I used to feel guilty about watching TV in the holidays. I always felt I should be doing something, like reading or writing. These palpitations of guilt were enough to send me scurrying to my books. Now, however, things are slightly different.

For one, I’m writing more than ever. This s both on my blog and elsewhere. I know my last few entries haven’t been too long, but its hard to find stuff to write about. This is especially applicable when I’m stuck at home, with only grandma for company. My grandma’s ok, but she isn’t the sort of person one can have an in-depth debate with, let’s say.

Also, I have a legitimate excuse to watch TV. I study it! Mind you, I do not watch trash television – daytime TV really is dire, as I have said before. I mean, ‘Trisha’ for godsakes! Who watches that? However, today, I was in luck. BBC2 showed ‘The Big Sky’ this morning. This is a 1953 classic western by Howard Hawkes.

Monochrome, of course. This puts it right at the end of the golden age of Hollywood, and right from the beginning, I knew I was in for a treat. There are some incredible vistas of the lands on and around the Missouri in the film, and hawkes employs some interesting camera techniques. At one point, he plays with the audience’s expectations – I was expecting a simple shot / reverse shot movement, but instead hawkes chooses to film from a completely new angle. This threw me slightly, and at first I found it confusing, as if it broke the 180 degree rule, but it is clear that Hawkes was experimenting with film grammar. Very few auters show such panache with the camera, perhaps preferring simply to ‘wow’ audiences with special effects. it should be noted, however, that the film was rather derogatory towards native Americans. While this was less so than films before it, it showed how far we still had to go in the fifties.

Thus, my free time at home hasn’t been totally wasted. I wonder if there’s anything on this afternoon.