Moving swiftly on.
Binners - I'm fairly sure at least one of the people in that picture is an alien...
Chat Forum
PSA: Birdsong Bbc1 9pm
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Posted 4 months ago #
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You could well be right Hels. One things for sure, none of them look like they've any idea about the impending air strike
Posted 4 months ago # -
The question is, do we invest more of our time watching the second part?
i.e. will it pick up?
I'll be honest, I really don't buy into the lead bloke at all. In the book, whilst in the trenches does he come across as reluctant and abit oafish to the ranks?
Posted 4 months ago # -
do we invest more of our time watching the second part?
Yeah I'm going to see it through. Its never going to be the same as the book, its someones enterpretation of the book.
One thing that made me laugh was the lack of recoil when they were firing their rifles...Posted 4 months ago # -
What else were you going to invest 90 minutes of your Sunday evening in? Give us the options, and we'll pass comment. Let me guess....
1) Rollerblading
2) Doing your pelvic floor exercises
3) Dismantling another set of forks and losing some bits
4) Infiltrating American evangelical christian websites, pretending to be the prophet MohamedPosted 4 months ago # -
I'll be watching next week as it only clashes with a Roman Polanski film on C4. And we don't watch stuff made by paedos now do we.
Posted 4 months ago # -
I could have rewatched this
Posted 4 months ago # -
I like the sound of 4....
Posted 4 months ago # -
The question is, do we invest more of our time watching the second part?
Only if I really have nothing better to do.
Bloody awful adaption. I reckon the Beeb farmed this out to C5 to produce.
Posted 4 months ago # -
I'm definately going to watch the second half, what we've seen so far is by far the simplest aspects of the book, the naive "boy", the desperately unhappy wife and the juxtoposition with the war, there's a lot more to come if it's to do the book justice.
I did find the flashback approach a bit jarring compared with the way the book moves through time in a sequential manner, which emphasises the way he changes in a much more believable and tragic way, from a idealogically immature fool, through the horror of hell (Rene predicts he will go to "hell" for his affair with his wife), before we have redemption and hope again, but not before a bit more tragedy.
Posted 4 months ago # -
In the book, whilst in the trenches does he come across as reluctant and abit oafish to the ranks?
It is some time since I read it but I don't think he did - he came across as a victim of circumstance and was just doing what he had to to get through it all. But that could be another book as I have read quite a bit about the two world wars - mainly true life accounts - (but the interest was first stirred after reading Birdsong).Nothing I have seen so far comes close to communicating the conditions the men really endured that came across so vividly in the book.
Posted 4 months ago # -
MF - any book recommendations?
This is a good read http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nst4PwAACAAJ&sitesec=reviews
Posted 4 months ago # -
MF - any book recommendations?
There are the relatively popular Antony Beevor books (Berlin & Stalingrad) that were pretty good but I really enjoyed 'With The Jocks' (I forget the author) and Primo Levi's books about the Holocaust were very good too.I currently have a couple more books lined up to read but can't for the life of me remember what either are called. One is about the days around the eventual victory in WWII and the other I cannot remember a thing about (it was a present and I haven't even looked at the sleeve notes yet
Posted 4 months ago # -
Nothing I have seen so far comes close to communicating the conditions the men really endured that came across so vividly in the book.
I agree, but I'm prepared to conceed that might be down to my imagination being different to that of those who have created this TV drama, and that as I mention above, the sudden change from one life to the other, makes the horror seem even worse in the book.
Posted 4 months ago # -
I agree, but I'm prepared to conceed that might be down to my imagination being different to that of those who have created this TV drama, and that as I mention above, the sudden change from one life to the other, makes the horror seem even worse in the book.
As above, I MAY be getting my books crossed, but I recall the horror at even the simple things like the comforts of being out of the front line with being thrust back into it, clothes cold and wet in an instant, the lice living in the seams of clothing re-appearing almost straight away, the conditions in the trenches and underground etc.But it seemed the programme wanted to concentrate on the love affair more (to me that was almost secondary in the book with much longer sequences on the frontline).
But I did have a lump in my throat when he was holding the hand of the dying lad, telling him to think about his girl.
Posted 4 months ago # -
I have never understood why everyone raves about Amelie. She was clearly mental and a stalker, not quite as mental as Betty Blue but on the way. Not to mention the dubious child-like behavior.
The Director has made much better films, try Delicatessen.
If you met her in real life all the advice on here would be to run as she is clearly a bunny boiler, and if not physically underage, definitely can't sign her own legal documents.
Posted 4 months ago # -
Bullets ricochet off bones, a bullet to the shoulder can end up in the chest.
Colonel H Jones.
I take your Colnel H Jones and raise you an Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson.
For those who want more tunnelling try the Poppy Factory by William Fairchild.
Posted 4 months ago # -
Ah! Good point.
Posted 4 months ago # -
I have never understood why everyone raves about Amelie. She was clearly mental and a stalker.
Being stalked by Amelie is pretty much my ideal romance, tbh.
Posted 4 months ago # -
hels I take it you aren't a fan.
Delicatessen - will do..
Posted 4 months ago # -
As to Birdsong - it was alright. It's been a long time since I read the book, but they looked the part.
The flashbacks-whilst-close-to-death stuff: it did make me think of my great-great uncle, Major Noteeth, listed on the Menin Gate as missing in action in the Ypres Salient. Many years later it emerged that he'd had an affair with a Ugandan woman, whilst working for the British protectorate in East Africa. A son was born, and as well as paying upkeep, he offered to bring him over to England, but the lad chose to stay with his mother's family. It was only recently that we discovered that we have a whole bunch of cousins over there!
If he wasn't killed instantly, I imagine his dying thoughts probably lingered on that love affair, and his far-off son.
Posted 4 months ago # -
It wasn't bad...certainly better cans than the book.
*awaits ban*
Posted 4 months ago # -
Wasn't going to watch it but the missus did plus I was too knackered to move ... A worthwhile improvement on the first episode; still didn't find the 'battle' scenes particularly good, but at least the love story (cough cough) conveyed well. Makes me hate the futility of war even more.
Posted 3 months ago # -
So will there be a third episode with all the bits from the book they couldn't be arsed with?
Posted 3 months ago # -
So was that a mini series based on the book 'Birdsong' by Sebastian Faulks?
Posted 3 months ago #
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