The Finals – 1970: A World Cup Of Their Own

74 years waiting.

To read the previous entry in this series, please click here.

For 17 entries now, we have discussed the Olympic and FIFA World Cup Finals that took place between the distant days of the sport’s proto-era all the way to the birth of the modern game in 1970. The one constant during the vastness of this period, a full 74 years of sporting history, is the lop-sided nature of the gender of the participants. For that near three-quarters of a century, the highest heights of international football belonged solely to men, a consequence of latent sexism throughout the world and pro-active discrimination from footballing authorities. Starting from this entry, that imbalance will start to be addressed. Two weeks or so after the men’s Brazilian team had the world in such raptures, another international footballing tournament took place, this time in Italy. It contained less teams than what occurred in Mexico, attracted far less media attention globally and certainly had far less official recognition. But it was a vital point in the evolution of the international women’s game, a successfully organised competition that brought together teams from different parts of the globe, and ended with a demonstration of where some of the contemporary powerbases of the women’s game were.

Of course, women’s football did not spring into life in 1970, and seems to have existed for much the same length as the men’s game. In international terms, the earliest known game between women’s sides seems to have been an encounter between Scotland and England in 1881 (Scotland won 3-0).¹ Things expanded apace in the decades that followed, with an especially large boost during the First World War when so many men were in uniform and so many women were working in the industrial areas heavily associated with football’s beginnings.² Women playing football seems to have been tied to some degree to the wider emancipation movement, especially those aspects dedicated to altering the social dictates of clothing that had dominated Victorian fashion, and which had aided in attempts to fundamentally restrain women from taking part in the same activities open to men.³

But all of the efforts at creating a space for women to play football were always with at least some degree of opposition from the male dominated authorities, many of which may have feared the impact of female participation on the perceived “masculinity” of the sport.⁴ On a more practical level, the attendances that women’s games got, and the money that they made, were also a worry for entities like the English Football Association.⁵ Their hostility was backed up by the sporting media, which often poured scorn on women playing football.⁶ In 1921 the FA went as far as banning women from playing the sport, an edict that was rapidly followed by many other bodies throughout the world, in major footballing hotspots like France, Germany and Brazil.⁷ The blatant sexism and body-shaming couldn’t be more obvious really: the German authorities went so far as to say that “In the fight for the ball, the feminine grace vanishes, body and soul will inevitably suffer harm … The display of the woman’s body offends decency and modesty.”⁸ And that was in 1955.

Such things could not kill off the women’s game, but without access to the needed aids of coaching, finances or other infrastructure, women’s football was shoved to the figurative sidelines.⁹ Some notable instances of women’s football were evident during that time: in another parallel to the men’s game relevant to this series, a club-based competition dubbed a “Championship of Great Britain and the World” was held between English and Scottish teams on a few occasions; occasional international tours of women’s sides attracted big numbers; and a European club competition was even held for women’s teams in 1957.^{10 11 12} But these were momentary affairs, with the general history of the women’s game from 1920 to the mid-1960s one of remarkably little notoriety. To a very large and regrettable degree, that aspect of the sport was in hibernation for that period, as the men’s international game evolved through the Olympic tournament and on into the FIFA World Cup itself. It would take the better part of 50 years for this to start changing, with the public mania for football in 1966 England helping to accelerate a reorganisation of women’s football in England, while women’s leagues also sprang into life in other parts of the world around that time. For the purposes of this entry, a critical example was the founding of a league in Italy in 1968, whose backers soon enough went further by founding a women’s equivalent to UEFA: the Fédération Internationale Européenne de Football Féminine.¹³

FIEFF is pretty fascinating from the perspective of being a nominal authority for football that came from private interests, in comparison with the concurrent Federazione Italiana Calcio Femminile.¹⁴ It was the FICF that organised a European Championship for international sides that took place in Italy in late 1969. This event constituted something of a dry run for what was to follow, with teams from England, France, Italy and Denmark playing out a straight knock-out affair, where the hosts emerged on top after beating the Danes 3-1 in the Final, played in front of 12’000 people in Turin’s Stadio Comunale. In line with what was to come, the Danish team was the club side Boldklubben Femina, temporarily presenting themselves as a national squad.¹⁵ With travel and other organisational expenses paid for by private backers, and with the games taking place in relatively well-organised surrounds, the tournament made a positive impression. FIEFF saw the possibilities for something greater and it was they who went about organising a “Coppa del Mundo” for the following Summer.

This tournament would be bankrolled primarily by Martini and Rosso, the Italian alcoholic drinks manufacturer. The company had long used sports sponsorship as a brand-building exercise and the Women’s World Cup of 1970 was rapidly added to their portfolio. It was a competition for which they paid a huge portion of the expenses, up to and including the trophy that was given to the winners: it was enough that the competition is still sometimes known as the “Martini Rosso Cup”.^{16 17} Such considerations were probably vital in making the competition a truly global affair, with a team from Mexico convinced to make the trip across the Atlantic to join the seven European sides that signed up. Games took place across the country over a two week period, with the Final set for Turin on the 15th July.¹⁸

There were issues. The Czechoslovakian side ended up being unable to participate owing to visa problems, with their place granted to the West German side that had already been eliminated earlier. And there were repeated difficulties with kit, such as when the Danes lost theirs owing to a mix-up with a team of Russian athletes at their hotel, obligating them to play in borrowed jerseys from AC Milan.¹⁹ But for the most part the tournament took place above expectations. Media interest was significant and positive, and respectable crowds attended matches.²⁰ Tens of thousands turned up to watch the hosts, who made it through to the Final on the back of tight wins over Switzerland and Mexico, and despite a competing federation dispute that meant the team selected was radically different from that which had won the European Championship the year before. Their opponents would be Denmark, again largely the club team BK Femina, who rolled over West Germany and then beat England in the last four.²¹ In a sign of the sexism they were dealing with, the journalist who accompanied the Danish team made sure to publicise shots of the side relaxing in bikinis, describing them as “sweet, feminine and charming” in spite of being football players.²²

Our knowledge of that Final comes mostly from Italian media reports and from a few scant minutes of footage, one a grainy black-and-white bit of Italian newsreel and the other a brief bit of colour footage of no definitive origin.^{23 24 25} Held at the Stadio Comunale, the game attracted an impressive crowd, with 24’000 tickets sold beforehand and as many again turning up without tickets, which caused a degree of chaos during the run-up to kick-off, with the press gallery itself inundated with fans. The game itself was a tight enough affair, played out in two 35 minute halves. Denmark took the lead through Østergaard Hansen in the 18th minute, she slamming home from point blank range after a left-wing cross left the Italian defence largely static. Denmark dominated the rest of the first half but the Italians came into it in the second, with Caterina Molino going close from a corner and captain Elena Schiavo having what looked a good shot blocked at the last second. With ten minutes to play the hosts won a penalty on account of a handball, but Schiavo fluffed the chance to equalise, blasting the ball “to the stars”.²⁶ Maria Ševčíková – a Czech national living in Denmark as a political refugee – killed the game off two minutes from the end, hitting a first-time shot from the edge of the area that slammed into Derna Isolini’s goal via the crossbar.²⁷ Danish captain Kirsten Schäeffer lifted the representation of the Goddess of victory into the Turin night air in the aftermath.²⁸

It was a start. On the cusp of a widescale acceptance by male-dominated footballing authorities and with the game itself entering new territory in terms of audience engagement and general popularity, what occurred over those few weeks in Italy can’t really be looked at as anything other than a start, with the more spectacular evidence that women’s football was capable of holding such tournaments to a successful level to come later. In 1970, the fact that this eight team tournament was held, without major organisational hiccups while demonstrating an ability to garner significant interest, was enough. In terms of the Final itself, it showcased a competitive contest between two nations that could creditably be described as the hubs for women’s football in Europe and the world. For the winners, that status was only going to get underlined the following year, when they re-established their dominance in front of over 100’000 people, which will be the focus of our next entry. The 1970 Women’s World Cup is somewhat of a forgotten thing in comparison, but its status as that starting point is something I would deem worthy of greater remembrance.

To view the rest of the entries in this series, please click here.

Footnotes

1. “Plaque to the First Women Football Internationalists 1881” from womenofscotland.org.uk (Accessed, via the Internet Archive, 27/09/2023)
2. “The Forgotten First International Women’s Football Match” from bbc.co.uk (Accessed 27/09/2023)
3. Louise Taylor, “From pink goalposts to blue plaques: a history of women’s football” from theguardian.com (Accessed 27/09/2023)
4. Stefan Mårtensson, “Branding women’s football in a field of hegemonic masculinity” from Entertainment and Sports Law Journal Vol 8 Issue 1 (2010)
5. Rob Steen, Floodlights and Touchlines: A History of Spectator Sport (2014) p. 678
6. Roger Domeneghetti, From the Back Page to the Front Room: Football’s Journey Through The English Media (2014) p. 155
7. Kyle O’Brien, “The Offside Museum highlights when women were banned from playing soccer” from thedrum.com (Accessed 27/09/2023)
8. See Footnote #3
9. David Goldblatt, The Ball Is Round: A Global History Of Football (2007) p. 181
10. Fiona Skillen & Dave Bolton, “Women’s Football In Interwar Scotland: Sadie Smith And The Legendary Rutherglen Ladies FC, Part 2” from playingpasts.co.uk (Accessed 27/09/2023)
11. See Footnote #3
12. Jean Williams, “‘The Girls Of The Period Playing Ball’: The Hidden History Of Women’s Football 1869-2015” from Routledge Handbook of Football Studies (2016), edited by John Hughson, Joseph Maguire, Kevin Moore & Ramón Spaaij p. 44
13. Hong Fan & J. A. Mangan, Soccer, Women, Sexual Liberation: Kicking Off a New Era (2003) p. 101
14. Giulio Pecci, “The reinassance of women’s football in Italy” from nssmag.com (Accessed 27/09/2023)
15. Erik Garin, Örjan Hansson and Neil Morrison, “Coppa Europa per Nazioni (Women) 1969“, from rsssf.org (Accessed 27/09/2023)
16. “Martini and Rosso’s sponsorship of the Women’s World Cups in 1970 and 1971 Celebrating 50 years since an innovative sports partnership began” from jjheritage.com (Accessed 27/09/2023)
17. C. D. Fisher, “The Face Of Football Bodies: ‘Resisting Market Enclosure and Imagining Another (Football) Future'” from Seven Faces of Women’s Sport (2018) edited by Irene A. Reid & Jane Dennehy, p. 63
18. Erik Garin, Örjan Hansson, Neil Morrison and Karel Stokkermans, “Coppa del Mondo (Women) 1970” from rsssf.org (Accessed 27/09/2023)
19. Ibid
20. “Women’s World Cup 1970 • Italia 70” from bigsoccer.com (Accessed 27/09/2023)
21. See Footnote #18
22. Alan McDougall, Contested Fields: A Global History of Modern Football (2020) p. 92
23. Corriere dello Sport (16 July 1970), translated from Italian, p. 4
24. “Italia – Conclusi a Torino i Campionati mondiali di calcio femminile” from patrimonio.archivioluce.com (Accessed 28/09/2023)
25. “15. juli 1970 – Danmark (Femina) vinder VM i fodbold for kvinder over Italien med 2-0 i Torino” from youtube.com (Accessed 28/09/2023)
26. See Footnote #23
27. See Footnote #18
28. See Footnote #25

Photo Credit

The Danish and Italian teams that competed in the Final of the 1970 Women’s World Cup. From Tutto Il Calcio Minuto per Minuto Volume VI (1970) p. 175, accessed via sportsmemories.be

Review: The Land Of Saints And Sinners

The Land Of Saints And Sinners

Trailer

Finbar (Liam Neeson) works as a hitman in 1970s rural Donegal for local crimeboss Robert (Colm Meaney) but, tired of the job and wanting to do better with what is left of his life, decides to retire and leave the killing to Robert’s other bagman, the younger and more unhinged Kevin (Jack Gleeson). Finbar initially enjoys his newfound freedom, but the arrival of a group of dangerous Provisionals into the area, laying low after a bombing, draws him back into his former role.

I do feel like Robert Lorenz’ latest collaboration with Liam Neeson should probably be a bigger deal here in Ireland, having been filmed here and having been cast almost entirely with Irish actors, some of them pretty big names. But perhaps the lack of tangible impact as compared to, say, something similar like The Guard, can be simply put down to The Land Of Saints And Sinners just not being all that good really: it has pretensions at being something more than a Liam Neeson vehicle of violence and revenge, but the setting and the cast can only do so much to elevate this rather basic material, little more than a by-the-numbers western where it’s the Irish west instead of the American one.

I can put it no better than to say that The Land Of Saints And Sinners has great potential for exploring the impact of war on people once that war goes away, but all of its pretensions on that subject end up being mere window dressing really. Neeson’s character is Second World War veteran whose predilection for violence stemming from that experience have led him to be a hitman, and the PIRA cell are led by the intense Doireann (Kerry Condon), a woman who seems violently committed to the cause of republicanism but is also haunted by her part in that recent bombing. Into the mix too is Kevin, whose psychopathy is explained away by an abusive childhood. This film really could do more to explore any of these topics, but in each case the background of the character is essentially dumped on the audience as a plot point in and of itself, and a more subtle exploration of the theme is then forgotten so we can see instead a gradual escalation of the present-day violence being perpetrated.

That lack of depth results in numerous frustrations. Ciarán Hinds of all people is cast in what should be a critical role as the local Garda who is friends with Finbar without knowing what his real work is, but ends up being barely used. Condon’s Doireann violently lashes out at people who question her and hides behind a veneer of hardcore republican commitment, but her inner doubts are essentially only expressed in one single, short, wordless scene. The film can’t come to a consistent approach to the Kevin character, who is briefly implied to rape the women he is hired to kill before killing them, before Neeson’s Finbar decides to try and take him under his wing in a fatherly manner. And a gritty, visceral approach to bloodshed that the film showcases for most of its running time gets thrown out the window in a blood-soaked and rather ridiculous conclusion, where honestly a few minor changes would turn the whole thing closer to an Edgar Wright comic farce.

Neeson is OK here. His transformation into an unlikely action star over the last decade and change has been an unlikely one in many ways, and not helped by some of his more recent statements, but A Land Of Saints And Sinners doesn’t really seem to know how best to use the man, wanting both the intimidating presence that made Taken a cultural touchstone and the actual actor who has wowed us on so many occasions. Neeson as a regretful old hitman now living with a lifetime of regrets works to a point, but to cut a long story short, the character as written and performed is just a bit too nice for his employment as a cold-blooded murderer to actually land the way that it should. In essence, it is hard to really sympathise with this man no matter how doe-eyed Neeson plays him, with the film betraying a lack of understanding over how these kinds of people come off to viewers. The rest of the cast is so-so: Condon is the only real standout as the twisted Doireann but there too, as stated, there is an issue with a tonal change in attempted display by the film. The likes of Meaney, Gleeson and Hinds come and go from their scenes, often seeming like the characters that they play are from a different film entirely, and fairly shallow when they do get a chance to speak.

It does look good at the very least. Leaving aside an opening scene where Dublin subs in for 1970s Belfast, the rest of the thing is shot in the wilds of Donegal, and Donegal is looking well on-screen, even if it is perhaps a bit too sunny for that part of the world. Wide-open spaces next to the coast give an impression of freedom, that is swiftly snatched away by sojourns into claustrophobic woods where literal bodies are buried, while the local town could be described as almost idyllic depiction of the north-west if it wasn’t infested by hitmen and IRA bombers (in that, the film perhaps makes a decent point, of how the façade of country living hides a lot of dark secrets, and especially in the 1970s). Lorenz doesn’t glorify violence in his depiction of such acts either, with some of the film’s most notable moments being when Finbar is confronted with the enormity of the crimes that he commits, in taking the lives of those whose sins appear to be not all that much in the grand scheme of things. Still, I can appreciate the sense of authenticity in all that: it’s an Irish story with an Irish cast very much shot in Ireland, and without many of the pitfalls that other such films – Irish Wish recently, or even worse, Artemis Fowl, have fallen into.

This could have been a much better production with a few changes. It could have leaned into being an action/revenge film, low-brow in its intentions but perhaps less of a muddle when it comes to its themes and ideology. Or it could have ditched that whole side of things entirely, and become something closer to a slow-boil drama about the manner in which a violent past can inform a traumatised present, and the ways in which people go about trying to find healing. But instead A Land Of Saints And Sinners attempts to do both, and winds up presenting something altogether confused and unpalatable, backing up the state of affairs with a humdrum script and a cast that is largely wasted. Some good cinematography of the Irish countryside helps to salvage something from the wreckage, but that’s about all. Not recommended.

(All images are copyright of Netflix).

NFB Re-Watches The Lord Of The Rings: Making Things Darker In “At The Sign Of The Prancing Pony”

Previous entry: Constructing A Non-Violent Action Scene In “Buckleberry Ferry”

You draw far too much attention to yourself, Mr Underhill

The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring – “At The Sign Of The Prancing Pony”

Wherein Bree does not come out of this looking great; the most unfriendly pub in the world features lots of staring; and Pippin ruins everything (the first time).

In a previous entry, for “The Shadow Of The Past”, I took the time to talk a little bit about the art of adaptation, and how critical a task it is to take material from the printed page and be willing to change it to fit the screen. That was an especially good example of Peter Jackson and his team pulling it off, in terms of taking what was a seriously long expeditionary chapter of the book and making it into a more palatable section of the move, retaining everything that needed to be retained and altering what needed to be altered. The spirit of the scene was largely kept intact. The film version of “At The Sign Of The Prancing Pony” is a very different example of adaptation in action. Here, Jackson makes wholesale changes, not so much to plot events, but to atmosphere and ambiance. I think that the effort works for what was intended to be done with the film, and here I’d like to take the chance to explore why this scene works as a darker form of what was written on the page.

The Bree of the book is established pretty quickly in “At The Sign Of The Prancing Pony” chapter as a pleasant place full of mostly pleasant people. Here’s a couple of excerpts to make that point:

“The Men of Bree were brown-haired, broad, and rather short, cheerful and independent: they belonged to nobody but themselves; but they were more friendly and familiar with Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves, and other inhabitants of the world about them than was (or is) usual with Big People.”

“There were also many families of hobbits in the Bree-land; and they claimed to be the oldest settlement of Hobbits in the world, one that was founded long before even the Brandywine was crossed and the Shire colonized. They lived mostly in Staddle though there were some in Bree itself, especially on the higher slopes of the hill, above the houses of the Men. The Big Folk and the Little Folk (as they called one another) were on friendly terms, minding their own affairs in their own ways, but both rightly regarding themselves as necessary parts of the Bree-folk. Nowhere else in the world was this peculiar (but excellent) arrangement to be found.”

The impression with these words and a few others contained in the opening pages of the chapter is of a self-sufficient town that, through the vagaries of circumstance and history, has seen men and hobbits come together and live peacefully side-by-side. A blended community in other words, one that has a welcoming air, even if there is also a degree of caution about outsiders evident. Bree is not meant to be see as an inherently threatening or dangerous place, even if the hobbits do get an unfriendly welcome from “old Harry”, the gatekeeper. The point of its description here seems to me an effort to establish Bree as a safe haven initially, ahead of this rug being pulled out from under the hobbits later in the chapter and in the next one.

Bree in the film is decidedly different. After getting through the gatekeeper’s rude questioning, the proto-Fellowship is met with a dark, dingy, muddy and altogether unpleasant looking town, one marked by dirt roads, bleak looking buildings and smoke twirling in the air. The rain doesn’t help either. Its inhabitants all seem to be men, and not especially nice looking men at that: they are all big, burly, filthy looking guys (and it is all guys), who give off stern stares and an otherwise unpleasant air. The hobbits skitter through the streets, trying to avoid walking into the Big Folk’s path, and not altogether succeeding. The sense of misery and threat is ever-present in these moments. Jackson, very directly in his own case, seems to want to give an immediate impression that whatever Frodo has been led to believe by Gandalf when it comes to Bree, they are not going to find any great welcome or safety here. The sense of unease that started in “A Shortcut To Mushrooms” that turned to danger and tension in “Buckleberry Ferry” has not been dispelled, it has simply changed. There are threats and potential threats in every grim face and every dark corner.

The Prancing Pony itself is given a fairly homely description in the text, as you can see from these few excerpts:

“Even from the outside the inn looked a pleasant house to familiar eyes.”

“…someone began singing a merry song inside, and many cheerful voices joined loudly in the chorus. They listened to this encouraging sound for a moment and then got off their ponies. The song ended and there was a burst of laughter and clapping.“

“They were washed and in the middle of good deep mugs of beer when Mr. Butterbur and Nob came in again. In a twinkling the table was laid. There was hot soup, cold meats, a blackberry tart, new loaves, slabs of butter, and half a ripe cheese: good plain food, as good as the Shire could show, and homelike enough to dispel the last of Sam’s misgivings (already much relieved by the excellence of the beer).“

“As soon as the Shire-hobbits entered, there was a chorus of welcome from the Bree-landers…There were several Underhills from Staddle, and as they could not imagine sharing a name without being related, they took Frodo to their hearts as a long-lost cousin.“

The impression is very much of a friendly, welcoming place, from start to finish, even if some of the guests are less welcoming. Butterbur is accommodating to a fault; the hobbits are fed and watered in their own hobbit-sized rooms; and the “common room”, while containing a few individuals giving the hobbits odd looks, is full of song and cheer, perhaps helped along by the fact that its population is not just grim looking men, but men, hobbits and even some dwarves. If Bree was designed as an oasis in the desert, then the Prancing Pony is the water itself. Despite those few pairs of unfriendly eyes, it seems safe enough. Similarly, Frodo’s interaction with “Strider” starts off as less alarming than in the film version, the two conversing quietly in the corner at Strider’s invitation.

Jackson’s version of the Prancing Pony is hugely different. Notwithstanding Butterbur’s certain level of friendliness, the whole place seems set-up to look and feel unfriendly. The place is lit poorly, is crowded, there isn’t a hint of any song and the denizens all carry the same kind of feeling as the men seen in the larger town. They have pet rodents with them, and spill beer out the side of their mouths as they drink. And they seemingly don’t like strangers all that much, staring down the hobbits at every opportunity, when they aren’t barking at them to get out of their way. Coming after the reveal that Gandalf is not waiting for the proto-Fellowship at the pub, the impression that Jackson wants to get across certainly seems to be an ever-present sense of danger and disorientation, the small hobbits out of their element and out of their depth in this world of hostile men. And that’s before Frodo’s unfortunate spell wearing the Ring, where he comes face-to-face, or rather face-to-eye, with Sauron himself, a hellish encounter that does not appear in the book chapter.

So why does all this matter? Why do we need to see this dramatic change from book to screen, honestly one of the most jarring changes of adaptation? Taking all of the elements in kind, I think it comes down to something I have mentioned before, namely narrative momentum. On the page, Tolkien has greater leeway to take his time, and doesn’t need his Bree to be a place utterly replete with tension and hostility, even if there are elements of both. He can pace it out a bit longer, leaving most of the drama to occur in the following chapter. Peter Jackson did not have that luxury. His 210 minute opus only has a few minutes per section of the book, and more importantly has to consider the issue of momentum as it exists in the visual medium. A film where the peril of the previous sections stops dead in order to make clear that Bree and the Prancing Pony are both nice places to be generally, would not work anywhere near as well as what we get, where the rug being whipped out from under the hobbits, expecting Gandalf and safety, but instead getting hard stares and threat, is really important to keep the pace of the story going and the audience engaged. It’s another great example of adaptation done right, and I think especially so, as it is really only a bending of the source material, as opposed to a total one.

You cannot hide…

Notes

-The music here is “Strider” from the complete recordings, a short bit of mostly quiet background ambiance, with lots of drawn out strings to make the uneasy impression.

-The scene really is set right from the off, with the hobbits soaked by rain and their initial welcome to Bree being a terse “What do you want?” from the gatekeeper.

-There’s some great use of perspective and the difference in height between characters to really emphasise how small the hobbits look on the streets of Bree, dwarfed by both men and the buildings.

-Said men are mostly all horrible looking, wet, darkly clothed, messy beards and unpleasant auras. One of them, chomping down on a carrot like he’s an angry looking Bugs Bunny, is of course Peter Jackson making a cameo.

-The first glimpse of the Prancing Pony does make it out to be something of an oasis in the desert, with laughter and warm light emanating. That all changes soon enough.

-Butterbur proclaims that his establishment is “always proud to cater to little folk”. While that term is used in the book, it has a certain exclusionary feeling here, with the innkeeper coming off almost as engaging in tokenism.

-One of the patrons in the Pony randomly has what I think is a pet ferret he is feeding? What’s up with that?

-We still have time for some levity all the same, as Merry delights in the reality of a pub for men: “This, my friend, is a pint”. Pippin is awed: “It comes in pints!?”

-Having already used “little folk” like it is a reductionist term, Butterbur’s initial description of Aragorn carries much of the same feeling: “He’s one of them rangers”.

-Love that flare of the pipe that briefly lights up Aragorn’s face, leaving the twinkle of his eyes as it reduces. The sense of mystery is instantly made, but not necessarily of threat.

-At this point, Frodo seems to go into a sort of trance while fidgeting with the Ring, hearing the name “Baggins” over and over again. From the nature of the voice, I assume it is meant to be Sauron, or maybe the Ring itself.

-Love that little moment where Frodo slips, sending the Ring flying into the air, and Aragorn starts just a little in his chair, not enough to intervene, but enough to indicate his obvious interest.

-In an excellent moment that really emphasises the nature of the Ring, it moves laterally in the air a fraction so that it slots onto one of Frodo’s fingers. This thing has a mind of its own.

-The “wraithworld”, for lack of a better term, is a fascinating visual, a ghostly visage of endless wind and dark. The Ring’s effect should not be taken as purely miraculous.

-And then Sauron himself appears, in the form of that terrible flaming eye we first saw briefly in “Keep It Secret, Keep It Safe”. His words, distorted and insidious, really make an impression: “You cannot hide. I see you. There is no life in the void. Only death”.

-The initial impression of Aragorn for me is partly made by his whispering: “You draw far too much attention to yourself, Mr Underhill”. Instantly we have an understanding that this is a man used to the shadows, and not having his business known to other people.

-A nice exchange between Aragorn and Frodo, the clipped nature of it really memorable: “That is no trinket you carry”. “I carry nothing”. “Indeed”.

-“Are you frightened?” Aragorn asks, after dramatically whipping off his hood. “Yes” says Frodo”. “Not nearly frightened enough, I know what hunts you” is the reply. It’s a very trailer-ish line, but I can forgive it.

-Some credit for Sam, who is practically squaring up to Aragorn right at the end of the chapter: “Let him go, or I’ll have you longshanks!”. We learn something else about Aragorn too, in the way he doesn’t engage with this.

Final Thoughts: The Fellowship Of The Ring is now firmly in dark territory, established in transitional form in “A Shortcut To Mushrooms” and then more concretely in “Buckleberry Ferry”. “At The Sign Of The Prancing Pony” continues that in an ambience way, and in order to do that had to make some changes. This is one instance where those changes seem necessary to me, serving their purpose for the larger narrative. And even with that, the chapter here isn’t that different from the original really. Next time, some confusion with the Nazgul.

To view the rest of the entries in this series, click here to go the index.

Ireland’s Wars: Chad

From the battle lines of Stormont in Northern Ireland, we move now back to the international picture. By the 2000s, Irish participation in various peacekeeping missions worldwide had been long-established, both for the United Nations and for the European Union in certain instances. Opportunities for that experience and skill to be employed in various situations would continue to come, and beginning in 2008 the Irish Defence Forces would be involved once again in another situation of political and humanitarian catastrophe in Africa, one where the lines on the map had very little relevance, and where the scope of the mission would have been far outside the abilities of some of the world’s largest militaries.

Since French decolonisation in 1960, the central African nation of Chad has undergone significant difficulties at nearly all levels. Repeated bouts of civil war have occurred as dictatorial governments routinely face armed opposition from various ethnic and religious groups. Outside intervention from neighbouring countries, the impact of refugee movement from neighbouring regions, desertification and other humanitarian catastrophes have all contributed to the chaos down the years. In 2005, internal dissent against President Idriss Déby resulted in a major armed insurrection, marked by ethnic violence between rival tribes. The situation was largely mirrored in the neighbouring Central African Republic, with both they and Chad, then and since, regarded as some of the poorest countries in the world, rife with corruption, human rights abuses and humanitarian crises. The situation, especially in regards the movement of refugees from Sudan to the east, had grown so dire by early 2008 as to provoke European powers to intervene. The result was the European Union Military Operation in Chad and the Central African Republic, commonly abbreviated to EUFOR Chad/CAR, which a year later would see its mandate transferred to UN control under the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad, or MINURCAT. The general terms of the mandate were to protect civilians, facilitate delivery of humanitarian aid, and ensure the safety of UN personnel present in the country. From the start there was a degree of controversy over the nature of the mission, with many perceiving that it was driven less by humanitarian interests, and more in terms of securing Chad and the CAR’s immense mineral wealth for European, and specifically, French, interests.

The Irish commitment to both EUFOR Chad/CAR and later MINURCAT began almost immediately, with elements of the Army Ranger Wing joining special forces from other countries in the initial entry. They were soon followed by “regular” infantry, with the Irish eventually situated in the south-east of Chad, near the town of Goz Bieda, in a headquarters dubbed “Camp Ciara”. The entire mission was initially also commanded by an Irish general, Pat Nash, at that time. Despite immense difficulties in providing correct logistical support in a very isolated part of the world, the Irish, along with other contingents from the likes of Finland, were expected to maintain a consistent distribution of humanitarian aid and presence patrolling. This last aspect of their task would prove to be extremely difficult with an Irish force that never numbered much more than 400 soldiers given a truly enormous operational area to cover.

There were incidents aplenty in the course of the mission, especially when fresh violence erupted in the Summer of 2008, though thankfully they came without fatalities. One was in May of that year, when a group of 30 ARW members got into a confrontation with over 200 rebels along the Chad/Sudan border, but the situation was deescalated before it came to blows. Late, in June 2008, when Irish soldiers had placed themselves between a refugee camp and a nearby scene of combat between Chadian government forces and a rebel faction. Much of the UN mandate revolved around providing protection for such camps, and that day peacekeepers seemed to have been in no mood to remain passive, especially when a group of Irish soldiers came under fire, from which part of the fighting it was not clear. Fire was returned regardless, but the incident petered out shortly after. In another incident around that time a rebel faction was able to force its way inside a UN compound, stealing vehicles and other supplies, before leaving under pressure applied by Dutch peacekeepers: the Irish equivalent was criticised by some for not getting involved themselves despite being present in the area. It’s a tale of two sides: the Dutch were sent to assist from Ireland’s Camp Ciara, and there would be later claims that the Irish stood aside so as not to inflame the situation into an all-out engagement, but on the other hand UN personnel were placed in danger and UN material seized while Irish peacekeepers might have been in a position to do something about it. Criticism from some UN officials towards the Irish later turned to apologies, but the initial comments can certainly be understood.

The Irish commitment in Chad would last until the end of 2010, as relations between Chad and Sudan normalised to a degree, though the majority of the force there would be withdrawn in April of 2010 after the Chadian government withdrew its own approval of the mandate. The timing and speed of the Irish withdrawal did garner some criticism, as it occurred as negotiations were still ongoing between the UN and the Chadian government about extensions to that mandate, but military leaders argued that the rainy season’s imminent beginning would create difficulties too insurmountable to move equipment if the Irish presence was maintained for even a short while longer. The situation in Chad has remained volatile ever since, and it is arguable as to whether MINURCAT really achieved all that much in terms of creating long-term sustainability.

Chad was a difficult deployment for the Irish Army, coming as it did in the midst of a disastrous economic downturn at home, and in conditions where the movement of troops, vehicles and other vital material was predicated hugely on optimal weather conditions. They were forced to operate in an enormous area filled with potentially hostile forces, and at times were faced directly with aggressive action that could have taken lives. In the end, MINURCAT did not leave Chad with a clear sense of being on the path to being a better place, even if the objective of defending refugees, if only for a relatively short period, was a worthy one regardless. It was a mission that a lot of lessons could be learned from then, as the Irish Defence Forces moved on to other tasks.

To read the rest of the entries in this series, click here to go to the index.

Review: Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver

Trailer

You will watch the directors cuts!

Having made it back to her adopted homeworld, Kora (Sofia Boutella) leads the allies that she has assembled in training the villagers to defend themselves from the imminent threat of the Imperium, unaware of the resurrection of the terrible Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein). In the terrible battle that ensues, lives are lost, secrets are revealed and the the future of the Imperium itself is changed forever.

I think I can put it as plainly as possible when I say that you can pretty much look at my thoughts on Part One of this would-be saga – A Child Of Fire – and pretty much get the majority of my thoughts for this sequel. I say sequel, but it is essentially just the second half of a single story. As such, it carries with it pretty much all of the strengths of that first instalment, and all of the weaknesses too. So many weaknesses. This is visionary director Zach Snyder’s movie alright, and all of the problems of Part One are present in Part Two.

So it is a film that is replicating a wide range of sources. Even leaving aside the very obvious, indeed ridiculously so, elements of Star Wars that populate just about every frame to some degree, there is so much else: off the top of my head I can name things as varied as Warhammer 40K, Dune, Firefly, Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, Princess Mononoke, Julius Caesar and Heavy Metal wherein elements have been used as an influence, or just flat-out lifted entirely. Whether it is characters, plot points, scenes or just props, it really does feel as if everything in The Scargiver was found in another property, picked up, dusted off a bit and then inserted clumsily into this smorgasbord of gothic sci-fi.

The characters remain mostly empty shells, just as they were in A Child Of Fire. Yes, there is a remarkably clumsy Last Supper-esque scene (let’s add the Bible to that list of influences then, with this as obvious as that Gethsemane scene in Man Of Steel) wherein the Seven (Eight/Nine?) Samurai get the chance to blurt out their backstories in more detail, each in the form of an exhausting slow-motion flashback of generic tragedy, but it’s like someone is reading out a fandom wiki page for each of them. They remain those empty shells, and when they are empty shells then it is very hard to care about any of the peril that they end up being put in for most of the second half of this production, and very hard to really rate any of the performances behind them. This cast, as accomplished as so much of it is, can’t do much with these tools. And sometimes the script itself lets them down in other ways: the tired, sexist and frankly creepy trope of a woman falling for a man who saves her from being sexually assaulted pops up here, and adds a certain sense of revulsion to a fair bit of the film’s narrative.

And it is an ugly film. It’s a Snyder-movie, and where that style sometimes works, the grim darkness of this universe, wherein slow-mo is used in a manner that seems almost to punish the audience by making you stay in ugly frame after ugly frame for much longer than you really want to, means that Rebel Moon, from start to finish, exhaust you. There’s only so much exchange of lasers amid dust storms and bleak armour that you can take before you start getting bored, and then before you start getting annoyed. There’s no respite from it anywhere: if we’re not farming on a dirtheap planet we are fighting in kicked up amounts of that dirt, or in dingy barns or in that spaceship that Games Workshop should really be raising an eyebrow at. Everything is sark, bleak, oppressive, suffocating. This sort of universe needs more brightness, more inventive uses of colour, more imagination. The fact that we stay resolutely on “Veldt” in The Scargiver, as opposed to the planet-hopping of A Child Of Fire, doesn’t help in that regard.

And it isn’t as if Zach Snyder doesn’t have an imagination, because there are a few moments in this film that demonstrate that he very much does. The problem is that it is employed in creating scenes and moments so odd, they stand out as some of the strangest I have ever seen. How else can you describe a flashback to a royal assassination that features, alongside child murder, a literal string quartet sitting off to the side that change the way they play as the scene progresses, getting tenser as the knives appear? Or the full Snyder dramatic slow-motion treatment for a sequence where the characters all help to get a harvest in? Or the revelation that the Imperium’s fearsome war machines capable of interstellar travel appear to be running on coal shovelled into furnaces by 19th century Dickens characters? Other moments of inventiveness, like a sword fight taking place as the combatants slide down the hanger of a plummeting spaceship, come too late and don’t last long enough to make the kind of impression they need to make.

I don’t want to belabour this, because I really do feel that this is one instance where I am repeating myself ad nauseum, for a film that really is just the second half of an experience I formed a judgement on back in December of last year. I generally have liked the work of Zach Snyder over the years, or at least have had a greater appreciation for it than a lot of others. But I can’t really endorse this new effort at a grand operatic space-based franchise. To reiterate then, we have a film that takes roughly 99% of its make-up from other sources, populates its narrative with worthless characters that the cast cannot do much with and it looks remarkably unpleasant for the genre that it deigns to be a part of. And we’re probably going to get another six of them I suppose. Not recommended.

(All images are copyright of Netflix).

NFB Re-Watches The Lord Of The Rings: Constructing A Non-Violent Action Scene In “Buckleberry Ferry”

Previous entry: “A Shortcut To Mushrooms” And Tonal Changes

That Black Rider was looking for something…or someone.

The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring – “Buckleberry Ferry”

Wherein Merry is actually quite perceptive really; the Nazgul maybe don’t quite realise the opportunity they had; and we learn that the Shire probably needs more bridges.

The Lord Of The Rings has its action moments. Maybe not quite as many as some would want, and maybe not as many as some detractors seem to think that it has, but it has them. Crucially, for individual films that hit 210 minutes each, there is a variety of them. We’ve seen big battle scenes in “Prologue: One Ring To Rule Them All…”, we’ve seen angry confrontations in “Farewell Dear Bilbo”, and we even got a wizard fight in “Saruman The White”. In “Buckleberry Ferry”, The Fellowship Of The Ring gives us another quick moment of action, but one that is crucially non-violent in its nature, providing the narrative with a brief gee-up that it needs to maintain our interest and to get the heart racing. Constructing such scenes is a critical art, where the lack of violence needs to be overcome as a potential handicap, and instead turned into an opportunity for inventiveness.

The scene is set in the opening moments. The proto-Fellowship of hobbits flits between trees in a moonlit night, avoiding the attentions of a nearby Ringwraith. Everything is designed to increase the heartrate: the music with those creeping strings and unnerving horns; the windswept and eerily lit wood; and the general smallness of the hobbits in that environment, trying desperately to stay out of sight. The effect is maximised in the brief exchange of dialogue between Frodo, Pippin and Merry. Pippin expresses sheer bafflement at the circumstances, while a somewhat more insightful Merry can tell that Frodo is in a bit of trouble that he has not yet revealed. Given it was day in the last scene we can tell that at least a few hours have passed, and while nothing is spelled out very clearly we can tell that the hobbits have been on the run for a bit, with at least half of them ignorant as to why. In terms of set-up, this is all important in establishing that needed sense of desperation before things get really serious in just a few seconds.

Then, surprise! The appearance of the Ringwraith here is initially framed as an instance of the one they saw in the distance sneaking up on the four, with the proto-Fellowship still none the wiser on the number of the Nazgul, that reveal is for a moment or two. It’s not quite a jumpscare, but it’s close, and there’s great excitement in the way that the resulting confusion is outlined. No one, not the Ringwraith, not the hobbits and not the viewer, can be quite sure what is going on in this swirl of figures, horses and trees, with the frantic camera work and booming music adding to that sense of confusion. It goes on just long enough to not become irritating, but to remain as a perilous game of hide-and-seek. No blows are struck, no swords are swung, but there’s an enormous amount of tension in these seconds, as we just about make out Frodo being cut off from his friends, before commencing that mad dash to the ferry.

It’s that mad dash that is the real centre-point of the scene. In the confusion, Sam, Merry and Pippin inadvertently leave Frodo behind to be menaced for an extra few seconds by the Black Rider, which in retrospect seems like an especially not-great thing for Sam to do, but you can wave it off as a by-product of the sudden shock I suppose. That set-up allows us to experience the thrill of Frodo engaged in a foot-race with the horsed Nazgul behind, with actual slow-mo used to maximise the effect, and the score really kicking in hard. I suppose really Frodo shouldn’t be able to win this race, especially when the other three hobbits actually cast off from that side of the river (again, a bit of an odd moment when you think about it, but if they didn’t they’d all be caught I suppose). There doesn’t need to be any bloodshed, or even suggested bloodshed, for this kind of scene to accomplish what it needs to accomplish, just the sight of this little underdog having to somehow get beyond the nominally stronger, faster and more dangerous predator behind.

There follows Frodo’s leap, showcased to us really nicely through a static shot in profile of the jump and the ferry, Frodo a temporary blur in the middle of the air before he lands into the grateful hands of a grasping Sam. It might not be quite Beren level, but it’s still a remarkable and important moment, where Frodo carries out an heroic action – a non-violent heroic action too – that makes him stand out and increases audience engagement with him. We’ve had an instance of that already, back in “The Shadow Of The Past” when he made the firm decision to go on the quest, but this is different: it’s a physical test that Frodo passes, escaping from the predations of the Black Rider through an demonstration of his jumping prowess. The sight of the Ringwraith having to essentially slide to a rapid halt at the end of the pier underlines the tension of the scene by making it clear just how far the Nazgul was willing to go in pursuit of its target.

In the course of The Lord Of The Rings, there will be a large number of different action scenes, many of them violent in nature. It has to be accepted that this is simply inevitable when it comes to films of this nature. But there will be more than a few that take a different course, with “Buckleberry Ferry” the first of those. Through an excellently portrayed scene of initial confusion and then a mad dash to the river, The Fellowship Of The Ring gets hearts racing ahead of a more slow-burn scenes of tension still to come, and does it all mostly through invention, with nothing of this type appearing in the text. It’s a short and sweet moment, that continues our transition from the Shire into the wilds.

Run!

Notes

-The music is the rest of “A Shortcut To Mushrooms” in the complete recordings, amounting to an extended hearing of the general Ringwraith theme that we first heard as they left Minus Morgul in “The Account Of Isildur”. It certainly adds a lot, with those blistering horns and choral accompaniment.

-Our first instance of the Ringwraith scream early on in this scene, that horrible piercing wail. I think it’s a warped donkey bray?

-I do always appreciate that Merry is shown to be a bit smarter than his companion, as he remarks that then Ringwraith “was looking for something, or someone”, glaring at Frodo.

-He’s also decisive when he needs to be. All it needs is for Frodo to relate that he and Sam have to get out of the Shire fast for Merry – who is Frodo’s cousin remember, though that isn’t made clear in the films as I recall – to jump feet first into the whole situation, knowing exactly where they all have to go next.

-That sense of confusion with the Ringwraith appears suddenly is so great in its execution. It’s a swirl of people, horse, trees and clothing, with the Nazgul probably as confused as anyone.

-The other three hobbits really do just cast off without Frodo huh? What would they do if he didn’t make it?

-It must have been tempting to treat Frodo’s leap as a slow-motion exercise, but Jackson stuck with “real-time”, and I think it works better.

-As the Ringwraith rides away he is joined by two of his brethren. The sense of coordination, hither-to unlooked for, is very clear.

Final Thoughts: “Buckleberry Ferry” is in some ways a throwaway scene, but I have always admired it. There’s some very clever cinematography, framing and chorography here, that introduces the proper sense of confusion at the beginning, and then makes Frodo’s mad dash to the river something really exciting. It also serves admirably as a continuation of that transitionary feel, as we leave the Shire and move into darker and more dangerous territory. Up next, well, we find out that it comes in pints.

To view the rest of the entries in this series, click here to go the index.

Ireland’s Wars: Northern Ireland In The 2000’s

From as far afield as West Africa, we now return back to the island of Ireland itself. It is my intention to cover events in Northern Ireland within the 21st century (and the very last years of the 20th) in two entries, taking a decade or so in each. In so doing it is not my intention to minimise or otherwise downplay the sometimes horrific events that took place in that period, but a continuation of my previous approach to the Troubles era, taking a year at a time, seems excessive to me. Thankfully, the number of violent incidents in Northern Ireland was, relative to the three decades before, low in this era, though they never entirely ceased.

In 1999, the structures of the peace process remained intact, despite the horror of events like the Omagh bombing and the slow pace of decommissioning. The latter was a serious delay to greater political engagement from unionists, with that community ever wary of the GFA turning into a deal that was more beneficial to nationalists than themselves. Despite the efforts of figures like Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, it was difficult to bring unionist parties to the table concretely as they demanded more progress on the decommissioning of arms, something nationalist entities like Sinn Fein still believed was a periphery issue. Thanks to the work of George Mitchell, back in Northern Ireland in September, an agreement to form an Executive in the Assembly was made without forward motion on the issue, but it was going to be something that returned again and again as a major problem. Piecemeal killings continued, some of an internecine nature, such as the assassination of Eamon Collins, a former Provisional IRA member turned critic, killed by unknown assailants in January. Mo Mowlam stopped short of declaring hat the IRA ceasefires were at an end however. It was perhaps partly this that did for Mowlam in the end, with her relationship with unionists now more of a detriment to the ongoing process than anything else. In October 1999 she was recalled to London and replaced by Blair’s close friend Peter Mandelson. By the end of the year devolved powers had been transferred to Stormont and this, in line with the low death toll connected to paramilitary violence – just seven, the lowest number since the 1960’s – gave every indication that the process was working.

Only it wasn’t. Less than three months later, David Trimble’s Ulster Unionist Party walked out over the lack of progress over decommissioning, with disillusionment with the GFA now widespread among unionists, many horrified at the sight of one of Sinn Fein’s assigned ministries, Education, going to the hate figure of Martin McGuinness. The publication of the planned report on the RUC also raised hackles, recommending as it did widespread changes, from the name of the organisation – now to be the Police Service of Northern Ireland, or PSNI – to mandated Catholic recruitment.

Trimble had always threatened to resign if decommissioning was not progressed, and the UUP walkout prompted another round of desperate politicking, as all feared that resumption of the violence was possible, maybe even likely. The Provisionals, for their part, now demonstrated a bit more leeway, issuing a statement a few months later that they would “completely and verifiably put beyond use” their weapons, with agreed international figures to be allowed to inspect arms dumps. Ian Paisley and his Democratic Unionists rejected the state of affairs, but the UUP, though starkly divided, agreed to come back into Stormont.

Once again, things seemed as if they might be on the right course, with that years marching season incidents reduced, with Drumcree especially seeming like less of an issue than ever before. Support for such things from unionist circles was ebbing away owing to marches association with paramilitary figures like Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair, the hardline commander of the Belfast Ulster Defence Association, who was at the centre of occasionally bloody feuding with the Ulster Volunteer Force in the city, with the death toll connected to paramilitary violence spiking back up in 2000. On the republican side of things, the PIRA was connected to the killings of drug dealers in some majority-nationalist areas, while entities like the Real IRA now went back to violence as a tool, through a series of small-scale bombing and mortar attacks, with some of these taking place on the British mainland: they included a rocket launched at the headquarters of MI6, and a car bomb exploded outside of the main BBC building.

In 2001, things tipped towards a crisis point. A British general election that year saw the UUP lose serious ground to the DUP, and the SDLP to Sinn Fein: John Hume would bow out of the SDLP leadership position as a result. There were several suspensions of Stormont owing to Trimble’s annoyance over a lack of progress on decommissioning, something perhaps done in part to try and arrest the collapse in support for the UUP from the unionist community. The case of the “Colombia 3”, three members of the Provisionals arrested in Colombia on charges of assisting rebel guerrillas there, also increased tensions, indicating as it did that the PIRA had not ceased their military activity, their own claims to the contrary. Several instances of rioting in Northern Ireland, mostly in Belfast, underlined the situation, occurring during the July marching season and the November Remembrance Day commemorations. So too did the so-called “Holy Cross dispute” in Ardoyne, where members of the local unionist community attempted to blockade a Catholic school over sectarian tensions in the area, leading to a lengthy period of on-and-off violence and the disturbing sight of schoolchildren needing to be escorted to their place of education by armed soldiers, holding back adults slinging abuse and projectiles. And in December, ostensibly growing out of a protest at the perceived slowness of demilitarisation, a large group of republicans attacked two British Army watchtowers and a police station in South Armagh, injuring dozens.

In 2002, further crises meant that Stormont could no longer continue. In March three men broke into a Special Branch office in Belfast and made off with vital documents before the breaking of “Stormontgate” in October: several men were arrested under suspicion of operating a republican spy-ring in Stormont, which carried with it highly emotive scenes of police raids on Sinn Fein offices. The alleged ringleader, Denis Donaldson, was a former Provisional then working as an administrator for Sinn Fein. The charges were eventually dropped, with Donaldson later outed as a double-agent in the employ of MI5: he was later murdered, allegedly by the RIRA. The UUP walked out of powersharing again, and this time the resulting suspension of Stormont would last for four difficult years.

Some violence continued, with most fatalities now associated with in-fighting within the unionist community of remaining paramilitary organisations, but as of yet there was no resumption of Troubles-era levels of political killings. In 2003 the gradual downwards slide of the UUP resulted in it being overtaken by the DUP as the largest party in the Assembly after elections in November, while Sinn Fein claimed a safe third spot well ahead of the SDLP. The rise of Paisley into a position where he was now the presumptive First Minister of the Assembly if it was actually sitting led many to assume that the peace process was doomed, owing to the DUP’s hardline rhetoric on the GFA, and their seeming in ability to contemplate forming a power-sharing government with Sinn Fein. But, remarkably, the DUP was now actually starting to change course, with messaging indicating the possibility of compromise, and Paisley himself now changing a lifetime of obstinacy by agreeing to meet political figures from the Republic like Bertie Ahern. When it came to that., it is possible that lengthy periods of serious illness at the time may have had an impact on Paisley. But on issues like decommissioning, the now 78-year-old Paisley was the firebrand of yesteryear, demanding photographic evidence of weapons being put beyond use, and striking a triumphalist tone when he also insisted that the PIRA be forced to “wear sackcloth and ashes”. Many in nationalism feared that the PIRA would be obligated to destroy its arms, after which the DUP would simply refuse to engage with the GFA processes.

The impasse continued on into 2004, which dragged on without much in the way of progress. Things were not helped by the robbery of over 25 million pounds from a Belfast bank in December of that year, with the Provisionals largely assumed to be responsible, and the murder of Robert McCartney by member of the same, the young man apparently killed after a “non-political” argument in a Belfast bar in January 2005. But eventually, things did evolve. In July 2005 the Provisionals issued a firm statement that it had ordered an end to the armed campaign, with all units still in existence told to dump their arms and then put them beyond use. Verification of the same was to be undertaken by members of both Protestant and Catholic religious institutions. There would be no visual evidence of the decommissioning, as Paisley had demanded, but the effort appeared to be a sincere one. At the same time, internecine unionist violence continued, with the ceasefire of the UVF no longer recognised by the British government from 2005, owing to its continuing violence against members of the Loyalist Volunteer Force.

All at the same time, political negotiations continued, with a focal point in 2006 being St Andrews in Scotland. It was there that the St Andrews Agreement was reached in October, where Sinn Fein agreed to formally recognise the authority of the PSNI and the DUP agreed, in principle anyway, that they could form a power-sharing government with republicans. It was a remarkable turnaround for a figure like Paisley, who has probably helped along by the fact that there was no other major unionist figure to challenge him: Trimble had resigned as UUP leader the year before. It still took another complicated series of internal party ruminating and votes for the principles of St Andrews to come into fruition, but in May 2007, helped along by another election where the DUP and Sinn Fein gained at the expense of their rivals, Paisley was sworn in as First Minister with none other than Martin McGuiness as the Deputy First Minister. It was a remarkable sight in many ways.

It also came with initially quiet, and then more public, discontent within unionism, with some hardliners coalescing around Traditional Unionist Voice, an ever more right-wing split off of the DUP, and others within the DUP agitating against Paisley’s continued leadership. While powersharing had support, the image of Paisley and McGuinness working side-by-side, and, to the horror of many, enjoying a cordial relationship, did not seem likely to really please unionists. Paisley would resign as First Minister only a year after taking the job, with long-time deputy Peter Robinson graduating to the top position. He was also able to enjoy a working relationship with McGuiness, through a succession of dicey negotiations and unease in the workings of Stormont, many of them revolving around the position of Justice Minister, which eventually went to the non-aligned Alliance Party.

Powersharing held grimly on, even through major crises, like the killing of two soldiers and one PSNI officer by the Real and Continuity IRA in separate attacks in March 2009: another remarkable sight at the time was Robinson and McGuiness issuing a joint condemnation, with McGuiness’ language extremely strong in the effort. Internal difficulties within both the DUP, over issues within Robinson’s own family, and Sinn Fein, over historical sex abuse claims, continued to create difficulties in the Northern Irish political sphere, as did continued problems with policing. But, critically, paramilitarism was on a downturn. In this period, both the UVF and the UDA essentially began the process of ending their active existence, with decommissioning of their own weapons going hand-in-hand. The INLA too, though on a ceasefire for some time, also gave up any pretensions of armed campaign around the same period.

Paramilitary activity was not fully ceased, and shootings and other violence did still occur, but no longer in great numbers. Riots still occurred in those high-tension months of July and November also, but no longer quite on the same level of Drumcree. And political instability was still a constant threat, but with the St Andrews Agreement there was scope for former enemies to work together to a much greater extent than before. In other words, the promise of the peace process seemed to be coming true, in so far as political violence was lessening substantially, in favour of the political arena. We will return to Northern Ireland again shortly enough, to cover the remainder of its military and political history up until the present day.

To read the rest of the entries in this series, click here to go to the index.

Review: Scoop

Scoop

Trailer

I said the quiet part loud and the loud part quiet.

Amid news of cuts across all BBC departments, the staff of Newsnight cast about for new stories to investigate, with the unorthodox methods of Sam McAlister (Billie Piper) making few friends in the office. But when she gets an in with Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes), the Private Secretary of Prince Andrew (Rufus Sewell), McAlister creates the opportunity for Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) to get a fated sit-down with the controversial royal, to discuss his connection with Jeffrey Epstein and everything that fell out from it.

The modern day business of filmmaking often seems to be jumping the gun when it takes real-life events for the basis of dramas these days. “Too soon” is something I find myself thinking a lot when I look at the raft of upcoming releases, many of which will be “historical” dramas or what have you based on events that took place only a few years ago. The events of Scoop are really one of these, covering the famous, or rather infamous, BBS Newsnight interview of Prince Andrew, that only took place in 2019. I don’t say “Too soon” to be flippant: I mean that a proper telling of this story requires distance, so that the historical context of the event can have the opportunity to be fully examined so that the resulting fictionalisation is as complete as possible, so that it can have more of a point other than “Andrew did a bad interview”. To take this as an example, for me it is hard to look at this story outside of the context of Queen Elizabeth II’s subsequent death, the larger drama engulfing the British Royal Family throughout the last few years and the era of “fake news” that institutions like Newsnight are supposed to be a bulwark against.

Partially because of that, but also for other reasons, Scoop is a weak film for me. It’s too by-the-book in terms of exploring what happened, and its efforts at getting at the real human drama fall mostly flat. More importantly, it talks the talk in terms of apportioning guilt and blame, but it struggles with walking the walk. Billie Piper’s McAlister is our main character, the woman who does more than anyone to bring Andrew under the glaring spotlight that he deserved, and there is a certain level of engagement in watching this single-mother grasp at the story-of-a-lifetime that inadvertently falls into her lap. Director Peter Martin does his damndest to make much of the routine work of investigative journalism and interview booking into something more exciting than it is: McAlister turning up at Thirsk’s door in the dead of night to dramatically reveal the raid on Jeffrey Epstein’s home had me thinking of Jodie Foster racing around satellites in Contact in terms of needless physicality.

But there is only so far you can go with the McAlister character before you start to notice the issues, namely a degree of human wreckage that she leaves in her wake that Scoop seems strangely ambivalent about. Thirsk seems like a genuinely good person who has fond feelings for the man she has worked for for a great number of years, about her only crime: for this McAlister manipulates her into granting the interview, then is absent from the screen when the abuse starts later. Jordan Kouamé plays a POC in the Newsnight team who routinely calls McAlister out on her markedly unprofessional behaviour, and even gets a moment where he is able to confidently state that if he acted as she had then he would probably be fired, but this is treated more like an obstacle for McAlister to overcome then a deadly serious examination of racial double-standards in employment. And Andrew himself could be perceived through Scoop as something of a victim of McAlister too really, since he seems so childlike, naïve and almost simple in Sewell’s performance, a man more to be pitied than scorned at moments, totally unable to comprehend what is going on around him (a far too easy way to portray him, given what he was accused of).

In that, I think that Scoop really doesn’t do enough to get across just how bad that interview was. Instead of really getting into the nitty-gritty of Andrew’s cavalcade of attempted explanations, it zeroes in on the same strange details – a lack of sweat, Pizza Expresses, etc – that made for great memes at the time, but frankly less great journalism. Worse, with the depiction of Andrew in Scoop as an overly-coddled man-child with obvious social anxiety outside of his comfort zone (illustrated best when Scoop decided to focus on that strange teddy bear thing he has going on) this character comes out of the film having you think that he actually just might be totally harmless, caught up in a situation not of his making. It would only take a few tweaks for this production to become about rehabilitating his image, undone by cruel and uncaring journos out for a big story, and that’s a strange way for Scoop to go given the triumphal tone it strikes at its conclusion, the Newsnight team exulting over their remarkable victory…of getting Andrew to be stood down from his royal duties (but not his titles, as it incorrectly claims). His alleged victims, and the victims of everyone else involved, might be entitled to feel short-changed from such things: Scoop pays some lip service to them at the start, but that’s it, with the focus on the women who arranged/executed the interview subbing in. Andrew remains a state-sponsored celebrity in Britain today, as likely to face actual justice for his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein as Megan Markle is to be Queen.

The cast struggle a bit also. Piper’s McAlister has a quite messy character arc that the person behind the role can’t do much with, saddled with being made to look very unendearing in the first act, manipulative in the second and then sort of vanishing from the film in the third: an effort to establish her as having to overcome classism fails to land. With those aspects hamstringing her, Piper isn’t really able to make good on the character. Sewell is better as Andrew, but in line with the aforementioned problem of creating unintentional sympathy, his performance doesn’t really seem to be striking the right note. Much has been made, especially by Netflix, of Anderson’s turn as Maitlis, but the truth of the matter is that she really isn’t in enough of the film to begin with, and when she is her performance comes off more like she is doing an imitation of the presenter more than anything. The best of the lot is probably Hawes, but she too is forced to reckon with large absences rom the screen, as Scoop struggles to determine just who the main character of the film actually is.

Visually, the film is fine, competent, perhaps reflective of director’s Philip Martin’s nearly entirely TV-focused filmography to this point. It has that look of such quasi-biopics, perhaps made a little bit too quickly, and with an eye on replication of key events as opposed to really inventive cinematography. I wouldn’t say that there are any really stand-out sequences in Scoop to really grab your attention, with not even the sections dedicated to the actual interview really anything more than fancy versions of the real-life thing. I suppose I should mention the efforts made at bringing you truly behind the scenes of places like the BBC – a scene where McAlister chats with a superior as lighting cues are decided upon for a later broadcast is decent – and “the Palace”, but for the most part it is just richly ornamented interiors with no real camerawork done to fully take advantage of them.

Scoop is a good example of a film made far too close to the material it is taking its story from. Lacking that distance, and the possibility of taking in the wider context, it is a flawed thing: too deadset on replicating the events in question to make a deeper point, too zeroed in on Andrew to the detriment of his alleged victims and too meandering in the way that it treats its various characters to be able to form a single coherent character arc for the viewer to be engaged with. This is simply too unsatisfying to be a good movie, and instead feels like something that will be all too easily forgotten in years to come, especially if someone else gets the chance to do the story more justice. Not recommended.

(All images are copyright of Netflix).

NFB Re-Watches The Lord Of The Rings: “A Shortcut To Mushrooms” And Tonal Changes

Previous entry: A Battle Of Wills In “Saruman The White”

Well…that was close…

The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring – “A Shortcut To Mushrooms”

Wherein Sam freaks out for no real reason; Merry and Pippin are on the wrong side of the law; and Frodo doesn’t like his personal space being invaded.

Transitioning between tones is always a very dicey task in film. It is one of my personal bug bears when a nominally serious film suddenly attempts to insert some humour, or vice-versa, when it is done in a clumsy and uneven way. MCU films, I’m looking at you. It’s a very subtle art, to write and direct a scene wherein you move from one tone to a completely different one, and do so in a manner wherein either part of the equation does not detract from the other, and where the audience does not suffer from a metaphorical whiplash. The Lord Of The Rings has many scenes where Peter Jackson had to try and pull this off, and the focus of todays entry, “A Shortcut To Mushrooms”, is one of them.

There is a microcosm of this question right at the start of the scene, where Jackson gets serious, and then interrupts that seriousness with a joke. Sam briefly loses track of Frodo in a cornfield and panics, only for it to be revealed that Frodo was just a short way ahead. Sam explains that he made a promise to Gandalf, to not “lose” Frodo, a promise he means to keep. This, of course, has a deeper resonance beyond this scene, as it is these words that Sam will return to at the conclusion of The Fellowship Of The Ring, as he makes the choice to follow Frodo to Mordor. In this moment, it’s a quieter declaration but no less impactful: it says a lot about Sam’s sense of loyalty to Frodo. But just as Frodo inquires as to what could possibly happen to the two of them in the Shire, they get slammed into by Merry and Pippin, fresh off their latest robbery of foodstuffs from Farmer Maggot. It’s a sudden volte-face in tone, the unexpected appearance and crash constituting something of a pratfall for all concerned, that whips the rug out from under those viewers who were just solidly on the ground of a fairly dramatic moment. It’s hard to describe just why I think that this works where in other productions a similar tonal change doesn’t. In this instance, I put it down as a sense of naturalness. It isn’t that Sam’s weighty pronouncement has been interrupted with a pithy one-liner or putdown, it just so happens that one plot has bundled into another, and the various reactions are actually pretty appropriate to that situation. I guess what I mean is that the set of circumstances that is shown and the order in which they take place seem logical in their own way.

The resulting minute or so of comedy is golden stuff. Merry and Pippin trying to justify their robbery, Sam being left holding the evidence, the fall off the cliff straight out of a “Make ‘Em Laugh” style skit, and the immediate results of the crash to the bottom are all great in their own way, turning The Fellowship Of The Ring, even if it is very briefly, into the most wonderful kind of light-hearted farce, with the music adding brilliantly to the tone of light-hearted whimsy and slapstick disasters. From this section of the chapter, you would think that we are still very firmly in the territory of “Concerning Hobbits”, “The Shire” and “At The Green Dragon”, still in safe surrounds of little genuine drama, where the primary mode of entertainment comes from watching these strange and interesting creatures sort of blunder their way through life.

The end of this section is something of a threshold though, in the tradition of Joseph Campbell. The four hobbits tumble down this steep hill, and in so doing they leave one part of their adventure – the warm, safe and happy-go-lucky part – behind, and enter a world that is far darker, and far more dangerous. You can see it even in the choice of colour palette if you look back on the scene: the bright sunlight and colour of Maggot’s farm gives way to something with decidedly less light, more weeds and a greater sense of dirt and even, dare I say, decay. It’s still played for laughs, the sight of all these hobbits falling down the slope, but they are very clearly descending from a nicer place to a not-so-nice place, with the transition marked by a bit of physical danger in how they fall and a more non-literal encroaching danger in the way that the environment suddenly changes. In terms of tonal change, this visual transition, while quick, helps acclimatise the audience to the darker reality that they are about to experience. In other words, the arrival of the Black Rider does not happen instantly after all the humour.

But what a change it is when the threat of that Black Rider becomes manifest. Frodo urges the hobbits to hide, and they then endure a remarkably unsettling situation, sniffed out by the Ringwraith, while the local insect wildlife goes haywire on top of them. All sense of the laughter and frivolity of just a moment before has vanished, and I think that the manner in which this is done is actually a benefit to making sure no tonal whiplash is experienced. It isn’t just that things have gotten serious all of a sudden, it’s that the entire situation has changed: this dark figure is from an entirely different world, a different story, and trying to figure out if the hobbits will survive the counter is enough to banish memories of broken carrots pretty much instantly. That menace is also important, feeling so genuine that it is easy to not be concerned with the sudden absence of comedy, with a life-and-death encounter playing out on screen. By the time that the Ringwraith is fooled into looking elsewhere and Frodo takes out the Ring, the viewers mindset should be well-placed for the tension of the following chapter.

As stated, managing tonal shifts is a very dicey, but very important, task. It’s easy to mess it up, and turn your production into an inedible soup of conflicting intentions, where serious moments are undercut by ill-placed humour, or vice-versa. In The Lord Of The Rings, Jackson and his team manage to avoid such pitfalls, and ” A Shortcut To Mushrooms” is a very good example as to how, a scene where the transition between comedy and drama is achieved through effective segregation of the tones, through brief filler moment and through believability.

What was that?

Notes

-The music is the first part of, naturally, “A Shortcut To Mushrooms” from the full recordings. I love the wind-focused franticness of the opening part of the scene full of whimsy and fun alongside a rising sense of tension. You could hear this music without having seen the film and still have an idea of what it is playing over.

-I like how we briefly go into what seem almost to be a first-person perspective as Sam calls after Frodo, the camera moving to and fro as if we are inside Sam’s head.

-I love Sam’s comedy moment of being left holding the evidence of Merry and Pippin’s misdeeds, double-taking, and then dropping it all before taking for the hills. Yes, it paints Sam as a little gormless, but it works for me.

-Merry, talking to no one in particular, tries to act as if the theft is no big deal, only for Pippin to helpfully remind him of the vast quantities of food stuffs they have nabbed from the source on other occasions. “Yes Pippin” comes Merry’s deadpan response. Brilliant.

-A great combo of comedy lines as the four hobbits recover: Pippin thanks the universe after nearly Biff Tannening himself on some manure (“That was close”) while Merry worries about having “broken something”, only to discover it is a carrot (he’s still devastated though).

-Great use of perspective change and vanishing point alteration as Frodo gazes down the road and senses trouble coming. Him just being on the road inspired a bit of dread, but this effect seals it.

-It’s here that there is another strange continuity error, or at least so it seems, where the Ringwraith seems to just appear from one side of the tree, despite their being space on the other side. Given that the road is meant to be straight and perpendicular, it seems unlikely that the rider advanced straight towards the tree and then turned. It’s a very odd mistake, that I always notice now.

-In line with “The Account Of Isildur”, the Ringwraith’s horse is even getting in on the act, moving and acting in a way that you could easily describe as threatening and aggressive, which is a nice touch.

-The bugs that are suddenly crawling all over the four hobbits are an interesting addition. I presume the intention is to portray their movements as a consequence of the Ringwraith.

-In an subtle, but important moment, it is Sam who saves the day by grabbing Frodo’s hand before he has a chance to give into the Ring’s temptation, before Merry has the wherewithal to distract the Ringwraith. It’s important to how that Frodo isn’t alone in this journey.

-Always liked the reveal of the Ring in Frodo’s hand at the end, critically no longer on its chain. Frodo doesn’t even seem to remember doing that.

Final Thoughts: “A Shortcut To Mushrooms” really is a vitally important part of the story. From a position where the environment of the Shire in all if its established traits – relaxed, shining, carefree and safe – is still very firmly in place, the characters, and the viewer, tumble down the hill into a very different sort of space. It’s a space that has Black Riders, danger and the true beginning of the quest. But it also has this proto-Fellowship capable of traversing it all, though they aren’t out of danger just yet.

Next entry: Constructing A Non-Violent Action Scene In “Buckleberry Ferry”

To view the rest of the entries in this series, click here to go the index.

Ireland’s Wars: Liberia

The modern day Irish Army could be said to have come into its own in the heart of Africa, during its deployment to the Congo in the 1960s. That was the Irish Army’s first taste of what we might just about describe as peacekeeping – in reality the ONUC mission was far more militant an operation than what we generally consider peacekeeping these days – and it proved a springboard for the wide variety of missions all over the world that the Irish soldier was deployed for by the United Nations. Notwithstanding the missions in the Horn of Africa and other small-scale observer exercises, in 2003 the Irish Defence Forces would be deployed in relatively large-scale force in Africa again, this time in the aftermath of a terrible civil war on the western coast.

The civil war that ripped Liberia apart between 1999 and 2003 was the second in as many decades, and saw the government of Charles Taylor opposed by several different rebel groups which attacked from the north and south, and eventually made that government untenable. The war saw hundreds of thousands killed, various human rights abuses, the liberal deployment of child soldiers and a humanitarian crisis develop when various different factions seized control of the country’s few viable ports. The United Nations had long been involved in Liberia to varying degrees, and in August 2003 Resolution 1497 was passed, which established a multi-national force to be deployed to Liberia. In the aftermath of the varying factions signing a peace agreement, the United Nations Mission In Liberia – UNMIL – was formed with a mandate to provide security to the region, assist in various humanitarian matters and to assist in structural reform of the Liberian military.

UNMIL deployed at a strength of 15’000 men and women, with the Irish Defence Forces contributing troops from November 2003, with their part of the mission lasting for the better part of four years. The initial contribution consisted of an infantry battalion with an emphasis on logistical support and APC transport options, alongside a contingent of the Army Ranger Wing. The Irish were based at Camp Clara, not far from the Liberian capital of Monrovia. This was a base that essentially had to be built from the ground-up, requeuing an enormous logistical operation in the early part of the deployment, with the Irish Naval Service involved in transporting needed supplies. Designated as UNMIL’s “Quick Reaction Force”, the Irish were tasked with being immediately available (with as little as 30 minutes notice) for short and long-term deployment into the Liberian countryside and urban areas, to provide needed security to civilians under threat of violence, man checkpoints, conduct searches for weaponry and generally secure vital areas. Such deployments could be done via APC convoy, often in conjunction with a mechanised unit from Sweden, or via air insertion, assisted by a contingent of the Ukrainian Air Force. Some patrols could last days, and take in border patrol duties with Liberia’s neighbours, to monitor for the movement of militants and weapons. The ARW had additional responsibilities as a designated “Special Operations Task Group”, taking orders directly from UNMIL’s force commander: as in East Timor, these responsibilities included extended long-range patrolling, the gathering of intelligence and, when required active engagement as hostage rescuers. Seven different battalions in total would serve tours in Liberia, of a six month duration.

As was/is the case with UN missions, the vast majority of these deployments was without major notoriety, mostly a case of pro-active patrolling, engagement with locals and efforts to defuse tensions so that any kind of dangerous situation was forestalled without having to be dealt with directly. But there were two major exceptions for the Liberia mission. The first took place in early January 2004. Then, the UN mission received intelligence about a large group of civilians who had been taken captive by one of the rebel factions associated with departed ex-President Charles Taylor. The men, women and children were held in makeshift detention, in a container near the town of Yekepa, close to the border of Liberia and Guinea. Abused during their time in captivity, just what the fate of these people would have been is unclear, but it was hardly anything good. The ARW was called upon to enact a rescue, and a detention of those responsible.

A 40-strong unit of the Rangers was transported to the area via Ukrainian helicopters. Hitting the ground, they coordinated an encirclement of the area where the hostages were being held. Allegedly, some of the armed rebels in the area fled upon their arrival, and the remainder, 15 or so, surrendered without offering much in the way of resistance. They were taken into custody and the hostages freed without a shot being fired. Seemingly the Rangers’ numerically superiority, and perhaps also their not inconsiderable ability to project, for lack of a better term, menace and a sense of threat, won the day. It was not the only such operation the ARW was involved in, but was certainly among the most high-profile.

Later that year, Irish soldiers were again at the forefront of establishing a degree of order in an otherwise highly volatile situation. In November of 2004 rioting broke out in sections of Monrovia, described as a mix of “tribal feuding” and sectarian in its nature. The Irish QRF was deployed to key sections of the city in order to enforce order over a week-long period of violence that left dozens of Liberians dead. In that time, they were the subject of some piecemeal attacks themselves, but generally nothing more threatening than stone throwing. On one occasion however, the threat from local crowds was serious enough to warrant a controlled burst of fire into the air to encourage them to disperse. The Irish got out of that instance of rioting without any casualties.

The Irish were withdrawn from Liberia in 2007, but UNMIL would remain in existence for much of the following two decades, only being wound up in 2018. By that time, it was considered that enough had been done to promote security, build up functioning government services and disarm militias, that Liberia was ready to stand more firmly on its own. While the country continues to have its issues, it has remained mostly stable since, holding widely praised democratic elections, though issues with corruption and violence remain very much in place at the same time. UNMIL in Liberia is considered very much to be a success story for the United Nations and West Africa, and the Irish played their part in that.

To read the rest of the entries in this series, click here to go to the index.