Friday 15 July 2011

deep end

this 1970 film by Jerzy Skolimowski was thought lost, but has been found and restored.  It is now showing in cinemas, and I saw it yesterday.  Just after seeing it I was a little bit like "ugh, horrid 1970s sexual politics" but I actually woke up in the middle of the night transfixed by several of the images in the film, and with the soundtrack (Cat Stevens and Can) going through my head.  That has not I think ever happened to me before.  Every image links to another and is part of the story.  This is how films should be made.  A scene in which a man with his back to the camera paints a wall (bottom right-hand still on the poster) is terrifying.  I need to see the film again.  Go and see it.  It stars the young Jane Asher, who says now that not only did she not use a body double but that she is still pleased with the way it was done, somebody called John Moulder-Brown, and among others the wonderful Diana Dors, who could DO female sexuality like no-one else.  A masterpiece.
Oh and this film is in some ways so far ahead of its time that I kept thinking (I was sixteen in 1970) that they had got the period detail just right, only to remember that it was actually filmed then.

10 comments:

Jonny said...

There was a piece on this with Jane Asher on The Film Programme on Radio 4 this afternoon. The link is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b012fts7/The_Film_Programme_15_07_2011/

It's about 9 minutes into the programme. If you can't get iplayer in France, it's repeated on Sunday nights at 11pm BST

janestheone said...

thanks, probably will not manage to get it tho Were you aware that you had a brief conversation with Jane Asher's son at my 50th birthday party?

Jonny said...

I do remember that. I think I congratulated him on his mother. Not sure how he took that.

Anonymous said...

I remember him being in the frame. Wasn't he going out with one of Jane's assistants or something?

And I also rememebr that Salter ( who was not there) was lurking around in the vicinty of the bash throughout the entire day, buttonholing any and everybody he met and asking if they were going to it and what was going to happen.

Dick Head.

janestheone said...

yes, he was going out with my intern at the time and she lived in their house, how cool is that

I did not see Salter myself that day, but was told he had been hanging about outside, how sad is that

was also told later by an officer that he tried to book the Town Hall for his own birthday bash (he is two days younger than me) the same night, and that he had expected to be able to get it free - yours truly naturally paid the full commercial hire rate

dreamingspire said...

So you can pull rank on Salter, then, by virtue of being older?

janestheone said...

hardly, Spiresy - the thing is I never saw it as a competition - he did, which was his misfortune, and, ultimately, downfall.

Anonymous said...

No. Just by virtue of not being a Dick Head.

I rather fancy that the intern might have been called Pamela - or was that the person who was on-off going out with Jane's son at the time? It was, wasn't it - so wrong one. So might the intern not have been someone from one of the registered American/Canadian schemes? Or not? And in which case was a friend of MY intern? And is there any connection at all with the rampant Morris dancers who were pulsating up and down throughout the evening - or was that too much of Mr Weston's good wine? Yes. Probably... But as I wasn't seeing Sumo wrestlers - not even Clare Ward - it can't have been TOO much of MWgw.

janestheone said...

No. Pamela was a paid member of staff for a while, and did indeed go out with my son on and off, but I have no reason to believe she ever went out with a member of the Asher/Scarfe family. Pamela it was who organised the female Morris dancers at that birthday bash.

I will not name the intern, but it was she who went out with Alex Scarfe, the son of Jane Asher and Gerald Scarfe. She was excellent. She came through a registered scheme for US interns, and I believe was friendly with at least one intern working for another IMPORTANT MP.

Anonymous said...

Ah yes. Quite so indeed.

And -- a chorus of HEIN all round!!!