for the day we'd meet.
With your face in front of me
I could only cry
For all those burgundy days gone by.
I saw you every day.
You were younger than me
And you were always going the other way.

I saw you beside me
Surrounded by hate.
I'd become so blind: How could I see?
I talked to your face,
Cried for your heart.
All those days I spent tearing me apart.
There'll never be another
Just like you.
All I ever wanted was your love as a brother.

So now I'm alone
And all around me has turned to dust and stone.
If I could carry on
And meet number 4
There might be a reason to walk out the door.
But here I'll stay
For yet another day
To hope that the pain will go away.

I'll never love a woman
And I can't love a man.
I just want someone to understand.

Birmingham, early 1987

Sad Bags

There's a man in the Village

Who asks for cash
To get him some cider -
Look, now he's at the trash.
He feels the cold,
He feels the pain,
But I've just walked right past him, again.

There's a woman in the street
Who says hello.
You'd think these people
Would have somewhere else to go.
She asks me politely
To join her in the cafe,
But all I can do is smile and look the other way.

There are people out at night
Throughout the year.
Why do I wish that they'd
Move out of here?
I can't feel compassion,
I can't even feel bad,
I'm so comfortable, I can only feel a little sad.


Birmingham, winter 1986/87

[The Village is Moseley, a suburb of Brum full of students, authors and
psychiatric patients. And this was before community care.]

Mind Motion

So this is my life?
This pittance, this nothing, this zero?
This box of delights, of riches?
All out of reach, unobtainable?
Like living suicide, self-inflicted genocide.
Mass murder of one's own mass.
Devouring my own flesh.
Destroying my own mind.
What is there to live for?
What is there to die for?
Why should anyone cry for
Me?
(Has anyone?)
(I wouldn't bother
- for me.)
Why does my blood run cold
And my brow hot?
How come I'm always told
To be not
What I am or what I'm patently not?
Sometimes I wish I could get shot
Of my friends.
Those sycophants and self-pleasers,
Those darers and teasers,
Those people in trousers!
Those sexual arousers!
Those 2-D, no 1-D
Who take me and sap me
Of all that's within me.
I'd say, "Oh, God help me,"
But I've done that before and
He couldn't save me
'Cos he don't exist.
But now I'm realising
The words that I'm writing
Are only a fashion,
An important passion
Created by the frisson
Of an inner division.
Devoid of emotion and a lack of devotion
My mind is in motion!

The Chance

We met in the city

In full view of the shiny towers
Of stone, steel and glass.
We met on some sidewalk
In full view of the people
Wandering past.

We spoke to each other
And even though we spoke different languages
We understood.
We looked at one another
And although time was running short
We did what we could.

We wrote our names and addresses,
Gave them to each other
And thought `maybe'.
And now it comes to writing a letter
All I can think is
`Maybe not'.

Birmingham, November 1986 - for Laurent

[An ultimately prophetic poem. It took until 1992 for the prophesy to 

come true.]

Sums are not set as a Test on Erasmus

Who was that at the door, and why didn't I answer it?

Who is that smashing through the glass, and why can't I hear it?
Who is he that's breaking down the barriers, and why do I resist it?

These are the loves and the lies of our eras,
The long, the short, the tall of it all.
They say that the sun shines for only a while
Before the fast impending fall.

Am I at a crossroads? And which way to go?
All roads may lead to Rome, but the paths I tread
Seem to lead me on to a grave so deep
That night will seldom linger on the dread.

Will I ever learn life's basic lesson;
Who is the teacher, who is the preacher?
Whatever it is that I'm trying to understand.

I am Sorry

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry you can't categorize me.

I'm sorry you can't rationalize me.
Honestly, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.
I'm sorry you can't pigeon-hole me.
I'm sorry you can't find a role for me.
Genuinely, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I don't suit you.
I'm sorry, I can't dispute you.
Truly, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.
I'm sorry you can't comprehend me.
I'm sorry you can't ever mend me.
Totally, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.
I'm sorry for misleading you.
I'm sorry for what I've been feeding you.
Really, I am sorry.


Maidstone, summer '86

and America

Take me away from this mad-house we call life,

To where we can do it alone together somewhere quiet.
Far away from the crowd that saddens
And fevers our brows.
The cows never knew you
Like I knew you
When we were still friends
Where the story ends
and America. 

The Turning Tide

You read the lines that made you sad
And saw the days you never had.
You dreamt the dreams of long gone times
And heard a speech devoid of rhymes.

The things they say are in your head.
Like open books you're being read.
And people who are never there
Give advice for you to dare.

And now your mind is fading fast.
Your permanencies never last.
You know there's nowhere you can hide
When your life becomes a turning tide.


But still you had no regrets.
Still you remain impassive.
Emotion never lets
You see the turning tide.


Birmingham, early 1986

Like Love (always there, never here)

I'm always there, watching you pretending to care.

I'm always there, seeing you cutting your hair.
I'm always there, hearing you playing fair.
I'm always here, wanting you, but never getting near.

If I were there, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't dare
To tell you what I want to tell you.
So I stay here, learning to cope with fear
And resisting getting close to you.

When we talk, I never say the things I plan to say
When I'm far away from you.
I guess it's sad never having had a day
Of happiness in someone else's arms.

But what do I care, you are over there.
I am here, and always will be.
The wise man prays as a claim for a share
Is made, and I never bid.

I never gave myself the chance.
I always blow my chances.
Like a foster child with something to hide.
Like a sinking ship we failed to equip.
Like a drowning man, who never can.
Like a screaming fish, making a last wish.
Like love.

Birmingham, early 1986 - for ME

The Falsity of Self-Delusion Part I

A screaming sound from nearby wakes you.
The ringing in your ears

Only serves to deceive you.
The cockerel in the yard only serves to wake you.

A jettisoned cabaret glares you.
Some photograph of a graph
That dares you.
Your hair is all that matters to you.

When I walk away towards you
The autograph in Dusseldorf
Deplores you.
My fingernails do more than tear you.

When that man we know is near you,
The ancient autobus
Endears you
To films unmade, compiled for you.

The bridges in the distance beckon you
To homelands far to
Even touch you.
Beyond the stars there's nothing for you.

A handbag badge will identify.
The secret kiss that
Satisfies you.
Head-to-head with me to touch you.

You hardly know me, you seem to care for me, you seem to like me.
I like you too.


Birmingham, early 1986 - to OW.

Idle Moments II

On silver sands the moonshine glows.
We'd walk and fall in dreams
Of summer days and sleepless nights
And dancing in the breeze.

But the trees knew better
Than to write a letter
To the president of the USA

And the mules saw through
The paradigm we knew
When the prawn began to sway.

Yesterday, like today, is as much
A part of the future as the
Foot tapping on a china clay
Floor in some room in Paris.

Standing on the station
Waiting for the nation
To go by,
I realised that in my mind
I could not find
A tear to cry.

"What, my friend, is truth and reality
  when one believes in what one
   writes in Idle Moments"


Birmingham, early 1986.

[Idle Moments was a prose poem originally written in 1982, and included in my old school's magazine in 1984. The two poems share the same last line.]

Gone

What does it feel like?
Tell me what does it feel like?
What does it feel like
To be alive?

Once I had life, now it's gone
To some void, some far beyond
And now I'm empty, now I feel
Nothing, because there's nothing to feel.

Once I had you, now you're gone
To another country, way beyond
And now I'm empty, now I feel
Nothing - there's nothing left for me to feel.

Once I had me, now I've gone
I don't know where; too far beyond
And now I'm empty, now I feel
Nothing - there's nothing I ever want to feel,
Again.


Birmingham, late 1985

Self-Defensive Manoeuvres (An artform, divided)

How can I resist it? when resistance is accepting it.
And how do I take it?
Some people want to change me, shape me
Or is it manipulate me?
Why? What's it to them -
It's not their problem.
And yet I am feeling altered, changed
Rearranged, but...

A shadow of a tanker will never cause me to thank her
And the mile to the tin, will never let me thank him,
For the words and machines
More than the places I've seen
Are therefore serene
In my mind
Where the shelter never falters
And the man will never alter
Or try to change me in any way.

I'm sick of this endless moment.
Take it away, leave it behind, never mind.
When I wake in the morning
It will be different
You'll see.
As normal;
Sun, sky, clouds, sea, sand, cottages in white
Or blue,
Cities silhouetted on the crimson
Of some sunset somewhere near home
Where I long to wet my feet on dewy grass
And smell the rain after a summer storm.
I will be there, whatever.


Birmingham, early 1986 - on a dream of the South Coast

Only Temporarily

She was temporarily beautiful,
He was temporarily logical,
And for a moment, they were temporarily in love.

So they clung to each other.
Engaged, then married
And tried to rediscover
Love temporarily made.

But they only found
After running around
That temporary love
Lasts only
Temporarily.

Birmingham, early 1986

Birmingham: November '86

Alone in the city, amongst millions of people.
Naked in the city, wrapped up against the November chill.
Lost in the city, between so many landmarks.
Afraid in the city, comforted by the concrete.

In this city, womb of concrete,
Where people walk and meet,
You are not here, always there,
In the country, free from care.

In this city, ties that bound me,
You'll never find me.
I haunt the streets, see the skyline,
Forever hitting the emotional breadline.

I'm only looking for a sign.
Something or someone
To help me change my mind.
I'm not calling out for rescue.
I'm not reaching out for charity.
But sometimes in the twilight
I find it hard to see.

I'm only asking questions;
Searching for an answer
Or helpful suggestions.
I'm not fishing for sympathy
Nor looking for compliments.
But thoughts of myself
Are only to the detriment.

I'm only taking liberties,
Playing my games
Or living my fantasies.
I'm not being unkind
Or being spiteful,
But the way you wear your smile
Is really rather hateful!

The Pull of Romance

They say true love grows and grows.
I say true love is something I'll never know.
When you said, "Let's be friends," all I could say
Was, "You'll never understand," and turn away.

We went through a lot, you and I
And maybe you, like me, never asked why.
I say I'm a loser, you say maybe so,
But maybe losing you is better than never letting go.

I loved you, wanted you, slept by your side
But behind the facade there was nothing to hide.
"Live and let live," they will say by and by,
But all I can feel is, "Live and let cry."

I bet you the Gods all shook their heads
When they saw that inside me was nothing instead
Of whatever it was I pretended to be.
It may take time, but in the end you'll see.

I hated you and I loved you, but that's not much to say
For a man who can reel out junk for a day.
Circumstances, nuances, situations and chance
Couldn't help me from the pull of romance.


Birmingham, early 1987

Love (really) is...

Love is not only a drug,
It's a dog,
A pea-souper fog,
A savory entrée,
Or an after dinner holiday!
It's a picnic
A date.
It's married with hate,
Dealt by fate -
An ace of nothing,
The deuce of hearts.
A jam tart
In a Viennese patisserie.
The jewel in the crown,
A mild curry going down.
The defilement of a young mind.
A warrior with an axe to grind.
A donkey stuck in the mud -
Cattle chewing cud.
Free-falling in an empty sky.
Pretending to die.
Shouting at a brick wall.
Touching something
That isn't really there at all.
A critic and a cynic,
A fever and a medic.
The meanings within it
Are many, my friend,
But don't review it
Before reaching the end.


Birmingham late 1986

I bought myself a train ticket, just to get away.

I bought myself a train ticket, just to get away.
Platform 8, New Street, on a lonely Saturday.
The train arrived on time, a streak of blue and white.
I climbed aboard and headed south, on a wild but tracked flight.

We passed through many stations where blurs of people stood
So bereft. No stopping trains? Were they misunderstood?
It's raining now, and the dirt trickles down the pane.
Through these windows the countryside may never look the same.


Birmingham, late 1985

The Seapeople

How can we ever understand?
When all we can see
Is the back of our hands
As we push for the land.

So in the shadows we glide
But we know that we can never, never hide
As we swim in the sea.
All we know is how to be believed.

Whatever we find
Looking back, to the memories in our mind.
So we'll dive once again
And we say hello to all our friends.

Birmingham, 1986

I like your silence

I like your silence,
Your crazy imbalance and violence.
The way you walk in the park
And ask me whether I'm feeling fine
Or stepping close to some borderline.

I like your face.
The way those eyes look out of place.
That blue that reminds of frost.
I'm lost in your gentle arms.
We're tracing lines on each other's palms.

I like your mouth
I like the words and dreams that come out.


Birmingham, spring 1987 - for CT, unfinished.

OCTOBER, WITH TEARS

First Printed 1993
by the Author


All rights reserved

(c) Benjamin Barrier

Benjamin Barrier is hereby identified as author of this work in
accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.





This book is dedicated to William Scott










Introduction and Acknowledgements

This collection of poems has been distilled from my journal from the period 1985 to 1993. This journal has no fixed chronology, so I have indicated the place and time of the poem where I am reasonably certain, or where I have made explicit references in or near the poem. The six sections correspond to the folders I found whilst compiling this work; nothing else is implied by this arrangement.

For many years, I felt uncomfortable reading these poems, especially the earlier ones before 1989. Now I read their teenage angst, depression and bathos with some affection and detachment. Much of the earlier stuff is not good, but it is honest and, I hope, illustrative of a young man very much out of sorts with the world. If I were reading this collection for the first time, I would start with the better poems at the end and work forwards.

The title of this collection is from a single, morose entry into my journal in 1986; "I'll remember October, with tears, probably."

I wish to thank all the people who gave me cause to write these poems for all sorts of reasons,good and bad. I dedicate this collection to Billy Scott for giving me the courage and confidence to print these poems.

Benjamin Barrier
Cambridge, August 1993

Ah.. Poetry

Back in the early 90s I gathered together some of the poems I had written in my journal from the time I started keeping a journal in my mid teens. After going through 100s of pages of mostly prose, mostly repetitive and self absorbed, I typed a collection onto my primitive PC (running DOS I am sure.)

Happily the files survive on a 1.44 MB floppy disk. Very soon I will lose the current PC with the floppy disk drive, so I decided to extract these text files and keep them for posterity.

But what is the point of having these collected works in a text file somewhere on a hard disk / backup disk / in the cloud. I have this blog, let me publish these poems there.. to be honest they no longer have much worth to me - just some museum pieces of a personality long discarded. I am neither proud nor ashamed of these poems as they are definitely not from me now today. Someone else wrote them.

However there are quite a few to publish - cutting and pasting every one in the same blog post would be too much to handle, so I plan to post one every day or every few days. This should go on for several months - and then there is a second collection. But this is much much shorter than the first.

So here follow my two collections - October With Tears, and Thursday Night

Film Noir and the Contemporary Thriller

What for you are the defining characteristics of Film Noir in the 40s and 50s and how have they been inflected in recent “Neo-Noir” films?

Benjamin Barrier, Cambridge UK, November 1997

In the first section of this essay I deal with some of the stylistic and sociological issues in the classic Noir period of the 40s and 50s. I then take these ideas and apply the key Noir themes to three films of the last two decades. I try to make a case for the modern films being true Noir.

Defining Noir

Light

Before the Noir period of the 40s and 50s, Hollywood films were lit to give a very flat effect. The film stock of the 20s and 30s was not especially fast, camera lenses were not of a sufficient quality, and the Hollywood film audiences expected to be able to see what was going in a movie, and to see the stars they had paid to view. This led to the over-use of High-Key lighting for the actors, in which all facial shadows were eliminated, and full lighting of interior scenes. Cameras were essentially static in the 20s and 30s, so full lighting was easy to achieve as only one camera angle was used. Perhaps the advent of sound had an effect in the late 20s / early 30s, as this new technology possibly absorbed some technical attention.

The classic Noir lighting style is one of deep shadows and luminous pools of light. High-contrast and fast film allows a large range of monochrome colours to emerge from the celluloid.

Mise-en-Scène and Montage

The mise-en-scène in classic Noir makes a big break from the theatre influenced form of pre-40s Hollywood films. Shots are taken from odd, disconcerting angles. Off-centre composition complements the high-contrast lighting. Subversion and distortion of accepted cinematic rules are the order of the day.

Again, editing in classic Noir breaks with the tradition of pre-Noir Hollywood. A wider range of shots is available from the improved camera technology, and editing is used to enhance the disturbing, disorienting effects of the Noir genre. By the mid-50s, editing adds to the manic, eccentric feel of films such as Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955).

Private Investigator

The recurring male lead in a classic Noir is the “Private Dick”, most typically embodied in Bogart’s hard boiled Sam Spade of Houston’s The Maltese Falcon (1941). Variations on the private detective are common, such as the insurance investigator Walter Neff in Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944) and rich playboy / investigator Mike Hammer in Kiss Me Deadly. As befitting the era, there is not much scope for emotional weakness and variation in these male characters – the effect is purely existential in the classic Noir period. The male lead is drawn into moral ambiguity and possible corruption and has to find his way to resolve the situation and restore order. There is often very little feeling of a personal journey. The male lead does not learn, he imposes his order on a decaying world, sometimes to a less than satisfactory end.

The Femme Fatal and the Good Woman

The female characters in Noir often take the classic Freudian forms of Madonna and Whore. The femme fatal provides an odd mix of what seems positive in the 90s – a strong woman who attempts to control events – and negative – the evil force that leads the male character astray into moral depravity. The emergence of a femme fatal must have been a shock for the audiences of the 40s, who must have been used to the woman as mother and home-maker, or at worst a Mata Hari figure, half-mythical and unlikely to encounter the “Ordinary Joe” represented by the private detective. To counter this frightening apparition of the femme fatal, there is often a good woman to provide some kind of balance. Unfortunately for the male lead, this good woman is often unexciting when compared to the sexual possibilities of the femme fatal, so the good woman is rarely more than an incidental character.

War

The emergence of Film Noir coincided with the USA’s entrance onto the theatres of World War II, although it took the post-war French to name and elevate the genre. Wartime concentrates the life of the people. Experiences are given elevated status, as soon one might die. There is often an outpouring of artistic expression during war, and this may have influenced the “brat-packers” of 40s Hollywood. Life is to be experienced viscerally and to the full. Falling for (or being) a femme fatal would have been an exciting possibility for civilians living through a war economy.

Social order in terms of women in the workplace and the black market adds an edge to the era, and Film Noir expresses this in its own way. Everything has its price. Love is quick and easy. Morality is bent to suit the times, where killing is a fact of life. All this distorting influence can be detected in the perversity of Noir.

War also brings refugees. The impact of middle-European film people into Hollywood is evident in Noir.

Family and Economic Prosperity

The family hit hard times during World War II. The male breadwinner was off somewhere fighting the enemy, women found themselves doing man’s work with effectiveness and there was opportunity for adultery and promiscuity undreamed of before the war. What did the man of the time have to come back to after fighting their battles? 40s Noir reflected this sense of the family being under attack and male paranoia of their role being affected and reduced.

However, in the 50s the family seems to make a comeback. The US economy is booming, war technological advances improve the quality of life for families, and all is like a Doris Day / Rock Hudson movie. Like the Los Angeles of the Noir genre, the surface appearance is not indicative of the truth. The atom bomb, the threat of world communism, the paranoia that comes with being the strongest nation on earth and the king of the hill. All these influences subvert the glossy, clean image of the times and somehow Noir carries on seamlessly with these issues.

The character of Noir in the 40s and 50s reflect the very different mood of the two decades, which is remarkable – that a genre can reflect two entirely different American societies. But perhaps this is because the USA went from one extreme (war) to another (prosperous peace) very quickly. Noir is nothing if not the cinema of the extreme.

The Émigré

The influx of middle-European directors, as well as other film people, had a large influence on Hollywood films, well beyond the war. Elements of the German expressionist film and the craft learnt at the UFA studio in Berlin lent Noir an expressionist lighting style, and a number of directors willing to take risks and subvert the standard Hollywood style. Directors such as Wilder, Siodmak, Dymytryk and Lang formed a brat-pack type clique that became fashionable and enabled the Noir genre to flourish despite disappointing mass audiences in the USA. The brat-pack effect sustained the Noir film throughout the 40s, until the themes were taken and used by the 50s Noir directors.

The Communist and the Maverick

The subversion of the American way must have clearly sign-posted the Noir directors of the 40s for the McCarthy witch-hunt. The communist paranoia that was whipped up in the early 50s cut short the careers of many of the Noir’s earliest leaders, or at least forced them to continue under assumed names.

During the 50s, the paranoid Noir was taken on by Mavericks such as Orson Welles, Aldrich and Edgar G. Ulmer.

Actors

Noir produced a number of new stars as the genre required different qualities to previous Hollywood films. Stars like Robert Mitchum were required to reflect the anti-hero characters of the Noir genre.

Composers

Music played a part in the Noir style. A European sensibility was required for the more experimental nature of the genre. In particular, Miklos Rozsa provided many scores for Noir and noirish films, such as Wilder’s Double Indemnity, Carl Reiner’s pastiche / homage to Noir, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982), and noirish films such as Powell and Pressburger’s The Spy in Black (1937)

Some form of Classical music seems to creep into many of the Noir films of the 40s and 50s. Schubert is heard in Double Indemnity and Kiss Me Deadly, the moll in Joseph H. Lewis’s The Big Combo (1955) is a lapsed concert pianist. Even the Al Roberts of Ulmer’s Detour (1945) bashes out ballet music. Perhaps this is an attempt to link Noir films with higher-art?

How Does Neo-Noir film reflect the features of classic Noir?

The modern Neo-Noir film often plunders the stylistic elements of classic Noir. For example, lighting and visual mood has been pretty successfully re-worked for colour films, such as Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) and Burton’s Batman (1989). The private detective / “Ordinary Joe” character is reflected in films such as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, specifically the original 1982 version, Brannagh’s Dead Again (1991) and in Wolfgang Peterson’s Shattered (1991). The femme fatal appears in her traditional guise in Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct (1992), Dahl’s The Last Seduction (1993) and again in Shattered. It is easy to spot where these classic Noir motifs are being employed to produce the required fashionable effect.

More difficult to find is the underlying sense of decayed moral standards, and one character’s attempt to remain uncorrupted by the general depravity going on around them. This underlying sense of doom is not as easy to copy as moody lighting effects and providing stock characters.

The true Neo-Noir film not only plays with the cinematic conventions of classic Noir, but uses some of the underlying moods and character motivations to try and push out the boundaries of the classic Noir period. In particular, to reflect the moral confusion and loss of accepted conventional norms that have come to denote 80s and 90s society in Western industrial democracies.

In Shattered, the Tom Berenger character exhibits true existential panic as he discovers that through plastic surgery, he isn’t the man he thinks he is. Gretta Scacchi plays a particularly effective femme fatale as the woman who draws the male lead character into mental torture and identity confusion. Noir elements such as the opening scene of a winding Californian road at night play on the stock 50s Noir conventions.

Curtis Hanson’s LA Confidential (1997) provides three contrasting characters pitted against internal corruption of the LAPD. Only by compromising their own moral standards and forming a team do the three detectives manage to overcome the threat to moral policing. Each of the three have to work through their doubts about the others’ motivations before they can surmount the moral dangers. The seamy 50s LA locations and Kim Basinger’s prostitute/moll provide the play with 50s Noir conventions.

The original Blade Runner has obvious Noir themes. The Sam Spade voice-overs, the decaying Los Angeles, the shadow filled eternal night time look. The underlying theme deals with the Harrison Ford character’s existential doubt - in this case about whether he is a man or a robot, and about the validity of his memories. Somewhat ironically this theme is more evident in the 1993 Director’s Cut. This and the paranoia about the control exerted on society by the Tyrell Corporation give Blade Runner true Noir validity.

Conclusion

The Noir conventions of style are important in the original Noir genre as well as in Neo-Noir of the last two decades. The visual mood of a film inevitably affects the perception of the characters set against the dark and foreboding world of the Noir film. Style alone is not enough however to denote a true Noir.

The underlying morality and how characters deal with threats to this morality really gives Noir the edge. The combination of this and a sympathetically dark style provide the emotional impact of a really good Film Noir.

I would say that for me the study of Film Noir has made me more aware of the interaction between a character’s morality and motivation and the cinematic backdrop against which the story is played out. It seems to me that Noir provides a readily identifiable link between these two aspects of a well constructed movie.

Main References

1. Notes on Film Noir, Paul Schrader (from course notes)
2. Microsoft Cinemania 97 CD-ROM
3. Sight & Sound, November 1997, BFI
4. Film Noir and the Contemporary Thriller, Course Notes, Patrick Phillips

Why I like The Eurovision Song Contest

Music has been a great passion in my life - and there are two pillars that support this.

My main interest is in serious music - from my early 20s I was deeply into 20th Century classical music, principally from England and Russia - the two main composers being Ralph Vaughan Williams and Dmitri Shostakovich. I also have a long time interested in serious electronica - my main protagonist of this is John Foxx, whose music opened up links to the Surrealist movement especially painters like Dali, Ernst, Magritte and Delvaux, the written works of J.G. Ballard.

The other pillar is light / easy-listening music.


In the 90s I attended a semester of a film studies course affiliated to Cambridge University. One of the lecturer's theories was that big hollywood blockbuster movies can be considered art. The fulfilment of expectations - the man meeting a beautiful woman, losing the woman due to misunderstanding and regaining the woman at the end - with car chases, gun battles and and evil opponent as a sideshow - this fulfilment is what gives pleasure and joy to the observer, and thus this can be considered art. Not all hollywood blockbusters can do this successfully, but every now and then a popcorn movie attains a level of art.. not high art to be sure, but still art.

I make this connection to music too. Classical and serious electronica can be considered high art, if not always good art. But the simple catchy melody of a schlager / eurosong, the lyrics about simple forms of love, the verse-chorus-middle section-reprise-climax structure, the key changes and the three minute time limit give the listener pleasure due to expectations being fulfilled.

Hence I consider the best schlager in all its forms to be art, not hight art to be sure, but still art.

The cliché boundary - as the point of a eurosong is to fulfil one's expectations, clichés are part of the game. We need clichés to be taken to the edge of acceptability, and to be used in inventive and surprising ways. However, eurosongs all too often go over the edge. As I write this, Ukraine has decided to enter I Love You which is way way too far with the cliché usage.


There exist, in my opinion, a number of different audiences for Eurosong - each with a different set of favourites.

A. The public watching the show on the night plus the juries

B. Eurosong fans - predominantly gay

C. The general public

Evidently the most important group is A, as this group determines who proceeds from the first rounds to the eventual ESC winner. This group is often quite hard to judge - the type of music liked by this group will be diverse, there will be voting for one's neighbour country, or for songs in one's own language. Many of this group only hear the songs once before voting, possibly twice. This gives quite a different perspective to group B.

Group B is where I come from - this is quite a different world to group A, since the Bs follow the competition from the earliest stages, listen to the songs many times before the semis start - discuss endlessly on forums and on facebook, meet for club meetings and discos. The style of music popular with B can be very different to A, and the voting results are often quite mystifying.

Group C generally laughs at Eurosong, especially the British and the Italians. The Italians have no excuse as they invented the concept, and looking at the final of San Remo this year, their songs are just as schlagery and clichéd as Eurosong. And for sure the voting is just as corrupt, if not more so... We can generally ignore group C for being ignorant. Though there are some that are ready to be turned to the truth and light...

So Eurovision Song Contest - art for the masses or not?