THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE

UK, 1968, 114 minutes, colour.
Maggie Smith, Robert Stephens, Pamela Franklin, Gordon Jackson, Celia Johnson.
Directed by Ronald Neame.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a very interesting film, both comic and tragic, containing a lot of wisdom and some sorrow.

Muriel Spark's novel was a short, witty and incisive book about a self-infatuated teacher of girls in a progressive Edinburgh school of the 30's. It traced the ideas and goals of Jean Brodie during the best years of her life and the hold she had on her girls, moulding their minds, hearts, personalities and running their lives for them until one of her girls put her theories of independence into practice and 'betrayed' her. The play, based on the book, started with Sandy, the betrayer, as a Poor Clare nun, and reminisced about Jean Brodie. The film version has a straightforward narrative, focussing entirely on Jean Brodie and omitting the Poor Clare sequel. The film captures the spirit of the book and English stage actress Maggie Smith (seen in The V.I.P.'s, Young Cassidy, Desdemona in Olivier's Othello, The Honey Pot, Hot Millions) gives a polished, rather stylised performance as Jean Brodie and unexpectedly won the 1969 Oscar for it. Pamela Franklin (who has grown up through The Innocents, The Lion, Our Mother's House) is excellently quiet and menacing as Sandy.

Robert Stephens (Maggie Smith's husband - Morgan, Cleopatra, Sherlock Holmes in Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes) is the painter Lloyd.

The film was directed by veteran director Ronald Neame (The Million Pound Note, The Horse's Mouth, Gambit, Scrooge).

1. Did you like Miss Jean Brodie? Do you think the makers of film wanted you to like her? Was she a good woman?

2. How dangerous was Jean Brodie? How dangerous can a school teacher be?

3. Comment on the facets of her character and her principles presented in the film: her affectation, snobbery, romanticism, her desire to be 'progressive', her belief in natural discipline, her interest in D. H. Lawrence, Nietzsche, Mussolini, Was she caricatured by the film - her poses, hands, voice, manners, drama (Hugh of Flanders)?

4. She said she was against the binding of thought (e.g, by the Catholic Church), yet she was unwilling to let others think differently from herself. What kind of personal (and blind) loyalty did she want from her followers?

5. Why did she value her prime? Why did she dedicate herself? (She wanted girls to be given her to put old heads on young shoulders and they - the creme de la creme - would be hers forever.)

6. What did her fantasies, her rationalisations and her visions for her girls reveal about her? She pictured herself as being used by Teddy Lloyd and yet she used Lloyd for Jenny Lowther as an outlet and never understood Sandy.

7. How did she reveal herself in her affected affront at accusations without proof, her spirit of skilful and self-righteous invective and her ruthless sense of dedication?

8. Teddy Lloyd - what kind of a man? Why was he frustrated? Why mediocre, middle-aged and second-rate as man and painter?

9. What kind of a man was Lowther? just weak and nice? What did Jean Brodie see in him?

10. The headmistress - conservative, subservient to the board, the type of authority and education that Jean Brodie abhorred?

11. Why did Jean Brodie admire Mussolini so much, also Franco? Why did she exalt Mary Mc Gregor into a heroine? What feeling did she have at Mary Mc Gregor's death? Sandy said she called her the full name, Mary Mc Gregor, only because she couldn't remember anything about her but wanted to mould her.

12. Sandy - dependable, unemotional, a spy; girlish, (the letter, the imitations), yet vengeful, involved with Lloyd but shocked at Mary Mc Gregor's death,

13. Jean Brodie was destroyed by someone who had learned her lessons, who thought for herself, judged. Jean Brodie thought of herself as a leader, a Duce and acted as a conqueror and so her downfall was betrayal and assassination. Why did Sandy betray her? (Jean Brodie told lies but told the girls to say nothing, 'Do as I say, not as I do.')

14. Jean Brodie kept up appearances when her dreams were frustrated. She built up everything and was left with nothing. Did you pity her at the end? Why?

15. Sandy was glad that Jean Brodie retorted to her betrayal with histrionics, proving that Sandy was right. Did Sandy think she was right? Do you think she had any regrets? note her face in the final frames of the film.

16. What did the film contribute to ideas on education concerning: children's wills, thinking for oneself, dependence, arrogance, manipulation, loyalty, information and developing taste and sensitivity?

17. The novel was written with shifts of time and brought the story to Sandy's conversion and entering the convent as a Poor Clare nun. The stage-play began with Sandy as a nun talking to an interviewer, and ended with Miss Brodie's suicide. Do you think the film should have used some of these ideas and techniques?

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

US, US, 85 minutes, colour.
Michael Sarrazin, Barbara Hershey, Arthur Hill, Ruth White, E, G, Marshall, Robert Klein.
Directed by Robert Mulligan.

The Pursuit of Happiness 1s a good little drama of the contemporary values and generation gap. It is set on a U.S. campus and reflects the discussions and activities of the young in the late 1960's. The hero, a typical young Michael Sarrazin performance (as his Robert in They Shoot Horses, Don't They?}, is engaging and shown as a victim of chance, background and upbringing, of stupidity and conscience. Reaction to his behaviour will vary from audience to audience, but what happens to him and what he does will be of interest. The generation gap is not slanted against parents, but rather the film is critical of bureaucracy and the letter of the law.

Robert Mulligan treats of harsh topics in his films but with a rather gentle touch - for instance, To Kill a Mockingbird, Love With the Proper Stranger, Up the Down Staircase, The Stalking Moon, Summer of 42.

1. How did the title apply to the film?

2. How symbolic was William's sailing the yacht during the credits?

3. Was William's life prior to the opening of the film, sketched in well enough? He had been a campus activist previously. Why had he stopped? He said, towards the end, that he had been heading towards dropping out for some years. Did the film make this clear?

4. Were William and Jane typical U.S. students or were they too clean and conventional?

5. Did you like William? Why?

6. Did you like Jane? Why was she such an enthusiast? Did she love William?

7. What were William's attitudes towards his father and grandmother? Was he rebellious, superficial, loving? Was he irresponsible?

8. Were you shocked at the accident? Did William do the right thing after the accident? How responsible was he for the old lady's death?

9. Did he conduct himself well during the police interrogation? Was he too off-hand, blunt or honest?

10. Was William's uncle's legal advice sound? What was it based on? Were you impressed by his methods - in the interview after William went to the Conroys and Daniel Laurence explained attitudes, discussed the suit and the outcome of the judge's opinion on the case?

11. Should William have gone to see the Conroys? Was the daughter's hostility predictable? Why was the 'atheism' to the 'nest of Irish Catholics' included?

12. What did you think of William's father? Was he a good man? What was his relationship to his son?

13. What did you think of William's grandmother? What kind of America did she represent - White, Anglo-Saxon?, Protestant? How arrogant was he, how bigoted? Why?

14. Were you surprised at the outcome of the trial?

15. What impression did the prison make - the Senator cell-mate, his behaviour and attitudes, the friendship with George Wilson, the hard labour, the letter, the homosexuality, the prejudices, the fight?

16. Was William right in his decision to try to say exactly what happened and to speak his 'conjecture' ? Was he right in what he said in the court - Was the interrogation fair?

17. Should, he have escaped? Once he escaped and talked things over with Jane and Melvin, should he have gone back, especially since he would be out in a week? Why did he think he had to stay out? Why did he make so much of 'accidents' and chance?

18. Was his getting money from his grandmother too easy? What did you learn about the beliefs, attitudes and differences of both during the interview?

19. What comment would you make on his father's and-his uncle's attitudes to his flight? What was the significance of William's promising his father he would write?

20. Was Jane given a fair choice? Why did she decide to go? Why did Melvin stay?

21. What was the effect of the car breaking dawn in the city? What did it contribute to the feeling of the film?

22. What did you think of their being exploited in the flight to Mexico?

23. William said he wanted to get away to think things out for himself. Do you think he would stay away always?

24. Was the final symbolism (and the song) effective - the small plane, huge New York and the angles on the Statue of Liberty?

THE PUMPKIN EATER

UK, 1964, 111 minutes, Black and white.
Anne Bancroft, Peter Finch, James Mason, Cedric Hardwicke, Richard Johnson, Eric Porter, Alan Webb, Cyril Luckham, Yootha Joyce, Maggie Smith.
Directed by Jack Clayton.

The Pumpkin Eater 1s a complex and moving film about a difficult woman. She divorces her husband, remarries and takes her children with her. She craves love but her life is in her children. The couple begin to drift, he dallying with other women, yet also devoted to her and the children, she bordering on neurotic suspicion. As the situation worsens both husband and wife draw our sympathy and yet alienate us by doing stupid things. Things must come to a head.

Anne Bancroft endows the wife with a complex mixture of tenderness and selfishness. The symptoms of Mrs. Robinson are there, but they are tempered by a basically more gentle and loving personality. Peter Finch shows the same qualities in his portrayal of the husband and gives another fine performance. James Mason has a chance to do a different characterisation as a flighty and jealous businessman.

Direction is by Jack Clayton who has made few films but they have been outstanding: The Bespoke Overcoat, Room at the Top, The Innocents and Our Mother's House. Screenplay is by Harold Pinter. The opening 20 minutes or so are a clever use of flashbacks, the wife's memories shaded by the sadness and loneliness of her repeated wandering around her home and looking out windows. Pinter is absorbed by the conflicts of will between man and woman, so this screenplay, based on Penelope Mortimer's novel, is in his line of interest.
An absorbing adult movie.

1. What were your first impressions of Jo as she stood - even during the credits - looking out the windows, well-dressed but unhappy, walking around the house and remembering?

2. What was her relationship with her husband at the opening of the film?

3. Do you remember the quietly sad musical score at the beginning (and throughout the film)? How did it contribute to mood and atmosphere?

4. Why did Jo divorce her husband and marry again? Did she do the right -tiling/? How did it affect her? Her children? Did she love Jake?

5. Did the sequences with the fathers contribute to your understanding of Jo and Jake?

6. What kind of a woman Was Jo? Was she loving? Was she selfish? Was she neurotic? How ambitious was she? Why didn't she share her husband's professional life more? How important were children to her?

7. Why did Jo consider Philpott a friend? Was she suspicious of her husband? What about the questions about the fainting?

8. What kind of a man was Jake? Why did he marry Jo? Did he love the children? Was he a good husband and father? Was he at all lonely? Did he phase other women?

9. What was the significance of the psychiatrist sequence (and Jo's previous overhearing of the doctor's discussion with her husband)? What did it reveal about Jo as a person? Did you sympathise with her? Were you critical of her?

10. What did Jo’s awkwardness in the sequences with her older boys reveal about her?

11. What kind of a man was the character portrayed by James Mason? Why was it important that his boring and pedantic character be well established from the beginning?

12. What did you make of Jo's encounter with the frustrated wife at the hairdresser's? Did it contribute to your sympathy for Jo, to your understanding of her?

13. Should she have had the pregnancy? Haw did her mother's reaction affect her?

14. Was Jake genuinely concerned about her? Why did he advise her to have her operation? Was she happy to have had it?

15. Why did Bob Conway want to persecute her for her husband's affair? Why was he vindictive? Did he love his own wife?

16. What was Jo’s reaction to all this - and to the pregnancy of Beth Conway? Was she justified in her reaction?

17. Was there any point in her return to her former husband? Why did she? What did she expect to happen? Did this episode help you to understand her better?

18. After the clash of the two men in the bar, how did you know what was true about Jake 's behaviour and what was not?

19. Was the ending satisfactory? What do you think would have happened to them? Was all love lost?

20. Do you think this was a genuine picture of real people, their problems, suffering and complexities, the good and bad side to their personalities, their vulnerability and uncertainties? (The title refers to Peter, Peter, the Pumpkin eater, Had a wife and couldn't keep her, He put her in a pumpkin shell, And there he kept her very well.)

THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST

US, 1967, 100 minutes, Colour.
James Coburn, Joan Delaney Godfrey Cambridge, Severn Darden, Will Geer.
Directed by Theodore J. Flicker.

The President's Analyst is quite a clever and funny satire on the United States, its people, institutions and politics. It was hardly noticed when first released. James Coburn plays himself as the man chosen to receive the burdens of the President's psyche. From privilege it becomes psychosis and nervous breakdown, giving the opportunity for a picaresque satirical adventure with a typical American family, a group of hippy musicians, spies, a Canadian yacht and a parody of Harry Palmer's torture in The Ipcress File, where our analyst becomes a victim of the Telephone Company's plot to take over in the United States. Dialogue is witty and there is plenty of visual humour and comic situations, especially those involving spies and two mythical organisations, the G.E.A. and the F.B.R. (the latter a puritanical, rule-bound squad of 5 foot high humourless agents).

Writer-director Theodore J. Flicker pokes fun at most aspects of the American way of life and doing things (and also at the Russians). It is a laughter-filled poking-fun, although many of the issues are deadly serious, Flicker wrote and directed Up in the Cellar (1969), a sleazy campus story which nevertheless had in its plot and in incidentals some of the funniest satire on the American university and revolution scene.

The President's Analyst is excellent American satire.

1. List the main targets of satire in the film. What (whom) were attacked most effectively? How?

2. Was psychoanalysis made fun of? Was it ridiculed unfairly?

3. How did the two strands of action shown during the credits (the analyses and the spies and murder) set the mood for the film and combine effectively at the opening of the film?

4. How good a psychiatrist was Dr. Schaeffer? Why was he picked to be the president's analyst? How did the interview with the older psychiatrist in the art gallery show this?

5. What was the difference between the C,E.A. and the F.B.R? Why were each satirised? What do you think the writer-director thought of the F.B.I.?

6. What aspects of American patriotism were laughed at in the White House scenes?

7. Why did Dr. Schaeffer become paranoid after the sessions with the President? Was there a serious point behind this?

8. How much of a caricature was the 'typical American family' prejudice, pride, violence?

9. Why did the film make the Russian and American spies so friendly?

10. Were the hippies and their music, drugs, love and sex presented seriously or were they being laughed at?

11. Why was the sequence with the Russian spy on board the yacht with all the jokes at Russia's expense so long? Was it to 'even out' the satire against the Americans?

12. Were you satisfied with the Telephone company finale with its mad plot to control America and its automatons? What was the point of it?

13. How did Dr Schaeffer change when he 'joined the club’ and started shooting to kill? Why did he enjoy it?

14. Was the finale - automatons watching the main characters - a good ending? What did it mean?

15. Comment on the effectiveness of individual scenes as good satire -e.g. the psychoanalysis story of the spy learning that he was a nigger, the luck of spies "being really able to kill to vent hostilities”, Schaeffer’s New York walk and the Statue of Liberty, the spies murdering one another.

THE PAWNBROKER

US, 1968, 119 minutes, Black and white.
Rod Steiger, Jaime Sanchez, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brook Peters, Raymond St. Jacques, Juan Hernandez, Baruah Lumet.
Directed by Sidney Lumet.

The Pawnbroker has quickly become a classic, generally hailed by critics and public alike. It is a sad and suffering film, an image of so much of the world's suffering in the 40's, 50's and 60's.

Rod Steiger incarnates, in a restrained and convincing performance, the displaced European Jew who was persecuted and who survived only to hate. A refugee in a squalid New York, he can only release his hatred in petty ways to the people he encounters in his pawnbroking business. People reach out to like him, make contact with him, but find themselves rejected or unable to make that contact. It is only when he is humiliated once again that his world of hatred begins to break up and then it is almost too late. Just as he had enclosed himself in his world of hatred, so now he begins to live in a world of self-imposed reparation.

Director Sidney Lumet gets the best out of his actors. They represent so many aspects of the ugly hard world of New York - Puerto Ricans, African Americans, thieves, petty crooks, smooth criminal operators, social workers, displaced Jews and the continual stream of the poor, the addicts, the deserted, the pregnant who come into the shop.
Boris Kaufman's photography of New York and Quincy Jones style music taken separately seem to belong to two different worlds, yet together they create a strange impression of America in the 60's and its mixture of peoples and emotions.

Rod Steiger won a prize in Berlin for this performance, but not the Oscar. (He did win this for In the Heat of the Night the following year.) Sidney Lumet's successful films include Twelve Angry Men, A View from the Bridge, Long Day's Journey Into Night, The Group, The Seagull, The Hill.

1. Was this a sad film? Did you find it uplifting in any way? How?

2. How did the slow-motion, slightly old-world prologue of happiness threatened affect you?

3. How did the contrast with New York twenty five years later, the city the squalid streets and shops and with suburbia, the wealthy family with the highway almost in their grounds, Nazerman's nieces and nephews, his views on a trip to Europe?

4. Did you understand Sol Nazeman's bitterness? Did he have any reason for happiness? Why could he not forget if not forgive?

5. Why did he become a pawnbroker? Did he like his work? How did the shop sequence with the continual succession of customers – Mr Smith, the addict, the lady with the candlesticks, build up a picture of Nazerman?

6. Did he have any feelings or emotions? Why didn't he relate to people? Why didn't their plight move him at all?

7. How was Ortez meant to provide a character contrast with Nazerman -an immigrant, impoverished, keen, full of life, wanting to learn, affectionate towards his mother?

8. How ominous was the visit of the thieves with their mower? Did they make Ortez afraid? Did Nazerman have any fear? Did he positively dislike these thieves?

9. What kind of woman was Miss Burchfield? Was she sincere? How did Nazerman respond to her? Did he humiliate her?

10. Why did Nazerman give Ortez lessons? He was good at his pawnbroking trade - what did he want to teach Ortez?

11. How did Nazerman widen Rodriguez’s power? Why? What kind of a man was Rodriguez? Was it significant for the film that Rodriguez was black? Why did Rodriguez despise ‘the’ Professor’?

12. Why did Sol Nazerman carry on an affair? Did it show that he had emotional needs? Why did the woman's father despise him? Did he see through him and his cold, impersonal way? "You are the walking dead," Although he came out of Auschwitz alive, there was no blood in his veins. The way that Nazerman reacted to the news of the old man's death over the phone?)

13. How did Ortiz making love to his girl-friend contrast with Nazerman’s affair, happiness contrasting with card-playing?

14. Why did Miss Burchfield apologise to him and invite him to lunch?

15. Did you feel sorry for her as she told her story in the park - her understanding of bitterness and loneliness? Were you affected by Nazerman's harshness towards her? Wasn't she entitled to her misery?

16. Did you believe Nazerman in the sequence where Ortez asks him what he believes in and he spoke of faith in the speed of light and money? Was he truthful or cynical?

17. How was the showdown with Rodriguez a humiliation and disillusionment? Did it prove that under his facade he really had convictions and feelings? What were they? Why was Rodriguez the equivalent of the Nazis?

18. Had Nazerman really closed hit mind to the ugly little world he lived in? Was Rodriguez right in saying Nazerman did not want to know the truth, that all men were manipulated? What was the significance of Rodriguez gripping his face?

19. Why was the sequence of Nazerman’s walking New York included? What insight did it give into Nazerman, New York, the world: a whorehouse and filth, the lights, the apartments, the trains, the faces?

20. Why did he go to Miss Burchfield? Did she really try to help him? She listened and heard him say that the sorrow was mat he did not die in the camp. Why could she not help him as she reached out and could not touch him and he would not take her hand?

21. Why did Nazerman hurt Ortez's feelings? Could Ortez understand? Why did his admiration change?

22. How was Rodriguez's visit and bashing a humiliation and yet Nazerman's standing by his convictions? He wanted to die - had he committed suicide in his heart? Rodriguez repeated what he had learned in Auschwitz: that a man might want to die, but cannot die in his own time.

23. Was Nazerman grieved at Ortez's death? Why? Why did he pierce his hand - to make his blood flow again (physically and spiritually)? To make some reparation? to suffer? What future was there for Nazerman?

POINT BLANK

US, 1967, 89 minutes, Colour.
Lee Marvin, Angie Dickenson, Keenan Wynn, Carroll O'Connor, John Vernon, Lloyd Bochner, Sharon Acker. Directed by John Boorman.

Point Blank is a stylish thriller that few suspected to be stylish and which those who saw merely as a thriller thought average and bloodthirsty. John Boorman is an interesting director (Hell 1n the Pacific, Leo the Last) and pays a lot of attention to depicting the environment and its effect on the principal characters. Twentieth Century urban environment, noise, colour, shape have rarely been used so impressively.

The thriller embodies many of the images of the tough, laconic hero and the images of American violence and brutality. But what is most striking is the exploding of the myth of the free, independent individual. Walker, the hero of this film, guns his way through the action only to discover that he has been used and manipulated from beginning to end. The film has many messages about freedom, fear, relationships and communication. Point Blank has lately been re-discovered and makes appearances as something of a classic.

1. Was this just another thriller? Why was it different?

2. Some critics said that, although the film was violent, it was too "arty", Do you agree? On what basis do you think they made their judgment?

3. How was the contemporary urban setting of San Francisco and Los Angeles used to give mood and atmosphere in the film - e,g, Alcatraz, the hotels and offices, the garages and overpasses, the stormwater constructions…?

4. How effective was the use of flashbacks - e.g. in the opening when Walker is shot and remembers Reece's pleas, Walker's wife reminiscing?

5. Why is the film framed within the prison of Alcatraz? Walker escapes at the beginning of the film (does he really?) and is free at the end. Comment on the use of stills of gulls and Walker on wire.

6. Walker goes through a purgatorial journey as he tries to track down his $93,000. What does he learn by the end of the film? Why is the island prison of Alcatraz symbolic?

7. What does the film say about the fidelity of human nature? Is anyone lovable or trustworthy?

8. Why is fear of bosses a strong theme, of the film - e.g. Big John, Steadman, Reece?

13. What kind of man is Walker - how does he live up to the tough individualistic American image (and the silver-haired Lee Marvin image)?

14. Comment on the cinematic use of colour and noise - e.g. Walker's wife’s house and the lotions on the floor, the sound of footsteps pursuing Walker's wife, "The Movie House", the strobe lights and the screaming, the nod, cons, switched on in Brewster's villa.

15. Row symbolic of our age is Point Blank? What does the film say about human freedom and being a victim of some system - especially at the end when Walker realises that in the whole process he has been used?

16. What does the film show of the ability to communicate in the 20th century - the grunts, unfinished conversations, fear, the noise that prevents hearing, Walker's wife's monotone?

17. What does the film show about the limitations of human relationships - e.g. Walker and Chris and not knowing Walker's first name?

18. Comment on the presentation of death, murder and violence in the film - as part of the 20th century way of life.

PLANET OF THE APES

US, 1967,112 minutes, Colour.
Charlton Heston, Kim Hunter, Roddy Mc Dowell, Maurice Evans, Linda Harrison.
Directed by Franklin Schaffner.

Planet of the Apes was a popular science-fiction film when first released. It was more comprehensible in its story than many other such films, but its bizarre reversal of the roles of the human race and ape (reminiscent of the civilisation found on the trip into the future in The Time Machine) held a fascination for audiences. It was also acted in parody style which was fairly heavy-handed, but made the points obvious to even the least perceptive in the audience. Certainly entertaining, it made the audience pause and think, especially its completely sobering conclusion, perhaps all the more telling because it was so unexpected.

Careful work went into the costuming of the apes who are played by such talented people as Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans and Roddy McDowell? (perhaps this is a reason for playing the film for laughs; audiences would have tended to laugh at people acting seriously as apes anyway). Charlton Heston is his usual athletic self.

Director Franklin Schaffner has done some fine films including The Best Man and Patton. However, he did not direct the commercial sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, which takes up immediately where this film left off. It is not as good, but holds the same fascination for science-fiction fans. The same is true of Escape from the Planet of the Apes.

1. Why do film companies continue to make science-fiction films? To thrill? To teach? To indulge our fascination in science?

2. Is what happens in this film possible? Can someone set out in 1967 and arrive in 3955 A.D.?

3. What was your reaction to seeing the apes as civilised, and realising that they had evolved from what they are now? Was this believable in the film?

4. What was your reaction to seeing the humans the equivalent of dumb animals and realising that there had been a reversal of human evolution? Was this credible in the film?

5. At what stage of evolution did the film suggest the apes were? What era of our civilisation was the apes' culture like - in government, military organisation, science, morality, home civilisation, religion? How close to the 1960'a were they?

6. The apes' arrogance to the astronaut and amongst themselves was intended to parallel our arrogance. How did the film do this? What human cliches and stupidities were mimicked?

7. Some critics found the parody of human beings too heavy-handed. Did you? At times it seemed like a corny Western and audiences laughed. In laughing were they missing the point?

8. How did the apes' torture of the humans impress? What of the trial and the humiliation of the astronaut? Why was this sequence included?

9. What did the film imply about the true nature of humans, dignity, development and values?

10. What did Dr, Zeus represent in terms of conservatism, religion, superstition, the 'Forbidden Zone'?

11. Why was Zira sympathetic?

12. What did the end of the film mean? What impact did it make on you when you realised what it meant?

13. If you have read the books, compare aspects of Planet of the Apes With R, G. Wells' The Time Machine and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

FAST AND FURIOUS

US, 2009, 107 minutes, Colour.
Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, John Ortiz, Shea Whigham.
Directed by Justin Lin.

That's exactly it.

An initial attempt at a robbery involving road tankers and speeding cars along back roads and cliff paths in Santo Domingo is so pacily edited that it gets the adrenalin going at once whether you approve or not.

We are back at the 2001 The Fast and the Furious, having dropped the 'the's' to remind us that Dom (the smiling/humour and charsima free zone, Vin Diesel) and Brian (the tall Paul Walker) are still on different sides of the law and still rivals when it comes to racing their cars through crowded LA streets, out in the desert or though miles of tunnels under the mountains on the border between Mexico and the US. So, for the fans, there is a lot of driving, lots of souped up engines and manoeuvres and crashes and drivers with capital A, Attitude.

As with the previous films there is a final credits warning on the danger of the stunts, the fact that they were performed by experts and under supervision, and an exhortation not to try them.

There is a criminal sub-plot, as had The Fast and the Furious 2. A drug lord has been responsible for the death of Letty (Michelle Rodriguez). Dom is after revenge. Brian is with an FBI agent tracking him down. Yes, the do infiltrate. Yes, they do become drivers. Yes, there is rivalry. Yes, they combine to 'bring him down'. But, we knew all that – it was just the question of how enjoyable it was to follow it all.

It's undemanding action, expertly crafted – except that Diesel is so impassive we presume there is a lot going on inside. And Walker is bestubbled to give him that subversive FBI personal.

PS. It made over a million dollars worldwide in its first week of release. The release was also of pent-up adrenalin in the credit crunch times.

1.The popularity of the Fast and Furious series? Cars, speed, the technology? The macho emphasis? The female presence? The central characters?

2.The action sequences, more important than plot? The opening in Santa Domingo, the petrol tanker and the car chase and robbery? The chases through the streets of Los Angeles? The chases in Mexico and through the mountains? The adrenalin effect? The skill of the stunts and the special effects? The pounding score?

3.The focus on Dominic Toretto, in Santa Domingo, his relationship with Letty? The dangers in the stunt? His leaving her, working in Panama? Mia telling him of her death? His return, the funeral? His determination to track down Braga? The drug ring? Vengeance? His pursuit, holding the man out the window for information? The encounter with Brian? Their past history, rivalry, his going to jail, Brian working for the FBI? Their having to collaborate? The plan, the infiltration of the drug gang? The race – and Dominic cheating? The build-up the drug run? The attempt on their lives, Brian and Dominic surviving? Discovering the truth about Braga? Taking the drugs, setting him up? The confrontation with Braga, discovering that he was originally Campos? The chase through the tunnels? Dominic and his decision not to kill Braga? The court case, Brian’s testimony, the judge’s decision, going to jail? The end of the film with the set-up from the opening, to spring him from jail?

4.Brian, seeing him at work in the FBI, his stubbled appearance, tough? The pursuit of the suspect through the streets, the houses? Getting the information? His meeting with his boss, with Stasiak, undermining him? The other agents? His search for Dominic Park? The evidence, the car registrations, his confrontation with Park? The interrogation? The pursuit, meeting Dominic, saving the man outside the window? The discussions about the past, meeting Mia again, explaining the reasons for his leaving her? Combining with Dominic, the cars, the race? Doing the job, the attack, the shooting? His organising the set-up for meeting Braga, the exchange? For Dominic to be freed? Stasiak and the false chase? Through the tunnels? The arrest, in court, freeing Dominic from jail, with Mia?

5.Letty, the relationship with Dominic, participation in the robbery? Returning to Los Angeles, her murder? Discovering that she wanted to clear Dominic’s name?

6.Mia, relationship with Dominic, helping him? Her anger at Brian, reunited? Helping, the final escape?

7.Braga, as Campos, organising the races? His personality, his skills, rising from poverty? The set-ups, the drivers, killing the drivers? The exchange, the pursuit, his arrest?

8.The other drivers, Fenix, his vendettas against Dominic and Brian? His death? The other drivers, the recklessness, the pursuits?

9.The Koreans, the connections with drugs?

10.The FBI, the boss, his giving leeway to Brian? Stasiak and the rivalry? The false start for the pursuit?

11.The overall effect, popular at the box office? The warning against doing these stunts and driving in reality?

THE FINAL CURTAIN

UK, 2002, 84 minutes, Colour.
Peter O’ Toole, Adrian Lester, Aidan Gillen, Julia Sawalha, Ralph Brown, Patrick Malahide, Ian Mc Neice, Dominic Cooper.
Directed by Patrick Harkins.

The Final Curtain is a black comedy written by John Hodge, writer of the Danny Boyle films Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, A Life Less Ordinary and The Beach. It is a star vehicle for Peter O’ Toole at his best.

The film is set in UK showbiz world, especially that of television. Peter O’ Toole portrays the host of a games show with families and audiences urging the families on to answer the questions correctly. He discovers a rival in Aidan Gillen who has a bizarre program where people risk electric current (Current Account) for higher and higher amounts of money. The rivalry builds to a head with each side stooping to violence and murder.

Adrian Lester portrays an award-winning novelist who is commissioned to write the autobiography of Peter O’ Toole’s character. Persuaded, he becomes involved, more and more cynical and suspicious – but, ultimately, has a successful book and is slated to direct the film of the book. Julia Sawalha portrays Aidan Gillen’s wily assistant. Patrick Malahide is the ill-fated doctor, assaulted as a stalker. Ian McNeice? is the priest who hears Peter O’ Toole’s confession – which has been filmed by a camera set up by Gillen’s assistant.

The film is over-the-top – but, because of the strong performances and the dialogue, is always interesting even when it shows horrifying behaviour.

1.The style of black comedy? Themes, characters, ironies?

2.The title and its use in the song, ‘My Way’? The song as a commentary on the characters and action?

3.Britain, the show business world, the 1970s, theatre? The 1990s and television? The satire on American business connections, doing business, style?

4.Stitch, the opening microphone, his saying he killed someone, his interview, his acquaintance with J.J. Curtis? The flashbacks and the film ending with the microphone being tapped?

5.Stitch’s journey: J.J. watching him as he had his attack, his winning the award, speech, J.J’s choice of him? The dinner, the discussion, the offer, the diplomacy, Stitch finally accepting? Travelling in the car with Curtis, talking with him, going to the board, listening in to the negotiations – with the American speaking through the microphone on the table? Getting more information about the incident in 1973, seeing the poster? Seeing the comedian with top billing? The visit to the institute, the discussion with the daughter? Seeing J.J. with Dave Turner, welcoming him on TV? Thinking that the doctor was a stalker, hitting him with the garbage lid? His being upset, J.J. using this information to blackmail him? Unable to resign? His growing to despise Curtis? The visits, the realisation in discussions with the comedian’s daughter? His hurrying to the final confrontation between J.J. and Dave? Writing down J.J’s last words? That he had killed his son? The book-signing, popularity, in the chair as the director of the film? The cynicism in the character and his portrayal?

6.Peter O’ Toole as J.J. Curtis, his narration for the book, The Boy from Nowhere? His background of poverty, his jobs, the visuals on the photos and the rings around his head in supporting roles? 1973, the story of his fight with the comedian, the comedian’s fall, the revelation about the daughter and her pregnancy, his not knowing, saying that he would have paid for the abortion? His getting the top billing – and not looking back?

7.His success, the show, the range of questions and options, the participants, families? The audience egging them on? His blunt words to the board, choosing the family that was to win? His liking one family and not the other? His reputation, the audience response, asking for God’s blessing? Wanting his show to go to the United States? The sitting in at the board meeting, negotiations, his naivety, the deals? The discussions about Dave Turner’s contract? His paying a journalist to hint at a pornographic link? His changing the electricity for Current Account? The man dying? His loathing of Dave? His going to confession, his admission of sins and guilt? His refusal to admit death? His ignoring the doctor, clashing with him, telling Stitch that he was a stalker, finally killing him?

8.The contrast with Dave Turner, young, introduced on television by J.J? Current Account, the risks, the contestants’ greed, the audience egging them on? The production and the producer? His drug-taking, sex contacts, the girls as Bo Peeps? His sense of failure, despair, his assistant telling him to tell the truth, the tabloids’ response? The comments from ordinary people? Filming the confession, putting it on television? The plane crash and his causing the death of the family?

9.Karen, being interviewed, working with Dave, her ideas, getting him to tell the truth to the tabloids, inventing the relationship with his mother, going to the confessional, taping it? Putting it on TV?

10.Monty, thirty years earlier, the headliner, the disappearance from the show, his fall, paralysed? His daughter, watching the confession? His relationship to Dave? Dave wanting revenge? The visits and the truth, Stitch’s discovering the truth?

11.The final set-up, the labyrinth, the chase, Dave wounding J.J? Their talking, Stitch’s arrival, the revelation about the father and son relationship, J.J. killing Dave? His final words about killing his son? Dave just simply wanting a father to be present, not just the story (with the flashback) of his being washed overboard while rescuing children? The final glimpse with the two profiles, dead, facing each other?

12.Black comedy about ambition, no bounds, the world of television, shows, audiences, the intercutting of interviews with the public? American-style business dealing? Scandals?

13.The effect of watching satire – with interesting characters, but black themes?

SUBWAY STORIES

US, 1997, 80 minutes, Colour.
Bill Irwin, Kris Parker, Christine Lahti, Denis Leary, N' Bushe Wright, Kevin Corrigan, Jerry Stiller, Steve Zahn, Bonnie Hunt, Mekhi Phifer, Lily Taylor, Michael Rapaport, Mercedes Ruehl, Zachary Taylor, Peter Sarsgaard, Sarita Chowdhury, Nicole Ari Parker, Sam Parker, Rosie Perez, Mike Mc Glone, Gretchen Mol, Gregory Hines, Anne Heche.
Directed by Bob Balaban (5:24), Patricia Benoit (Fern’s Heart of Darkness), Julie Dash (Sax Cantor Riff), Jonathan Demme (Subway Car from Hell), Ted Demme (Manhattan Miracle), Abel Ferrara (Love on the A Train), Alison Maclean (Honey-Getter), Craig Mc Kay (The Red Shoes), Lucas Platt (Underground), Seth Rosenfeld (The Listeners).

Subway Stories: Tales from the Underground is a television compilation of stories, commissioned by Home Box Office Television for New Yorkers to send in stories from their experience in the subway. Six writers including playwright John Guare (Six Degrees of Separation) transformed the stories into screenplays. Guare’s episode is The Red Shoes.

Most of the stories are very brief. Audiences from New York and those who have travelled in the subway will resonate with many of the episodes. However, while some have some substance, others are very slight, the shortest of stories.

The film also has a strong cast, a great number of actors in very small roles in the stories.

Amongst the directors, the best known are Bob Balaban, Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs), Alison Maclean (Crush, Jesus’ Son), Ted Demme and Abel Ferrara, the controversial director of such films as The Bad Lieutenant.

1.The idea behind the series? Commuters and their stories of the subway? As transformed by professional writers? As directed by professional directors?

2.The visuals of the subway? The entrances, the vendors, the platforms, the subway cars themselves, the tunnels? Authentic feel? The range of music?

3.The aura of the New York subway? Its role in New York’s history? Various films and the use of the subway?

4.Subway Car from Hell: Bill Irwin, his buying the hot dog from the vendor, everybody buying the alternate food, the chatter, his mouth being burnt, two dollars for the drink, his going down into the subway, his vain attempts to get into the crowded cars, his instrument? His giving up? The reprisal of his story at the end, joining with the musicians, playing in the subway?

5.The Red Shoes: The people sitting in the car, the Vietnam veteran coming, lacking a leg, wounded, his wheeling over the passenger’s red shoes? Her anger, her comments? The antagonism, exposing him as a fake? Taking his cup and the money? Getting out of the train? His remaining, appealing to people’s sympathy? The young woman in the train, denouncing the two as con artists? The writer and his asking her the truth, her comments about welfare paying for everyone, her not knowing whether they were con people or not? The audience not knowing whether it was a con or not?

6.The 5:24: The businessman on the train, sharing his paper with the old man, their discussions about stocks and shares? The narrative with the various days? The voice-over? The well-dressed man, the commuter, listening, sharing his paper, getting the information, the temptation to invest, his deciding not to? His avoiding the man on the train? Following the price rise over the year, what might have been? A year later, getting into the train, seeing the old man and his spiel for another young business executive?

7.Fern’s Heart of Darkness: Fern, her phone call to her mother, her nerviness, on the train, people looking at her, checking about her stop, hurriedly getting out, her being trapped in the exit? Unable to get out, appeals for help, the deserted station, the train passing and the rail man just looking at her, her trying to get out, squeeze through, sleeping the night, the official reprimanding her for vagrancy?

8.The Listeners: Belinda and Jake on the train, talking, the tension between them, his not listening, her being upset? His getting the flowers? His getting off the train, Belinda left with the old man, the discussion about politics and the state of the nation? Her getting off and the reconciliation with Jake?

9.Underground: Violence on the underground, Wayne and his meeting people, the various boys, thuggish, bashing Wayne? His meeting Leyla, her listening to him, the dark glasses, the romantic advance? Getting off the train? What future? The subway musician?

10.Honey-Getter: Women on the underground, the approach of the men? Humera, her wariness, racial background? The confrontation with the boys, her kicking the boy, her being arrested for assault? Their sitting on the bench, talking about their backgrounds? The contrast with Sharon, her place on the underground? Women? The officers and the arrest?

11.Sax Cantor Riff: The people on the subway, the woman ringing her mother, not being able to get through in the hospital, her deciding to sing to her mother through the phone? People’s reactions, comments, the subway…? The beauty of the song, the relationship of the woman to her mother?

12.Love on the A Train: John T., his relationship with his wife, their talking together, his being on the train, seeing the girl, the interaction between the two? Her not saying anything? His voice-over, his own experience, the repetition of the ride, eventually speaking to the girl? Her indignant reaction? The reaction of the wife?

13.Manhattan Miracle: Jack, on the platform, looking across the rails to the pregnant girl, her distress, walking up and down, the potential for suicide? Her standing near the edge, his concern, the trains going past? The old man saving the girl? Jack and his happiness that there had been something of a Manhattan Miracle?

14.The cumulative effect of all these stories, perceptions on human nature, perceptions on life in the underground, the commuters, the passengers, all the problems of contemporary life?