August 2002 Archives

Many years ago I had a huge morbid fascination with Jack the Ripper. I've always really liked the explanation from Stephen Knight's Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution. This proposed that it was all a Masonic plot to cover up an unwise assignation by Queen Victoria's grandson, the Duke of Clarence. This was used as the basis of the 1979 film Murder by Decree where Sherlock Holmes solved the mystery.

The last time I remember having much interest in the story was about the time of the 100th anniversary in 1988. There were a few TV documentaries shown that year, but since then my interest has waned.

So somehow I missed out on Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell when it was published two years ago. Recently it was brought to my attention through my interest in Nicholas Hawksmoor so I read it.

From Hell retells Knight's version of the story in great detail. There is a small amount of authorial invention, but that is all clearly marked in the copious notes. It's a fantastic (in both meanings of the word) version of the story. Moore's genius is in taking the ritualistic parts of the Ripper murders and and tying them in with a wider vision of "mystical London" in a way that Peter Ackroyd would be proud of.

Although I missed the book's publication, it seems that Hollywood didn't. In 2001 a film of From Hell was made. And last night I watched it. As a retelling of Knight's theory it works well enough (though there are a couple of liberties that had me shouting at the screen - we'll come to those soon), but as an adaptation of From Hell it fails dismally. The film has none of Moore and Campbell's interest in the mysticism of London. It is turned into a pedestrian whodunnit, by the simple change of concealing the Ripper's identity until the end of the film. The book is happy to tell us who the Ripper is in chapter 2, preferring to concentrate on his motivation and methods. The works of Hawksmoor, which run as a constant thread through the book are reduced to a few shots of Christchurch.

And as for the huge liberties taken with the story. Inspector Abberline (the main police character) falls in love with Mary Kelly (the prostitute and the last of the Ripper's victims). This is bad enough, but the worst is saved to almost the very end where after we've have seen Kelly mutilated by the Ripper, it's heavily implied that Kelly escaped and another (obviously less important) prostitute was killed instead.

Those last two travesties aside, it's a reasonable enough film and tells a good story. However, it has nothing in common with the original book. Everyone should read the book.

I saw Mulholland Drive last night. What the fuck was that all about?

Don't get me wrong. That's not a criticism. Far from it. I thought it was a great film. I loved the fact that two thirds of the way through, everything changed and suddenly you were desperately trying to make sense of what had happened.

Salon have an in-depth article that attempts to deconstruct the film, but, to be honest, I think they are over-analysing. I far prefer to just see it as weirdness.

It's the best thing David Lynch has done since Twin Peaks. I really wish something had come of the original plan to make it a TV series.

I also watched The Royal Tenenbaums - which was also fabulous.

I made a massive screw-up this week.

My step-daughter is doing her GCSEs next year. One of the plays she will be studying is Romeo & Juliet. As it's currently playing at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park and the Open Air Theatre is one of the best places to see any kind of theatre we decided that we'd take her along to see it there.

So I was put in charge of buying three tickets, which I did via their web site on Monday. I book tickets for last night. Saturday, 17th. Except I didn't.

When we got there, I went to the box office to pick up the tickets. I gave the chap my name and showed him my credit card. "Did you book on the internet?" he asked. Then he showed me the booking he had found on their database. It was for the previous night - Friday 16th.

"Please tell me that you still have tickets for tonight", I pleaded - dreading going to tell my family that we wouldn't be seeing any theatre. They were sold out, but he did have a group of three returns. They were better than our original seats.

"I'll have to sell them to you", he explained, "As it wasn't our fault." I agreed. He as they started to complete the transaction he had a change of heart. "Tell you what", he said, "paying full price twice really sucks. I'll give you these for our cheapest price." So he sold us three £17 tickets for £8.50 each. It's really nice to know that there are people like that still about.

Shame about the play tho'. Romeo & Juliet isn't one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. And this production really wasn't very good.

Imagine there's two land masses next to each other. One much larger than the other. We'll call them Big and Small.

Most of the people living in Small want Small to remain independent from Big. There is, however, a significant minority of Smallites who value links with Big so highly that they'd like Small to be governed from Big.

So the Small government hold a referendum and discover that about 1 in 6 Smallites want to be governed by Big. They also discover that this minority it is concentrated in the areas of Small that are geographically closest to Big.

What happens is that Small becomes partitioned. The part of Small containing most of the Big-friendly Smallites becomes a part of Big and the rest of Small continues as an independent country.

Is this a good thing?

How about if we use other names instead of Big and Small. Assume Big is the UK and Small is Ireland. Or (more interestingly) assume Big is Europe and Small is the UK.

Discuss...

Whilst flicking through my cable channels at about 2am last night I came across The Breakfast Club. This is one of my favourite films from the mid-80s and it still looked great last night.

There's one thing that really bothers me about it though. To me the most interesting character in it is the slightly weird girl played by Ally Sheedy. I like far more her than the "all-American" character played by Molly Ringwald. I always think that it's a real shame that in order for the films resolution to work, Sheedy has to reinvent herself - putting on different makeup so as to become attractive to boys. This seems far too much like a "hollywood" ending for my tastes.

Maybe I just like weird women. Or maybe I just like Ally Sheedy.