I saw the RVW documentary in the Barbican cinema last night. Whilst it's good to see a project of this sort being undertaken at all, I have to say that I found it very unsatisfactory. There seemed to be no attempt to give the 2.5 hour film any structure: it jumped around chronologically, and seemed to be caught between a theme-based and a chronological biography. The music chosen was pretty random at times: why the London Symphony as a 'soundtrack' to RVW's first marriage, for example? Equally, pretty shots of Gloucester cathedral were slotted into the film at seemingly random points; and the pictures of the British countryside and coastline, whilst lovely, were terribly hackneyed. Not as bad, however, as the modern footage of warfare and of sick, dying or dead children (one of which was used repeatedly and, distressing as it was, seemed of marginal relevance at best. It is hard for me to comment on the quality of the specially recorded music, as the Barbican sound system was set at such a high volume that all the loud passages distorted dreadfully. The filming of the musicians was unimpressive however (lots of pictures of strings playing four abreast for some reason), and I could have done with a lot less footage of Tamas Vasary and Sian Edwards conducting. As for Barbara Dickson singing a RVW song: why, for heaven's sake?

The chief value of the film lay in the interviews with those who knew RVW well, some of whom (Evelyn Barbirolli, for example) were very funny; and a very poignant interview with Ursula Vaughan Williams. Stephen Johnson provided the critical backbone of the film and was characteristically excellent and illuminating. But what was the point of an interview with Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys? And why feature Sir David Willcocks and have him say only that RVW had very big feet?

I shall probably half-watch it again on New Year's Day (in a state of somnolence), but I'm afraid it lacked focus. Tony Palmer said in his introduction that he was pleasantly surprised that 5 agreed to show the film uncut. I rather wish that, after the manner of RVW himself, he had availed himself of a committee of critical friends to advise him on the content of the film.

Having said all that, possibly the most shocking aspect of the evening was when Palmer read out his rejection letter from the BBC. Apart from displaying some of the most ghastly and incomprehensible management-speak I have ever heard, it was obvious that the writer had never heard of RVW. The letter refers to 'Mr V Williams' and closes by asking Palmer to inform the BBC if Mr V Williams produces anything of interest in the future. Unless this was a BBC joke at the expense of Palmer (unlikely), this depressed me more than anything I have heard on Radio 3 in recent years. I hope the letter is given a wider circulation: the cultural and political world really needs to know what is going on at the BBC.    

Thanks, George. There was a burning child in this one too. It begins to seem like a thoughtless directorial tic, which is if anything even worse.
There is a 'revelation' slipped in at one point, which I won't spoil. I found it rather gratuitous, and it certainly did not affect my thinking of RVW or his music.
bws
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I was looking forward to seeing this film. Shame it sounds like such an annoying experience.


As I am to Ron Dough!

Which one is that?

Yes, a little pear-shaped, one might say, but it could still develop interestingly...

Covered in an article in yesterday's Observer. According to a BBC spokeswoman:
1. They have no record of Palmer being in contact with them about this film.
2. Also no record of said letter.
3. He refuses to let them see the letter or state who sent it.

Wouldn't be surprised if he was just trying to get some front page publicity by BBC Bashing - always a good tactic these days.

The letter itself looks like it was put together by the lads at Private Eye.

The article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/dec/09/bbc.tvnews

Well, it is the Observer

BTW, received this from a friend - it's apparently the full text of the letter:
'Dear Mr Palmer,
Thank you for your enquiry about the composer Mr V Williams. Having looked at our own activity via the lens of find, play & share, we came to the conclusion that a film about Mr Williams would not be appropriate at this time. This is essentially because we are... reconstructing the architecture of bbc.co.uk, and to do that, we need to maximise the routes to content.
'We must establish the tools that allow shared behaviours, and so harness the power of the audience and our network to make our content more findable. We have decided to take a radically new approach... and therefore free resources for projects of real ambition... So, given that this is the new vision for Vision, you will understand why a film about Mr V Williams such as you have proposed does not fit our remit. But good luck with the project, and do let me know if Mr V Williams has an important premiere in the future as this findability might allow us to reconsider.'

Whilst its contents are indeed more suggestive of spoof than genuine article, I'd be surprised that, were it really authentic, it had not been sent to HMRC by mistake.

I think that we could be reasonably certain that, if it had indeed been written by a BBC underling, it was not submitted to James Naughtie for approval before being committed to the Royal Mail...

Best,

Alistair