In which there are a hundred owls and nearly a century of trains
- Post: I'm currently awaiting the delivery of 100 owls from China (and a special snowflake, lol).
- Britain on Film: Railways, 1898-1968, (note: took me three tries to type "Britain" correctly, lol) is a compilation of archive film, mostly documentary but also romance fiction, with railway connections. My favourite was Let's Go To Birmingham, 1962, (also on youtube) which showed a train driver's view of the route from London to Birmingham compressed into five minutes and accompanied by the sort of "light classical" music that now seems only to be written for film scores. The driver was dressed in a wide-lapelled white coat very similar to those worn by milkmen in my childhood. Other things I noticed in historical order:
1898: some old rail journeys are still classic rides.
1899: kissing was surprisingly kissy (Kiss in the Tunnel and KitT remake, also 1899).
1937 and 1954: the English countryside looked markedly different when the hedgerows were replete with elm trees (cue Lumberjanes: "Suffering Johanna Westerdijk!").
1937: I pitied the women forced to wear fashionably paltry hats which despite their meagreness managed to give them dreadful hat-hair, especially at a time when hats were unavoidably de rigueur. OH THE HORROR.
1954: Paul le Saux is no WH Auden.
1962: the view of Birmingham city centre from Bordesley viaduct has utterly changed and yet I still recognised it from the old red brick factories on the approach through Digbeth.
1963: the experimental jazz soundtrack and art cinematography of Snow couldn't have been a more complete contrast with the previous documentary's 1950s "modern" style. I recognised the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's contribution to the musical effects and was pleased to see Daphne Oram credited. Snow was also the first archive film we were shown that included a Black British railway worker, albeit only his hands!
1968: the era when men displayed the worst hair and hats. John Betjeman's wry commentary provided an excellent finish though and the audience applauded at the end of the screening.
- So, what are you doing, thinking, wondering about, reading, watching, making, or writing, that you don't usually post about?
This entry was originally posted at http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/609802.html and has
comments Please comment there using OpenID.
- Britain on Film: Railways, 1898-1968, (note: took me three tries to type "Britain" correctly, lol) is a compilation of archive film, mostly documentary but also romance fiction, with railway connections. My favourite was Let's Go To Birmingham, 1962, (also on youtube) which showed a train driver's view of the route from London to Birmingham compressed into five minutes and accompanied by the sort of "light classical" music that now seems only to be written for film scores. The driver was dressed in a wide-lapelled white coat very similar to those worn by milkmen in my childhood. Other things I noticed in historical order:
1898: some old rail journeys are still classic rides.
1899: kissing was surprisingly kissy (Kiss in the Tunnel and KitT remake, also 1899).
1937 and 1954: the English countryside looked markedly different when the hedgerows were replete with elm trees (cue Lumberjanes: "Suffering Johanna Westerdijk!").
1937: I pitied the women forced to wear fashionably paltry hats which despite their meagreness managed to give them dreadful hat-hair, especially at a time when hats were unavoidably de rigueur. OH THE HORROR.
1954: Paul le Saux is no WH Auden.
1962: the view of Birmingham city centre from Bordesley viaduct has utterly changed and yet I still recognised it from the old red brick factories on the approach through Digbeth.
1963: the experimental jazz soundtrack and art cinematography of Snow couldn't have been a more complete contrast with the previous documentary's 1950s "modern" style. I recognised the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's contribution to the musical effects and was pleased to see Daphne Oram credited. Snow was also the first archive film we were shown that included a Black British railway worker, albeit only his hands!
1968: the era when men displayed the worst hair and hats. John Betjeman's wry commentary provided an excellent finish though and the audience applauded at the end of the screening.
- So, what are you doing, thinking, wondering about, reading, watching, making, or writing, that you don't usually post about?
This entry was originally posted at http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/609802.html and has
comments Please comment there using OpenID.