The Illusion of Depth

Words have power. Words can define a generation ( Make love, not war ) or they can signal a movement ( I have a dream ). Words can be fun ( May the Force be with you ) or they can be terrifying ( Rivers of blood ). They can incite ( Lock Her Up ) and they can inspire ( Ich bin ein Berliner ). Sometimes, words can destroy lives. Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been... From 1947 onwards, an ever-expanding parade of Hollywood figures were summoned to appear before the so-called House Un-American Activities Committee. The interrogation always began with the same question: "Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?" In Norse mythology, the Valkyries were a group of warrior women who appeared before mighty warriors just before they fell in battle. If you ever saw a Valkyrie, you knew that your life was over. In the 1950s, if you heard the words "Are you now, or have you ever been..." you knew that your career was over. The House Un-American Activit...

The two films we have shown thus far in this series have both depicted periods of history in which one sector of society has violently and systematically cancelled another. Our next film is a little different.  The film I have chosen to show this week is so shocking, so controversial and so incendiary, its release was instrumental in destroying the careers of its director and producer, along with several of the actors who appeared in it. In our modern society, "cancelling" someone often means blocking them on social media, or (in extreme cases) firing them.  Edward Dmytryk and Adrian Scott (the director and producer, respectively) both served prison sentences following the release of this film. I should warn everyone that this film is pretty extreme. Don't be fooled by the five (count 'em!) Oscar nominations it received in 1948 (including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay, plus two acting nominations) and don't let all those glowing reviews lull you ...

Last month you may recall I screened The Music Man ; Meredith Willson's beloved musical about a travelling con artist who arrives in a small American town and proceeds to have an enormous impact on the community there. This week's film was released in the same year (1962) and tells the story of... a travelling con artist who arrives in a small American town and proceeds to have an enormous impact on the community there. That is where the similarities end, however. The Intruder is not a beloved musical, Caxton Missouri is not River City, Iowa, and Adam Cramer is not Professor Harold Hill. The Intruder was produced and directed by Roger Corman, a film-maker who had made his reputation (and his money) by producing very cheap genre pictures with titles like It Conquered the World and Attack of the Crab Monsters . Roger Corman's working motto was "The monster should always be bigger than the leading lady." Throughout the 1950s, Corman managed to build up a surprising...

  When curating a film series devoted to "Cancel Culture" across history, there is a question that must inevitably be addressed. Where does one begin? The term Cancel Culture dates back to around 2014, but the concept (which the New York Times once described as "The public shaming of those deemed moral transgressors") has been around for much, much longer. Human history is overflowing with examples of specific groups systematically targeted and persecuted by other groups - often for allegedly moral reasons. Over the next few months we will be seeing many films that explore this idea in various ways, but I wanted to begin with a (moderately) uncontroversial example.  Rest assured, we will be getting to the really controversial ones in due course, but first we're going to watch a movie about Nazis. We may be living in an era when social and ideological divides are wider than ever (which is why so many people are cancelling so many other people) but at least we ca...

Happy New Year to everyone!  As promised, our weekly film nights at the Victoria Park Baptist Church are set to resume on Thursday, the 12th of January. As we sink our teeth into 2023 (a date that has no right to exist outside of pulp science fiction) I plan to embark on a brand new film series, which we shall be exploring over the next few months. Anyone who has been following the trends of social and cultural discourse over the last decade or so may be reminded of a song made famous by Groucho Marx in the film Horse Feathers: " Whatever it is, I'm against it " could almost be the battle cry for our modern age. Our increasingly tribal society has been marked by outrage, protests and of course, everyone's favourite: Cancel Culture . It is Cancel Culture that I want to explore in our new film series, which is why the series is going to be called Down With [ complete as required ] Although the terminology may be new, the concepts of persecution, oppression and ostracis...