Bike Encounter

Image via WikipediaNo birding this week. Rain stopped play and so it was time for another of the irregular meetings of the "Railway Film Club".

This time we started with something also dear to our hearts but shockingly with no steam trains in sight: A history of the Tour de France. Despite the extraordinary wooden delivery of the wonderful Sean Kelly which set me giggling every time he introduced a section, this was a gripping saga of extremes: both heroism and cheating - although "Le Dopage" in my view has to be put into the context of an almost unbelievably tough physical challenge and the problem that from the early days "everyone was doing it". I imagine that a sportsman at this level does not want to start the race knowing he has no chance of winning and if he believes everyone else is using performance enhancement..? One can perhaps understand a little but not condone: Everyone wants this, the biggest annual sporting event in the world, to be clean and nobody wants the result to be announced by a tribunal in Paris a month after the event.

Image via WikipediaThe whiff of scandal has always clung a little to the wheeltracks of the tour and as far back as the second race, there were allegations that the winner had been holding onto motor cars. Since the race continued overnight it must have been very difficult to police and there were a number of disqualifications including the winner (also winner of the very first, 1903, race, Garin). The Tour faltered, then as in more modern times a mixture of passionate competition and skullduggery, as it was said that some riders had been beaten up and others had traveled by train (ah at last a Railway Film Club connection). However, it was to survive these grueling early days of single-speed bicycles with wooden rimmed wheels which had to be repaired by the riders rather than the slick support teams following in fleets of cars that we know today.

Image via WikipediaOne of the greatest winners of them all, and a household name even amongst non-cycling fans, is Lance Armstrong and his return from battling Cancer to a record number of wins is legend. I was on the Champs Elysees for one of his triumphal arrivals but I also recall that the French never quite believed he was clean despite the fact that the amount of time he spent in the lead meant that he was probably the most tested rider ever.

Image via WikipediaThe closest Tour in my memory was decided on the "Champs" in favour of another American returning from adversity (Greg LeMond, who had been shot in a hunting accident) but there have been many memorable tours and some legendary characters and rivalries like that between "Maitre Jacques" Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor which divided France.  In recent years, following the vanquishing of Bernard "The Badger" Hinault, the French presence has has waned in favour of America, Spain, Italy and Germany. Happily with "G", Brad and "The Manx Missile" competing strongly, the British interest and successes have been greater than ever and this year we took the World Championship and the coveted Green Jersey. It was marvelous to look back over the history of this extraordinary race, and its larger than life characters especially with so much to look forward to in cycling in the coming Olympic year.

After lunch, the Railway Film Club returned to a more appropriate film, one steeped in steam and smoke and the roar of the passing boat train express: Brief Encounter.
 Brief Encounter (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)
This is of course a classic British film, full of repressed passion, stiff upper lips and making the best of things. Coming as it did, at the very end of the War it was still infused with the values of those dark years, of "we can take it" and "smiling through" and indeed the lights are on only because Carnforth (where it was shot) was far enough removed from London to be allowed to lift the blackout.

It was made by the team of writer/producer Noel Coward and director David Lean, who had previously collaborated on wartime morale boosters "In Which We Serve" and "This Happy Breed" along with actress Celia Johnson. The story has its origins in a short play by Coward "Still Life" and while the film takes us home with Laura to meet her kind but unexciting husband and her almost invisible children as well as out into the town, it is the single location of the tea room on the station that is the stage for most of the drama and a little humour and side plot courtesy of Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey.

David Lean (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)The luminous black and white photography with its atmospheric steam, and train lights flashing in the darkness, is photographed by distinguished cinematographer Robert Krasker (Henry V, Third Man etc) and no matter how alien the clipped speech and restrictive moral values have become one still gets caught up in the world of the film and moved and even shocked by the agonies that essentially decent Laura goes through as she is torn apart by her love for and duty to her family and her passion for the handsome doctor.

Howard is agelessly ruggedly good looking and I could happily believe he was for example forty but in fact he was just 29 when this was made while Celia Johnston was eight years older. In contrast to the mild persona on screen in real life Howard was a bit of a hell-raiser and famous toper.

The film really belongs to Johnson as she has so much to do with so little, the unforgiving camera often on her face for long periods as she has to re-invent the techniques of silent cinema, with her own voice-over providing the commentary while she mentally confesses the whole story to her husband.

Both actors were products of RADA and Johnston most experienced as a stage actress. Howard would apparently come to the set not knowing his lines but learning them as he went through rehearsals.

However it was achieved, the result is a masterpiece totally of its time but still with an enormous emotional power. No matter how many times it is copied and parodied, when you watch the original and, like poor Laura, are storm-tossed by the passionate power of rushing steam and soaring Rachmaninoff, it takes you over and you can only judge it on its own terms as an extraordinary piece of intense emotional cinema. One testimony to its enduring legacy was a scene I saw just a few days ago when Laura's moment of despair and madness was mirrored exactly in "The Deep Blue Sea". Homage to Lean from Trevor Davies.

Lean, of course went on to make his name in enormous colourful epics like Zhivago and Lawrence but should also be revered for this earlier little black and white gem.