A Field In England
Oct. 9th, 2016 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloI've never understood why we don't make more movies about the English Civil War. That period has everything; it's like the Wild West, but with even better clothes- including the best hats ever. I suppose expense has something to do with it.
Ben Wheatley's movie gets round the money problem with a screenplay requiring five men and a field. Just five men- no extras. Just a field- not a house in sight.
It's a magical field. On the other side of the hedge there's a battle going on. On this side, well, it's hardly safe but at least there aren't any cannon balls whizzing about.
What transpires is sort of befuddled. Mushrooms are eaten, unpleasant magic is performed, violence happens, wheel-lock pistols are discharged, considerable damage is done to the human anatomy, visions are seen, dead men walk again. It's deeply English- as if a bunch of Shakespeare's low-life characters were issued with one of Prospero's books and a whole lot of guns...
Ben Wheatley's movie gets round the money problem with a screenplay requiring five men and a field. Just five men- no extras. Just a field- not a house in sight.
It's a magical field. On the other side of the hedge there's a battle going on. On this side, well, it's hardly safe but at least there aren't any cannon balls whizzing about.
What transpires is sort of befuddled. Mushrooms are eaten, unpleasant magic is performed, violence happens, wheel-lock pistols are discharged, considerable damage is done to the human anatomy, visions are seen, dead men walk again. It's deeply English- as if a bunch of Shakespeare's low-life characters were issued with one of Prospero's books and a whole lot of guns...
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Date: 2016-10-09 05:55 pm (UTC)I like that way of describing it. I loved the movie.
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Date: 2016-10-09 07:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-09 09:42 pm (UTC)Nine
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Date: 2016-10-09 06:35 pm (UTC)It's still too close to home even after all this time!
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Date: 2016-10-09 07:28 pm (UTC)Ben Wheatley says in an interview that's included as an extra on the disc that the civil war and the industrial revolution are the two defining events in English history.