To kill a mockingbird

Continuing with my theme of movies with child protagonists, I thought I would mention To Kill a Mockingbird. I watched this recently with my son and I don't think I had seen it since I was a child myself. I read Harper Lee's novel to him not too long ago so the story was fresh in our minds as we sat down to watch.

I remember the book and the movie being part of my education in the awareness of the struggle of black people in America. I don't know when I first saw it, but I'm guessing that I would have been ten or twelve. The movie came out in 1962 when I was four (though the setting is a lot earlier of course). A year later Martin Luther King would make his 'I have a dream' speech and JFK would be shot in Dallas.

There is a more straightforward children's story here. The recurring theme of the mysterious Boo Radley (nicely played by Robert Duvall) is wonderful and would probably be enough to make a successful children's book on its own. Boo - what a great name for a scary character!

But then there is far meatier tale of Atticus Finch and Tom Robinson, racism and injustice, ignorance and alleged rape. Scout (nicely played by Mary Badham) certainly has a lot of growing up to do during the course of the book and film. Philip Alford is equally good as Jem, and John Megna is perfect as the eccentric Dill (based on the young Truman Capote with whom Lee was childhood friends). Gregory Peck's slightly wooden acting style actually seems a good fix for the awkward Atticus. But it did make me want to watch In the Heat of the Night to see a black hero take on racial bigotry rather than a white one.

I think racism seems more of an alien concept to my son than it did to me when I grew up, and that has to be a good thing. Racism has not gone away - arguably a suspicion of difference is the default position in human beings - but there does seem to be a more general acknowledgment that it is a bad thing and something to be discouraged. But it is a difficult dragon to slay. It constantly changes its shape and form.

The book clearly had to be edited down to work as a movie and there is a lot of social and political references that are easy to lose. But looking at the movie again, I was struck by the fact that whereas the book tries (though arguably not hard enough) to let us into the lives of Scout's black neighbours - particularly Calpurnia - in the movie she and all the other black people are pushed into the background. The balance feels wrong. For a movie about race, it's awfully white.

What I had completely forgotten about - or perhaps did not appreciate when I first saw it - are the wonderful opening credits designed by Stephen Frankfurt. They are absolutely superb.

More paint

Today I took the paintings intended for the Eastern Open off to the drop-off point in Cambridge. Entering an open is always a bit of a lottery, so now it's just a case of waiting to see what the judges make of them.

I also went to pick up the paintings I have chosen to enter into the Royal Academy Summer Show from the framers. They are small paintings - smaller than the ones for the Eastern Open (which aren't very big themselves) - and so I have opted for a wide frame to give them a bit of elbow room should they get chosen.

Paint

I went to the studio today to get my paintings for the Eastern Open sorted out. I have about eight on the go, and it was simply a matter of which ones worked in the short space of time I had left.

I often find that it is easier to work on the ones that I like least when I have limited time. I am less nervous about ruining them, and because I am less precious, these paintings often overtake the ones I had previously thought of as more or less resolved.

All these paintings have the ghosts of other paintings beneath. Only the composition remains. I have the colours and the paint handling many times over the last months. Without wishing to sound pretentious, if I have an aim with my paintings (and I'm not sure I necessarily have, beyond the joy of pushing paint around) it is that they - in a fairly honest way I hope - show the activity of their painting.

Although that does sound a bit pretentious come to think of it. . .

Manchester

I paid a flying visit to Manchester yesterday. I had been invited to talk to Chorlton High School by Rachel Hockey, their energetic librarian.

I really liked Chorlton High School. There was clearly a real appreciation of books there and the school puts a lot of effort and resources into encouraging that appreciation. The students were well-behaved but in a lively and interested way. They asked good questions and seemed to enjoy themselves.

I had a chat to them about who I was and how I became a writer, how I write and what I write. I tried to offer a few things to think about in their own writing. Their questions threw up some more issues to talk about as always. The time whizzed by.

Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror and Tales of Terror from the Black Ship had both been longlisted for the Manchester Book Award, but neither had made it onto the shortlist. It was great to hear such enthusiasm for the books from students and staff and it makes me hopeful that Tunnel's Mouth might be more successful. I hope so.

I gave the talk in the school's theatre. I didn't have time to do a reading, which was a shame because the space was windowless and therefore we could control the amount of light. It can be very difficult to get the audience into the creepy state of mind when the sun is streaming in through the window at 9.30 in the morning, but here it would have been easy. It was also a very good place to wheel out a PowerPoint show.

Next time perhaps.

I actually came up the day before so that I could get to the school first thing. I came up a little bit earlier than I needed just so that I could have a quick wander around the city in daylight to get reacquainted with the place. I went to art college here from 1976 to 1980.

A lot has changed since then. For one thing, the city has trams. They look great too. They suit the heroic scale of those Victorian buildings and long, wide streets. The architecture looked fantastic in the low light, with shining windows and glittering glazed tiles and long shadows sending whole streets into twilight.

The brutalist concrete crescents of Hume have gone - and presumably the Russell Club along with them. When I was a student here, I can remember walking round drawing or taking photos and I didn't have to walk too far from All Saints to find picturesque scenes of urban decay. It all seemed a lot smarter now. Old warehouses have been turned into apartments. People live in the centre of Manchester now.

The most startling change was perhaps the fact that I was staying in the Radisson Hotel on the site of the Free Trade Hall, one of the many venues for bands in Manchester. I don't remember going to the Free Trade Hall that often - the sort of bands I liked tended to play smaller venues - but it was still odd - sad even - to see the facade of the building still there, with a modern hotel hiding behind it.

What have I been up to?

I still intend to talk about movies, but I ought perhaps to tell you what I've been up to in the last week or so.

Well, I have been trying to build up a head of steam with the next book - Mister Creecher. The book is so vivid in my mind that I want to get the bulk of it written as soon as possible. My art teacher at school used to encourage us to 'cover the paper with paint' early on and then work in the details and I have a similar view of writing. I want to get to the end so that I can see the shape of the book. I'm not really content until the whole thing is out of my head. I don't mean the 'whole thing' as in the finished book. I just need to get the story down and see where all the scenes that I have had playing in my head are going to fit into it. I know how my book will start and I know how it will end. But I don't know in advance whether the scenes I have in my head will work. I won't know that until I write it. And if they don't, however important they seemed when I wrote the synopsis, they will get dumped.

last Wednesday I went to the Bloomsbury sales conference in London. I had been asked to give a ten minute talk about me and my books, but particularly The Dead of Winter as that is the one we will be promoting next. Ian Lamb, who handles publicity for my books at Bloomsbury, had asked me to come early just in case things moved more quickly than expected. No sooner had I arrived than Ian showed me through a door and there was a round of applause and I was on! It was a bit intimidating, but they were a supportive crowd and I had Sarah Odedina giving me encouraging looks from the front row.

I am not a great one for rehearsing speeches or reading from notes and so I think its fair to say that my talks do not have the consistency of some authors I have come across who have clearly practiced their lines and honed their act. I like to think that this gives my talks a spontaneity, but it can mean they drift off piste occasionally. I just hate it when I find myself trotting out the same phrases or anecdotes. It has to taste fresh in my mouth, if you see what I mean.

It seemed to work well this time and it was great to hear such enthusiasm for the books. Authors can seem very self-assured when they talk about how they write, but we are a fragile lot actually, and it does no harm at all to hear that people respect and enjoy what we do.

I have also decided to enter a couple of open exhibitions. It is all a little last minute, but I have applied for entry forms for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and for the Eastern Open, which is held at the King's Lynn Arts Centre in Norfolk. It is a long time since I have entered either. I have been accepted and rejected by both, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

I have entered some landscape paintings based on the nearby riverside area called Sheeps Green here in Cambridge. I have painted and repainted those pictures over the course of the last year or two and I have decided that it is perhaps time to get them finished and move on. Before I send them in I'll get them photographed and hopefully show them on the blog.

Shane

Shane is another movie - a Western this time - that has a child at its heart whilst not actually being a story for children. The child in question is a boy called Joey who lives with his mother and father on a small homestead in Wyoming. Shane is a mysterious stranger who gets pulled into the increasingly violent conflict between the homesteaders and the local cattle baron. It makes brilliant use of the landscape and glows with the almost Renaissance blues and reds of Technicolour. It is directed by George Stevens.

Joey is captivated by the charismatic gunslinger Shane who also casts a rather different spell over Joey's mother (Jean Arthur). Joey's decent, hard-working but otherwise unremarkable father (Van Heflin) forms an uneasy friendship with Shane and the two men become opposing role models for the impressionable Joey.

The movie has many similarities to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, another movie I watched with my son recently. Both movies feature a demonic bad man. In Liberty Valance, it is the psychotic Lee Marvin and his whip. In Shane it is the satanic black-clad and grinning Jack Palance. Both movies suggest that the days of the gunfighter (including Shane) belong to the past, with the additional world-weary message in Liberty Valance that politicians get the credit for the dirty work done by others. Both movies subscribe to the view that there comes a point when you must stand up to a bully - if not for your own sake, then for the sake of others. Both movies offer different models for what it means to be a man.

It is arguable that my generation of men - the generation that is on power in so many places - watched too many westerns in their youth. Perhaps that is where Tony Blair and George Bush developed their foreign policy. But I think good westerns - and Shane is one of those - are invariably more complicated and thoughtful than may appear at first sight.

Bravery is an interesting theme for one thing. Like The Magnificent Seven, it makes it clear that it is easier to be 'brave' when you have nothing to lose. Is Shane braver than Joey's father? No. Joey's father is prepared to fight even though he is ill-prepared and almost certain to lose. How brave is it to wear a gun wherever you go? There are different types of bravery - as Charles Bronson points out to the children he spanks in The Magnificent Seven for calling their fathers cowards. Sometimes it is brave not to fight. Sometimes it is brave to farm and raise a family.

There is a nostalgia for me in watching these movies. They remind me of Sunday afternoons with my dad when I was my son's age. The interesting thing about watching them now, is that I am aware that they ask quite a lot from the young viewer, particularly in regards to the relationships between men and women. In Liberty Valance it is Jimmy Stewart's decent, good-hearted Stoddard who gets the girl, but she still clearly loves the bluff John Wayne/Tom Doniphon character who did the actual cold-blooded shooting of Liberty Valance.

Tom Doniphon helps Stoddard even though he is losing the woman he had planned to marry. Shane helps Joey's father even though it is not his fight. He seems to crave a family to defend. He is a man with nothing and like the hired gunmen in The Magnificent Seven (or the samurai in The Seven Samurai from which it was adapted), the selflessness of the act gives his life some meaning.

The famous final scene still gets me, every time. Shane rides away with Joey shouting after him, begging him to stay. Brandon De Wilde is very good as Joey and there is such longing in those final moments. Shane has been shot - possibly fatally - and is riding away from the gunfight that Joey has witnessed. He tells Joey to take care of his parents and then simply rides off with Joey shouting after him.

'Pa's got things for you to do! And Mother wants you, I know she does.'

I love the ambiguity of 'Mother wants you'. The movie ends with Joey yelling 'Shane! Come back!' The Amazon review said: his parting scene with Shane is guaranteed to draw tears from even the most stony-hearted moviegoer. I looked at my son (choking back my usual sobs) and there was nothing.

Nothing!

Kids these days. . .

Japanese ship

An advance copy of the Japanese edition of Tales of Terror from the Black Ship turned up today. It looks great. I really like the design of the title. It came out at the end of last year, published by Rironsha.