I have a habit of becoming fans of specific actors/actresses and finding all of their work I can, this method has lead to some almighty duds believe me; however not tonight. Bryan Dick is an English actor whose most well know projects have been Master and Commander and Blood and Chocolate, but as a British TV watcher I saw him in Earthfasts as a child, then Blackpool, an episode of Torchwood, the lovely All The Small Things and most recently an episode of Being Human.
Tonight the marvelous Cinema Paradiso enabled me to curl up and watch Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky and it was wonderful. The colour drained pallet of London in the 30's draws you into the world of Bob, Jenny and Ella; whose three overlapping but separately told stories make palpable the slow breaking of their hopes, love and ambition. There is a fantastic synopsis and review here so I won't even attempt but it got me thinking about things.
About how many small but passionate lives go on, how each person is screaming with their own story no matter how cliched or boring it may seem from the outside and that we may presume to get to know people or a situation but that it is probable we may never know anyone truly. How the small moments of happiness linger and how what is settling for one person may be heel-clicking, heart stopping love for the person on the other side of the relationship. How we are all living our own stories overlapping with others.
It also got me thinking about now, about all the blogs I read and why starting this was important to me; the lives portrayed in the programme were all quiet, a waiter, a prostitute, a barmaid living in a time we now paint with nostalgia. It came from a book by Patrick Hamilton and was heavily autobiographical, and yet it feels timeless, not necessarily the situation but the emotion behind it, commit to another human and run the risk of being hurt, trust someone again and again because you love them and want that to be enough, watch someone you want to want you want someone else. It made me wonder about the life I am living, what I want it to be and the people around me. Stuck in this body of perception, I want to know how and why others choose how to live, and how we try to break the barriers to tell our stories and what we choose to keep quiet.
Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky is a quiet period drama but it made my method worth the madness. My favourite plot was Ella's but I can't find a good picture of just her.
1 http://wondersinthedark.wordpress.com/2008/11/25/twenty-thousand-streets-under-the-sky-%C2%BD/
2 Ibid
3 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/dec/08/classic-novel-new-york-review
Tonight the marvelous Cinema Paradiso enabled me to curl up and watch Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky and it was wonderful. The colour drained pallet of London in the 30's draws you into the world of Bob, Jenny and Ella; whose three overlapping but separately told stories make palpable the slow breaking of their hopes, love and ambition. There is a fantastic synopsis and review here so I won't even attempt but it got me thinking about things.
About how many small but passionate lives go on, how each person is screaming with their own story no matter how cliched or boring it may seem from the outside and that we may presume to get to know people or a situation but that it is probable we may never know anyone truly. How the small moments of happiness linger and how what is settling for one person may be heel-clicking, heart stopping love for the person on the other side of the relationship. How we are all living our own stories overlapping with others.
It also got me thinking about now, about all the blogs I read and why starting this was important to me; the lives portrayed in the programme were all quiet, a waiter, a prostitute, a barmaid living in a time we now paint with nostalgia. It came from a book by Patrick Hamilton and was heavily autobiographical, and yet it feels timeless, not necessarily the situation but the emotion behind it, commit to another human and run the risk of being hurt, trust someone again and again because you love them and want that to be enough, watch someone you want to want you want someone else. It made me wonder about the life I am living, what I want it to be and the people around me. Stuck in this body of perception, I want to know how and why others choose how to live, and how we try to break the barriers to tell our stories and what we choose to keep quiet.
Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky is a quiet period drama but it made my method worth the madness. My favourite plot was Ella's but I can't find a good picture of just her.1 http://wondersinthedark.wordpress.com/2008/11/25/twenty-thousand-streets-under-the-sky-%C2%BD/
2 Ibid
3 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/dec/08/classic-novel-new-york-review
Thank you for visiting my cottage and for the lovely comment you left behind, much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteDuchess
I had never even heard of this movie before! I love Scarlett though so I will have to watch it. Thanks for the reccomendation :-D
ReplyDeletexoxo BardotinBlue
ooh, must try to see this. Thank you for your blog comment! xoxo
ReplyDeleteThank you all for stopping by here too! A Duchess and a Baroness, I'm honoured.
ReplyDeleteI think, Haleigh, you've mistaken the blonde for Scarlett Johassen but it is an English actress called Zoe Tapper. The whole thing, while beautifully done, was not a big budget production so the cast are either low-profile or classic British actors.