It was a Monday, remember, so we had not expected much action in the Commons; but we were in luck, if rowdy disillusion can be called lucky. The Prime Minister made a Statement to the House. A rare event. What was it that filled the House after Question Time, when it usually empties? Was it war or other National Catastrophe? No, it was about Nepotism. The Prime Minister's son-in-law had been appointed Ambassador to Washington, and the previous Ambassador was said to have been denigrated by a Downing Street Public Relations man. The Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. James Callaghan, felt constrained to disassociate himself, pompously and publicly, to the House. The Conservative Opposition seized the opportunity for noisy exaggeration and insincere moral shock. They overdid it. When it was all over, the House emptied, leaving the customary few to debate a vital issue on a Private Member's Motion: deteriorating morale in the Police Force over Pay and Conditions. A sad contrast. Were we naive, then, in 1977, in trusting the great spirit of Parliament to pull us through? J.P.R.
SUPER ANTIQUAS VIAS Produced by Derek Butler, Michael Christelow, Prasannajit De Silva, Robin Bruce Because it was made by a diverse group of people, the range of this film is wide. Mr. Butler is finishing his first two years at St. Peter's. Mike Christelow his last two; and they both have very different ideas of what the School is. They examined these ideas carefully before recording them; and so the resultant images are something like everybody's memory of the School. Before I recall the images themselves, I must mention the technical quality of the film. The very fact that one may pick out flaws is a measure of the evenness of the rest. Sound is synchronised more often than one would have believed possible; and shots are composed, focussed, cut, panned or re-focussed with an ease that means the eye does not register anything awkward. Not only were there these routine successes. The film has its moments of spectacle, too. No matter how often I see it, I am surprised by the quality of the sequence which shows a crewman abseiling from his helicopter. How did the cameraman keep the shot composed—even when the descending figure paused to check his rope? That was an unrepeatable shot, and it worked. The structure of the film is simple. After the opening credits, it follows a School day from dawn and the rising-bell to dark and lights-out. However, as soon as you begin to consider detail, you run up against the difficulty of judging the film as good or bad. You watch the School House dormitory waking up, and you laugh, and you think, it never 46
