Marathon Man

This week I have enjoyed watching old movies on the box. I chuckled through Ferris Bueller's Day Off and sat with my eyes squeezed into frightened little slits watching Marathon Man. Even Dustin Hoffman's hysterical over-performance (he's short, I guess he has to shout) didn't put me off. I could watch, and re-watch, almost anything made between 1976 – 1984. Everyone has their Golden Era, this is mine. As usual it has to to do with the colours, a palette that runs from mustard to navy, olive and salmon. I think it's at this point that modernism gave up the ghost, politics turned conservative and interiors went a little pearly, as in single roses in crystal vases. I could study the interiors and art direction in films like Marathon Man (and Ordinary People or E.T) like grades depended on it. With Marathon Man it could be a strategy to stop from worrying about a niggly back tooth. My dentist, what I remember of him, it's been a couple of years, is pretty benign. He is no White Angel. But dental work is dental work. With or without anaesthetic it's something to fear.