(no subject)
So, the Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister has finally been scheduled, for May 31st, at 9pm on BBC2. It's awesome and you should watch it, and .
Film Fest Diary:
I caught the premier film last week, The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, which I found highly enjoyable on every level and will be greatly tempted to catch again on BBC 2 when it shows in the next few months. I hadn't been aware of Anne Lister's diaries before the film, diaries which were revelatory on their discovery in the 1980s, explicitly showing "female companionship" in this case being intimate, energetic, modern lesbian relationships.
Thanks to tight, sparky writing and magnificent performances from the cast the film manages to play off of the conventions of both period and lesbian drama to produce a whole which is by turns hilarious, pleasurable and deeply moving. What is most striking about the production is how familiar the characters are as the same women who move with confidence and presence through modern streets, scenes and lives. This lesbian sensibility comes straight from the original diaries (excerpts of which are available here: http://www.historytoherstory.org.uk/articlelist.php?atype=2&asection=6) and serves as a window into the often invisible presence and role of queer women in history.
The choices and conflicts faced by the characters are familiar ones, as too, sadly, are the added difficulties in making ones way in the world when it wanders from the beaten track. The villians of the piece - a cuckolded husband, a brash business competitor - are at once appropriately dastardly and strangely sympathetic, something I found gladdening as the actual villian is not any person but the unkind workings of blind social prejudice. Still, like its heroine, the film rises above conventions of all sorts to honestly depict a life well-lived and about far more than relationships - Anne was a businesswoman, socialite, and European traveller - without losing its heart.
I managed to post this before the urge to gut and re-write completely took over. Go me!
Film Fest Diary:
I caught the premier film last week, The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, which I found highly enjoyable on every level and will be greatly tempted to catch again on BBC 2 when it shows in the next few months. I hadn't been aware of Anne Lister's diaries before the film, diaries which were revelatory on their discovery in the 1980s, explicitly showing "female companionship" in this case being intimate, energetic, modern lesbian relationships.
Thanks to tight, sparky writing and magnificent performances from the cast the film manages to play off of the conventions of both period and lesbian drama to produce a whole which is by turns hilarious, pleasurable and deeply moving. What is most striking about the production is how familiar the characters are as the same women who move with confidence and presence through modern streets, scenes and lives. This lesbian sensibility comes straight from the original diaries (excerpts of which are available here: http://www.historytoherstory.org.uk/articlelist.php?atype=2&asection=6) and serves as a window into the often invisible presence and role of queer women in history.
The choices and conflicts faced by the characters are familiar ones, as too, sadly, are the added difficulties in making ones way in the world when it wanders from the beaten track. The villians of the piece - a cuckolded husband, a brash business competitor - are at once appropriately dastardly and strangely sympathetic, something I found gladdening as the actual villian is not any person but the unkind workings of blind social prejudice. Still, like its heroine, the film rises above conventions of all sorts to honestly depict a life well-lived and about far more than relationships - Anne was a businesswoman, socialite, and European traveller - without losing its heart.
I managed to post this before the urge to gut and re-write completely took over. Go me!