We wouldn’t usually, but, etc… STML and our good friends at Jack Blood Productions have come up with an ad for Snowbooks that we think you, as the book-hungry yet careless masses should examine, and take to heart. Enjoy…

“London, he says, is a city under siege from a suburban government which uses homelessness, pollution, crime and the most expensive and run down public transport system of any metropolitan city in Europe as weapons against Londoners’ lingering desire for the freedoms of city life.”
from Patrick Keiller’s London

Watched it again. Look, I saw Citizen Kane two weeks ago, at the NFT, and London shits all over it. The one-party state, terrorism, the banality of urban space, the revolution of everyday life. Get it. Watch it now.

Don’t you love surprises? Some anonymous benefactor* sent STML a copy of Sigma Films’ rather good Alexander Trocchi: A Life In Pieces DVD in the post. No note, no return address, and sustained by a mere 8p of postage - bizzare and bizzarer.

A Life In Pieces was originally broadcast on the BBC in 1996, and directed by Allan Campbell and Tim Neil, authors of the biography of the same name available from Canongate/Rebel Inc, and includes such wondrous footage as Trocchi shooting up for an NBC news piece in 1963 and berating a poet onstage at the 1965 Poetry International in 1965, Allen Ginsberg nodding out in the stalls. Contributors include William Burroughs (”Alex could find a vein in a mummy”), Jeff Nuttall, Irvine Welsh (surprise), Leonard Cohen (in shaven-headed-monk mode, recalling an episode in Montreal when he went blind in the middle of a major intersection because Trocchi had told him that a “ridiculously large” dose of Opium was perfectly safe) and Terry Southern, who recounts Trocchi telling him proudly that he had “just cooled off a bust with the fuzz” by pimping his girlfried Lin to his arresting officer.

Sigma Films are a Caledonian outfit which “aims to produce independent and internationally appealing films and believes in the importance of creating a sustainable film industry in Scotland.” They’re the people behind such recent gems as Dogville and Trocchi’s own, Ewan McGregor-starring Young Adam. Their name, of course, comes from Trocchi’s sigma: A Tactical Blueprint.

*

Researching the DVD, we came across Literary London, “the first and only journal to provide a common forum for scholars and students engaged specifically in the study of London and literature”. Their Iain Sinclair special issue is just out.

* Look, if it was some kind of drunken conversation, I’m sorry. I don’t remember. Please get in touch and remind me. Mystery solved. Thank you.

From tropical beaches to the windswept undercroft of Waterloo Bridge is not the most enjoyable of journeys, but it is made much more palatable by the presence of the 20th London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival currently (but not for long) resident at the NFT. Last night, STML attended the first public screening of BBC2’s flagship autumn drama series, Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty, as adapted by the Beeb’s resident bodice-ripper, Andrew Davies.

The showing took the form of the first of the three hour-long episodes, adapted directly from the book’s tripartite structure, followed by short clips from the latter two episodes and a Q&A. ‘The Love-Chord’ covers Nick’s arrival in the Fedden’s house in 1983 and his subsequent absorption into the family. Despite the swirly hot-pink credits that open proceedings, and which sent a ripple of consternation through the audience, the adaptation sticks closely to the original text, beefing up Gerald Fedden’s self-harming daughter Catherine’s part somewhat but keeping in plenty of lovely Leo, Nick’s first love, too. There’s no real way to discuss this without being soppy, I’m afraid. It was pretty good. Dan Stevens (above centre) is almost too good-looking as Nick (legitimate, this: he isn’t the golden boy in the book), Tim McInnerny, last seen prancing about in Blackadder (far as we know), makes a surprisingly excellent choice for Gerald, all wattle-necked Tory bombast, and, (a major pre-screening worry, this) they haven’t let us down with Wani: Alex Wyndham is sleekly gorgeous, much better (and more olive) than the still above right, and his RADA headshot… And yeah, plot, character, &c. It’s a TV show.

In the excruciating Q&A afterwards, Andrew Davies acknowledged that he’d built up Catherine’s role for the series, being of high ‘female interest’ - as with many programs about gay men, Russel T. Davies’ Queer as Folk being a case in point, straight women are the largest target audience - but he also took the opportunity to refute scurrilous reports in the press that he had not been able to adapt the book’s sex scenes or that his approach to them had been in anyway homophobic. The presence of Alan Hollinghurst chortling at his elbow seemed like reasonable confirmation of this.

I say excruciating because the general level of the Qs was pretty much that: “Was the the fact that Leo is black/the book is set in the 80s/Nick is gay deliberate?” Hollinghurst deftly deflected a 10-minute long question along the lines of “How do you feel the Line of Beauty corresponds to the Line of Power, and how does this relate to Nick’s sexuality, in the novel?” with the response “Well, I could write an entire novel about that…” Davies, best known for his lavish BBC adaptations of period Eng Lit classics such as Pride & Prejudice and Bleak House, announced that he “preferred authors to be dead”, but, failing that, he was prepared to work with them.

Several of the actors involved were present, and their interactions with Hollinghurst were of particular interest: their queries on set, he said, revealed much about his writing - Hayley Atwell’s question about what her character Catherine actually did all day brought him up blank (as did the question of whether she faked her orgasms: a telling detail, as she is the least well-drawn character in the book, a foil for Nick who lacks a real emotional life of her own). Also of interest was the director, Saul Dibb, whose last work was the Dalston-set, So-Solid-starring, guns-n-gangstas flick Bullet Boy, which received excellent reviews but led, Dibb explained, to a flood of similar offers. Wanting to try his hand at something different, he couldn’t really have done better than The Line… and his name at the top of the credits may well bring a wider audience to the series.

The Line of Beauty will be shown on BBC2 soon.

* * *

We should also mention a couple of other things from the LLGFF - the wonderful 100% Human from Norway traced the journey of Morten (above, played by an actor) to Monica (below, as herself) through the use of video diaries and unexpected musical interludes where Monica used the singing lessons she’d taken to alter her voice to present her experience in song. We also met her friends and, most poignantly, her mother, who, while accepting and supporting her new daughter’s decision, was clearly mourning the loss of her son. Monica herself is an incredible presence in the film: charming and eloquent, and not afraid to explicate some of the more physical aspects of her surgery (Big Macs were mentioned). According to many, it was one of the highlights of a strong trans strand at the Festival.

Also showing tonight (tickets may be available), is another BBC adaptation and STML favourite: last year’s excellent series The Long Firm, based on the novel by Jake Arnott. All four episodes, back to back - should be a treat. We hope to bring you a review of Arnott’s latest novel, the 70s-set glam tale Johnny Come Home, very soon.

As is becoming startlingly common, STML stumbled back from the Fullback halfway through tonight’s Front Row, right in the middle of an interesting disquisition from Thriller writer Robert Crais. The subject was his latest novel The Two Minute Rule and the larger issue of movie adaptations, particularly when it comes to well-loved, and often long-running characters such as his own Max Holman (transcript from dubious memory):

“A book is a collaboration between writer and reader. There are a million Holmans, one for each reader, each one individually created, and if I were to allow a movie, there would be only a single Holman, and all those alternate Holmans would be lost.”

It’s a good point: how many have been distressed by the jarring experience of coming face-to-face with a favourite fictional character, only to find them distressingly different to the mental image already constructed. For some reason, Keanu Reeves in Johnny Mnemonic springs immediately to mind - William Gibson’s exemplary, lucid memory man reduced to a monosyllabic slab of Hollywood meat, or Johnny Depp smoking opium in From Hell, a horrific reworking of the noble Inspector Abberline. I’m sure you have your own examples.

Our own choices, however, have their reasons: the concept of multiple identities, of differing versions of the same character, of fiction suits that are not fully formed - and all the more intrigueing for it - is central to much of the canon of classic SF, to Dick, Van Vogt and Delany, and common to much of the comics multiverse too - and these are the texts most often picked up for filming by the mainstream film industry. Witness the latest, terribly reviewed, adaptation of Alan Moore’s work, V for Vendetta, whose director is faintly praised for allowing the protagonist to retain his mask, while changing almost every other detail of his motives, methods, and choice on compatriots.

So, Steve, Ellis, Chris and Mark, I know we’ve taken the piss, but we need your help: what is the critical term for such an evasion? How is the fictional character constructed in the mind, and what are the results of the retelling?

Please do comment, too, if you can help. More on this to come. Probably.

So, farewell then, Peter Benchley. You assured that generations of us can never, ever swim in the sea without a nervous tremor in our stomachs, turning to pant-shitting terror if we so much as brush up against some kelp. Ta for that.

Then again, you also gave some of us our first taste of literary lovin’. In STML’s school library, the most thumbed books were a copy of Benchley’s classic Jaws and some appalling James Bond ‘tribute’ wherein 007 had his balls coated in pig fat and hung out for wild dogs (please, someone else remember this).

Benchley’s original novel concerns itself more with the amorous adventures of Matt Hooper (played by Richard Dreyfuss in the movie) and Chief Brody’s wife Ellen. His clumsy seduction (“Some women have really tight ones.” “You sound like a comparision-shopper.”"Just a conscientious consumer.”) is not exactly unwelcome (“That’s supposed to be every schoolgirls fantasy… To be a… you know, a prostitute”), leading quickly to a somewhat disturbing climax in a nearby “Kleenex and spit” motel:

A vision of Hooper, eyes wide and staring - but unseeing at the wall as he approached climax. The eyes seemed to bulge until, just before release, Ellen had feared they might actually pop out of their sockets. Hooper’s teeth were clenched, and he ground them the way people do during sleep. From his voice there came a gurgling whine, whose tone rose higher and higher with each frenzied thrust. Even after his obvious, violent climax, Hooper’s countenance had not changed. His teeth were still clenched, his eyes still fixed on the wall, and he continued to pump madly. He was oblivious of the being beneath him, and when, perhaps a full minute after his climax, Hooper still did not relax, Ellen had become afraid - of what, she wasn’t sure, but the ferocity and intensity of his assault seemed to her a pursuit in which she was only a vehicle.

Hooper’s frenzied intensity carries the others repeatedly out to sea, until the moment when Brody is given his last chance to look in the eye the man who cuckolded him:

The fish broke water fifteen feet from the boat, surging upward in a shower of spray. Hooper’s body protruded from each side of the mouth, head and arms hanging limply down one side, knees, calves, and feet from the other.

In the few seconds while the fish was clear of the water, Brody thought he saw Hooper’s glazed eyes staring open through his face mask.

Benchley aspired to higher literary ideals than the airport thriller, and the book shades in the grey areas that summer blockbusters bleach out. In the film, Quint (Robert Shaw) goes down for his cruel and unusual attitude to life (which, given the whole Indianapolis thing, seems a bit harsh), and cheery, beardy Hooper lives to dive another day. In the book, Hooper gets his righteous comeuppance, Quint is the victim of cruel, black fate, and only Brody, the one good man in Amity, gets to swim home.

Some months ago, STML attended a special screening of Asia Argento’s JT Leroy adaptation The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things at the ICA (fully reviewed here). In the Q&A after the movie, having mentioned her strong friendship with the Terminator, which apparently including much hugging and holding hands and was therefore clearly bollocks, Ms Argento was asked to explain why she had cast old whitey himself, Mr Marilyn Manson, in the role of the pot-bellied white trash who anally rapes, under questionably consensual circumstances, the young Jeremiah. “Because that’s who he really is” she replied.

Fans of Lewis Carroll will therefore be delighted to hear that Manson is currently at the Berlin Film Festival, drumming up finance for a self-directed and self-starring take on the much-loved British author, mathematician, logician, Anglican clergyman and photographer, known to his friends as Charles Dodgson. “Phantasmagoria - The Visions Of Lewis Carroll” is described as “arthouse horror” and the self-proclaimed Antichrist intends to release it in installments on his website before a full feature release. In interviews for the website, Manson has promised that the first installment will explore the origin of Tweedledum and Tweedledee from Through the Looking-Glass, played by two twin girls who “get to have real, genuine sex with each other.” Lovely. More promisingly, Manson makes mysterious reference to a visual style and a camera process unused before in cinema, and states that “It’s kind of a return to Hitchcock-style psychological horror about letting your mind do the damage and sometimes what you don’t see is scarier.”

Such excitements will undoubtedly serve to reawaken the old, and largely discredited, accusations of pedophilia which have surrounded Dodgson since his death. These are largely based on his well-documented friendship with and fondness for photographing young girls, most notably Alice Liddell (widely believed to be the model for the Alice in his books) - over 50% of his surviving archive consists of photographs of young girls, many of them nude. That Dodgson is considered by connoisseurs to be one of the Victorian era’s finest and most important photographers, that his activities were considered far less unusual by the society of the time and the girls’ parents were always present, and that he did in fact carry on a number of relationships with women of his own age but that these details were suppressed after his death by his well-meaning family, was all detailed in Karoline Leach’s 1999 demolition of the ‘Carroll Myth’, In The Shadow of The Dreamchild. Yet the myths persist, and we can but hope that association with the man once known as Brian Warner will only increase Dodgson’s readership rather than serving as a tawdry excuse to rehash old falsehoods.

It should be noted, however, that he was a massive stoner.