Not unlike another monument I highlighted almost a year ago, this mural acknowledges people from the neighborhood who went and fought in the conflict. If you've seen one photo from the Civil War, it's generally this one by Robert Capa.
Otherwise Notting Hill was a pretty standard, pleasant London neighborhood. Not as upscale as Kensington but certainly not as drab as North Islington, I can easily see why people would want to live here. Naturally, I kept looking about to see why you'd want to use this neighborhood to shoot a movie.It's nice, but I wasn't sure what qualified Notting Hill over other areas I've seen. To be fair, this is based off of one fifty minute jaunt during a lunch break! After reading up on the matter a little bit, it turns out the director just really liked it so there. This I can sympathize with.
Also I just now seem unable to upload further photos to blogger, which is disconcerting since the Internet Gods smiled on me and freed up firstworldproblems.blogspot.com for me to leap on. Later today I hope to post a revised version of what I aborted earlier in the week! Until then...
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2 comments:
Hi Oliver,
Loved your latest blog entry. Very interesting all that stuff on the Spanish Civil War.It reminded me of a wonderful little book written by Laurie Lee. "A Rose for Winter".A British writer most famous for "Cider With Rosie".
On the back of this penguin publication it says:
"Andalusia is a passion. Fifteen years after his last visit, Laurie Lee returns.
He finds a country broken by Civil War, but the totems of indestructible Spain survive: the Virgin agony, the thrilling flamenco wail....the pride in poverty, the gypsy intensity in grey slums, the glory in the horror of the bullfight, the exultation in death, the humour in hopelessness...the paradoxes deep in the fiery bones of Spain.
Laurie Lee writes with a beauty to match his passion."
I recommend you read that and his book "As I walked out One Midsummer Morning." It was 1934 . He was a young man who walked from the safety of the Cotswolds (He was born in Gloucestershire.) to make his fortune.
He was to live by playing his violin and by a year labouring on a London building site.. Then , knowing one Spanish phrase, he decided to see Spain. For a year he tramped through a country in which the signs of impending civil war were clearly visible. etc. etc.
He is a poet and has an artist's eye. I love his writing. He reminds me of you
Spain is a really facinating setting for a lot of conflicts though out the centuries with their people being pushed about by foreign powers for one reason or another. The Spanish Civil War is a good example, but recently I did a brief study of Napoleon's Peninsular campaign that a prof of mine was comparing to Iraq.
I was a little surprised at the comparison, but...we have a powerful military leader exporting his country's revolutionary (read atheist) views to a stringent catholic country, we have Napoleon settling up one of his brothers as king of Spain, a puppet leader of sorts, you have catholic priests preaching from the pulpits hatred of the invaders, telling their parishioners that it is god's will for them to kill the invaders and the Spanish people pretty much invent guerilla warfare at this time (I think the term was coined at this time).
History is so fascinating! (history rant over)
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