Quatermass and The Pit part 2

[Craig @craig Emperor]

Episode 2. As the excavation continues, additional fossils are found inside which suggest that the object is at least five million years old. The interior is empty but a symbol is found etched on an interior wall and it appears to hide an inner chamber.

Our discussion of part 1 is here: http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/forums/topic/quatermass-and-the-pit-part-1/

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

So, Episode Two and things are hotting up nicely. Hobbs Lane has a history of strange happenings: figures that walk through walls, things that move by themselves.

The hominids are still being found – but why is the best preserved skull found inside the UXB? Is it a UXB? Evidence keeps coming along; this object is old. The radioactive decay suggests a 5 million year date, the metal gear has corroded into chemical traces and there’s no-one who remembers a bomb falling in WW1 or WW2.

The ‘horror’ element is well written – if this wasn’t a Quatermass, you might think we were in an M.R. James play. The social commentary continues: @jimthefish complained last week that he felt there was a rather condescending ‘middle-class’ voice being used. The ‘working class’ characters were being seen as basically comic. But note how that ‘assumption’ is being used this week – everyone who has eye-witness experience of the ghosts is working class. And their ‘betters’ (and quite possibly half the audience) don’t believe their eyewitness accounts – because of that underlying assumption that working class people are basically comic, unreliable, superstitious.

[Another little bit of social commentary: Dr Roney’s saying Miss Judd has asked for a few hours off ‘to get her hair done or something’. This bit of casual sexism is then subtly undercut on her return: she’d wanted the time off to do some non-job-related research on the ghost stories.]

The producer is making good use of his extra budget, both for the set of the strange object and the use of film inserts. One ‘effect’ you may not notice is the switch between a barely uncovered UXB and the full set of the strange object. Nowadays we’re so used to TV shows being able to portray time passing that we wouldn’t notice it – but in 1958 this was a pretty sophisticated intercut between two sets – one live and one pre-filmed.

[Anonymous @]

Ticking along nicely now. Not really much to add except that I don’t seem to hate Roney’s performance as much as some. I think he’s very much meant to be an outsider figure, outside of the British Establishment, frustrated by it and considered something of an upstart. He keeps striking me as something of a Richard Feynman type of the paleontology world.

@bluesqueakpip — Yes, it’s certainly the working class ‘characters’ that drive the plot along this week. But that air of condescension is still there, I think. They’re either (as you say) superstitious and comic or conveniently placed in uniforms that stamps them as the clear underlings of the core characters. I quite liked the two, slightly truculent (ugh, that word has irritating connotations these days) soldiers though.

[Arbutus @arbutus]

I’m loving the absence of background music. In modern TV, there seems to be a constant need to fill the silences with ambient music. Here, we get to listen to geiger counters, creaking floorboards, and sometimes, just actual silence. I love the scene in the haunted house, complete silence in the background and lots of contemplative spaces between the lines of dialogue. Only a brief bit of eery music at one point to build suspense, but very low key. I think that contemporary makers of film and television are a bit afraid that if things slow down at all, the audience will lose interest and move on. So dialogue is fast-paced with little or no breathing space, and any gaps are filled in with music (kind of like in shops; oh no, just don’t get started on that subject!).

[Whisht @whisht]

@arbutus – completely agree about the scene where he walks into the haunted house. Was it in one seamless transition from the outside shot (usually I wouldn’t think that, but @bluepipsqueak ‘s making me think that due to the ‘live’ aspect). The silence as he kicks a bottle as he walks draws the ear (and the rest of my attention even further) in.

And I really agree with your observation about scores and film-makers’ fears of not using music to tell us what to think and possibly why more recent ‘verite’ type cinema is so affecting (eg Blair Witch, 2010 with its breathing in the suit during the spacewalk etc). (if my brain were firing properly and not wanting to sleep I’d probably remember something else!).

really enjoyed this episode and (yay me) “Hob’s Lane”. Ghosts and sprites I tells ye – aiiiieeee!!

😮

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@whisht

Was it in one seamless transition from the outside shot

No. It was actually a very clever (for the day) intercut between the pre-filmed shot of Quatermass walking into the house from the outside and then the ‘live’ shot-from-the-inside entrance into the house itself.

I’m watching on the DVD version, which has been cleaned up and digitally remastered. You can generally tell which is which from the quality; the filmed inserts are clean and crisp, the ‘live’ is – well, as wobbly as befits a very early experiment in TV recording.

They’re often using the pre-filmed parts to take the show away from a collection of filmed interiors. TV in those days was seen as an ‘intimate’ medium, ideally suited to the kitchen sink type of drama.

There’s another nice transition with the final scene of the episode; from the filmed shot of the ‘bomb’ exterior, making much use of mud and wide shots, to the live studio interior with the actor playing Westie giving his best horror-acting in close-up.

[The DVD is ‘The Quatermass Collection’, available from both Amazon and the BBC shop.]

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Social commentary aspects – I’m not really picking up @jimthefish‘s “condescension” towards the working class characters.  The Chilcots are portrayed as quite rounded, and contrasted nicely with the closed minds of the military brass typified by Breen.  I liked Mrs C’s lines about “Got my picture in all the papers – but they didn’t believe us, not really, made us look silly”.  Most of the “official” characters don’t take the Chilcots seriously, but the script and the production does.

Lots of neat touches in the script in terms of sketching in cultural background – Mrs C’s refs to having lived through 2 world wars, the general strike of 1927, which is used to coathanger the last period of spooky activity in the area – which coincided with localised excavating for a new tube station.

There’s also some nice lighting and camera angles, especially in the haunted house and the capsule.

Really like the acting and I’m definitely warming up to Roney.

@whisht It’s definitely pointing us towards a spooky solution, devilish even. And yet, and yet – when did the devil start going around in a “capsule”? And if the thing is 5m years old, why are there still “effects”.

Really looking forward to #3 🙂

(I thought I’d seen this version, but I don’t think I have. Thanks a mill to whoever came up with it for our communal viewing 🙂 )

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@bluesqueakpip

Your comments about the DVD quality reminded me that even watching the youTube version on computer screen is seeing it at a higher resolution than it would have been intended for when filming (405 line, b/w).

Given that a lot of the BBC’s experience in drama up till that point would have come from radio, and as you say TV was seen as being for “kitchen sink” drama, I agree it looks pretty adventurous at times. (And thanks so much again for your background info about the technicalities). It would certainly have had that impact for a contemporary viewer.

[Anonymous @]

@whisht and @arbutus  I ‘third’ you re: the need to ‘fill’ modern day meries (series/movies) with as much sound and fast over-edited material should audiences experience brachycardia from too much ‘stillness’. I loved the allusion to pentacles and pentagrams:’ satanic’??  I recall friends of mine in the States totally into Ghost Hunters and such: “a pentagram: bring in the exorcist. Stat.”  Great inclusion of this programme, Quatermass: really learning some stuff. Kindest, purofilion

[Monochrome Dimension @monochromedimension]

So there’s a five million year old sci-fi-looking container very close to a supposedly haunted house, and both seem to be connected… all very confusing, isn’t it? Very interesting episode; the scene with Quatermass exploring the house was creepy, and it seems he is still interested in the stories about that place.

I’m not able to figure out what scenes are filmed live and which are pre-recorded either.

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