On Obsession (or an Ode to Robert Newton)

I've had a lot of time to myself lately, which turns into me watching more movies than I normally would.  I get into a cycle at the video store.  I have to return the movies so I might as well rent more, right? So every Tuesday I go to Scarecrow Video here in Seattle and pick up about five films to last me the week.  Much to the annoyance of the guy who has to ring me up every week, I'm sure.  This has become such a regular thing for me that I've even started an Instagram account to log the films I rent from there.  Here's the link, for the interested: scarecrow.is.my.boyfriend

This is how I entertain myself.

When I watch movies, I watch them in waves.  This is no doubt due to my somewhat obsessive nature.  I get in the mood for something in particular and that's all I want to watch.  Everything else falls by the wayside.  Even television gets the boot.  Case in point, I still haven't finished the second season of Peaky Blinders because a mood struck me and it was put on the back burner.  It has been at least 8 months and I still haven't picked it back up.  Not because I don't want to!  It's a great show.  I'm just a slave to my moods.  For a period of time a year or so ago I would only watch Kurosawa films with Toshiro Mifune in them. That's all I could watch and I had to watch them all. That is until I got near the end.  I still haven't watched the first of their collaborations because once I do, that'll be it.  No more new Kurosawa/Mifune to enjoy.

Often my moods will lead to other obsessions, which brings me to my current status.  For reasons found buried in my childhood, summer always inspires in me a mood for the classic live-action Disney films.  Summer was for me, as it is for most people I'm sure, a magical time.  It was a time when we could rent and watch movies during the week!  Yes, I know.  Incredible.  The video store we grew up renting from also had a magical section, the very top row of the children's area.  This row was all live-action Disney films encased in their large, white VHS covers that opened like a book.  So much more magical than those clear plastic covers you had to squeeze and shake to get the video out.  And they had everything!  From The Three Lives of Thomasina to The Cat from Outer Space, from Now You See Him, Now You Don't to No Deposit, No Return, all the Haley Mills you could ask for, Summer Magic, the Moonspinners, That Darn Cat, and of course, the Parent Trap.  They even had the VERY grown up Condorman! (I think we believed it was such a grown up film because of the frightening actor who played the villain, the same man who scarred me for life by playing Bill Sikes in Oliver! and who would become one of the biggest obsessions of my adult life, the amazingly wonderful Oliver Reed).

An example of the videos from my childhood.  It happens to have Oliver Reed on the cover. 

This summer, I decided to rewatch many of them and that led me to see a few that I had missed during my youth.  Most importantly, Treasure Island and Kidnapped.  If this seems like a big, yawning gap in my Disney movie profile, it is.  The only excuse I offer is that I had seen the Muppet's Treasure Island and was unimpressed and not ready to watch any other version of the same.  And wasn't Kidnapped after all the same story?  Jim Hawkins gets kidnapped so logic followed that it was.  Sadly, I was missing out on two great Disney films, on a young introduction to the amazing Peter Finch, and on THE man who established what it means to be a pirate in the world of film, Robert Newton.

Arrrr, that's right Matey!

This brings us up to my current obsession.  As I watched Treasure Island, I was so impressed with the  actor who played Long John Silver and his physicality that I actually brought up my trusty IMDb app to see if he had the use of both his legs in real life.  Lo and behold, I had seen this man in half a dozen other films never connecting them as the same actor. Some were obvious, Bill Sikes in David Lean's Oliver Twist, Lukey, the painter, in Carol Reed's Odd Man Out. Others not so much. In fact, upon seeing that he had been in Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn I automatically assumed that he played the villainous uncle when he in fact played the romantic lead. At this point, I knew that I needed to revisit his films and watch as many unseen ones as possible.  I went through his filmography and made a list of all the movies of his that Scarecrow carries and the last five weeks have been dedicated to watching every single one.

Sikes threatening young Oliver in the most faithful adaptation of Oliver Twist

A friend asked me to explain my obsession with him.  It was surprisingly hard to articulate.  But I really believe that each performance of his is fantastic.  I love his soft voice and eccentric acting.  He has been accused of being a terribly over the top actor, which is unfounded in my opinion.  Every role where he has unashamedly hammed it up have been larger than life characters.  Characters that call for something more.  Long John Silver, Blackbeard, Inspector Fix (Around the World in 80 Days), Ancient Pistol in Henry V, even Lukey, all ridiculous yes, even cartoon like in their characterizations. But tell me honestly, could you watch Around the World in 80 Days, with Shirley MacLaine playing an Indian princess, Cantinflas bull fighting in Spain, and "Rule Britannia" piping on while David Niven drinks tea on the deck of a ship in a storm, and not expect the antagonist with fantastic mustachios not to be played over the top? Or Edward Teach with his many braided black beard, tied up with little red ribbons? And if Shakespeare ever meant anyone to play Pistol as the straight man, he wrote it wrong.

If Ancient Pistol wasn't meant to be ridiculous, I don't know who was. 

For every wide eyed incarnation, there are twice as many subtle ones.  The gentle father in David Lean's This Happy Breed, guilt ridden Bill in Major Barbara,  the reforming headmaster in Tom Brown's Schooldays.  And perhaps more impressively when he, playing the villain, drummed up more sympathy than any of the protagonists could.  I gained more understanding of Javert from his performance in the otherwise dubious film version of Les Miserables.  In Obsession, a fantastic film noir from Britain, I desperately wanted his beleaguered husband to get away with the perfect murder.  Waterfront Women was a hard film to like at all, the main character drastically played to ridiculousness by Avis Scott. A young Richard Burton playing her fiancé and Robert Newton playing her lowlife father were not going to be enough to redeem this movie.  And yet, in the last ten minutes of the film, Newton pulled tears from me.  He even made me feel sorry for Bill Sikes.  Which is pretty much insane.

Bill having a crisis of faith in Major Barbara

For the first time ever, my obsession has not been sated.  I found myself renting the last five movies of his this Tuesday and was strangely depressed by it.  I have always discovered the next object of my obsession before finishing the catalogue of the previous.  But I'm not ready to move on.  So I guess I'll have to cultivate my obsession with Newton the way I've cultivated my love of Oliver Reed. Build up my collection of his films, keep an eye out for any previously unreleased features, hope that Criterion restores the great ones that desperately need it, and have an annual Newton re-watch-a-thon of the best ones.  No doubt before or after my annual Reed re-watch-a-thon.

Yeah, you know you have it figured out.  My favorite reaction shot of Newton's, fittingly from Obsession. 

A Lady Beheaded

Today is my last day as a lady of leisure.
Having become unemployed on Oct. 26th and now starting back up in the work force after over three months, I find myself reflecting on the time spent (or wasted, see previous blog) and what the future holds.   Well, it's more that I sit wishing and hoping that work will not take over my life and will leave me time for a fraction of the leisurely activities that I have enjoyed the past few months.
There is another thought that dogs me.  Work, as I have known it, is something that must be done out of necessity.  If it is more stressful work, it consumes time and energy, leaving little energy for life's pleasures.  But, what about the possibility of getting pleasure out of your work?  It seems like such a foreign concept, to build a career out of a passion, especially when, like me, your passions are mostly artistic.  It has been almost four years since I graduated college.  When I was in school, surrounded by people who were determined to move to LA and make it work for them in the film industry, I felt inspired to work in film and maybe even theatre.  I was determined that I would become a producer and make films that were artistically old-fashioned.  I think that sort of mania is catching.  I made the decision not to move to LA when I graduated and spent the last three years working in a doctor's office.  The further removed I am from those school chums, the less appealing working in the industry is to me.  The reason for this is, of course, a story for another day.
Needless to say, I see myself approaching 30 and floundering for an idea of what it is I want to do with my life.  Landing a parttime job in a retail store at the age of almost 29 has brought this all home for me, aka I feel like a failure!  And I just needed someone to share it with.  So, thank you faceless internet, for listening to me moan for a bit.
And don't worry about me.  Things are looking up.  After all, series 3 of Luther just wrapped, and series 3 of Sherlock will begin filming soon.  As long as the BBC is around, life really can't be that bad.


Post-script:  After nearly three weeks at the job, I would like to say that I feel much better about myself.  There are other women who work there who are around my age.  In fact, there are some women who are in or around their 40's.  I appreciate this fact beyond words.
That is all.

Time Spent Watching

So much to watch, so little time.

I've been rather remiss in my blog duties lately.  I'd like to say it's because I'm crazy busy and just don't have time, but that's not really the case.  Not at all, actually.
It's hard to come up with things to write about, mainly because I'm not doing much.  I recently moved and am not yet employed.  I'd like to say I spend my time honing different skills like painting or drawing, crocheting or sewing, but let's be honest...I spend way too much time on the internet for that!
Being jobless and mainly friendless in this new city, I have rediscovered the art of watching things.  Ages ago, when I was on my own and going to school to study film, I had so much time to watch things.  It seemed like my nights and weekends, when not socializing, were filled with an endless parade of foreign films and classic movies, of BBC shows and anime series'.   And then I got one of those 9 to 5s and a boyfriend to boot.  My watching repertoire was reduced to new movies, mainly of a SciFi type or something starring Daniel Day Lewis.   I think we might have watched one foreign film in three years, but usually he was too tired to read the subtitles.
So it appears that I've decided to spend my free time (that isn't being spent looking for a job) making up for lost time.  At least, while I sit and rewatch Twin Peaks, I can finish crocheting that scarf that was supposed to be a Christmas present two months ago.  Or while I finally watch that Kurosawa film I've been meaning to see for years, I can think "I should try drawing some of these characters" and never actually get around to it.