James Maker makes statement re: "England is Mine"

Via James Maker's FB:
(Text included as this type of post tends to vanish eventually).

Statement: 'ENGLAND IS MINE' (film)

According to the trailer of 'England Is Mine', Morrissey was an autistic, retiring creature with both curly hair and a natural crimp, who had to be physically pushed into becoming a singer by a well-meaning friend (one who did not actually communicate with Morrissey throughout The Smiths' success). Worse, they have put him in a green duffle coat and given him not one line of the Morrissyean wit we have all come to know. It is not a biopic, but historical fiction. A strange move, considering that those formative years have been so abundantly well-documented.

I knew him then, and I knew the house at 384 Kings Road. Morrissey’s mother should sue the filmmakers on their misrepresentation of her curtaining, alone. But the fact is, this is not Morrissey. The premise that if Morrissey could be a singer, then anybody could, is disingenuous, and rather insulting to his original talent as an artist.

At the time, and previous to the formation of The Smiths, Morrissey had very few close friends. This is documented in Morrissey’s memoir, ‘Autobiography’, and my memoir, ‘AutoFellatio’. I do not appear in the film, and characters who did not exist in real life are invented by the film-makers.

I am relieved not to be included, because if they can portray the protagonist as a person with crimped hair who relies upon guiding hands on shoulders, to thrust him through life’s revolving doors, then I am merely someone who, miraculously, managed to venture further than the 'NO BALL GAMES' sign posted adjacent to my bedroom window.

James Maker

Ouch!
Regards,
FWD.

 
I know James is trying to make a point here but if he could sound a little less like a contestant on Ru Paul's Drag Race, yeah, that would be great.
 
James once said

"Despite the popular portrayal of Morrissey as an inhibited, retiring character, I know him as a young man who was capable of great resolve and purpose. He could be benignly considerate and gracious to those whom he deemed disagreeable. He is the most self-actualised person I know."
 
I was wondering about that too, James Maker was a friend of Morrissey before the Smiths, very dissapointed he was not in the scipt, could've give the film an extravert type, but critics would've, and producer would be afraid it would be to gay, they just wanted Morrissey solo and Linder a woman, to keep it safe.

I thank James Maker for this statement, and being ignored in the script/movie.

It's On
 
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There is a line in the movie 24 Hour Party People - and I'm paraphrasing badly here - about the legend being more interesting than fact and that they would rather present legend.

This is clearly the nature of the music biopic. You're never going to get a historical recreation of 1976 Manchester but the movie will play to the strengths of the legend.

And I hear all James Maker scenes were cut. He's depicted as a CGI. slug like space alien. I bet they'll re-cast him as a human and put him in the special edition in about 20 years' time.
 
There is a line in the movie 24 Hour Party People - and I'm paraphrasing badly here - about the legend being more interesting than fact and that they would rather present legend.

Sweet fancy Moses, please don't tell me you're attributing that quote to... 24 Hour Party People. You must have heard it before?
 
obviously i doubt this movie is going to be true to life, but if it allows me to imagine what morrissey was like as a youth than i think it would have some value. i went for a walk this evening and on my walk it occurred to me for the first time what a unique, beautiful young boy he must have been.
it occurred to me also that it requires some chutzpah to attempt fame with an underbite. not that i think an underbite is a bad thing--on morrissey, that is. as we all know, morrissey is the most ravishing physical specimen on earth. but i also know that if i had an underbite as a youth that is exactly the sort of thing that would dissatisfy me every second of the day and put my entire life on hold, making nothing seem worth doing. i remember a girl in my grade ten math class who had an underbite--an ungainly thing but she was popular (and slutty) enough and seemed to enjoy life--and i used to question every time i saw her whether a person could go through life with an underbite, leaning always towards a categorical 'no. a person cannot go through life with an underbite'. that was, of course, before i knew about morrissey. however, even now that i know about morrissey and that a person can indeed go through life with an underbite and be a success as well as the most ravishing person on earth, i think my answer is still 'nah.... no way can a person go through life with an underbite'. i wonder if he was ever bothered by it? that's really what i would like to find out.
 
Sweet fancy Moses, please don't tell me you're attributing that quote to... 24 Hour Party People. You must have heard it before?

Have indeed heard it before many times, but it was relevant to attribute the line to that movie because it's also a music biopic (of sorts) and it was interesting because they essentially broke the fourth wall (before it was cool - up yours, Deadpool!) and said it in the movie, during a scene featuring the Greatest Man Alive, Howard Devoto.
 
'It is not a biopic, but historical fiction. A strange move, considering that those formative years have been so abundantly well-documented....This is documented in Morrissey’s memoir, ‘Autobiography’, and my memoir, ‘AutoFellatio’. 'I do not appear in the film, and characters who did not exist in real life are invented by the film-makers. ' James Maker.

James Maker's writing is almost as bad as Morrissey's strangulated pose. Almost. Why has James Maker written a 'memoir'? Of what? The mind recoils in horror at the thought of such a tome given the dire prose skills evidenced in this social media post.

Anyone who thinks Morrissey's 'Autobiography' is a biopic rather than historical fiction aiming to orchestrate a posthumous hagiography is away with the fairies. His early years have been 'so abundantly well-documented' by a Praetorian Guard of losers who are deeply invested in the collapsed Myths Of Morrissey to fund their dotage, none more so than the florid & ridiculously overwrought James Maker. I saw his histrionic band once in Hampstead during the 80s. He was beyond satire, drenched in Poundland camp cliches that would have seemed over-done in a Carry On film. The characters in Morrissey's 'Autobiography 'did not exist in real life' and are 'invented by...'...the author. And that spurious re-invention was always underpinned and shored up by camp followers like James Maker.

Mr Maker writes 'I am relieved not to be included'. Was he offered a cameo role shaking his tambourine at some early gig by The Smiths? Or does he mean no actor was scripted to represent his own inauthentic sub-Bowie reinvention via cultural signals? The fact that Morrissey achieved a certain economic return on his sub-Bowie, sub-Wilde sham doesn't mean he's any more worthy of attention that all the rest of them, from George O'Dowd to Martin Degville and....it pains me to even recall those insipid creatures masquerading as 'radical Art'.

I am looking forward to chortling at this film. The fact that there have been so few attempts to convey the significance of this wannabe global superstar & icon by renowed auteurs is deeply significant. Morrissey publicly stated he dedicated his life to the pursuit of fame, it's a deeply nourishing outcome that he has signally failed to achieve it. I am also looking forward to the next installment of Morrissey's mid-life comic stand-up singer routine which I understand he is now wracking his exhausted persona to try and come up with something that isn't entirely risible. If he faces up to his abject failure to achieve fame and iconic status beyond the credulous, if he muses on mortality in any way that isn't trolling cancer, if he has anything to say about terrorism beyond how it might improve his public image and bank account and if his current 'Dad Rock with World Music flourishes' backing circus troop can come up with a few decent tunes then there might be one last round of smirks in the stalls and gurgles in the circle to enjoy. He also needs to square the circle of having spent 35 years lambasting meat-eaters whilst drenched in the blood of cows who died to satisfy his dairy cravings. Good luck with that one, Morrissey!

I hope the 'community' is well and looking forward to another mutual co-dependency engagement with Morrissey when he announces another lifeless trek around dispiriting venues in some forlorn attempt to make the world listen to his mildly engaging singing voice via increasingly silly public tantrums about every subject he cares to troll.

I'll be back at some stage before/after the album but having just spent a month following Kraftwerk around Europa I'm in need of a lovely English summer in the garden listening to 'Aerial' by Kate Bush. Kraftwerk are now recognised as equal to The Beatles in importance. There is absolutey no way Morrissey's influence can now ever extend beyond helping mentally disturbed people find a putative persona that may lift them from existential despair via studying the disturbed persona that is the fictional being known as 'Morrissey'.

BB

What a pile of pretentious sixth-form drivel. What has happened to you Brum? It is probably best not to mention "Morrissey's strangulated prose" whilst successfully massacring every aspect of the English language in a single post.

What a day...WeirdUnclePeter blocked by his own site (David, don't take this away from him...it's all he has left!), Brum clearly in the midst of some sort of breakdown...it almost makes you wish for the return of Bullshit Benny. Almost.
 
James once said

"Despite the popular portrayal of Morrissey as an inhibited, retiring character, I know him as a young man who was capable of great resolve and purpose. He could be benignly considerate and gracious to those whom he deemed disagreeable. He is the most self-actualised person I know."

This is probably true but you can't really blame people for thinking of morrissey as a retiring inhibited person when he himself says things like
"I literally never, ever met people," he told James Henke in Rolling Stone. "I wouldn't set foot outside of the house for three weeks on a run." To Spin magazine, Morrissey admitted, "There was no sense of frivolity in my young life at all, ever. There was no such thing as going crazy, or getting drunk, or falling over, or going to a beach…. Everything in my life was just hopelessly premeditated" in this video he in his own words says I never had a social life I never left the house
 
This is probably true but you can't really blame people for thinking of morrissey as a retiring inhibited person when he himself says things like...

Maybe you can't blame people generally, but people who present themselves as biographical filmmakers might be a different matter.

That said, I think there's a limit to how far you can judge a film from watching a trailer.
 


jesus ! get back to Rome and finish that album ! or this looks as if at least his part is finished? trusting the producer to twiddle the knobs and sprinkle the magic dust over it?


EDIT: old photo... 2011
 
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Yeah. Or maybe, you know -and bear with me; I know it's a stretch- somebody who was actually there is calling bullshit on a crap film that is capitalizing on somebody else's legacy without any official endorsement or involvement from the people at the heart of the narrative.

But let me guess: "oh do sod off, you thick c***, etc etc."

'Yeah. Or maybe, you know -and bear with me; I know it's a stretch- somebody who was actually there is calling bullshit on a crap film that is capitalizing on somebody else's legacy without any official endorsement or involvement from the people at the heart of the narrative.'

:thumb::thumb::thumb::thumb::thumb:
 
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