I was deeply saddened to hear of the death of Sir Alan Bates this past weekend, so much so that I have not been able to write about it till now. Not that I can have much new to say, as I never knew him except as I was a great admirer of his work as an actor. His talent was huge, his range protean, his accomplishment astounding. And there was a dimension to his work more difficult to characterize: he somehow delivered the person he was playing right to you, as a whole character, whether he was playing sympathetic characters or villains, whether carrying a large lead role, a smaller role, or playing as part of an ensemble. The character and the character's emotion was immediate, inescapable, and personal, whoever the character.
I saw Michelangelo's Pieta at the Vatican exhibit in the 1964-65 World's Fair in New York, and I was pierced by it emotionally. I did not stop to consider, at that moment, what techniques Michelangelo might have used to produce exactly the finish on different parts of the work, or how he chose the block of marble he used, or what might have led him to create exactly this work in this way. I was far too busy being overwhelmed by the emotional impact of the work of art in front of me. And when I got back home afterwards, and I looked up facts about Michelangelo's life and work, those facts, along with a listing of his masterworks, didn't tell me very much: saying he had sculpted this and painted that or designed the other conveyed relatively little beyond the bare facts, while the emotional impact of the piece itself had told me a great deal about him as a worker of masterpieces, but almost nothing that could be put into words.
The appeal of Alan Bates and his stature as an actor also goes far beyond a recital of roles he has played and awards and honors he has received. He was far more than the sum of his parts, in every sense. To have seen Alan Bates in a role is to have let that character into your life. But it also meant letting the actor Alan Bates into your life as a worker of masterpieces.
He worked masterpieces for me for years, starting when I saw him in King of Hearts during its first release in this country. I still trot out my DVD of it and watch it from time to time when I need to get reset, so to speak. I haven't seen nearly as much of his work as I wanted to -- and never got to see him on stage at all. I have seen him as Rupert in Women in Love. I also saw him on television in the mid-nineties mini-series Oliver's Travels. I have seen him as Jennings the butler in Gosford Park, a man with a secret in his past he very much hopes won't come out; and I have seen him as the villain mastermind Dressler in The Sum of All Fears, absolutely chilling to see and hear. I'm also planning to see the just-released The Statement.
And now I descend from the sublime to the personal and ridiculous: because of some unusual and unexpected scheduling on a local station, I ended up missing the final episode of Oliver's Travels. Since then, for what has become the best part of ten years, I have tried off and on -- and failed -- to find a copy of Oliver's Travels on any home video medium, not just to see the final episode, but to have the whole thing to enjoy again and again. VHS, DVD -- I'd take what's on offer, but there isn't any on offer. Not for rent, not for purchase.
That was a wonderful miniseries. Please, would whoever's in charge of it get it out there on tape or disc and make it available to the rest of us? Soon? Or if it's already available, and someone reading this knows of it, would you please tell me where I can get it? Thank you.|
2:07:13 PM 
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