Sunday 13 November 2011

Understanding Mathew

Now for the most part this blog is all about me giving: giving wisdom, witty anecdotes and race statistics to my online fans. But sometimes even the most stoic of chaps require a little understanding from their common man. So please, i beg you, take some time out and read on..

You see, as a serious film buff (tune into my youtube channel for my regular Friday Ingmar Bergman seminars), I'm of the mindset that the best way to know a man is to watch his favourite films. I've lived my life through the medium of the silver screen and now I'd like you to live my live through this beguiling medium.

I shall talk you through my 5 most formulative celluloid experiences.

1. Kes
Billy Casper was my hero, my villain, my everything as a young teen. After my first viewing I quickly emulated the cheeky lads activities and pinched milk from my local milk float. I stopped this after i got a right beating of me mam. Whilst growing up i was unable to afford a kestrel so instead devoted my energies to training the local magpies - after some time i was able to get them to perform simple tasks to command such as delivering nuts to my front door and complex barrel rolls.

Ultimately unlike Billy my salvation proved to be running. Without it I don't know where I'd be.

2. The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman)
It would be atrocious not to include one of Ingmar Bergman's master strokes on this list and I'm going to plump for The Seventh Seal. I really could have chosen any of them but as I had just prior delivered a seminar on 'The Seventh Seal and The Part It Played On Bringing Down The Tyrannical Berlusconi Mafia Regime' this seemed a simple choice.

3. The Tree Of Life (Terrence Malick)
Terry's always been one of my favourite directors and this film just really speaks to me. It answered a lot of questions that I had been asking myself for some time. In fact it was one of the main factors that allowed me, since the summer, to begin to start spelling my name with two ts! (i.e. Matthew). For a long while this was an impossibility, for despite my advancing years, my immaturity of heart and paucity of life experience meant i felt inadequate in the face of such an alphabetic onslaught. I've been Mathew for too long and it was rewarding to finally add that last T.
Terry I salute you.

4. The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner
To be honest like Col' in this I was a bit of a young tearaway and narrowly avoided a spell in Juve-y a fair few times myself (mostly for stealing milk due to my attempts to emulate Billy Casper). Often when life gets too much I've considered making a similar statement to the films closer (I won't spoil this for my more ignorant readers) but never quite managed it.

5. Pierrot Le Fou (Jean Luc-Godard)
There's not much i like better than sitting down to a spot of Nouvelle Vague. Some people would call this flick pretentious but they just don't understand the deeper meaning and true beating heart inherent in this grand statement. As an avid reader of existential and Marxist philosophy I find a lot of my own ideas and suppositions reflected back at me from JLG's works.



1 comment:

  1. Another gripping, authoritative and comprehensive post.

    I haven't watched any of these films but "Tree of Life" sounds like it had a similar effect on you as "Transformers 2" had on myself. I hope Terry will make a sequel to his masterpiece too.

    I have a question for you Matthew (note I've gladly used 2 t's and felt you deserved them all along). When a film of your life is made, and in inevitably will, who will play the lead role, who will direct and who will play the supporting cast.

    May I humbly suggest Cheryl Tweedy (I refuse to call her Cole for personal reasons) to play yourself, much in the style of Cate Blanchett's sterling portrayal of Bobby Dylan. I heard she posts some pretty sharp times on the track.

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