Page 18 - Floreat - Academic Enrichment Lent 2021

Mr Stone
Talking Pictures is a wonderful film channel which plays some brilliant films and well worth a look. Indeed just the other day I saw one of my favourites, It’s a Gift which stars W.C. Fields a superb comic actor.
https://talkingpicturestv.co.uk/
However my favourite film genre is the western and the best of all is The Good, the Bad and the Ugly which is the final film in the ‘Dollars Trilogy’. An Italian film directed by Sergio Leone and staring Clint Eastwood.
The music written by Ennio Morricone is wonderful. If you find you enjoy westerns I know Mr Jeffries is a big fan of The Searchers and I would also recommend The Magnificent Seven (the original 1960 film of course).
If you have not read it you might enjoy A Pattern of Islands by Sir Arthur Grimble.
It is about the authors time when Resident Commissioner on the Pacific Islands of Gilbert and Ellice. The account of the octopus and indeed shark fishing technique is incredible.
Mr D Seal
My book would be The Water of the Hills, by Marcel Pagnol. This contains Jean de Florette and Manon of the Springs. It is set in the Provence hills in the 1920s or 30s. It’s about the life of the peasant villagers, rivalry between villages and the relationships between the people in one particular village. To me it’s just an absolutely brilliant story brilliantly told.
The films based on these 2 stories are just as good as the books. Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources (both in French) with Yves Montand and Gérard Depardieu. The photography is outstanding, you’re taken straight into the time and place. The main protagonists, the Papet and Gallinette want to grow carnations (to make lots of money) but carnations need lots of water and they don’t have a spring on their land. By blocking a neighbour’s spring they buy his land at a cheap price, and then unblock the spring and... voila, happy days, it’s carnations everywhere. Of course, these events have consequences for all concerned...
Other films I’d recommend:
There Will Be Blood – worth watching for Daniel Day Lewis alone. A story about the discovery of oil and what it does to the man who discovers it.
A Touch of Evil – Orson Welles film about a corrupt politician in a town in the US/Mexico border. Stars Orson Welles as the overweight and rather unattractive politician, and a young Charlton Heston fighting him. It’s in black and white but don’t let that put you off. The opening sequence is legendary.
I don’t have any favourite TV series, except Father Ted, but that goes without saying!
I’ve just finished To Purge This Land With Blood by Stephen Oates. Really good. I think Oates really admired many aspects of John Brown – his single- minded energy mostly. Brown was an obstinate man though who never listened to anybody else. Hence several failed businesses, bankruptcy, etc. And
everything was ‘God’s will’, which means he could divert responsibility for his actions. It also suggests he wanted to provoke civil war and this was his main purpose – he knew his raid on Harper’s Ferry would fail but the reaction from both sides of the slavery fence would be extreme, eventually leading to a break up of the union.
Mr P Seal
Flaubert - Madame Bovary. Flaubert is the master of prose style, and he puts it to outrageous use in this tale of middle class dissatisfaction and extra-affairs, including happenings in a horse-drawn coach. A transcendentally light touch.
Tolstoy - Anna Karenina. Call me predictable but it's simply the greatest novel of all time. Tolstoy doesn't so much write as make life happen on the page. This is even sharper and more refined than War and Peace.
Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment. If you go down the Russian novel route, check out George Steiner's tour de force essay, 'Tolstoy or Dostoevsky'. Where Tolstoy is measured and broad, Dostoevsky is restless and angry. This novel explores Nietzsche's idea of the 'will to power'. Can a 'great person' ever be considered beyond the law?
Steinbeck: The Old Man and the Sea. Read it in one go. 27,000 utterly readable words about a man, a boy, and their quest to (yes, that's right) catch a fish. Maritime description like no other. Like Adele's performance at the Brit Awards in 2011, you don't need artistic gimmicks when the core quality is as good as this.
Elena Ferrante: Just anything she's written. For an uncompromising, furious account of female experience that, like Flaubert, gets into the category of the transcendent sublime. Ferrante's writing style is superficially unremarkable, but read her prose for five minutes and you will find yourself somewhere else.
Dickens: again, anything, but Bleak House if you are ambitious. Literary types can tend to be over-serious; Dickens isn't. Look out for subtle humour that you might miss. Look for the deft touch of characterization so simple and brief that it can be mistaken for caricature.
Mr Smith
Duck Soup (1933). For fits of laughter I would recommend you watch the Marx brothers’ finest film ‘Duck Soup’ – their wit and wisdom makes it a must-see film for lockdown!
What I Learned from my Teacher...
Floreat ⏐ Academic Enrichment Programme ⏐ Lent Term 2021 P18