THE PRESENCE OF PLEASENCE

It's a ridiculous five years since we last celebrated the appearance of the Donald Pleasence in a cinematic role, so let's get straight to it. 

Arthur? Arthur! (1969) gives the Worksop Wonder two rare opportunities: 1. the lead, and 2. the chance to overtly exercise his considerable gift for comedy. Donald plays Arthur, a bald Wallace-like inventor who, fed up with his tedious life and lack of success, reinvents himself as a switched on hirsute swinger who is, naturally, irresistible to the ladies.

I know it sounds promising but, sadly, it's a flat, muddled, silly film that was never released theatrically. Nevertheless, Donald's does quite a lot with what he's given, including providing some groovy go go dancing and, on a couple of occasions, stripping down to just his underpants. 

WHEREVER YOU GO, THERE YOU ARE

 

'Robinson believed that, if he looked at it hard enough, he could cause the surface of the city to reveal to him the molecular basis of historical events, and, in this way, he hoped to see into the future'.

London (1994) is a sometimes informative, sometimes whimsical, sometime banal account of a man who, in the company of his ex-lover, Robinson, undertakes a series of long, circuitous walks around the metropolis. 

A simple, undynamic film, it basically consists of wry narration laid over a series of subjective single shots, but the skilful, mesmeric conjunction of words and images creates a synergy of meaning, i.e. as with the quote of at the top of this piece, a certain surface profundity is achieved which doesn't always bear up under closer examination.

The London of thirty years ago looks relatively vacant in comparison to now, with lots of empty streets, derelict buildings and patches of wasteland adjacent to prime locations. This London has a palpable sense of haggard history that is as much about decay and decline as progress and growth, and is still predominantly a place where people live and work rather than the retail and heritage theme park large parts of it seem to have become. 

Written and directed by former architect Patrick Keiller, the first film in the Robinson trilogy has proved to be hugely influential, not least in how it provides a fine example of psychogeography without getting into the boring small print.

MAGNIFICENT RUIN

 

Tony Sinden / Alan Baker & The Insects: Magnificent Cactus Trees... (Piano Records, 1979)

One of the scuzziest sounding records I have, in one of the scruffiest and most badly designed sleeves. A scratchy, repetitive, minimal guitar motif is complemented by tinny bongos and the intermittent and intrusive hiss of machine noise. 

A price sticker affixed to the label shows that the record passed through the Record & Tape Exchange in Notting Hill, and was gradually reduced in price from 40 to 20 to 10. I'm assuming pence. 

I don't really know what this record is for, but I like it, and listen to it whenever I want music that sounds like a faulty clock in an empty factory with a hole in the roof.

IRREPLACEABLE GENIUS

David Lynch (1946-2025) 

'We wish you peace and happiness, and long live Eraserhead'.

EVERYDAY ELECTRONICS

 

007: Fuzz Box

NINE YEARS ON

'But for that cloud that floated in the sky, 

I know that still and shall forever know it. 

It was quite white and moved in very high'.

TODAY'S MOOD

 

RITUALISTIC

Storm de Hirsch (1912-2000) could have been content simply with having one of the greatest names of all time, but she was also a groundbreaking film maker. The screenshots here are from Peyote Queen, the second part of a trilogy called The Color Of Ritual, The Color Of Thought in which she scratches, etches and paints directly onto 16mm film and then adds a kitchen sink load of optical effects to create something wild and weird and psychedelic that reflects her early experience as an abstract-expressionist painter.

THIRTY YEARS OF 'SAFE'

 

Todd Haynes 'Safe' premiered at the Sundance Festival in January 1995. 

If you haven't seen it, it stars the superb Julianne Moore as Carol White, an affluent suburban housewife who becomes seriously ill with something that can't be diagnosed, but seems to be an extreme reaction to her environment. After several unpleasant incidents, Carol ends up at a retreat / commune / leper colony for people with similar physiological and psychological issues and, cloistered in her bunker like quarters, finds a kind of equilibrium.

For me, it's one of great films of the 20th century, not least because it is so prescient about life in the 21st, when the whole world is sick, not just from disease but from stress, toxicity and fear - the Future Shock that Alvin Tofler wrote about in the 1970s not just made manifest, but compulsory. 

I don't have any answers, just a definite conclusion: people aren't supposed to live like this - we can't live like this. I'd like to take Capitalism and its proponents out into the city square and machine gun them - although rather than putting more money into the arms trade,  perhaps it would be more appropriate to beat them to death with a stick.

Happy 2025!

A PICTURE YOU CANNOT FORGET

 

Carnival of Souls (1962) is one of my favourite films, so I've seen it lots of times. Up until yesterday, however, I hadn't seen the colorized version, from which this screenshot is taken. The finished product reminds me of the makeup morticians apply to corpses.