In my London, sometimes life imitates art ? and it all ends happily.
The real-life fate of a deer trapped this week in the foundation of a new west-end home under construction could have been the happy answer to many scenes from the greatest film ever based in London, the late Jack Chambers?s masterpiece The Hart of London.
As one Free Press account put it, with admirable bluntness, Hart of London is ?a 60-minute, 1970 film about a deer that came into the city of London and was shot.?
By contrast, the deer who became a local hero this week was born free and lives free still.
Dubbed ?the Kains Rd. deer,? it eventually left the basement foundation where it had been trapped. The deer likely used an earthen ramp into the basement built by concerned construction workers.
The actions of the construction workers and the police, in keeping the potential gawking hordes at bay, is a cheering example of how we can treat the natural world with respect and caring.
Not so in the Forest City from hell as revealed ? and reviled ? in The Hart of London.
There, time and again, human interaction with the natural world is seen as stupid, cruel, unthinking and potentially disastrous. The slaughter of many deer, including the one unfortunate enough to crash into the heart of London, and other animals is nightmarishly shown. The people in the film are mostly grinning fools or individuals content to disappear into crowds.
Freely mixing footage apparently drawn from CFPL-TV archives with his own images and Christian iconography, Chambers created what The Free Press hailed as ?a poetic expression of life and death (that) remains a key work of the international avant-garde.?
Such insights often accompany details differing on the film?s length ? 79 minutes or 60? ? and other matters.
Despite such perceived differences, The Hart of London has admirers around the world.
Perhaps its great champion was the iconic American filmmaker Stan Brakhage, who praised it as one of the five best films ever made. Chambers had been inspired by Brakhage. When the American artist was in London for events honouring Chambers decades after the Londoner?s death in 1978, he brought a deep appreciation of The Hart of London.
Among the most memorable Brakhage comments was his analysis of a scene showing a Chambers-like man blissfully cutting his lawn.
Given the film?s savage accounts of humans vs. nature, such lawn-trimming was really equivalent to millions of little murders, Brakhage said.
Brakhage had his own view of the scenes late in the film when the Chambers children are seen offering food to some tame deer. It?s possible some of that footage was shot at the Springbank Park/Storybook Gardens animal enclosure. Any information about the setting would be appreciated.
?You have to be very careful,? is how one German critic hears Chambers?s wife, Olga, cautioning the boys. That critic saw the scene as leading to a possible reconciliation with the natural world.
Brakhage saw those words as a warning, as a veiled prophesy the natural world would eventually take revenge on the fool humans. It?s a sentiment which seems more appropriate with each year.
Still, as the saga of the Kains Rd. deer shows, it doesn?t have to end that way.
It just depends on how you see the heart of London.
James Reaney is a London Free Press arts & entertainment columnist and reporter.
james.reaney@sunmedia.ca
twitter.com/JamesatLFPress
THE HART OF LONDON
Where to find it: The London Public Library has a VHS video copy of the 1970 Jack Chambers film The Hart of London in its public collection. It also has available an admirable gathering of insights, The Films of Jack Chambers, a collection of essays and other material edited by Kathryn Elder.
Information: Visit www.londonpubliclibrary.ca or call 519-661-4600.
Source: http://www.lfpress.com/2012/10/03/happily-city-proves-it-has-real-heart
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