Music and Travelling

So October's been something of an odd and strangely active/eventful month. Not in any serious way (the bad sense of the word 'eventful'), but it's just that I've had a great deal of places to go and things to do and people to meet up with. Odd how it sometimes seems to all get packed into one month.

I've been in (and am currently in) Newbury twice this month, once for four or so days at the second weekend and now for six days on this, the final week (and fifth weekend). I also took a quick trip up to Bath on the third weekend to see my brother's new BUST production of The Importance Of Being Ernest.

On the whole, that's one of the more satisfying shows I've seen him perform in as part of BUST, mainly because I know that he's such a huge fan of Wilde and the play in itself, so his passion for it shows through quite well. However, this is the first play I've seen of his where I'd say that he wasn't the best performance. Not to say that he didn't give a good show, but I think that Katie, one of his co-stars, who has been in plenty of good shows, stole the show out from under everyone's feet as Lady Bracknell. Good show all around, I say, I do love that play.

Tragically I missed seeing my parents the following weekend, owing to being in Plymouth, but they missed the play, so it all works out in my mind. Sort of. I was in Plymouth to see my friend Dave, whom I've known for 10 years now. It was his engagement party to his long-term girlfriend Sara. It was a quiet evening, but worth the trip and good to see them. Odd to think of Dave preparing to get married, but I suppose that the rest of the world isn't as phobic about these things as I am! Mind you, they implied that it'd probably be a while until it happens.

On the Music front, it's been a busy one as well. Anthony invited me to go and see Plan B with him, at the beginning of the month and it was a blast, which was a bit of surprise to me, since I was kinda thinking it'd just be chavs and tossers going to this show. It was, however, really good, a lot of passion up on the stage, which is what it's all about.

Plan B, however, was eclipsed by the other concert we went to this month, which was of course the GASLIGHT ANTHEM. Twice in one year, oh hells yeah! This time they came here, to Southampton and we got to meet and talk to the band after the show, in an absolutely freezing street with a bunch of fellow concert goers we didn't know after we started queueing at 4:30 that afternoon.

Well, that's about it...

METROPOLIS
(The longest cut)

Wow. Metropolis. I mean wow.

This film is the very reason that science fiction can truly exist, you know. Well, science fiction in film and television. It'll always have a place in novels and short stories, but this film... this film is *it*.

It's the story of a massive super-city, with the well-dressed and decedant elite on top and the grime-smudged workers below, toiling to built the New Tower of Babel and keep the Heart Machine of the city powered.

There's no story more classic than this, in fact you've probably seen Metropolis a dozen times without actually realising it, there is simply so much inspiration in it that legions of writers have set forth brimming with ideas from just watching this movie, of which I am one. It's not without it's detractors, however, H.G. Wells himself was not a fan, stating that it was a poor film and guilty of 'foolishness, cliche, platitude and muddlement about mechanical progress and progress in general'. Harsh words, considering who they were coming from.

But he's utterly, utterly wrong in that statement, I feel. This is a film about the darker side of society being redeemed by it's lighter virtues. The characters aren't so much three dimensional personalities, they're archetypes upon which three dimensional characters are built upon. Rotwang may be hammy and cheesy as a villian, but we wouldn't have the Mad Scientist without him, the Thin Man may be a charicature, but he's the original Sinister Henchman. It's a visually rich, highly detailed and immensely important film, in my humble opinion.

Since the discovery of an almost complete reel of the movie in an Argentian museum back in 2001, the film hasn't been this long since 1927, when Lang's original cut was screened a handful of times in Berlin (once to Joseph Goebbels, who frickin' LOVED IT). After that, the film was trounced, cut apart, mutilated and re-edited into various forms to suit the many propoganda needs that it found itself in. There are still scenes missing, but there's now so much that's been added back to it, it brought tears to my eyes to see it in almost all of it's glory.

It's 83 years old, it's 150-odd minutes long, it's completely silent and it's the source of so many cliches.

But sitting through it is a privilige, if only for the stunningly gorgeous cinematography and vast scope.

It's films like this that remind me why I like films. I was lucky enough to be stewarding for this movie at my place of work (The Newbury Corn Exchange) and I volunteered for this job without the slightest moment's hesitation. It's beauty as a piece of cinema has not diminished, nor has its message.

Next up: The Social Network
(A film actually from 2010!)