[Afamilyatwar-list] Mail

[Scott Filderman]

I have noticed something almost cultural: Scandinavia (particularly Norway and Denmark) seems to especially enjoy family dramas: two of their most successful native productions were Matador (mid 70s) and House at Christenshavn (around the same time), both produced by Danish National Radio. The first centered on rival mercantile families in department stores, the second on a diverse set of middle-class characters in an apartment building. Denmark has a remarkably rich history of great drama, as witnessed also by its cinema and theatre. I recall that the original Forsyte Saga was immensely popular in Scandinavia—another family drama. Apparently The Onedin Line made quite the splash (sorry!), yet another family drama.
The same dynamic doesn’t quite ring true for other countries. Other cultures like conflict, action, resolution, STORY STORY STORY, and a happy ending. This is what America demands endlessly and narcotically.
I’ve noticed that Jane Austen, Dickens, and Trollope do well in the UK: family to an extent, but refracted through Byzantine plotting (newspaper serialization) and usually happy endings. OK, Little Nell dies, but otherwise....
The great virtue of AFAW and Sam was their downbeat (if ultimately optimistic) tone—you know, reality screws you over. David Ashton buys a house because, well, he wants to, even before he’s spent much time in his job that his “bloody spiff” of an employer created for him, hoping for sex with Sheila. The sex doesn’t happen, and the job gets yanked away from the desperate young man. This is classic Kitchen Sink material—so recently visible in British cinema at the time.
Is anybody reading Zola or Beckett? This is great art, but it sure is depressing. These are all old show business saws: Great Art is what dies Saturday night.
Both John Finch and Cyril Abraham (and that other Brit...Shaksper or however he spelled his name) left school early, had very sad childhoods and difficult roads to travel, and had an innate talent to write: AFAW (without citing all the others) and The Onedin Line both reflect with frightening close detail particular ways of life in industrial England. It’s no accident that Karl Marx wrote about England in Das Kapital.
Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon is always fun to look at. But you know what REALLY hurts? Guernica. That’s what AFAW is.... Beethoven’s Fifth is super; Mahler’s Ninth will kill you.




On Tuesday, June 5, 2018, 9:14 AM, John Finch via Afamilyatwar-list <afamilyatwar-list at baylor.edu> wrote:

On 05.06.2018 00:49, Tim Douglas via Afamilyatwar-list wrote:
> Scott wrote "This series was such a treasure chest of acting, writing,
> and directing talent. Good to see that DVDs and broadcasts of the show
> are widely available."
> Yes Scott  but you may not know this fom the vantage point of the USA,
>  as far as I know it was only repeated once after it's initial
> transmission , the showing here in the UK  on Talking Pictures TV is
> the first time it has been screened on British TV for thirty years  at
> least .whereas When the Boat Comes In, All Creatures, BergeracDadf's
> Army  Etc have been consistently shown over the years since they were
> made . FAW was also left out of many reference books and TV docs about
> TV drama ,for some unknown reason  I think the recent screening is
> helping to restore it to it's rightful position (well I hope so anyway
> !)
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scott Filderman via Afamilyatwar-list
> <afamilyatwar-list at baylor.edu>
> To: afamilyatwar-list <afamilyatwar-list at baylor.edu>; Robert Ardis
> <lesleyardis at me.com>
> Sent: Mon, 4 Jun 2018 18:23
> Subject: Re: [Afamilyatwar-list] Mail
> 
> The actors who seemed to have the biggest post-AFAW success were
> Barbara Flynn and John Nettles whereas Patrick Troughton, Margery
> Mason, John McKelvey, Colins Douglas and Campbell, and Leslie Nunnerly
> were already established. Always fun to see actors so shockingly early
> in their careers as to be almost unrecognizable, such as John Nettles
> and Lynda Bellingham (who became Mrs. Herriot on All Creatures).
> Donald Pickering (as Mr. Fraser who buys the works) was a surprise for
> me as I enjoyed him in the slightly later Palliser series as Adolphus
> “Dolly” Longstaffe (one of literature’s great appellations).
> 
> This series was such a treasure chest of acting, writing, and
> directing talent. Good to see that DVDs and broadcasts of the show are
> widely available.
> 
> See, Mr. Finch, sometimes “good guys do finish first”!
> 
> On Monday, June 4, 2018, 12:55 PM, Robert Ardis via Afamilyatwar-list
> <afamilyatwar-list at baylor.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Sent from my iPad. Thanks Scott these videos of the actors are great
>> after all this time
>> 
>> Lesley.
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> 
>> Afamilyatwar-list mailing list
>> 
>> Afamilyatwar-list at baylor.edu
>> 
>> https://mailman.baylor.edu/mailman/listinfo/afamilyatwar-list
>> 
>>> 
>  _______________________________________________
> Afamilyatwar-list mailing list
> Afamilyatwar-list at baylor.edu
> https://mailman.baylor.edu/mailman/listinfo/afamilyatwar-list

Dear Tim and Scott,  Your emails draw attention to something which has 
perplexed and pained me over the last several years.  It is almost as if 
I had committed some unpardonable sin against Granada.  If I have I am 
certainly not aware of it.  Their almost deliberate avoidance of paying 
attention to AFAW is duplicated with SAM which had the same outstanding 
quality of acting etc as AFAW and received audiences of a similar size, 
though the overseas sales were not as good.  It did get me the Writer's 
Guild Award, however.  After that Granada's whole attention seemed 
devoted to Brideshead  (which was probably paid for by the overseas 
sales of AFAW).  In recent years attention has been paid to this 
situation by a number of media academics, but they have no more been 
able to penetrate this silence than I have.  Over the years I have 
written at intervals to heads of drama and even managing directors, and 
sometines not even had a reply. When I have received the odd reply it 
has more or less skated round the subject.  Sole exception was Charles 
Allen at Granada who said my contribution to Granada was, I quote, 
"phenominal".  He left the company shortly after,  but not before I had 
been invited to the ITV 50th anniversary at the Guildhall.  Needless to 
say, I didn't go. My former agent of some forty years lost my original 
contracts before he died which precluded any private action I might take 
(I couldn't actually have afforded to get into some costly legal drivel) 
.
I did eventually start getting royalties,  though not at the intervals I 
should have expected.  Not having the contracts, whose loss was admitted 
after some pressure,  made it impossible for me to have an accurate 
check,  though I shall know in September if the terms are what we 
agreed.  The Guild seemed to be having some difficulties at the time 
these problems were at their peak, and now seem to have had some form of 
reorganisation.  So Tim you are quite correct  in what you say about the 
neglect of aAFAW.  The way this has happened over the years has been 
very painful, and the brightest spark, forgetting the money, is the way 
Richard has brought you all together to keep the interest alive.  JOHN
_______________________________________________
Afamilyatwar-list mailing list
Afamilyatwar-list at baylor.edu
https://mailman.baylor.edu/mailman/listinfo/afamilyatwar-list



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/afamilyatwar-list/attachments/20180605/64321ac4/attachment-0001.html>