Les Misérables

[WARNING: minor spoilers; go to the last line if you want to see the musical fresh]

Sometimes we get so used to circumstances that it takes a sudden insight from the distant past to remind us what we enjoy or what we suffer daily.

The state of the entertainment industry, in Britain and America is such a case. The system is so shot through with politics that certain very normal, realistic events and characters are simply unthinkable.

I went with my wife to see Les Misérables recently, and some of the value of the play is the almost unthinkable behaviour of the characters.

When the main character, Jean Valjean, steals from the Catholic Priest and is caught, we assume that a Priest is going to be a terrible man who wants him hanged. Instead the priest claims to have given Jean the things he stole, even claiming he left more silverware behind and giving him the candlesticks. He had seen Jean as a desperate man who needed help and compassion, even if he did not deserve either.

When Valjean becomes a wealthy, powerful man, he is an important local employer. Much to our surprise he is shown as caring about his workers, but also satisfied that his enterprise is employing others; when he fears he will be returned to prison for breaking parole, one of his main concerns is for the people who would then lose their livelihoods.

Both of these characters are so surprising to us, not because they are abnormal. Many Catholic Priests are very generous, patient, kind and understanding. Many wealthy employers take great satisfaction in employing people and making a close community. What surprises us is that such characters are portrayed on stage. We are used to evil, small-minded or bigoted Priests and grasping, self-serving employers.

The musical is of course based on a book written long before such portrayals became ubiquitous. It is not politically biased, but does also touch other ideas that seem odd to the modern filmgoer or television viewer. The anti-royalist student radicals are naïve, well-meaning and courageous, but also their leader is shown to be uncaring of an individual, interested in the people but seemingly only as an ideal. That seems a very perceptively-written character. There are themes throughout of personal responsibility and the evils of an uncaring, impersonal government in the person of the police officer Javert, who is not a bad man but is the antagonist of the piece through just following his perceived duty as an officer of the law.

Oh, it’s a great musical by the way, I thoroughly recommend it. Matt Lucas (of Little  Britain fame) made a fantastic innkeeper.

Orwell’s Forgotten Predictions

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a book from which most people only know one concept, that of being under constant surveillance. It is far from the most important concept in the book.

Not a Sheep highlights today a satirical comparison of 1984 and Brave New World, Aldous Huxley’s idea of socialist Utopia. The cartoon goes much further than that shallow idea of being watched, but does not address what I always felt to be the most important themes in 1984, Newspeak and corruption of history. It is too long since I read Brave New World, and I cannot remember if or how Huxley addressed these issues.

In 1984 language was changed to control thought. Words were not to be used, others no longer had all the same meanings and others still had their meanings reversed. In that way it was intended to control thought, because abstract thought without language is very difficult (and all but impossible to communicate) and control of language allowed control of what could be thought in that language.

While I agree with the cartoon that Huxley’s vision is closer in many ways to developing reality, Orwell did get the language concept right. The authoritarian left is quite literally doing what Orwell predicted.

There are words we cannot say, concepts we cannot express without being the object of contempt or hatred. Other words and concepts have been twisted to the reverse of their original meanings. Words such as 'liberal', 'tolerant' and 'progressive', concepts such as anti-racism, anti-fascism and diversity are used to mean exactly the opposite.

An important slogan in 1984 is “Whoever controls the past controls the future. Whoever controls the present controls the past”. Winston Smith, the protagonist, works is the Ministry of Truth changing the records of history, the control of the past.

The left has altered history, in a wide variety of ways. We are told that European culture is solely responsible for slavery, when the truth is that until European culture developed to ban slavery it was almost universal. We are told that FDR saved the world from depression with his ‘Keynesian’ and other socialist policies, when they actually deepened recession into depression, and Keynes later disavowed them. We are told that racism is historically right-wing, when from the Democrat Party and unions in the Southern USA to Nazis and Communists it has been far more a factor in the left.

Unless we wish to succumb to shrill left-wing authoritarianism we must take back our history and take back our language. In order to do so we need to challenge bias in government, education and the media, especially powerful, influential special interest groups like the NUT and the BBC.

The Most Important Video

This might be the most important video you ever watch.

Rather the historical detail it gives on Critical Theory, with the perspective that shows on the links between ‘liberal’ socialism, communism and political correctness, could be the most important fact to spread. Certainly those of you concerned about the ‘New World Order’, the EU and bias in the news media will learn about your fears.

The most important thing I took from it is that these things are not vast conspiracies with tentacles in all walks of life. They are emergent patterns, coming from socialist dogma of Critical Theory just as an efficient, structured economy emerges from the free market or organisms emerge from evolution. Structures that look a lot like a conspiracy, behave a lot like that and could have the same end results. However the apparent tentacles are not willing, aware parts of some plot, they are ordinary people with incorrect or more often incomplete information – the narrative mentioned in the video.

That is the reason that no conspiracy has become obvious (I wrote before about the reasons most conspiracy theories don't add up). However it is also the great weakness of Critical Theory, and if it remains free the internet is likely to kill it. Knowledge is key to stopping its spread.

Since this is mentioned on Instapundit and is a PJTV video it will have a wide audience.

Too Much Text …

… and that means we need another picture …

… and another musical link.

Too Much Text Again …

We need a photograph.

With a musical theme (click the picture for that).

What a Truly Great Film

Well, after watching that rank piece of foetid offal yesterday I decided to make up for long being remiss. Until this afternoon I had never watched Casablanca. I know, it is a difficult thing to admit, but at least I have now corrected the oversight.

Of course I loved the film. It is everything that Indian Jones was not. The story was believable and well-considered, as well as having some meaning. The acting was understated, as was the action. The writing was articulate and witty. There was character development.

The irony is that this film was just another in the continuous Hollywood output of the time. It was written and made quickly in the middle of the war. The screenwriting was a hurried adaption of an obscure play that had never been staged.

So I was thinking that this is what Shakespeare would have produced in modern times. It was for a mass market. It was considered good but unexceptional when first performed. It has an involved plot with some classic elements, with twists. Characters have depth, few are purely malevolent or purely benevolent, and they make mistakes. The most Shakespearean of all is how much of the dialogue is so evocative that it enters into our culture. How the script, written so quickly, is so quotable.

Here’s looking at you, kid.

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.

Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.

We'll always have Paris.

Round up the usual suspects.

All wonderful lines, and there are great, witty bits of dialogue that are still well-known, even by those that haven’t seen the film, just like Shakespeare.

And what in Heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?

My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.

The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.

I was misinformed.

In short, if you are ever hiring a DVD and forced to choose between Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Casablanca, you know which I would recommend.

This is not going to become a film-review blog, or any kind of lifestyle blog. Back to normal service as soon as anything interesting happens.

What a Truly Crap Film

I don’t usually blog my life, but I think this is worth it, if I can save one of my readers two hours of life.

I just watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. What a truly terrible film. What a waste of data bits, let alone celluloid.

After giving it half a star out of five, my review for Love Film reads thus

I enjoy a good Hollywood thriller, nothing wrong with cheap fun; I likes the first three, hell I even liked Independence Day, the benchmark in B movies. But this is not fun, this is complete and utter crap. The action sequences manage to be both contrived and unconvincing. The plot is not only really bad, but it doesn't even hold together. The only thing sillier than the Indiana Jones traps is the way he defeats them.

I would say it is predictable, but each time it is worse than you think they will go.This really is dross.

Two hours I will never get back.

I think I was rather generous there, but my excuse is that I could not think of the words to describe how bad this film is within Love Film's character limit for reviews. This really was one of the worst films I have ever seen, a turgid, ill-conceived, over-written, meaningless, inarticulate, confused piece of junk; it could not even fall into the "so bad it's fun" category. Hell, not only is it worse than "Mars Attacks" but I can't think of anything else bad enough to even bother saying that Crystal Skull is worse.

Ahhhhh, that’s better, now I have said it.

Artist Understands UK Cultural Heritage?

Although I don’t think I would have made the choice to replace Sir Keith Park with this piece of art, at least it shows some sense of culture and history. Putting Nelson’s flagship in Trafalgar square at least has some dignity and relevance, unlike the current farce.

Maybe I am misunderstanding what the artist intended (does it say something about the art establishment that I assume I might be mistaken when I can say something positive about public art, or does it say something about me?) but I also read in the use of African designs in the sails a positive cultural link between Africa, black British people and Britain. I read that British people of African descent, even Africans today, have as much reason to be grateful to Vice-Admiral the Viscount Nelson’s victory over the forces of tyranny as those who were in England in 1805.

Tonight I drink again to the immortal memory.