The Daily Grand and Sundry

I have been remiss, so my apologies. Lionel Jeffries died in February of this year, and I failed to note his passing earlier. He was a great British character actor.

Which doesn’t interest this blog.

Mr.  Lionel Jeffries Adapted and Directed one of the great children’s films of all time, THE RAILWAY CHILDREN, starring one of my all time crushes, JENNY AGUTTER.

I am borrowing this 2004 review from IMBD,

“Lionel Jeffries’ Greatest Achievement

I avoided this film as a boy because I thought it would be boring…no fights or shooting, cops, robbers, cowboys or Indians. It was definitely not a cool film to like. So I didn’t see TRC until I was in my twenties and found it one of the most beautiful, captivating films I have seen. All the actors deliver the characterisations perfectly and each emotion is drawn from the viewer scene by scene. The filming and direction are deceptively simple but feel so natural and drew me completely into the story. My two favourite scenes are Bobbie’s birthday party and the scene on the station platform near the end, directed and edited to perfection. The quality and phrasing of Jenny Agutter’s voice when she calls: ‘Daddy! My Daddy!’ wrenches emotion from the viewer. Tears are welling in my eyes as I think of it.”

This adaptation isn’t just a movie it is a piece of precious art, as well as being the perfect example of what all film makers should be striving to achieve…creation of an emotional experience.”

I can’t top that review, all I can say is this; it is one of the most serene films I have ever seen. Little girls will love it, but perhaps more  importantly, if you have a little boy, say 8 to 10, whom  you are stuffing with Ritalin so he won’t kill someone, tie him down and make him watch this film.

It will do more for him than therapy or a handful of pills. It is true Zen.

The film is based on the book, “The Railway Children , by Edith Nesbit, originally serialised in The London Magazine during 1905 and first published in book form in 1906. ”

In that children’s book, by this Victorian lady writer, published in the middle of the Edwardian Age, 105 years ago, is the most sane philosophy I have ever encountered; the best philosophy I have ever encountered. The best explanation of life I have ever encountered, better than Tolstoi or Stendahl, or Ibsen, or Salinger, better than  Garcia Marquez or Camus or Hemingway.

“Very wonderful and beautiful things do happen, don’t they? And we live most of our lives in the hope of them” (E.Nesbit - ‘The Railway Children’). 

That sums it all up.

  THE RAILWAY CHILDREN

THE RAILWAY CHILDREN’S Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw43SSzutlE

SIDEBAR

 chriswales19 — July 23, 2009 — I can’t believe this wasn’t on youtube ! One of the greatest moments in British Film History - Daddy My Daddy ! And the charming closing credits. Beautiful film, Britain at its best. (And isn’t the music just wonderful ?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yXyxgLMmK8

“Theater insiders often claim that admiration for and understanding of the works of Ibsen and Chekhov are mutually exclusive.”

Since I loathe ibsen and worship CHEKHOV, I agree wholeheartedly.

I have been on Jury Duty for a week, at the Criminal Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, dealing with an assault on a Los Angeles policeman. 

Over the weekend, I turned on CNN and there was a debate about the spate of senseless killings currently cascading around America, from Pittsburg to Washington, to New York, to Alabama.

The politically correct panelists believed the reason for all this killing was GUNS.

The anchor said that he had visited places in Europe, where the policemen did not carry guns, and there was minimal violence, ergo the devil is in the Guns.

Well, I have been to a place in Europe, where the policemen did not carry guns, and there was minimal violence. And it was in that place, that an unarmed policemen gave me the real reason why America is so violent.

It was in Oslo, Norway, when Oslo was still quaint. How quaint was it?  This was when Norway  was pre globalization; there were no Kurdish refugees, nor Third World servants. The only foreign born people there were Canadian men who had married Norwegian girls to get in on the oil stipends. Really quaint. How quaint was it?

I was a customer at the “hippest” bar in Oslo; and the entertainment was, and I kid you not, a condensed version of the Edvard Grieg Opera, PEER GYNT.  Not a parody, but a condensed version. I was stupefied, I mean I was in the hippiest bar in Oslo, listening to PEER GYNT, ……AH, the QUAINT DAYS OF YORE.

I am not a big fan of PEER GYNT under any circumstances( I hate IBSEN, who wrote the material on which the opera is based).  Two Norwegian icons, IBSEN and GRIEG.

In response to all this Norwegian genius, I was drinking a lot, a LOT of aquavit.

So the bar closes, I find myself drunk on some cobblestone street in downtown Oslo, staggering and lost. No one else is around and I am seeing ghosts of Viking berserkers.

Then behind me there are footsteps, I am not worried because there is no crime in Oslo, or wasn’t. So I hitch my courage to the hitching post and turn to meet the footsteps in person.

It is a cop, an unarmed cop, a young man, unarmed. Cheerful, a cheerful Norwegian, that  anomaly alone sobered me up.

I tell him, I am lost and need to get back to the hotel, and no taxis seem to be running.

He tells me, like all Norwegians his English is perfect,  he will walk me back to hotel, which is nearby, but he must continue his rounds.

So I accompany him on his rounds, which is primarily this…he checks the doors to see if they are locked. If they are not locked he puts a note on them , telling the owners they forgot to lock their doors.  In a way, quaint times were so cool.

Sobered, I asked him, didn’t he feel naked? unprotected? By not  carrying a  gun.

He replied, “No, I feel very safe”.

I asked him “Why”

“That is simple, all the violent criminals have emigrated to America.”

And that is it in a nutshell; that is why America is so violent, all the criminals have immigrated here.

Australia was founded by prisoners, we are founded and resupplied by violent criminals, the Yakuza, the Mexican Mafia, the Israeli Mafia, the Cosa Nostra,  the Tong, the Russian Mafia, Jamaican Posses, …we come from the GANGS of NEW YORK. 

This nation has always been a magnet for violent people, the bloodlines that flow into this nation are violent.  Even the Norwegians pack off their berserkers to us.

The amazing miracle is how civil, and civilized we are from the mixture of our bloodlines. From a nation of wolves, we have created laws. We are a great people, senseless killings notwithstanding. 

SIDEBAR

Akvavit (also spelled aquavit or akevitt) is a flavored spirit that is produced in Scandinavia and typically contains 40% alcohol by volume. Its name comes from aqua vitae, the Latin for “water of life,” and is pronounced