David Miliband: Invitation to a Beheading?

The Times reports, "Mr Brown may garner some encouragement from a YouGov poll in today’s Daily Telegraph, which records that Labour support would decrease from 25 per cent under Mr Brown to 24 per cent under Mr Miliband. With Tony Blair back as leader, Labour would leap to 32 per cent against the Tories at 41 per cent. Mr Brown faces an acute dilemma about what to do with Mr Miliband in the reshuffle... [A] senior figure added, however, that the “nuclear option” of dismissing Mr Miliband had not been discounted."

None of these stats or mutterings make warm and fuzzy reading for Mr Miliband, though Mr Blair might feel a rush of the old self-sustaining pride in his blood. As for Mr Brown, it would be a risible thing to see if he now did to Miliband what Blair as PM always lacked the ruthlessness to inflict upon his grousing Chancellor.

Alex Cox interview on www.filminfocus.com

My write-up of the on-stage conversation event I did with Alex Cox at London's Barbican earlier this month is newly online at Film In Focus, where you can of course find a whole load of other great stuff about film and filmmakers past and present. The evocative photo of Senor Cox herewith is by el_rengozamora over on Flickr. I seem to have lost my old audiocassette of the Repo Man soundtrack and my aged and worn ex-rental VHS of the movie, so I think it's time for me to invest in a no-doubt eminently affordable DVD plus features...

David Cameron: His To Lose...

I hope to be writing about this at length in print quite soon, but after Glasgow East are we looking at a slow grind to the succession circa 2010, as we had after Blair won the Labour leadership in 1994 while Major and his lot fell apart? If so, what are the possible impediments? Depends where you're looking from. The estimable Denis MacShane MP (Labour, Rotherham) wrote in the Telegraph at the weekend, "David Cameron's problem is that nearly all his senior shadow ministers and aides come from a narrow elite of wealth with no worries about mortgages, pensions or education costs." But then how many of the Labour front bench these days can claim to be Of The People in this manner either? To discuss...

Richard T Kelly/Crusaders reading @ Writloud, 11.08.2008

Writloud is a monthly readings event in London showcasing both new writers from Birkbeck College’s Creative Writing courses, and established authors. (Writloud guest authors to date have included Jonathan Coe, Hari Kunzru, Russell Celyn Jones, Peter Hobbs, Benjamin Markovits, Kate Pullinger and Helen Simpson.)
Their next event they kindly bill as being with "guest writer Richard T. Kelly, author of the acclaimed debut novel Crusaders (Faber, 2008) and of four non-fiction books on film and film makers."
Time and place is Monday 11 August, 6.30-8.15 pm, RADA Foyer Bar, Malet Street, London WC1E 7JN. Admission is free of charge, but with a suggested donation to Oxfam of £3.50. To reserve places in advance, email writloud@aol.co.uk.

Review of Sashenka (Montefiore) in today's FT

In this weekend's edition of the Financial Times I've reviewed the new novel by the prize-winning historian who gave us Young Stalin and The Court of the Red Tsar. The narrative of Sashenka will come as no surprise to admirers of those histories, as its main action takes the reader back into the close circle of the Georgian Man of Steel (pictured here in stone.) And undoubtedly there is no end of dramatic material to be found in the Soviet archives: "What fascinates (Simon) Montefiore is the degenerate world of the tyrant’s court: fanaticism, self-interest, treachery, paranoia."

Hang the DJ: rock scholars start listing...

The Bookseller reports on a forthcoming title from Faber and Faber in which I'm pleased to declare an interest:

"Faber fiction editor Angus Cargill has drawn on his personal love of music to produce a book of music lists chosen by high-profile literary names. Hang the DJ: An Alternative Book of Music Lists (Faber, October) contains eclectic top 10 song choices from writers such as Jonathan Lethem, Hari Kunzru, Patrick McCabe and Michel Faber... Lethem contributes “10 Smutty Moments from Bob Dylan”, David Peace offers his “10 Favourite Japanese Bands”, and Cargill has also included his own list of “10 Songs of Heartache, Misery and Woe”, which include “Let Me Down Easy” by Betty Lavette and Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”. Cargill said: “We did a book last Christmas called Ten Bad Dates with De Niro [by Richard T Kelly] which was a film compilation and did nicely, so we had the idea of doing a musical equivalent.”

Great idea! I can't wait for the finished item. I contributed a list of my own to the book by request, a canon of the best 10 'power ballads', that dubious term narrowed by definition to mean tunes that reveal the sensitive side of otherwise extremely hard-rocking turn-up-to-11 artists. I won't waste time being coy on Who is my #1: see photo above. This brilliant image of the 'Orrible 'Oo is by Richard E. Aaron, and you can find it on his Flickr photostream.

Ten Bad Dates Film Quiz II: July 22, Curzon Soho

Crusaders in paperback / audio interview & readings online

I could be wrong, but I think the 'mass-market' B-format paperback edition of Crusaders is published into shops on July 31 2008. Forgive me if one more time I plough through the press cuttings. You only get to pitch your first novel once, or - in this case, allowing for the 'second-bite' principle of the mass-market edition - twice. So, what they said was:
‘A magnificent state-of-the-nation epic.’ Financial Times
‘A powerful, assured literary debut that will create loyal congregations of devoted followers.’ Independent on Sunday
'The most impressive, most important literary debut in yonks ... Dostoyevskian in scale and ambition… gets to the cantankerous heart of modern Britain.' Tatler
‘A terrific debut: an intelligent state-of-the-nation epic.’ Mail on Sunday
`An almost Tolstoyan seriousness of purpose... a weighty achievement in every sense.’ Guardian
'A refreshingly ambitious and strikingly accomplished first novel' Independent
‘In Crusaders, the north-east has found a new champion.’ New Statesman
‘A bold novel, one well worth quarrelling with.’ Times Literary Supplement
‘Its narrative force and the drive of its characters (even the bit parts), so sharply realised as to be utterly engrossing.’ Scotland on Sunday
‘A very good novel. And it is radical too.’ Glasgow Herald
‘A big, generous fiction debut that resurrects a whole tradition of British writing - the state-of-the-nation’s-morals set piece, more familiar from Victorian literature - and breathes new life into it... A novelist to watch.’ Sunday Times
‘Ambitious, truthful, perceptive and heart-breaking... It has sat well alongside The Brothers Karamazov on my bedside table... I admired this novel more than I can say for tackling some big, important, impossibly complex issues boldly and full-on... It is a book with a heart and a soul and courage and conviction and I commend it to you.’ Susan Hill
Crusaders' dedicated page on the Faber website is here. I'm also most grateful for the presence on the Faber site of some very extensive MP3 files related to Crusaders. Here is a long-ish interview between myself and George Miller about the writing and the themes and true-life context of the novel. And then there are four short-ish readings from the novel, by myself. Here is a bit from the early chapter describing Reverend Gore's return to Newcastle by train in September 1996. Here is a bit from one of the 'flashback' chapters: 'Big Steve' Coulson, in the summer of 1988, struggling with unplanned parenthood and a new threat to his authority as Newcastle's number-one doorman and tough nut. Here is an extract from Gore's first fractious audience with Dr Martin Pallister MP, at Pallister's flashy Newcastle office. And here is something from one of the many lovers' spats between Gore and Lindy Clark.

New Sight & Sound on sale. Includes Sean Penn.

As discussed previously, Sean Penn's account of his jury presidency at Cannes back in May, "as told to" me, appears in the new Sight & Sound now at newsagents near you. 'President Alpha Dog' is the headline they sportingly plumped for.
The expression 'alpha dog' is one I first heard from Penn's lips, applied to the redoubtable director Bob Rafelson, who didn't work in pictures for a few years after an altercation of some sort on the set of Brubaker. Nick Cassavetes, son of John, with whom Sean worked on She's So Lovely, went on to make a picture called Alpha Dog, released in 2006. (In my brief experience of him Cassavetes too would qualify for the Alpha Dog label, as would a lot of the guys who work with him.) But if I remember rightly from some time spent wandering round Marin County where Penn resides, in one picturesque little hamlet there is also some kind of prestige salon/boutique for canines called... you guessed it. So who can rightly say where it all began?
The picture herewith includes Catherine Deneuve, who is definitely not an alpha dog, more of an exquisite cat, maybe a little more zaftig these days but still setting the aesthetic standards in multiple categories. As Penn told me in respect of the special palme she was awarded, like that also bestowed on Clint Eastwood, "we all benefit from the endurance and quality of those two peoples’ contribution to film."

New Esquire on sale II

Just for the sake of form, or in the name of promotion, here's the cover of aforementioned August Esquire.

New Esquire (UK) magazine now on sale. Includes good writing.

The August issue of Esquire is now out on the stands, and I am privileged and enthused to say that it includes my first contribution as the magazine's new regular monthly film columnist. The piece in question is a joint review of two newly released documentaries taking as their subject the Coalition invasion and occupation of Iraq - these being Heavy Metal in Baghdad and Standard Operating Procedure. Among the cultural references dropped clunkily therein are the luminous names of Keith Moon, Pablo Neruda, and Seymour Hersh. And midway I make gratuitous reference to my IFC/Channel 4 documentary (I say 'my' because I wrote and presented, but actually Saul Metzstein directed, and very well) The Name of This Film is Dogme 95. (Online I can't see any of the fine reviews this doc received after its UK broadcast premiere, but here's a nice notice from Chicago's Ray Pride.)

Back to the August Esquire: which of the two Iraq pictures under review did I prefer? Guess... Either way - and, frankly, regardless - it will be worth your while picking up Esquire this month.

Alex Cox @ The Barbican, Friday July 4

Alex Cox's work is screening in a partial but essential retrospective at the Barbican this month, to tie in with the publication of his excellent new book X Films from I.B. Tauris, and I will be chairing a Barbican Q&A session with Senor Cox this coming Friday night July 4, 8.30pm. Do get along if you can.
Some of the flavour of the book can be gleaned from Cox's provocative blog: it's not a memoir so much as a highly detailed, hugely compelling tour through the making of each of the items in his body of work - beginning with his graduation project at UCLA, through Repo Man, Sid and Nancy, Walker et al, up to the current Searchers 2.0. As such it is a workbook for any would-be cineaste of the independent stripe, and a vital contribution to film history, insofar as it records with honesty and exactitude what were the creative decisions behind some bold and unclassifiable films made by a huge talent.
I'm really looking forward to this event, and hope there'll be a lively cinephile crowd, as befits the man and the occasion. If I can dig them out of whatever box they're currently in I will take along my shabby shop-bought VHS of Repo Man and my cassette (cassette!) of the movie's awesome soundtrack, as talismans, if you will. You will recall that repo men, unlike the rest of us in general, spend their lives getting into tense situations (esp. while getting cars out of "bad areas") and we should all try to do likewise now and then...

Daren King, and Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads

I'm very pleased to share literary representation (that's Tibor Jones & Associates) with Daren King, whose fiction, from Boxy an Star to Jim Giraffe to the recent Manual, has been delighting and defying classification among readers of taste for most of the last ten years. And I'm fairly pleased to have got my boat-race onto the picture section of Daren's website by way of the shot herewith of myself and the editor whom Daren and I also share, the famous Lee Brackstone of Faber and Faber. The main reason for a smile is that I remember the particular Night In The Pub when the photo was taken - it was the Princess Louise on High Holborn, always a canny boozer but recently remodelled to an even higher standard. And it was, of course, just a night in the pub, not a photo session. The ales will have been Samuel Smith's, since that's what you get in a Samuel Smith's pub. Lee has a look - does he not? - of a man just beginning the evening, one that will surely see him progress from the arm down to the chair itself. As for me, what about the state of that bloody cardigan?

10 Bad Dates: Salon Critics Pick

A nice write-up here (scroll down some) from Louis Bayard in Salon, which I used to read very regularly but seem to have spent less time with in recent years, the more fool me. "It's been a long time", the man says, "since I've come across a set of lists quite so piquant and entertaining as Ten Bad Dates With De Niro." That was the intention, sir, glad to be of service.
I'm in good company among the Critics Picks in question, since there's also citation of Anthony Mann's Man of the West on DVD, and the new documentary about Roman Polanski's rape conviction, an affair from which the shadows seem at last to have properly receded.

Peter Gabriel: The Rhythmatist

Last weekend me and my family had the great good fortune to stay a few days in the country cottage of one of England’s finest composers. Quite apart from the lovely living arrangements, I even got to do a little writing in his office, having carefully cleared a space to spread my things, between the piano and the sheets of notation and the pocket metronome… The bookshelves in the cottage were fairly choice too, replete with good fiction and non-fiction, but I was especially interested in the selection of books on music. Typically, though, I zeroed in on a volume called Good Vibrations, about the history of rock/pop production techniques.
One section therein that grabbed me concerned the introduction to musical possibilities c. 1980 of the Fairlight, an early sampler which loaned itself to terrific aural experimentation. The first two musical types to invest their own money in this expensive device in the UK were Peter Gabriel, and Durham’s own Trevor Horn. And I remember, as if it were yesterday, the autumn/spring of 1982-83, running out to three separate long-playing records (vinyl, of course) that made stunning use of the new technology: Kate Bush’s The Dreaming, Peter Gabriel’s fourth self-titled solo album, and Malcolm McLaren’s Duck Rock, produced by Horn. (That last one, an early experiment in world music piracy, had some marvellous tracks, only partially marred by the presence of McLaren himself, such as the juju-inspired Soweto.)

Prior to those bits of shopping one of the big musical revelations of my young life was in late 1982 when I saw a South Bank Show on the recording of aforementioned Peter Gabriel IV. The picture it presented, enforced by amazing music, of Gabriel’s genius-like marrying of rhythmic and melodic and lyrical/cerebral qualities, was incredibly powerful to an impressionable youngster. I suppose I was particularly gripped by the description of how Gabriel’s bookish idea for a song provisionally titled ‘Jung in Africa’ became this thunderous track, The Rhythm of the Heat.

A few years later Alan Parker persuaded Gabriel to remodel the IV songs and a few others from his back-catalogue into a score for Parker's movie of William Wharton’s novel Birdy. This Birdy trailer - which also brings back a horde of memories for me in the proverbial Proustian rush - is a showcase for some of Gabriel’s choice cuts and the imagery of the film to which they were terrifically matched.

As it happened, Alan Parker went on to do me a couple of great good turns in life which I won’t ever forget. Gabriel, meanwhile, has remained one of my absolute favourite artists. This weekend I note there’s a new release forthcoming from Gabriel and Real World – Big Blue Ball, essentially a record of some diverse and glorious jam sessions at Gabriel’s studio over various summers 15 or so years ago. I’ll be buying that one, then.

Regime Change and Zimbabwe

I guess I'm just among millions of people the world over this weekend, wishing all the harm in the world upon the awful Mugabe, his Zanu-PF mafia, and those goons of his who have been running around Zimbabwe this week advising citizens that a vote cast against the Chief will be the last thing they do on this earth. (Speaking of dictators: my bedtime hour was poisoned last night, having watched news pictures of that newly ordained Man of Peace Kim Jong-il, slouching across his imperial balcony in one of his tiny jumpsuits, so as to wave a fey hand at a parade in his honour somewhere beneath him...)
Zimbabwe, but. What is to be done? I've found myself recalling (you may too) that in the run-up to the Coalition invasion of Iraq some of the loudest voices in opposition sounded not so much opposed to regime change as desirous of setting the global agenda on same (i.e. why Saddam before Mugabe?) But let's assume that was just a minor element of a bigger rhetorical argument, and that no serious parties have the appetite, will or means for knocking Mugabe off his perch. On that note I can't quite bring myself to see what the right-wing press are saying at the moment, because rightly or wrongly I fear I'll have to read some nostalgia for Ian Smith and the Good Old Days. Thickening the moral soup on this point is a piece in the New Statesman by Mark Ashurst, director of the Africa Research Institute, and Gugulethu Moyo, a Zimbabwean lawyer. They write:
"The collapse of the post-colonial pact between Mugabe and his erstwhile enemies - the Rhodesian farmers, Britain, capitalism and Empire - has triggered a keen appetite for historical vindication among western critics. Mugabe's fiercest critics are often the same people who, in the early 1980s, turned a blind eye to the notorious "Gukurahundi" slaughter of 20,000 Ndebele loyal to his rival, the late Joshua Nkomo. But in Zimbabwe today there is not much appetite to indict Mugabe for human rights abuses - if only he would go quietly."
Well, he's not going quietly today. So what next? Timothy Garton Ash had a few suggestions in the Guardian yesterday: a new UN resolution, non-recognition of the results of today’s non-poll, no US/UK investment in a new Zimbabwean platinum mine, the rescinding of Mugabe’s honorary knighthood, a petition to Thabo Mbeki, attendance at a demonstration at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday party in Hyde Park today - and good old sanctions, as once seemed to work in South Africa and Poland. Maybe throw into that a shot of red-blooded socialist solidarity, like the case I read highlighted by Christopher Hitchens in Slate of South African dockworkers who refused to unload a shipload of Chinese weapons bound for... guess where?
So, a few encouraging thoughts for a bad day, perhaps. Others in the London area can be more active in their expression and get along to Hyde Park.

Faber and Faber online in style

My esteemer publisher's brand-new and redesigned website is now available for public scrutiny, with lots for the browser to mull over and enjoy, including an exclusive Q&A with James Bradley, author of The Resurrectionist, which is a 'Summer Read' pick of the Richard & Judy show. There's info on the recently launched and much admired Faber Finds imprint whereby long-unavailable works of distinction are brought back into print. And currently there's a link to me and my stuff from the Authors page.

How Andrei man, have yuh hurd o' tha Toon?

Per my previous thoughts on Euro 2008 - the Germany/Austria match the other week was probably the last we will see of Mario Gomez in this tournament. So does that shorten the odds of Newcastle making a daft bid for him? In the Freddie Shepherd era, perhaps. But nobody knows quite what Mike Ashley wants to do with his money in these belt-tightening times. Much may depend on the charm and world-renowned acumen of Dennis Wise...
Belatedly, I learned that the Toon's crack scouts (or scouts on crack?) had been keeping an eye on Andrei Arshavin. But the Russian lad's own belated but bloody electrifying entrance to the tournament has been as good as a kick in the eye to any such pipe-dreams. As the fella on ITV said the other night, Alex Ferguson should take the £60 million he could get for Ronaldo and use about one-third of it on Arshavin.

The Sean Penn Administration, Cannes 2008

Last weekend I had a really interesting conversation with Sean Penn about his service as Jury President at the recent Cannes Film Festival. (That's him in the photo, having a smoke and looking slightly concerned - whether by the gentleman next to him or the paparazzi gang behind, we're not to know.) Anyhow, an edited account of aforementioned conversation will run in the next issue of Sight & Sound.
After Sean was announced as this year's Cannes Prez I was struck by the number of media outlets who decided to run the rule over the Festival's choice, so rehashing the legend of Penn the Dangerous Hothead of 1980s tabloid lore, as if ignorant of the fact that inter alia he had previously competed in the Official Selection at Cannes both as actor and director, and won the Acting Palme for She's So Lovely in 1997. But, such is the general standard of reporting on cinema out there, and particularly when bracketed to coverage of the Cannes Festival, where the celebration of what is very best in film is inevitably shackled to a realisation that movies are consumed far more widely and profitably by devotees of Spiderman and Batman, be they young or old.
Sean has been on the record umpteen times in the past about his particular problems with the Hollywood mainstream, and the outriding assumptions about the audience. And this subject naturally arose in the course of our Cannes discussion: 'As an audience member', he remarked, "I always feel frustrated by the monoculturalism of American cinema, and in so many places it’s American monoculturalism that people buy." (Yes, 'Hollywood Movie Actor' is still his own main occupation, but the closest he's ever got to the Hollywood mainstream is working for Clint Eastwood, whose creative control over his own work is the envy of film artists everywhere.)
There is a certain caste of film critics for broadsheet newspapers, in the UK as well as the US, who see themselves as the scourges of that 'American monoculturalism', but very often I think they're kidding themselves, if not their readers: their own finicky sense of personal discernment is what comes top of their agendas. The thought reoccured to me when Sean described how he and his jury ignored all the daily critical chatter about the films they were adjudicating upon: a discipline that resulted in his feeling aggrieved on the part of certain films and filmmakers once he reviewed the press coverage in the aftermath of the Festival and saw how movies he admired unreservedly had been instantly weighed in the balance by The Critics and found wanting.
At Cannes the deadline-driven comprehensive-coverage rush to judgement can be very injurious to a movie. Of course, judgement is always waiting round the corner for any creative undertaking and cannot be hidden from. But I know how Cannes works, and what is the daily routine for most film journalists out there (it's long, but not arduous, not by any reasonable standard, other than on the liver...) And it's a matter of fact that Cannes is not the ideal place for arriving quickly at a considered view of a picture, much less for conveying that to readers. Hence Sean's lament, particularly on the part of Steven Soderbergh's Che, on which his jury bestowed the Best Actor prize for Benicio Del Toro, but which had a rough ride in a lot of print outlets. "The diminishment", Sean told me, "is reminiscent of the bad reviews Bonnie and Clyde got, or Apocalypse Now, or the 'failure' Wizard of Oz was or It’s A Wonderful Life was." This remark I think is particularly useful, because the critical tendency is very often to make the best the enemy of the good. But with a lot of critics who regularly refer to the masters and masterpieces of the past, all you have to do is imagine what they would have said of those great originals had they been reviewing at the time: most likely, "Not without interest, but with (sighs) a lot of problems..."

Richard T Kelly at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, August 16 2008

The programme for this year's Edinburgh Book Festival is now published and online. I'll be there, I'm pleased to say, and my joint event is billed as follows:

Nick Harkaway & Richard T Kelly
Saturday August 16 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM
First Fiction: A BOOKCASE EVENT
Two of the most talked about debuts of the year. Nick Harkaway, son of John Le Carré, pours massive exuberance into his giddying fantasy of a post-apocalyptic Britain, The Gone-Away World. Richard T Kelly's equally ambitious Crusaders is a socio-political epic, people struggling to survive in the run-down, swift-changing North of England."

So. Maybe I'll see you there...

I've not been in Edinburgh at Festival time since 2001 - the last of four years I did as consultant to the Film Festival, also Lizzie Francke's last as Artistic Director, and the year when Sean Penn came to town - that was certainly the start of something... Previous to that, I tried out the whole Edinburgh thing in a few different categories. I was part of the Young Programme-Makers sidebar of the Television Festival in 1996. Further back, in 1993, I directed a stage production of David Mamet's Edmond on the Fringe, with a team of young performers from Bristol University far more talented in that field than myself (among them Neil Cole, Claire Wille and Samantha LeMole, to speak only of those whom I know to have carried on performing.)

So, looking back, I have to say I gave it a go.