a short history of london (simon jenkins)

For evident reasons, (2000 years of history), a short history of London is a project that is doomed to be dissatisfying. No sooner do you engage with one century than you are onto the next. Jenkins’ text seems to slow down as it gets to the twentieth century, and the chapters become riper as a result of being longer. At times there’s the sense that the writer took the project on as a dare, to see if he could get around the world in eighty days. The results offer fascinating shards, but it’s all inevitably superficial. Having said which, the book nails the Westminster - City divide effectively, tracing the evolution of the royal countermand to the commercial bent of the city. Once that conflict eases, the book seems to tread water somewhat until we get to the architectural crimes of the twentieth century, where the author’s passion comes to the fore as he documents the architectural excesses that lead to the destruction of much of London’s heritage. Having said which, to live in a city is to exist in a state of constant flux, and the city that stands still is likely to atrophy, as happened to London in the post-Roman era. In some ways the city is in a state of constant tension between the forces of the future and the forces that wish to conserve. If the city is prosperous, its land acquires value, and people will seek to develop that value, in the process impinging on the past. These deeper issues tend to be skirted over by Jenkins, but again, that was probably inevitable in a project that seeks to concertina two thousand years into three hundred pages.

This also struck me because of the contrast between living in London and Montevideo, a city which has about 10% of the longevity of London. Most of the colonial buildings in this city have already gone, but the mansions and houses from the early twentieth century, when the city was briefly one of the richest in the world, have limped on in, many in a state of disrepair. As money comes into the city, much is funnelled into housing developments, which in this day and age mean blocks of shiny new flats, built like shoeboxes, which represent an entry point to the housing market for the younger affluent class. These blocks go up where the older, unwieldy art deco houses have been torn down. Barrios become disfigured, homogenised, but in theory, repopulated. A cycle of renovation is also a cycle of destruction. It’s sad to see the noble architecture, steeped in a rioplantense culture, torn down, but then this echoes so much of what Jenkins shows has happened to London, and it has to be accepted that this is how the process works, whether in Paris, London, Shanghai, Lhasa, Mumbai, Buenos Aires or Montevideo, a process only entropy or the asteroids can halt. 

moonlight (w&d. barry jenkins, w. tarell alvin mccraney)

Moonlight has become a cause celebre. A film that speaks not so much for itself, but for the minorities of the world. People have talked about it in terms of the importance of universal stories coming from all sectors of society. Whilst this is completely right, whether it helps Moonlight to be saddled with this baggage is another story. In the end, all film is political. That’s why we watch more movies from the States than any other country. Including stories from the margin. It’s a reflection of the soft political power that the States exercises, whether we like it or not. The fact that the film was garlanded with the Oscar only serves to reinforce the potency of the Oscar brand, and by default, the North American brand. At a Curzon screening a few months ago, the man introducing Blue Velvet said that Moonlight would have the same impact as Mean Streets/ Taxi Driver. But I think it's worth noting that Scorsese was rejected at the Oscars for decades. They didn’t like his films, and they didn’t like them because they offered the kind of messages which the establishment didn’t want to hear. 

Once a film becomes judged for its political standpoint as much as its aesthetics, the boundaries shift. This is true for Moonlight just as much as for Rambo. Barry Jenkins exercises considerable directorial flair, and there should be a hat-tip to the cinematography of James Laxton. Almost as though in reaction to the last film review on the blog, we see a director employing the tricks of the trade with glee, from the opening gyratory shot to the use of colour and camera. Another film Moonlight is reminiscent of in this regard is McQueen’s Hunger. Having said all of this, the narrative itself becomes pedestrian. There are times when the screenplay’s stage play roots begins to show through, as though there’s a tension between directorial intent and the script. The extended restaurant scene in the third act has a clunky feel, and the last scene with the mother veers towards melodrama. The promised journey to the hard edge of the American dream is never delivered. The film’s final act veers towards sentimentalism instead. Which, of course, helps to explain its mainstream appeal. Oscars are not given to films that truly rock the boat. 

Moonlight is a fine film, which has some bravura moments. It deserves all the plaudits and love its getting. It takes a lot of the indie tropes and makes them work on a grand scale. Perhaps the Chazelle film it should really be compared with isn’t its supposed rival, but Whiplash, another rites of passage movie which was also a showcase for an emergent director making a  name for himself. 

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(As a ps - Moonlight also brought to mind the brilliance of James Baldwin’s Another Country. As far as I know there has never been a cinematic version of one of the more astonishing works of American literature, which also incorporated a gay narrative in order to recount the story of the ‘other’ United States. It’s twenty years since I read it but the power of Baldwin’s exploration of the margins holds fast in my mind. In many ways it is a terrible indictment of North American culture that over half a century later a narrative employing themes of race and sexual orientation - specifically a ‘black, gay’ narrative - should still be seen as radical.)