lördag 31 december 2016

2016 – Not as bad as all that

I feel a little like Louis XVI who infamously wrote “rien” (nothing) in his diary on 14 July 1789 (because the poor man hadn’t been informed of the attack on the Bastille yet – in this instance, at least, it was not a sign of lacking political acumen). You hear a lot these days about 2016 being a disastrous year. And it’s true, there were a couple of events in 2016 which I’d wished would have had a different outcome. But I can’t help feeling that there’s little use whining about it. It certainly makes no sense to say that “2016 can’t be over soon enough”. It’s in 2017 that we will face the consequences of decisions made in 2016, and then we will learn if we were right to moan about them in the first place. It must be very irritating for those who think that by and large people got it right in 2016 to hear all the “as we all know, 2016 was a ghastly year” comments, as if there were an unshakeable consensus about this. Let’s just see what happens. To quote Spamalot, we’re not dead yet.

What further complicates matters is that for me personally, 2016 was actually not such a bad year. Things got less hectic and more enjoyable at work. I acquired a new villain crush which, though a tad embarrassing considering said villain’s origin as a vicious fairy-tale gnome (at least he’s straight, which makes a nice change – and not a gnome, though still pretty vicious), helped me face the first Downton-free year since the series ended with equanimity. There was room for moral-uplifting travelling combined with binge book-buying. My gloomy thoughts about an end of the costume-drama boom seemed to be put to shame with the appearance of The Crown. Maybe the history in this series is a bit too recent for it to really qualify as a costume drama, but it feels like one and shows that there is still a market for TV series based on family spats in a period setting. At the beginning of the year, I had a lovely time with the marvellous though sadly Carker-free Dickensian. Book-wise, the year was a little more meagre: I didn’t discover some new favourite in my preferred genre of middle-brow historical fiction. Dictator, the final volume of Robert Harris’s Cicero trilogy, was great though.

On this shallow, cultural consumption level, the auspices for 2017 look more or less promising. This year at least, there’s bound to be a new Jasper Fforde novel – plus there will be more Doctor Who and Sherlock after an age of waiting. Apparently, a drama set in a London luxury hotel during WWII which sounds satisfyingly Downton-inspired is in the offing (it also sounds a bit clichéd, but at least someone is trying). There’ll be a new series of Victoria – I’ve finally watched the first four episodes of series one, and thoroughly enjoyed them, not least thanks to Rufus Sewell’s far-too-atttractive-for-historical-accuracy Melbourne. Harris’s new thriller Conclave about the election of a pope seems interesting: maybe there’ll be a worthwhile Cardinal villain in it. And who knows, maybe Julian Fellowes will finally get underway with his new period drama series The Gilded Age (I’ve all but given up waiting for a Downton movie).

With Louis XVI-like obliviousness, I’m resolved to be optimistic. Everything may yet turn out better than we feared in 2017. I may not have to fill out an ESTA form in order to enter the UK in future. Perhaps that sanctimonious cow Belle will even see sense in season 6 of Once Upon a Time and give her loving (if villainous) husband another chance – though that seems like the longest shot of all.

onsdag 14 december 2016

Maybe not fantastic beasts - but quite enjoyable beasts (and people)

I was quite expecting a fitting title for a blog entry on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to be "unremarkable films and where to find them". But as it happens, I enjoyed Fantastic Beasts far more than I expected, though it's hard to explain why. After all, I'm more interested in relationships between the human characters in any given story than in any searching for and gawping over animals, fantastic or otherwise. The film's characterisation is sketchy and the plot isn't up to much - one of the plot twists is a cheat, as one of the few facts we are told about a certain magic phenomenon turns out to be untrue. And yet, the film has charm. It sets up the stall for a new five-film saga (quintology?) nicely, and I actually have some hope of liking these films more than I did the original Harry Potter ones.

For one, the protagonists, though we don't get any in-depth insights into their psyche, seem a sweet bunch. Newt Scamander, the hero, may be very much wedded to the task of looking after magical beasties, but this far he's endearingly nerdish rather than a moralistic magical-animal-rights crusader. His love interest Tina may start their acquaintance off by arresting him, but what could have been an annoying "what have you done you foolish man" storyline becomes something more sympathetic as we realise that she is almost as out of her depth as he is. Jacob Kowalski, the Ordinary Joe who gets sucked into the adventure when his briefcase is mixed up with Newt's fantastic-beast-filled one, may not have much else to do than to stare wonderingly with his mouth open, but you still buy the premise that he's a man who tends to be liked (while Newt is often found annoying). Instead of wasting the audience's time by complaining, like so many inadvertently-sucked-into-adventure characters do, Kowalski just goes with it, loving every minute of the magic derring-do and befriending Newt, Tina and her glamorous sister Queenie - especially Queenie - in no time.

I have less problems with this hero quartet so far than I had with the Harry Potter trio. Harry had no chance of living up to the hype, and had a tendency to gloat over his enemies' misfortunes - witness his glee over Dudley falling into the snake tank at the zoo or over Draco being turned into a ferret - that wasn't entirely dignified in someone with Chosen One status (I'm pretty sick of the Chosen One plot-line by now, as it creates unnecessary fuss over ordinary, flawed characters who would be more bearable as one good guy among many). Ron, whom I found quite funny at first, got increasingly irritating. He certainly didn't deserve Hermione, the best of the bunch as a dedicated swot who was dismayed when the yearly exams were cancelled "in celebration" (what kind of sub-standard educational institution is Hogwarts anyway?). But even Hermione could be tiresome when caught in "goodness will prevail" slanging matches with the bad guys - not that the villain banter they countered with was much to write home about either. Newt and Co. don't set out to be heroes - they simply want to make sure Newt's critters are all right - which makes them, so far at least, less self-righteous than Harry's team.

How do the villains compare then? Well, the jury's still out here. I loved Colin Farrell as the sinister chief of police Graves, but it doesn't look as if this will be a repeat performance. I had hoped to learn a little more about the head villain, Gellert Grindelwald, but we don't really. Grindelwald is a wizard who's mentioned in the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows films, but not much beyond that - they're so tight-lipped about him that much of the back-story in which he is a significant player remains a mystery for viewers like me, who haven't read the books. It's not even made clear that he's a dark wizard, only that he was chummy with Dumbledore at one time. So what happened? Did he turn bad, or was he bad all the time and fooled Dumbledore (which it's hardly impossible to do)? Were he and Dumbledore lovers? Was that Dumbledore's "dark secret" which Rita Skeeter wrote about, but which we're never told about although we actually see Hermione reading the book? C'mon, spill!

What we learn about Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts is that we wants to wage an all-out war on non-magic folk, or "no-majes"as they're called stateside (better than "muggles", anyway). As the locals are more hostile than in Europe and the resident wizard council is set on keeping all use of magic underground so as not to provoke them, you can see his point in a way, but it makes for a boring, impersonal villain motive. Grindelwald as glimpsed on photographs in the Deathly Hallows films was arrestingly handsome in his youth, which makes Johnny Depp's ravaged appearance in the role a disappointment. Even at his cutest, Depp has another kind of good looks than the Hallows heartbreaker, and he is far from his cutest here. As for the magic-hating "Second Salemers", they make Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist look like a subtle character study. However, let's remember that the original Harry Potter villains, though they looked the part, weren't always as skilled at the actual mischief-making. The Malfoys in particular were what Miss Denker in Downton would call "merely ornamental" (what ornaments, though). Anyway, Grindelwald and his followers won't have to try as hard as all that to outdo Voldemort and his not-so-merry men.

With the stunning setting of 1920s New York - complete with magic touches like speakeasys owned by goblins - likeable if somewhat thin characters and well-CGIed magic creatures, Fantastic Beasts has surprisingly much going for it. I'll actually make sure to watch the next film in the cinema too: those sweeping camera angles alone make it worthwhile not to simply wait for the DVD.

onsdag 30 november 2016

Time to be a grown-up with The Crown

Sometimes I worry that, what with all my wallowing in animated films, sci-fi, fairy-tale-inspired fantasy and not least youtube clips commenting on these phenomena, I will no longer be able to appreciate more mature and sophisticated ways of entertainment when they come along. What if I've devolved into a mere "beast", like the Macra in Doctor Who? Is it maybe a bad sign that I know who the Macra in Doctor Who are?

My fears seemed to be confirmed when I started to watch the undoubtedly-for-grown-ups Netflix series The Crown, which has been praised by just about every costume-drama viewer in the world. The first scene shows the present Elizabeth II's father, George VI, coughing up blood in the bathroom, and my first reactions were childish enough: "Eugh!" and "Right. Bored now."

Luckily, things picked up from there. There's no denying - and who would want to? - that the series is very well done indeed, and can easily hold a candle to anything BBC or ITV at its most lavish produce. The acting is superb - once again Claire Foy shines, this time as the main character Queen Elizabeth - the setting breathes authenticity and the script creates entirely believable scenes for the characters. You keep thinking "yes, it must have been exactly like this". There's not even clunky exposition camouflaged as dialogue of the kind you otherwise always get even in the best costume dramas: this means that some bit-players' identity remains a mystery until it is natural for someone to mention their name, but it's worth it as we then don't get stilted explanatory remarks such as "Ah, Mike, my dear cousin/friend since childhood" (yes, I'm still not sure how Prince Philip and Mike know each other) or "do you really think I can take on Churchill, Lord Salisbury, also known for unfathomable reasons as Bobbety?". Peter Morgan also wrote the script to the film The Queen and the play The Audience - both of which I've seen and enjoyed - and you trust him implicitly when it comes to capturing the personalities of the Queen and her entourage. The tone is even more assured in The Crown than in the other Elizabeth II-themed pieces mentioned, where some things would grate (the too-laboured stag metaphor in The Queen and some PMs in The Audience who were caricatured rather than convincingly portrayed).

But - to be honest - not a lot happens, does it? I've watched six episodes out of the first ten to be released, and though, thanks to the smoothness and believability, the story doesn't creak, it certainly moves at a rather majestic pace. Maybe it is partly my devolved Macra brain: the timing for watching The Crown could undeniably have been better, as after the sugar rush of two seasons of Once Upon A Time, it felt very much like slow-carb TV. All the same, I'm starting to wonder whether Elizabeth II's reign is that interesting a chunk of English history, and whether (whisper it) the characters are as fascinating as all that. They're certainly likeable: The Crown ought to give the senior members of the British royal family a well-deserved popularity boost. Even so, inveterate consumer of royal gossip as I am, I still fail to be engrossed by the small niggles of the Queen's and Prince Philip's essentially stable and happy marriage. Each episode features one main plot-line with not many sub-plots to speak of, and I did find myself thinking more than once that they weren't really worth all the time and attention lavished on them.

Of course it's a good series. I don't even feel resentful when people call it "the new Downton", because I know what they're driving at. This is period drama of the highest quality, plus an enjoyable way to learn more about recent British history (I had never even heard of the killing London fog of 1952). But Downton (not being hampered by reality) had more intricate plot-lines and a larger cast of characters to engage in. With the risk of sounding like the philistine Emperor in Amadeus complaining about the Marriage of Figaro having "too many notes", I'd say that for me at least, The Crown has too few storylines and too few main characters to be truly addictive. Not to mention no villains whatsoever (an amusingly catty Duke of Windsor doesn't count).

In spite of its level of ambition, I think the rest of the series will do well as post-gym watching, when I feel in the appropriate calm zen mode. Right now, though, Once season three awaits: maybe Neverland is the best place for me.

onsdag 16 november 2016

Fairy tales, mash-ups and villains = magically addictive viewing

That idea I had about mixing escapist viewing with serious stuff like Danish crime dramas? Stuff that. Lately it's been escapism, in the shape of the TV series Once Upon A Time, all the way. I'm now halfway through season two, and planning to invest in the remaining seasons available on DVD in the very near future.

So what's it about? Well, there's this town in present-day Maine, Storybrooke, where the Evil Queen from Snow White has entrapped various characters from different fairy tales, plus the odd character from other tales with a fantastic dimension, using a curse which wiped their memories and halted time, so that the town folk neither age nor have any memory of their previous fairy-tale existence. The only one who can break the curse is the daughter of Snow White and Prince James/David (long story) aka Charming, who was smuggled out of a magic portal before the curse hit. Once grown-up, she is brought into town by her son, whom she had given away for adoption, but who has figured out what's going on with the aid of a book, and so goes out to find her. The heroine, Emma Swan, naturally doesn't believe her son's fairy-tale fantasies, but she quickly grows attached to him and stays in the town for his sake. The big problem is, his adoptive mother is the Evil Queen herself, also known as Regina Mills the town mayor. And that's just season one.

Yep, it does sound extraordinarily geeky. When I try to explain the series' premise to an outsider, I usually drift off in the middle, embarrassingly aware of the fact. But then I am geeky, and fond of fairy tales and mash-ups/cross-overs where fictional characters from different stories interact. For anyone who feels the same, I think I can guarantee that a good time will be had with Once.

The series' attractions? Let's start at the top:

1) Rumplestiltskin's in it! Yeah, they basically had me at "You can't go to him. He's dangerous." Rumplestiltskin's my favourite fairy-tale villain, even if, in the original Grimm story, his appearance is not impressive (he seems to be some sort of gnome) and his motives unclear (what did he want with that first-born anyway? Eat it?). You can't fault that M.O. though - giving some hapless fairy-tale character exactly what they want, but at a price. In the words of the voodoo spirit friends of another purveyor of magical deals, Dr Facilier in The Princess and the Frog: "Well, you got what you wanted/But you lost what you had". It's the diabolical pact without the too-scary diabolical bit, and it works a treat as a villain storyline. Even Rumplestiltskin in Shrek Forever After, lisping silliness notwithstanding (one more reason why I'm no big fan of the Shrek franchise is that it tends to poke fun at its villains) managed to be the most formidable antagonist the green ogre's come across. It's hard to withstand an enemy who can use your own desires against you.

Rumplestiltskin in Once is the best version of the character one could hope for. For one, they've scrapped the gnome bit: originally, he's a man very much down on his luck who gets hold of almost unlimited dark magical power and is then understandingly reluctant to let it go, even it does turn him into a malicious, greenish kind of goblin. The goblin version of Rumplestiltskin may be a teeny bit OTT, not that I'm not still thrilled every time a character - especially the really good and worthy ones - is suckered into making a deal with him. But his Storybrooke persona, the wealthy businessman cum lawyer Mr Gold ("'He owns this place.' 'The inn?' 'The town.'") is just perfect - gangly, sardonic, super-clever, and with a deliciously impenetrable master plan. It is also worth noting that, like the original character and unlike, say, Facilier, Rumplestiltskin/Gold always delivers on his side of a deal. He doesn't cheat and fulfil your wishes in some horrible way. Many of the characters' happiness is dependent on deals they once made with him, which explains why they keep falling into his traps.

2) The Evil Queen has a case: Like most of the fairy-tale characters in Once, the Evil Queen Regina (not Grimhilde in this version, then) is nicely fleshed out with a strong back-story (the storyline in Once is split between Storybrooke and flashbacks to Fairyland). It provides the perfect villain motive in that it's good but not too good: you're not made to feel yourself that Snow White deserves all she gets, but you can see why Regina might think it. Her strongest case, though, is her present-day one against Emma. Imagine the natural mother of your adopted child showing up after ten years, settling down near you, getting all the affection of your boy, encouraging him to think of you as a wicked character from a fairy tale... And then to top it all your lover starts to make eyes at her. You wouldn't have to be an evil queen to be furious. In fact, if it weren't for the fairy-tale thing Regina would have right on her side, and for most of season one Emma doesn't even believe in the fairy-tale thing, which makes her feelings nicely conflicted.

3) I actually like Snow White: Who'd have thought it? Films like Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror, Mirror have tried to make something of Snow White, but not particularly successfully in my view. Simply giving a girl martial arts skills doesn't make her a memorable heroine. Snow White aka Mary Margaret Blanchard in Once, on the other hand, is just the right mixture of sweet and spunky to be likeable. Though essentially a good person, she has flaws which make her endearing, and you end up hoping she and her man will come together, even if a lot of potentially tiresome fuss is made about their "true love".

4) "Evil is made, not born" I recently rewatched all the Harry Potter films and was so fed up with the relentless smugness of the good characters by the end that I almost saw the point of joining up with the noseless one. In Once, both good and bad characters grapple with their motives, which prompts some discussion about what constitutes good and evil. In spite of the quote (a statement made by the two head villains, and they would say that), evil turns out to be very much a matter of choice. The wicked characters tend to go for the wrong choices - though redemption is possible, they pull back out of vindictiveness or love of power - but that doesn't mean the good characters always make the right ones. Simply, the characterisation is more nuanced than what one is used to in fairy-tale-themed stories.

Look, I'm not saying it's The West Wing. But the script is sassy, the cliff-hangers are effective and both the fairy-tale part and the small-town soap opera part work well. I'm not sure kids would enjoy it much, though, fairy-tale content notwithstanding: not that it's too scary, but relationships play a large part in the story, which I imagine could get boring for a child, as could all the am-I-a-bad-parent agonising. It's fairy tales for adults, then: nerdy adults, ideally with a penchant for villains. Does that description fit anyone but me? The series is a hit, so possibly yes.

Oh, and just for the record: I'm not at all keen on the matinee idol version of Captain Hook who turns up in season two, but I imagine those without my bias in favour of his (metaphorical) crocodile will probably think differently.                          

onsdag 2 november 2016

Let Maleficent be Maleficent

Poor Maleficent. She's not my favourite Disney villain by a long chalk - in fact, she's not even my favourite Disney villainess (that would be Ursula the sea-witch in The Little Mermaid). However, she deserves far better than she got in the live-action film bearing her name which was released in 2014 and which I've now finally watched.

I have to admit I was prejudiced against Maleficent from the start. Reviews of it suggested that the film was an attempt to rehabilitate the main character in the same manner as the book and later musical Wicked did the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. This seemed to me to defeat the very reason the film was made in the first place. Maleficent had been voted the villain Disney fans wanted to see more of, and the film was a consequence of that - but if you're an admirer of the bad fairy in the original animated Sleeping Beauty, chances are you're not interested in seeing her portrayed as not so very bad after all. What the original Maleficent has is style - she goes about her villainous business with panache and without a trace of regret or vulnerability. To attempt a whitewash would be to take away the only thing she has going for her.

Still, there's no denying that there's room for development as far as Maleficent's character is concerned. In the original fairy tale, the (nameless) fairy who curses Sleeping Beauty only appears at the beginning of the tale, and her curse is the result of her being miffed at not being invited to the christening. This is classic folk tale logic - according to them, supernatural beings are often notoriously thin-skinned, and you commit a breach of etiquette against them at your peril. Now, Disney's Maleficent in the original animated film not only curses the infant Aurora, she also sticks around to make sure that what she's foretold is fulfilled (which makes you wonder - why not just sit back and let the magic run its course? Doesn't she trust her own curses?). Her continued active efforts to ensure Aurora gets no happy ending do make the "not invited to the party" motive seem a tad threadbare. Maybe giving the character a back-story and a more credible motive to go with it would not be such a bad thing after all?

I hadn't seen much of Maleficent, however, before I realised that it fulfilled my worst fears. It wasn't only an attempt to whitewash Maleficent, but a singularly bad attempt. A pompous female narrator tells us of two neighbouring countries, one peopled by selfish, greedy humans, and one an idyllic place full of magical creatures whom the humans envy. Argh - please not the "greedy humans versus peaceful species living in harmony with nature" plot, one of my all-time pet hates! It gets worse. We see a young Maleficent - why is she even called that if she's not evil yet? - flying over the enchanted woodlands and sunnily greeting various revoltingly cutesy CGI critters. She's plainly as good as good can be, so her descent into baby-cursing must be entirely due to those pesky humans. True enough, it's when her childhood sweetheart Stephan betrays her that she goes off the rails. When the King decrees that whoever kills Maleficent will succeed him, Stephan drugs her, steals her wings - he can't quite bring himself to kill her, though with hindsight that would have been wiser - and becomes king on the strength of it. On the plus side, no-one hunts Maleficent any more, as it's assumed Stephan killed her when he nabbed the wings. On the minus side, she's really upset.

You'd think the whole betrayal-and-wing-stealing setup would prove a better motive for Maleficent than not being invited to a christening, but it's so clumsily done it adds nothing to the original story, quite the reverse. Maleficent's back-story is for the most part narrated rather than built up by potentially character-developing dialogue - it's a schoolbook example of telling rather than showing. I found myself far preferring the old, un-reconstructed Maleficent: she was plainly a bad fairy by profession, and cursing newborns is the kind of thing bad fairies do - all part of a usual day in the life of a fairy-tale villain. New Maleficent, on the other hand, seems to think she has some moral justification for making sure Stephan's child fell into eternal sleep on her sixteenth birthday - but fond as she was of her wings, this is a wildly disproportionate retaliation. By making the newborn-cursing part of a revenge-on-the-ex plot, Maleficent actually manages to highlight the horror of it rather than making it more understandable.

The film then gets even sillier as Maleficent warms to Aurora and eventually tries her darndest to break her own curse - at this point, there's no longer any attempt made to align what's happening with the plot in the animated film. And in the end, I kid you not, it is not the Prince's smooch that wakes Aurora, but Maleficent's repentant kiss (on the forehead - there are limits). She's grown to love her, see, so this is "true love's kiss". Not that that's much of a comfort to the girl's real parents - her blameless mother who's died not knowing what will happen to her child and her increasingly unhinged father (and wouldn't you be if someone cursed your kid? It's not paranoia if it's real). And don't get me started on Maleficent's treatment of the three good fairies - charming comic sidekicks in the original Disney classic, inept and woefully unfunny in this film.

Fleshing out the character of fairy-tale villains is a tall order, as they're pretty hardcore, and the original tales - not being exercises in psychological realism - don't give you many hints regarding the inner workings of their mind. But it can be done. I recently watched the first season of the TV series Once Upon A Time and was completely sold on it - which, let's just say, is not particularly surprising. I'll be gushing more about its attractions at some later date. Suffice it to say, for now, that the fairy-tale villains in Once may be rendered more complex by a tragic back-story or two, but they are nevertheless still villains - they choose to become bad, and to remain bad. Real affection towards a select few people in their lives doesn't make them less of a menace to everyone else. This, I think, would have been an approach which could have worked with Maleficent too: an attempt to enrich her character without prettifying or excusing her obvious malevolence. In fact, Maleficent does appear in Once, but only as a minor character: it will be interesting to see if she is reintroduced later, and what in that case this franchise's take on her will be.

As it is, I will let yet another version of Maleficent have the last word: the cheerfully messy teenage romcom Descendants shown on Disney Channel, about the second generation of Disney villains navigating high school, features a thoroughly rotten-to-the-core Maleficent, interestingly not the least bit inspired by the 2014 film, only by the animated classic. She tries to persuade her increasingly doubtful daughter (there's no clue as to who the father is - the film doesn't really address where villain babies come from) to carry out her wicked plans in a catchy musical number which includes the lyrics (abbreviated): "Don't you want to be evil? Don't you want to be cool?" In its simplicity, I think this sums up the character of the bad fairy - at least in her Disney version - far better than anything in Maleficent.   

torsdag 20 oktober 2016

Why so glum, haute couture chum?

It's the first autumn without a new series of Downton, and yes, I do miss it, if not as passionately as I'd anticipated. As regards the future of Downton's characters, I've pretty much settled it in my imagination to my own satisfaction. What I miss most about the series is my level of engagement in it. I have a number of series piled up for test-watching purposes, and not a few turn out to be well-made. However, there's no way any characters' troublesome working or love life (or lack thereof) will turn any of my hairs white (which, I swear, actually happened with Downton series six).

If no absorbing fictional universe where you'd happily spend hours, first actually watching the series then speculating about what may happen next or has happened before, is forthcoming, then can one at least hope for a little dose of escapism? I know I'm not really entitled to too much of it at this time of year. In January, I needed escapism to get me through the beginning of the new year; in February, to get me through the post-Downton slump after having watched last year's series a second time; in June, to temper pre-holiday grumpiness; in August, to alleviate post-holiday sadness. If there was ever a time for more ambitious viewing and reading, this is it. Plus I have discovered one escapism series on the nerdy part of the scale (rather than the costume-drama one) which will do well to mix up realistic Danish crime series and grim adultery thrillers with. All the same, just one teeny frothy costume drama with romances and pretty dresses, even if sadly free from under-butlers, would not go amiss.

So I had some little hope for The Collection, which has started airing on Swedish television - especially as it was touted as "the most glamorous series ever" by one TV presenter. Alas, though, the pilot turned out to be unexpectedly gloomy. It started unpromisingly with a silent scene - no dialogue, no music, just sinister tinkling from a couple of rusty cans hung up to scare away birds from a long-forgotten vegetable garden - where a corpse is buried, and very inexpertly if I may say so. I have an aversion against silent scenes in TV and films, especially at the very beginning: they usually signal pretentiousness and lack of pace. We then jump back a few days in order to get an explanation for the corpse, but when it comes it is not nearly good enough. I like crime drama, but I just have to ask: does every series have to include a murder now, even when there's no good reason to murder anyone?

Yes, there are a few pretty dresses - the series is after all about a fashion house trying to make its mark in post-WWII Paris - but they don't make up for the general downbeat feel of the plot. The fashion house in question is led by Paul Sabine, and the chief designer is his brother Claude. In a nice stereotype-busting role reversal, scrubbed-up, besuited Paul is the straight one, advantageously married to a beautiful and well-connected American. Whereas scruffy, macho Claude, who lives and rarely works in a Bohemian flat with his cat is the gay one - he's dangerously into rough sailors. Neither of them is a barrel of laughs, though. Paul is glum because he has business problems - it's hard to feel too sorry for him, as he unnecessarily rubs his new business partner up the wrong way, which leads to an entirely avoidable "succeed with your next collection or else" ultimatum. Claude is glum because his family play merry havoc with his love life in the most misguided "get the lazy brother to work" drive I've ever seen. Other glum characters include a pretty seamstress who has had to give her illegitimate baby away (the series takes ages exploring her grief on the train back). A new career as a dress model beckons, but after a couple of happy pictures around Paris to gay accordion music it all goes pear-shaped, and the shrinking violet refuses ever to try again, in spite of getting three separate pep talks (I did enjoy Claude's Beauty and the Beast-inspired one). Frances de la Tour puts in a characteristically classy, scary turn as the matriarch of the Sabine family, but not even she is happy.

If the pilot had been less down in the mouth, I would more easily have forgiven some shoddy plotting: for instance, an unsuspecting Paul buys the very derelict cottage next to which his mother's loyal thug of a chauffeur has buried Claude's sailor boyfriend (victim of the scantily explained murder mentioned above). Seriously, what are the odds? The corpse has not been dicovered yet, but as I heard those cans tinkling forebodingly yet again I'm not sure I didn't groan aloud. As it appears now, The Collection isn't frothy enough for light entertainment, but neither is it deep enough for serious drama.

I'll give it another try, though. The pilot of a series rarely shows it at its best. As Paul waxes lyrical about fashion collections symbolising Paris rising from the ashes like a phoenix, one can hope the phoenix bit is still to come. We've certainly had the ashes bit.        

tisdag 4 oktober 2016

My top 10 list of (male) Dickens villains, part II

I'll continue my list without further ado: for my top five and explanations of the rules of selection applied, see below.

6 Fagin in Oliver Twist I like Fagin a lot, but I've never been attracted to him, which is why he isn't higher on my list. I can usually disregard questions about a villain's personal hygiene (though Carker is very scrupulous about being clean and neat - only saying), but something about imagining Fagin's beard makes this impossible in his case. It must be absolutely filthy.

For all that, he's a great character and surely the most popular Dickens villain of all time. That is enough in itself to earn him place number six. Additionally, he's clever, funny and well liked by his employees (except Bill Sikes, that is) and suffers so memorably at the end it's hard to imagine that Dickens himself didn't pity him a little. I've written about both the wonders and the problems with Fagin before, so let's move on.

7 Daniel Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop Two of my favourite scenes in the old TV series Dickens of London (creaky, but worthwhile for the really nerdish) featured Dickens exclaiming "I love you, Daniel Quilp!". The first time was when he was caught up in getting under the skin of the character, the second when he got the sales figures for the latest installment of The Old Curiosity Shop. These scenes acknowledged both that Dickens had a special bond with all his characters including the wicked ones, and that he recognised that villains were good copy.

I was entranced by Tom Courtenay's portrayal of Quilp in the 1995 TV adaptation of The Old Curiosity Shop (the one that also featured Peter Ustinov as a rather vacant grandfather to Nell). On the page, though, Quilp can be a bit... much. There's an awful lot of monkeying about and face-pulling. He also relishes the discomfort of others in a way that not even I can find attractive. Nevertheless, he is an energetic and charismatic presence, and a scene with Quilp in it is never dull - a great plus in a novel as uneven as The Old Curiosity Shop. His marriage to a still devoted, pretty young wife - though her love for him, "one of those strange infatuations of which examples are by no means scarce", has taken its toll during years of ill-treatment - is one of the very few instances where a Dickensian villain (of the clever kind) has actually managed to land a girl. It may also to some degree explain why Dickens's other female characters tend to steer well clear of villain unions.

You wouldn't want to become Quilp's number second, but he's good fun, and another example of a Dickens villain viewed with some fondness by the general public, though many may only know him from the TV screen (apart from Courtenay, there's also Toby Jones's nicely understated Quilp in the more recent ITV adaptation). He's good copy, is Daniel, then as now.

8 Vholes in Bleak House Now I've worked through my favourite head villains in Dickens, it's time to squeeze in at least three of the secondary ones, and it's no easy matter. There are plenty of great minor villains in Dickens - while I leave out some top-billed baddies for a reason (like thick Bounderby, brutish Sikes and shadowy heart-breaker Compeyson), many of the secondary ones miss out merely through lack of space. Anyway, here goes.

I've always had an extra soft spot for Dickens's lawyers, and while Tulkinghorn is the prime example of the villainous kind, Vholes isn't half bad either. Dry, precise and level-headed, it's small wonder he takes the tempestuous Richard in. How many treacle-slow workdays have I not thought of his maxim that it is not what is done that's important, but what is doing. Dickens appears to have created him partly to illustrate why it's no good argument to say the law must work the way it does so the lawyers can earn a decent living. Vholes may prey upon Richard not only for his own sake but for the sake of his three daughters and his aged father in the Vale of Taunton, but that doesn't make him any less of a parasite. What a parasite, though - I'm not sure that keeping Vholes, the Misses Vholes and Vholes senior in the Vale of Taunton in the manner to which they have become accustomed isn't a perfectly good reason for going into law.

9 Littimer in David Copperfield Before darling Thomas in Downton, before Caxton in From Time to Time (and the original book), before Edgar in Aristocats and scores of other Bad Servants, there was Littimer. In his typically understated way, Steerforth's respectable-seeming valet embodies many of the anxieties of the middle class towards the superior form of servant. He knows how to exploit both the arrogance of his employers and the nervousness of manservant-unaccustomed house guests like David for his own ends. The manner in which he puts a dampener on a party in David's apartment - intimidating everyone while cooking the food and cleaning up to perfection - is a good example of how he manages to spread general unease while efficiently fulfilling his valet tasks. He even succeeds in fooling the worldly Miss Mowcher into thinking that David, not Steerforth, is set upon Little Emily and inspires her to one of her few quotable lines post-conversion to good character: "'Young Innocence' (so he called you and you may call him 'Old Guilt' all the days of your life)". The reader never sees Littimer's mask slipping - even the combined contempt of David and Rosa Dartle leaves him unperturbed - but there is another, more vindictive side to him. The fact that he helps Rosa find Emily, although she is so lacking in respect towards him, shows that he has not forgiven Emily for slighting him, and even in prison he still remembers the "young woman [...] that I endeavoured to save" and her "bad conduct" towards him. It is only to be hoped that the section of Australia to which he will be deported is a long way away from Port Middlebay.

10 Bitzer in Hard Times An underwritten character from Dickens's next-worst novel (yes, Martin Chuzzlewit is even worse) with only one, or let's say one and a half good scenes? What's he doing on this list? Well, it's my list, and I fancy him. Plus, that one scene - where he explains why he's determined to hand Gradgrind's son Tom over to the police, using the purely logical and self-interested arguments he was taught in Gradgrind's own school - is seriously good. Bitzer's tics and Dickensian characteristics - the forehead-knuckling, being so pale "that he looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white" - appeal to me. Then he's so young too (a class-mate of Sissy's, remember), and I can't help wondering how exactly Mrs Sparsit knew about him making a sound like a Dutch clock when sleeping; I'm not sure I buy the whole falling-asleep-at-his-table-on-long-winter-nights rigmarole. The very absence of explanations for some of Bitzer's behaviour invites further speculation. Why is he so dead set against the circus people, i.e. "the horse-riders" (the only strong emotion he exhibits in the whole book)? Is he an albino? Did he nearly end up as an exhibit in a circus freak show? Or could it be that this Gradgrind pupil is inspiring me to some seriously far-fetched flights of fancy?

Honourable mentions: considering my pseudonym, it could be considered a shame that I don't include Alfred Lammle from Our Mutual Friend on my list. I am vastly fond of him, but the reason I didn't include him, or Sampson Brass from The Old Curiosity Shop (another favourite of mine), is that they're both part of double-acts where the female  - Alfred's wife Sophronia Lammle and Sammy's mannish sister Sally Brass - is the stronger character of the two. Well, in the case of the Lammles it's arguable, but nevertheless, without their female support these two ingratiating rogues would be nowhere. For this list, I've prioritised bad guys who can stand on their own two feet. But who knows - I may do a "top 10 villain double-acts" list in the future (I don't think I can restrict that one to merely Dickens), and then they will both be guaranteed a place.

tisdag 27 september 2016

My top 10 list of (male) Dickens villains, part I

Inspired by far too much time spent looking at Youtube top 10 villain clips (Disney's the goldmine - interest in villains and interest in Disney films seem to go hand in hand pleasingly often), I thought I'd try a top 10 list of my own, on a less common theme. Where can you effortlessly find 10 villains and more worth mentioning if not in Dickens novels?

Like the inspirational youtubers, I'll have to set out some rules and restrictions: as I don't want to have to clog up my list with Miss Havishams and Rosa Dartles, only male villains will be included (which leaves me scope for a top 10 villainess list in the future - there are plenty of worthy candidates). The villains listed will mainly be my personal favourites, but in two cases they make the grade due to their greater service to the villain-loving community. These are not the most evil villains you find in Dickens, but the ones I like best and find most interesting. Also, as ten is rather a lot and I have a fair amount of gushing to do about each entry, I'll have to divide the list into two blog posts. From the top then, and in descending order:

1 James Carker in Dombey and Son "Carker has everything", a writer of a splendid article on Dickens's villains (which I've been unable to locate again, annoyingly) once stated, and I can only agree. Here we have the Dickensian embittered social climber in his most exquisite form. What gives Carker the edge is that he's not only tremendously intelligent and adept at villain rhetoric (both ingratiating-ironic speeches and the odd why-I-hate-the-world rant), but also attractive and socially successful. He can play any game well - he can win a chess game without even looking at the board ("it is a mere trick"). He converses knowledgeably about art and is even (according to Dombey) no mean painter himself. He is the only one who gets along both with Mr Dombey's guests from the business world and Mrs Dombey's guests from high society at their dismal "house-warming" party. He is even handsome in a sly, feline way. Yes, like Jane in Pride and Prejudice he smiles too much, but otherwise he is free of the kind of Dickensian character-tics that could lessen his formidableness as a villain. Carker has the character of Uriah Heep hidden by the outer trappings of a James Steerforth - and yes, I do mean that as a compliment.

2 Uriah Heep in David Copperfield  Rooting for elegant, fair-faced Carker sometimes hardly feels like a sport at all (though judging by the continuing Warleggan blindness, the general public are slow to catch on to the charms of feline villain handsomeness). Now, if you see the point of Uriah, on the other hand, you really have what it takes to be a villain-lover. David Copperfield, who is repulsed by him, paints no pretty picture of his demeanour. Even I, who genuinely like pale, cadaverous men and redheads, would not have minded if Uriah had writhed rather less or if his fingers had not left greasy trails "like a snail" when he's reading a book. For all that, though, he's fiercely clever - once again, as in Dombey and Son, the villain is easily the most intelligent character in the book. There is a dry, cynical edge to his conversation, when freed of the professions of humility that only serve as garnish, which the chafing David, wrapped as he is in his moral superiority, has a hard time responding to. Uriah is a good example of the old Dickensian theme of how bitterness can be bad for you: he's intelligent enough to be able to make his way in the world honestly, but blinded as he is by anger at the (by no means imagined) contempt in which his so-called betters hold him he resorts to theft and fraud instead, and so the law gets him in the end. I bet he did really well in Australia, though.

3 Mr Tulkinghorn in Bleak House Sometimes, mostly depending on which novel I've read most recently, Mr Tulkinghorn changes places with Uriah and comes second on my list. He's certainly always in the top three. Dickens's villains are often a fiery lot, but Mr Tulkinghorn is pure ice, and that (as in a lesser degree with my number ten which I'll be addressing next time) leaves the door open to fascinating speculations on his real motives. Love of power would be my guess, coupled with wintry discontent at being patronised by the likes of dim-witted Sir Leicester and sneered at by the likes of haughty Lady Dedlock. Again, we have an extremely able man having to kowtow to his intellectual inferiors, and though he doesn't hate it with the passion shown by Carker or Uriah, he doesn't seem to like it. Tulkinghorn isn't led astray by his animal instincts, which makes him a particularly dangerous enemy. It's questionable whether anything short of a bullet would have stopped him.

4 Sir John Chester in Barnaby Rudge  Here, at least, I can be brief, as I have already covered Sir John at some length in a previous post. He is the only one of Dickens's dandyish villains I have any time for, and consequently the only one who makes it to this list. The snooty put-downs of men like James Steerforth, James Harthouse (the first name James in Dickens's universe appears to signal "lock up your wives and daughters") and worst of all the ghastly Eugene Wrayburn only make me want to punch them, perhaps because I sense that the kind of person these layabouts would despise the most would be exactly the industrious social climbers (and villains) I have most time for in the Dickensian universe. It's a bit unfair, as only Wrayburn actually insults the designated clever social-climbing villain of his novel (if you can call poor Bradley Headstone a villain, or indeed clever). Anyway, Sir John is entirely without fault in this regard, as he actually conspires with an embittered social climber - Gashford - in order to get at the dour, honest-to-a-fault Haredale who is an entirely legitimate object of baddie scorn. His laziness is mostly a pose, too - in fact he's an active and wonderfully manipulative villain.

5 Ralph Nickleby in Nicholas Nickleby This is not one of Dickens's more successful novels, in my view, and this affects the villain too. Ralph too often acts in a certain way only because the plot requires it, not because it makes any sense from his point of view. Why does he take so violently against his nephew? (Not that I don't agree with him, mind, but at first sight?) Why wouldn't he protect his niece Kate from his predatory aristocratic acquaintances if he's fond of her? Surely, Lord Verisopht's custom can't be that important? The plot devices creak noticeably, and poor Ralph is stuck in them. The reason he still makes it to my list is partly his terrible fate - so tragic surely only the most hard-hearted hero-fancier could fail to feel pity for him - and partly his gift for suitably biting villain conversation, especially the why-I-hate-the-world rant mentioned above. No-one rants like Ralph.         

torsdag 8 september 2016

The Night Manager or Stereotype City

"He's sleeping with the nanny. The cliché."

Yes it is, sweetheart, and that's not the end of it. Look around you and you will see plenty more. How about the ruthless capitalist villain; his eye candy the vulnerable blonde who sends money, Fantine-like, to her hidden-away child; the camp henchman; the libertine toff (that would be your hubby sleeping with the nanny); his embittered wife (that would be you); and, for that matter, the strong, silent, troubled hero you're talking to. What's more, back in London, we have a fearlessly crusading, underfinanced female agent (she's also pregnant), struggling with male superiors such as the well-meaning but intimidated one and the obviously crooked as a pin one. By the end of episode four, I realised why I cared so little about the characters in the TV series The Night Manager: each and every one of them was a stereotype.

It was still entertaining enough, mind you, because it's well-paced, well-directed, well-produced and very well acted indeed. But I didn't expect a drama based on a work by a famous name such as John le Carré to be as frankly shallow as this. Maybe I did suspect that Richard Roper, the seemingly philantropic businessman who is really a vile illegal arms dealer (well of course: a businessman helping refugees? We can't have that!) would not turn out to be a wonder of complexity. Still, I thought there would be some interest shown in the psychological forces at work in an undercover operation where, however worthy the cause, there's always an element of betrayal. But no: the audience's main interest is supposed to be simply whether Jonathan Pine, the eponymous night manager, will manage to nail the dastardly Roper. Not what drives them, what they really think of each other or if they're actually that dissimilar. Basically, The Night Manager is Bond as TV, with a side-helping (mercifully not too owerpowering) of moral indignation. All Roper needs to fit the Bond villain template is a white cat.

It's a pity, because Hugh Laurie does such excellent work as Roper, dispelling all memories of Bertie Wooster (mind you, I think even Bertie would have sussed who the mole in his operation was before Roper does). He's suitably world-weary, authoritative and charismatic, but he gets precious little to work with. In spite of the odd villain monologue, we never really discover what makes Roper tick: just like Pine himself, he remains oddly remote. Does he love his vulnerable blonde girlfriend, for unknown reasons called Jed, for example? Does she ever love him, before she finds out what he does for a living and falls for Pine instead, or is she only in it for the money? Does Pine love her? I know it's hard to interact with stereotypes, but the leading men in this drama could at least have been given a chance. Instead, Roper talks a great deal without saying anything revealing, and Pine doesn't even talk much. He just stares intently.

Another problem with Roper, as I've already hinted, is that he's a such a complete blockhead it's a wonder the crusading agent Angela Burr hasn't caught him ages ago. First, he elbows aside his oldest friend on the say-so of a shady lawyer who's been got at by Angela (and not in a very angelic way either, incidentally: she manipulates him when he's distraught over his daughter's suicide), in order to make room for Pine whom he has known for five minutes and who, oooh, just happened to be there to foil a kidnap attempt on Roper's son (staged, what did you think?). In no time at all, Pine is privy to Roper's darkest secrets and his new straw man. The shady lawyer is discovered to be a mole: Roper smells no rat. Pine starts an affair with Jed: his boss notices nothing amiss. Another leak is suspected: Roper suspects his best friend, his next-best friend and his girlfriend (at least he's not far wrong there), but not the new guy, who joined the team at around the time when the leaks started. I mean, seriously: it's hard to have any kind of respect for a head villain, however stylish, who's so incredibly gullible.

What's a villain-lover to do? I, for my part, took to rooting for Roper's displaced-by-Pine sidekick, Major Corkoran aka Corky the camp henchman. Yes, he wouldn't look too out of place as one of the hitmen in Diamonds Are Forever, but he has a bit more going for him than his dim mate-cum-boss: he's suspicious of Pine from the word go; he quickly guesses Pine's interest for Jed; Tom Hollander, who plays him, milks every line and every pause, and as Corkoran starts to come apart at the seams he manages to transcend the stereotype at least a little bit. Go Corky, say I, and if that makes me predictable at least I'm in good company.

A lot can be said about how Olivia Colman admirably manages to make Angela not too unsufferably virtuous, but you don't expect me to waste too much time on a mere goody-two-shoes, do you? Instead, let me ponder, as a last reflection, the conundrum that is Tom Hiddleston as Jonathan Pine.

Is Hiddleston really that attractive? Seeing as 1) he played Loki in the films about Thor (reimagined as a superhero) 2) played him quite superbly if clips from the films are to be trusted then 3) if you are into villains and the least bit acquainted with old Viking mythology, it follows that yes, Hiddleston must be attractive. His eyes are too close together for him to be conventionally handsome, but they are very intensely blue, and he does look clever. He can pass for the thinking woman's crumpet - but as Pine, he's supposed to be everyone's crumpet. Even after tanning and workouts Hiddleston looks a bit out of place as a taciturn action man, and it's a mystery to me why he's gone to all this trouble to land a part like this. With his pixie-like face, he could have got all kinds of new meaty villain roles: instead, as Pine, he has to scowl purposefully while all the opportunities for dripping sarcasm and menace go to Hollander and occasionally Laurie. Enjoying the career change yet, Tom? I do hope that Bond bid proves worth it.             

torsdag 1 september 2016

Moriarty variations

Professor Moriarty is dead, to begin with. Or is he? In the beginning of Anthony Horowitz's novel Moriarty, two men meet in a crypt near the Reichenbach Falls where the body of a tall, thin reptilian-looking man is laid out. Everything points to this being the Professor himself, among other things a coded letter found on his person from an American crime lord, suggesting they meet, supposedly with a view to join forces. The novel starts out, then, as a hunt for another master criminal. The two men - Pinkerton detective Frederick Chase and Scotland Yard Inspector Athelney Jones, who has studied Sherlock Holmes's methods - team up in order to hunt down Moriarty's American counterpart Clarence Devereaux, who is planning to establish himself in England.

But wait a bit. Isn't the novel called Moriarty? It can't be all about this Devereaux chap then, can it? That would be cheating. Well, I don't think I will be revealing too much if I say that the title isn't a cheat. All is clearly not as it seems in a novel that starts with the line "Does anyone really believe what happened at the Reichenbach Falls?". Chase and Jones are soon made aware that someone is killing off Devereaux's London agents one by one. Is this someone Moriarty, or does his soul go marching on in the shape of his criminal organisation? And if a criminal merger was under way, why would Devereaux's men be a target for Moriarty's crowd?

The story is an enjoyable adventure story on its own terms, irrespective of the Moriarty factor. Chase and Jones make a dynamic duo, and their fast-blossoming friendship is all the more affecting because you suspect that they never will be the new Holmes and Watson - something, or someone, is sure to put paid to any such plans. The picture of Moriarty that emerges is satisfying, on the whole. We get the abstract thinker with a certain detachment to his fellow men and to what may befall them through his criminal activity. Conan Doyle's Moriarty made sure those in his employ who were caught got the best legal defence money could buy, and Horowitz's Moriarty shows the same "honour among thieves" tendency. Unlike John Gardner's version, he has little in common with a modern gangster. At one point, Devereaux threatens Jones's family, and the two sleuths are appalled at his ungentlemanly behaviour - it is made clear that the English Napoleon of Crime would never stoop to this. Yet isn't it exactly the first step any serious criminal would take nowadays? Make no mistake, though, Horowitz's Moriarty can be chilling when he chooses, and the loyalty he feels towards his own men can sometimes strengthen his ruthlessness towards everyone else. Compared to him, Devereaux is decidedly second rate.

If there is one thing that separates Conan Doyle's Moriarty from Horowitz's, it's the degree of showiness. We are led to believe that many of the peculiarities the Professor displays in his conversation with Holmes in The Final Problem are more or less play-acting. This is a bit disappointing, but vital to the structure of Horowitz's story. The novel is reminiscent of Christie's The Secret Adversary, but an adversary can't remain very secret if he stalks about with a large domed forehead moving his head from side to side like a snake.

A Moriarty who appealed even more to me is the protagonist in the first Professor Moriarty novel by Michael Kurland, The Infernal Device. There are more books in this series, and I look forward to reading them as well. Here's a Professor who lives up to his billing. He's scientifically minded - in fact, science is his passion while crime is simply his job. He's a cold rationalist and in many ways the mirror image of his enemy Sherlock Holmes. His organisation is impressive, and his employees are full of respect, even fondess, for him. Plus he's as tall, stooping and dome-headed as one could possibly ask for. As Moriarty is in the front and centre of the plot, he can afford to be as showy as he pleases. Other pluses with The Infernal Device are Moriarty's newly recruited sidekick Benjamin Barnett - an American journalist heavily in the Professor's debt who gamely accepts becoming part of his doubtful outfit without any time-consuming scruples - and the fact that we actually get to meet Holmes and Watson (they don't feature in Moriarty, but then Holmes is believed to be dead in that one).

Kurland's Moriarty has his own "moral code" which can be perplexing. He's affronted that Holmes would think him capable of abducting a seventeen-year-old girl, but the crimes he does commit - a high-profile bank robbery, for instance - could very well lead to human misery on an impressive scale, and you'd think a genius would be able to work out the possible implications of his deeds. I find it convincing, though, that both Kurland's and Horowitz's Moriartys have a kind of moral blindness which clouds their judgement enough for them to become criminal masterminds in the first place.

It's funny how fascinated many, including me, have become with a fictional character who only makes an appearance in one of the Holmes stories, and then in such a way as to apparently make it impossible to reintroduce him (then Conan Doyle did think that The Final Problem would be final). We are told that when Holmes first mentions Moriarty in this story, Watson has never heard of him. Then Holmes tells Watson of his very first meeting with the Professor - so even if Holmes has been fighting Moriarty for a while, the possibility for prequels seems to be ruled out, as the two antagonists have never actually met before. And then, of course, the Professor dies, thus apparently ruling out any chances of a Moriarty sequel.

What Horowitz, Kurland and many others have done is simply to doubt the truthfulness of The Final Problem. There is some basis in Conan Doyle's own work for this - Holmes makes a reference to Moriarty somewhere (in The Valley of Fear, I think), and Watson appears fully aware of his master criminal status there. Moreover, if Watson is mistaken (Horowitz) or lying, probably for some honourable reason such as loyalty to Holmes (Kurland), it opens up the possibility of more Moriarty adventures, set before or after his supposed demise at the Reichenbach Falls. It seems a price worth paying. Moriarty purists like myself would do well to remember, though, that reintroducing Moriarty at all goes against Conan Doyle's own narrative. Consequently, one can't very well complain if further liberties are taken. Not that that's ever stopped me.  

torsdag 18 augusti 2016

Questions raised by the beginning of The Musketeers (series three)

Finally, some new costume drama. My clever TV box, remembering an old setting, has recorded most of The Musketeers series three from one of the more obscure Swedish channels. This will give me a chance to catch up, though I suspect I'll invest in a box set sooner or later. Though often supremely silly, The Musketeers remains an entertaining caper. If you are going to play fast and loose with history, then better to do it this way than with leaden dialogue spiced up (or not) with random sex and violence (yes, I'm looking at you, Versailles).

One reason it's hard to ever get really upset with The Musketeers is the importance it attaches to its villains. This is not to say that they are in any way complex or subtle. Goodness knows you'd be hard pressed to find more black-and-white characterisation in any other half-way ambitious drama. However, for every series there are one or two villains right at the heart of the plot, being given plenty of airtime and displaying considerable panache. It's as if the creaters of the series started each new installment of episodes by asking themselves: "Right, who will be the villain this time, and what charismatic actor are we going to entice into playing him?" (The memorable baddies are not all male, I have to confess: the gutsy Milady, who doesn't feature this time around, leaves quite a gap.) First time round, we had Richelieu, played by none other than Peter Capaldi. When Capaldi had to leave to play The Doctor - and even I will have to concede that that was a better gig - Richelieu was, very foolishly in my view, killed off years before his time. Why didn't they just hire another actor to play the Cardinal? Capaldi's brilliant but not irreplaceable when there are so many top-notch actors around, and we would have understood. However, at least the need for a head villain was immediately met by bringing in Marc Warren's attractive if lamentably bonkers Rochefort. He was dispatched at the end of series two, but villain-lovers need not fret: this time around, we have two head villains, played by Rupert Everett no less (though this casting poses its own problems, as addressed below) and Matthew McNulty (the ghastly Moray's far more appealing business partner in The Paradise).

I must say, though, that the absurdity level of the two first episodes of series three is alarmingly high, and that they raise a great number of questions - few of which, I suspect, will be answered during this final run of the series:

Why cast a good-looking actor like Rupert Everett only to cover him in prosthetics? I know handsome actors sometimes longingly talk about playing someone ugly. Well, that's tough, but just as there are plenty of parts that can only be played credibly by lookers, so there are others where it makes every sense to cast an actor less favoured by nature than, say, Rupert Everett. Everett's character in The Musketeers, Feron, is ravaged and even slightly disfigured by illness (either that or old war wounds: it has yet to be made clear). As a consequence, Everett's pleasing features are covered with a not very convincing mask of prosthetics which severely hampers his acting, as does the sometimes lamentably low quality of the villain-banter lines he's given. If they'd cast someone who looked a bit more worn and weatherbeaten to start with, the make-up department wouldn't have had to over-strain itself and there would have been more room for acting. I'm not going to complain about seeing Everett in anything, though, and the other villain, McNulty's Lucien Grimaud, is an absolute dish - enough to convince any villain-fancier that there may be merit to a dark and handsome brooder after all (as long as there's no scything).

Where's the Dauphin's brother? The most preposterous plot development in The Musketeers - with the exception of killing off Richelieu before his time - is the one involving Aramis, Queen Anne and the future Louis XIV. Yes, it's true: in this series, the Sun King's dad is none other than Aramis the love-lorn musketeer. Mind, Aramis and the Queen really love each other, and they only did it the once, so that's all right then, even if it means that the royal bloodline is messed up completely. As it's hinted that Louis XIII is infertile - I mean, he and Anne are married for ages without a baby, Aramis beds Anne once, and wham! - I was dying to find out how The Musketeers would explain the birth of royal baby number two, the infamous Philippe. Would Louis be allowed to be the father this time around? But that would mean - yikes - that the Orléans branch were the legitimate heirs to the Crown all along! Or is the father Aramis again, on a singularly bad day? Or someone else entirely? In which case, how would Aramis react to his one true love fooling around with yet another man?

It seems these questions proved too hard for the series makers to resolve: little Louis is now four or five years old, and still he appears to be an only child. So have they really written out an actual member of the royal family so as to bolster the claim that a fictional musketeer fathered Louis XIV? Or perhaps they've just played around with the chronology, and we will find out how the Queen's second kid came about later - maybe like this...

Will Feron father the next royal prince?  He's the King's resentful (illegitimate) brother. He's called Philippe. He has a sinister, handsome male sidekick. It sort of fits - the poisonous apple wouldn't fall far from the tree. But how would Feron get the Queen pregnant? They don't seem very pally, and a rape resulting in a pregnancy would surely be too dark for a family-friendly series such as this one. Besides which, the Queen could defend herself against the fit Rochefort, so a wreck like Feron wouldn't pose any problem for her. Maybe Philippe is Feron's child, but not the Queen's? And the royal family take him on for some reason? Admittedly, totally disregarding historical facts opens up fascinating possibilities.

What's the deal with the Red Guard? Even in the original films (no, I haven't read the books), the Musketeers' rivalry with the Red Guard annoyed me. Why waste time on silly one-upmanship when you're serving the same country and the same government? In the series, the Musketeer-Red Guard feud is still going strong, much like the Guard itself whose continued existence puzzles me. I've always assumed that they were the Cardinal's men - hence the colour. But even without the Cardinal his soldiers are still around, serving as minions for whichever villain the Musketeers are facing at the moment. What's the Red Guard's official role, exactly? And how was Constance playing a prank on them in the first episode meant to make anything better?    

All for one, one for all, all for...what? The original Musketeers were proud of being the King's men. In this series, though, they don't display any great affection towards the King - severely caricatured throughout - or even kingship itself. They are too busy pleasing modern audiences with their soulful concern for the plight of the poor, even when the said poor make no bones about wanting the King out of the way. D'Artagnan listens sympathetically to the leader of a group of war refugees (yeah, I know - I told you they weren't subtle) uttering twaddle like "Is it rebellion to fight against injustice?". YES. That's exactly what it is, at least in the eyes of any rebel - who ever heard of fighting against justice? Former Musketeer boss Treville destroys the refugees' seditious pamphlets because if they were found "they would all be hanged". Very probably, Treville, and as a minister of the Crown, you should really be OK with this - why are you protecting people ready to overthrow the government of which you are a member? The Musketeers are patriots, which is all very well, but what do they stand for apart from that? You can either be a budding revolutionary or a good Musketeer - you can't be both.      

torsdag 11 augusti 2016

In vain pursuit of a little light reading

There's no such thing as a foolproof enjoyable read, is there? Not even rereads are quite safe, as there's always the risk that you won't like a novel so much as the previous time/s you read it. My system of "safe bet" authors - if I've enjoyed more than one novel from an author, then I assume I'm going to enjoy all of them - has let me down twice recently, and just as I was going back to work and needed a pick-me-up, too.

True, Dawn French doesn't quite have the official safe-bet status, as I'd only read one of her novels - A Tiny Bit Marvellous - when I started on her latest, According to Yes. But I really liked ATBM, plus I've found much of the French and Saunders material hilarious, so I thought I could reasonably expect great entertainment from According to Yes. And yet the chapters went by without raising so much as a giggle. As I realised, about two thirds through, that the book wasn't going to get any funnier, and as I still hadn't warmed to the heroine Rosie - which it is sort of the point of the story - I gave up on it, after checking that one of the more criticised characters would be all right. He was. They all were. You can't accuse According to Yes for skimping on the feelgood factor, but the feeling good is very much on the heroine's terms. She, a chaotic English nanny, is going to "save" an Upper East Side clan from their humdrum lives and teach them to have fun. Her wit and wisdom are never challenged as one family member after the other are bowled over by her carefree ways. I never thought I could have much in common with an elegant Upper East Side matriarch, but my sympathies were more and more with Glenn, the family's grandmother and the most Rosie-resistent of the characters, especially in passages which were supposedly told from her perspective but which were really criticisms of her (the novel is told in the third person). What do you call those kind of passages - "fake-getting-inside-someone's-head narration"? Does narratology have a good term for it? Anyway, Glenn is going to give in to the reign of Rosie eventually - of course she is - but this isn't my idea of fun.

The second disappointment was Pompeii by Robert Harris. As I've mentioned, I've read quite a lot of Harris's novels by now, and I was a sure as I could be that as long as he kept off the gloomy subject of Nazi crimes against humanity, I would find his writing enjoyable. And then, ancient Rome, which he handled so well in his Cicero books! Alas, Pompeii has so far been quite a different matter from the Cicero trilogy, but then this is an earlier work. For one thing, the author's learning isn't worn so lightly, and the hero is the priggiest I've yet come across in a Harris novel, which is saying something considering he's up against types such as Picquart in An Officer and A Spy and Xavier March (why March? That's not a German name) in Fatherland. What really surprised me, though, was the schematic depiction of the rest of the cast. A dastardly millionaire who feeds one of his slaves to his eels? His fair and innocent daughter? A consistently hostile foreman (the hero is a young engineer struggling with a failing acqueduct)? Really? Honestly, even Harris's Nazis were nuanced compared to this lot.

We even get more examples of "fake-getting-inside-someone's-head-narration" (I really must find a better term), this time with the Bad Millionaire as its subject. I was particularly annoyed about coming across this stereotype yet again (he's an ex-slave too, so not only do we have an illustration of modern society's prejudices but of Ancient Rome's prejudices as well). During my holidays, I twice came across the "let's stick it to the multi-millionaire" plot - and this in chick lit books, which aren't exactly Das Kapital. Is there no escape anywhere from the mindset which makes a virtue of resenting those who are richer than us? I'm seriously considering chucking Pompeii in, too - and I don't think I will be trying Harris's The Fear Index in a hurry.     

lördag 30 juli 2016

Bond confusion

Partly in quest of blogging inspiration, I watched all of two hefty films yesterday, Steve Jobs and Spectre. So, two men with intimacy issues who make an impact on the world: Jobs and James Bond. Which of them is the better blog subject? I'll take the easy route - it is, after all, still my holiday, for two days more - and choose Bond. I may return to Jobs, and why it puzzles me that we should care whether he was a good dad or not, at a later date.

As I've discussed before, Daniel Craig's Bond doesn't really work for me. Nevertheless, Skyfall was a really good film, and I approached Spectre with cautious optimism. Well, I liked it better than Casino Royale (so tedious, in spite of Mads Mikkelsen, that I've forgotten most of it, which is unfortunate as Bond keeps moping over his lost love from this film, Vesper Lynd) and A Quantum of Solace, but compared to Skyfall it is oddly shoddy. Before I go further into said shoddiness, though, a troubling aspect of the Craig Bond films has to be addressed: the reintroducing of iconic Bond film characters as if they were brand new.

There was talk, I dimly remember, of Casino Royale being a "reboot" of the Bond franchise, which essentially means you start all over again and pretend that previous films with the same hero never happened. It's common with superhero films, where a new team may be anxious to distance themselves from creaky or embarrassingly larky predecessors. I can understand reboots in this context - though they seem to come at an alarming rate lately - but Bond is something else. The only reason there was a Casino Royale were the twenty odd Bond films that had gone before. The Bond story has been a continuous one from the sixties onwards, and surely you expect the hero to be the same and carry with him all the experiences from his previous incarnations.

Yes, this poses a credibility problem, to say the least. Bond and some of the key players - Miss Moneypenny, for instance - take on Time Lord properties: they barely age and sometimes change their faces, but remain essentially the same person although the world around them has moved on from the Cold War to the Internet Age. It is just as well that the time bubble conceit isn't overused. Some secret service staff are simply replaced - M and Q for example, where a new character (often successfully) takes over the function of an old one while bringing something fresh into the mix. Nevertheless, I much preferred the Time Lord-y way of handling Bond's timelessness to the idea that we should disregard all Bond films before Casino Royale - especially since Craig is, in my view, the least Bondlike of all the Bonds, while his predecessor Pierce Brosnan was one of my favourites.

At first, I ignored the talks of a reboot - after all Judi Dench's M was the same who was introduced ticking off Pierce Brosnan's Bond in Goldeneye, so how could it not be a continuing story? That Felix Leiter showed up with all arms and legs intact was not enough to alert me to the possibility that the film makers meant what they said about starting over (to tell the truth, since I'm not a Bond expert, I'd forgotten that he was the one being maimed by a shark in Licence to Kill). In the otherwise excellent Skyfall, though, a puzzling thing happened. A fellow agent of Bond's was revealed to be Miss Moneypenny, who had only just discovered that she was more efficient behind a desk than in the field. Sorry? But Samantha Bond (and the game girls who filled the part before her) was Miss Moneypenny! You can't just write them out of the story. What true Bond fan would do that? I've nothing against Naomie Harris's plucky and attractive Miss Moneypenny, who mercifully has a love life of her own. But does she have to be the Miss Moneypenny? Can't she be Samantha Bond's niece, or something?

In Spectre it happens again: a classic Bond character - one of the villains this time - is reintroduced, and Bond has plainly never been up against him before. (Warning: the subtitles give away his identity and ruin the surprise completely.) The effect is extremely weird: we have a prequel situation - an "origins" story to use superhero-film speak - taking place decades after Bond's first tussles with the villain in question. It doesn't help that the villain role is so underwritten not even Christoph Waltz - a safe pair of hands when you need a baddie, as all Hollywood knows - can do a lot with it. His motives for resenting Bond, not to mention for killing his own dad, are weak in the extreme. (I kept waiting for the reveal that Bond killed his dad - now that would have been a motive.) Let's just say, this particular Bond villain has had more impressive outings.

Here's where the aforementioned shoddiness comes in. Not only is a promising villain-hero relationship thrown away, there are other elements to the plot and characters that don't seem to have been properly thought through. When Bond moves in on the widow of a man he's killed (I did like his explanation: "He was an assassin. He wouldn't have taken it personally") he claims that she "stayed loyal to a man you hated". How does he know what her feelings were? Later, the widow says that her spouse"spent more time with them [his partners in crime] than he did with me". Does that sound like the complaint of a woman who hated her husband? And how does it square with her previous statement that members of the criminal organisation in question only meet rarely?

Later, Ralph Fiennes as M struggles with a speech where he claims the double-0 programme is humane (albeit only in comparison with drones and the like). In the first proper hero-villain showdown, Bond rises fresh as a daisy after a session of gruelling torture and blows up the villain base without much trouble. I know the "why don't they just shoot him?" question is a eternal one and applies to practically all action films, but the dastardly mastermind's reasons for keeping Bond alive are foggier than ever, especially as he must know about what happened to his associate in A Quantum of Solace. If Bond gets the better of you, there isn't even a guarantee that he'll kill you nicely. For the sake of self-preservation, if nothing else, you should just put a bullet though him.

My main gripe is the whole reboot setup, though. Does this mean Ralph Fiennes's M is the original M, and Ben Whishaw's Q the original Q? It fairly does my head in.

"You only live twice, Mister Bond" as, erm, someone said. In fact, Bond and the person in question live a great deal more often than twice. Which is fine by me, as long as they live their lives in the right order.

tisdag 12 juli 2016

DreamWorks works – but not as well as Disney’s best

Holiday time – which should mean more time and energy for ambitious blog posts, but never does. Instead, I’ll try to turn lazy hours watching animated films on Netflix to some blogging use. Disney features are thin on the ground here, but I have had the opportunity to catch up on the DreamWorks back catalogue instead.

I have watched some animated films from DreamWorks before, but as a faithful Disney admirer, I’ve not exactly torn the DVDs of its main competitor’s films off the shelves the moment they arrive. This consumer behaviour is not quite as stupid as it sounds, as there actually is – or at least has been – bad blood between Disney and DreamWorks. The head of DreamWorks Animation, Jeffrey Katzenberg, was formerly head of the animation department at Disney but left in 1994 after a blistering row when he was passed over for promotion (google for details). This seems to have led to more hostility than was strictly necessary between the two companies, as shown in the nasty digs at Disney films in the Shrek franchise.

Still, there is no reason for a fan of animated films to take sides in this quarrel, which by now ought to be history anyway. Instead, one should be able to shamelessly take advantage of the fact that there are two big American studios (plus various challengers) churning out animated films rather than one. Here are the DreamWorks films (well, most of them) I’ve seen to date, plus some positive comparisons with Disney films just to show my goodwill:

The Prince of Egypt (1998): I know the genre has old and respectable roots, but I’ve always been slightly uncomfortable with adaptations of Biblical tales. Finding a more or less loosely Bible-based yarn boring makes me feel shallow and impious, and yet they are often on the over-solemn side. The Prince works well, though. Its main focus is on the relationship between Moses and the Pharaoh-to-be Rameses, who grow up as brothers only to find themselves at opposite sides of the mother of a conflict. This tale of brotherly love strained beyond endurance is affecting, the animation is beautiful, the songs good and the religious content sensitively handled. I’m not sure the curse of the first-born is a suitable topic for a family film, though.
As good as Disney’s: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996).

The Road to El Dorado (2000): I like this early, 2-D stuff from DreamWorks a lot: here’s a straightforward, well-animated adventure story with likeable characters, free from take-that-Disney sassiness. Kenneth Branagh makes an impression as the voice of one of the leads, but the voice talent prize goes to Armand Assante as an apocalypse-embracing high priest.
Better than Disney’s: Pocahontas (1995).

The Shrek franchise (2001-): I won’t go too far into why I’m not that into the green ogre, as I’ve addressed the subject before. Suffice to say, the animation is good and the central relationship between Shrek and Fiona often touching. But I’m put off by the knowing “we’re so not Disney” style, and the films have little of interest to say about being cast as the bad guy.
Better than Disney’s: Dinosaur (2000).

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003): I was surprised to learn that this film was released after the first Shrek film. It is very much in the same tradition as The Road to El Dorado: a 2-D adventure yarn, rendered pleasingly unpredictable by the fact that the hero is an anti-hero who needs quite a lot of prompting to do the right thing. The vocal talent is unnecessarily starry, but they do a good job, and Michelle Pfeiffer at least is worth the extra cash as purring goddess of chaos Eris. Good, well-drawn fun that deserved to do better at the box office.
Better than Disney’s: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001).

Madagascar (2005): It says something for my level of enthusiasm for this franchise that I’ve only seen the first film and have yet to catch up on the rest. But I will, eventually, because it was a fun caper. What bugs me here is the computer animation of the film’s animal protagonists, which I found downright ugly. I know they’re meant to be comic animals, but when you remember the beautiful animal animation in The Lion King they become hard to look at.
Better than Disney’s: Brother Bear (2003). The animals looked better but the story…       

Kung Fu Panda (2008) and Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011) Beautifully animated, with a sweet hero  in the good-natured, food-loving panda Po. I especially liked the second film, where Po is pitted against a traumatised peacock villain, and which contains the following exchange:  “How did you find peace?[…] I scarred you for life!” “See, that’s the thing, Shen. Scars heal.” “No, they don’t. Wounds heal.” “Oh, yeah. What do scars do? They fade, I guess?” The film’s message that you have to let go of old grudges to find Inner Peace seems especially relevant for this animation studio. My only problem with this franchise is I’m not really interested in Kung  Fu.
Better than Disney’s: Bolt (2008).             

Monsters vs. Aliens (2009): Again, I was surprised by relatively recent release date. This tale of female empowerment is quite endearing – why marry some self-satisfied loser when you can be a ginormous monster? – and the monster sidekicks unexpectedly un-irritating. The computer animation of the human characters lets the film down, though. Never mind the monsters and aliens: the humans are the ugliest creatures on the block.
Better than Disney’s: Chicken Little (2005).

Megamind (2010): Of all the animated films supposedly from a baddie’s perspective, which was quite the fashion for a while, this is my favourite. It had at least some insightful things to say about a bad guy’s lot (he “never gets the girl”) and highlights the extreme annoyingness of some so-called heroes. Still the premise – that a villainous mastermind would be at a loss and grow eventually bored if he actually defeated the hero – doesn’t feel as interesting as its opposite would have been. Don’t superheroes in particular need villains more than the other way around?
As good as Disney’s: Wreck-It Ralph, which had a similar theme. And way better than Illumination’s Despicable Me.

How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014): I enjoyed these films: they’re not over-sophisticated, with a sweet central theme of friendship, and again the sidekicks work surprisingly well. This franchise produces nice shorts too. The whininess of the hero is a drawback, but the dragon is darling.
Better than Disney’s: Treasure Planet (2002). Yes, I know, I’m running out of useful Disney comparisons. I’ve tried not to cheat and use Pixar films, but let me just say I liked the Dragon films far better than  Monsters University (2013), which was a major disappointment.     


My overall impression of the DreamWorks films, then, is that they’re of a high quality and trump some of Disney’s lesser works: not everything The Mouse produces is solid gold. Still, they never  quite reach the dizzying heights of most of the films from the Disney Renaissance (like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King, all produced on Katzenberg’s watch by the way) or of recent Disney hits like Frozen and Zootopia. To use phraseology from Kung Fu Panda, I’m afraid there is a secret ingredient where animated films are concerned, and that Disney’s got it. But there’s no need to mope because you’re not elected Dragon Warrior: you can still be part of the Furious Five (i.e. still be bloody good).

onsdag 6 juli 2016

Caesar is the man

This may not be the ideal time to express admiration for a politician who puts his career before his country, but it can’t be helped. The third part of Robert Harris’s Cicero trilogy, Dictator, confirms what I already suspected in Lustrum: Gaius Julius Caesar is the Roman for a villain-loving girl like me. He’s intelligent, charming, elegant, multi-talented and keen on handing out strategically thought-through pardons (to Romans, that is, not to Gallic tribes: I’m sad to say they’re pretty much history once their paths cross with Caesar’s). Perhaps most importantly of all, he also has a sense of humour. He enjoys Cicero’s jokes, even when they’re at his own expense, and you suspect that this is one reason why he has more patience with Cicero’s political to-ing and fro-ing than one would expect. Sometimes I could not help thinking that Cicero would have done better to stick with Caesar from the beginning, though I can see why some of his actions – like starting a civil war and, once in power, proclaiming himself a god – would be a little hard to swallow.

I re-read Imperium and Lustrum before moving on to Dictator and was reminded of how much I  enjoyed dwelling in the world of Cicero’s Rome, as told by Harris. It’s mostly down to the author’s skill, of course. He’s a dab hand at both gripping prose and strong characterization, and the dialogues are blissfully down-to-earth and not written in the stilted historical fictionese which blights so much of the genre.The political intrigues manage to be both riveting and educational (did you know there were two Brutuses?). Descriptions related to life in Ancient Rome only occur when they’re directly relevant to the story of Cicero and his faithful slave and secretary (and the trilogy’s narrator) Tiro, who is finally granted his freedom in this last novel. But Harris is also helped by the nature of his heroes. Cicero is far from being a saint: sometimes, he even comes across as a bit of a turncoat. Tiro, who existed but whose personality is in all probability imagined by Harris, is a sweet man and perhaps the most humane of the characters – he is the only one in Cicero’s circle who shows any regret for “Caesar the man” when the latter is assassinated – but his loyalty to Cicero keeps him from ever getting on his high horse in moral matters, because then he’d be forced to judge his wily master as well.

In his sympathetic telling of the career of a man who tries to do the decent thing but doesn’t always succeed (I’m talking about Cicero here: Caesar didn’t care a scrap about doing the decent thing), Harris avoids being bogged down with an obvious moral message. I’ve read three other Harris novels apart from the Cicero trilogy: An Officer and A Spy, The Ghost and most recently, for my sins, Fatherland. They are all good, An Officer and A Spy especially: Harris always delivers on the readability front. But though he’s careful not to preach overtly, I did occasionally feel, in particular with Fatherland, like I was having my fingers slapped by a ruler wielded by a teacher with a moral mission.  Moreover, Harris’s heroes tend to be dour types, intelligent but humourless  – a bit like Octavian in Dictator, as a matter of fact. The more easy-going Cicero and Tiro are easily the protagonists you would most like to spend an evening at a restaurant (or a taverna) with.

Having said that, another of my favourite characters in the Cicero trilogy is Caesar’s polar opposite, the unkempt, uncompromising idealist Cato. Everyone thinks he’s a pain with his unbending adherence to an often wrong-headed moral code, but there is an engaging bluntness to his truth-telling, which has a rhetorical power of his own. Here’s a man whose moral fibre does impress me. Perhaps the trick of getting readers to swallow a dose of morality is not to try too hard.

onsdag 22 juni 2016

Doctor Thorne without the thorns - and all the better for it

It isn't surprising that Julian Fellowes has a soft spot for Anthony Trollope. They operate within the same genre, after all - the (often genteel) comedy of manners. Why Fellowes would choose to adapt Doctor Thorne of all Trollope novels is a mystery to me, though. I read it so I would be able to make a comparison between the novel and the adaptation, and did not only find it tedious - I positively disliked it. Not only did it suffer from well-known Trollopian drawbacks such as long-windedness, superfluous sub-plots and some far-from-fascinating characters, I also found it unpleasantly snobbish.

How, you might ask, can a novel that promotes a match between the squire's son and the illegitimate niece of a country doctor - who also happens to be the niece of an alcoholic ex-stonemason - be called snobbish? Did I miss the satirical thrusts directed at the De Courcys, from whom the squire's wife hails, and at the Duke of Omnium, who can't be bothered to entertain his guests? No, but the kind of snobbishness displayed in Doctor Thorne - I'm tempted to call it the English kind - is more concerned about ancient lineage and customs than rank. Mary Thorne, the doctor's niece, is implicitly on a par with Frank Gresham the squire's son because both the Thornes and the Greshams are old county families. The De Courcys are more recent, and Whigs too (as is the Duke of Omnium), which is why they can be comfortably sneered at.

Early on, there is an apparently irony-free endorsement of the British feudal spirit. Elsewhere, we have the plot-unrelated lamenting of the demise of an old coach town in the uncouth age of commerce and railways. Augusta Gresham's bourgeois fiancé, Mr Moffat, is derided, but to quote Elizabeth Bennet, his guilt and his descent appear to be the same: he is accused of nothing worse than of being the son of a tailor. When he jilts Augusta for mercenary reasons, it is hard to find it so very terrible since her reasons for agreeing to a marriage were equally mercenary. Yet not only are we supposed to like Frank for horsewhipping the absconded suitor, we're supposed to find it funny too.

Then there's the patronising treatment of the Scatcherds. Sir Roger Scatcherd is the drunk stonemason who makes good thanks to his engineering skills and becomes both a baronet and a very rich man, albeit still drunk. He is one of the more memorable characters, but his successes are never given their due: rather, it is heavily hinted that he would have been better off if he had known his place and remained a stonemason. Why, one might ask, as he is destined to die by the bottle anyway? Better then. surely, to die in affluence and comfort than in poverty and hardship? And what about all those buildings, railways and bridges he has built: isn't the country better off with them than without? Why is it so lamentable that Sir Roger's son is not taught to fend for himself, when he receives exactly the same kind of education as young Frank, who as it happens is more in need of gaining his own bread? Why is it a "joke" that the good and honest Lady Scatcherd is called "my lady"?

What's more, the protagonists aren't that easy to warm to. Frank is puppyish and flirts with other women. The possibility of making money rather than marrying it enters his dim brain very late in the day, and then the best he can come up with is a notion to take over one of his father's tenant farms: this in a situation where his family risks losing the estate, tenant farms and all. Mary is accused of pertness by one of the De Courcy ladies, and not without reason. Doctor Thorne himself is supposed to be the moral heart of the book, but it is hard to be too impressed. One of the reasons we are given to think him noble is that he does his best to keep Sir Roger's son Louis alive, when he secretly wishes the wretch could die so Mary can get her mitts on Sir Roger's money and marry Frank. But there is nothing very admirable in suppressing such a wish: in fact it's pretty disgraceful to harbour it in the first place. What earthly right has Mary to Sir Roger's money - Sir Roger, whom Doctor Thorne considered beneath her and never introduced her to - compared to Louis Scatcherd, who though a wash-out is after all Sir Roger's only child?

All this fuming gives me little room to discuss the TV adaptation, but you may have guessed where I'm heading. Fellowes has done an admirable job in excising and smoothing over all the irritating aspects of the book. Gone is Frank's infirmity of purpose and inconstancy and Mary's initial coldness: their love is the real thing from the word go. Gone are the tedious subplots about the feud between Doctor Thorne and another country doctor, questionable campaigning in the local elections and ducal dinners. Chapter upon chapter of exposition are neatly summarised in a few exchanges - though this simplification does land Mr Gresham with a vice he didn't have in the book (gambling) in order to explain the dire state of his finances. Gone is Frank's idiotic idea of taking over a farm. Gone is the horsewhipping of Mr Moffat. And, crucially, the Scatcherds - father and son - are given the time of day. Unlike Trollope, Fellowes seems genuinely impressed by Sir Roger's achievements.

In an interview, Fellowes unwisely invited a comparison between Trollope and Dickens (why do Trollopians do this?) by saying that Dickens's heroines were "whiter than white" and his villains "blacker than black". This implies that Trollope's offerings are somehow more complex. However, the Trollope villains I've come across are just as morally objectionable as any villain in Dickens, while not being half as much fun. In fact, they're a bit rubbish. I would back the worst Dickens can come up with baddie-wise against the best Trollope can come up with any day - even Bounderby would have made a better fist of the Parliament appearances that Melmotte (the most creditable Trollope villain effort I've come across) bungled. Maybe the rubbishness of Trollope's bad guys is deliberate - perhaps he did not wish to glamourise wickedness, even in the interest of good storytelling - but lack of panache is hardly the same as complexity.

Louis Scatcherd, Sir Roger's weak and pathetic son who has inherited his alcoholism but none of his talents, is a case in point. So what does Fellowes do but oomph him up a bit? After all, he knows what a successful villain looks like (which makes the Dickens comment even more of a faux pas). Instead of despising Louis with all his might, Doctor Thorne (Sir Roger's business advisor and Louis's guardian) is uncomfortably aware that he may be guilty of neglecting the Scatcherd interest for the benefit of the Greshams, and shows sympathy towards the wayward young man, as does Mary and ultimately even Frank. Louis is given a bitter diatribe where he flings his justified grievances in the faces of assembled goodies - much like those "blacker than black" Dickens villains, in fact. "Don't you pity me", he spits to Frank, giving the viewer a pleasureable sense of Downton déjà-vu, before he gallops off and is killed not by drink but by a riding accident, which acquits the doctor of wishing the life out of his body. Louis Scatcherd à la Fellowes still isn't much cop, but a considerable improvement on the one in the novel, and as played by Edward Franklin not unfetching.

As costume dramas go, Doctor Thorne is pleasant and well-acted, with all the annoying bits from the novel taken out. What remains, though, is a not very remarkable love story, given a bit of extra polish by the likes of Tom Hollander as Thorne, Ian McShane as Sir Roger and Rebecca Front - always a delight - as firm matriarch Arabella Gresham. In the end, I can't help harbouring the catty suspicion that one of the reasons Fellowes chose to adapt this novel is because it was so easy to improve on.