WHILE THE MAN WATCHES WAREWOLVES
The night before last I watched An American Warewolf in London on
one of the bargain 2nd hand VHS tapes from my "VHS inbox" stack.
The next morning I noticed that a fox had killed a rabbit and
dragged it into the shed to feast on, while disrespectfully leaving
a smelly mess of rabbit guts all over the place for me to clean up.
The thought struck me that this reality happening just outside my
door was the real core of the whole movie. Oh people will point out
the entertaining plot, or even to the warewolf concept in general
as some expression of the human condition, but that's all bullshit.
It's about beasts tearing animals apart, the rest is woven around
that to satisfy the willful overthinking that the human mind
desires. So all of those creative talents devoted to making the
film, all of the technology to show it across the world, then the
finely engineered elecromechanics required to show it on VHS tape
at home. I mean so many processes, so many people, falling together
in their own natural structure, so determines that I'll spend my
night watching this impossibly vivid fastasy inspired by the very
nature outside, that glances unconcerned at the emanating glow of
lit phosphers from a CRT TV seeping through my window.
I'll admit that I am a little insecure about my habit of watching
movies. I fit a bit too cleanly the stereotype of a "movie guy" who
never gets out, or actually sees/knows friends. I also stick to the
movies and technology of the "movie guy" stereotype in mind, VHS
tapes and lots of old classics mixed with cult films. The main
difference is that I buy them 2nd hand for $0.20 at the local
op-shop (or did before they shut due to the virus, but I'm still
working through my previous backlog anyway) instead of renting, so
I've got them all around my TV on shelves and in boxes under
furniture, always running out of room for more.
Not that I watch them all that frequently. Though there was a
period when I was in the habit of two each night (ideally the first
would be fun or quirky though a little bitter-sweet, the second
sole-destroyingly dark and brutal ("Ghosts... of the Civil Dead"*
is a stand-out for that second type, just let it engross you and
you'll go to bed completely drained of spirit, just how I like
it)). But they probably do substitute somewhat for real human
interaction or travel, and as a substitute they naturally form a
reality based on the prevailing popular fantasy that society has of
itself at the time they were made. Randomly watching films made
from the 30s onwards (I've been watching quite a few of 1940s
flicks lately, both classics and otherwise), I'm liable to become
some amalgamation of western social stereotypes from the last 90
years.
Still I don't take that worry seriously enough to actually stop me.
At the same time I find it marvelous that for almost no monetary
outlay I can legally view works that involved thousands of people
in their production, and financial expenditure beyond my
comprehension, and view them on-demand on my couch, while foxes
stalk their prey outside. I'm not sure that I really understand how
or why it happened that technology and society developed to permit
this, I'm not sure that anyone really does, but it's facinating
that it has, and no doubt it will continue until modern
civilisation's dying breath.
But I'm thinking that I should do some more travel. Poor timing for
that, seeing as I'm in the only state of Australia where it's
currently not allowed, though actually before they put country
areas into "lockdown" I had a couple of fun trips down to the
coast. I normally avoid the coast and going along the Great Ocean
Road because all of the tourists make it too crowded. But with no
overseas, or even inter-state tourists, and travel even forbidden
from Melbourne, it was a perfect chance to visit. I've got the car
for it too, for that matter, and it was great fun threading the Jag
through the unbelieveably twisty roads down to the coast and back,
through the forrest. It's pretty impressive really that in one day
trip I can go from open plains, to dense ancient forrest, to long
beaches and the open ocean, all while one mis-judged corner away
from certain doom. I was a little surprised to see some bikers
riding the Great Ocean Road in spite of it all, and even though it
was drissling all day and the roads were wet - they've got guts, or
something. Then again I got a little lost as usual (no GPS, they
take all the fun out of going for a drive) and ended up threading
my way back through an unknown, twisty, forrest road in the dark,
rain, and fog, probably no more safe. Facinating to see the costal
tourist towns empty and largely shut down. There was a big
restaurant open, but only one person there eating. Most of the
tables had red tape over them, to enforce social distancing, and it
looked through the window like a literal sea of red tape - I think
it made a good picture, or would if I ever develop the film.
I have planned a slightly longer trip, staying overnight at my
mother's house, as a rare source of distant free accomodation. It's
certainly a limitation with my travel plans that I'm too cheap to
stay in motels. But to that end, the opportunity to borrow an old
Toyota Land Cruiser for a while has presented itself (although
associated with an obligation to do a full service on it and pay
the registration). It's about practical to sleep in the back of
that, and I can be a bit more brave about destinations than with
the (already somewhat abused) Jag. So I'm now planning on doing a
tour of some unusual sites in the outback, with a bias towards
abandoned townships. In particular, sites of the 1950s atomic bomb
tests, and other locations of radioactive notability. But we'll see
how I go.
- The Free Thinker.
* https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/22/ghosts-of-the-civil-dead-rewatched-the-ultimate-australian-prison-drama
EDIT: I picked out an old Apollo Bay tourist brochure from the 1940s
or 50s for this week's "history snippet", seeing as that was
one of the towns that I visited (the one with the "sea of red
tape"). See the History Snippets section.