Och Aye the Noo

Film: Tunes of Glory
Format: DVD from Netflix on laptop.

I think you can be forgiven if you, as I did, think that a film called Tunes of Glory was bound to be a musical. Truthfully, it’s a reason I haven’t been that keen to track it down. I mean, I knew I’d get to it eventually, but I wasn’t necessarily on the lookout for it. Still, the Oscar list is getting smaller and smaller, so there are fewer places for odd films to hide. When this showed up from NetFlix, I figured I’d roll the dice and hope that at least the songs would be good.

Well, Tunes of Glory is not a musical. It’s also not a war film despite taking place virtually entirely within the context of a military battalion. It’s also not quite a character study, although in some ways it would very much like to be. While it’s not a story that would be classified as a war story, it is about a war of wills between two men who are broken in very different ways.

For Art's Sake

Films: The Horse’s Mouth
Format: Streaming video from Kanopy on laptop.

Alec Guinness was one of the great cinematic chameleons. Paul Muni could play just about any role, but so could Guinness, who was equally comfortable in comedy or drama and left an indelible impression on millions of childhoods in science fiction. His performance in The Bridge on the River Kwai is one of the greatest acting performances in cinematic history in my opinion. He plays a role as far from that in The Horse’s Mouth as possible in many ways. He also happened to pen the adapted (and nominated) screenplay.

Gulley Jimson (Guinness) is an eccentric and Bohemian artist who, as the film begins, has just been released from a month’s stint in prison after harassing one of his patrons via telephone. He’s greeted by Nosey (Mike Morgan), a young man with a stutter and the desire to be an artist himself. Gulley is alternately encouraging and cruel to the young boy. In fact, hoping to get away from him, he sends Nosey on an errand and steals the boy’s bike.

Schadenfreude

Film: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

I knew very little about The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie going in except that it starred the great Maggie Smith and that she won an Oscar for her performance. I’m predisposed to like Maggie Smith. Like many people, my knowledge of her modern work pretty much starts and ends with the Harry Potter movies, but seeing her work from half a century ago is enlightening in a lot of ways. Since she is playing a schoolteacher in this, there’s a bit of foreshadowing of Minerva McGonagall, which will almost certainly be the role for which she is eventually remembered.

Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith) teaches at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh where she openly defies what is expected of her in her lessons. She teaches girls at the junior level (roughly 9-13 years old), attempting to instill in them what she feels is important. This includes an appreciation of art, music, and some of life’s finer things. This is in direct contrast to the school’s main purpose of imbuing the girls with facts and skills necessary to be a proper Scottish lady in the 1930s. While the girls are drilled elsewhere in sewing, physical education, and basic science, Miss Brodie instead tries to fill them with culture and romance.