The Filtnib's Progress

Filmed jerkily and using desaturated, low contrast stock, 'Half Nelson' is slightly abrasive to watch, at least at first. It takes a while to adjust to the almost constant movement of the camera and the slight shudder as it pans across a classroom. Yet within minutes, the actions of the characters on screen are so intriguing, so contradictory and yet believable, that you all but forget you are watching a film. And with that, the handheld immediacy of the cinematography suddenly stops being distracting and just brings you incredibly close to the story and its actors, in a way that a smoothly shot piece of Hollywood eye-candy never could.
I came out of the cinema with that odd, slightly disturbing sense that the reality of the film was temporarily more real than the reality I was exiting into; the last time I felt like that was after Rian Johnson's neo-noir 'Brick' last year with the iconic Joseph Gordon-Levitt (www.brickmovie.net). The other film that 'Half Nelson' bears comparison to is 'Requiem for a Dream'; both deal with the terrifying costs of drug addiction, but while 'Requiem' was so tragic as to become almost unwatchable in parts, 'Half Nelson' matches heartbreaking sadness with a gentle but insistent beat of redemption.
The casting is inspired; Ryan Gosling, Oscar-nominated for his performance as an unconventional, deeply troubled history teacher, is at once lovable, sexy and deeply pathetic. The only thing that took my eyes off him was a truly incredible performance by Shareeka Epps, in her feature film debut. Aged 17, the stillness of her face is broken only by the watchfulness of her world-weary eyes.
I don't want to talk too much about the plot, except to say that although it sounds like the ultimate cliched, overdone storyline - white middle-class well-intentioned teacher makes personal sacrifices to teach in a school of deprived kids and manages to inspire them - 'Half Nelson' actually transcends any kind of genre; it stands alone as a film more about politics and the burden of thoughtfulness than it is about education. There's no sentimentality here, just a raw kind of honesty and a great deal of intelligence. The editing is bold and imaginative, with great use of ellipsis, especially at the start; I suspect this might have been necessitated by an overlong running time; as it is the film could still benefit from being a wee bit shorter, but this is a minor caveat. All in all, unmissable, and a triumph for rising indie filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, Columbia and NYU graduates who are not only hugely talented and have made a fantastic film, but are also going out!?? I'm putting my jealousy aside. Good job guys.

For those disheartened by the seeming hardline stance taken yesterday in Dar Es Salaam by Archbishop Rowan Williams, check out:
http://www.igreens.org.uk/bodys_grace.htm
He made this speech back in 1989, while still a Professor of Divinity at Oxford University. That same year he established the Institute for the Study of Christianity and Sexuality. I don't think he's really changed his opinions since then, he just feels he's got no choice left but to offer some sort of compromise to the conservatives. His statement yesterday, “It’s an experiment. Pray for it” suggests in blunt terms that even he doesn't think it'll work without some sort of miracle.
It's certainly a sad day when someone who once challenged tradition so intelligently with words like: "it is both wicked and useless to hold up the sexuality of the canonically married heterosexual as absolute, exclusive and ideal", then decides to appease an intolerant and backwards-looking Christian Right with a measure that is likely to polarize the Anglican Church further. On the other hand, I don't envy poor Rowan his task of holding together a group of such diverse and extreme viewpoints. He is no doubt tired after five years presiding over all the squabbling. In an interview with the Dutch newspaper Nederlands Dagblad, back in September last year, William was asked:
"Do you in your heart of hearts ever despair that Anglican unity can be saved?"
He answered: “Despair is a very strong word, but there are moments that I really don't know whether it is still possible. I just know that I have been given the task to preserve what unity and integrity there is.”

Nuno Bernardo used to work in advertising. Then he came up with an idea for a television project that would exploit teen girls’ obsession with their mobile phones. ‘Sofia’s Diary’ would be a soap opera presenting viewers with a daily dilemma in Sofia’s life, which they could then vote on by texting, emailing or telephoning. “We found that a personal diary was the best way to engage the target group, but there were millions of diaries in the market so we wanted to reinvent the format. That’s why we made it interactive and cross-media, so that viewers could have 360 degree access.”

The programme premiered in 2003; it is now the number 1 television series on Portugal’s Channel 2, while tie-in books have sold over 300,000 copies, second only to Harry Potter. Sony have bought international rights to the format and a U.S. version is now in pre-production. Bernardo admits the concept “has exceeded our expectations. We were aiming for a specific target audience of teenage girls but we’ve discovered it appeals to so many different audiences; whole families sit and watch the show.”

To many working in the field of interactive television research, the resounding success of ‘Sofia’s Diary’ will come as no surprise. Bernardo’s claim that “the growth of interactive television is inevitable” seems to be backed up by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ 2002 establishment of a new Emmy Award category for ‘Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Television Programming’. At the time, Chairman Bryce Zabel explained, “The establishment of this award is a significant event in the history of television as it recognizes that interactivity is an important and growing part of the television viewing experience”.

The BBC is at the forefront of interactive television, as the largest producer of iTV in the world. Their newest experiment in the genre, to be released as an internet-only product this year, is aimed at a similar pubescent market to the one Bernardo has so successfully tapped in Portugal. ‘Wannabes’ follows a group of teenagers in Brighton, tracking their lives, loves and friendships. Laura Bates, who plays cheeky blonde ‘Charlie’ explains the interactive element that sets the show apart: “We shot 14 episodes and 2 episodes will be released every week. Each episode is 15 minutes long and includes moments where the viewer has to choose a certain course of action over another. One example is when a character is going out with another girl from the show and a letter comes through the door which he knows is from her ex-boyfriend. He turns to the camera and says ‘I know I should be honest but what do you think I should do?’ And you have to choose whether he rips it up or gives it to the girl.’ If the series takes off, as the precedent set by ‘Sofia’s Diary’ suggests it might, the show could transfer from an internet-only platform to a wider television audience.

That viewers should want to interact and influence their entertainment is not necessarily as new a phenomenon as you might think. Charles Dickens’ serialized novels elicited a huge volume of readers’ letters after every instalment. Although he refused to indulge readers’ pleas to save ‘Little Nell’ in the Old Curiosity Shop, he did bow to a reader’s letter in 1849, when a Mrs Jane Seymour Hill complained (correctly) that he had based the deformed and unsympathetic character of Miss Mowcher in ‘David Copperfield’ on her. Writing, "I have suffered long and much from my personal deformities, but never before at the hands of a man so highly gifted as Charles Dickens”, she prompted Dickens to turn around his portrayal of the character, and respond: "I am most exceedingly and unfeigningly sorry to have been the unfortunate occasion of giving you a moment's distress".

Just over a century later, in 1953, CBS aired the first interactive television programme ever, ‘Winky Dink and You’. In an imaginative leap of tv programming, children were required to place acetate over their tv screen and then use crayons to draw various objects that might help Winky Dink on his way, such as bridges or ropes. This baby step in the journey towards interactive global domination was sadly halted when parents complained that their children were dispensing with their ‘magic window’ or acetate, and instead colouring directly onto the screen. Yet in the four years that it ran, two million Winky Dink drawing kits were sold. Come on, wouldn't you have bought one?

But the novelty value of interactive tv will only take it so far. Crucially, although a wide cross-section of Portugal’s tv-watching population have embraced ‘Sofia’s Diary’ from the comfort of their sofas, Nuno Bernardo admits that those who sit up and interact are still limited to the original target audience: “The majority of people who actually participate are young girls, everyone else just watches”. Meanwhile, Professor Oskar Juhlin from the Interactive Institute in Sweden (an international research centre with around 70 employees) predicts that the growth of interactive television could hit a ceiling because “many people watch tv and just want some form of passive engagement”. He also suggests interactive tv could be its own worst enemy: “TV is a mass medium so making it interactive is much more problematic than something like computer gaming, where you can tailor the interactive experience to the individual. If you offer different endings to a mass tv audience, there will always be some viewers who don’t get the ending they wanted, and they’ll inevitably feel frustrated, and eventually stop voting, just like people have stopped voting in elections: because they don’t feel listened to.”

To this problem Nuno Bernardo has found a solution of sorts. For every episode of ‘Sofia’s Diary’, two possible endings are shot. The ending with the majority vote from viewers is then broadcast the next day; but for viewers who were outvoted, the alternate episode is available on VOD (video on demand). “That way, although you know the story won’t continue the way you wanted, at least you get some sort of reward for voting” he says. Presumably it helps that production company Beactive also reap a considerable reward from the exercise, with significant extra revenue from VOD sales helping justify the high cost of producing so much content that would otherwise lie unused.

There’s no denying that in the long term there is potential for interactive television to develop and find new ways of attracting niche audiences. With an increasing demographic of singletons coming home to their widescreen television and a microwave meal-for-one, participating in their favourite programme - whether drama, sports or reality tv shows like Big Brother - allows what used to be a lonely, introverted experience to take on the aspect of a community activity. Yet gaining user confidence in even niche markets could take time. As Donald Norman points out in his book ‘Interactions’, “Technology may change rapidly, but people change slowly’.

Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1973, ‘Scarecrow’ is a little-known cinematic gem; a film from another decade and a whole other world of movie-making. Director Jerry Schatzberg ingeniously paired Al Pacino and Gene Hackman as fellow drifters Lion and Max, who meet while hitching lifts through the wide open expanses of the mid-west; both make an indelible impression, the young Pacino’s performance in particular being a masterclass in character acting. The meandering pace and breathtaking cinematography add to the film’s unexpected emotional clout: comic, engaging, ultimately tragic, and full of tender pathos for its flawed but lovable heroes.

"I am Sunni. I'm one of eight brothers. Five of us married Sunni women, 3 of us married Shia women. That is how it used to be; Shia and Sunnis could get on.

There was only one bad party under Saddam. Now we have over 250 parties in Iraq. Saddam made a kind of hell for us to live in. But under Saddam we were safer than we are now. If something happened, if your car was stolen or if someone was attacked on the street, you could go to the police and they would do something about it. But now they will do nothing.

That is why it would have been better if the invasion had never happened. The occupation destroyed everything in Iraq. The ordinary civilians, both Shia and Sunni, would both agree with this. Now we have to manage everything in our lives on our own. You just have to try and stay out of trouble as best you can, but it's very hard to do that. It's not like a life anymore in Baghdad. It's like living in a jungle.

The best solution is a government that is not sectarian and has no religious affiliation. Until that happens there is no hope. I believe President Bush doesn't understand - or doesn't like to understand - the solution, which is a neutral government. The Americans should get rid of the current sectarian government.

The Iranians control the ministries. You have to understand, they are our neighbour country who we were at war with for 8 years! And they are now controlling our government.

My brother-in-law, who is a Shia, he used to come and stay with us all the time. Whenever his wife, my sister, went to stay with my parents, he would come to our house, because we got on with him so well and he was great with my children. One day he called to tell me his son had called him 'dad' for the first time. He left work early that day so that he could pick up a gift for his son. He was killed on the way home.

I could give you so many examples like this. So many. Everyone wants to leave Iraq but it is becoming impossible. No-one has the money anymore.

It is terrible. You musn't think about it, it is so terrible."