An Education

These are my notes for this week's screening:

An Education


UK 2009 (95 minutes)

Director: Lone Scherfig

Starring: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike and Emma Thompson

Awards and Nominations

• Nominated for three Oscars: Best Film, Best Actress (Carey Mulligan) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Nick Hornby)

• A further 18 wins and 45 nominations including a BAFTA Award for Best Actress for Carey Mulligan and seven further nominations including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Outstanding British Film

In 1961 London Jenny Millar (Carey Mulligan), a 16 year old schoolgirl in the process applying to Oxford, meets a charming older man David Goldman (Peter Sarsgaard) who starts taking her out and then charms her parents into accepting the relationship. Jenny eventually realises that Goldman is a con man, but nonetheless accepts his proposal of marriage and drops out of school – and then she discovers that he is already married. Jenny returns to school to renew her studies and next year is accepted at Oxford.

The film is based on an autobiographical memoir by the journalist Lynn Barber who as a schoolgirl had an affair with conman Simon Prewalski, an associate of Peter Rachman before reading English at St Anne’s College Oxford. The script is by Nick Hornby, better known as the author of novels such as Fever Pitch, About A Boy, and High Fidelity, who explained in an interview what drew him to the story:

“She’s a suburban girl who’s frightened that she’s going to get cut out of everything good that happens in the city. That, to me, is a big story in popular culture. It’s the story of pretty much every rock ‘n’ roll band.”

The story also has echoes of the kitchen-sink dramas of the 1960s like Billy Liar and A Taste of Honey although the trouble that Jenny gets to is the – potential – loss of her Oxford career. The film concludes with Jenny at Oxford remarking in a voiceover: “I probably looked as wide-eyed, fresh and artless as any student. But I wasn’t.” This is, if anything, an understatement: as Lynn Barber revealed during a recent appearance on Desert Island Discs, she managed to sleep with more than 50 men during two terms at Oxford.

Carey Mulligan received unanimous praise for her performance as Jenny in what was only her second film appearance. She played Kitty Bennet in Joe Wright’s version of Price and Prejudice (2005) and then spent three years playing leading roles in a number of TV programmes including Ada Clare in Bleak House and Sally Sparrow in Blink (one of the best Doctor Who stories ever). Following the international success of An Education she was cast in a co-starring role in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), Oliver Stone’s sequel to Wall Street (1987) and will appear shortly in a starring role with Keira Knightley in Never Let Me Go (2010), from the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, which will receive its first screening at the 2010 London Film Festival.

Up In The Air

These are my film notes for our first screening which is due to take place on Thursday 16th September:

Up in the Air

USA 2009 (109 minutes)

Director: Jason Reitman

Starring: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick

Awards and Nominations

• Nominated for 6 Oscars: Clooney (Best Actor), Farmiga (Best Supporting Actress), Kendrick (Best Supporting Actress), Best Film, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay

• A further 44 wins and 53 nominations (including BAFTA nominations for Clooney, Farmiga and Kendrick)

“In one sense, it’s a movie about a man who fires people for a living. In another sense, it’s a movie about a man who collects air miles excessively. In another sense it’s about a man who meets a woman who’s so similar to him that even though they both believe in the idea of living solo, they begin to fall in love.”

Jason Reitman

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) loves his job as an outplacement counsellor, travelling around the US laying off staff for managers too cowardly to do it for themselves and aiming to achieve a personal goal of earning ten million frequent flyer air miles with American Airlines. He is enjoying a casual relationship with Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), another frequent flyer, but his footloose life becomes complicated when his boss asks him to mentor the dynamic Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) who has developed a new method of lay-off using a webcam which saves money by reducing the need for expensive air travel.

Reitman wrote the screenplay with Sheldon Turner and, although it is based loosely on a novel by Walter Kim, stated that he wrote the three main parts with Clooney, Farmiga and Kendrick in mind. Both Reitman and Clooney were aware of the apparent similarities between Clooney’s public persona and the role he played, and Reitman confirmed that the casting of Clooney was key to the success of the film:

“If you're going to make a movie about a guy who fires people for a living and you still want to like him, that actor better be damn charming and I don't think there’s a more charming actor alive than George Clooney. I was very lucky he said yes.”

In his review of the film Philip French described George Clooney as giving his best performance to date and the character of Bingham as the best role that he has played: Bingham is “Arthur Miller’s Willie Loman reshaped as a romantic hero for the post-industrial world, burdened not by a case of samples but credit cards”.

But the film is very much an ensemble piece and both Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick won much praise for their supporting performances. Prior to her success in Up in the Air Vera Farmiga was better known as a stage actress, although she did appear memorably as the Mother in The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas (2008). Anna Kendrick played the role of Jessica in Twilight before being cast in this film, and has subsequently played the same character in each of the sequels. Her most recent role is in Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010).

Jason Reitman is the son of Ivan Reitman who directed the two Ghostbuster films in the 1980s. His first film as a director was Thank You For Smoking (2005) but he made his name with the multi-award winning Juno (2007).

The Dench Factor

Each year we do our best to select a programme of films that we hope will be enjoyed by as many people in the village as possible, but with certain exceptions - The History Boys and Elizabeth: The Golden Age - we can never tell what will bring in the punters.  However as we looked back over the attandence figures for our screenings - our treasurer keeps a careful note of members and non-members attending each film - it was possible to discern one factor that most of them shared.  Notes on a Scandal, Mrs Henderson Presents and Casino Royale all drew substantial audiences, and the common factor was that they all starred Judi Dench.

We obviously cannot schedule a full programme of Ms Dench's cinematic work, so instead I've decided to institute a new rating system in order to give our piunters a chance to assess the merits of each film in relation to Judi Dench: I shall call it the Dench Factor.

There will be various categories, depending on the involvement (or not) of Ms Dench as follows:

Dench Factor 5: JD in a starring role.
Dench Factor 4: JD in a co-starring role.
Dench Factor 3: leading actor/actress appeared in a film with JD
Dench Factor 2: supporting actor/actress appeared in a film with JD
Dench Factor 1: actor/actress appeared in a film with someone who had appeared in a film with JD

On this basis Notes on a Scandal and Mrs Henderson Presents both merit a rating of Dench Factor 5 (my system does not offer any guarantee on the quality of the film, but you can forgive Stephen Frears for Mrs Henderson Presents when you see The Queen or Tamara Drewe).  In the same way Casino Royale earns a Dench Factor 2, and Elizabeth: The Golden Age is Dench Factor 3.  Sadly Up In The Air is only Dench Factor 1 (George Clooney starred with Cate Blanchett in The Good German, and CB starred with JD in Notes on a Scandal), but for some reason it seems to be generating a good deal of interest. 

I may need to rework my system to allow for the Clooney Effect.

Planning Meeting

We closed  our last season with the AGM, and as we held it before the screening everyone kept it pretty short.  The good news is that we are still solvent, but the bad news is that we have been dependent on external grants to purchase the big ticket items like projector and sound system, and in the current age of austerity I do not think that the local auythority will look kindly on a grant application to upgrade/replace the kit. 

We made money on most of our Thursday screenings, but for many of our Sunday screeenings the audience was solely committee members and family members.  The other major source of revenue is the bar, and it is clear that our audience is generally thirsty.  I was only half-joking when I suggested that we sould set ourselves up as a Wine Club that also screens films.

It's difficult to coerce people into attending, but we intend to harness the power of the internet to send out reminders to members - or at least to those of  our members have email access - and also intend to run a raffle for our "free" introductory film.  We agreed to have DVDs as prices and I volunteered to find something appropriate for the good folk of Highclere: after a quick trawl through Amazon I bought a box set of Billy Wilder films (including Some Like It Hot - which I saw many years ago on the big screen at the PPP while at Oxford) and another set starring Orson Welles (including The Third Man).

My plan is to blog for the full season and to intersperse updates on our progress with the notes that I prepare for each screening.  Hopefully our choice of Up In The Air will get the season off  to a good start.

Forthcoming Attractions

As the end of August approaches and the evenings draw in, it will soon be time for the Film Club to launch its 2010-2011 season.

Once again we've followed the strategy of starting the season with a "big" film that was both a commercial and critical success - in this case Up In The Air - and we'll be following this with regular screenings through to the end of April.  For our Thursday screenings we've chosen a selection  of (hopefully) popular films that will bring in a good audience, as we need to sell tickets to keep the Club solvent, and on Sundays we'll be screening an idiosyncratic mix of independent and foreign language films.

The full programme is as follows:

Thursday Screenings

• An Education
• A Single Man
• The Hurt Locker
• Gran Turino
• A Serious Man
• The Road
• Public Enemies
• The Wrestler
• The Sound of Music (honest!)

Sunday Screenings

• Waltz With Bashir
• 30 Days of Night
• Broken Embraces
• Inglourious Basterds
• The Hangover
• 35 Shots of Rum
• Home
• Moon
• Me and Oson Welles
• Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis

I must admit to not having seen any of these, so I'm looking forward to an enjoyable, interesting and - hopefully - profitable season.

SNOW WHITE: THE SEQUEL

Everyone agreed it had been a fairy tale wedding, and for a few years it had seemed that Snow White and the Prince were enjoying the happiest of marriages.

But time passed and things changed. There was no one single event that people could point to at the time to show that things were not well in the royal marriage – rather a slow steady accumulation of detail that made sense only in retrospect.

It had started with the joint appearances. From the time that they had announced their engagement it was clear that she was a real star and newspaper editors soon realised that a picture of her on the front page always led to an increase in sales. And Snow White herself was not above using the press for her own purposes: she had made a fortune by selling the story of her time in the woods with the seven dwarfs while at the same time hitting all seven of the dwarfs with a series of gagging writs and injunctions to ensure that her version of events was the only one in the public domain.

Of course Snow White and the Prince still made public appearances – it was part of the job description after all – but from now on all such appearances were strictly solo. Snow White continued to draw big crowds, and over time they grew even bigger, but the Prince, although he was always attended by a respectable audience, seldom managed to attract too much press attention.

Finally the news was broken to a world that already suspected what it now heard: Snow White and the Prince were living apart, although no one had yet mentioned a divorce.

Alone in her home in the country Snow White paced fretfully from room to room. She was missing the adulation that greeted here wherever she went and was in a bad mood. Deep in thought she suddenly found herself in a room she did not recognise. It was a large room, completely empty apart from a large cheval mirror with an ornate golden frame that stood in the centre of the room. She immediately recognised it as a magic mirror, and asked it the obvious question:

“Mirror, mirror on the stand,
Who is the fairest in the land?”

The mirror responded immediately, its voice seeming to come from the centre of her reflection.

“You are. There’s no doubt at all.”

The voice was firm and the tone was deep.

Snow White felt reassured. What ever else was wrong in her life she was still the most beautiful woman in the kingdom.

It was not long after this that news broke of the Prince’s affair with one of the Ugly Sisters. Snow White had known about this almost from the start and had herself been involved in a series of relationships over the past few years. However the difference was that she had been discreet and so far not a word had leaked to the press. But now with the news of the Prince’s affair splashed across every front page she felt devalued: this news could fundamentally affect her position in the kingdom.

After hours of thought she decided to consult the mirror. This time there was an ominous pause before the mirror spoke, and its voice was hesitant:

“Um. You are. Definitely. No doubt at all.”

This threw her into a dreadful temper. She took off one of her shoes and threw it at the mirror. The glass immediately shattered into a thousand pieces, that lay like a frost of diamonds on the carpet.

Snow White spent days planning her come back campaign: a major television interview followed by a whole series of carefully stage-managed photo opportunities. These had the desired effect, but by the time they were over Snow White was exhausted. Her media adviser suggested that a period of withdrawal from the public eye might be beneficial, so Snow White decided to take a holiday.

It was while she was at the coast in a neighbouring kingdom that she met Aladdin. He had long since separated from his wife and now was part of a group of minor characters from fairy stories who lived hard and played hard.

Snow White thought it was love at first sight – again. Aladdin was very kind. He took her for rides on his magic carpet. After much prompting he even introduced her to his genii. But the press were not far behind them. And it was while trying to escape from the press that their carriage, driven by a drunken coachman overturned, and both Snow White and Aladdin were killed.

It was an accident of course, but Aladdin’s father could not accept it, seeing in it the dark hand of Jurisfiction. And so although Snow White was dead her story carried on, and conspiracy theorists everywhere lived happily ever after.

The Boat That Rocked

These are the film notes for our final screening of the 2009/2010 season:

UK 2009 (135 minutes)
Director: Richard Curtis
Starring: Tom Sturridge, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost and Kenneth
Branagh

Following his expulsion from school Carl (Tom Sturridge) arrives on Radio Rock, a pirate radio ship, to stay with the ship’s Captain Quentin (Bill Nighy) who is also his godfather and meets the disc jockeys who crew the ship. A government minister (Kenneth Branagh) takes offence at the ship’s output and creates the Marine Offences Act in order to close the station down. Quentin and the crew decide to defy the ban, but an attempt to move the ship causes its engines to explode and the ship sinks, but without any loss of life.

The story is based on the real life pirate radio station named Radio Caroline, which broadcast from international waters off the coast of South East England in the 1960s, although Richard Curtis (as both writer and director) was keen to point out that he did not intend to depict the real story of offshore broadcasting; rather he wrote the film solely for entertainment purposes.

Richard Curtis started his career as one of the writers on Not The Nine O’Clock News before creating the Blackadder series with Rowan Atkinson. He made his film breakthrough with his screenplay for Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) which became the highest grossing British film to date and which made Hugh Grant a global superstar. Curtis followed this with the screenplay for Notting Hill (1999) as well as collaborating with Helen Fielding on the screenplays for Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), all of which starred Hugh Grant. In 2003 Curtis directed Love Actually from his own screenplay, once again starring Hugh Grant, and this time in a strangely prophetic role as a “posh boy” Prime Minister. In addition to Grant all the films included a regular group of British actors including Colin Firth, Rowan Atkinson and Bill Nighy in their casts.

In parallel with this successful film career Curtis also created The Vicar of Dibley, which ran from 1994 to 2007, as a vehicle for Dawn French. He followed this with the screenplay of the TV version of The No. 1 Ladies Detection Agency which he co-wrote with Anthony Minghella (who also acted as director) before returning to film with The Boat That Rocked in 2009. His most recent project is a story – Vincent and the Doctor - for the current series of Doctor Who which despite an amusing cameo role for Bill Nighy as an art critic lecturing on Van Gogh failed to reach the standards of recent stories about historical characters such as The Unquiet Dead (Dickens), The Shakespeare Code (Shakespeare – inevitably) or even The Unicorn and the Wasp (Agatha Christie).