The Grok, the Glunk and the Golem
Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their whole lives to the development of mechanical life. The upshot is simply a question of time, but that the time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly philosophic mind can for a moment question. Our opinion is that war to the death should be instantly proclaimed against them. Every machine of every sort should be destroyed by the well-wisher of his species. Let there be no exceptions made, no quarter shown; let us at once go back to the primeval condition of the race. Samuel Butler; Darwin Among the Machines ; 1863 "You can't Un-thunk a Glunk!" Dr. Seuss; The Glunk that got Thunk ; 1969 You may or may not be familiar with the poet Dorothy Frances Gurney, but ...
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!