First Cinematic Experience

[vin_petrol]

On Bank Holiday Monday afternoon I did watch some of Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I have a soft spot for this film, as it was the first ever film I saw at the cinema. My dad took me to see it when I was about 5 years old. I have vague recollections of the experience: the huge expanse of the darkened cinema, the vastness of the screen, the swirls of cigarette smoke (hey, it was the 70s) curling in the projected light and not being able to see that well 'cos I was tiny :-)

Older readers, even if they haven't seen the film, will recall the cartoon soccer match in it being a staple of Bank Holiday Disney Time for many years.

So, what was the first film you saw at the cinema?

Comments

[everild.livejournal.com]

worthy wildlife films with names like Brock the Badger and Tarka the Otter

I wouldn't put Tarka quite into the worthy wildlife film bracket - it's quite horrible and frightening in places. My grandmother took me and lady_strange to see it when we were quite young, and then let slip afterwards that she used to go on otter hunts in her youth, which made the whole thing even more traumatic.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I can't remember much about Tarka and it's muddled in my mind with that other great otter-angst flick Ring of Bright Water.

Do people still make this kind of lovable animal meets grizzly doom stuff?

[everild.livejournal.com]

Tarka is the one that's entirely focused on the life story of a young otter (based on a novel) and is more like a wildlife film in that respect I grant you. Ring of Bright Water is a true story about Gavin Maxwell the, er, otterologist and his work with a particular otter called Mij (I think that's how it was spelt - as a child I named a toy otter I had Mij and that's how I spelt it anyway). It focuses on the humans rather than the animals. If you watched The Really Wild Show or other BBC nature programmes as a child you may remember Terry Nutkin who had pieces missing from two of his fingers? This is because he worked with Maxwell in his youth and had them bitten off by an otter I believe. My knowledge of all this is entirely attributable to my having a zoologist for a mother incidentally.

[vin_petrol]

Ring of Bright Water is a true story about Gavin Maxwell

*cough* vaguely true. The film version did gloss over his homosexuality somewhat! :-)

Googling, I came across this article:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/10/1060454076705.html
which is about a woman who was in a chaste relationship with him for seven years. It's from one of her poems that the title "Ring of Bright Water" comes from. I didn't know that till today!

Terry Nutkin ... worked with Maxwell in his youth

Really? ;-)

[everild.livejournal.com]

*cough* vaguely true.

Well all truth is relative isn't it? ;-) But you're right, I should have put 'true' in inverted commas because all I meant to convey was that, unlike Tarka the otter, which is complete fiction, Ring of Bright Water is based on the life of a real person. I wasn't actually suggesting that it was entirely accurate. All of the names were changed in any case, so it's only loosely based on the reality of his life, which may explain the lack of reference to his sexuality. Does the novel make his homosexuality explicit? I haven't read it. It's certainly not really surprising that a film released in 1969 presented its protagonist as heterosexual!