Deceptive Docufiction

There have been many stunning documentaries. However, there have also been many shockingly inaccurate and misleading documentaries. Michael Moore is probably partly responsible for the rise in partisan documentary films. I am not against the concept in principle, although I often wonder if such films should just be categorized under the label "propaganda" and they be reviewed as such. Nevertheless, there are certainly a good number of opportunities we should afford people to give their personal insights and reflections on important issues and I don't want to deny anyone that freedom. Docufiction is an interesting way to explore certain ideas and I think we have to respect it as its own genre. When it comes to art, I am opposed to most censorship, but when it comes to delivering something that is supposed to be factual the line has been firmly crossed between personal expression and simply misleading your viewers.

Melvyn Bragg's Books

 

Melvyn Bragg has earned himself the rare distinction of being a true celebrity academic in modern times. His achievements are vast and impressive. His career got off the ground as a successful novelist in the 1960s and he has gone onto win several critical awards up until the late 1990s. I grew up seeing him as the presenter with the peculiar nasally voice, regularly lampooned by the satirical puppet show Spitting Image, who hosted The South Bank Show. Bragg had a reputation for arts and culture, but I later discovered he was a huge driving force behind science in the Radio 4 programme, In Our Time, which he took over hosting and currently still presents. The show presents itself as a history programme with Bragg hosting or, to be more accurate, chairing a panel of university lecturers on a particular event or person from history. However, in line with Eleanor Roosevelt’s regular quote regarding small minds discussing people and medium minds discussing events, the listener quickly discovers the strength in the show is its exploration of ideas. Bragg does well to keep the discussing going along certain channels and even testing certain arguments with the impartial view his role demands. Such a role reveals a broad yet in depth understanding of a vast array of subjects that straddle the worlds of imagination and fact-finding. As a fellow writer that does not like to be confined to a narrow path, I find it is truly inspiring to see now that his published work includes a wide range of subjects in both fiction and non-fiction. Therefore, I shouldn’t have really been surprised to see the hugely disparate selection of books he chose for 12 Books That Changed the World.

The Blooded Lens Filter Part 1

The Blooded Lens Filter

Distorting Horror Fiction through Cinema (Part 1)

In time for Halloween I thought I would have a little look at the way horror cinema has changed the way we view certain horror icons. Despite there being undeniable original horror movie classics created through the dark genius of great filmmakers like Wes Craven, Dario Agento and Tobe Hooper, a good number of great films have their basis in literature. It’s a great source. Many early “talkies” resemble stage plays because that is exactly what they were. Often these stage plays were based on classic novels. To this day there is a strong relationship between the bestselling novelist and the movie producer. Many book franchises from Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lector series to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series to George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” saga have been written as their filmic adaptations have been in progress. It is often interesting to see how much the two mediums will still diverge in their depictions of characters and events, and how much the adaptation will have an influence over future instalments of the literary franchise. The moving image is overwhelmingly more powerful in conveying a concept than the written word, so if a filmmaker distorts something he can overwrite an entire mythology. Here are a few examples from the world of horror. 

Family Horror Films

Cover via Amazon

This great little piece and listing from Empire magazine shows why many of my generation had such a dark childhood. The '70s and '80s were a quirky time for kids with many films precariously set between childish imaginings and adult violence. "The Monster Squad" was a 15 certificate horror comedy featuring the Universal Studios group monster favourites being battled by a bunch of children. The film featured adult humour, including the revelation that "Wolfman  has nards!", and a fair bit of gore too. "Robocop" was not a horror movie, but it wasn't really a superhero movie either. It was an 18 certificate dark satire about consumerism and capitalism, where everything had a price, but it was marketed at children with action figures and toys associated with the movie on sale in time for its release. Its sequel also bore an 18 certificate and was even darker, but eventually we had children's cartoon series.

Ghoulish Nostalgic Nightmares

As this is the eve of my favourite festival and in the tradition of "Throwback Thursday" I thought I would re-visit an old nightmare and up-light the stage with the ghoul... 
 
The ghoul ranks amongst the highest of the unreal terrors that haunted my childhood imagination. These grave-raiding spectral monsters seem to be the bestial vestige of the almost neutered vampire figure of today's popular media. However, unlike vampires, werewolves and ghosts, there isn't a linear line to trace its development through fiction. Its iconography has branched off in several different directions and I think we probably could do with a mainstream horror story focusing on a purer form of this monstrosity. The closest I have seen of this happening appears to be in the anime series, "Tokyo Ghoul".

It is common for generations of adults to complain about the violent content of children's fiction, but I pretty much learnt the bulk of my horror education back in the 1980s before I left primary school. In fact, I read about it in primary school! This terrifying poem by Jack Prelutsky was in a book of general children's poetry I bought from our school's Puffin Book Club. The humour is dark and unrelenting. There isn't even a moral core to the story that is often used to offset the grisly content or horrid fates of children in cautionary folk tales. Like the ghoul itself, the poem is relentless in its onward progression through horridness climaxing with a chilling enough thought to give a child nightmares for weeks to come. Is it any wonder that my generation easily lapped up Roald Dahl's contributions to children's fiction.

Jonas Salk's 100th Birthday

I am going to come straight with you on this one. When it comes to leading lights in vaccinations, most of my historical knowledge ends with perhaps the man we could call the Godfather of Vaccinations, Edward Jenner. Jenner, of course, invented the vaccination for smallpox and started a revolution in medical science. As with an appreciation of the role bacteria play, vaccinating distinguishes itself to the majority of medical treatments in its proactive nature. It puts into the practice the principle that prevention is always better than the cure. By administering a controlled dosage of a disease - in Jenner's case cowpox - an individual's immune system can be activated and thus prevented from contracting a debilitating or potentially fatal disease - in Jenner's case small pox. A continued campaign of vaccinations can completely drive out a disease in a country, as it has done with many deadly diseases we all feared on a relatively short time ago.

Shelley, Storms and Frankenstein

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Stipple engraving. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"[He] then proceeded, with much eagerness and enthusiasm, to show me the various instruments, especially the electrical apparatus; turning round the handle very rapidly, so that the fierce, crackling sparks flew forth; and presently standing upon the stool with glass feet, he begged me to work the machine until he was filled with the fluid, so that his long, wild locks bristled and stood on end. Afterwards he charged a powerful battery of several large jars; laboring with vast energy, and discoursing with increasing vehemence of the marvellous powers of electricity, of thunder and lightning; describing an electrical kite that he had made at home, and projecting another and an enormous one, or rather a combination of many kites, that would draw down from the sky an immense volume of electricity, the whole ammunition of a mighty thunderstorm; and this being directed to some point would there produce the most stupendous results."

If you don't know already, my guess is that if I told you the above description was taken from another novel based on Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" you would not challenge me. Besides his wild eyes, Mary Shelley offers us no physical descriptions of Victor Frankenstein in her novel. However, the above text comes from Shelley's biographer, Thomas Jefferson Hogg when he describes the famous poet during his time at Oxford University. It's an interesting image. Like Victor Frankenstein, Shelley combined an avid interest in the metaphysical and the occult with the ways of modern science. His spirit and manic enthusiasm paint the very picture many actors would take on board when they portrayed this character.