Discover Top Posts Tagged with #b.s. johnson

“James Joyce e la fine del romanzo” di Enrico Terrinoni è un saggio illuminante sulla trasformazione della narrativa. Da Dubliners a Finnegans Wake, un viaggio nella rivoluzione del romanzo. Su Alessandria today.

You're Human Like the Rest of Them (1967), dir. B.S. Johnson

#You're Human Like the Rest of Them #B.S. Johnson #short film #experimental film #60s #british cinema

You're Human Like the Rest of Them (1967), dir. B.S. Johnson

#You're Human Like the Rest of Them #B.S. Johnson #short film #experimental film #60s #british cinema

You're Human Like the Rest of Them (1967), dir. B.S. Johnson

#You're Human Like the Rest of Them #B.S. Johnson #short film #experimental film #60s #british cinema

You're Human Like the Rest of Them (1967), dir. B.S. Johnson

#You're Human Like the Rest of Them #B.S. Johnson #short film #experimental film #60s #british cinema

Thirty Minute Theatre: Not Counting the Savages (BBC, 1972)

"I didn't look round, of course, but when I went round to tidy the other side of the grave, I... became aware of a man standing up against the wire fence. At first I thought that he'd caught his handkerchief or something white on it, and then I realised what it was."

"What?"

"He was exposing himself. Exposing himself to me."

"Well, you've seen one before."

"But I was... I was terribly upset. You can't know how distressed I was! I still am."

"Why? You're an old woman. Why should you be upset? It was play-acting. You're an old woman."

#thirty minute theatre #not counting the savages #b.s. johnson #single play #1972 #mike newell #hugh burden #brenda bruce #william hoyland #fiona walker #of all the drama anthologies to come out of the 60s and 70s (arguably the golden age of the form) Thirty Minute Theatre was perhaps the #most experimental; its short format lent itself to producing less safe material by untested writers‚ and it was described as a kind of #training ground for young scriptwriters who might then advance to more respectable productions. it's also perhaps the worst served in terms #of archive holdings: of the 291 episodes broadcast between 1965 and 1973‚ some 241 are missing‚ considered forever lost in the great yellow #skip of discarded tv material. so it's something rather special to have one of the comparatively rare survivors made available for viewing #even if (as in this case) the circumstances of its survival have rendered it quite a sad looking specimen. Savages exists thanks to an off #air recording made on its first (and probably only) broadcast in 1972; home video was an extremely rare and costly thing then‚ and not as #technologically advanced as it would become‚ but a copy of this play survived in the effects of its author‚ the great postmodern novelist #BS Johnson. it's rough looking‚ a slightly faded black and white tape (it would have transmitted in crisp colour) and bears some #significant damage in places as well as a persistent humming on the soundtrack. but it is a miracle. it is a surviving piece of work from #a hugely significant artist who made precious few works before his untimely death. the play itself is a challenging one‚ an enigmatic but #sometimes frustratingly opaque piece about a family filled with resentments and hatreds that are never explained. Burden (whose casting #apparently deeply upset Johnson‚ who felt him entirely wrong for the role‚ and led to a rift between writer and director Newell) is what #we might call our protagonist‚ a husband and father who has somehow earned the enmity of his children and whose own strange behaviour (he #eats nearly constantly through the play‚ in a quite unpleasant manner; he's also needlessly dismissive of his wife's anguish over an #encounter with a flasher) alienates the viewer. there are subtle seeds planted of possible abuse in the children's history and of financial #disagreements in the present‚ but Johnson denies us a clear context for the attitudes and behaviours of his characters and in doing so #produces a work that is as uncomfortable as it is fascinating. a final reveal that Burden is also a skilled and humane surgeon only muddies #the waters further‚ challenging our view of the grotesque figure we've seen casually fencing with his family members (who are themselves #none too sympathetic figures). this was Johnson's penultimate work for tv before he sadly took his own life. what pure joy that it exists

Albert Angelo (1964)

B.S. Johnson

New Directions

#Albert Angelo #B.S. Johnson #New Directions #Started This Today

"The late (or at least severely delayed) Bergholt Stuttley Johnson was generally recognized as the worst inventor in the world, yet in a very specialized sense. Merely bad inventors made things that failed to operate. He wasn't among these small fry. Any fool could make something that did absolutely nothing when you pressed the button. He scorned such fumble-fingered amateurs."

— Hogfather, Terry Pratchett

So I could be reaching with this post but I don't think it's a coincidence; there's something called the Trammel of Archimedes, nicknamed the "Do Nothing Machine". I think B.S. Johnson may actually be throwing shade at Archimedes here...

#hilarious if true #b.s. johnson #bergholt stuttley johnson #hogfather #gnu terry pratchett

#b.s. johnson

Trending Tags

Recently Viewed Tags

#b.s. johnson