My friend Paul Bradshaw wrote a piece in today's' Guardian about Smiley Culture, who died under suspicious circumstances yesterday.
Not included in the Guardian piece - according to Paul Bradshaw, Dennis Bovell's actual feelings about Smiley's death are as follows:
My good friend, Linton Kwesi Johnson has a poem that addresses this situation. It’s called ‘License To Kill’. Too many people have died in police custody. We need a serious enquiry into this. We need to see independent forensic evidence.
I wore a black right-hand glove and Carlos wore the left-hand glove of the same pair....My raised hand stood for the power in black America. Carlos's raised left hand stood for the unity of black America. Together they formed an arch of unity and power.
The black scarf around my neck stood for black pride. The black sock with no shoes stood for black poverty in racist America. The totality of our effort was the regaining of black dignity.
Tommie Smith. 200m gold. Mexico '68.
I believe in civil rights, every man is born equal and should be treated that way.
Peter Norman wearing an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge.
200m silver. Mexico '68.
The beads were for those individuals that were lynched or killed that no-one said a prayer for, that were hung and tarred. It was for those thrown off the side of the boats in the middle passage. We were trying to wake the country up and wake the world up too. John Carlos. 200m bronze. Mexico '68.
Is it a pop up shop? That's the question everyone asks.
It's little to do with the fact that virtually no one knew of the shops' arrival until it opened yesterday...
It has even less to do with that fact that Jean Touitou's usual minimalist approach means the interior works brilliantly with the previously existing shell.
More, it has to do with the fact that Redchurch Street has become Pop-Up Central over the past few years with amazing stores arriving....and then disappearing just as we grow to consider them a permanent fixture.
But no, thankfully for this season and for all the foreseeables, APC is here to stay.
This is part two of the film which inspired the multi-screen sequences in the original Thomas Crown Affair.
The 18 minute, dialogue-free short debuted in April 1967 as part of the Expo 67, celebrating Canada's Centenary.
The film was projected onto a huge screen - around twenty meters wide and ten meters high.
It's director, Christopher Chapman won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Subject in 1968.
He was the first Canadian to win an Oscar outside the National Film Board.
According to Chapman, Steve McQueen attended one of the first private screenings of A Place To Stand;
He was one of the few people in Hollywood who seemed to understand it in its real sense, not just as a gimmick. He wanted to film Le Mans in multi-dynamic image, and I told Steve that he was going about it the wrong way.
It was much too big a film, with too many writers; it wouldn't work that way. We would end up destroying what both he and I felt. He was very disappointed, but he agreed. I liked him very much as a person.
Norman Jewison wanted me to work with him when I was down in Hollywood...but I wasn't able to.
I saw Jewison's The Thomas Crown Affair about 10 years later, and I was quite interested with the way multi-dynamic image had been used. It showed signs of working in the way it could be used more effectively.
You're gonna remake Godards' À Bout de Souffle. Present day. Paris.
It’s gonna be cool. Understated. Like Godard, you're economic with the narrative. Lots of visual shorthand. Plenty of pace.
You need to establish the male protagonist's gangsta credentials. A sophisticated rude-boy.
Avoid cliché? How?
Maybe a barbershop scene. A close shave - instructing his barber with style and precision..? Too passé.
Or perhaps a tattoo sitting. Rising above the pain as his tattooer fills in an elaborate pattern and draws blood...? Too passive.
What would a guy with charisma and sus, a modern Belmondo do?
If it were my screenplay I’d introduce reality into the proceedings - in true French New Wave style.
I’d open the movie with him having a private consultation with Dolly and Merry - a.k.a. Dr Doll'Art.
Based in Paris, they specialise in detachable dental adornment.
From single caps, to full grillz (wallz), from diamond encrusted gold, to plain smooth finishes - Dolly, a professional dental technician makes 'em all in her lab.
Our hero would describe shape, form and material. The girls would bring out different design options on velvet lined jewellery trays.
Eventually he’d see the one he had in mind all along and the girls would agree to have it delivered in a few days. They already have his caste on file, of course.
It would be a great movie,rugged and grimy and more in tune with the original (which marked it’s 50th anniversary last year) than with the Richard Gere version from the early 80’s.
As our modern Belmondo bids them Adieu and turns to leave their studio, one of the girls says, Hey Michel, what happened to the other tooth we made you?
It got stuck in some guys fist, he says with typical nonchalance, closing the door behind him.
