This week Chris Deacy is joined by Anne Alwis to discuss the films; Footloose, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Color of Paradise, and Bringing Up Baby.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 [Music]
00:13 Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club.
00:15 I'm Chris Deasy and each week I'll be joined by a guest from Kent to dive deep into the
00:19 impact certain films have had on their life.
00:22 Each guest will reflect on the films which have meant the most to them over the years.
00:27 And every week there will be a Kent Film Trivia where we quiz you at home about a film that
00:32 has a connection to the county.
00:34 And now let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:38 She teaches Classics at the University of Kent where she also researches the lives of
00:42 saints, gender and narrative in the ancient world.
00:46 She has also written books on celibate marriages and virgin martyrs.
00:50 She is Anne Alwys.
00:53 Great to have you Anne.
00:54 Thank you Chris.
00:55 Your first film is one that I think I've seen once and it certainly wasn't on the big screen.
01:00 Why Footloose?
01:02 This was a birthday present to me.
01:07 I was around 11 and for my birthday party my parents, we didn't have a video recorder
01:13 so they borrowed one from a family friend I think and we rented Footloose randomly from
01:19 Blockbusters and it's a massive treat.
01:21 This is something that we would never normally do.
01:23 And my cousins and I watched Footloose.
01:25 I loved it.
01:26 It's sort of the teen memory that stays with me.
01:29 It's my teenage kind of film that I love the most.
01:31 And it's one of those films because obviously it was made in the 80s but set in an earlier
01:36 era.
01:37 I think so.
01:38 It's not quite clear actually if it is an earlier era.
01:41 The feeling is quite anachronistic because this is a preacher who rules the town and
01:46 you can't dance, you can't sing, you can't sort of have fun.
01:50 So that feels like it should be in an earlier era but I don't think it is.
01:54 I think you're right because it's like Dirty Dancing which is set in an earlier era but
01:58 you're right that it's more that the moors of that age don't fit.
02:00 Do you want to say a little bit about what the film is about because you've got Kevin
02:04 Bacon of course in the lead.
02:06 Yes, I loved him.
02:08 He's the new kid in town and he comes from Chicago.
02:11 He comes from a big city and he goes to this place in the sticks and he finds out that
02:17 the preacher rules the town, you cannot drink, you cannot dance, you cannot sing.
02:21 And this is because some of the teenagers became drunk and drove off a bridge into the
02:28 river and died and it was the preacher's son and he's banned alcohol since then.
02:32 He blames that for his son's death.
02:34 And so Ren comes in, can't believe what's going on, teaches everyone how to dance, brings
02:39 back music to the town and there's a big dance at the end.
02:41 And I'm just thinking, you're saying that because I'm guessing as well, growing up in
02:44 the 80s, there's something about that.
02:47 I remember my school days, something was so very different compared to now, particularly
02:51 reading old diaries and so on.
02:53 You're thinking, gosh is that what we had to put up with?
02:55 But that film is really epitomising the whole struggle between the generations.
02:58 It's very much in the spirit also of Rebel Without a Cause in that sense.
03:02 I think so.
03:03 I think for me it was a bit more personal.
03:05 I had quite strict parents.
03:07 They were great but they were strict and so I think I identified a little bit with the
03:10 kind of trying to reconcile with them, trying to work things out and trying to persuade
03:14 them.
03:15 So I think that was more personal to me than something wider at that age.
03:18 And I didn't like Grease and I didn't like Dirty Dancing.
03:20 They didn't speak to me in the same way but somehow Footloose did.
03:23 Yeah and there are many films like that because for me Grease and certainly Back to the Future
03:27 is another one which in later years have really impacted because as parents sometimes you
03:32 can start to see things through the lens of maybe one's own parents and also the way that
03:36 our own children perceive us.
03:38 Have you watched this film in more recent times and do you have a different interpretation
03:42 of it?
03:43 No.
03:44 Do you know, it's the one film I didn't watch just before coming here.
03:47 I didn't have time and in a sense I didn't want to because I didn't want to lose the
03:51 kind of…
03:52 I think I last watched it about ten years ago and it was still fun.
03:56 For me it's just joy.
03:57 It just makes me laugh.
03:58 I love the music.
03:59 I even had the cassette soundtrack.
04:01 And it's just something, it's just easy and it brings back good memories and I just
04:06 love it, there's various scenes that I love.
04:08 Because even now often, I'm sure even in the last week I was driving into work and
04:12 Kenny Loggins Footloose came on the radio and so there's something very seminal.
04:16 Now in my case I grew up with the music before watching the films so I sort of did things
04:20 slightly back to front in that era.
04:23 But for anybody who hasn't seen this film and you can almost include me in that because
04:27 I've just seen it once but what would be the reason for watching it?
04:31 What's the real sort of standout element?
04:35 I think some people would find it pretty cheesy.
04:37 It is cheesy, there's no doubt about it.
04:40 But there's some good performances.
04:41 I think Kevin Bacon is great.
04:42 I love Kevin Bacon anyway.
04:44 There's John Lithgow in it as a preacher, Diane West as his wife.
04:48 I think he's very good.
04:51 The final scene is brilliant.
04:53 It's when they have the sort of dance and everyone comes together.
04:55 I mean it's very 80s, the outfits are awful, it's very cheesy dancing.
05:01 But if you want sort of a teenage movie, not quite John Hughes in that sense but I think
05:09 just a fun time I think.
05:11 So when you're watching it, are you watching your own life in the sense that unfold because
05:15 it was something that you watched when you were young?
05:16 Are you watching this and remembering all the different versions of watching this over
05:20 the years?
05:21 Are you sort of thinking gosh I remember the first time I saw this?
05:24 Is there a part of you in this film?
05:25 I think it's just my 11 year old self just loving it I think.
05:32 But I haven't grown with it.
05:33 I think it's just the child in me that just saw this film and was just happy really.
05:39 Brilliant.
05:40 A very infectious film.
05:42 Well, it's now time to move onto your second chosen film and also another film from the
05:47 80s and it's Raiders of the Lost Ark.
05:50 Why this film?
05:51 I really love Indiana Jones.
05:53 I mean he's a terrible archaeologist I obviously know now and he does very bad things.
05:57 He just sort of appropriates other people's artefacts and just takes them for North America.
06:05 But I loved history when I was a kid and I didn't have access to it in an easy sense.
06:12 My parents were both nurses and I didn't know anyone who sort of knew anything about the
06:17 humanities and for some reason I just really loved old things and Indiana Jones was sort
06:22 of an entrance into that world.
06:25 And I wanted to be him.
06:26 I wanted to, I mean I'm a physical coward, but I wanted to literally be him, have his
06:31 hat, have his whip.
06:32 I wanted to be able to have a notebook that I could scribble ancient languages in.
06:36 And yeah, I was just bowled over by him.
06:42 And I know a few female academics who have said exactly what you've done which is that
06:47 Indiana Jones is the role model.
06:49 They want to be him.
06:51 And I find that really curious because you do a lot of work on gender.
06:54 But this has lasted the course.
06:57 We have the most recent Indiana Jones film which I saw several times at the cinema, again
07:01 to compensate perhaps for my not seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark.
07:03 I was perhaps too young when it came out in 1981.
07:06 But is this a film that you saw when you were very young?
07:09 Did you see this when it came out?
07:10 No, I saw it when I was older actually.
07:11 I saw it as a teenager.
07:14 And it didn't occur to me that he was a man actually.
07:19 Because there's only two people I'd quite like to be in life and the other one is a
07:22 man as well.
07:23 The fact that he was not a woman has never affected me at all.
07:28 So no.
07:30 And I always find with Indiana Jones as well, you've got the odyssey.
07:33 And of course you deal with the ancient world.
07:36 It must, I'm guessing, have in some way informed the research, the teaching that you do because
07:43 of course you're dealing with antiquity.
07:45 And this sort of notion of trying to find in the present world the answer to those questions
07:51 that maybe, you know, you're obviously looking at through various ancient documents and scrolls
07:55 and so on.
07:56 But is the sense of maybe the research coming to life?
07:58 Yeah, it is.
07:59 It's the quest.
08:00 And so when he looks at ancient documents, when I look at manuscripts for example, or
08:05 when I read Greek or whatever, I do think of Indiana Jones and I sort of turn the pages
08:10 and you're waiting for something to come out of these parchment.
08:13 Yeah, you do have a feeling of, you do have a sense of it as well.
08:17 Have you seen the most recent Indiana Jones?
08:18 I haven't yet, no.
08:19 Because I think you'll be in for a treat.
08:21 Obviously, spoiler alert, but there is an element there when there is a going back dimension.
08:27 Which I think will particularly appeal considering your interests.
08:31 But so Raiders of the Lost Ark, so this was the first one of the Indiana Jones, I was
08:35 about to say trilogy but of course there are actually five so far.
08:39 But is this one better than any of the others?
08:42 This was the first one to be made, is this one that you particularly, you know, you put
08:46 on a pedestal?
08:49 I think so.
08:50 I quite like Temple of Doom, which I haven't seen recently.
08:52 I know there's issues with it because of the representation of various people in it.
08:59 But actually I have to say when I first saw it, my family just couldn't believe there
09:02 were people who were Asian on it.
09:03 And they actually spoke Tamil, which is a language we sort of recognise.
09:06 So we were quite thrilled actually to see something that we could recognise.
09:11 So obviously with hindsight now looking back at it, it's not ideal.
09:15 But yeah, I quite, we liked, I remember watching it with my cousins again, Temple of Doom.
09:20 And just that kind of fantastical aspect when they open the monkey's head and you know,
09:24 these kind of gory details.
09:27 That was the kind of thing that appealed to us then.
09:28 I quite like The Last Crusade as well.
09:31 I like Sean Connery, I like the idea of the father and the quest for the grail as well
09:35 is something that I think I find exciting.
09:38 So yeah, I like all three of them actually.
09:40 But Raiders has a special place I think because I think it's the first time I saw him.
09:44 And as a lecturer as well.
09:47 I like that duality to it.
09:48 A kind of sort of technically a serious side and then you have this waffling side.
09:52 I like that.
09:53 And also when I watched this film, and you might have it I think in Temple of Doom as
09:57 well, that he's giving his lectures and all the students are looking at him thinking how
10:01 amazing.
10:02 But in the more recent film, then it's the opposite, The Dial of Destiny, because he's
10:06 now at retirement age.
10:08 And he's talking to the students.
10:10 And I really saw my own students in this.
10:12 They haven't done the preparation, they haven't necessarily read all the text and he's saying
10:16 "I'll have to spoon feed it to you then".
10:17 So you see this evolution of character.
10:19 So I think we all have a bit of Indiana Jones inside us.
10:22 I'm scared now to watch the most recent one.
10:26 So is this a film that you've ever seen on the big screen?
10:30 No.
10:31 No.
10:32 I did watch it again recently because I was feeling a bit jaded and I wanted to go back
10:35 to things that made me excited when I was younger.
10:38 I wanted to see if it had the same effect.
10:40 So I found it on, it was streaming, so I saw it then and it did have the same effect actually.
10:47 It still made me excited to watch it again.
10:49 So I think it has that sort of power still for me in some way.
10:52 Probably with the nostalgia though as well.
10:55 And do you have a preferred way of watching films in this sense?
10:58 So the big screen, is that something that you would do for particularly special films,
11:03 special occasions or does the small screen work?
11:07 And for big epics like this?
11:08 I do prefer the cinema generally but for me it's usually cost and sometimes time.
11:13 And so when I do go to the cinema it's usually for Marvel.
11:16 My husband and I have special date nights and we go and watch the new Marvel movie which
11:20 has been very disappointing recently.
11:21 But the older ones we've loved.
11:24 But generally I watch it, I stream them.
11:26 Fantastic.
11:27 Well that's about all the time we have for this first half of the show.
11:30 However before we go to the break we have a Kent film trivia question for you at home.
11:38 Which of these films had a sword fight scene filmed in Penshurst Place?
11:43 Was it A) The Princess Bride, B)
11:46 Lady Jane or C) The Lady and the Highwayman?
11:51 We'll reveal the answer right after this break.
11:53 Don't go away.
11:54 Hello and welcome back to Kent Film Club.
12:08 Now just before that ad break we asked you at home a Kent film trivia question.
12:13 Which of these films had a sword fight scene filmed in Penshurst Place?
12:17 I asked was it A) The Princess Bride, B)
12:20 Lady Jane or C) The Lady and the Highwayman?
12:25 And now I can reveal to you that the answer was in fact A) The Princess Bride.
12:31 The scene was filmed in the Barron's Hall, the family home of the Viscount de Lille and
12:36 another of England's 14th century manor houses.
12:39 Did you get the answer right?
12:41 Well it's time now Anne to move on to your next chosen film.
12:45 And you've chosen The Colour of Paradise.
12:47 I'm not sure about this one but we can talk about it.
12:52 So I only saw this film once at the cinema when it came out and I loved it.
12:59 I absolutely loved it because for me it was just beautiful and I'll tell you the reasons
13:05 why it's beautiful in a moment.
13:06 And I loved it so much I bought the DVD and I recommended it to friends, I gave the DVD
13:11 to them and it stayed with me.
13:13 And so when you asked me to choose four films this instantly came to my head.
13:17 It was like a no brainer but I hadn't seen it since.
13:19 So yesterday I found the DVD which miraculously I still had, watched it and it is a beautiful
13:25 film but I had wiped out all memory of how traumatic it was.
13:30 It's so sad and I don't think it would be a favourite film of mine.
13:34 I couldn't rewatch it.
13:36 It's heartbreaking.
13:39 It's the story of Mohammed.
13:40 He's an eight year old boy who is blind.
13:43 He's brought up in Iran, in rural Iran and his father is a widower with three other beautiful
13:50 little girls and he also has a grandmother.
13:53 Oh my gosh, the grandmother figure is awful.
13:56 So he spends half his year in a school for the blind and he's very, very bright and you
14:02 see how all these boys learn Braille and everything like that.
14:08 And I don't think only one person in the film is an actual actor which is the father.
14:11 I think everyone else is just sort of natural like us.
14:14 And the father wants to remarry and he's ashamed of his son.
14:18 He thinks his son will bring him bad luck.
14:20 And it's the story of what happens as a consequence and it's absolutely heartbreaking.
14:25 I couldn't watch it again.
14:26 But it is beautiful.
14:27 When was it made?
14:28 The 90s I think again.
14:29 And I'm intrigued that you saw it once and it really had this big impression.
14:35 Yeah, because of Iran I think.
14:38 I think at that time, I also grew up in the 80s and you've got Tehran, the Ayatollah
14:43 Khamenei and everything.
14:44 You've got very negative images of Iran and a very urban image of Iran.
14:49 And this was the first time I had seen images of rural Iran and it's beautiful, really,
14:53 really beautiful.
14:54 It was just unexpected for me.
14:55 And also to see sort of family life in a way that I had never seen depicted.
14:59 The children are beautiful and it's about how he navigates through life by touch.
15:05 And so the filmmaker really focuses on those aspects.
15:08 How he feels the wind, how he touches people's hands, the beauty of the flowers, colour is
15:12 really important because he can't see it.
15:14 So it's all about that aspect too, that kind of dichotomy of how he can't see but how beautiful
15:18 it is all around him.
15:20 But he is very at one, Mohammed is very at one with nature.
15:22 He can imitate birds' calls.
15:25 So that kind of thing really struck me I think.
15:28 But because I'm now, I just avoid everything that's sad.
15:33 But an interesting counterpoint because Footloose obviously is a very vibrant film and as you
15:38 said it's something that brings a lot of happiness.
15:40 Maybe the film hasn't evolved but it's something that you go back to when you're channelling
15:44 your younger self.
15:45 This is a film obviously about children but it sounds as though this is a film that for
15:49 quite different reasons because, and unlike Raiders of the Lost Ark, it's not a film that
15:54 most people will have seen.
15:55 So there's something, and I have films like that as well, that I go down the path sometimes
15:59 of saying you must see this because.
16:00 People are like, well I've never heard of it, I'm not sure that it's really for me.
16:04 But it sounds as though this is a film that really touched you at a particular point in
16:06 your life.
16:07 Yeah.
16:08 I think it did.
16:09 I don't know why.
16:10 I was single.
16:11 I didn't have children.
16:14 Blindness has always been something I've thought a lot about.
16:18 I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I lost a sense.
16:22 And blindness would be one of the things I would find the most difficult I think.
16:26 And when I was little, in my primary school library, we had books about famous people
16:30 for kids.
16:31 And I read, I repeatedly read for some reason, stories about Louis Braille and Helen Keller.
16:35 Helen Keller especially fascinated me.
16:38 And to this day I cannot believe how much she achieved.
16:41 And I admired them I think.
16:43 So I think the idea of resilience maybe, or people who have certain afflictions but yet
16:53 can still find joy.
16:55 I think I find very meaningful still.
16:59 Maybe that's it.
17:00 I don't know.
17:01 I was thinking about The Miracle Worker just the other day actually from the early 60s
17:04 with Patty Duke who played Helen Keller.
17:07 But is this the sort of film that other people have watched either with you or you've recommended
17:11 to other people?
17:12 Or is it one of those films, and we all have them, where perhaps it matters to you and
17:15 you kind of don't necessarily want to share it with others because you don't necessarily
17:19 want other people's criticism?
17:21 Yeah.
17:22 I know what you mean.
17:23 There are films like that.
17:25 This one, no, because I remember recommending it to friends.
17:28 I gave the DVD to friends and they liked it.
17:32 So no, this wasn't precious to me in that way actually.
17:35 No.
17:36 And you watched it again just the other day.
17:39 Yesterday, last night.
17:40 I cried my way through it.
17:42 But you said interestingly that maybe you wouldn't have picked it in the light of having
17:45 watched this.
17:46 No, I don't like films that make me cry.
17:47 I don't like to feel sad.
17:49 For me I'm all about escapism, hence Footloose.
17:52 And I watch TV far more than I watch films.
17:57 I read far more than I watch films.
17:59 So everything I read is about escape.
18:01 And I absolutely try and avoid things that are depressing because I can't cope with it.
18:08 Because I think, for me, life has moments and I like to use other things to escape from
18:14 them.
18:15 Well, I can't wait to see what your final film is.
18:17 But we're going to move on to your final chosen film and it's bringing up Baby.
18:22 Yes.
18:23 So I love old Hollywood and it was very difficult to choose one.
18:27 This was Fighting with Roman Holiday.
18:29 But I love this film because it's really funny and I love screwball comedies when it's done
18:35 really well.
18:36 And I like zippy dialogue as well.
18:38 And I think it's done beautifully here and it still makes me laugh.
18:42 Again I watched it again.
18:44 And I watched it with my 11-year-old daughter who is not into old films, has never really
18:48 seen them.
18:49 And she loved it too.
18:50 So I think it can transcend.
18:51 I was quite surprised.
18:53 And it certainly fits the criteria that the first couple of films that you referred to.
18:58 But Roman Holiday as well.
18:59 But do you want to say a little bit about what happens in this film?
19:02 It's not the first time, by the way, that a Cary Grant film from that era has come up.
19:05 There's a million things that happen in this film.
19:09 Cary Grant is a paleontologist.
19:11 He's fairly hapless.
19:14 And all he wants is to complete the skeleton of his brontosaurus.
19:19 He's got a quest to find this bone which is called an intercostal clavicle.
19:23 It's ridiculous.
19:24 They keep repeating this word the whole way through.
19:26 He bumps into Catherine Hepburn who is an heiress and completely by chance.
19:36 And for some reason she decides that she wants him.
19:40 And so she contrives all these sort of situations in which he has to keep following her and
19:46 doing things.
19:47 And things get become increasingly ridiculous.
19:49 They tear each other's clothes.
19:50 They bump each other's cars.
19:52 There's a leopard.
19:53 There's a leopard in the story called Baby.
19:57 We have it springing up, Baby.
19:59 And so you have, they have to protect this leopard from being found.
20:06 I can't even describe the story because it's insane.
20:08 There's just like one thing after another happening.
20:11 But with very, very fast dialogue.
20:13 Cary Grant just trying to get through it all.
20:15 Catherine Hepburn messing it up the whole time.
20:18 But it ends happily ever after.
20:19 Because not too long ago I saw Top Hat.
20:22 I love Top Hat.
20:23 At the BFI.
20:24 So did I.
20:25 And also the same thing.
20:27 That it's an absurd plot, obviously mid 1930s.
20:32 And yet it really resonated with everybody.
20:36 So there is something timeless about these films.
20:39 And I'm intrigued that your 11 year old daughter was also hooked on this.
20:43 So what do you think is the thing that really works?
20:45 Well for this it's the humour.
20:47 It's the ridiculous scenarios.
20:49 There's one point where you have a big game hunter and he's showing off about how he hunts
20:53 game and he just imitates a leopard and he makes this sound.
20:55 I will not do it on camera.
20:57 But he tries to imitate the sound of a leopard.
21:01 And the way he does it, it's just ridiculous.
21:02 I'm laughing now.
21:03 And I don't often laugh.
21:05 I very rarely laugh out loud at TV or comedies.
21:09 On film, sorry.
21:10 And this makes me laugh out loud each time.
21:12 Even remembering it makes me laugh out loud.
21:14 Because films from that era, certainly the screwball comedies, were very wordy.
21:18 And they often relied on very slapstick scenarios.
21:21 Often the sets were wonderfully decorated, beautiful choreography, often involving dancing
21:25 music.
21:26 But I suppose this was also a very, relatively speaking, innocent era as well.
21:31 And that is maybe the appeal.
21:32 It's interesting that those films have perhaps transcended many of the other films perhaps
21:37 which were a little more reliant maybe on special effects.
21:41 Or melodrama or something.
21:42 It's quite possible.
21:43 In fact, the Zippy dialogue reminds me a little bit of Sorkin or something.
21:47 Sort of the overlapping sentences, one after the other.
21:51 And I think that's part of the attraction for me as well.
21:54 Because I know that another film that you're particularly keen on, you mentioned Aaron
21:57 Sorkin, is A Few Good Men.
21:59 I love A Few Good Men.
22:00 And that also works, perhaps in a very similar way.
22:01 But it's very much based on characterisation, plot, and perhaps in many ways, although it's
22:07 a different sort of genre, it's not that dissimilar from this kind of genre.
22:12 You think so.
22:13 But you know, I watched A Few Good Men the other day.
22:15 We're going on to another film now.
22:16 But Tom Cruise is really annoying.
22:18 I mean, he's meant to be annoying.
22:21 But he's super annoying.
22:22 And I think there are more characters really underwritten as a woman as well.
22:26 They make her really kind of inadequate.
22:28 But maybe that's the link with here.
22:29 Because in the way the different gender role models are conveyed.
22:34 Yes.
22:35 So he's hapless.
22:37 She's manipulative.
22:40 She is persistent.
22:42 She won't stop badgering him.
22:47 And he is just sort of helpless and passive in the wake of her, the force of her.
22:53 But then he also is engaged to a very sort of ice cold Miss Swallow or something, to
23:01 another paleontologist.
23:02 And she is sort of the ice queen who they're due to be married.
23:08 And he's looking forward to their honeymoon.
23:11 And he's insinuating something.
23:12 And she's saying, but no, we must work.
23:15 There's no kind of demonstration on honeymoon.
23:16 He's very upset.
23:17 So she's sort of very ice cold and repressed.
23:19 When you've got Catherine Hepburn, who's sort of ripping clothes apart, howling leopards.
23:24 And there must be some sort of allegory as well for sort of sexuality in it too.
23:28 Well, you've sold it to me.
23:29 Bringing it, baby.
23:30 Thank you, Anne.
23:31 Well, I'm afraid that that is all the time we have for today.
23:33 Many thanks to Anne Alwys for joining us and being such a brilliant guest.
23:38 And many thanks to you all for tuning in.
23:40 Be sure to come back and join us again at the same time next week.
23:44 Until then, that's all from us.
23:46 Goodbye.
23:47 [MUSIC PLAYING]
23:50 [MUSIC PLAYING]
23:54 [MUSIC PLAYING]
23:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]