Originally Posted by Keechelus

Pardon a very brief continuation of the off-topic Dresden comments, just so I can recommend the excellent Errol Morris documentary THE FOG OF WAR (2003).

This movie is a lengthy interview/memoir with Robert McNamara, best known as JFK and LBJ's Secretary of Defense who guided the mistaken war in Viet Nam. He worked as a young statistician for USAAF in WW2, and carefully recorded the effectiveness of bombing for Major-General Curtis LeMay - especially the horrific incendiary attacks on Japanese cities.

As an understanding of "total war" by a democracy, FOG's WW2 segment is helpful. It is too bad we didn't have this part of the thread in the BLIMP topic where it would have more relevance. Anyway, those of you intrigued by the moral issues raised in BLIMP, please see FOG OF WAR for another insight.

Originally Posted by Third Man

Well I just get that feeling from the scene, unfortunately it's quite painful to watch when you re-watch it because you know that Candy is a man to be admired, he kind of lets himself down - pride has a habit of doing that to people. Lest have a look at it again (if you want to).

Originally Posted by TimR

Agreed on that last point, Simon - we are well into Blimp territory here. Would a moderator be willing to move our discussion to the Blimp thread?

Originally Posted by Steve Crook

It's a bit difficult to unwind. There are some messages that talk about AMOLAD and Blimp.

Steve

Originally Posted by TimR

Sorry about that Steve - discussion of P&P seems to lend itself to that sort of overlap. There is so much in every film.

I think Simon and I were concerned about getting off topic.

Originally Posted by TimR

The music in AMOLAD impressed me in a way that it had not the first time. The use of the unusual, atonal music as punctuation in the eternity sequence - and - especially - in the first stairway sequence is unlike anything I had heard.

Originally Posted by Gazza

Well, I unwrapped my new P&P box set from HMV (thanks for the lead Steve!) put in AMOLAD, and sat in quiet amazement and astonishment from start to finish. Astonishment at the gentle audacity of it all.

For me to be really engaged with something - be it film, theatre, visual art or the written word - I need to feel that a risk is being taken, that the work is brave and pushing boundaries. AMOLAD took my breath away.

I'd seen it as a lad and easily remembered the opening, the staircase and a frozen ping-pong ball. But of course, I'd remembered very little.

Having read so much about the film on here and elsewhere, it's difficult to know where to start, how to order my thoughts, so I'll take just one tiny part of the film for now, triggered by previous remarks in this thread. About the boy on the beach.

It's an astonishing image these days; it was likely astonishing then but in a different way. Seeing children naked was an innocent thing, the idyllic image of boys plunging into pools of water, kids playing on the beach and so on. Here we have a lonely goatherd, a Pan-like figure suggesting that Peter is in another place. It's pure, it's innocent, it's mystical; depending on our perceptions, the boy has found peace in a heavenly place or he's at peace in a world ravaged by war. He's untouched by the horrors and/or is blissfully unaware of them. Then there's the fantastic device of the plane, giving the scene another context and providing a startling contrast between the boy's world and a world at war.

And I see the boy popping up again decades later - Greenaway's films particularly come to mind.

That's why AMOLAD is extraordinary; one scene, so much going on, so much to talk about.

Originally Posted by TimR

Well, several of us keep coming back to this - and while it certainly doesn't apply to AMOLAD, it does fit with Blimp.

Thanks for the suggestion re: the documentary. It's a new one on me.

Originally Posted by Steve Crook

There's a special one he uses which is like a chord but with the notes making up the chord played in quick succession rather than at exactly the same time. I've called it a "pling". It's played on a stringed instrument and it's not as long as a glissando - it's more like a rolling or staggered chord (or whatever musicians call it), and with the last note in the chord slightly off.


Steve

Originally Posted by Steve Crook

It's not painful to watch, it's a beautiful scene.

Notice the slight jump when Candy berates Wilson saying "You are not in Hyde Park with an audience of [jump] loafers". The original was "tarts and loafers".

But Spud defends his position well, saying that the enemy expects them to keep to the rules but that when he signed up he only agreed to defend his country by every means at his disposal.

And Clive's almost child-like "But that was agreed... wasn't it?"
He's full of indignation and bluster but in this scene he doesn't understand what's going on

And when they tumble into the pool, note the smile on Spud's face as Clive pulls him back down.

A beautiful scene

Steve

Originally Posted by penfold

Arpeggio ??

Originally Posted by Third Man

OK back to Blimp then - That's one way of seeing it and I can easily go along with it but painful in the sense that we are seeing a man who has become an anachronism, yes it's a beautiful scene but it does not stop me from thinking it's a painful one for Candy. There's no reassuring arm from Theo this time when he's forced to face the truth it seems to me that Candy's still paying the school fees.

I never noticed the smile on Spuds face - so maybe there was admiration for the fight still left in Candy on Spuds behalf, I can go with that as well.

Simon