Monday, November 19, 2012

The Fighting Temeraire, 1839, J.M.W. Turner, National Gallery

On Sunday I took my granddaughter Rebecca, 15, to see Skyfall at the IMAX Theatre at the SilverCity Riverport Cinemas in Richmond. I have mixed feelings about the experience. To begin with I picked up Rebecca at her home with the resolve that I would avoid any confrontation or questioning that might spark an immediate teenage explosion. I can report here that I was mostly successful. This meant that we rode in silence. Not quite as the rain was pecking at the windshield with sounds resembling driving in Texas through a storm of locusts. On the CD player I had Mi Buenos Aires Querido with tango music played by Daniel Barenboim on piano, Rodolfo Madero on bandoneón and Héctor Console on bass. It is a lovely CD.

Upon arriving at that Mecca of Richmond Cinema I was appalled by the entrance which resembled a food-bazaar-from-hell with gross multi coloured signs advertizing Pizza! Hamburgers! The place was packed with mostly ill-dressed people in hoodies. We had paid reservations. We walked through dark blue corridors where people were lined up and sitting on the floor waiting for their movie theatre to open. Wherever I looked I saw young women and men dressed in blue uniforms (sort of like the early Bond films where the villains invariably had an empire that featured workers all wearing identical uniforms). They had carts and they were all hauling the detritus (plastic pop cups and huge empty popcorn containers) of previous shows. It was ugly. We entered our IMAX theatre and I sat in three different aisles until I finally overcame my alphabetical order syndrome. We were looking for aisle I but I first sat at J and then at H. The folks around me were wondering about my sanity and or my premature senescence. We finally sat down.

Rebecca told me she was thirsty. I told her to find a water fountain or drink water from the bathroom. She told me of all the myriads of bacteria to be found in our drinking water. I asked her if she had money. She told me (while texting to her mother that I was a cheapskate) she had spent it all the week before. I told her that if she hadn’t she would could buy her drink and I was not prepared to spend a fortune on a small pop. She persisted that the atmosphere of the theatre was similar to that of the Sahara. I finally relented and gave her a five dollar bill. She came back and gave me 42 cents back. “You were right,” she said. The lights went out and a boom exceeding 100 decibels (for sure) almost gave me a heart seizure. I was already feeling sick as the man next to me was dipping chips in a tomato/garlic sauce. The smell of pop corn was making my stomach churn. The boom was the announcement that we were going to be exposed to the treat of digital sound (fingers bang at your eardrums I would attest!).

There were then trailers to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters. Both trailers were beyond 100 decibels and featured every kind of conceivable weapon except Bond’s Walther PPK. Rebecca who had calmed down with her drink, a very large chocolate bar and a bag of fruit juice slices (provided by my Rosemary) calmed me, “The film will not be so loud.” She was partially right. I am not going to review the film as I am an amateur and I have no business doing this here. I mentioned the violence of the film to my friend Paul Leisz who is at least 8 years younger than I am. His conclusion, “You are too old for this sort of thing.” I was going to proudly tell Rebecca that the film, Skyfall marked the 50th anniversary of Bond films and that I could boast having seen every one of them when they first were shown. I figured this would have only put me deeper into the old geezer bucket.

The film has one wonderful moment when Bond (Daniel Craig sits down on a bench at London’s National Gallery facing Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire. He sits next to a young geek in geeky glasses (Ben Wishaw) who opens the conversation on the meaning of the old wooden ship that helped defeat Napoleon’s navy. Subsequent dialogue I will not reveal here. But I will say that our 21st century Bond, unlike the Sean Connery 20th century Bond is not the urbane man who can pinpoint a Champagne’s vintage. Bond of the Craig kind is at the gallery not to admire art but on assignment. The wooden ship representing the ships-of-the line that made England a world power in the age of sail is being towed by a new-fangled steam tug to be broken up at a yard. The celebrated ship is old hat and useless. It is our aging Bond in a world of cyber warfare, where bad guys are terminated from Marin County, California by the press of button that unleashes precise munitions without any so-called collateral damage. Just a few minutes of the beautiful black woman with a monetary name on the wheel of a venerable British marque, a Land Rover ploughing up the wrong side of a street will surely have terminated more innocents that US drones in Afghanistan in one year. The tug boat is the 21st century, the age of pushbutton war and love.

After the film we quietly (it was still raining locusts) listened to the tango music. It skipped on cut 7, a lovely Horacio Salgán composition. I asked Rebecca to wipe the CD with my handkerchief. The Salgán skipped. She did this again. It skipped. She told me, “It’s not dirty it’s scratched. Wipe it with some toothpaste.” Today I went to Staples and asked an attendant (he was Portugese, so we spoke in Spanish, his Spanish being much better than my Portuguese) for a product to repair my CD. “Usa pasta dental,” he told me. It worked and I feel that this Fighting Temeraire has to cede water to the little tugboat that can, Rebecca Stewart, the future of the 21st century.

David YH Luie, Celia Duthie & the Fighting Temeraire

The Fighting Téméraire
Sir Henry Newbolt


It was eight bells ringing,
For the morning watch was done,
And the gunner's lads were singing
As they polished every gun.
It was eight bells ringing,
And the gunner's lads were singing,
For the ship she rode a-swinging,
As they polished every gun.

Oh! to see the linstock lighting,
Téméraire! Téméraire!
Oh! to hear the round shot biting,
Téméraire! Téméraire!
Oh! to see the linstock lighting,
And to hear the round shot biting,
For we're all in love with fighting
On the fighting Téméraire.

It was noontide ringing,
And the battle just begun,
When the ship her way was winging,
As they loaded every gun.
It was noontide ringing,
When the ship her way was winging,
And the gunner's lads were singing
As they loaded every gun.

There'll be many grim and gory,
Téméraire! Téméraire!
There'll be few to tell the story,
Téméraire! Téméraire!
There'll be many grim and gory,
There'll be few to tell the story,
But we'll all be one in glory
With the Fighting Téméraire.

There's a far bell ringing
At the setting of the sun,
And a phantom voice is singing
Of the great days done.
There's a far bell ringing,
And a phantom voice is singing
Of renown for ever clinging
To the great days done.

Now the sunset breezes shiver,
Téméraire! Téméraire!
And she's fading down the river,
Téméraire! Téméraire!
Now the sunset's breezes shiver,
And she's fading down the river,
But in England's song for ever
She's the Fighting Téméraire.