DONALD CLARKEasks what a permanent flight ban would do to cinema?
This writer has just returned from an unexpectedly lengthy sojourn in the UK. A little over a week ago, ignoring nonsensical chatter about some distant volcano, I stepped on an aircraft and allowed myself to be flown to Heathrow Airport. Ten hours later (or so), when all the paranoid hysteria had died down, I would, surely, make my way home using the same mode of transport.
Well, unless you’ve been living underwater for the last week, you will know where this story is heading. After four days sitting in a hotel room staring angrily at Sky News – “A helicopter has landed at Inverness!” – I eventually decided to travel home on a ferry. A ferry? The last time I entered such a vessel, I was listening to Throbbing Gristle on a Walkman the size of a fridge.
Meanwhile, various classes of chaos had overtaken the film world. The premiere for Iron Man 2and its associated press junket has had to be cancelled. If the stars don't turn up to walk the red carpet then the press aren't going to come along either. Be honest. The only part of the premiere that matters is the bit where maniacs with microphones scream inane questions at Mickey Rourke's receding head or at a stray corner of Robert Downey jnr's speeding elbow.
A tiny part of my brain began to ponder a not-so-preposterous question: what would happen to cinema if passenger aircraft never flew again. Have a look at tonight's Friday Night with Jonathan Rossfor a taster.
As I understand it, deprived of his Iron Man talent, the Manuel-botherer will be interviewing two lollipop ladies, a dancing horse and the man who makes Jeremy Clarkson’s underwear. Get used to it. No flying. No superstars.
With air travel a thing of the past, the studios will also have to cut back heavily on location shoots. If Owen Wilson is cast in a film set in Paris then, unless the producers want to waste two weeks transporting him there and back by boat, they will have to create some version of the French capital in southern California. In times past, this would have involved the building of a beautifully stylised set on the back lot. These days, the studios turn to computers. Either way, Paris won’t actually be Paris.
More interesting still is the effect our flight ban would have on the stories themselves. It could only be a good thing. Once again, as in Now Voyager, An Affair to Rememberor The Lady Eve, characters will have the chance to meet, investigate mutual foibles and, ultimately, fall in love while sailing from, say, New York to London.
Good luck constructing that sort of arc on a five-hour flight from Heathrow to JFK.
Mind you, the aircraft moratorium would have a largely negative effect on the disaster movie. If you don't believe me, have a glance at Speed 2: Cruise Control. A careering boat is still no substitute for a hurtling aircraft. Perhaps we need the blasted things after all.
