This week Chris Deacy is joined in the studio by David Budgen to discuss the films; Jaws, Mad Max 2, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and Withnail and I.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club, I'm Chris DC and each week I'll be joined by
00:17a guest from Kent to dive deep into the impact certain films have had on their life.
00:23Each guest will reflect on the films which have meant the most to them over the years.
00:27And every week there will be a Kent Film Trivia where we quiz you at home about a
00:31film that has a connection to the county.
00:35And now let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:38Not only does he have a BA, MA and PhD and is a published author, he also lectures in
00:43British and American history and culture.
00:46He is David Bunchan.
00:48Welcome to the programme David.
00:49Thank you very much.
00:50Great to have you on.
00:51Now you've chosen Jaws as your first film.
00:55Yes.
00:56Why this one?
00:57I think it's a film that I first saw when I was about eight years old on the television.
01:03It absolutely terrified me to the extent that I was frightened to go to the loo afterwards
01:10because there was water in the loo and there might be a shark in there.
01:15And it's a film that I have come back to frequently ever since then.
01:21In some ways it was like a gateway to horror.
01:23I'm a fan of horror movies.
01:26I think it's a PG, which seems strange given some of the gore that you see within that film.
01:31But it's also kind of grown on me in terms of the themes.
01:35You know, it's got such sort of well-drawn characters.
01:39You see sort of different facets of masculinity with those kind of three main characters.
01:46You've got kind of Cold War themes that you can kind of link to that sort of loss of trust
01:53in government during the 1970s post-Watergate.
01:57You know, you've got that fantastic character of Mayor Vaughan, you know, desperate to protect
02:03the holiday season at any cost.
02:05Yeah, because there's so much, isn't there, in all of that you've got a film that resonates
02:11in terms of all those sort of tropes around the finance over the safety.
02:16In a way those sort of debates play out in the same but different ways in terms of health
02:21and safety not least, but you know, the tourist economy that's affected.
02:25I actually saw this in 3D a couple of times over the last few years and that actually
02:32worked really well actually for this film.
02:34I wasn't sure that it would.
02:35I have mixed feelings about 3D, but I don't know if that's a format in which you've watched it.
02:39No, no.
02:40I was always very suspicious about 3D when it started to come back about, that must be
02:45about 15 years ago now.
02:46But it's kind of visceral enough on its own.
02:49I remember reading the novel a few years after watching the film for the first time
02:53and I think Spielberg kind of wisely kind of gets rid of some subplots.
02:57But I also remember some of the descriptions, so that kind of first scene in which Chrissie
03:03is attacked by the shark after sort of going out for that kind of midnight swim.
03:09You get some descriptions within the book as to what she's feeling and what she's imagining
03:15at that time, which I've always since then been unable to separate from the film itself.
03:20And so it kind of enhances that initial scare.
03:26So yeah, I mean I think I can see how 3D would kind of work with this.
03:34But it's a very screenplay heavy film, isn't it in that sense?
03:36So it works.
03:37And also you mentioned the three characters and of course they famously fell out with
03:40each other, Richard Dreyfuss.
03:43But when you're watching it, you sort of learn more about them through those incidental
03:47bits of character about whether one of them has ever been in the water or is frightened
03:51of water.
03:52And the way in which actually it's about overcoming that sort of sense of fear.
03:56Yeah, yeah.
03:57Absolutely.
03:58So you've got these three kind of main characters.
04:01You've got Robert Shaw as Quint, who is this kind of grizzled war veteran who, you know,
04:09talking about the screenplay, you've got that fabulous speech written by John Milius
04:13about the sinking of the, I'm trying to remember the name of the ship now, that had sort of
04:19delivered the atomic bomb during the Second World War.
04:24You've got the character of Hooper, who is a much younger man.
04:26I'd assume he's around 30-ish.
04:29So if you were to jump back sort of five, six, seven years, he'd be part of that kind
04:33of hippie generation maybe.
04:36He's from a rich family.
04:38He's all about the technology as well.
04:40And then you've got Roy Scheider as Chief Brody, who is an outsider.
04:50You know, he has come to this island, but he's not part of this community.
04:53He's ridiculed by the community for not wanting to go into the water.
04:57He's quite ineffectual in some ways at the beginning.
05:00You know, when you get those initial shark attacks.
05:02He's sort of dancing around on the beach, almost unwilling to even get his feet wet.
05:07And so there's almost that sense of, in Hooper and in Quince, you've got those two very different
05:14kind of male role models, whose kind of influence combines in some way for Brody to kind of
05:20become the hero at the end of the movie.
05:23And that's what makes a film work so well, isn't it?
05:25You've got this character trajectory.
05:28You've got somebody who has to confront something from outside of their comfort zone in order
05:34to do something effectual, to flip what you said earlier.
05:37Yeah.
05:38Yeah, absolutely.
05:39You know, there is...
05:44You get kind of real insights into these characters as well, don't you?
05:47I mean, you know, I mentioned with Quince, who seems kind of a terrifying figure.
05:53There's that moment where he scrapes his fingernails down the blackboard to get everyone's attention.
05:59He is the only one who is unflustered by what is going on here.
06:06But by the end, you realise that he is a kind of deeply traumatised figure in many ways.
06:14He is seeking, like Captain Ahab, that kind of vengeance against this shark for what has
06:22happened during the war and what happens to his comrades.
06:26And a great Moby Dicker association.
06:28Well, it's time now to move on to your second chosen film, and you've gone for Mad Max 2.
06:35Yes.
06:36Fascinated that you've gone for this.
06:37You didn't go for Jaws 2 or Jaws 4, The Revenge.
06:40No, no.
06:41But you've gone for Mad Max 2, The Road Warrior.
06:43Yeah.
06:44I wanted to choose something that...
06:50So essentially, a lot of my viewing as a teenager was of 80s action films, and cinemas
06:59were kind of full of them at that particular time.
07:06I've chosen this because in many ways it kind of feels so different.
07:13So the first Mad Max is you've kind of got the remnants of a society that is disintegrating.
07:21Max played by Mel Gibson is essentially a police officer who is policing the highways,
07:30sort of chasing down gangs of bandits, essentially, who have emerged in the aftermath of some
07:38kind of crisis which has led to oil shortages and so on.
07:42But it's still got recognisable elements of society in there.
07:47To get away from the stress of it, they actually go on vacation and sort of go out into the
07:53country where they fall foul of one of these biker gangs.
07:58By the time you get to the second one, Max has kind of retreated into the wastelands.
08:07You have an action film that is kind of pure action.
08:15It's a very tight film.
08:16It's about an hour and a half.
08:18There's not a wasted moment in there.
08:21The dialogue is quite sparse.
08:25Another reason that I chose it, trying to limit my choices for the films that I was
08:31going to look at, I briefly considered some of those spaghetti westerns from the 1960s,
08:36the Clint Eastwood ones, and there are elements of The Man With No Name about Max's character.
08:44But also you have got that sense that, particularly if you compare it with modern cinema, there
08:55is sometimes a tendency for overkill for films that last two hours, 40 minutes or something
09:03like that.
09:05I saw The New Mission Impossible the other day and it's nearly three hours long and that's
09:08only part one.
09:11What we've got here is something that is so focused on just kind of moving the story along
09:18that has these sort of fantastic car chases that just look so dangerous that you wonder
09:26how no one was hurt in making them.
09:30You've got these sort of interesting communities that are emerging within the film itself.
09:41So you have got the villains of the piece.
09:47So essentially, if you think about the plot, Max is kind of driving around the wasteland
09:53looking for food and looking for fuel.
09:55He comes across an old oil refinery in which a group of survivors have kind of holed up
10:05and they've kind of created a defensive position and they're being surrounded by this much
10:14larger gang led by these monstrous figures who want to get hold of the gasoline.
10:24Classic western scenario in many ways.
10:26And I was just thinking as well, George Miller who made Mad Max, which is a beast work, a
10:30very different kind of genre but a mishmash of different elements, and Babe later on.
10:35So I was always interested in how that one director had done some quite diverse films
10:39but actually you've just brought out some of those common tropes.
10:42Yeah, absolutely.
10:43I mean I think that idea of, again, something very common to the western, the idea of the
10:50traumatised figure, often a war veteran who retreats to the frontier in order to sort
10:57of find themselves again.
10:59So if you think of some of those Anthony Mann westerns from the 1950s with James Stewart,
11:05if you think of Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josie Wales or even Kevin Costner in Dances
11:14With Wolves, that idea that you are kind of traumatised by these experiences and you
11:20have to go to the very edges of society in order to find yourself again.
11:26Brilliant.
11:27No, really good choice.
11:28Well that's about all the time we have for this first half of the show.
11:32However before we go to the break we have a Kent Film trivia question for you at home.
11:39In the mid-2000s Canterbury Cathedral paid homage to which film?
11:43Was it A. I Could Go On Singing, B. A Canterbury Tale or C. Murder in the Cathedral?
11:51We'll reveal the answer right after this break.
11:54Don't go away.
11:55Hello and welcome back to Kent Film Club.
12:09Just before the ad break we asked you at home a Kent Film trivia question.
12:13In the mid-2000s Canterbury Cathedral paid homage to which film?
12:17I asked was it A. I Could Go On Singing, B. A Canterbury Tale or C. Murder in the Cathedral?
12:23And now I can reveal to you that the answer was in fact B. A Canterbury Tale.
12:27The Cathedral screened the film to an audience in the Cathedral nave.
12:32Did you get the answer right?
12:34Well it is time now to move on to your next chosen film David and you've gone for The
12:40Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
12:43Yes.
12:44So this is a film made by Michael Powell and Emmerich Pressburger.
12:51Michael Powell obviously a director with very local links to the Canterbury area.
12:58I very nearly chose A Canterbury Tale actually but I think this is, while it's a film I love,
13:04I think The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a better film.
13:09So it's released in 1943, obviously during the Second World War where you have a certain
13:15amount of government oversight over filmmaking during this period.
13:18There's a list of directives that filmmakers have to follow to try and sort of toe the
13:23line in terms of propaganda.
13:24It's based on a cartoon character created by David Lowe who was a kind of representation
13:31of the establishment.
13:32So often a figure who is quite sort of mean spirited and nasty and kind of representative
13:39of things that need to be resolved in society.
13:43So Powell and Pressburger kind of take this character of Colonel Blimp, very much soften
13:47him by casting Roger Livesey as the role of Candy.
13:51And it's a film that takes place over a period of around 40 years.
13:57There's an interesting framing narrative in which the character of Colonel Candy, now
14:03in the Home Guards sort of during the Second World War, is meant to be taking part in operations,
14:09a training exercise with the regular army.
14:15The instructions have been that war will start at midnight and the regular army decide
14:21that because the Nazis don't play by the rules, we can't play by the rules.
14:26And so several hours before they grab Candy from his Turkish bar.
14:32And that leads to a sort of flashback essentially.
14:36So that's kind of the framing narrative.
14:37And you follow this character through 40 years.
14:39You follow him through the Boer War, through the First World War and through the Second
14:42World War.
14:43And it starts as a young man who goes out to Germany.
14:47He is warned by a British governess who is working in Germany that there is someone over
14:53in Germany who is talking down and producing propaganda against the British sort of during
14:58the Boer War.
14:59So he goes over there to sort of sort it out.
15:01Ends up offending the entirety of the German armed forces and has to fight a duel.
15:06And he fights a duel against a character called Theo Kretschmar-Schulldorf, who's played by
15:13Anton Warbrook.
15:15Anton Warbrook is an Austrian actor, is gay, has fled the Nazis as they've kind of risen
15:24to power and becomes quite famous in Britain for sort of twice appearing as Prince Albert.
15:33So he fights this duel with Kretschmar-Schulldorf and then we trace their friendship over the
15:38next 40 years.
15:40That sense of defeat that Theo has at the end of the First World War, he's the prisoner
15:45of war.
15:46And then when he comes back into Britain during the Second World War as a refugee from Nazi
15:51Germany.
15:52You also trace through three characters all played by Deborah Karr, Candy's unrequited
15:58love for the governess, who I mentioned earlier.
16:02And as you were saying that, it made me think of A Matter of Life and Death as well, which
16:05deals with some of those same themes and of course also big wartime propaganda coming
16:09out as it did as it turned out right at the tail end of the Second World War.
16:12Yeah, absolutely.
16:13So I think there are similar themes.
16:16I think there is much more of a theme in A Matter of Life and Death about sort of Anglo-American
16:23cooperation towards the end of the war, which you get a little bit in A Canterbury Tale
16:27as well.
16:28I think less so in Colonel Blim.
16:30And in fact, the film is kind of butchered for the American market.
16:34They cut quite a bit out of it and then even later when they decide that they're going
16:37to show it on television, they cut it down from about 150 minutes to 90 minutes.
16:42So I don't think this quite has the same resonance in the United States that something like A
16:48Matter of Life and Death would have.
16:49Yeah.
16:50Would you sort of rate this as one of the greatest war films?
16:54It's quite a complicated film because it's also very much a biographical film about the
16:58different eras, the different wars that he has witnessed.
17:01Yeah.
17:02Yeah, absolutely.
17:03It's about kind of shaking off that mindset, whether it really existed or not, but that
17:08idea that you must fight war fairly and to realise that this current war, the Second
17:13World War, the stakes are much kind of greater than that.
17:16It is a war film.
17:17There are sort of scenes set in the trenches.
17:21You've got that fantastic relationship that he has with Murdoch, who's his Batman, played
17:26by John Lurie, who's probably most famous for Dad's army.
17:30So you've got that kind of legacy of conflict.
17:33It's a very eccentric film as well.
17:35The jumps between the time periods are illustrated by the sudden appearance of all of the animals
17:40that he has shot sort of on hunting expeditions that suddenly appear and line the walls.
17:46You've got that tracing of changes in society, so you have got that shift with Deborah Carr's
17:52character in which she starts as a governess, Edith, who requires Candy to kind of come
18:03in and try and resolve this situation in Germany and he blusters in and kind of makes it worse.
18:09You then have the next character is Barbara Wynne.
18:13So again, Deborah Carr playing a nurse during the First World War.
18:16So again, taking on a new role on the fighting front.
18:19And then when you get to Angela, who is his driver during the Second World War, so is
18:23presumably in the ATS, goes by a masculine name.
18:28She likes to be called Johnny and is illustrative of those new roles that women are taking during
18:33wartime as well.
18:34So a huge amount of cinema history in all of that.
18:38Well it is time now to move on to your final chosen film.
18:42And you've gone for a film that was chosen not all that long ago on this very programme
18:45and it's With Nail and I.
18:47Yes.
18:48A fantastic film.
18:53Very funny, but also very melancholy.
18:57I was trying to think of some of the connecting themes between some of the films that I'm
19:02looking at.
19:03And that idea of passing time, of eras changing, I think is shared between this and Colonel
19:13Blim.
19:14The film is set at a very particular time.
19:16It's the sort of the tail end of 1969.
19:20The dream of the 1960s is ending.
19:23And it's interesting, you know, when people kind of talk about that period, they talk
19:26about sort of major events signalling the end of the 60s.
19:30What we've got here is everything is kind of fizzling out.
19:33You've got these two out-of-work drunken actors in Camden in 1969 who decide that they kind
19:41of need a break and they need to get away to the country.
19:46And so one of the characters, With Nail, basically kind of blags his uncle's cottage and they
19:58kind of head up to Penrith.
20:00By mistake, of course.
20:01By mistake.
20:02Yes.
20:03Yes.
20:04So it's a very interesting film, I think, in that sense, again, similarly with Colonel
20:07Blim.
20:08One of the reasons that I chose it is because your interpretation of it sort of shifts as
20:12you get older.
20:13Yeah, because that's an important thing, because it was made in 87 or thereabouts.
20:17And it's set in 1969, the end of one era.
20:20But have you noticed through the, I'm assuming, the many times that you've watched it, that
20:24there has been this sort of shift, this, you know, the sense of different eras in your
20:30own life, maybe, that the film at different points, because it's a very rite of passage
20:33movie really, has encapsulated.
20:35It is.
20:36Yeah.
20:37It's been an archetypal student film for many years.
20:41I'm not sure how many students actually watch it now, but I remember in about 99, Channel
20:464 had a Withnail evening and showed various documentaries.
20:50And as part of those documentaries, they had groups of students reciting lines from the
20:56film itself.
20:57And it kind of starts off, I think, when you watch it as a teenager, it's just incredibly
21:04funny.
21:05It is foul mouth.
21:06It's extremely witty.
21:07You've got lots of characters who are, you know, very down on their luck, but are kind
21:11of erudite enough to comment very funnily on what is going wrong for them.
21:16I think as you kind of get older, you sort of realize there's that sense of melancholy
21:23to it.
21:24You know, you've got a fantastic score by David Dundas, which is almost like a sort
21:30of circus music or carnival music.
21:33You've got that sense that the London they're living in.
21:35There's lots of shots of wrecking balls, smashing old houses, that, you know, this is something
21:40that is kind of coming to an end.
21:41The character of Uncle Monty himself is someone who, I guess when you're about 18 or 19, seems
21:49just a ridiculous figure, but becomes in some ways quite more sympathetic.
21:54You know, some of those lines about aging that he has, you know, there comes a time
21:58in a young man's life when he looks at himself and realizes, I shall never play the Dane.
22:02But, you know, it's utterly ridiculous, but also that...
22:05But you also feel with Richard E. Grant's character that he is perhaps one day going
22:09to morph into that similar sort of mould, and I suppose in terms of his own acting career,
22:15he's often played some of those more veteran-type roles, those worldly wise characters.
22:20Yes.
22:21Yeah, absolutely.
22:22And in many ways, Worthenale is a kind of reprehensible character.
22:25You know, he manipulates his uncle to kind of get this cottage.
22:30There's some wonderful acting in there, so kind of the film really kind of ends with
22:35Marwood getting a role, presumably in Journey's End.
22:40You see him reading it, they talk about him going off to play a soldier.
22:43And I think there's some interesting themes with Journey's End, actually, that you've
22:48got those characters in Journey's End, you've got Raleigh, the idealistic sort of young
22:52soldier who comes in and wants to be in the same unit with Stanhope, this boy he has idolized
22:59at school, who is now, has turned to drink because he has the experiences of the First
23:07World War.
23:08Sorry, I link everything back to the First World War.
23:10So, you know, there is that sense that kind of Marwood outgrows him, and that he has to
23:14shake off the influence of this friend in order to move on and succeed, and you've got
23:20that sense that Worthenale realises this.
23:22You know, there's some fantastic acting in there when Richard E. Grant congratulates
23:26him on his role, on winning the role, and you can see the disappointment in his face
23:30at the same time.
23:31Yeah, it's a brilliant choice.
23:32Well, I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today.
23:35Many thanks to David Budgen for joining us and being such a brilliant guest, and many
23:39thanks to you all for tuning in.
23:41Be sure to come back and join us again at the same time next week.
23:45Until then, that's all from us.
23:47Goodbye.