...and I'm envious of whoever at Neo Cricket came up with that line. It is unerringly, undeniably, unbelievably accurate on so many levels that one might argue that it's a summation of life itself. Or life in India. Or my life.
Years later, when they ask, tell them this is what you saw...
Ok. Posting directly to ze blog, so if punctuation and spelling go awry, don't say I didn't tell you. Also warning all that I am determined to work in a Robert Frost poem and a Warren Zevon song somewhere. No particular reason. If I find anything linking the two during the course of writing this, I'll let you know. Or you let me know. All good?
First off then, Funny People, long-awaited, released 2009. Judd Apatow's last, Knocked Up, was a warm, perceptive look at that part of the male psyche that never wants to grow up and never wants to abandon his guy friends, cloaked in the guise of a warm, perceptive, borderline-disgusting romantic comedy. Funny People takes the bitterness and bite that existed on the fringes of Knocked Up and builds an uncomfortable world around it. The stand-up comics in this movie compete for everything - applause, wealth, sexual and social standing. Like everything Apatow has done its bitingly funny, and for the first time there are no safety nets. Seth Rogen's friends in Knocked Up may be shallow, but they never abandon him. In this movie, it's literally every man for himself, whether he be a millionaire or someone working at Otto's diner, in need of compassion or a few decent jokes.
Ultimately, the movie is about missed chances, and how we romanticize them, and how they may not be worth crying over after all. The soundtrack may or may not be a reflection of this, depending on how much depth you credit Apatow and his music in-charge with. Included are songs from the solo careers of all four Beatles, as if to say, this is what you are capable of on your own, so stop wondering about what may have been and count your blessings. Articulating this even better is a Warren Zevon number off his final album. Its called 'Numb as a statue' and I'm assuming you're all going to rush off and hear it immediately (though in the off chance that you aren't, I'll re-print the lyrics below and add a video link. I can do no more).
I'm numb as a statue
I may have to beg, borrow or steal
Some feelings from you
So I can have some feelings too
I'm pale as a ghost
You know what I love about you
That's what I need the most
I'm gonna beg, borrow or steal
Some feelings from you
I'm gonna beg, borrow or steal
So I can have some feelings too
I don't care if it's superficial
You don't have to dig down deep
Just bring enough for the ritual
Get here before I fall asleep
Ain't nothing special
When the present meets the past
I've always taken care of business
I've paid my first and last
And while we're on missed chances - 'What fifty said', Robert Frost. That line about giving up fire for form. Sigh. Exactly.
When I was young my teachers were the old
I gave up fire for form till I was cold
I suffered like a metal being cast
I went to school to age to learn the past
Now I am old my teachers are the young
What can't be molded must be cracked and sprung
I strain at lessons fit to start a suture
I go to school to youth to learn the future
Carol Reed is justly famous as the director of the classic ‘The Third Man’. Set in post- World War II Vienna and starring Joseph Cotton, Trevor Howard and Orson Welles in a movie-stealing cameo, its noir shadings cast their influence far and wide (and, as Scorcese’s The Departed demonstrates, they still reverberate). The casting of Welles, though, had the unfortunate after-effect of people questioning Reed’s artistry and his role in the ultimate shaping of the film. Welles was never one to shy away from credit and many critics were over-eager to see his hand in every aspect of the film, right from its script to its marvellous use of light and shadow. This is part of the reason why ‘The Fallen Idol’, directed by Reed and released a year before Kane is such an important film for those looking to restore his reputation as a genuine auteur of the highest degree.
Like ‘The Third Man’, ‘The Fallen Idol’ was also was a collaboration with Graham Greene (Greene would also write the script for Reed’s ‘Our Man in Havana’). The story concerns the desperately sincere attempts of a little boy to shield his beloved butler, the titular ‘idol’, who he believes is guilty of murder. Though the camera takes a third-person stance, we are mostly seeing the tale through the boy’s eyes, resulting in a fascinating twist on Hitchcock’s ‘wrong man’ films. Under Reed’s direction, the remarkably clever script plays out like a miniature neo-noir thriller. Rarely depending on the night to provide darkness, he exposes the danger lurking in everyday lives - like a visit to the zoo, or the young boy’s fascination with snakes.
This material may actually have worked well as mid-period Hitchcock, though I believe it would have fallen short in one respect. Hitchcock, chronicler of phobias, ever mistrustful of the human race, would have had to reach somewhere very deep inside to create the warmth between boy and butler, something which Reed does beautifully. A great director of young actors, he coaxes something special out of Bobby Henry here, even though he later noted “A child of eight can't act. A good actor must take something away, lose a part of himself before he can create a role. But with the right sort of child such as Bobby, there is nothing in the way. There is absolutely no resistance. He will do everything you tell him". When I first read that remark, it immediately reminded me of Spielberg, that other fine director of young actors, and it was no surprise when I later found that Carol Reed had been an important influence on him. 
The butler, Baines, is played by a doyen of the stage and screen, British actor Ralph Richardson. His vocation requires him to keep his manner measured at all times, which makes it even stranger the manner in which Richardson convinces us, minutes into the movie, of why his character is deserving of such unquestioning idolatry. His precise line readings amplify the nuances in Greene’s script, which is, as befits a slumming novelist, ever-sensitive to the small gesture. As his character gets further and further embroiled, one expects Baines to take it out on the boy. But he never gets cross, never cracks under pressure, and wins our sympathy all the more for it.
One reason this movie works so well is that there is barely a wasted scene in its entire running length. One scene in particular, half way into the movie, stands out for me as a perfect balance of plot furthering, social commentary, subtle class comedy and suspense. After a midnight run through London which is every bit as visually expressive and suspenseful as the famous stalking sequence in ‘The Third Man’, Phillip is brought to the station by a kindly policeman. The officers there try and get him to talk, but instead he goes to the nearest thing to a mother figure in there, a street walker brought in for questioning. Her attempts to try and talk to him are hilarious because she’s obviously forgotten how to carry on a conversation without propositioning someone. It is fitting that the scene ends with a remark concerning a character’s implied infidelity. It’s a seemingly throwaway moment, but on closer inspection illuminates the irony at the centre of the movie - how betrayals carried out without the intent to betray can be more dangerous than the regular ones.
Serious record collectors are always in need of prayer. This is not because they have sinned any more than their fellowmen, but because they are in purgatory. Their existence is simultaneously haunted by, and given meaning to, by the same thing – the records they collect. It gives them a reason to live, and yet it is also the source of a gnawing emptiness that eats away at their lives. Records keep their existence from becoming a colourless hell-hole; they are also what stand between them and absolution - that great big room full of albums in the sky.
Is there a difference between a collector and a serious collector of music? Or a collector versus an accumulator of music? There are, and the great tragedy is that no one except serious collectors cares about these distinctions. Collectors have never been able to come to terms with this fact, and those who continue to harp incessantly on about them find themselves cast out from polite society. Perhaps that’s just as well. True collectors have and always will be a sub-species, alienated from the mainstream. In High Fidelity, Nick Hornby describes what a true collector look like - “…young men, always young men, with John Lennon specs and leather jackets and armfuls of square carrier bags…young men who spend a disproportionate amount of their time looking for deleted Smiths singles and ‘ORIGINIAL NOT RE-RELEASED’ underlined Frank Zappa albums. They’re as close to being mad as makes no difference”
I may as well confess that I am one of these aforementioned collectors, have been one for years now. The realisation dawned on me when I realised I was barking at classmates who replaced ‘Automatic for the people’ with whatever Outlandish came out with in 2002, in their car stereos. I also started making giant lists of the CDs I would buy as soon as I could afford them. Like Kanye West put it “I always had a passion for flashin', before I had it I’d close my eyes and imagine”.
As my collection started to take shape, it became intertwined with the guilt on spending my parents’ money on cassettes and the occasional CD. When I finally started earning my collection accelerated. The old guilt was gone, replaced by newer and more evolved guilts. I will speak about these, and outline other characteristics which I have come to believe are universal to all serious record collectors. I have, if you will, managed to pinpoint symptoms of the disease even as I suffer from it. I now present before you…
6 key characteristics of a serious record collector
To the casual glancer, collectors and accumulators may appear as one and the same. But there are important differences. One, accumulators may think they are collectors, but collectors know they are not accumulators. Two, accumulators are the kinds who would collect the entire discography of an artist and keep it in their hard drives, because, like Mount Everest, it is there. A collector always knows the value of that which he collects. Three, accumulators will normally not be familiar with their musical collection; true collectors will have heard (or at the least, intend to hear) everything which they own.
Serious record collectors would never have been able to continue being what they are unless they were experts are rationalising their bordering-on-obsessive behaviour to themselves. Take, for example, the variety of explanations a collector could give oneself for picking up a particular album…
“This is a really good album”
“This is a really rare album”
“I really like this band”
“I don’t really like this album, but it’ll complete my collection”
“ said that he stole every note he ever played from , so I have to hear this”
“I know every note of every song on this album, but I still don’t own it on CD”
“I have this album, but only on tape”
“I didn’t really take to this band on first hearing, but its got such good reviews that I think if I sit with it, I’m sure I’ll get it after a while”
“I don’t know if I’ll like this album but it’s a landmark recording and my collection never be taken seriously unless I have it”
“I think a hip-hop record will look good amongst my classic rock CDs”
Serious collectors know exactly what they should buy. They understand the consequences of having to live with themselves after missing out on some essential purchase and thus take all possible steps to avoid such a catastrophe. They know entire discographies of artistes relevant to them. They know what their album covers look like. They know which artistes are good for singles, and which ones should be bought album by album (only a serious collector could explain how it is acceptable to buy ‘Motown Legends: Martha and the Vandellas’ but a deep insult to music in general to buy ‘Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits’). They may take a risk on an unknown Iceland post-punk band, but it’s not really a risk if Blender, Pitchfork and Rolling Stone all have them on their ‘Artistes to watch out for’ list, is it?
Have you ever observed serious record collectors when they are in a shop? If you did, you’d notice that they follow certain regimented patterns, as sacred to them as palette cleansing is to a wine-taster, or push-ups to an athlete. First they will check for new releases (no record collector likes to be left behind). Then they will scan the racks perfunctorily, looking for new albums which may have turned since the last time they were there. Finally, they will settle down and really start looking – artist by artist, shelf by shelf. All the while, they are carrying on an internal dialogue with themselves. It goes something like this - “Hmm…Beatles, Live at the BBC…I know its great but I picked up the White Album last time…better give another decade a chance…there’s that Radiohead album I wanted to pick up a few years ago…how much am I missing out by not picking it up? How much money do I have? Should I be spending this much…oh shit, there’s an offer on a 2CD+DVD thingy on I.R.S-era R.E.M…I don’t really need this…but it’ll complete my collection…damn it, I’ll take them all…why else am I earning…”
Normal people fraternise at social gatherings; collectors stake out potential new sources of music.
Normal people don’t really care whether people like the music they have or not; as far as collectors are concerned, you’d be on safer ground criticising their passed-down-for-generations recipe for soup than their Toots and the Maytals albums.
Normal people gaze at CD racks in a music store and move on if nothing interests them. Collectors bend, kneel, contort themselves. When they glimpse a CD they didn’t expect to find there they clutch at it like hobbits clutch at rings.
Collectors never ask the store-helpers for assistance – this is their alone time. They do not want advice, or indeed anyone in their line of vision. They are aware that the language they speak in is different and all they want is to be allowed to go on speaking it.
Would you want to meet the kind of person described above? Be honest. You are not alone. The only people who can stand serious record collectors are other serious record collectors. Their lives are grey and dismal. They have a finer sense of guilt than most. Why are they seen as different? Why do little children shy away from them? Sometimes they daydream for a while and imagine that the world has come to see them as Gotham City saw the Dark Knight, as the kind of hero they deserve but do not need right now. A masked crusader, swooping in at the last moment to prevent them from buying ‘Led Zeppelin on Panpipes’. But then they wake up and realise that the truest thing about a serious record collector is that they are, like all uncompromising souls, destined to be alone.
