I already recorded a conversation about Withnail
& I with ThoughtAgent. We discussed most aspects
of the film but it felt a little incomplete probably
because I was unable to re-watch the film before our discussion.
So I rewatched the film today and had another discussion
about it with Zarathustra's Serpent which also started out
badly with some embarrassing technical fuck ups (craigbot on
discord stopped working, luckily ThoughtAgent saved the day by
recording the convo on his PC through OBS) but once we got into
it, I think it got better. These thoughts below are mostly based
on those conversations.
The film is very quotable but you can look up the quotes
yourself so I'll just say the movie is carried by the dialogue
and not the special effects. The locations look nice in Penrith,
UK, the English countryside, but they are nothing mind blowing.
This is not the first film to exploit the beauty of the English
countryside nor will it be the last.
The story is set around 3 months before the end of the 1960s in
Britain. Two alcoholic, drugged actors in the their late 20s
(almost 30) leave for the English countryside to get some fresh
air. One of them snaps out of the drunken stupor and the
friendship comes to an end which is sad. The end.
Is it about the failure of youth culture in the 60s
portrayed by two young failed actors living in a crummy
London flat while doing drugs and acting theatrically? On the
surface it might appear unsympathetic to the hedonistic and
pauperish, rootless, alcoholic life-style of Withnail and
Marwood (the fans found out that the "I"'s name was Marwood) but
I still see some sugar-coating and romanticism - because of
course Withnail's actor really does play the part of "a trained
actor reduced to the status of a bum" and there is also some
deflection of the blame through the implication that things were
really crummy, hideous, and falling apart in Britain, so
Withnail was living true to the real spirit of the time in a
sense while Marwood lets go by the end. Then again it
seems I am the only one who thinks this way as both Zarathustra
and ThoughtAgent seemed to find Withnail wholly unsympathetic
and uncharismatic. I didn't find Withnail totally dis-likeable,
because despite the fact that he doesn't act out rationally on
it - he still has the urge for something more, for himself.
According to Zarathustra this is a post-modern film which is
something that never occurred to me. I should have asked what he
means by post-modern. Some people like academic agent use that
word to mean that a work of art is referential but that is too
vague because all art is more or less referential. Zarathustra
said that there is no structure and stuff just happens like in
real life, that's probably what he meant by post modern now that
I think about it. By that definition in a sense post-modern art
should be more realistic than surrealistic. The story-telling
did not appear strange to me at all if I am being honest, then
again maybe we post-moderns are so used to post-modern
storytelling that it's not something unexpected or weird, it has
lost its novelty and become normal and unexciting. Or maybe not.
There was a character arc, well for the director's self-insert
protagonist anyway - I say he is a self-insert because the
director claims this movie is based on his experiences in the
60s, in the Marwood character from an actor reduced to a bum to
a real actor but then again as Zarathustra said that this could
be viewed as selling out in a sense by becoming an adult.
Doesn't this make this a coming of age story then?
There was a beginning with introductions, a middle where the
bulk of the story happened in the countryside and most
importantly an ending. I would have imagined a post-modern story
would not have a satisfying ending but it would just stop
somewhere randomly or go beyond what should be the ending. N0
THANKY0U's Denpa video is a good example of this.
I believe the flat in London is in a place called Camden Town,
and if I am not mistaken Camden now is no longer the crummy
place that's portrayed in the film but some gentrified area full
of middle-class people, many of whom are probably not even of
British descent. As for Penrith, representing the English
countryside- I believe ThoughtAgent who has been on holiday in
the English countryside said that it's kind of the same but more
modern and the people have changted (not just ethnically but
culturally, for instance the police officers dress a lot more
like gimps with their high-viz vests, stun guns, than figures of
authority today) but the thing which struck ThoughtAgent which
has remained the same was the motorways which Withnail and
Marwood drunkenly traversed up and down the country. The
replacement of trains with motor cars as the primary means of
transport was already turning Britain into a little USA back
then. How sad it is that only the motorways for rootless
metropolitans have remained the same.
Zarathustra said that he couldn't get the humour because
you needed to be British to get it. The comedy is a bit fast
I'll admit but really if you watch it with subtitles on you will
get the jokes. I got them and I am not British. Jokes like "Warm
up? We might as well sit around a cigarette", "Those are the
kind of windows faces look in.", "He's had more drugs than you
have had warm dinners", "The best tailoring you've seen is above
your fucking appendix," and there's more but I have made my
point. I don't want to turn this review into the kind of small
talk you would have with your mate when walking out of the
cinema, "remember when x and y happened." I don't mean this as
some sort of back-handed Anglophile's self-compliment, "I get
Bri ish comedy haha, that makes me bri ish basically," I just
don't see how the jokes really require you to be British to get
them.
I don't want to talk about the social class aspects of the film
because I have already done that at length when talking with
ThoughtAgent and Zarathustra so to put it briefly, there's a lot
of leftwing cosmopolitan liberal arts sneeding, on the one hand
at the upper class above Marwood in the form of Withnail and
Monty (Withnail's uncle) who appear as ridiculous and
hypocritical and not virtuous or aristocratic and on the other
hand the salt of the earth ordinary people beneath Marwood are
portrayed as soulles, passionless and stiff. However I am the
only one who saw it, ThoughtAgent and Zarathustra did not notice
it, so more than likely it is all in my head. This is certainly
not one of those modern, leftwing, humourless, preachy morality
tales. It's just the director's elitist side showing, and that's
alright. You can't really form any group if you don't believe
that you are the elite and that you ought to be the elite, as
these liberal arts students apparently felt.
Britain has now fully come down from the high of the empire,
and although Britain may have kickstarted pop culture with stuff
like the Sherlock Holmes stories, now it is mostly an irrelevant
backwater, Zarathustra pointed out that things like Game of
Thrones and Harry Potter proves otherwise. GoT was a failure
that should be forgotten and Zarathustra must know what happened
to HP's author. Speaking of SH, if you squint your eyes you can
see the relation between SH and Dr. W replicated in Withnail and
Marwood respectively. Just as Dr W, Marwood is the narrator for
us to self-insert to in a sense, and just as it is sad when H
and Dr. W have to part at the end of their adventures so too
here at the end of their misadventures. Look at Withnail's
physiognomy (lanky and tall) and class and messiness and
eccentricity, of course Withnail is a lout and H is not but that
is because I don't think people would find him a believable
character in a cynical time a loser is a more believable and
authentic character.
I should note that this review has mostly been nit-picking
because that sounds more genuine than praise which I have seen
doled out in excess in other reviews of this film. I didn't like
this film when I first watched it, maybe it was for the
post-modern story-telling Zarathustra mentioned after all, but
then on subsequent viewing it kind of grew on me because of some
of the memorable dialogue and jokes. I guess because it is
post-modern it is a bit of a choose-your-own adventure when it
comes to its meaning - which is fine as long as you are aware
your interpretation is not written in stone but is whimsical and
one among many that should be added to each other to give a more
richer view.
I have seen Academic Agent and others make references to
Withnail in their streams. There isn't such a thing as a
meaningless reference, every reference is an acknowledgement,
every acknowledgement is an affirmation, so reference freely.
Even despite itself Withnail can be taken as a celebration of
Britain, and so it must be taken as such. We live in the ashes,
so light the ashes up to re-kindle the flame. This is how.
By Otaking, or The Good Student