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I used to wonder why Mark Kermode wasn't on television more. Was he hideously ugly? Did he have 'a face for radio'? Or did he just prefer radio? He's on telly more now and it turns out he's perfectly acceptable looking, he may not have the looks of some of the matinee idols whose films he can be quite, correctly, cruel about but he's a natty dresser and he's not let himself go like many men in their fifties. A pitfall this author is beginning to negotiate himself. The jury is out on that for now.
He still seems to prefer the medium of radio, his Friday afternoon film reviews with Simon Mayo on BBC Radio 5 Live are great and you can even watch them on YouTube clips, but when he does make one of his occasional appearances on TV it's usually worth tuning in.
One such occasion was BBC4's recent Mark Kermode's Secrets of the Cinema, a five parter that took apart various long established and accepted film genres and looked at the nuts and bolts they're built with, how they worked. The fact that Kermode's name was in the title of the show proves him to be a major selling point and judging by the set (all the cliched things that make up a movie man's lot:- directors' chairs, spools of tape, and overly powerful lights) it seems safe to assume that his fee was, the multiple film clips aside, probably the biggest outlay that the programme makers had.
I speculate wildly, of course. I've no idea how much they paid him but he was probably worth it. He's good, he is, Kermode. He knows his onions and, more importantly for us, he knows his cinema history. Which is just as well as films about onions, or even featuring onions in any major role, are few and far between.
Each episode is built around a similar, and pretty straightforward, format. Kermode looks at the separate parts of the film and shows how films in each particular genre have been historically constructed, how these methods have developed or been twisted, and then we get to see lots of lovely clips of some of our favourite films, some less impressive films, and many films that we've never got round to seeing. Even a few we've never heard of.
So in episode one, devoted to the romcom, we hear how boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again - the end. All romcoms are built on that very basic structure or some kind of variation of it. Sometimes boy meets boy, sometimes girl meets girl, sometimes boy/girl meets fish as clips from The Shape of Water prove.
We're also treated to excerpts of 500 Days of Summer, Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, The Big Sick, The Philadelphia Story, You've Got Mail, Letter to Brezhnev, The Gold Rush, and Splash which Kermode rates as an all time favourite. When Harry Met Sally, too, is eulogized about and the quote from that film's writer Nora Ephron, "destiny is something we've invented because we can't stand the fact that everything happens is accidental", says a lot about our attraction to the romcom.
We want to believe that life is romantic and we want to believe that all the pain and heartbreak we suffer will be rewarded in the end. It's rarely true in life. That's why we stare at the silver screen. To be transported. It's a form of a magical realism in that people who don't look too different to us, perhaps they have better teeth and more expensive dresses, and who don't lead lives too different than ours somehow manage to eventually succeed in their romantic endeavours as long as they're kind, as long as they're brave. We only need to look at the President of the United States of America to know that, in reality, we live in a world where wilfully ignorant and cruel bastards tend to win.
Often romcoms will reference earlier romantic comedies, they'll regularly feature the cast breaking into song and dance routines (La La Land, Grease (which didn't feature - why?), Bollywood films, Fred'n'Ginger in Top Hat), there may be a 'meet-cute' (When Harry Met Sally's an example but we've got our own personal ones, I have anyway), and often the female side of the equation will be represented by the 'manic pixie dream girl' (Annie Hall, Bringing Up Baby, The Lady Eve). A gay best friend is another popular trope to the extent that, in 2003, Darren Stein even made a movie called G.B.F. (Gay Best Friend).
These days gay people are even 'allowed' to fall in love themselves in the movies. But the rules don't change for them. There still has to be an 'obstacle' to love. These 'complications' can come in the form of parents or already existing, and always unsuitable, partners. Bill Pullman (Sleepless in Seattle, While You Were Sleeping) was, in the nineties, that master of being jilted for more exciting men. Other times the unsuitable partner is worse than boring. They're abusive, violent, or inattentive.
But, of course, the biggest obstacle to true love is, always, ourselves. Our selfishness, our fear of commitment. I'm not embarrassed to admit that I've shunned the cynical attitude I used to protect me from hurt in my twenties and early thirties and can now enjoy the romance as much as the comedy in a romcom. Hell, even watching this Kristin Scott Thomas's scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral got me. The characters in Richard Curtis films may not be able to swear properly (have you ever actually heard anyone say "fuck-a-doodle-doo"?) but he is something of a master of the romcom. I watched Love Actually on a plane once and I'm blaming the altitude for my heightened emotional state but I actually found myself welling up during the rare moments I wasn't ogling Martine McCutcheon.
Later in life, Kermode suggests, reasonably if a little depressingly, love and sex are seen as ways to 'escape', or at least temporarily delay, the spectre of death. There's a dark side to some romcoms which you probably won't see in How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Bridget Jones's Diary, or Pretty Woman. In Groundhog Day, Bill Murray's character has to reach rock bottom, he even has to die several times, before he finally learns to live correctly, fulfil his potential, and win the heart of Andie MacDowell.
Elsewhere, elements of the romcom slip into films from other genres. Films like The Fly, The Phantom Thread, Punch-Drunk Love, Superman, Spiderman, and Black Panther, and even, and I'm really sad not to have seen this one, Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death.
How many times must I have dreamed of rushing across Waterloo Bridge in the rain as the realisation hits me that I'm just about to lose the love of my life only to find her, him (or it), running in the same direction. We meet in a passionate embrace as a boat passes silently below and the legend THE END comes up on the screen, the curtains close, and the lights come on revealing the cinema to be a large room of plush red flipback chairs cheapened by umpteen containers of half eaten popcorn.
That's why you should never let light in on magic. If, at my advancing age, a romantic clinch on Waterloo Bridge is starting to look increasingly unlikely then the likelihood of being called up to take part in a heist is being quoted at even longer odds. Even if my current, mildly penurious, circumstances would mean I'd certainly be tempted.
The heist movie is the theme of the second episode and we're treated to clips of The Asphalt Jungle, Dead Presidents, The League of Gentlemen, Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's Eight, Reservoir Dogs, Rififi, Sexy Beast, Quick Change, Bound, Angel Face, Set It Off, Inception, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Point Break. A selection of films of varying artistic merit that's for sure.
To make a heist film you'll need a hand picked bunch of specialist crooks (a criminal mastermind to oversee the job, a rich financier to pay for it, a getaway driver, and a resident psycho/hooligan/thug), you'll need some kind of invisible alarm system that will need fooling/bypassing, and you'll need, and this doesn't seem to have changed with the advent of computers, a big ol' flipchart or blackboard placed in some kind of disused warehouse where the gang can sit around as the plan is revealed to them and the exposition is laid out to the audience. Ideally, too, there'll be a car chase (Baby Driver, The Italian Job).
Obviously, something has to go wrong. The job can never go quite to plan, often the fault of the resident psycho who ends up losing it with his own team members, and, eventually, the final section of the film will see each member of the gang individually tracked down, arrested, or more satisfyingly for the bloodthirsty viewer, killed. Normally in some reasonably imaginative way. An alternative is the cliffhanger ending, quite literally in the case of The Italian Job.
The only strong female characters will be either femme fatales (Pulp Fiction) or molls (Double Indemnity) and that's no surprise when you consider that gangs are essentially businesses run for men by men and in many cases no more or less criminal and amoral in their behaviour than legally recognised businesses.
Along with excerpts from Adaptation, Heat, The Wrong Trousers, Dog Day Afternoon, ad The Great Train Robbery I learned that the Wachowski Brothers are now the Wachowski Sisters (not sure how I missed that particular memo) and was introduced to the rather fascinating looking low budget Glaswegian film That Sinking Feeling from 1979. Directed by Bill Forsyth it featured John Gordon Sinclair and Robert Buchanan as bored teenagers planning to make it rich stealing stainless steel sinks from a warehouse. It makes the films of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh look like Titanic!
Unlike the romcom episode, I was able to negotiate these heists without getting 'something in my eye'. The coming of age films that made up part three looked to be a lot trickier. Call Me By Your Name, alone, is test enough but so are Kes, Moonlight, Lady Bird, This is England, and Stand By Me.
I'm pretty sure I got through Persepolis, Boyhood, Submarine, Gregory's Girl, Quadrophenia, Boyz n the Hood, The 400 Blows, Donnie Darko, Billy Elliott, The Virgin Suicides, and Carrie without blubbing and the only tears that flowed during the two interminably dull Harry Potter films I allowed myself to be subjected to were tears of boredom. For the shame I've not seen, or if I have I've forgotten, The Wild One, The Graduate, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Saturday Night Fever, American Honey, Ratcatcher, The Florida Project, Bend It Like Beckham, Rebel Without A Cause, American Graffiti, Fish Tank, Dead Poets Society, Girlhood, Clueless, Ginger Snaps, The Craft, Toy Story 3, Blue is the Warmest Colour, or Heathers. Even if I did learn, from this show, that the latter film bestowed upon the English language the sayings "jealous much" and "fuck me gently with a chainsaw".
With its themes of buddies, music, loss of innocence, and first love the coming of age movie can be the most personal of genres for both film makers and venues. There's always a metaphorical journey and, often, this is represented by an actual, physical, journey. These films are snapshots of youth and anyone who's looked back at old photos will know how nostalgic that feels. Imagine being able to make a whole film to celebrate, reflect upon, or say sorry for, your youthful indiscretions and mistakes. What with there not being a whole load of teenage film makers these films may wallow in nostalgia but isn't that a lovely feeling. Kind of a good sadness.
A popular trick, used in both Kes and This is England, is to use local non-actors to give the films a more realistic feel. Other tropes in this genre may include the use of surrogate parental figures (Moonlight) and makeover scenes (Grease - again, why not included?).
We're equally aware of the cliches of the science fiction film:- mad scientists, homicidal computers, time travel (to the future or the past), space travel, robot companions, and, now in the mainstream more than ever before, Afrofuturism. The fourth of Kermode's shows is dedicated to science fiction and we learn how these journeys into outer space are often intended to reflect more personal journeys into our own inner spaces, how they often serve as parables about the exploration of the human mind, and how, according to Mark Kermode, it all began with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
In 1818 she not only unleashed a monster into the world but one that birthed a whole gallery of grotesques and a whole new genre. Huge amounts of films have been made in the science fiction genre and this show tries to show as many of them as possible, or so it seems. Planet of the Apes, Blade Runner, The Time Machine, Star Wars, Vertigo, 2001:A Space Odyssey, Twelve Monkeys, La Jetee, The Terminator, Back to the Future, Arrival, La Voyage de la Lune, Interplanetary Revolution, Aelita:Queen of Mars, Forbidden Planet, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Silent Running, Gravity, Solaris, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Mars Attacks, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Independence Day, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, District 9, The Brother From Another Planet, Her, Under The Skin, The War Game, Wall-E, The Man Who Fell To Earth, Robocop, Alphaville, Metropolis, Star Trek, Black Panther, and Sun Ra's Space is the Place are just a few of the films we get to enjoy scenes from in this episode.
Even less obviously, or patently not, sci-fi films like High Noon, Freaks and Taxi Driver get an airing. In retrospect this doesn't leave Kermode much time to flesh out his theories on science fiction film making but we hardly notice as we're caught up in the thrill of the films and our memories of watching them as younger versions of ourselves.
He does mention Alien being inspired by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre which makes a neat link into the fifth, final, and possibly most anticipated, show of the series. Horror. The genre closest to Mark Kermode's heart as anyone who's had the pleasure of hearing him pontificate about The Exorcist and his love for it will be able to testify.
Like the science-fiction show it's packed to the gunwales with clips so take a deep breath as I list them. There were scenes from The Exorcist (obvs), Psycho, The Blair Witch Project, Get Out, Angel Heart, Silence of the Lambs, The Shining, Dracula, The Wicker Man, The Evil Dead, Salem's Lot, Let the Right One In, Friday the 13th, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Suspiria, the aforementioned Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Paranormal Activity, Eraserhead, Cat People, Carrie, An American Werewolf in London, Jaws, Nosferatu, Henry:Portrait of a Serial Killer, Eyes Without a Face, Poltergeist, Halloween, He Who Gets Slapped, It (introducing Pennywise), Unfriended, The Last House on the Left, Night of the Living Dead, The Witchfinder General, Aliens, The Spiral Staircase, Prevenge, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Cockneys vs Zombies. Some scared the shit out of me (Halloween, Angel Heart, and Don't Look Now which didn't feature 😢), others left me cold (Freddy Krueger always seemed more of an irritating prick than a genuinely terrifying creation), and some I'd not seen. Certainly The Orphanage, a 2007 Spanish horror directed by J.A.Bayona, looked absolutely brilliant and one for the must see list.
We were even treated to a clip of the 1973 public information film The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water which did a good job of giving kids of my generation nightmares for years to come. Another public information film at the time warning children about the perils of drowning featured that lovely Rolf Harris. At least children knew they could be safe with Rolf. Wakes up from a coma. Oops!
With Kim Newman on co-writing duties for this episode, and with gore being so close to Kermode's heart, we're guaranteed an excellent hour that takes us from H P Lovecraft to Hammer via the inspirations of Ed Gein, masks, clowns, jump scares, subliminal cuts, the amping up of suppressed fears from a whisper to a scream, and the slow build up of dread that film makers create by using a combination of sound effects and lighting, ramping up the tension to often almost unbearable levels.
We're left, it seems quite often, with, the admittedly slightly misogynistic trope, of 'the final girl'. Everyone else is dead except the killer and the girl and she walks alone in the dark as we look behind or under any trees, doors, or beds that may be around expecting something evil to appear very quickly and very menacingly. The fact we know it'll happen doesn't make it any less scary, quite the opposite, and the fact that I'd seen some of these terrifying moments time and again didn't lessen their impact watching them with Mark Kermode as my curatorial guide.
As with the four previous episodes it was the clips that made Mark Kermode's Secrets of the Cinema worth watching. Them and Kermode's deconstruction of the cinematic genres we've come to take for granted. It was a simple idea and it was one that worked surprisingly well. It was certainly one that made my 'films to see list' grow exponentially longer.
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