The Triumph of the Frustrations: Sometimes We Need to Star in Our Own Movie

Walter Richard Sickert - Brighton Pierrots 1915, Tate

Well, yes, since you were asking, I can sing. I have a sweet voice, but it has a narrow range and a tendency to go a-wandering. At school I found my appropriate level as a rank-and-file member of the choir. I appreciated that there was safety in numbers. I knew my place.

Nonetheless, I always hankered after greater things. I yearned for the spotlight, for centre stage, imagining that there was a sensuous soul singer lurking deep within my awkward, apprehensive exterior.

The Pembroke College Talent Competition provided the ideal opportunity to test my mettle. And so I teamed up with my mate Thommo, who could both sing and play guitar. Conscious of my more limited skill-set, I suggested it would be best if he concentrated on the instrumental side of things.

We called ourselves The Frustrations, the idea being that we were ‘the thwarted Temptations.’ But to be honest we didn’t have too much in common with David Ruffin and co.

We put together a concise set of covers that would appeal to a broad range of student tastes. Iggy Pop’s ‘The Passenger’ had a menacing monotone verse and a rousing ‘la-la-la’ chorus. The Smiths’ ‘Please, Please, Please’ signalled a pale-and-interesting, wistful melancholia. And Andy Williams’ ‘Can’t Get Used to Losing You’ implied a certain supper-club sophistication.

'Guess there's no use in hangin' ‘round.
Guess I'll get dressed and do the town.
I'll find some crowded avenue,
Though it will be empty without you.
I can't get used to losin' you no matter what I try to do,
Gonna live my whole life thorough, loving you.’

Andy Williams, ‘Can’t Get Used to Losing You’ (J Pomus / M Shuman)

On the big night Thommo and I donned our shiny vintage suits, with pressed shirts and slim silk ties. As usual, I had my hair slicked back with Black & White coconut oil - I think I was channelling Spandau Ballet – and, of course, we both wore white towelling socks. We were from Croydon and Romford, and ours was the true sound of the suburbs.

The College bar was small, smoke-filled, dark and dingy, the only comfort supplied by the tatty orange-brown banquettes. Tonight it was crammed with students in combat jackets, pyjama tops and greasy Docs; with studded belts, ripped jeans and soaped-up hair.

And so it came to our turn at the microphone, and we edged onto the makeshift stage located neatly between the darts board and the jukebox. What we lacked in ability we made up for with youthful brio. And soon we had them swaying on the banquettes and singing along with the chorus. Our friends Rob and Doug enhanced the authentic gig experience by pelting us with plastic glasses.

No surprise perhaps that the Frustrations triumphed at the Pembroke College Talent Competition. The Holsten Pils bottles were cracked open, the jukebox was cranked up, and Thommo and I danced jubilantly into the early hours. ‘The sky was made for us tonight.’

'Get into the car.
We'll be the passenger.
We'll ride through the city tonight.
See the city's ripped backsides.
We'll see the bright and hollow sky
We'll see the stars that shine so bright.
The sky was made for us tonight.’

Iggy Pop, ‘The Passenger’ (J Osterberg / R Gardiner)

Many of us are naturally shy, polite, reserved. We are team players, happy to participate and contribute, without being centre stage. But that’s not always enough to sustain us. Sometimes it seems like we’re just extras or bit-part actors; as if we’re performing a supporting role in someone else’s film.

Just occasionally it serves us well to write our own script, to step into the spotlight, to deliver our own lines, to play the romantic lead – regardless of the constraints of talent. Sometimes we deserve to live life like the star of our own movie.

Subsequent to our success Thommo and I resisted the siren call of a music career and slipped quietly back into our erstwhile roles as geeky Classicists. We were happy enough with this outcome. We had got what we wanted. This time.


'Good time for a change.
See, the luck I've had
Can make a good man
Turn bad.
So please, please, please
Let me, let me, let me,
Let me get what I want
This time.'

The Smiths, ‘Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want’ (J Marr / S Morrissey)

No. 294

‘The Bad and the Beautiful’: Leaving It for the Audience to Imagine

‘She doesn’t speak. We move the camera in close on her. She opens her mouth to talk, but she can’t. And what she’s feeling we’ll leave for the audience to imagine. Believe me, Jim, they’ll imagine it better than any words you and I could ever write.’
Jonathan Shields, 'The Bad and the Beautiful' 

'The Bad and the Beautiful' is a 1952 melodrama that tells the tale of a fictional Hollywood film producer.

Kirk Douglas plays Jonathan Shields, the son of a successful but now despised movie mogul, as he sets out to restore his family name. Shields is visionary, charismatic and passionate about film. But he also suffers some of his father’s shortcomings. He is ‘the man who’ll do anything to get what he wants.’

We are given a perspective on Shields from three of his former collaborators: a director, a leading lady and a screenwriter. All recognise his formidable talent and boundless energy, but all have been burnt by his ruthless ambition.

‘He shouldn’t have shot the picture. He should have shot himself.’

The film, directed by Vincente Minnelli and written by George Bradshaw and Charles Schnee, gives an insight into how Hollywood viewed itself back in the Golden Age.

The movie industry is depicted as fundamentally conservative and financially driven.

'I've told you a hundred times. I don't want to win awards. Give me pictures that end with a kiss and black ink on the books.’

It’s an industry that has an ambivalent attitude towards creative people. On the one hand, it seeks out the best writers. On the other, it treats them like an expendable commodity.

‘I’m flattered you want me and bitter you’ve got me. Where do I start?’

Hollywood throws together diverse talent from all walks of life and is comfortable with a certain amount of creative conflict. 

'Don't worry. Some of the best movies are made by people working together who hate each other's guts.’

Above all it celebrates that precious and enigmatic commodity, ‘star quality.’

‘When you're on the screen, no matter who you're with, what you're doing, the audience is looking at you. That's star quality.’

'The Bad and the Beautiful' gives a good many film-making tips along the way. 

‘A picture all climaxes is like a necklace without a string. It falls apart. You must build to your big moments and sometimes you must build slowly.’

I was particularly taken with a sequence covering Shields’ early career when he was commissioned to produce a low budget horror movie, ‘The Doom of the Cat Men’. He and his director make a dispiriting visit to the costume department to review the potential outfits for the cat men.

'Look. Put five men dressed like cats on the screen, what do they look like?'
'Like five men dressed like cats.’

 They arrive at a lateral solution.

'When an audience pays to see a picture like this, what are they paying for?'
'To get the pants scared off of ‘em.'
'And what scares the human race more than any other single thing?'
'The dark!'
'Of course. And why? Because the dark has a life of its own. In the dark, all sorts of things come alive.'
'Suppose... suppose we never do show the cat men. Is that what you're thinking?'
‘Exactly.'
'No cat men!'

They resolve to communicate the terrifying beasts by association and allusion; by being implicit, not explicit; by showing the effects of their actions rather than the actions themselves.

'Two eyes shining in the dark.'
'A dog frightened, growling, showing its fangs.’
'A bird, its neck broken, feathers torn from its throat.'
'A little girl screaming, claw marks down her cheeks.' 

This is an age-old lesson, but it’s one worth repeating. We tend to imagine that the route to more effective messaging is direct and literal. We think that the responsible course of action is to show and tell… and tell again for good measure.

Often the opposite is true. We can create more compelling communication by intimation and implication; by suggesting and prompting. If we put less in, they can take more out.

Because, as Shields observed, if you leave it for the audience to imagine…’they’ll imagine it better than any words you and I could ever write.’

'Each day through my window I watch her as she passes by.
I say to myself you're such a lucky guy,
To have a girl like her is truly a dream come true.
Out of all the fellows in the world she belongs to me.
But it was just my imagination,
Once again runnin' away with me.
It was just my imagination runnin' away with me.'

The Temptations, 'Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)’ (B Strong, N Whitfield)

No. 281