At a time when Black Lives Matter demonstrations are happening round the globe, including in British cities, it is useful to be reminded that the civil rights movement in the United States was at its zenith more than half a century ago. Laws were changed, segregation ended and voter registration for African Americans facilitated. Yet attitudes in some places, not just in the Deep South, have taken longer to alter, not least within the police force, as witnessed by the killing of George Floyd, which sparked the current protests. At the heart of the civil rights movement was Martin Luther King Jr., awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his work to further racial equality but assassinated four years later, a martyr to the cause. His struggle was far from easy, and as Ava DuVernay’s biopic Selma (available on BBC iPlayer for the next three weeks) shows, King had to stand up to resistance from within the black community as well as to hatred from racist whites. Many black rights activists, such as Malcolm X (also assassinated), believed that more radical, violent, action was needed rather than Martin Luther King’s Gandhian passive resistance. But King refused to be swayed, causing intense strains among his supporters and even within his marriage. All this comes over clearly in DuVernay’s film, which focuses on one key period in its subject’s campaigning life, the organisation of a march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital, Montgomery, to demand black voter registration.
Symbolically at the centre of the story and the film is the Edmund Pettus Bridge, spanning the Alabama River, on which the column of marchers were brutally attacked the first time an attempt to cross was made. The second time, the black ranks now swelled by white sympathisers outraged by the earlier bloodbath, King halted the column on the bridge, rather than risk further carnage. The third, successful crossing would only take place after a legal challenge and heavy lobbying of President Lyndon B. Johnson. In a film such as this where historic figures familiar to countless millions are being represented by actors the choice of actors is of course crucial. Selma stands or falls on how convincing David Oyelowo is as Dr King and for me, he carries it off splendidly, not only in delivering the preacher’s rhetoric effectively but also manifesting his character’s doubts and even occasional aloofness. He is backed by a strong cast of other players, including Tom Wilkinson as LBJ, Tim Roth as the snakelike Governor George Wallace and Oprah Winfrey as campaigner Annie Lee. Doubtless historians of the civil rights movement will find details with which to quibble. But for the average viewer this is a powerful representation of a key stage in that movement’s struggle, as well as a reminder that it is not yet over.
I am far from alone in turning to Netflix during the long evenings of COVID-19 lockdown, which means I have been watching TV series that otherwise I would have missed. The most remarkable, which I finished last night, has been the 12-episode The Road to Calvary, originally on Russia’s NTV. Based on a trilogy of novels written by Alexei Tolstoy — who won the Stalin prize for them, the highest literary accolade the USSR could award — the story focuses on two beautiful and emotionally charged sisters, torn from their comfortable upper middle class life in Tsarist St. Petersburg and separated by the tumultuous events of the First World War, the October Revolution and then the Civil War that pitted Reds against Whites. Both are aggressively wooed — and periodically almost raped — against a backdrop of military carnage and class conflict, the locale shifting to Samara (from which the novelist himself hailed), isolated hamlets on the steppe and finally the Bolsheviks’ new capital of Moscow.
The two sisters, bound together by unusually strong sibling ties, struggle with their feelings for two suitors, later their husbands, who are ripped away by the wars and find themselves conflicted by the competing ideologies. The 2017 television series (in Russian, with English sub-titles) emphasizes the political contradictions and ambiguity of the period in a way that would never have been possible while the Communists were in power and it is the shocking cruelty, the uncertainty and illogicality of war that pervade the narrative, rather than heroism. But it is the strong performances of the four principal actors which really makes one want to know if they will survive, and get together again. No expense was spared in this lavish production making it visually spectacular, too. One gets an unforgettable view of what Russia was like a century ago, so even if the story is fictional at times it has the power of documentary, veering from great beauty to savagery.
Many pub landlords and restaurateurs in England will be heaving a huge sigh of relief this evening following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement that they should be open for business again from 4 July, as long as various social distancing measures are deployed. But as has been the case throughout the Conservative government’s handling of the virus, the measure is full of inconsistencies and loopholes. Whereas it might be reasonable for anyone wanting to book a table at a restaurant to provide contact information the idea that everyone who goes into a pub or a restaurant will have to register will seem to many people concerned with civil liberties — including me — as a bridge too far. How will such data be stored, for how long and who will have access to it? Moreover, as no-one will be asked to provide an ID, it is reported, we can expect that there will quite a lot of Mickey Mouses and Bruce Lee’s turning up at their locals. But that is not the only problem with Boris Johnson’s new guidelines. Scotland does not yet think it is safe to give the green light to the hospitality sector; that is likely to come on 15 July instead. So why next week will it be safe to go out for a meal in England, but not in Scotland? Will some people just be tempted to cross the border (as used to happen when pubs were closed on Sundays in Wales?
The social distancing modifications are a bit perplexing as well. Mr Johnson indicated in his briefing at 10 Downing Street that the 2 metre safe distance limit will be reduced to “one metre plus” from 4 July. Most people will assume that in practice that means one metre, and in fact if my local neighbourhood is anything to go by, people have decided for themselves that that is alright now. I understand that the hospitality sector needed sufficient notice to make necessary adjustments to their properties so they can reopen on 4 July, but many people will just decide that if one metre is alright from Friday next week it should be alright now. The whole way this is being handled is typical of the shambolic way the Johnson government has dealt with the pandemic. Lockdown was introduced far too late, meaning that maybe as many as 20,000 people died unnecessarily. And there has been no proper coordination with the devolved governments of the nations. Now the daily press conferences are going to be discontinued. I know they have become deadly dull, as there is no opportunity for really probing questioning of Ministers. But inevitably some people will wonder whether the scientists who used to be trotted out had got fed up with being used as shields to protect the government from its own incompetence.
Boris Johnson’s Conservative government has announced its intention to subsume the Department for International Development (DFID) within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). This is a seriously bad idea, not least at a time when much of the developing world is struggling with the Coronavirus pandemic. Even former Prime Minister David Cameron has criticised the plan. It was under the Cameron-led Coalition government of 2010-2015 that the United Kingdom achieved the UN target of devoting 0.7% of its GNP to international development; indeed, that percentage was then enshrined in law. But with an 80-seat majority in the House of Commons, Boris Johnson may feel that he can overturn that as well if he wishes. If he did, that would be once again singing to former UKIP Leader Nigel Farage’s songsheet. There are indeed a number of Brexiteer Tory MPs who feel, like Farage, that overseas aid is a waste of UK taxpayers’ money and that the funds should be spent at home, while others argue that if aid is to be given it should be linked to the promotion of British goods and services — in effect recycling the money back into the British economy. But one of the main discussion points in the late 1970s, when I was Secretary to the Brussels-based NGO Liaison Committee to the European Communities, was the need to move away from such “tied aid”, instead addressing the real priorities of poorer countries. To reverse that process would be a retrograde step. But so too is bringing DFID back in-house at the FCO, where inevitably it will be seen as an arm of British foreign policy. DFID has won a lot of respect for its work, often targeted at the poorest communities. But downgrading DFID from Ministry status would be taking us back several decades. This is hardly likely to win us many friends in sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, where views of British colonial legacy is often ambivalent, to say the least. That is not exactly a smart thing to do at a time when post-Brexit Britain is looking to improve its reputation outside Europe. In fact, in a word, it’s daft.
Having loved BlacKkKlansman and several earlier Spike Lee films, I awaited the release of his latest, Da 5 Hoods (now on Netflix), with eager anticipation. The fact that it is set in Vietnam, with frequent flashbacks to the Vietnam War, in which I was a cub reporter in 1969 and 1971, had further whetted my appetite. The core story focuses on four former black GIs returning to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh Ville) to search for the remains of their fifth and most charismatic comrade in arms who was killed during an operation out in the field. At least that is their public excuse, but it soon becomes clear that the real reason is that while examining the wreckage of a shot-down US plane back then they found a metal chest solidly packed with gold bars that had been destined to reward minority ethnic guerrillas fighting against the Communists. Revisiting the country triggers memories good and bad and in a couple of cases clear evidence of PTSD. The ambivalence of their relationship with the Vietnamese — some of whom would have been on the same side, others definitely not — adds to the tension. Flashbacks include not only the gunfight in which their buddy lost his life but also splendid recreations of the broadcasts by North Vietnam’s Hanoi Hannah, who relayed the news of the murder of Martin Luther King to eager listeners and pointed out that although African Americans made up only 11 per cent of the US population at the time nearly a third of the drafted soldiers in the Vietnam War were black.
Various other historic and contemporary references pepper the two-and-a-half hours of the film, from Nixon to Trump, MAGA and Black Lives Matter. Moreover, the cinematic references (both visual and musical, including the use of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries in homage to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now), come so fast and furious that one is left reeling. After a fine, strong beginning, in which the characters of the four late-middle-aged men with all their quirks and differences are well drawn, the plot starts to fall apart when a love interest (surely so old Hollywood!) is introduced in the form of a young French woman working for a charity she has helped finance to combat mines and bombs who starts to get entangled with the son of one of the quartet, who has materialised in Vietnam unbidden. Things really disintegrate when the motley gang happen upon first the gold and then their fallen comrade’s remains with literally incredible ease, after which the movie turns into a sort of action thriller where they have to try to hang on to their booty despite the determination of corrupt forces to get it off them. I shan’t spoil the ending by revealing what happens next. Suffice it to say that this visually glorious epic (congratulations to cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel) is sure to evoke nostalgia for Vietnam for anyone who has been there (even if some of the scenes were actually shot in Thailand), but whereas it had the chance of being a truly great film Spike Lee blew it by throwing almost everything into it bar the kitchen sink.
There were disgraceful scenes in central London today, as bands of far right demonstrators gathered in a show of defiance. Some physically attacked police, others made Nazi salutes in front of the Cenotaph and one was filmed urinating at the side of the memorial to slain policeman Keith Palmer. Several journalists and other media personnel also came under assault. Britain First leader Paul Golding, who is facing charges under the Terrorism Act, was out among the mob, provocatively wearing a White Lives Matter T-shirt. Surely he should be in custody, or at least forbidden to incite? One poor family quietly picnicking in the park was set upon and spat at by a marauding gang. Ever since the EU Referendum four years ago right-wing forces have been re-energised and although they claim to love Britain in fact they hate everything that Britain is today — diverse, tolerant and creative. Government politicians have been quick to criticise a rowdy minority element among left-wing demonstrators who have taken to the streets recently in the wake of George Floyd’s brutal murder by a policeman in the US. But they need to speak out about the neo-fascists in the streets at least as loudly. Boris Johnson is a bit of pin-up among not just Brexiteers but also far-right groups. It is vital that he condemn the latter before they recruit more people to their ranks. As we have seen in parts of continental Europe, neo-fascism is like coronavirus; if adequate measures, including isolation, are not taken quickly all too easily it can spread.
The 1950s were a period in which American suburbia really came into its own. Acre upon acre of neat little houses surrounded by unfenced “yards”, a big car in front of the garage, the wife in the kitchen and a new supermarket just a few minutes drive away. Such is the setting for George Clooney’s black comedy Suburbicon (available on BBC iPlayer for the next 12 days). The fictitious community of Suburbicon has drawn in young, upwardly mobile families from different parts of the country, but when one of these is black, the racism that was prevalent at that time even outside the Deep South rares its head, in ugly contrast to the pastel-coloured prettiness of the environment. Yet this is not the main element of the film’s story, nor is any part of that aspect comic. Instead, the main focus is on the family whose bungalow backs on to the black family’s plot. The wife is in a wheelchair following a car accident, so her sister has moved in to help run the household and look after the young son. But this apparently quiet life is shattered when two thugs arrive and carry out a brutal attack. Yet all is not as it first seems, as the story unfolds in ever more alarming fashion, in counterpoint to moments of almost slapstick comedy.
Clooney used an old script by the Coen brothers as one of the building blocks of the movie, so quirkiness is to be expected. The setting and the cinematography are pitch perfect, but credit must go especially to the principal actors for making the film memorable. Matt Damon is the cold, calculating, puritanical yet hypocritical father, while both his wife and her superficially dippy sister are played by Julianne Moore. For me, though, the prize performance is put in by young Noah Jupe as the boy, increasingly disoriented and terrified by the extraordinary events going on around him. The one jarring note is the sub plot of the harassment being experienced by the black neighbours. Presumably Clooney wanted to emphasize the cancer that lies underneath the skin of the idyllic American dream, but it feels like a separate thread that would have worked better in a tragic film all of its own. It’s a pity, because putting the two plots together makes the film uneven and stops it from being brilliant.
For six decades from 1948, the Colony Room Club in Dean, Street, Soho, was a moth-trap for London’s Bohemians. Its life span — not bad for a club — fell into three distinct periods, like the Ages of Man, each presided over by a boss whose personality impacted on both the membership and the atmosphere. The Colony Room’s heyday was in the 1950s and 1960s, when a sharp-tongued Jewish lesbian, Muriel Belcher, was in charge; she features in the little book I wrote for the National Portrait Gallery 20-odd years ago, Soho in the Fifties and Sixties, illustrated with paintings and photographs from the NPG’s collections. Muriel took the young artist Francis Bacon — whom she called “daughter” — under her wing. Other artists, including Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach, became habitués. Witty when in a good mood, she could be cutting about people who failed to impress her. Perched on a bar stool near the door, she watched the comings and goings like a hawk, from time to time rummaging in her capacious leather handbag. Her barman, erstwhile hustler Ian Board, took over after she died, his rudeness exceeding even that of the landlord of the Coach and Horses pub, Norman Balon. Once handsome, Board’s face was ruined by drink, his nose finally resembling a giant ripe strawberry. He too passed on and was succeeded by his barman, Michael Wojas, an altogether sweeter man, until drugs warped his mind and sucked up much of the Club’s takings. By then, most of the old regulars were dead, though Young British Artists like Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas had adopted the place. Not long before he died, Wojas called last orders on the place, to the dismay of many of its diehard supporters.
Many books have been written about Soho in general, and the Colony Room in particular, but Darren Coffield’s crowdfunded Tales from the Colony Room: Soho’s Lost Bohemia (Unbound, £25) is quite different from all the others I have read in letting the characters who congregated in the Colony Room talk about themselves and each other, as well as the Club itself. Much of the book is made up of short snippets culled from many hours of taped interviews made over the years, seamlessly interwoven with extracts from articles and books that are presented in the same, informal interview style. For nearly 400 pages, Darren Coffield lets people speak, have conversations, bitch about each other, the voices of Francis Bacon and others resonating from beyond the grave. Much of the banter is scabrous, a lot of it hilarious, other parts downright cruel. But such was the mix that at various times characterised the Colony Room, where the only real sin was to be boring. As Coffield notes, it would be impossible these days for such a place to exist and thrive, not just because Soho has ceased to be a cheap area in which to live or play, or because many of the young creative talents migrated to East London. People these days don’t want to while away their afternoons drinking champagne or spirits and chain-smoking in a tiny, sickly green venue up a tatty staircase. Social media, mobile phones and other forms of networking have taken over. Literally next door to where the Colony Room was is the Groucho Club, some of whose members might claim to be the new Bohemians, but trust me, they are not.
Many war films — not least those made in Hollywood — have glorified military activity, while a few, like Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter, have dwelt on how war can really screw one’s mind. But few modern cinema epics actually make you feel you are right there in the action, both from the point of view of the soldiers fighting and of the local population. Having covered several wars and conflict situations from the Vietnam War onward as a journalist, I guess that is why I found Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (available via BBC iPlayer for the next four weeks) so gripping. Although it was shot mainly in Jordan (and at studios in Vancouver, Canada), I really felt I was back in small town Iraq. As in Vietnam, the Americans — and in this case their British colleagues, who appear briefly but memorably — could never know who were good guys and who were the enemy out to kill them. Actually, in both Vietnam and Iraq, most local people just wanted to get on with their lives and tried their best to function normally while all the destruction and violence took place around them.
Bigelow’s fictional tale focuses on a small company of specialist troops involved in locating and decommissioning IEDs. Right from the first, long sequence this introduces and reintroduces tension effectively. But there is also tension within the band of comrades, a bubbling mix of machismo, recklessness and fear, leavened by flashes of kindness. Though one does see Iraqi militia fighters in some of the direct exchanges with the troops, most of the Iraqis young and old are just spectators until they get directly caught up in things. Several are inevitably victims, of the situation, of the war and of fighters on both sides. But I loved the way the film does give one a sense of normal Arab town life, including courteous hospitality and the football playing boys who try to make a few bucks selling dodgy videos to the US forces. Streets are as likely to be strewn with litter as they are with the debris of war, and mangy feral cats wander among it all, as well as the occasional herd of goats. I suppose some might argue that that is the sensitive touch of a woman director, as is the ferocious middle aged professor’s wife who attacks an intruding armed US soldier with a tray. But this is a great film, irrespective of the gender of its director. It won an Oscar for Best Picture when it came out (and a fistful of other awards). I’m not sure why I missed it then; probably because I was based in Kuwait at the time. But one of the upsides of the otherwise tiresome obligation to stay at home during COVID19 has been to discover films such as this.
McCarthyism was one of the most disgraceful features of modern American history, as for a decade from the late 1940s a witch-hunt against real and imagined Communists was carried out, on the grounds that these “un-American activities” amounted to treason. Hollywood was a particular focus for attention. The US film industry had before the Second World War benefited from a significant influx of European refugees — many Jewish — fleeing the Nazis; unsurprisingly, some of them were left-wing. But during the War, Hollywood became a major platform for broadcasting the US view of the world, American values and an often black-and-white portrayal of good versus evil. The onset of the Cold War made the Soviet Union the new bogeyman, so anyone being in the least complimentary about the Russians, let alone signing up to Communist Party membership, was in danger. This led to Congressional hearings at which “suspects” were interrogated by Joseph McCarthy and his allies, as well as being pressured to name others. Some were sent to prison for refusing to testify to their persecutors’ satisfaction. Others even committed suicide. Most ended up on a blacklist, which meant that their livelihoods were withdrawn, leading to penury and many a family break-up. All were victims.
Dalton Trumbo is not a name that particularly resonates these days, but in the 1940s he was one of Hollywood’s most successful screen-writers. He fell foul of the McCarthyites but refused to renounce his political beliefs or to betray others. He was barred by the major studios, but he was such a good writer that he was able to bootleg scripts under pseudonyms to a couple of sympathetic men in the business. He was earning only a fraction of his previous fees, but had the delicious pleasure of winning a couple of Oscars under another name. He also had the resolute support of his wife, whose importance really comes across in Jay Roach’s movie Trumbo (available on BBCiPlayer for the next three weeks), in which she is beautifully played by Diane Lane. However, the real tour de force, as it needed to be, comes from Bryan Cranston as the eponymous hero, chain-smoking, swigging bourbon and tapping out reams of script with two fingers on a typewriter. Roach makes most of the actors look like their originals — full credit to the make-up department — which means that the interspersed extracts of real-time newsreel footage work extremely well. The actress-turned-gossip–columnist Hedda Hopper, who boasted a readership of 35 million in her heyday, was a prime mover in the Hollywood blacklisting enterprise, gleefully ruining the lives of talents far superior to hers. In the film, she is played by Helen Mirren, the epitome of bitchiness, but with dresses and hats to die for.
Jonathan Fryer 