Personal Blogs

His Girl Friday

People always say to me of Shakespeare: ‘He’s a classic, but of course things seem unfunny/misogynistic/antisemitic/trite/boring as hell, because you have to appreciate him in the context of his time.’ Yeah, well, for me, that’s not good enough. A piece of art ceases to be a classic when it ceases to speak to its audience – by which I do mean me. A classic must entertain beyond its time. I believe Shakespeare is rubbish because his contemporaries are so much better: Aphra Behn, Ben Jonson and Thomas Kyd wrote plays with more accessible language, better constructed plots and HAMLET ISN’T IN ANY OF THEM.

But I digress. The point is that a classic should remain so for as long as it entertains, enraptures or engages the audience. Whilst some comedies from the Golden Age fail to raise a chuckle (My Man Godfrey, I’m looking at you), His Girl Friday is so whip-smart, fresh and feisty that you’re almost afraid to laugh lest you miss another brilliant zinger. It’s the comedy Shakespeare wished he had written. The idea to have the characters speaking across each other throughout the film is such an audacious move that even today, it’s almost never done, even in Aaron Sorkin.

To give away even an overview of the plot seems a crying shame, but basically Rosalind Russell is a journalist who divorced Cary Grant, her ex-editor who now wants her to cover one last story. What’s so fresh, even now, is that Russell’s professional talent is explicitly rated by all other characters (except Paul Bellamy’s stock doofus) above her beauty and fabulous dress sense. Considering that this is a woman in 1940 – Simone de Beauvoir hadn’t even written The Second Sex yet! – makes it even more exciting politically. This is only one way in which this still topical film resonates: there is also a fascinating exploration into the morality of owning firearms. I showed this film to friends who typically hate screwball comedies whose socks were knocked off by this film. Seriously: watch.

Wall-E

Children’s films have a commitment to truth which ‘adult’ films typically refuse to have. Upon passing puberty, the true mark of artistic quality is ambiguity, as if the inability to accurately sum up stuff indicates maturity. Citizen Kane is characterised by an avoidance of easy answers; The Godfather can be read to both demonise and exult the Mafia. Children’s films bypass such intellectual cop-outs by telling concrete stories with specific moralities. The best example of this is Pixar’s Wall-E. 

Wall-E, were it not for human characters, practically counts as a silent movie, and its titular protagonist reminds us of the Little Tramp. In fact, the film refers to classic cinema throughout, including 2001: A Space Odyssey, Hello, Dolly! and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Wall-E is literally a rubbish robot left on Earth after humanity evacuated in 2105 who, when searching through the detritus of human civilisation, learns senses of curiosity, beauty and emotion. When a scout robot named EVE comes to Earth searching for evidence of plant life, Wall-E appears to fall in love with her and her mission becomes his.

Not only does the film constitute a manifesto on the benefits of unadulterated love, but carries a heavy (but by no means heavy-going) moral message on the intellectual and emotional cost of sacrificing our planet to consumerism, wastefulness and human-driven climate change. The film is heartbreaking without being desolate and uncompromisingly comical. On that note, it is always a good idea after watching the main feature to see the associated animated short, Burn-E, which just proves that everyone’s a protagonist in their stories!