Shocking Pink ([info]fionnghuala) wrote,
@ 2008-04-02 19:11:00
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Current mood: Obsessed with Derren Brown

There'll be No. Butter. In. Hell !!!
Finally saw Cold Comfort Farm last night, after almost a year of expectations. There were fantastic moments, like realising that Stephen Fry was playing Mr Mybug, and essentially is him in real life. But overall I was a bit disappointed. The humour wasn't relentless enough, and a lot of the low-key charm was pushed a bit, too. Even the no butter in hell line, possibly one of the funniest in the entire universe, was a bit too Made For TV :(

This is a bit of a limp entry. All the cool entries in my head require a bit too much commitment for my current, failing-to-get-any-work-done mode of operation.

PS: Donna Haraway rocks my socks.


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[info]fionnghuala
2008-04-02 06:18 pm UTC (link)
I have this strange mental image of Donna Haraway and Derren Brown as some kind of super-couple. Perhaps I should erect a little shrine to them as such and worship them in my living room.

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[info]doctor_nemesis
2008-04-02 06:55 pm UTC (link)
I forgot to mention, since butter makes burns worse, there probably will be butter in hell!

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[info]fionnghuala
2008-04-03 03:13 pm UTC (link)
This is what wikipedia has to say about it being set in the future, btw...

Futurism



An aspect of the novel overlooked by many recent adaptations is that the story was set in the future. Although the book was published in 1932, the setting is an unspecified near future, containing developments that Gibbons thought might have been invented by then, such as TV phones and air taxis. The book also refers (usually facetiously) to future social/demographic changes, such as the degradation of Mayfair into a slum district. She did seem to have predicted a Second World War - the "the Anglo-Nicaraguan wars of '46" are alluded to in the experiences of some characters - but she probably did not appreciate the scale of that war. Nor can her 'futurism' anticipate social changes during and after that war which rendered some of the book's attitudes to class and Jews archaic.

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[info]doctor_nemesis
2008-04-04 08:33 am UTC (link)
Yes, I read that. Hence your comment about the plan being "futuristic". I don't think that's true in the film though, since they'd ditched all futurism in favour of 1930's style. I think he has a plane because he's well off and a little more adventurous than Flora gave him credit for!

As for heli-taxis...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9633v6U0wo

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[info]crocodilewings
2008-04-02 07:58 pm UTC (link)
If you put the phrase "no butter in Hell" into Google, your blog is the second result.

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[info]fionnghuala
2008-04-03 03:05 pm UTC (link)
That's quite upsetting; as it is such a terrific line and more people should be consuming and enjoying it. You kind of need the build up where he talks in detail about how we all know what it feels like to burn yourself while taking a cake out of the oven, or lighting one of those infernal cigarettes, and don't we run to get a bit of butter to put on it and soothe it. Well, the fires of hell will be ten times hotter, etc, etc, etc.

Saying that, the first result is a bit of a goldmine...

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[info]fionnghuala
2008-04-03 03:10 pm UTC (link)
Mybug: Let me warn you: I'm a queer, moody brute, but there's rich soil in here if you care to dig for it.

Mybug: We met in London.
Amos Starkadder: Aye, the Devil's city. The stinking pit of whoredom.

Mrs. Smiling [played by Joanna Lumley looking flapper fabulous, but I think a bit too old, detracts from the misplacedness of how snooty she is...]: In fact, when poetry is combined with ill-groomed hair and eccentric dress, it's generally fatal [for attracting a man]. You're very lucky, Elfine. He must have seen your finer points.

And the jewel in the crown:

Amos Starkadder: Ye miserable, crawlin' worms. Are ye here again then? Have ye come like Nimshi, son of Rehoboam, secretly out of your doomed houses, to hear what's comin' to ye? Have ye come, old and young, sick and well, matrons and virgins, if there be any virgins amongst you, which is not likely, the world being in the wicked state that it is. Have ye come to hear me tell you of the great, crimson, licking flames of hell fire? Aye! You've come, dozens of ye. Like rats to the granary, like field mice when it's harvest home. And what good will it do ye? You're all damned! Damned! Do you ever stop to think what that word means? No, you don't. It means endless, horrifying torment! It means your poor, sinful bodies stretched out on red-hot gridirons, in the nethermost, fiery pit of hell and those demons mocking ye while they waves cooling jellies in front of ye. You know what it's like when you burn your hand, taking a cake out of the oven, or lighting one of them godless cigarettes? And it stings with a fearful pain, aye? And you run to clap a bit of butter on it to take the pain away, aye? Well, I'll tell ye, there'll be no butter in hell!

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[info]fionnghuala
2008-04-03 03:22 pm UTC (link)
Seth: So you're the littl' lady from London with your smart ways, eh?I know your sort.
Drain away a man's blood soon as look at 'im!

Seth: You women are all alike! Fussin' over your fal-de-lals to bedaze a man's eyes, aye?
And what you really want is 'is blood, 'is pride, and the 'eart out of 'is body.
And then when you've got 'im, bound up in yer fal-de-lals, and yer softness and he
can't move - 'cause of the longin' that cries in 'is blood, what do ya do then, aye?
Ya eats 'im, same as a hen spider eats a cock spider. But I don't let no women eat me -
I eats them instead. You don't understand what I'm sayin' do ya? - littl' innocent.

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[info]doctor_nemesis
2008-04-04 08:23 am UTC (link)
Why is Mrs Smiling being snooty misplaced?

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[info]fionnghuala
2008-04-04 03:20 pm UTC (link)
In the novel, I'm sure it implies she's the same age as Flora, and in the fortunate position of having married a rich man who then dies. So there's a sense that that's it - she's done all the work she'll ever have to do in setting up that situation, so now all she's doing is poncing about the place, collecting bras and drinking cockatails.

In the film, she's obviously a lot older than Flora, and I think that makes the snootiness seem more coherent. The character is a bit more well-rounded. In the book she comes across more like Mr Mybug; a bit incoherent and jarring.

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