This week Chris Deacy is joined in the studio by Marion Stuart to discuss the films; Bambi, White Christmas, Ben-Hur, and The Water Diviner.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club. I'm Chris Deesey and each week I'll be joined by a guest
00:18to dive deep into the impact certain films have had on their life. Each guest will reflect on
00:23the films which have meant the most to them over the years and every week there will be a Kent
00:28Film Trivia where we quiz you at home about a film that has a connection to the county and now let
00:34me introduce you to my guest for this week. She is a graduate of SDUC in 1988 having been a teacher
00:40and a decade-long career in journalism while also being a semi-professional singer. She is
00:47Marion Stewart. Great to have you on the program Marion. Thank you Chris it's a joy to be here.
00:53Absolute pleasure. Well I don't know your films in advance but Bambi. What a beautiful way to start.
00:59Why have you chosen this? Oh because it meant so much to me and to my children and to just about
01:08everybody that I know that I talk to that says oh Bambi oh that was wonderful. Do you remember that
01:15bit where his mother died and it is a kind of film that just touches on so many different emotions.
01:23I mean I saw it I hate to say when it came up and my mum took me to the cinema and of course in those
01:31days that's the only entertainment no television. Well it's the sort of film isn't it that even people
01:38who perhaps I know men who say that you know they never cry but Bambi is the exception that they will
01:45make. Absolutely. And Watership Down is perhaps one that also perhaps comes close. Yeah yeah I've seen
01:49that as well but but I must tell you that when you said to me about four films I went all Freudian on
01:56myself and decided the first four that popped into my mind had to be the four that mattered most
02:02because I must have seen almost as many movies as you have although my life is longer than yours
02:09and Bambi just came up as number one because it covers so many aspects of life. And can you remember
02:16that first screening? So you say that you saw it when you were very young and I'm guessing that
02:22you've seen it many times since. Yes. But does it take you back to that first time you saw it with
02:26your mother? Yes yes yes it does because yeah Bambi and the mother was very important and yeah I should
02:39say at this point that many many children in that era were made orphans so I think it had a poignancy
02:45because it was during the Second World War when lots of children were made orphans or they even died
02:54themselves but for one so young as Bambi to be left with with no mum is almost unthinkable and it sort
03:03of touches at the the importance of motherhood the importance of parents in our lives and losing
03:12them is is a number one tragedy so it touches everybody's soul. Because that's the the thing you
03:18know what is the hallmark of a really good film that can stand the test of time 80 years plus since
03:26it was made yeah it still has the same appeal I mean if they were ever to try and remake this or do a
03:32live-action version of this which would be quite an interesting feat especially in today's age when
03:37this knows what they do with it based on what they've done with other Disney things so yes well well I suppose
03:43babe I suppose this is proof that you can have talking animals yeah but but this is the classic
03:48which like like it's a wonderful life which was made just a few years later where there have been
03:54talks about having a new version of it or a sequel to it yes it's in thankfully that they've been talked
04:02out of it because you don't want to ruin something that has been preserved in people's imagination and
04:09that has become sort of an icon in people's lives because it's not only it touches on so many
04:18things it's not only motherhood it's friendship and the role that friends pay in your life the
04:23diversity of friends that you can have as we were kind of talking about last night that we all have
04:30some friends that come and go or they're different meaning in Bambi you've got Thumper and then then
04:37the the fella that has a female name yeah I mean tell me about that are there particular scenes in
04:45this that really stay with you because it's obviously emotionally it's a really affecting
04:51film but can you sort of narrow it down to particular no I can't not at this stage and maybe if you ask my
04:59children they also wouldn't remember I think with a film like Bambi and its raw emotions that trigger all
05:08kinds of things inside adults as children you just see it on a different level but it's difficult to
05:15remember any particular scene you can just remember the overall impression and in that sense it's a film
05:20that I suppose you'd say would be critic proof in the sense that it's it's not the sort of film that
05:26ought to be dissected or if it does it doesn't in any way change it's almost like it's it's in your
05:30DNA you've grown up with this and and there's nothing anybody can say yeah yeah so it's a
05:35generational thing I mean I can remember going to Warpington cinema when I was living at Cuddin with
05:42my children my best friend and her children and that was in the 70s so that was 30 years on from when the
05:51film was made but it still had the same impact and the cinema was crowded so brilliant well
05:59it is time now Marion to move on to your second chosen film and you've gone for another classic
06:04white Christmas yep again a very similar thing of the impressions that that made on me and my family
06:16because um and not many people know this as Michael would say it was on every Christmas
06:23on television for as long as I could remember and it's part of the Christmas scene that you
06:30watched white Christmas it was as important as the Christmas dinner and also of course uh people
06:36often think this is where the the famous the Bing Crosby uh crooner you know the the song white
06:41Christmas comes from but that was holiday years past yes yes yes so that was something lovely that
06:47got recycled and as you say most people think that everything in there was original but but it wasn't
06:54but again it's the storyline of friendship and um yeah hope I I would ask you at the end whether you can
07:04see what the themes are that are running through the four that I've chosen which rather shows up who I
07:11am in a sense well but certainly without jumping ahead I mean you've mentioned family a few times
07:18and camaraderie the coming togetherness particularly in the context of war because here this was made
07:24within just about a decade before the end of the second world war that's right and and here that
07:29there's that sense of going back to something traumatic but doing it as a musical but putting it on as a
07:37show it was almost as though I suppose Hollywood was quite good at doing that post-Vietnam as well
07:42but that sense of revisiting something from a different age yeah but but turning it into a really
07:46good upbeat musical yeah and the fact that the show that was put on was to help an army mate from
07:55their time in the army together um which shows the love and care of friends and the difference that they can
08:02make in your lives in supporting you and it's those kind of things oh and of course there was love and
08:09romance and all the good emotions rolled into one with with the sort of victorious and a and a fantastic
08:16cast they don't make them like that anymore I don't care what you say because when I'm asked about war
08:22films I design you know military based films are not really my cup of tea but I gravitate to films which
08:29are all about you know the the romance or about the relationships or indeed the the the something
08:35that white christmas does very well because it's showing that the the spirit the human spirit cannot
08:40be subdued absolutely but talking of war films there was one that I was going to choose because it was my
08:48first date at the cinema and but that was a film that that touched on different levels of my being
08:54this um and bambi in the end it's all good stuff isn't it it's um there's happy happy endings and this
09:03is remind me so it's rosemary cluny isn't it yeah yeah and dear old bing and danny k yeah and and vera is
09:14it and not lynn no sorry i yeah vera ellen yes a tiny petite little thing i think she's about five
09:21foot tall um and i also think she was told that she couldn't be a dancer because she was too small
09:28stunned everybody so well again that whole notion of defying expectations against the odds i mean this
09:36was a film that really i mean this was an age when you know rationing was still certainly in the uk
09:40around that time still happening but that that sense of being able to turn something that could
09:46easily have been a negative into a whopping big positive yeah yeah so there's almost and yeah
09:52we'll talk about that later yeah and any particular scenes that stand out for this or any indeed any of
09:58the musical i think no i i think that the final scene where the snow starts to fall and they get their
10:07white christmas which makes all the dreams with like a cream topping really can you watch this
10:14again and again have you done that have you watched it in different formats have you seen it on the big
10:18screen no i don't think i have i don't think i have i would like to i've seen it many many many
10:26times television and the so-called big screen of the day which is nothing like the really big screens
10:32that you have today and similar to holly holiday inn i mean there are all those questions about
10:37black and white versus color yeah do you have a particular stance on that because i i i'm pretty
10:42sure i once had to choose i might be thinking of holiday inn admittedly but it was sort of you know
10:48do you watch it in the original format or do you watch it in the the technicolor you know
10:52yeah well it is a doctored version yes because that that's about all they had but i also like black and
10:59white i think that has an atmosphere and an ethos all of its own and when we were living in australia
11:06there was one channel that was all black and white movies and we were quite addicted to that so there
11:12has to be a reason why ram becomes addicted to the black and white you would probably know better than i
11:18why yeah and and the song white christmas as well it does appear in this doesn't it but in is it but
11:23in a very different form to holiday inn where he's at the piano oh absolutely yeah yeah yeah brilliant
11:29stuff okay well that's about all the time we have for this first half of the show however before we
11:34go to the break we have a kent film trivia question for you at home which tudor period piece featured
11:42heaver castle leeds castle and dover castle was it a elizabeth the golden age b lady jane or was it c the
11:51other berlin girl we'll reveal the answer right after this break don't go away
12:06hello and welcome back to kent film club just before the ad break we asked you at home a kent
12:12film trivia question which tudor period piece featured heaver castle leeds castle and dover castle
12:18i asked was it a elizabeth the golden age b lady jane or c the other berlin girl and now i can reveal
12:25to you that the answer was in fact b lady jane the long gallery at heaver castle was used for the scene
12:31where lady jane and princess mary meet and talk about god the moat around leeds castle was used to
12:37double as some of the exterior of lady jane's home and dover castle doubles as the tower of london
12:43did you get the answer right well it is time now marion to move on to your next chosen film
12:50and you've gone for another classic ben hur yes what a movie what a movie i would tell you that i
12:59resisted seeing they they did a sort of a remake that was yeah and i never saw the original i think
13:06was 1920s but that one i think i was secretly in love with charlton heston probably a lot of girls were
13:14but i saw i don't know how many times i saw that i was living in south ken at the time
13:22sounds as though i'm terribly wealthy but it was a cockroach ridden basement bed sitter
13:27and there was a cinema down the road and ben hur was on i went every night
13:31and i cried every night and it touched me on so many levels so many levels and i would say at this
13:38point as far as i know that film and bambi got into the american institute um film thing oh when they
13:48preserved the films yes yeah yes but it's among the 10 best films came much later but that that again
13:56contained all the emotions um and all to do with friendship and love and despair um being down a
14:08pit and being brought up from the pit and again one very important aspect of that was how friendships
14:16change as well as healing and hope and so on because what comes to mind here with ben hur i mean charlton
14:25heston who's the very much the all-american hero yeah and of course when you think of the same era the
14:30ten commandments as well yeah that sounds here of a very very clear form of revisionism shall we say
14:39yeah in terms of taking a biblical story and or roman story and doing something with it that's very
14:46appealing to a generation growing up in that period yeah but it was also i think the movie that cost the
14:53notes to make of all time um the the number of extras that they had was phenomenal now you do it
15:00digitally you know he wouldn't need sort of so many thousand people well that's what i i need to ask you
15:07because just a few years later you had cleopatra yeah but the those sort of films until perhaps i mean
15:14james in fact when titanic won all those oscars in well the ceremony in 98 it was you know ben hur i
15:23think had the record then that the titanic was striving to meet yeah but it's clearly done not
15:29with a green screen behind or a blue screen yeah but on location no no it may not have been the exact
15:36locations where the the story is set but it's done in a very real geographical environment and they had is
15:42that what works yes it does because they had a staff of thousands that um made all the um the sets
15:51the statues and there were thousands involved with the costumes i think what it is there was this
15:58attempt a successful attempt at authenticity you really believed that you were in that that arena you
16:07really believed that you were out sort of um in these spectacle type places whereas sometimes you
16:16you can watch a movie and say yeah well yeah it's only a film it's not real but there was a sense with
16:23ben-hur because of the enormous effort that went into creating it that it had a realism that we all bought
16:31into and the the chariot that that chariot race was phenomenal again i saw the later one that was made
16:41and the chariot race was nothing compared to that um amazing do you think when you're watching something
16:48like this does it make you go back to the original materials the original story in a new light because
16:55it's impossible to get charlton heston out of your head and in a way that this is from moses to a
17:00chariot here but that's right but in a way that there's a significant amount of revisionism of reframing
17:06going on here does it matter no i don't think it does really um you you buy into something at the time
17:18um and going back charlton heston yeah he was my favorite i saw every movie that he was
17:25in um i think he was a good actor as well as being you know the one guy that went around sewing
17:30his torso more than oh other than but hap as we called him victor manure victor mature he was the
17:37other one the other biblical thing but i think what also touched my soul and why that took me back
17:44was because it was the christian story it was the story of christ as well and at that time i was very
17:50very involved um in the church and christianity was my everything because i went to sunday school
17:58from the age of three so that made the story of jesus real as opposed to the sunday school classes or
18:06just reading the bible and it was it was so well depicted on several levels you could also pull it
18:14apart if you wanted and suggest that there's a lot of psychology involved well it is time now marion
18:22to move on to your final chosen film and you've gone for the water diviner yes talk me through this
18:31one this is russell crowe russell crowe that was his baby from beginning to end it was his creation um he
18:39directed it he starred in it and and i saw it actually in cyprus where it was issued in turkish with the
18:48with the title um son um last hope which isn't quite the same although he was looking for his last hope
18:59his job in in australia was a water diviner um i don't know how many people know the story but it
19:08touched my soul because i lived in australia and i'm now sort of part of turkey but his three sons
19:15went off to world war one and none of them came back and so he went off on a quest to try and find
19:22out where they died and how they died and in the course of that of course it was his hope that he would
19:30find answers he discovered two of the boys had died and the other one was still alive but completely
19:37shell-shocked by his experience and he didn't he was just living almost by the moment um eventually
19:45he did go back with his father who found romance and love along the way so his life was transformed
19:54by his quest is this based on a true story today i'm not sure no just a minute it was based on
20:03a line that somebody said that um the whole story was built from that of a guy who actually did lose
20:15his sons at war um and the the makers of the film waited until such time as uh it was comfortable
20:25to pursue that the the man who said that never found his answers but this was the idea of what might
20:33have happened or could have happened now many watching this uh may not have heard of this film
20:38they certainly heard of russell crowe how did you know you you saw it in australia is that right
20:43no i saw it in cyprus and when you saw this now was this random was it something that somebody else
20:51had suggested to you how because this has obviously made such a key impression and you've obviously carried
20:57it with you i think because i'm i'm i'm not madly in love with russell crowe as i was madly in love
21:04with charlton heston but because i lived in australia and i love the outback i mean my one dream is to
21:11have an animal rescue center in the outback of australia and my bank balance says no um and i think it was
21:18because of this australian and the war connection i had an uncle who was more or less destroyed wartime by
21:25being a prisoner and yeah i thought it's a film worth seeing and a lot of the time where i am
21:32there are very few films that are worth seeing most of them are turkish films with english subtitles
21:39and a lot of the big films just don't get over there but that one did but it was the australia turkish
21:46war um sort of ethos because i think what a lot of people will identify with is those films that
21:53are often i mean very different from ben her perhaps in some ways this feels a smaller scale
21:58movie but it's it's one that emotionally has clearly has a lot of heft and i'm thinking that
22:05we could probably all identify those films that we watch which matter which other people may not
22:10have heard of may be familiar with and i'm guessing this might be a film that you've recommended to
22:15others oh i would and i've seen it on television since it's come on television now i've seen it now
22:20several times um and again that i don't know if you've managed to pick up on why these grab my soul
22:31but this is in line with the other three that again it's all to do with caring and love and hope and
22:39dreams and salvation each of those movies has an element of salvation about it yes and that's the the
22:48the magic of movies isn't it yeah absolutely it's cathartic just like uh delphi the greek place where
22:55people walk for miles to watch plays it was cathartic they could live out emotions that they wouldn't
23:01otherwise there look at and i think that's the great thing with a good movie it can help you all right
23:08today it's called counseling but we never had counseling until a few decades ago and people went
23:15to dramas and the theater to relive perhaps their own experiences or get them into a different frame
23:23of mind and thinking well i'm afraid that is all the time we have for today but before we go if you live
23:29in kent and want the chance to share four films of your choice reach out to us at kmtv and you might be
23:35invited in to be my next guest but for now many thanks to marion stewart for joining us and being
23:41such a brilliant guest and many thanks to you all for tuning in until then that's all from us goodbye