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tealinMy friends page (which is to say, the two people on it who have been posting a lot recently) has spent the last week obsessing over Torchwood, which I know almost nothing about (yet). Well three can play that game! Take this!
The wonderful and generous![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
my_fox_rocks recorded the much anguished-over film adaptation and sent it to me (thank you thank you thank you), prompting another bout of obsession and a fair amount of squee. I've saved it all up for this post because it seems like everything I've drawn outside of work for the last year has been Cherry-related, and I do sort of feel like I'm talking to a brick wall (or perhaps a padded cell) in my sad little one-person fandom, so this one post will be nice and easy to skip!
The first time I watched the DVD, through the course of most of it, underneath the excitement of finally seeing this thing and joy at the wonderful acting and creative use of minuscule budget, was a sort of general feeling that maybe ... perhaps ... the script could have done with a couple more draughts ... When it ended, though, and it was time for me to get off my chair and go do stuff, I felt compelled to sit and stare at the blank screen for a while, and I couldn't listen to the radio or anything for the rest of the night, so it obviously got something right. Having watched it, erm, several more times since then, and becoming more familiar with the ins and outs of the storyline, I have come to love it even more, and elements that seemed like faults the first time through are now treasured little snippets of storytelling, so I can understand why they went ahead with the script as-is rather than polishing it a bit more (well, that and the aforementioned minuscule budget).
One of the things that bothered me the first time through was that there seemed to be twice as many frame stories as there needed to be. Each of them has its own purpose, and it's good to get the insights that each one uniquely has to offer ... I don't know which I would cut or how I'd condense them and still get the same effect and ideas from them, so I feel a bit cheap for making this criticism at all. Anyway. One of the frame stories involves one of Cherry's nervous collapses which he suffered frequently later in life, which gives us an excuse to get 'inside his head' into a sort of surreal snowy room from which he can narrate and comment on the core story, dressed in his pyjamas which he's wearing in bed in the real world. This visual is set up strongly and early so that whenever we see this snowy nowhere space we know we're inside his head, and this plays into one of the most poignant little tricks in the film.
A little backstory before I get to my point: The Terra Nova Expedition was entirely privately funded. Cherry, enthusiastic for the science and adventure, offered £1000 if he could come along. He was rejected on account of his poor eyesight and, perhaps, lack of experience, but decided to give the money anyway. This impressed Scott, and after a meeting, Cherry joined the expedition crew after all. A couple of years later, it was Cherry who was in charge of a relief mission to a crucial depot upon which Scott's polar party would be dependent in their return journey from the South Pole, where he might possibly meet up with them. Due to a combination of poor planning, bad weather, and confusing orders, Scott's party (which included Cherry's good friends Bill Wilson and Birdie Bowers) perished 11 miles away from this depot, not long after Cherry turned back to base camp. Feelings of culpability for their deaths and an obsession with the idea that he could have saved them plagued him for the rest of his life.
This is cleverly expressed in the film ... Scott is only ever seen from a distance and never has any dialogue, and you see the deal struck with this handshake (left). This is the only scene where you see him in 'real life' as it were, but he turns up persistently, obsessively, in Cherry's wintry mind, always visually quoting this scene, with his pipe and his smile, usually in a brief flash from what would have been Cherry's POV. It really drives home the idea that he keeps mentally returning to this meeting, what he might have perceived as the turning point in their fates – if Scott had not agreed to take him, would things have turned out differently? The cheerful ease of Scott's demeanour in this scene, and in the flashbacks that quote it, only heighten the contextual anguish. It culminates in this scene, a replay of the handshake in full, but with poor dazed subconscious Cherry in full knowledge of what it leads to, rather than the confident naive Cherry we saw shake hands before.
Actually 'brilliant and subtle' sums up pretty much all the acting in this film ... I have an Extremely Unfounded Theory regarding the British thespian tradition vs the American bifurcation of film/theatre, which is based mostly on what sort of actors I like to watch, but in short it comes down to the evidence presented here: all the acting is very clear and deliberate but not forced or melodramatic, as if it were carefully considered, then executed with polish and grace. Everything done, not just the way dialogue is delivered but everything down to how the actors stand or walk supports the character or the plot and gives you insight into what they're thinking or feeling without a word being said. Example:
Another one of the frame stories is a scene where Cherry takes the penguin eggs that he, Bill, and Birdie collected to the museum – they went through absolute hell to get them, only barely making it back alive, and Wilson and Bowers both died with Scott. These eggs are the only memento of the journey and his friends and are arguably the only tangible accomplishment of the entire thing. The museum curator brushes him off. After some explaining and extensive flashbacks to what they went through to get the eggs, the curator agrees to take them but dismisses Cherry disinterestedly. Cherry replies simply:
"I should like a receipt."
Here's Mark Gatiss doing the scene:
Can't you just see he is utterly wracked with loss and guilt and torment? (I jest.) Again the screencap doesn't really do it justice, because there is enough time in the scene to give the expression room to breathe and play up the transition. Subtlety, though ... if he had collapsed in tears the scene would have been profoundly less moving. Seeing him fight back his emotions and phrase his line in the most polite, businesslike way possible makes it worse. It's stuff like this that really raises the film above what it could easily have been, with its obvious stock footage, minimalist sets, and other pitfalls of the low-budget production.
Oh, and, these people actually act like they are cold. They have the fakest of fake snow (it actually looks like soap flakes; I didn't think they even used soap flakes anymore) but I believe it's -75 when Bill is trying to light a match and it won't light because it's too cold. Watch and learn, Hollywood!
I'll leave you with Cherry's own words, which close the film, and have tremedous personal truth:
The wonderful and generous
my_fox_rocks recorded the much anguished-over film adaptation and sent it to me (thank you thank you thank you), prompting another bout of obsession and a fair amount of squee. I've saved it all up for this post because it seems like everything I've drawn outside of work for the last year has been Cherry-related, and I do sort of feel like I'm talking to a brick wall (or perhaps a padded cell) in my sad little one-person fandom, so this one post will be nice and easy to skip!The first time I watched the DVD, through the course of most of it, underneath the excitement of finally seeing this thing and joy at the wonderful acting and creative use of minuscule budget, was a sort of general feeling that maybe ... perhaps ... the script could have done with a couple more draughts ... When it ended, though, and it was time for me to get off my chair and go do stuff, I felt compelled to sit and stare at the blank screen for a while, and I couldn't listen to the radio or anything for the rest of the night, so it obviously got something right. Having watched it, erm, several more times since then, and becoming more familiar with the ins and outs of the storyline, I have come to love it even more, and elements that seemed like faults the first time through are now treasured little snippets of storytelling, so I can understand why they went ahead with the script as-is rather than polishing it a bit more (well, that and the aforementioned minuscule budget).
One of the things that bothered me the first time through was that there seemed to be twice as many frame stories as there needed to be. Each of them has its own purpose, and it's good to get the insights that each one uniquely has to offer ... I don't know which I would cut or how I'd condense them and still get the same effect and ideas from them, so I feel a bit cheap for making this criticism at all. Anyway. One of the frame stories involves one of Cherry's nervous collapses which he suffered frequently later in life, which gives us an excuse to get 'inside his head' into a sort of surreal snowy room from which he can narrate and comment on the core story, dressed in his pyjamas which he's wearing in bed in the real world. This visual is set up strongly and early so that whenever we see this snowy nowhere space we know we're inside his head, and this plays into one of the most poignant little tricks in the film.
A little backstory before I get to my point: The Terra Nova Expedition was entirely privately funded. Cherry, enthusiastic for the science and adventure, offered £1000 if he could come along. He was rejected on account of his poor eyesight and, perhaps, lack of experience, but decided to give the money anyway. This impressed Scott, and after a meeting, Cherry joined the expedition crew after all. A couple of years later, it was Cherry who was in charge of a relief mission to a crucial depot upon which Scott's polar party would be dependent in their return journey from the South Pole, where he might possibly meet up with them. Due to a combination of poor planning, bad weather, and confusing orders, Scott's party (which included Cherry's good friends Bill Wilson and Birdie Bowers) perished 11 miles away from this depot, not long after Cherry turned back to base camp. Feelings of culpability for their deaths and an obsession with the idea that he could have saved them plagued him for the rest of his life.
This is cleverly expressed in the film ... Scott is only ever seen from a distance and never has any dialogue, and you see the deal struck with this handshake (left). This is the only scene where you see him in 'real life' as it were, but he turns up persistently, obsessively, in Cherry's wintry mind, always visually quoting this scene, with his pipe and his smile, usually in a brief flash from what would have been Cherry's POV. It really drives home the idea that he keeps mentally returning to this meeting, what he might have perceived as the turning point in their fates – if Scott had not agreed to take him, would things have turned out differently? The cheerful ease of Scott's demeanour in this scene, and in the flashbacks that quote it, only heighten the contextual anguish. It culminates in this scene, a replay of the handshake in full, but with poor dazed subconscious Cherry in full knowledge of what it leads to, rather than the confident naive Cherry we saw shake hands before. Actually 'brilliant and subtle' sums up pretty much all the acting in this film ... I have an Extremely Unfounded Theory regarding the British thespian tradition vs the American bifurcation of film/theatre, which is based mostly on what sort of actors I like to watch, but in short it comes down to the evidence presented here: all the acting is very clear and deliberate but not forced or melodramatic, as if it were carefully considered, then executed with polish and grace. Everything done, not just the way dialogue is delivered but everything down to how the actors stand or walk supports the character or the plot and gives you insight into what they're thinking or feeling without a word being said. Example:
Another one of the frame stories is a scene where Cherry takes the penguin eggs that he, Bill, and Birdie collected to the museum – they went through absolute hell to get them, only barely making it back alive, and Wilson and Bowers both died with Scott. These eggs are the only memento of the journey and his friends and are arguably the only tangible accomplishment of the entire thing. The museum curator brushes him off. After some explaining and extensive flashbacks to what they went through to get the eggs, the curator agrees to take them but dismisses Cherry disinterestedly. Cherry replies simply:
"I should like a receipt."
Here's Mark Gatiss doing the scene:Can't you just see he is utterly wracked with loss and guilt and torment? (I jest.) Again the screencap doesn't really do it justice, because there is enough time in the scene to give the expression room to breathe and play up the transition. Subtlety, though ... if he had collapsed in tears the scene would have been profoundly less moving. Seeing him fight back his emotions and phrase his line in the most polite, businesslike way possible makes it worse. It's stuff like this that really raises the film above what it could easily have been, with its obvious stock footage, minimalist sets, and other pitfalls of the low-budget production.
Oh, and, these people actually act like they are cold. They have the fakest of fake snow (it actually looks like soap flakes; I didn't think they even used soap flakes anymore) but I believe it's -75 when Bill is trying to light a match and it won't light because it's too cold. Watch and learn, Hollywood!
I'll leave you with Cherry's own words, which close the film, and have tremedous personal truth:
... If you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore. If you are a brave man you will do nothing: if you are fearful you may do much, for none but cowards have need to prove their bravery. Some will tell you that you are mad, and nearly all will say, 'what is the use?' For we are a nation of shopkeepers, and no shopkeeper will look at research which does not promise him a financial return within a year. And so you will sledge nearly alone, but those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers: that is worth a good deal. If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg.
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Date: 2009-07-15 11:36 am (UTC)