Richard Attenborough dies - Morrissey statement at true-to-you.net

Link posted by an anonymous person (original post):

Richard Attenborough dies - true-to-you.net
26 August 2014

"I was thrilled beyond words to have met Richard Attenborough, who, of course, played Pinkie in Brighton Rock (1947), a central theme of my song Now my heart is full. When I met Sir Richard he was delightful, and I asked him if Brighton Rock seemed like a hundred years ago. He replied 'Oh, much more than that ...'.
I also had the extraordinary pleasure of meeting the recently deceased Lauren Bacall ... so beautiful, so cautious ... and so sad that her death was overshadowed by that of Robin Williams. It was Lauren, not Robin, who changed motion picture history. Yet modern media has an odd way of forgetting the more senior servers of the arts. Dora Bryan, whom I knew personally in the late 80s, and who also died in recent weeks, had pitifully slim attention from the British news media, yet her talents were a treasured staple of British life throughout the 1950s, 1960s and beyond. Dora had agreed to introduce the Smiths onstage at the London Palladium in 1986, but at the last minute her agent asked for a fee which we, the Smiths, just couldn't afford.
However, in our X-factory society, it seems that anyone who has NOT appeared on Big Brother just isn't worth remembering by the British media ... alas."

Morrissey.

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Related media:

• Morrissey Laments That Robin Williams 'Overshadowed' Other Celebrity Deaths - Billboard. Link posted by BrummieBoy.
• Morrissey Bashes Public Response to Robin Williams' Death - Spin. Link posted by BrummieBoy.

 

[Anonymous]

Morrissey should pay more attention to maintaining his fanbase and playing concerts in countires/cities that are always good to him, and not moaning about the passing of a comedy actor who had a huge effect on the world, wheter he likes it or not!
I get what he is saying, I do. But, let's worry more about pleasing the fans who are still continuing to spend cash on his release(s)

 

[keene]

I love these little missives from True To You...

Much more entertaining than just about anything that any of us can say.......but what do I know about anything? I'm still watching re-runs of "Zorro" and "Lost in Space" with Guy Williams.

Hooray for fifties and sixties TV.

 

[marred]

Morrissey should pay more attention to maintaining his fanbase and playing concerts in countires/cities that are always good to him, and not moaning about the passing of a comedy actor who had a huge effect on the world, wheter he likes it or not!
I get what he is saying, I do. But, let's worry more about pleasing the fans who are still continuing to spend cash on his release(s)

Who in your life have you assigned to tell you what you should do?

 

[Detritus]

I think once someone has taken their lives who has suffered from depression it's probably a good time to stop judging them. They've done enough of that to themselves while they lived. They have suffered enough. Try to leave out your own selfish reasons for why you don't approve of it and how about we just leave them in peace.

Life is hard enough. Give it a rest and let the dead have theirs.

Right. I don't entirely disagree with the notion that suicide is a selfish act, but at the same time, I can't help but feel that in these situations, much of the criticism seems to come from a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of depression. David Foster Wallace sums it up brilliantly in Infinite Jest:

"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flame yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don‘t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."

 

[Sidnettle]

Imagine if Morrissey died in the same week as Robbie Williams. Robbie Williams tops himself with a cocktail of drugs and the Morrissey dies of pneumonia. The media go on and on about Robbie Williams the genius and how great his albums were and Morrissey gets 10 seconds at the end of a bulletin, seven lines in your favourite newspaper.

 

[Anonymous]

Agreed. Robin's quick wit and ability to improvise the way he could was something that came along perhaps once in a generation. The man was as sharp as they came. For Morrissey to slag on him and then profess to love Oscar Wilde is baffling. Unlike Morrissey, Robin's best lines weren't taken from books or 1960's BBC dramas.

Thats false robin used lots of jokes made by others, he referenced various things others had done before. You are supporting Mozza point. Robin was a good stand up and brilliant at comedy, that doesn't mean hes a great actor - he wasn't
Lots of Mozza's lines are in fact his, some very god ones "I lost my bag in newport pagnell" for one.
Robin was never an Icon of cinema. Theres no point in getting worked up about this, Mozza didnt do a Henry Rollins. He is saying to him, its a shame she got over looked for someone who didn't move the craft forward The amount someone makes at the box office, making family movies isn't a sign of craft. Are you saying Robin is more important in movie history than Brando then?

Move on haters theres nothing to see

 

[marred]

Right. I don't entirely disagree with the notion that suicide is a selfish act, but at the same time, I can't help but feel that in these situations, much of the criticism seems to come from a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of depression. David Foster Wallace sums it up brilliantly in Infinite Jest:

"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flame yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don‘t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."

It may be a selfish act but human beings are a selfish species. When a human being comes to that point where nothing else will work for them I don't see how thinking of one's own self so to speak should be viewed as breaking some sort of law of behaviour. Judging people who we have no idea of what's going on in their head could also be quite a selfish act no?

I'm pretty sure given the chance and circumstances the ones who have taken their own lives would much prefer to live. To me it's about survival and unfortunately it seems the best way to survive for some is to not live at all. Only they know what it takes. The rest of us are just guessing and we hope we never know.

You are definitely right on about the misunderstanding of mental illness though. Not that you are wrong about the rest. It's your opinion. It's just not as fashionable a disease to promote unfortunately.

 

[Sidnettle]

Morrissey never said a bad word about Robin Williams. He never criticised him or his work. He just clearly feels that it was unfair that he should receive so much coverage, while Bacall got very little fanfare. He just feels it's unjust. I can see his point. You lot are just knee-jerking like a herd of sheep.

 

[modrevolve]

"I also had the extraordinary pleasure of meeting the recently deceased Lauren Bacall ... so beautiful, so cautious ... and so sad that her death was overshadowed by that of Robin Williams. In Morrissey's world, it was Lauren, not Robin, who changed motion picture history."

fixed
Death seems to come in threes in Hollywood so someone always gets left out. Look at Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson who dies within hours of one another.

 

[Johnny Barleycorn]

"You know how to epistle, don't you, Steven? You just put your lips together and... suck."

 

[Sidnettle]

"I also had the extraordinary pleasure of meeting the recently deceased Lauren Bacall ... so beautiful, so cautious ... and so sad that her death was overshadowed by that of Robin Williams. In Morrissey's world, it was Lauren, not Robin, who changed motion picture history."

fixed
Death seems to come in threes in Hollywood so someone always gets left out. Look at Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson who dies within hours of one another.

lol you really think it can be argued that Robin Williams changed motion picture history? if you say so, of course...

 

[eugenius]

Only old Misery Guts would name-drop the recently deceased.

I kind of like his "I knew them when..." deceased-celebrity checklist that comes with every new Old Hollywood death.

 

[Johnny Barleycorn]

Morrissey never said a bad word about Robin Williams. He never criticised him or his work. He just clearly feels that it was unfair that he should receive so much coverage, while Bacall got very little fanfare. He just feels it's unjust. I can see his point. You lot are just knee-jerking like a herd of sheep.

Perhaps we should instigate a grief chart where celebrity deaths can be ranked by popularity. I was very sad when Frank Sidebottom died in 2010, but I didn't try to compare it with J.D. Salinger or Captain Beefheart.

Reinventing Dora Bryan or Efram Zimbalist Junior as Lord Olivier figures hardly helps. I rather liked Dora Bryan, as it goes, but like many actors and actresses she seemed to play one character more than others, that of Dora Bryan.

 

[Sidnettle]

Perhaps we should instigate a grief chart where celebrity deaths can be ranked by popularity. I was very sad when Frank Sidebottom died in 2010, but I didn't try to compare it with J.D. Salinger or Captain Beefheart.

Reinventing Dora Bryan or Efram Zimbalist Junior as Lord Olivier figures hardly helps. I rather liked Dora Bryan, as it goes, but like many actors and actresses she seemed to play one character more than others, that of Dora Bryan.

So in your eyes Bacall is Sidebottom and Williams is Salinger/Beefheart?

 

[Johnny Barleycorn]

Lots of Mozza's lines are in fact his, some very god ones "I lost my bag in newport pagnell" for one.

Anyone who lost their bag in Newport Pagnell before the 17th of December, 1986 are far, far more likely to have invented that term.

 

[modrevolve]

I didn't say he did.

lol you really think it can be argued that Robin Williams changed motion picture history? if you say so, of course...

 

[Johnny Barleycorn]

So in your eyes Bacall is Sidebottom?

Yes. That is exactly what I'm saying. I am contending that Lauren Bacall, whose film career tailed off in the early eighties as Sidebottom's began to take off was actually Frank Sidebottom, and it was only when Frank's career started to wane in the early 1990s did she return to Hollywood to make more screen appearances.

 

[Sidnettle]

I didn't say he did.

Then why do you need the qualifier "in Morrissey's world"?

 

[Sidnettle]

Yes. That is exactly what I'm saying. I am contending that Lauren Bacall, whose film career tailed off in the early eighties as Sidebottom's began to take off was actually Frank Sidebottom, and it was only when Frank's career started to wane in the early 1990s did she return to Hollywood to make more screen appearances.

I think what you were trying to say is we should not rank people in terms of popularity after they die. However, Williams was much more well-known and therefore popular by the time Bacall died. Morrissey is arguing that people should be judged on artistic merit and contribution rather than mere popularity, hence the x-factory thing.

 

[Johnny Barleycorn]

I think what you were trying to say is we should not rank people in terms of popularity after they die. However, Williams was much more well-known and therefore popular by the time Bacall died. Morrissey is arguing that people should be judged on artistic merit and contribution rather than mere popularity, hence the x-factory thing.

Well we got there in the end.

Morrissey is saying we should rank our dead stars by their talent and ability rather than the X Factor's preferred method of errrr... ranking them by their talent and ability.

In the end it all comes down to preference, as it ever did. Given the chance to go back in time twenty years and see Robin Williams at the Palladium or Frank Sidebottom in a run down boozer in Tarporley, I'll take the latter all day long.