Cinematic Details

[vardathemessage]

script:
Everyone looks up. There is a strange between-songs silence.
 
Arthur proceeds, self consciously.
 
A Tommy Stone song beings on the jukebox. (‘People Rockin’ People’/Shudder To Think) but people in the bar continue staring at Arthur.
 
He approaches the bar.
 
ARTHUR
Beer, please.
 
Arthur notices a group of mostly black Teenagers, decked out in Tommy Stone gear. They whisper to each other. One Teenage Girl starts walking over.
 
The Bartender hands Arthur his beer, staring all the while at Arthur’s jacket.
 
Arthur realizes he’s still wearing his press pass and starts taking it off.

TEENAGE GIRL
Excuse me, sir. Are you from the Tommy Stone Tour?
 
ARTHUR
No. Just a journalist. Perhaps you’d like my press pass as a souvenir?
 
Her eyes widen. Arthur hands her the badge.
 
TEENAGE GIRL
Thank you, sir.


Todd: To me, that scene represents the dearth of radical spirit that I saw as such a tremendous aspect of the Seventies. It's not meant to blame the poor kids in the bar — this is the music they were given, and it's all they have. Everybody needs some piece of pop music to cling to and get through their teenage years with. For this generation, it's Tommy Stone, while for another generation it's someone else.

The female Tommy Stone fan seems to have her hair straightened and styled in an old fashioned 50's way. Perhaps she thinks of it as a cool retro look but to many of us it looks like a nod to a repressive era when Blacks straightened their hair in an effort to look more 'acceptable'.

Comments

[kahvi-musta.livejournal.com]

I still hear Arthurs voice in my head... the way he says "Journalist" I *drool* every time.

[sor-bet.livejournal.com]

Me, too! Would you believe there was a thread somewhere about how people HATED the way he said "journalist"??!?!? I love his accent so much, I try to pronounce that word the same way, but I just can't manage it. Jarrlrnalist. Nope, can't get it.

BTW, is that his real-life accent or was it put on for the movie, the way JRM did a Birmingham accent to be Brian?

[kahvi-musta.livejournal.com]

I mimic him every time when he says "journalist", but I cant seem to do it without hearing him first.

The first time he said "I'm Arthur Stewart, from the Herald" - I actually heard "Im Martha Stewart..." oh how wrong I was... but I get a giggle every time.

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

I wonder if he's implying a little ironic contempt for his profession when he says just a journalist. Of course, if he was American, he's say he was a 'reporter'.

As for the accent, Christian Bale, who is Welsh, is doing a Manchester accent, since Arthur is Mancunian (love that word). From an article:
Even off camera, the Welsh-born Bale speaks in an authentic Manchester accent, like Arthur. "It's just easier to keep it up," he says. "Trouble is, some of the crew come from Manchester, and they asked exactly where I lived. I told them I was raised by a strict religious cult, and I didn't get outdoors much."

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

But then you're amazing too, thanks!

The afro was the ultimate expression of freedom in the late 60s & 70s because the methods of straightening hair in those days were primitive. Here's a once read never forgotten description from Malcolm X.

[bboinnng.livejournal.com]

This was one of the reasons I was so disappointed that Michelle Obama had a weave the entire time and still does. As first lady for 8 years, she's perhaps the most powerful and influential black woman in the world, and our first black first lady, yet she has straight white-women's hair the whole time? Ugh.

I voted for her husband twice. I dig them both. I just really felt the weave thing was a hugely missed opportunity and a very bad message to black women and girls, and even her own daughters.