Tony Grist (poliphilo) wrote,
Tony Grist

Afternoon TV

I'm cold enough as it is- and watching a documentary about a chap living alone on a Hebridean island doesn't make me feel any warmer. Beautiful landscape, no trees, not even the odd writhen thorn crouching up against a wall, and the sun barely tops the sand dunes at midwinter...

Attractions include rare swans and otters- which wouldn't be enough to get me up there. Perhaps if I were forty years younger....

It's an odd convention of this kind of documentary that the film crew- which must consist of several people- is totally self-effacing. Our chap talks to the camera- but not as though he has any kind of relationship with whoever happens to be behind it. The vehicles that bring them to his door are kept out of sight, the helicopter they have hired to swoop over his cottage makes no noise, not even their shadows are allowed to fall into shot. And yet there must be plenty of interaction, shared meals and cups of tea- unfilmed conversations.  Why would one so scrupulously edit all that out of the picture? 
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