The Gate of the Year : The King’s Speech, Academy Awards, and the bookies’ odds #film #poetry

This post was originally published on The Trad Pad on  2 January 2011.  Happy New Year everyone ... particularly to those who did it tough this year.  Please take on board the thoughts of Minnie Louise Haskins

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Happy New Year! May the year be kind to you and bring you blessings, wisdom, peace, and prosperity!  The last day or two has exhibited some coincidence. Firstly, Hay Quaker published, in toto, the poem The Gate of the Year by Minnie Louise Haskins.

 Minnie Louise Haskins

Picture from here

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year,
"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown."
And he replied, "Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!"
So I went forth and finding the Hand of God
Trod gladly into the night.
He led me towards the hills
And the breaking of day in the lone east.
So heart be still!
What need our human life to know
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife of things
Both high and low,
God hideth his intention.

Perhaps readers have heard this poem, or part of it, before.  It was made famous by the Christmas Speech of King George VI delivered in 1939.  You can hear the actual speech – it is quite moving given it is made at the time of the first Christmas of World War II – here.

Picture from here

Secondly, I decided to get out of the house for the first time since  Christmas Midnight Carols and Eucharist at All Saints, Mitcham and go to see the much lauded movie, The King’s Speech. It is the story of the relationship between the Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue, and King George VI.

The movie is being tipped as a frontline contender for an Oscar. In spite of competition from The Social Network in the bookies’ odds as set out here, it is hard to see how this movie could lose with its high proportion of former Academy Award winning actors.  The UK still produces the best actors – particularly in ensemble work as demonstrated in The King’s Speech – in the English speaking world.  However, it does an Australian heart good – particularly one coming from Queensland – to see and hear Geoffrey Rush mixing it admirably with such a talented cast. To think, this great man of Australian movies was growing up across Brisbane from me in the 1950s!
Those sitting around me in the packed movie theatre were clearly as impressed as I. 
I was however surprised at the ending. I don’t think, in such an historical movie, it is giving away much to describe the ending of this movie.  I thought the movie somehow would finish with the 1939 Christmas Speech. This is arguably the most famous, most remembered, and most quoted of all the King George VI’s speeches.  This doesn’t happen.  The movie concludes with the King’s Speech at the beginning of World War II.

Listen to the original speech here.

ANZ LitLovers LitBlog - Germinal by Emile Zola - the book and the movie

 

I am a frequent reader of Lisa Hill’s ANZ LitLovers LitBlog. Perhaps you won't keep up by reading every book from every post - but at least you will have a good idea of what you should be reading. You will be in the know. 

I subscribe to the blog and get a missive in my email every day.  To-day's looks magnificent: Germinal by Emile Zola An epic tale. But, Gerard Depardieu fan that I am I think I will hunt down the movie after seeing the trailer below.

What the Dickens, Miriam!

Sit down all those who don't like the work of Miriam Margolyes. Good we can't see you. But then I can't see any gaps either. All I can see is a standing ovation. Is she the finest character actor in English or is she what?!

All this leads me, dear Reader, to direct you to this post at the blog of my friend Denis, The Nature of Robertson. Robertson is a village (population approximately 1,000) in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. Miriam is a resident there. And she is an Aussie citizen. How 'bout that! All thanks to Babe.

My favourite Miriam role is in Ladies in Lavender. But I do want you to know that Miriam is touring Australia with Dickens' Women. If you saw Simon Callow bring Dickens to life when he toured Australia, then Miriam's show will make a nice book-end for you. Listen to Phillip Adams' interview here.

To-day is another cold/showery/cloudy winter's day in Melbourne and my SAD (seasonal affective disorder) has been responding in its usual way with graduated and increasing intensity all week.

But there is a bright spot this afternoon. My favourite movie of my favourite male star is playing: Cool Hand Luke (made in 1967) with Paul Newman.

What is always of interest in watching old movies or TV programs is to see who was just starting out then and later became a more well known 'name'. Cool Hand Luke is no exception:

Wayne Rogers - five years after this he would become well-known in our homes and hearts as "Trapper John" McIntyre in MASH.

Joe Don Baker - who first came to my attention in the wonderful British drama/mini-series, Edge of Darkness.(1985)

Ralph Waite - who we watched for years and years as the wise and wonderful John Walton Sr in The Waltons.

The ubiquitous Dennis Hopper who was well on his way before this movie.

The big surprise, though, for me was Harry Dean Stanton.

In Cool Hand Luke, Stanton is arguably the best groomed prisoner on a chain gang in the dusty Deep South that one could ever see. He sings "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" while accompanying himself on the guitar. Almost five decades later, we know him in another role with religious overtones as the lecherous, sleazy, corrupt Prophet Roman Grant in Big Love, that story of down-home polygamy in Mormon Utah. If you haven't caught up with this series, tune into SBS on Sunday nights at 8.30pm.

A story, a movie, and two wonderful actors

Tonight, Greer Garson is on the telly in Random Harvest with Ronald Coleman. Sigh....

The movie is based on the novel by that incomparable storyteller, James Hilton.

The technique of delight: Timothy Spall

There are actors Miss Eagle lusts after - like Sean Connery. There are actors who cheer and enchant her - like Martin Clunes and Nigel Havers. There are the young and the beautiful who stun the ageing Miss Eagle - like Johnny Depp. And then there is the category of sheer delight: delight in his skill, delight in his characterization, delight in his diversity of roles and delight in such wonders being wrapped in an ordinary and seemingly unchangeable bloke. This is the beloved Timothy Spall. The pleasure he has given is beyond measure.

Miss Eagle is prompted to tell you about the wondrous Timothy in coming across this article this week.

Just too darn hot....

It has been too hot too blog. Focussing on cooler things - and hiding out at the movies. There have been a couple of trips up to the Cameo at Belgrave. I saw Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas)and Mrs Henderson Presents.

Joyeux Noel is a true story built into a movie of heart warming schmaltz with a message. Oh that all our current batches of soldier boys would see it and recognize how terribly they can be used - not only by politicians but other powers-that-be in the ruling class. There is no doubt though just how much Germans love Christmas. From the German-speaking culture we get Christmas trees and Silent Night together with all the fun, feasting and spirituality of the season. It is well to note that the Christmas Truce of World War I (and the Americans couldn't be in this one because they hadn't yet joined in) - the fact on which the movie is based - occurred at the first Christmas and didn't happen again. In just a few months, the deaths and the manner of their occurrence in the trenches were horrendous. In the years that followed trench warfare and the hundreds of thousands of lives committeed to it became an obscenity. We try to pretend that all war, any war, that we decide is right is therefore justified - and the movie opened with this and portraying the hateridden propaganda that was let loose in France and Germany and Britain. Humanity across the globe gets itself into all sorts of messes called war - but only occasionally for good reason. But even when the reason is good what happens is not. Joyeux Noel gave an indication of the horrors of war but emphasised the hope of humanity. Our hope is in spirits embedded in ancient traditions - traditions that teach us and help us to remember what it is to be human.
Off to World War II and Mrs Henderson Presents and the Americans did eventually turn up. What can one say about Dame Judi Dench. It seems that the older she gets, the busier she is. These days she seems to be in everything. Her performance as Mrs Henderson is like a mature and well-cellared wine: to be savoured, enjoyed, and dwelt upon. She appears as a cross between The Dowager Queen Mary and the Queen Mother - at one point, complete with tiara. Mrs Henderson is a romantic, a realist, a person of her class with a sensible earthiness which brings her through an extraordinary adventure in The Windmill Theatre. This movie is a tour de force not only for Judi Dench but for Bob Hoskins. Never has he looked so handsome (even in the nude and full frontal), never has he characterized a role so well. Dench and Hoskins are evenly matched - two denizens of British film and theatre. This movie has the fun of comedy, the variety of a musical, and the drama of a wartime movie. The evocation of the Blitz brought back memories of the London bombings of 2005 and reminded me of how well the Poms do stiff-upper-lip in theatre, film, and real life.

These are two wonderful movies to put on your list if you haven't seen them yet. But just ask - wouldn't it be wonderful if we could only look at a world at war in the movies as an historic artifact?

Technorati tags: Joyeux Noel Joyeaux Noel Christmas Truce Silent Night World War I World War II Mrs Henderson Presents Dame Judi Dench Judi Dench Bob Hoskins The Windmill Theatre Blitz

Blue Hills - oops I mean Blue Heelers - is all but over

It hasn't run as long as Blue Hills, Australia's iconic radio serial. Blue Heelers may or may not be an icon but I think John Wood just might be. He has set something of a record in regard to the Logies. He is the most nominated actor never to win the Gold Logie. Now that Heelers is all but over, it is unlikely that he ever will take home the Gold. I fell in love with John when he played Sugar Renfrey in the television mini-series of Power Without Glory from Frank Hardy's novel of the same name. Final episodes go to air later this year.


Blue Hills
Blue Heelers
John Wood
Logie Awards
Power Without Glory
Frank Hardy

Grange

Last night, herself and I watched - as devoted Aaron Pederson fans would have done - Grange. The stars are Aaron and Wadi Dona and one of Australia's most famous and valuable products, Penfold's Grange. How we enjoyed it!

And then to bed. And herself dreamed! She dreamed she had invited Aaron to Christmas Dinner. Her good friend, Leigh, arrived and sat down beside him. Thinks herself - You're not going to sit there right through lunch. But guess what? She did - putting herself into a simmering steam and great disappointment when she awoke this morning. As for me I once got a great big hug from Aaron. It was about seven years ago - and I still bask in the warm glow of the memory.