Tonight I watched Bert and Dickie, and all I could think was "they would have made this so much better in the 1970s." (Well, that and "Matt Smith is surprisingly muscular
( Read more... )
Yes, the fact that they were real people does limit the dramatic options (cf. Pat Grant, who was only based on a real person). But I think even within the realm of stiff-upper-lip nice-underneath building-a-friendship-forever athletic heroes narratives, there's room for it to be done more interestingly, with more depth.
There is fic in it, I agree. In that last changing room scene, for a moment I thought they were about to kiss.
Smaller budgets back in the day forced British TV to do more with the writing instead of relying on visuals. Not that I'm against visual storytelling, when it's done well, but so often it's just shallow. And then there's the reliance on the score to provide emotional cues, which I HATE HATE HATE OMG KILL IT WITH FIRE.
I have The Hollow Crown but I haven't watched it yet. Eventually. At the moment I find myself watching Moonbase 3, which is 1970s science fiction at its least glamorous, with the final episode (encouraging called "View of a Dead Planet") written by Arden Winch.
Agreed. I wanted to know more about those non-athletic events such as etching (the story of the 73 year-old man referenced in the end credits) and poetry! Too much of the rose-tinted nostalgia that has come to characterise a lot of British period drama on TV/film.
Yes, the poetry and etching and town planning competitions, please! (And what a pick-up line! "Would you like to come up and see my etchings? I won a gold medal for them.")
There was a definite rosy tinge. "We won't talk about rationing etc. except glancingly, we won't mention the war at all nor the fact that some of the Olympic facilities were built with the forced labor of German POWs who were STILL being held in 1948, we'll show all class conflict overcome through friendship and sportsmanship, and we'll emphasize that everyone was jolly decent back then!"
Comments 5
Reply
Reply
There is fic in it, I agree. In that last changing room scene, for a moment I thought they were about to kiss.
Smaller budgets back in the day forced British TV to do more with the writing instead of relying on visuals. Not that I'm against visual storytelling, when it's done well, but so often it's just shallow. And then there's the reliance on the score to provide emotional cues, which I HATE HATE HATE OMG KILL IT WITH FIRE.
I have The Hollow Crown but I haven't watched it yet. Eventually. At the moment I find myself watching Moonbase 3, which is 1970s science fiction at its least glamorous, with the final episode (encouraging called "View of a Dead Planet") written by Arden Winch.
Reply
Reply
There was a definite rosy tinge. "We won't talk about rationing etc. except glancingly, we won't mention the war at all nor the fact that some of the Olympic facilities were built with the forced labor of German POWs who were STILL being held in 1948, we'll show all class conflict overcome through friendship and sportsmanship, and we'll emphasize that everyone was jolly decent back then!"
Reply
Leave a comment