Am I really a Christian?

The thing is... I don't enjoy meetings. And yet meetings are an integral part of at least our genre of Christianity.

I hear comments like how wonderful the meeting was this morning, how it lifted me up, etc. But I cannot remember that I have ever enjoyed a Christian meeting and I have been to a few in my life! As a child I could boast that I attended 5 meetings on a Sunday and several more during the week. I had just assumed that one was not meant to exactly enjoy them but that, rather like cabbage or going to the dentist, they were good for you. Don't get me wrong - I do not dislike singing, but I'd like it better if it were more musical. And I am sometimes encouraged by what is taught or preached, but the term "enjoyment" is not one that comes to mind.  Not in the same arena as, for example, experiencing the film Avatar in 3D, or listening to Bruckner's 8th, or eating a bar of Irish Cadbury's Dairy Milk (if indeed they still differentiate after the Kraft takeover)

Desert Island Films

On the BBC News website a few days ago I read with some disgust the editorial So long, 3DTV. Whilst some of what David Lee says may be true I will ardently defend all things 3D in spite of what he calls "plonker" glasses and mild eye strain. 3D technology was around long before my birth but went out of fashion after the war maybe due to the activities of a 1910 version of Mr Lee. There are some very passable 3D photographs from this era on display at Russborough House just down the road from us. Ever since my childhood I have longed to watch a 3D movie and my lust was not properly satisfied until 2009 when I saw James Cameron's awesome and archetypal Avatar in the cinema.

Avatar and the floating islands of Pandora

My first taste of proper 3D photography was at my parent's church. By "proper" I mean full colour stereoscopic and I thus exclude those red and blue glasses which did no more than tease the desire. Of course I'd love true immersive 3D like holograms and some virtual reality provide but, so far, this technology is not available to the masses. Some visiting missionary brought with him a slide show. Generally these were only marginally more interesting than a sermon but on this occasion the slides were 3D! Of course I made it my business to suss out the projection equipment which, I found, was more or less two projectors side by side Siamese twins style, projecting two separate 35mm stills. I understood the polaroid principle well enough although whether it was circular polarisation as is now used I know not. We were all issued with polarising glasses and - wow! I can still see in my mind one slide in which there were flowers in the foreground which literally flowed out of the frame of the screen and towards the audience.

A film (or any other experience) that ranks high in my pecking order is one that I would gladly enjoy twice, thrice, perhaps any number of times and, when asked after watching a film whether I enjoyed it or not, you will get very little response from me if it was good. To put into words anything so wonderful would be travesty, sacrilege, deprecative. The principle applies equally to 2D as well. The multiple viewings must be suitably temporally spaced else it might amount to over-indulgence: a first slice of strawberry cheesecake delights but the second too soon after might make one feel sick.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

I know folk for whom the cinema holds little or no pleasure but, for me, a good film on the big screen is hard to beat. I recently took my grandchildren to a theatre performance of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I was very well done and the boy and girl actors were very endearing but it did not compare to the 1968 film version.

My parents held out against TV until I was a teenager and, even then, watching was restricted. Colour was in its infancy: we settled on the cheaper and more reliable monochrome. Likewise going to the cinema or theatre was both a rarity and a treat, and it has remained so all through my life. There are things that I love doing but that does not necessarily mean that I indulge myself in them. There are other people to consider and, we are told, God watches all. In spite of these restrictions I have managed to watch a number of films of which the following have stood up to my test of time. You might detect a common denominator.

Julie Andrews

Many folk today, especially youngsters, pour scorn on The Sound of Music but I have to say I loved it and would gladly watch it many times more. I love the mountain grandeur and the music, and I will admit that I kind of fell in love with Julie and I remember my father cautioning me of this folly.

Mark Lester

My mother took me to see Oliver (1986) in a large cinema in Southampton. Of all the musicals I have seen I think Oliver ranks the highest. Although it was disappointing to hear, more recently, that Mark didn't actually sing any of his songs! One particular "wow" moment was experiencing surround sound wittingly for the first time as Oliver and the Artful emerge from a narrow side street into the open square in front of St Paul's.

Mowgli

The 1967 cartoon version of The Jungle Book met the test. I have watched this film many times and still enjoy it. And yet the sequel I have seen only once.

Polar Express

We watched Polar Express (2004) one Christmas on DVD. It was the first entirely animated film in which the characters were sufficiently human to instil an emotional response and thus another archetype for me.  I discovered that it might be possible to fall in love with a virtual avatar! Surprisingly for a staid establishment, the IET publishes some interesting thoughts here in an article "Love and sex in the Robotic Age". And anyway (back to Polar Express) as I have mentioned elsewhere,I loved the railway theme particularly where the train leaves the track.

Neel Sethi as Mowgli

I've only had the chance to watch Favreau's excellent 2016 version of Jungle Book in glorious 3D once, but I reckon it meets the test and I look forward to a sequel.

Magnificent set in Hugo

Some while back I posted my approval after watching Martin Scorsese's Hugo (2011, ) and later alluded to its making. I have watched this film several times though regrettably not in 3D, and regard it as an artistic masterpiece and also amazing acting by Asa Butterfield speaking of whom his The Space Between Us (2017) looks like it might be worth testing although some reviews are rather damning.

In all it seems I am an incurable romantic.

Dreams and Floaters

Love-eye-floaters

They say we dream all the time, but rarely remember unless we happen to wake during a dream. In my dreams I often have memories, for example that I have been in a particular place before - they say this is common, that dreams have their own set of recollections that need not concur with awake memories.

The other night I dreamed I was going along a road - probably running barefoot - and found it didn't go anywhere so retraced my steps back over a river bridge to a junction I had remembered passing. I took the other path hoping that it would lead me back home. This road ended abruptly at the river and I found myself on a boat which took me to city build on either side of a deep valley. My vantage point gave me a panorama of both the complex architecture and the deep, rocky river gorge below. In my dream I remembered that in a previous dream (so I knew I was in a dream!) I had been amazed at the finesse of detail - so I made a point of testing this - I found I could make out striations in the rocks by the river maybe half a mile beneath me, could resolve the guy wires supporting a distant radio mast atop a fantastic building caught in rosy evening light: and the sheer glut of detail surrounding me reminded me of the film Hugo.

I rank Hugo among the best films I have ever watched, along with (to name a few) Oliver, the Sound of Music, Avatar and the new Jungle Book. I rank it highly because (in order) it is intensely beautiful, because it is about a boy discovering himself, because of its unashamedly story-book feel particularly in the way the major characters are so cleverly exaggerated, and because I liked the music. Indeed the only character that comes across at all normal is the boy Hugo himself (Asa Butterfield). Maybe you have not seen the film? You should. Here are some stills to wet your appetite and illustrate what I am saying. In a still, sadly resolution (hence quality, detail) is lost along with the dimensions of time and depth (I strongly regret that I did not see the film in 3D), just as audio quality is lost in monaural listening. The film is one continual feast for the eye - it is impossible to take in all the detail before the scene changes. Click on the images to enlarge them.

Speaking of finesse - the word aptly describes the degree of detail generated by the Fabry–Pérot interferometer. Had I not fallen for the colour and intricacy found in electronics I would surely have become a physicist specialising in optics. I have some friends who are into photography in a big way and they, at least, respect optics, but for the most part folk take sight and the fact that we can see in 3D for granted, not to mention movies and the ubiquitous digital camera to boot. Perhaps you have never taken a camera apart to study the compound lenses, or disassembled a flat screen monitor to find out how it is so evenly illuminated? You should.

Looking at this diagram it is frankly amazing that we can see as well as we can. In fact we can't - the brain adjusts for many imperfections in our eyesight but, together, I reckon they do a pretty good job. I am so glad that I can see. Even if I have largely lost the ability to accommodate - I have needed reading glasses for several years and now even my far vision needs some correction. Recently I invested in a pair of those cheap generic reading glasses with the lowest power and these work well for my far vision though I do not generally need them. Donning them whilst watching a film or movie I discover a new level of detail that I had forgotten existed.

I suppose we all see floaters to varying degrees. And I suppose everyone has "played" with their eyes - screwing up your eyelids to allow only a tiny slit of light to pass through and observing the fancy interference patterns when looking at a source of light. So you will recognise my title picture - these are basically Newton's Rings, which are closely related to the fringes generated by the interferometer.  Apparently vision artifacts like this have been observed in distant history: I guess back then they had little else to do than screw up their eyes or build the occasional pyramid.

Jungle Book

I went to see the new Jungle Book in 3D. If I were to sum the film up in one word I would say "beautiful". The sheer beauty and realism amazed me, knowing how the whole film was shot in a studio and the only human actor you see is the boy who apparently first had to be taught how to act. In the film he is superb, so natural, such a good match to the younger Mowgli in Kipling's original stories. Stories that were an essential part of my childhood and which I still love to read.

There have been various Jungle Book films including 1942 and 1994 but till now the only one that has counted had been the 1967 Disney cartoon which I will gladly re-watch any number of times. The plot of the new film is a predictable but satisfactory mix from the cartoon and the original book - but I went for the experience rather more than the plot, and the experience did not disappoint.

Virtually everything else you see in the film, apart from the boy, is CGI. I found a good description of the making here and here:

When you have that much hair on an animal, and you have 5 to 15 animals in a scene, and then you have every blade of grass and piece of floating dust, you’re into a tremendous amount of computing power.”... That required “literally thousands of computers,”... and sometimes it would take two or three days to render a shot... as powerful as the computers were, they ultimately were just taking cues from the human innovators who spent years on the film.

This film defines new standards, just as its predecessor Avatar was. I honour Jon Favreau for his achievement and look forward to the sequel.

And what's with everyone filing out now-a-days when the credits begin?  Back when I was a boy one was obliged to stay until the National Anthem finished. Because I went with a group it would have been antisocial of me to stay to the bitter end - but I just don't get it.  If a film (or a book, or a concert) is at all good I want to extract every last ounce of goodness as well having some interest in who did what. In this instance I sadly missed reprises from the cartoon's musical numbers.

Take Finding Forrester for example, a film that ranked reasonably high - if you had walked out before the credits you would have missed Israel Kamakawiwoʻole's most excellent medley Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

And as for popcorn, rustling paper bags and talking during a movie - I just cannot understand the mentality. If a film is an audio visual smörgåsbord as this one was then it is plain disrespectful to do ought but become satiated. A film in which I would deign to eat popcorn must rank very low on my scale.

Solaris

I have finished reading the 1961 novel Solaris that I mentioned in my last post. I rank it as one of the better sci-fi books I have read because of its disturbing realism. None of these humanoid extra-terrestrials that are now so common - here all attempts to make satisfactory contact with the alien fail and yet it wreaks havoc. The characters, with all their inhibitions, distrust and confusion, are not straightforward. Many questions in their and the reader's minds are purposely left unanswered. Which all resonate with common experience.

The protagonist Kris Kelvin falls in love with an alien-created avatar of his long-deceased love Rheya and doggedly will not accept that she will probably cease to exist on leaving Solaris for Earth. Even after his colleagues force the issue by destroying the avatar, and some semblance of normality has returned, he ends up abandoning his original plan to return to Earth and the book ends "Must I go on living here the, among the objects we both had touched, in the air she had breathed... In the hope of her return? And yet I lived in expectation. Since she had gone, that was all that remained... I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past".

Earlier in the book Kris observes: "We all know that we are material creatures, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and not even the power of all our feelings combined can defeat those laws. All we can do is detest them. The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that finis vitae sed non amoris (the end of life but not of love), is a lie, useless and not even funny... Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox..."

I found all this disturbingly reminiscent of emotions that rattle around in my ego. I hold onto relationships and principles without fully understanding why I do so. I find it difficult enough to even quantise such feelings myself, let alone explain them in writing. Had I been born, for example, to Hindu parents in India I wonder how different my inner thought processes, expectations and beliefs would be? The comparison is of course void because, if I had, I would not be "me". So maybe I am destined to remain an unknown quantity to myself - I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps. 

Several films have been based on the book and there are numerous web sites on the subject. For example, if you want an in depth description of the manifestations of the alien "intelligence", try here.

Iron man

Went to see Iron Man 3 this evening. Predictable amounts of action and nonsense. Entertaining I suppose but not really my sort of movie.  I preferred Avatar - why? - not for the plot, but because it had that wonder element, because I could imagine myself there, because it could have happened, because it was extremely beautiful, because it was a worthy benchmark in 3D technology.

On the way back I caught a glimpse of what might have been a meteor - it was green and larger that any I have seen before.

The Hobbit

The Hobbit

This evening I enjoyed The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in 3D HFR. But it did not completely satisfy.

Previously I had heard a review which said it was too life like, kinda like I have heard Mars bars criticised for being too sweet. My problem was that it was not lifelike enough. Partly because it is sheer fantasy in which the goodies are laughingly nigh impregnable. I do not think Tolkien meant the book to be funny. Partly because the medium, albeit cutting edge 3D, 48 frames per second with amazing special effects, is nowhere near as good as what I see with my eyes every day of my life.

This is the second 3D film I have seen. After due consideration I have to say that enjoyed the first, Cameron's fantastic Avatar, somewhat more. Because I could seriously imagine being there and could identify with the hero. Because it heralded a new age of 3D realism just as 2001 A Space Odyssey was a first of its kind in epic Sci-Fi and therefore it will go down as a place saver in history.