I Heard the Bells More Loud and Deep

Oranges and Lemons, say the Bells of St. Clements.

You owe me five farthings, say the Bells of St. Martins.

When will you pay me? Say the Bells of Old Bailey.

When I am rich, say the Bells of Shoreditch.

When will that be? Say the Bells of Stepney.

I do not know, say the Great Bell of Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed.

Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.

Chip. Chop. Chip. Chop. The last man is dead.

"It was curious, but when you said it to yourself you had the illusion of actually hearing bells, the bells of a lost London that still existed somewhere or other, disguised and forgotten. From one ghostly steeple after another he seemed to hear them pealing forth. Yet so far as he could remember he had never in real life heard church bells ringing."

If you liked Orwell's book 1984, then you would like the 1954 adaptation of it. From what I remember of the book, it was excellently done. Short, but excellently done.

However, I couldn't stand the book. It was just a bit.....too old? There were some scenes in it that were a bit too...obvious. I didn't like it. I am very good at skipping things however, and the rest of the books was.... I quite enjoyed the rest on a....political level? Perhaps?

On second thought, perhaps I should reread that thing.

But I was watching the film and, while I know it refers to political matters, it also refers to single....fates? I really haven't read the book and can barely hear the film.

But he's searching for the past, looking for something he doesn't know - doesn't understand and has no reference to. He asks the old man in the tavern about life before the Revolution, and he goes to the banned area of the town to look at the people and paperweights - to look at simple beauty.

And he takes back what he can. He reclaims what little bits of the past and what should be as he can - but it will never be whole.

Even Julia, dressing in make-up and the clothes of poor people, of a forbidden forgotten time. And she has no idea what to do - she just puts it together as she faintly remembering it being.

But there is none they can ask for help, no chance that this world they long for can ever be real again - can ever be more than a fanciful dream indulged in in fleeting, lost moments. It can never, ever truly come to pass - it's just a...fool's vain hope. Nothing more. That's all it can ever be.

And what else is a dabble in the vintage life? Is that not what Winston does? What Julia does? Begging their elders for remembrances of a seemingly lighter, perfect time? Of a beautiful time that they can only dream of? Of song and melodies that can whisper through their dreams but can never be heard aloud again?

But then the game is over and the clothes are put away. The makeup is washed off, the clothes are folded away, the water poured onto the street..... They walk back to their apartments and their departments, pretending nothing happens.

Certainly, the consequences for the discovery of their game is much more dire - but are not the elements the same?

And when it began? When Winston walked out alone and Julia learnt 'Oranges and Lemons' from her grandfather? When each walked down to the forbidden area (I've forgotten the name...) and admired trinkets of no value simply for the link they held with the past? When they looked around at the rest of the people around them dressed in the same drab clothes? When they knew that they could never share their interests, their desires, their dreams simply because no one else would care or understand?

It doesn't matter that the past shapes the present - the past is forgotten. The present is all that matters.

But then they find each other. and, alright, I hate that - but! Imagining that nothing else goes on - imagining that they only shared there dreams and interests, then...  They would have found one other person that longs for the past the same as they did.

It is a lonely world. To wear modest, outdated fashion, to wear shapewear, to have long natural hair, to obey one's parents as completely openly, and to walk through a world where seemingly no one else does this? To find even one. other. person. that shares these interests is...precious. Seemingly impossible - but precious.

To learn that there are others that have a greater hold to the past, and are better able to bring it into the present - to learn that it is possible to continue living in the past while in the present seems impossible; and it is.

It is the past. It is the present. Never the twain shall meet. We are not of the past - we can only pretend to be. But we are a product of our times. Those of the past did not document ever little thing - taking it for granted. And so, we have lost it. We can bring back a little bit in aesthetic, in etiquette - but...not completely. Not without a time machine and taking a child back and letting it be raised in the past.

We mimic the past, but we are not the past, and thus is our weakness. Thus is always the weakness. We are actors, we are not the part.

And we know little or no people that can teach of the past - that can lead us back.

And just as the Next Generation will know nothing of 'Oranges and Lemons' or indeed of any life before the perpetual War, so we will continue to lose the things of the past.

It is as it has always been, and so it shall always be. Sadly so.

.....the saddest thing about this? Winston dies. And if you continue the correlation it gets rather morbid.

What's new?

And yet....  (Didn't I do something like this before? Draw pointless parallels between a film and something nonfictional? It seems familiar...  Maybe it's just my life.)

"How many fingers?"

"I'm trying to see five"

If Big Brother says that two plus two makes five, then so it does.

If the modern world says that women don't need men to be chivalrous to them, that chivalry is misogynistic - then so it is?

I hardly think so.

But then again, 'it always was rather small'....

It was an excellent adaptation. But I only reccommend it if you know something (a lot) about the book, or you'd watch something for Cushing regardless of plot. I take no responsibility for it beyond that.

"If you are a man, you are the last man."

"Chip. Chop. Chip. Chop. The last man is dead."

Made by Angelique

Let it end - such dark beginnings

Hold no good for what may come.

The threads now chosen are dark-tainted -

Will now no one run?

What have we now brought on ourselves?

What have we shaped our fate?

There is evil, but still we call

To the reflecting plate.

Let it end - let us rather

Choose a different road.

If we go on, there is no ending -

Only a heavy load.

What have we now begun ourselves?

What way can we escape?

There is sorrow, and all we are

Is some forgotten shape.

Let it end - it never started,

Reflections of the past.

It was but dreams that had no future -

Such things could never last.

What could we have made of ourselves?

What story have we told?

We mimic those better than us -

Actors of stories old.