Judy: Film Review

What did I think of the film? It was depressing. It’s the story of Judy Garland. It’s the story of a woman with a wonderful voice who was starstruck with her own stardom. It’s the story of a Hollywood mogul who gave her a tough time when she tried to break out of the straitjacket existence in the movies that she signed up for.

It’s the story of a woman who loved her children but would not seek help to get off the pills she had been on since a teenager. The pills were forced on her by her mother. She had pills to keep her thin, pills to get her up, and pills to get her to sleep.

So give her a break, she was messed up.

Yes, OK. I give her a break. But it wasn’t enough for a film. It was a dramatised documentary. And it was all about her, except for the scenes with the gay couple in their flat trying to make a meal for them and her and enjoying the poignancy of each others’ company. That was nice.

When one of them falls asleep on the sofa late at night, his partner talks about how his partner was in prison for homosexuality, and says ironically and knowingly and wistfully that since the change in the law it appears they didn’t do anything wrong all along. Nice social commentary.

Renee Zellweger was very impressive near the end when she moved around the stage. I mean she was impressive irrespective of what character she was supposed to be playing.

And she captured some ‘Judy Garland looks’ and those almost black eyes. But, it didn’t amount to a film. And if it did, it was depressing. No redeeming end, just a very British bit of cake in a cafe with Bernard Delfont’s uptight personal assistant and a nervous band leader.

The worst part of the film were the credits, the credits in gold sparkle against a black background. They seem designed by someone who thought that we the audience would be so stricken by the emotional intensity of the film that we would stare spellbound at the names as they came up sparkle by sparkle and then faded, slowly.

Except that the snail’s pace at which the sparkles sparked and faded was not emotionally charged; it was ponderous.

The names of the producers and the associate producers in sparkles just had me wondering when the lights would go up in the cinema. In fact, I thought, did someone associated with the film insist that venues keep the lights down until those names had passed and the rest of the credits could begin?

Kurds In Syria, And The EU

The news is all about how Turkey is attacking the Kurds in Syria. It is probably true because the Kurdish independence movement in Turkey is a banned terrorist organisation. It’s banned because the Kurds would like to hive off a part of Turkey and Syria and declare it their homeland and a new state.

But the news is missing something. Turkey has been complaining for months that the EU is not paying the contribution it promised Turkey for playing host to the Syrian refugees in Turkey – currently about 3.6 million of them. So Turkey has invaded Syria to create a safe zone it can tip the refugees into, and to be able to turn to the world and tell them it’s their problem.

Turkey is trying to solve two problems at once – remove the refugees and under the guise of that to neutralise the Kurds.

The news also missed that Greece has been complaining to the EU about the same thing – that the EU is not paying what it promised for the upkeep of the refugees.

There is a question also as to whether some or perhaps most of the refugees are in fact economic migrants who see the opportunity to create a better life in Europe. It’s clear that the refugees or economic migrants, if that is what they are, do not want to stay in Turkey: They want to come to Europe.

The whole reason that the EU agreed to pay towards the upkeep in the first place was because Turkey threatened to open its northern borders and just let the refugees/migrants through if the EU didn’t see it as an international problem.

Another snippet of news is that EU representatives were in Turkey last week trying to hammer something out. They were also in Greece because Greece has the same refugee problem on a smaller scale. There were riots on the island of Lesbos last week. Greece’s refugee problem won’t be on a smaller scale if Turkey opens its borders.

The next step along the way from Turkey to Europe is via Greece. Then it is a short hop across the Aegean to Italy, or a long walk via Bulgaria, Romania, and then to Hungary. But Hungary with its hard Right Government bent on repulsing the refugees / economic migrants, means that Italy is the soft spot on the route north.

Is the EU paying its share

In 2016 the EU struck a deal with Turkey under which the EU could start sending illegal immigrants back to Turkey and Turkey would play host to those immigrants / economic migrants / refugees sent back and to the ones that were within its borders. In return, the EU would look at relaxing visa requirements for Turkish citizens wanting to get into Europe; would speed up negotiations on Turkey’s EU membership. and it would pay for the upkeep of the immigrants / economic migrants / refugees in Turkey.

Amnesty UK tweeted then that it was ‘a dark day for the refugee convention, a dark day for Europe and a dark day for humanity.’

Three years down the line and the EU complains that Turkey has not implemented the EU’s requirements on human rights upon which the negotiations on Turkey’s EU membership depended.

Turkey, for its part, complains that the EU has not paid what it owes.

Would Turkey ever be allowed into the EU? I seem to recall that one of the arguments for Britain withdrawing from the EU was that ‘hordes’ of Turks would ‘invade’ Europe. Is the immigrant / economic migrant / refugee deal just a stop gap, a way of kicking the can down the road while other means of stopping them are developed?

What are those other means? To make their home countries safe again? How is that working out?

So where are we?

Turkey wants rid of Kurdish statehood ambitions, but it also wants rid of its 3.6 million Syrian refugees / asylum seekers / economic migrants / (choose your epithet according to your understanding) – and the EU hasn’t (according to Turkey) been paying what it promised under the 2016 agreement whereby Turkey would host the Syrian refugees rather than allow them onwards into Europe.

Under that 2016 agreement, Turkey would even take in those who has already made it to the EU and which the EU could now send back to Turkey.

The EU was also supposed to fast-track Turkey’s accession to the EU and meanwhile relax visa requirements for Turks. Turkey’s human rights record is going the ‘wrong’ way, so the EU is upset (and is secretly happy to continue to be upset because many EU countries would veto Turkey’s accession under any scenario).

So this way, Turkey sets up a buffer zone in northern Syria and will send the Syrian refugees there and under the guise of that it will ‘alleviate’ its Kurdish independence problem. It’s a messy world, and the EU will get its way without having to pay any more to Syria.

Where Is The Kurds Homeland

Kurdistan is a high plateau and mountainous region covering a large part of eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, and western Iran and smaller areas in the north of Syria and Armenia.

Iran recognises the province of Kurdistan within its country’s borders and Iraq recognises the Kurdish autonomous region within its country’s borders. No one recognises Kurdistan as an independent country.

map of Kurdistan showing how it covers a large part of eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, and western Iran and smaller areas in the north of Syria and Armenia.

The Peasants’ Revolt 1371 – Contemporary Records

The following is an extract from a contemporary record of events leading to the Peasants’ Revolt, as described in The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 edited by RB (Barrie) Dobson.

Then the bishop of Lincoln sent notice throughout his whole diocese giving general power to all priests, both regulars and seculars, to hear confessions and give absolution with full episcopal authority to all persons, except only in case of debt.

In such a case, the debtor was to pay the debt, if he were able, while he lived, or others were to be appointed to do so from his goods after his death.

In the same way the Pope gave plenary remission of all sins (once only) to all receiving absolution at the point of death, and granted that this power should last until Easter next following, and that every one might choose his own confessor at will. 

In the following autumn a reaper was not to be had for less than 8d, with his food, a mower for less than 12d, with food.

Therefore many crops rotted in the fields for lack of men to gather them. But in the year of the pestilence, as has been said above of other things, there was so great an abundance of all kinds of corn that virtually no one cared for it. 

My Thoughts On Reading The Above

What gets me is the reference to “give absolution with full episcopal authority to all persons, except only in case of debt”. What singles out debt that it cannot be absolved? And why the sticking point at the giving of absolution but “once only”. What is sacred about receiving one absolution only?

The Reluctant Gunslinger

Oh pity the reluctant gunslinger, for he must fight another fight.

I call it gunslinger syndrome, the man who was a gunslinger and then saw the light and gave it up. Now he just wants to live like a normal person. But he is not a normal person; he is fast on the draw. So when the citizens need help, he is forced against his will to return to the thing he does best, and shoot down the oppressor for the sake of the citizens.

And we the audience, we want to see the fight. If there is no fight, we will feel robbed of our spectacle. There can be many other resolutions, but we want ‘our’ resolution. We want to see our man do his thing. We are the spectators and the gunfight is the Roman arena.

Our appetite for that finale is so strong that we want to see it again and again. Screenwriters have to invent whole scenarios that will make it credible and needed for that final gunfight to happen.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be guns. Japanese sword fights, boxing, martial arts, they can all work. But for a crescendo, a gunfight is hard to beat. There is space around the protagonists so that we can see the denouement and the reluctant gunslinger with perfect clarity.

James Coburn in Waterhole No. 3 violated the rule of the gunfight. Early on in the film he is called out to fight some nameless gunslinger. Coburn goes out to face the man standing way down Main Street. He is required by the law of gunfights to walk down the street to within revolver distance, and face off against his opponent.

Instead, he walks around behind his horse; pulls his rifle out of its scabbard, and uses the horse’s back as a support to shoot the other man down. What a dastardly deed! I forget what exact comment Coburn made, but it was to the effect that only a fool would stand within a few yards of another in the hope of being first on the draw.

The film Shane is the paradigm of the tale of the retired gunslinger blighted by his past. The rancher’s young son wants to be him; the rancher looks at his own life and wants the magic of being the gunslinger; and the rancher’s wife looks at Shane and wants him.

The gunslinger that Shane must face is dressed in black. He is needlessly cruel, and he is complacent in his triumph. How happy we will be when he is gunned down. How unhappy we would be if the gunfight were never to take place.