dormouse1953

 There was a reference to Hal 9000 in yesterday's Independent crossword.  (Officer damages murderous computer (7) if you're interested.)  This got me reminiscing.  I remembered going to see 2001: A Space Odyssey in the cinema with a friend, and it must have been around May 1969.  It was half term from school which in those days would have been Whit week.  I still have my old diaries and checking I find I went to see it on 28th May 1969, fifty years ago today.  (Two days after Apollo 10 returned to Earth.  The BBC used the opening sunrise fanfare from Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra for their Apollo coverage, presumably because of its use in the film.)

Further checking with the IMDb, I see the film got its London premiere in May, 1968, a full year before I saw it.  Unlike these days of almost immediate release of films as DVDs, downloads, etc., in the sixties it was not unusual for a film to play in the West End for a long period before going on general release.  It was also before the days of multiplex cinemas.  There were two cinemas in nearby Darlington and one in Bishop Auckland, making three screens in all.  No wonder it could take a while before a film made it up there.

The film also was my first exposure to the music of György Ligeti (1923-2006) the Hungarian born composer whose music was used in the film without his knowledge.  It was some years after the film's release that he actually got any money from MGM, and then only a few thousand dollars.  But no publicity is bad publicity, and Ligeti's music did get played more, certainly in London.  It was not unusual to see him at concerts of his music in the seventies through to the nineties.

And his music is still played.  The BBC did a whole day of concerts and talks about him at the Barbican in March.  In a talk, it was mentioned that at least one film critic thought the sounds accompanying the first appearance of the monolith at the start of the film were produced electronically.  This was exactly what I thought when I first saw the film.  It was only when I bought the soundtrack album a few weeks later that I discovered this was actually part of Ligeti's setting of the Requiem Mass.  If you listen carefully, a choir is singing "kyrie".

And today on Radio 3, it was mentioned that it is Ligeti's birthday.  I now know I first saw 2001 on Ligeti's 46th birthday.

 I subscribe to Sky Cinema and they show an interesting range of foreign language films.  The other night I was browsing through  the channels and discovered they were showing a Norwegian film called The King's Choice (Kongens Nei).  When I saw the subject of the film I was intrigued.

I like reading histories, and I get interested in the odd bits of foreign history that are not taught in British schools.  This film was about the German invasion of Norway in 1940.

The film centres around the four days at the start of the invasion in April that year, but has a prelude to give some background.  In 1905, Norway separated from Sweden and the Norwegians had a referendum and asked Prince Carl of Denmark to be their king.  He became Haakon VII.  His role was largely ceremonial.  This prelude is done as a series of captions intercut with old newsreel footage: the King arriving in Christiania (as Oslo was then called), opening parliament, his wife's funeral.

When Germany starts to invade, shore batteries sink two German warships which gives the government enough time to evacuate along with the royal family.  When the Germans take Oslo, Quisling declares himself head of the government in the absence of the elected government.  Quisling is supported by Hitler, but not liked by the people.

Curt Bräuer, the German minister in Oslo, travels north on Hitler's orders to meet with the king in a secret location to get him to accept a deal.  Bräuer knows that the king won't accept Quisling and tries to soft pedal on that, but the king says all decisions are up to his cabinet.  After Bräuer leaves, he makes an address in which he states that if the cabinet do accede to the German demands, he can understand why they would, but he and his entire house would feel it necessary to abdicate.  The war continues and the king has to flee into the woods when the hotel he is staying at is bombed in an air raid.

That's basically the end of the film.  More captions tell that after a couple of months further fighting, the king was forced to flee to England, where he was the rallying point for the resistance.  There's an epilogue set in a room in London in 1945 when he's preparing to return where his son and grandson come to see him.  (The grandson is the current King Harald V who is playing host to two members of the British royal family at the moment.)

The two star performances in the film are Jesper Christensen as the king and Karl Markovics as Bräuer.  The king apparently had back problems and is often seen curled up in pain.  Christensen has a pained expression throughout, only relieved when playing with his grandchildren, and always seems to be trying to work out what the correct thing is to do.  Conversely, Bräuer comes across as having good intentions but ineffectual.  He is seen slapping his wife in a moment of anger.

The final captions give some more information about characters.  Bräuer was recalled by Hitler just a few days after his meeting with the king.  He went into the army and spent nine years in a Soviet prison camp.

There is a minor character called Fredrik Seeberg, a green private wounded trying to hold back the German advance.  The captions say he survived his wounds and fought in the Continuation War.  It doesn't say on which side, though: with Finland and Germany or with the Soviet Union.

About twenty years ago I was in Oslo for a convention and afterwards I visited the Norwegian Resistance Museum, well worth a visit.  Norway has the distinction of being the only occupied country in WWII that was not liberated by the Allies.  On VE Day, at a pre-arranged signal, the Resistance came out of hiding and accepted the German surrender.  There's a picture of this.  The Resistance, all bearded men in parkas, look like a group of university dons out for a Sunday hike.