Re: RARA-AVIS: RE: Get Carter (& unsympathetic characters)

From: Rene Ribic ( rribic@optusnet.com.au)
Date: 30 Jan 2002


  The book (aka JACK'S RETURN HOME) has a number of fans on the list,
> though I couldn't get into it myself.
> Bill
> --
I think the thing with the original "Get Carter" flick is that it comes just as much from the tradition of UK films from the 1960's - such as
"The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner", "The L-Shaped Room" & "The Killing of Sister George" ( actually directed by US film-noir legend Robert Aldrich, IIRC) & the films of Ken Loach, for the most part grim, unflinching portrayals of working class life in Britain - as it does from the hardboiled tradition.I also think that most American HB has a strong streak of romanticism, if not downright sentimentality.I don't think one approach is more valid than the other - the writer has to express his/her individual vision using the means at his/her disposal. There is an infinite number of colours & textures an artist could use & I think they should be used. To put it another way, I love mango icecream but I'd go nuts (& get ill) if I ate nothing but icecream.Similarly, just reading fiction about likeable people I would feel I was missing something important in my "diet".Besides, "bad people" fascinate me. Was it Marcus Aurelius who said, "Nothing that is human is alien to me"? Rene.

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