The BBCiplayer is listing Alfred Hitchcock’s, North by Northwest (1959) at the moment. This is one of Hitchcock’s greatest films…and well worth watching.

The story is basically a up-to-speed version of The Thirty Nine Steps (1935)… The film is nowadays famous as an early iteration of the James Bond man-about-town character. The suit, worn by Cary Grant, is probably the most famous suit in film history…The film uses architecture and styling to configure a slightly discombobulating space (Vertigo) for mistaken identity, a bit like the Matrix, but sixty years ago!

And the title sequence by Saul Bass is amazing.

I’ve posted before about Alfred Hitchcock on this blog…and elsewhere in relation to trains, and suits, and speed.

new pamphleteer blog – just search for Hitchcock and look for suits and speed…

bagdcontext blog – about trains and Hitchcock…

Simon Schama is presenting a series of films about the cultural legacies of romanticism…The first film was terrific with explanations of the significance of William Blake as visionary, and of Géricault’s and Delacroix’s painting…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m000mfnj/the-romantics-and-us-with-simon-schama

Schama presents romanticism as a form of pathology related to anxiety…personally, I prefer to think of romanticism as a series of therapeutic practices.

On BBCiplayer now…perhaps the best film ever – stylish, romantic, heartbreaking, optimistic…

BBC4Tv are showing a terrific three-part documentary series about the history of soul music in America. Well worth watching.

The series presents the story of soul music as one linked to the political struggle of emancipation and civil-rights, and through personal links with Martin Luther King.

#muscle shoals (fame studios) #stax #motown

I found a lovely documentary about the photographer Malick Sidibe, in Mali. In the 1960s and 1970s he photographed the nightlife and developing youth culture of Mali.

It was quite unusual to be an independent photographer back then. The culture and politics of Mali seem to have been ultra orthodox and the club and beach scene (the dolce vita of the title) was understood as a form of hedonistic rebellion…This background also provided a lovely soundtrack for the film. Terrific.

The best parts of this film were when Malick and his mates were hanging out in the studio chatting about the old days, when they were young. That was lovely.

It turns out the guys in Mali often have several wives, and loads of kids. That background wasn’t really explained in enough detail…and we didn’t hear enough from the women in the story. That was a shame.

The Real Thing were a home-grown Black British group of singers who have worked from the 1960s onwards. The group came from Liverpool and played support for the Beatles at the Cavern Club! Respect for that.

You can watch the film, here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000lj5v

It’s unbelievable nowadays to hear the stories and struggles of exclusion associated with the music industry back in the day…The Real Thing held strong and have kept going…a great example.

BBC2TV are showing a two-part documentary about the political legacies of the Cuban revolution of the 1950s. These legacies are interpreted in relation to the cold war (USA vs USSR) and the international struggle for post-imperial independence in Africa and Asia.

Notwithstanding the long-term failure of international revolution, the history of Cuban politics is of a small country that has punched way above its weight. Even today, Cuba exports doctors around the world…

You can watch the documentary, here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000lj6l

The legacies of western imperialism across latin-America (and Africa, and Asia) have not been good. Mostly, countries and people have been exploited and held-down through poverty, and by the systemic exclusion of access to healthcare, education etc…

By the 1950s, the island of Cuba had, under the corrupt military dictatorship of Fulgencia Batista, become an off-shore playground for American gangsterism and money laundering through gambling and prostitution etc etc…(see The Godfather, Part Two (1974) for the background to US organised crime’s involvement in Cuba).

The Cuban international effort was about correcting these systemic exclusions and promoting a form of personal liberation.

If you are interested in this, you can also watch these films

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)

Che (2008) parts one and two

The BBCiplayer is listing this classic Hitchcock adventure…

The BBCiplayer is listing this classic from the 1960s…with Michael Caine and from a story by Len Deighton

The BBCiplayer is listing this classic by Orson Welles…perhaps the greatest film of all time?