⚪️🔴🟠🟡🟢🔵🟣⚫️ NEW DIRECTION   Ed. No. 153 - THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAIL

Poster from Ken Russell's film of "THE DEVILS" (1971)

A DEVIL OF A STORY

This world promises the world, but fails to deliver.

Lately I've been on a Ken Russell binge. He was notorious throughout the 1970's/80's as the "enfant terrible" of British cinema. As a film Director he was about showing the darker side of human nature in his films. The man had no pretensions at polite civility. 

Amongst his films were "The Music Lovers", "Women in Love", "Tommy", "The Boyfriend" and "The Devils". The latter film caused furore at the time of its release because of its blasphemy towards religion. It's actually a well presented meaty piece of cinema. No holding back for sure. Maggots and all.

I do remember watching a Parkinson interview with Director Ken Russell at which the Oscar winning actress Sally Field was party. It was no party for Sally. Her contempt of Mr. Russell was palpable. For much of the interview she sat with her mouth positioned in irksome distain for finding herself in his presence.

Anyway getting hold of his films isn't all that easy. Some you can stream on Apple TV. Mostly though you have to dig around the world to get hold of good quality blu rays. The search for "The Devils" has had me making contact with Spain. Ole!

The copy that arrived of this Blu ray was faulty. A minute into the movie the frame freezes and starts and then freezes and starts again and repeats this pattern again only to start and run through to completion. For a collector of art house film this is unacceptable. Taking into consideration the cost of ordering in these specialty films it is only right to follow up on getting a replacement.

Yeah well good luck there. What a compromised world we are living in presently. To elucidate on the travails of going round in circles would bore you to tears. The businesses want your business but when there's a problem...pray. Too much on the take and not enough effort put into the back up or the give. 

This supplier doesn't seem concerned that they are in the long winded process of writing their own bad review on eBay. The main failure here is not keeping the customer informed. These sorts of practises are the canaries in the coal mine of a failing world. Capitalism is pushing itself to a limit of what can be endured. The result is twisting people into aberrations of what being a human being is about. Certainly an expression of the unbalanced priorities we live with. And how did we get to this as the norm?

I don't have to wait for Mr. Russell’s movies to arrive in the mail. I can see the reality of  humanity's bad choices all around. The gilded wrappings are coming off our world presently and we are seeing "the Ken Russell vision" of our existence take form before our eyes.    

I said I was waiting for "Blu rays" plural to arrive. A somewhat similar story repeats itself with my purchase of "Tommy" ordered 4 weeks back. Here the Australian company has an American partner who actually sends the film to you. According to the company there is a hold up for some undisclosed reason. So as I'm not likely to get it until who knows when the order is now cancelled. Too much is opaque. The clarity is missing in all of this palaver.

Why?

Being done properly is starting to become a difficult standard to achieve. Why are we putting so many barriers in our own way? By our own priorities, beliefs and values we are manufacturing a "faulty" world choc full of disappointment. My experiences here are sending me cold on purchasing ANY discs online.

It all starts to eat away at the fabric of trust and so the stability of our human system?

The first step in fixing a problem is facing up to the fact that we have a problem. That is the most difficult step because it appears we don't want to face up to the problem until it almost destroys us... or we destroy ourselves.

I mean what makes us humans tick? 
That is what we've got to find out.

The Devil is in the confusing detail.
Our better Angel can be found in the clarity. Neville

________________________

NEXT TIME 

Get hold of your surfboard 

and ride it like the wind.

• Celebrate life!

  _______________________

 

What is your vision for YOO?

👋 Celebrate yoo! 

 

⚪️🔴🟠🟡🟢🔵🟣⚫️