World Book and Copyright Day 2024

Grab a book and read a passage, a page, or a chapter or watch a film based on a book. Just by doing so, you will be marking this red-letter day.

             

                        https://www.unesco.org/en/days/world-book-and-copyright

                                                     HAPPY BOOK DAY!!

Just looking back ...

We are in February and as there was no post last December , I feel like looking back for two reasons. On the one hand, I´d like to refer to one film release which was perfect for the festive season: Wonka, a film directed by Tim Burton who is known for creating a very personal universe in cinematic terms. The film stars Timothée Chalamet but the cast is outstanding and  Olivia Colman, Calah Lane, Jim Carter and  Hugh Grant are also excellent at creating the roles of Mrs Scrubbit, Noodle, Abacus Finch and Oompa Loompa respectively . The thing is that I ´d like to draw your attention to the remarkable fact that this film was released at the beginning of December and is still on at some cinemas by the end of February. “Why is it remarkable?,” you may wonder. Because in our increasingly fast world in which new things, fads, news and creations become old, useless, forgotten or uninteresting in the twinkling of an eye, cinema is no exception. Therefore, films aren´t on at our local cinemas for too long and sometimes, we miss the opportunity of watching a film on the big screen just because we weren´t too quick to make the decision to go to the cinema. In short, Wonka is still on probably thanks to the power of the grapevine and there are cinemagoers who are looking forward to watching it. I fully recommend this film for children and for anyone who is willing to indulge a wonderful visual show which invites you to dream and use your imagination.

On the other hand, I also feel like looking back to pay tribute to Tom Wilkinson, a British actor who died at the age of 75 on 30th December 2023. He was a talented, versatile and prolific actor who didn´t care about being famous and felt that actors should have a degree of anonymity about them. He became a household name thanks to his role of Gerard Cooper in the international hit The Full Monty (1997) after he had been working for two decades. To me his performance of James Manning in Separate Lies (2005) is one of the best ones as he excelled at the creation of the anonymous and archetypal upper middle class man of British society. In the story, James turns out to be a generous man who is able to sacrifice himself for the love of his wife. Emily Watson (Anne) and Rupert Everett (Bill) are also the other members of the wonderful cast of this story where love, jealousy and intrigue combine to trigger the plot.

Being able to look back is advisable because it enables us to discover the value of past experiences as well as the people who were part of them.

Films and books on Bookshop Day

 

On 11^th November, we mark the 13^th edition of Bookshop Day, which seeks to point out the importance of bookshops in furtherance of reading and literature. Thus, on this date I´d like to refer to one of the last film releases which has caught my attention: Coup de Chance, Woody Allen´s latest film. Coup de chance means “fluke” in English. The story takes place in Paris and the actors play their roles in French, in their mother tongue. The director always pays tribute to those European cities which he has chosen for some of his films such as Barcelona or San Sebastian. However, on those occasions, the cast of the film played their parts in English regardless of the location of the film. Why does the director manage to pay tribute to those cities? Just by making the city become another character in the film thanks to its beauty and splendour. In this film, Paris in autumn is as beautiful as Paris in spring or summer because Paris is the “City of Light” and it can be as outstanding as the performance of the actors of the film. Anyway, what´s the point of mentioning Woody Allen´s latest film?  Somehow, Coup de Chance is indebted to the story of The Great Gatsby. Don´t get me wrong, Coup de Chance is NOT a film adaptation of The Great Gatsby but one of the main characters, Jean Fournier, is reminiscent of Jay Gatsby. The literary character is mentioned in the film so you can´t miss the reference but obviously, if you have read The Great Gatsby, you understand the implications of that reference much better. On this day, let´s pay attention to the stories we come across in books, books we choose to buy in our favourite bookshops, books we read and books we often lend so that others can also also enjoy them.

 

                                 

Today it is also Armistice Day, a day on which we commemorate the end of World War. These days we are living the outbreak of a new war conflict and lots of people are suffering its consequences. Therefore, it´s worth mentioning this red-letter day. If you want to learn more about this day, you can read my post “Our recent history in clips” (10^th November 2014).