Shadows Everywhere

“I had paid my last farewell to Harry a week ago when his coffin was lowered into the frozen February ground, so that it was with incredulity that I saw him pass by without sign of recognition, among the host of strangers in the Strand.”

The name Harry will probably give the game away and will almost certainly be given completely when I say that the sentence was written on the flap of an envelope by Graham Greene. That was the origin of the best British film ever made and I bet you a pound to a schilling that when the words 'The Third Man' are read you will hear that zither for the rest of the day.

I’m not going to go over the plot as most people will know it and for those who haven’t seen the film then I don’t want to spoil the treat that you will have in front of you. Suffice it to say that the story is based in Vienna after the end of the Second World War when the city was bombed out. Shadows are everywhere, the city itself becomes a character in the film.

Much of the shooting was done at night, turning the streets into a labyrinth of darkness and light. Shadows sweep across buildings, and increasingly raked camera angles highlight not only the twists and turns of the story but the stunning street-wide views of Vienna, lavish interior design and images that perfectly juxtapose the city’s beauty with the rubble and ruins that scarred it during the war.

The director, Carol Reed, also uses shadows of the characters, showing them in silhouette or their figures cast across stone walls. The interplay of light and shadow is so vital to the whole structure of the film in that it juxtaposes perception and reality, the stresses of waiting or action, old and new morality, East and West, not the first or second man but the third.

Reed managed to achieve much of the above by teaming up with Robert Krasker who used black and white expressionist cinematography with harsh lighting and Dutch angle camera techniques. This use of shadows and angles to create feelings of unease and discomfort is a basic of film noir. Dutch angles are when the camera is tilted on its side.

I came across a good tip when I was looking into the history of the film and that is you have to watch it with the lights off or you will miss the deep, silken blacks and the subtle gradations of shadow to ambient glare. The critic also mentions how slowly a scene can take to unfold, this does not cause boredom as each character, and hence yourself, is waiting on pins and needles as the tension builds.

I was using the critic’s words when she mentioned ‘ambient light’ above but whenever I think of the tone or colour of the film I think ‘grey’. Just for the sake of it I tried to, off the top of my head, to think of a film that conjures up the opposite feeling and I came up with ‘West Side Story’.

The title of the film achieved the distinction of entering the English language almost immediately (in 1949). Again off the top of my head I’m thinking ‘Catch 22’, ‘The Full Monty’, ‘Groundhog Day’.

Back to 'The Third Man '. I would urge those who have seen it before and those who haven’t seen it at all to watch the film now. I need to know someone else can’t get rid of that zither music.

Just to make it clear, the poem is not to do with 'The Third Man ', so I’m not giving any plot spoilers.

Aberystwyth

You’re not looking back,
turning the corner
in the shadows
of a street lamp,
your daft bag glistening
in the fine rain
of a fine town,
cooling the night,
setting a scene
where I’m pointing,
telling the crew
it’s a single take,
black background,
light drained,
the sound of waves
hits the cutting room floor,
all the screen is yours,
just do nothing.

For I know the movie,
I’ve seen it before,
we’ve seen it today
where a girl leaves,
there’s a guy from the past,
the phone rings
and it’s all over
in ninety minutes.

So keep going,
let me finish,
it’s my shot
and I don’t want you
looking back.

     (first published in Poetry Monthly, 2008)

Thanks for reading, Terry.

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Pastiche- I get it now.

In the late 1960s and early 70s,  my study of English Literature was peppered with novels,  short stories, poetry and plays.  Each academic year I was entertained by at least two Shakespeare plays, a novel by Charles Dickens and poetry by the Romantics.  Some of the stories were familiar to me and this was because of my family’s dedication to cinema and in particular musicals. My elder sister Lesley was a keen student of ballet and tap under the tuition of Blackpool ballet mistress, Elsie Bradley.  By age fourteen Lesley danced on her points, had cameo roles in the Blackpool Children’s Pantomime and danced every Summer Season in the cast of the Tower Ballet, first as a tiny tot and eventually in quartets and duets.  She was a lovely dancer.  

In 1962, my father took licence of a public house in St Helens and unfortunately Lesley didn’t like the new ballet school, (it is hard to go from being a teacher’s favourite to the new girl), declared she hated it and that was that.  Any thoughts of a career in dance evaporated overnight and despite one sojourn in an amateur production of The White Horse Inn, she didn’t dance again.  Our love of musicals was fed by the cinematic journey.  The 1960s were awash with Broadways musicals transformed for Technicolor by Hollywood. We two sisters lapped them up.  

In 1970 I was reading aloud in English: A passage from Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, when suddenly the voice of Eliza Doolittle was transformed into a cockney twang.  Immediately I was playing Audrey Hepburn, the most beautiful and glamorous actress that I had ever seen. Lerner and Lowes pastiche of Shaw’s remarkable play was transformational for me.  I had already seen My Fair Lady at the cinema.  I knew every song, almost every line and I understood the nature of all the characters.  

I had started at Elmslie Girl’s Grammar School as a naturally very bright, scholarship holder with an acquired Liverpool accent and what was more of a strain for my headmistress than my, already blossoming, career in International dance.  It had been made clear to me, before I was offered a place at the school, that if the standard of my school work should deteriorate due to dancing, that the dancing would stop.  Mum and Dad were surprised that I even considered agreement to Miss Oldham’s terms but it made me all the more determined to succeed at both.  

Pygmalion was a turning point.  A working class girl in a public school, intelligent but awkward, playing the role written for me by others.  Suddenly I knew how to live in both worlds.  I became a living pastiche.  I let the school and the world of dance transform me into from ugly duckling into a swan and I soared.  Unfortunately, there is a point in every play, musical or novel when the heroine has to choose, when the pressures of living two lives become too much.  For me, academia and dance were suddenly ripped apart by a seemingly unrelated issue. My sister married.

She could no longer drive me to lessons on the Wirral every Saturday, my twice weekly practice sessions in Manchester were out of the question and gradually, my international competition career went out of the window.  By now I was living in a village inn near Blackpool and my dance partner lived in Stoke on Trent.  The only way to keep up the standard was to travel to his parent’s house every weekend by coach and return on Sunday evening. Inevitably homework suffered and I had to decide.  Despite our success in reaching the British Junior Finals at only thirteen, I had to split with John and give up competitive dance.  He found a new partner and went on to be Ballroom Professional World Champion.  By then he was 6’ 2” and as I never grew above 5’2” the split up was inevitable but at the time I was devastated and totally lost.  

I did return to dance but it was always as a shadow of the dancer that I knew I should be. I found a semi –professional partner who had a cabaret contract. It was not enough and by 16 I was qualified to teach and running a Saturday morning class for kids in the village.  I taught for a while in the South but my heart was still in competition and performance.  When my mother fell ill, I gave up completely and settled into an office.

This week I am taking to the stage in two performances of Die Fledermaus at Thornton Little Theatre. On 'Black Friday', 9 May 1873, the Viennese Stock Exchange crashed, spreading gloom and despair. The shockwaves were also felt by Vienna's theatres, which experienced falling box-office receipts. Anxious to remedy this potentially disastrous situation, theatre managements eagerly sought out productions that would attract audiences back into their establishments. Johan Stauss operetta was a pastiche of a French play adapted as a libretto.  The success of Die Fledermaus was incredible. The overture was a sensation.

 

 

 

 

Musica Lirica's Musical Director, Michael Hall and his wife Fran's styling on this production of Die Fledermaus is way out there: True to the orchestration and lyrics and music with an English translation and a thrilling ‘Steam Punk’ style. I hope that some of you will come along either this evening or tomorrow at 7.30pm. In a pastiche of my own life, I am cast as ‘The Dance Mistress’.  I have no poem to express the joy at 58 of being able to dance without tears in my eyes. Thank you both Fran and Mike for helping me to be a swan again, just for a while.

As always, thanks for reading.  Adele

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