Television Crime Series – a comparison

Last year I compared television crime series generally. (Cf. willwilltravel  22.2.2019).  These ever-popular series are, of course, the age-old struggle between the Good and Evil.  It is the differences in this universal art form that intrigue me.  The series are Inspector Barnaby (UK) and New York Special Unit (USA).

The British producers did the unthinkable:  they replaced John Nettles with Neil Dudgeon who bears a resemblance to his predecessor.  The producers told the followers of the narratives that they were cousins.  The Americans, I imagine, wouldn’t dream of doing something like this.

John Nettles (left) and Neil Dudgeon 

The settings for the two series couldn’t be more different.  I sometimes feel that the verdant countryside and the majestic manorhouses border on tourist propaganda.  Perhaps the writers wanted to show the horrors below the appearances.  The Special Unit settings are innercity New York, the dirty backstreets, taxis gliding by like predators and dimly-lit cobblestone alleyways between faceless buildings.

Barnaby and his assistant (always male) don’t carry weapons.  The American investigators not only carry weapons, but, in self-defence, are sometimes forced to kill people.  But there is always a sense of regret, no triumphant complacency as one would find in earlier crime series.

Hargitay and Meloni

In Barnaby, the murders sometimes tally more than three per episode.  In The Guardian we read “They work in a country full of murderers so gruesomely inventive it was as if they’d been cribbing ideas from Titus Andronicus.”  In the American series there is less focus on the action of the murder and more on the legal processes in the courtroom.

The writers of Barnaby have a bee in their bonnet about the church and it seems as though every second or third episode takes place within the church and its community.  There is also use of folk festivals and gatherings for the story to unfold.  This does not happen in Special Unit.

Good and Evil

The music in both series is remarkable.  In Special Unit, Mike Post’s signature music is something like symphonic jazz, dramatic, dissonant.  In Barnaby, the signature tune has a lilting sadness, also brilliantly adapted to other parts of the narrative.

In both series, the secondary characters, the ones pursued, investigated and apprehended, are finely written and superbly performed.  They give texture to the episode.  It is not unusual to have famous actors do a role by invitation in Special Unit.

The darkness of life

Barnaby, as a result of the uplifting signature tune and entertaining closing lines, usually has a feelgood ending in episodes.  Special Unit seldom has this and I have been left with a sense of the tragedy of life.

© Will

www.willwilltravel.wordpress.com

Les Semboules, Antibes

July, 2020

 

Source

France television

 

Images

Barnaby – The Guardian

Hargitay, Meloni  – Pinterest

Other images – sources lost

 

Molière – some thoughts

Molière – his first names were Jean-Baptiste – lived from 1622 to 1673.  People who believe in reincarnation might think that Shakespeare was reborn as Molière for a French stint.  Whatever the case may be, Molière was one of the greatest playwrights in history with a feeling for comedy.  And comedy, in my book, is supremely difficult.  Of necessity, he had to be wise as well and I am sharing a few of his sayings.

It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I’m right.

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We die only once, and for such a long time.

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Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue.

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Man, I can assure you, is a nasty creature.

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One must eat to live, not live to eat.

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Of all follies, there is none greater than wanting to make the world a better place. 

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The duty of comedy is to correct men by amusing them.

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Life is a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy for those who think.

 

© Will

http://www.willwilltravel.wordpress.com

Les Semboules, Antibes

July, 2020

 

Source

Goalcast

 

Images

Wikipedia

 

Gypsies

Once when I went for my afternoon constitutional I saw on the open stretch before you reach the forest about eleven caravans, modern and all white.  I guessed that they must be gypsies.

I was most interested.  I would value talking to these people.  In my mind they were romanticized.  At home I shared this with Claudie, my partner, and was confronted with what I imagine is a standard French reaction: “Oh no, you don’t go near them.  There are criminal elements among these gitanos.  They’ll plunder you.  The municipality need to chase them away.”

I found this strange.  My experience of gypsies in South Africa was slight  –  “Madame Rose” in a caravan on the outskirts of the town where she would read your tarot cards or your palm or divine your future in a crystal ball.  For me it was something exotic to colour the dusty streets of the town.

In France, Claudie points out, the gitanos in the media.  They are mainly entertainers.  An example is Kenji, handsome, talented and popular with the young people.

 

Over the years I have gathered fragments about the gitanos or Romi, as they are called.  In the French media there is clearly an effort to give recognition to them.  One can read about the gypsies on the internet and there will be some surprises.  They have, of course, been romanticized by writers as mysterious and intriguing outsiders.  There is a history of 1,500 years, the ethnic researchers tell us.  These people, they say, have a DNA and language traits originting in Hindustan.  As they moved west, it became convenient to gather in Egypt; hence, the name gypsies.

There is a brutal irony in this history:  after years of careful research, the origin of the gypsies is stated as Indo-Aryan.  The word Aryan was, of course, used by the Nazis to denote their own pure blood.  There was a systematic attempt to genocide the gypsies, either in the death camps or by means of summary executions in remote regions.  The estimates of fatalities have been difficult to establish and the figure of 220,000 is more or less agreed on, though some say it is much higher.

If the gypsies of Europe and later North and South America, are fascinating people, many of their numbers do not send their children to local school, preferring to educate them in the traditions.  They regard their past with a fierce pride.  They are loosely associated with the Catholic Church, though the practice of divination is frowned upon by the Church.  Sarah is their patron saint, the woman-servant who accompanied Mary, Mary Magdeline and Joseph of Arimathea to the Camargue in the south of France.  So the legend goes.

It is perhaps understandable that I don’t share the standard French attitudes to the gypsies.  I keep discovering how much music that I love comes from these people.  This is especially true of flamenco music, but popular music like the Gypsy Kings is a firm favourite.  I discovered that this group is in fact French, with a history of persecution in Franco’s Spain.  The grand parents of the members of this group could not have known that they had escaped the frying-pan to leap into the fire.  In a few years the Germans occupied France, though the south was relatively free until November of 1942.  These refugee families survived the war.

At the summit of these musicians is Mantas de Plata, the Hands of Platinum, regarded as the greatest of the flamenco guitarists.  He is a musical tsunami.

© Will

http://www.willwilltravel.wordpress.com

Les Semboules, Antibes

July, 2020

 

Source

Wikipedia Gypsies

You Tube Manitas de Plata

You Tube Gypsy Kings  

 

Images

My graphics

 

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Ratatouille

Two things have lifted me so that I celebrate … one is, last night at eight o’clock (written 23.3.20), the flat-dwellers of this block stood at their windows and began to bang their pots and pans, to clap and shout.  I joined them, moved to be human in this time of the pandemic.

The other is more homely and personal.  Over the years I enjoyed ratatouille when I could get hold of it.  In the Côte d’Azur I noticed an unusual range of ratatouille on the supermark shelf.  My discovery is that ratatouille originated in Nice, around the corner from me, and is also called ratatouille niçoise.  From there it became characteristic of Provençal cuisine and then, of course, a favourite worldwide.

A small thing, you might say.  Taste it.  It becomes big.

The start of the ecstasy

 

The moment of taste

 

The bonjon variation

©  Will

http://www.willwilltravel.wordpress.com

Les Semboules, Antibes

(written 23.3.20). Scheduled for July, 2020

 

Sauce

Wikipedia ratatouille

 

Images

Wikipedia

Chagall

 

A Western Caper after the first mouthful of ratatouille