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The Search for the Nile (1971)
QUALITY HISTORICAL TRAVELOGUE AND DRAMA COMBINED
Seek information on this 1971 big-budget 6-part series, and you'll seek in vain. No Wikipedia page, hardly any online presence at all. And yet at the time, it was fulsomely praised, received awards, was an internationally popular success. So why the present obscurity?
Look no further than the content, which is obviously not what the BBC and Time-Life their American co-financer, in whatever form they now exist, have at least until very recently wanted to even take credit for, let alone promote.
In contrast to modern portayals of past ages, which are usually peopled by 21st century ciphers in fancy dress, this feels like the real thing brought to life. And with no health warnings, signposting, PC tinkering etc. So you'll see evidence of slavery (by Arabs btw, not Europeans), black people behaving tribally, white people behaving like they were more socially advanced than others (which they were), men behaving like real men and women tagging along (and liking it!), all unchallenged, with the viewer left to make up his/her own mind about what's good/bad, right/wrong. Left to make an unprotected adult value judgement. Shocking.
The production values are high, with true-to-reality location shooting. Gorgeous cinematography abounds, with no loathsome caught-in-the-middle-of-a-video-game HD in sight, just warm immersive 35mm film. The characters are an amazing range of larger-than-life oneoffs. There are dramatic situations and intelligent dialogue throughout.
The production is not flawless; the team evidently had their agenda. Speke's motives are relentlessly darkened, perhaps to augment his great conflict with Burton: unnecessary, the reality was quite dramatic enough. Baker's 'wife' (they weren't - shock, horror - actually married at the time) is reduced to an eye-candy cipher. Livingstone has a halo practically grafted onto him in every scene. Time-Life's fingerprints are evident in Stanley's portrayal as an all-American hero, despite being barely American, right down to having a full American accent (living there only 8 years of his life, unlikely) and carrying - or rather having his slaves/workers carry - a US flag all through Africa (highly unlikely). Plus semi-whitewashing of his murderous tendencies.
But these character simplifications are the only relatively minor caveat. Every other aspect is top notch. Best of all, as a result of watching it I was encouraged to dig deeper into the 'real' story. How many modern productions would have a similar effect?
If you prefer your historic portrayals full of anachronisms, PC constructs and romantic cliches, with intrusive background music and post-production trickery, 'Downton Abbey' and 'Poldark' beckon. For the rest of us, 'The Source Of The Nile' is stirring, intelligent, educational entertainment with a total sense of immersion, from an age where British-derived productions had these values at their core, rather than debased ratings-driven criteria. And when British programme-makers were not so ashamed as is the case today of portraying their own, frequently glorious, history as it actually happened. So there's really nothing like it now.
It's a genuine outrage that it's been buried for so long, and it's still 'censored' inasmuch as not being re-broadcast anywhere, but at least it's now available in DVD form.
Highly recommended.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
An Unwelcome Gross-Out
The owners of the film rights of Tolkien's legacy naturally hope that each new instalment they provide will satisfy every demographically analysed sub-section of the massive potential cash cow (I mean audience).
So, in the case of the gentle children's volume "The Hobbit", what's it to be guys? A basically faithful-to-the-book rendition for old-fashioned types - like yours truly - who really only want its look and feel translated into visual format?
A lavish family-friendly epic for casual admirers of the Tolkien 'franchise', with enough easy reference points to this 'back material' for the new 'product entry' to fit seamlessly into the whole?
A 3-D Wide-Screen Tom-and-Jerry-cartoon-writ-large for the Video Game Generation, not overly concerned with plot, character, dialogue, coherence, dramatic tension, authenticity, or any other damn thing save 'awesome' special effects and bespoke cartoon violence?
The sad answer: a mishmash of all the above. This handsome looking, unevenly paced, garishly sensationalist dog's dinner is much more of a nightmare than a dream come true for any real lover of Tolkien. Even those of them, such as me, who liked the LOTR films.
Received wisdom has made us aware of the book's supposed shortcomings for modern adaptation. But has the hectic beefing-up of story, action scenes, back plot, character arcs/motivations etc. made things any better? Quite the reverse. Excessive tinkering has actually only served to show how well engineered the book was/is.
To be scrupulously fair, there are still some traces of wit, beauty, a sense of wonder, not completely trampled into the mud. But enough of the structure and (crucially) feel of the book is annihilated, leaving an admirer of the original feeling depressed, angry and manipulated. And this syndrome unfortunately gets ever worse as the film progresses, meaning that, despite the occasional good bits, the final impression when leaving the cinema is very negative indeed.
One senses a frantic, and toxic, combination of no-risk-taking combined with throwing-in-every-possible-kitchen-sink throughout. Any previously commercially successful star in the fantasy movie universe has to be referenced at all costs. Boyish knockabout slapstick; check "Pirates of the Caribbean". CGI superbeings slugging it out: check "Transformers". Simplistic racial conflict plot structure; check "Avatar". Generic quest narrative; check, er, "Lord of the Rings".
Examples of manipulation, all periodically evident throughout the film's entire run time, include: crude signposting of every plot twist; every being's inner feelings and motivations exaggerated and rammed home; every dangerous situation amplified beyond rhyme or reason into the completely absurd, thereby destroying rather than enhancing dramatic tension; totally generic 'stirring' fantasy soundtrack music unsubtly underpinning the action to further stupefy the senses.
Allotting specific blame on the director, or script writers, or producers, or backers of this pumped-up product for its artistic failure is futile. ALL the above, plus others, whatever their intentions at the outset, have combined in some unholy reverse alchemy to foist upon the world not a thing of beauty to be cherished forever (like the book), but rather a tasteless assault course for the senses, a crass base-metal reinvention of a golden literary creation.
And – no, please, no – we're still only a third of the way through!
Thoughtful fans of Tolkien, beware. Do not trust the positive reactions to this artefact from the sensation addicts who are evidently blinded by their dependence on cheap thrills. I don't care how depressingly numerous they are! This 'Hobbit' is NOT the Baggins you and I know and love.