Sloping Off - December 2004
Editorial - Breaking the News, and other stories.
In the film "The Theory of Flight", Richard (Kenneth Branagh) has taken Jane (Helena Bonham Carter) into the barn he has rented. It is dark.
Jane: "I can see fxxk all"
Richard switches on a series of floodlights to illuminate...
J: "It's an installation"
He puts on even more lights and the installation is revealed as a parody of the Wright Flyer; built from scrap, found objects and farm machinery.
R: No... hmn... nah... it's an aeroplane. I'm inventing the aeroplane"
J: "I think you may have been beaten"
R: Thank you for breaking the news so gently"
I suppose all of us are to some extent in Richard's position, reinventing the aeroplane, keeping some aspect of our lives completely under control. Richard eventually takes Jane on a flight in his machine and frees himself from his grounded emotional life. Perhaps our flights set free something in ourselves. Certainly my knocking knees give way to a wave of satisfaction when my reinvention first flies and I'm sure all of us envy the easy, graceful arcing through the sky of even the most basic glider. Yet if you offered me the chance to fly full-size, would I take it? It's easy to say "I can't afford that, I'll stick to model aircraft." The truth is somewhat more complex and I suspect that the cost of a carefully managed programme of real glider flying would not be so hugely different at the end of a year. Most of us need to have achievable dreams!
Mike Roach (editor, part time film critic, model maker and HBC fan)
