Nobody Knows What He Does

I don’t know exactly what it is about ‘Sebastian’, but I really, really like it. Ostensibly a somewhat frothy mix of Swinging London tropes and Cold War cliché, there’s an element of truth in its somewhat patchy narrative that I find irresistible. It also has really good music, mainly by the amazing American composer Jerry Goldsmith, with some electronics from Tristram Cary.

Dirk Bogarde stars as Sebastian, a supercilious academic who just happens to be the Government’s top code breaker, presiding over an all-female staff in some anonymous London skyscraper. These days I suppose he’d have Asperger’s or something but, in 1968, he’s simply portrayed as a spiky super genius with commitment issues, some odd bod habits and horrible wallpaper that he hasn’t even noticed.

Into his drab and monomaniacal life drops Susannah York, a dizzy dolly with a penchant for direct action and tiny dresses. When he realises she can make a dozen words out of ‘thorough’ without blinking, he immediately adds her to his pool of clever ladies (women are better are cracking codes, apparently), but his interest in her is always more than professional, which is not particularly surprising as she is absolutely adorable.  Things become complicated when an old flame is forced to sell him out to the Enemy, and things get really weird when the other side feed him LSD and try to get him to jump off a roof on the pretext that he can fly*.

It’s an all over the place sort of thing, half based on the true life exploits of Leo Marks (look him up – fascinating fellow), half seemingly made up on the spot. It struggles to decide what it's really about, and giddily (and endearingly) veers between genres and styles and changes tone from scene to scene. But everyone in it is good, and Bogarde and York make a lovely couple, however unlikely the pairing may initially seem. 

As you may recall, Bogarde grew to despise the ‘triviality’ of his early films so, after the mid-sixties, went all out to star in as many ‘masterpieces’ as possible, with often quite tedious results. ‘Sebastian’ is slap bang in the middle, a frivolous masterpiece, if you will**. I love it, not just because the marvellous Michael Powell had a hand in it, but also because, every time I watch it, frothy and a bit giddy or not, I just really ENJOY it.
  

* This is the only film in which Dirk Bogarde trips his tits off on acid although, in ‘The Mind Benders’, he does trip his tits off in a flotation tank.

** Bogarde described the film as a 'non event', one of many things he and I differ on.

Sebastian

Space 1999: Black Sun

I’ve had a fair few pops at ‘Space 1999’ in the past, mainly because I see a lot of myself in it, i.e. it under-achieves and does stupid things. ‘Black Sun’, however, a Series One episode originally broadcast in November 1975, is not just good in series’ terms; it’s good in sci fi terms, too. Actually, it’s just good – no need for any further qualification.

When Moonbase Alpha finds itself drawn into the inexorable orbit of a black sun (that’s a thing, apparently) all they can do is sit around and wait to be crushed to death. Yes, Bergman rigs up a force field he hopes (but doesn’t really believe) will save them, and, yep, Helena and five others are chosen by the computer to be evacuated, but mostly the story is just a slow, patient, thoughtful countdown to inevitable destruction, which makes for enough drama that there’s no need for the usual pyrotechnics and poorly choreographed fights the show tends to use as filler in lieu of story. The lights on Alpha slowly go out and the doomed crew just sit together and think about what might have been, or noodle around on guitars and look wistfully at each other. Commander Koening and Profesor Bergman smoke cigars and get pissed up and philosophical on sixty year old brandy.

When Moonbase finally enters the black sun, things go weird and bendy wendy: the crew become transparent, and put on plastic old person masks and freak each other out. Then an ancient looking Koenig and Bergman have a chat with a nice lady God who gives them a few free pointers about the nature of existence. These scenes are silly, but because the story has slowly built up to them, they don’t seem ridiculous. It even makes sense in a way, even though much of it is nonsensical – a sort of contextual, logical daftness which the programme most often lacks.  

Too quickly, the trip through the psychedelic unknown concludes with the Moon safely exiting the black sun through the back door and everything goes back to normal, well, as normal as it can be when you've just tripped your its off and ended up in a completely different universe. Koening and Berman don’t even have a hangover.

As a postscript, the happy ending is made even happier when Helena and the rest of the evacuees come back in a surprise return that wasn’t actually possible, isn’t really explained and definitely doesn’t matter.
After all, as a tired and emotional Professor Bergman said the night before ‘there is a thin line between science and mysticism’ and, as usual, he was absolutely right.    

A Field Near You

From July 5th, Ben Wheatley's new film 'A Field In England' will be available to watch in cinemas, on Film Four, on DVD and Blu Ray and on things called Video On Demand sites. 

Wheatley is the most exciting film prospect this country has had in years, and I find the promise of his latest work, with its 'Witchfinder General' hats, magick, mushrooms and madness, so exciting that I shall be going to bed early tonight just to make tomorrow come quicker.

Just in case you're still not decided, here's a trailer that Julian House did for it. The first time I saw this I had to hold onto something to stop myself from swooning. 

Tomorrow Has No Idea

We've looked at psychedelic Beatles cartoons before, remember, and this one is for perhaps their most psychedelic song ever, the astonishing 'Tomorrow Never Knows'. John Lennon envisaged this song as a call to prayer from the Dalai Lama, echoing and reverberating through the Himalayas to the faithful below. At no point did he ever mention falling down a hole into the middle of the world whilst out on a ramble, go go dancing natives or dinosaurs, 'cause I would have remembered.

Strawberry Fields Whatever

I'm not a huge Beatles fan, by any means, but as a kid starting to learn about music, I was fascinated by their transition from cheery moptops to hollow eyed dope fiends and the desolate sounding psychedelic records they made whilst under the influence. At the time, I associated hallucogenic drugs with madness and darkness and all those newspaper taxis and fish and finger pies presented a world that unsettled me - perhaps not a bad trip, but certainly a very bad dream.

From 1965 to 1967, the Fab Four had their very own American syndicated cartoon. Produced by the King Brothers, it was pure cash in trash, and the group had virtually nothing to do with it other than lending their music and likenesses - but obviously not their voices which, as presented here, are fundamentally wrong in every respect. Each show was  loosely and crassly based around a Beatles song, and also featured a 'sing-a-long' where random images acompanied a tune as the lyrics ran across the screen.

Despite the group's real life evolution over the show's two year run, the cartoon Beatles remained resolutely stuck in 1964/65 - mop topped, sharp suited and with the individual roles they had created when they still cared about stuff like that - John the acerbic leader, Paul the boyish charmer, George the deep one / mystic (he is given what sounds like an Indian accent) and Ringo the loveable lackwit.

When faced with the disparity between their mass market, cheapo product and the increasingly sophisticated image and odder and odder music of its inspiration, King Brothers did what any production company would do - they went quietly mental...
  

I've always thought that there was something dead at the centre of 'Strawberry Fields Forever', anyway - a sort of blank, burned out horror and, somehow, this garish, childish, baffling cartoon seems the perfect accompaniment.

As cartoon John says in the show in his stupid half toff, half cockney voice: 'it's all in the mind, you know'. Nothing is real.