George Bernard Shaw – Pygmalion [12.09.2023] @ The Old Vic

Something like this really has to be heard to be appreciated given the importance of dialect to George Bernhard Shaw’s commentary on social class. Comedy doesn’t tend to age well but this production managed to make it fresh while keeping true to the spirit of the original (especially Bertie Carvel as Higgins). The ending left me puzzled. The original play contains a sequel that follows Eliza’s life after her marriage to Freddy. As far as I read it, the purpose of this sequel is to show that simply marrying into the middle class does not eliminate the hardship and discrimination that working class women like Eliza encounter – she and Freddy struggle to maintain their (or his) position in the social hierarchy. In the Old Vic production, the sequel is completely rewritten. Instead of hardship, Eliza thrives as an English tutor. What would the Fabian socialist Shaw have made of this Hollywood-esque ‘rags to riches’ revision of his work?

Rainer Werner Fassbinder – The Third Generation (1979) [25.09.2023] @ Barbican

Fassbinder is one of my favourite directors and when the Barbican announced a screening of The Third Generation, a film I’d not yet seen, I immediately bought tickets. The icing on the cake? Ian Penman doing a Q&A after the film. I read Penman’s Fassbinder: Thousands of Mirrors over the summer and largely agree with his description of The Third Generation he gave on stage at the Barbican: the film is claustrophobic, paradoxically combining busyness with a sense of inertia. I also agree with Penman that the first five to ten minutes of the film are absolutely breathtaking and hold up extremely well. But it is hard going, even exhausting to watch. It’s rare for me to rewatch films but I’ve done so with several of my favourites from Fassbinder (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, Fox and His Friends, Chinese Roulette). I can’t see myself having the patience to re-watch The Third Generation anytime soon.

I was struck by the parallels with Godard’s La Chinoise, another cynical take from a left-wing director on revolutionary politics. If it hasn’t already been done, it would be interesting to compare and contrast the two films in their depictions of European postwar radicalism.