Robert Goff writes: >I also can't quite believe that Dr. E actually called me "a Ken Loach, >loony leftie, stuck in the '70s myth" !!! You don't have to, because I didn't. I used that phrase to refer to the political viewpoints expressed in 'The Navigators'. >I tried to point out something about the content of this director's film, >The Navigators as I'm not sure Dr. E has even seen it. He seems to think >it is some kind of eulogy to "a golden age of rail travel" instead of a >realistic portrayal of the lives of rail workers. I have seen it, and think that the film advocates an entirely state-run rail network (i.e. what it implicitly constructs as having been the 'golden age' of 1948-1996) by emphasising what you term a 'realistic portayal' of the lives of rail workers, and what I suspect (though, never having worked in that industry myself, it is just a suspicion) is a seriously distorted one. Granted, Ken Loach is an extremely skillful film-maker. If he wasn't, or if his output wasn't seen by a significant audience, then I wouldn't bother opposing the views of those who describe his work as 'worthy' and 'admirable'. It's not - a lot of his films are very skillful and very poisonous, just as many of the films of Veit Harlan or Henri-Georges Clouzot are, for example. Anyone emerging from a screening of 'Hidden Agenda' would be forgiven for thinking that the IRA are all heros who never harmed any innocent third parties (though granted, several Hollywood studios have also fallen for that myth). 'My Name is Joe' similarly advances the view that society should tolerate organised crime because its perpetrators come from a socially disadvantaged background. 'Land and Freedom' advocates classic 1970s closed shop industrial relations, of the sort that inevitably lead to very good pay and working conditions for a small minority and job losses for everyone else. And so on and so forth. I do sometimes wish that a centre-right political film auteur would emerge, to give us a counterbalance to left-wing celebrity directors such as Loach and Moore. How about a feature documentary on how President Bush stopping the IRA's fundraising in the US has been a key factor in the absence of any explosions on the British mainland for seven years? Or a feature film based on the impact of suicide bombers on innocent Israelis? Or a drama exploring how Blair's tax rises are condemning a generation of middle-income young professionals to poverty, by preventing them from being able to buy a house or save for their retirement? What about a documentary which advocates capital punishment by showing the psychological relief felt by many murder victims' families upon receiving the ultimate assurance that the perpetrator can never pose any threat to them again? Perhaps an 'It Happened Here' type film which explores the possible consequences if Sharia law is imposed in Britain (which prominent Muslim leaders have repeatedly called for)? But no, the only independent political film-makers in existence seem to be those who are on the extreme left. Maybe that's part of the reason why mainstream Hollywood continues to be so popular. Nick Dale writes: >I live and work in London and am a user of public transport. Hopefully >this means that you might recognise my viewpoint. As a provincial Yorkshire dweller whose taxes subside the comparatively excellent commuter public transport infrastructure serving the London suburbs, maybe. >Also- I hope you appreciate the irony in labeling Loach's work >'propaganda', having noted the film 'I Married a Communist' in your >initial selection of union-featuring films. I never denied that 'I Married a Communist' was propaganda. It fulfills the criterion of being a feature film depicting trade union activity. I suspect you were alluding to the fact that it does so fictionally and with a heavy political bias - but the original enquirer did not restrict his query to news footage, hence its inclusion. In fact and if memory serves me correctly, the original query specifically excluded non-fiction. Anyhow, it's pretty crude stuff compared to most of Loach's films. >I am unsure if your 'pure and simple' approach is one that will set the >academic world on fire. You're almost certainly right. The worlds of far too many of the academics I've dealt with tends to be ignited by following the latest trend, often more in the belief that making the right noises will enhance their political and cultural standing rather than out of any real conviction in what they're doing. If I'd wanted to 'set the academic world on fire' in the way I think you mean, I'd become a feminist, discover some obscure ethnic ancestry and play it for all it's worth, fervently advocate whatever political cause is featured on the front page of today's 'Guardian' and write volumes and volumes of impenetrable claptrap, interspersed liberally with the syllables 'post' and 'ism'. In my main research area at the moment - the economic history of media technologies - this has resulted in two generations of humanities scholars publishing a body of work which is littered with factual errors and conceptual misunderstandings. Furthermore, they have even attacked the minority of writers whose work offers solid research leading to meaningful conclusions (e.g. the attacks on Barry Salt's 'Film Style and Technology'). If the 'pure and simple' approach even offers the hope of starting to repair some of the damage that these celebrity setters of the world on fire have caused, then it'll do me. Leo ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.ScreenSite.org