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CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night’s TV: Raise a glass to the rock rebel, 79, still furious at Russian repression
Simon Schama’s history today
Rating: *****
Black film
Rating: ****
Well done to the researcher of Simon Schama’s History Of Now (BBC2) who realized that the best way to get an accomplished Czech rocker talking is to conduct the interview in a pub over breakfast.
“Morning beer, it’s very important,” growled 79-year-old dissident musician Vratislav Brabenec, one of the founders of The Plastic People Of The Universe. Vrat was a thorn in the side of the communist regime in the 1970s. “I was in prison for playing the saxophone,” he said, and many would agree that saxophonists often deserve it – but The Plastic People’s crimes were political, not musical.
Playing underground gigs at the home of refusenik and playwright Vaclav Havel, the band led the resistance against Moscow. They symbolized everything that Schama promoted in this documentary, in which the ‘history’ was less important than the ‘now’. He explored how music, literature and art fought against communist repression and built a passionate denunciation of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Well done to the researcher of Simon Schama’s History Of Now (BBC2) who realized that the best way to get an accomplished Czech rocker talking is to conduct the interview in a pub over breakfast
He suffocated on Prague’s Wenceslas Square and said, “I’m so upset by what’s happening right now. Humanity cannot afford the liquidation of democracy. I read people saying it’s none of our business. It’s always our business. We don’t want to see democracy die in the name of, “Shut up, buy a new pair of sneakers and get on a plane to Ibiza, and who cares?” I’m an old man and I don’t want to die while the world sells itself in that worthless river.’
His plea was all the more sincere because it was clearly not written, with anguished shivers and desperate smiles.
The program was also notable for an interview with exiled Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who described how Beijing’s autocrats tore down his studio, and Russian performance artist Nadya Tolokonnikova of punk band Pussy Riot.
She described the brutal treatment she suffered after being arrested in 2012 for mocking Putin in a song in a Moscow cathedral. She said, “Nothing worse can really happen in my life except death.”
It amounted to an urgent reminder that, nine months after the Russian invasion, Ukraine is still fighting for its very existence – and we will be guilty of treason if we allow ourselves to forget that.
The film historians who reviewed Film Noir (Sky Arts), including 90-year-old critic Derek Malcolm, revealed how early film directors also struggled against political repression, including the rise of Nazism.
Excerpts from a 1933 film by Fritz Lang, The Testament Of Dr Mabuse, featured a crude but effective special effect to simulate the hypnotic power Hitler wielded over ordinary Germans. In a double exposure, the ghostly figure of a demon hovered behind a man and then merged into his body.
The program was also notable for an interview with exiled Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who described how Beijing’s autocrats tore down his studio, and Russian performance artist Nadya Tolokonnikova of punk band Pussy Riot.
After the film’s premiere, Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels called on Lang to tell him how much Der Führer enjoyed his early work. . . the later stuff, not so much.
Lang took the hint and fled to America. Earlier editions of this series have featured critics Neil Norman, Ian Nathan and Stephen Armstrong in stilted conversation around a table, or in leather armchairs as buffers in a gentlemen’s club. This time their contributions were filmed separately and were therefore clearer – although still very long-winded.
Their view of the history of noir was limited to a handful of groundbreaking films. Their central theory was that classics like The Big Sleep and The Third Man owed as much to silent expressionist films in Germany as to Hollywood gangster thrillers.
I got itchy to watch all those great movies again.