Carry On... #Don't Trust Anyone over 25
Please note that this week's film has been rated 12 in the UK. Last week's film ( Logan's Run ) is a prime example of a science fiction film that was emphatically a product of the era in which it was made. If anything, its very relevance proved to be its vulnerability. By the time it reached the theatres in 1976, many of the social trends it was responding to were already starting to fade. That may also be why attempts to produce a remake have consistently failed to make any headway. Hollywood studios have repeatedly attempted to reboot Logan's Run over the decades, and at least six different directors have embarked on such a project over the last 30 years. Multiple writers have been approached, and in some cases have written complete screenplays - but to no avail. Logan's Run has remained stubbornly and imperviously un-remade. If you think about it (and I have, trust me) remaking Logan's Run is easier said than done. After a decade of hippie culture, you...
This Thursday's film is actually a re-run. We screened it about two months ago, but thanks to a series of unconnected misadventures, many people were unable to attend. As a public service, we will be showing it once again on the 19th of May.
Under normal circumstances, I would say that this Thursday's film is possibly the most esoteric I have yet shown (not least because it isn't actually a film at all) but since I have already shown it once before, I guess it's getting to be quite mainstream.
Antigone was written by the Ancient Greek playwright Sophocles in the year 441 BC, and is one of the three so-called "Theban Plays". These plays recount the story of King Oedipus of Thebes, and the first of these plays (Oedipus Rex) is the one that has become instantly recognisable to everyone and their mother (if you get my drift).
Antigone is the third play of the trilogy (although it was actually written first; never mind) and deals with events following the death of Oedipus, when his daughter Antigone comes into conflict with Creon, the new king of Thebes.
As with most Greek drama, the story follows an inexorable course of doom and destruction that leaves every relevant character miserable and dead (not necessarily in that order).
As I say, Sophocles' play was written in 441 BC.
2385 years later, the French playwright Jean Anouilh premiered his own version of Antigone, re-worked and adapted to the present day (1944, before you reach for your calculator).
Although the story follows the original quite closely, there is little doubt that Anouilh was constructing a metaphor for France under Nazi occupation (arguably worse: a puppet government that supported and collaborated with the Nazis).
The version of Antigone I plan to screen on Thursday is an American television performance from 1974 with Geneviève Bujold, Fritz Weaver and Stacy Keach. I'm sorry to say that the video quality is not as good as one might like, but the performance is so good that I feel it's worth putting up with a fuzzy image on this occasion.
I screened this film for the first time on the 3rd of March; one week after Russia launched its attack on Ukraine, and I noted at the time that Anouilh's take on the story is (unfortunately) just as relevant now as it was in 1944. It gives me no joy to add that his play is just as relevant on the 19th of May as it was on the 3rd of March.
If anything, the play's relevance has increased this month. Russia has invaded a neighbouring country and committed any number of human rights atrocities, but now, at least, they have been excluded from the Eurovision Song Contest. I would say that qualifies as a gesture of defiance that is exactly as effective as Antigone's defiance of Creon.
We will be screening Antigone at the usual time of 7.30 at the Victoria Park Baptist Church on Thursday, the 19th of May. I hope to see you there!