"The mystery of things." Bomber Harris, Orson Welles and Tom Waits - together at last!

Biographies have changed. Like other history books the authors aimed for a impersonal detached and objective tone. Now, with changes in taste and philosophies, the authors’s voice has become much more idiosyncratic and for mine, obtrusive. When Pamela Stephenson, for example, is writing about her husband Billy Connolly, such a personal approach may be justified. But many biographies these days seem to be written in a much more direct even chatty style, even when they don’t enjoy such a personal relationship with their subject.

The three latest biographies I have read have spread across the gamut of modern biography. One is old-school objective, another focussing on one section of its subject’s career, and the third an unauthorised biography of a still-active artist covering his entire life.

The first was Bomber Harris: His life and times the life of Arthur Harris, who led Britain’s Bomber Command during World War II. Harris still a controversial figure and Bomber Command’s tactics are still the cause of argument. But from Dunkirk through to Normandy, bombers were the only way Britain could fight against Nazi Germany and give support to the Russians on the Eastern Front. After the war, Albert Speer, Hitler’s Minister of Armaments, said the damage done by the bombers, the extra guns and troops stationed in Germany to combat them, was as effective as a second front and a large part of the reason Germany lost. This still leaves plenty of room for arguments about tactics and strategies, and morality.

There is no easy answer but the author fairly lays out the facts, opinions from others from the era, and gives differing conclusions from other historians, while presenting his own findings. In the end we get a pretty clear picture of the man both as a person and as a military commander, his strengths and his flaws. If the book is somewhat dry to read, and does get a bit bogged down in detail, it does what it sets out to do: tell the life and character of Arthur Harris.

The second book is not quite a biography but I’m not sure what else to call it. Clinton Heylin’s Despite the system: Orson Welles versus the Hollywood Studios examines the Welles’ Hollywood career, from Citizen Kane through to Touch of Evil from when he had complete control of his film to becoming a director for hire. Here the author is not afraid to make his voice heard at all and is quite scathing about a number of previous biographies of Welles, as well as praising a few others. He is especially scathing on half-arsed psychological assessments of Orson Welles that ‘explain’ the number of films he did not finish. By contrast he shows the hurdles the Welles had to overcome in terms of budgets and studio politics. These are real, identifiable and demonstratable. And as an explanation of Welles’ career, much more satisfying.

Welles’ personality of course did not help him in playing studio politics. He was never afraid to call a shovel a shovel or an idiot an idiot. He did have a tendency to indulge himself at some expense to his employers. But he deserved better than what he got. Welles’ control of his film Kane was unprecedented but now it is not uncommon. Directors now have complete control of their films and what do we get? More Kanes? No, we get “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Chrystal Skulls” and the Star Wars prequels. It takes more than total control to make good art

Heylin also gave me an insight into Welles’ films I had not had before. Welles’ is a Brechtian film-maker, drawing attention to the techniques of film as you watch it. Also, as a result of his work on radio, he had a much more interesting and integrated approach to the use of sound in film. Even today he would still be a radical in Hollywood. When he was able to get these factors together, it made Welles’ films identifiable almost at a glance – and a listen.

He also puts to bed, for mine, the theory that Welles did not write Citizen Kane, but rather, at best edited what Herman J Mankiewicz wrote. Simply put, Mank’s scripts before and after Kane was formulaic pot-boilers. Welles on the other hand was making films that challenged Hollywood’s aesthetic, narratives and techniques for the rest of his career. Welles was always ready to give Mank credit when it was due, the  ‘Rosebud’ Macguffin but one example. It’s time some of his detractors gave Welles the same courtesy.

The next in this biographical triumvirate is Low side of the road: The life of Tom Waits  by Barney Hoskyns. I am an enormous fan of Waits, the wide range of his musical styles and his fun, provoking, often moving lyrics. Hoskyns is open about the music he likes and the music he finds not so essential. He is also ready to admit that others may disagree with his assessment - a radical approach for a critic. This is an unauthorised biography which often means a hatchet job, but not in this case. This is an admiring biography, while not shying away from aspects that Hoskyns does not find as admirable. It’s an entertaining and informative read. I was delighted to read that all the idiosyncratic names that pepper Waits' work are from people he has known.

Waits has lead an interesting life both professionally and personally. But unusually for these times, he keeps his private life very private. He also believes that an artist’s work should speak for itself and not be interpreted through the narrow lens of autobiography.  This is part of what makes Waits such an oddity. All art is supposed to be confessional and revealing one’s private life is supposed to be a sign of honesty. Both these ideas, though popular, are questionable. (Incidentally, Arthur Harris declined several offers to write his autobiography. He thought he had said quite enough on the subject.)

Waits and his wife and collaborator Kathleen Brennan asked people not to talk to Hoskyns, and Hoskyns is quite open about that. However a number of people did speak to him, and Waits himself has a sheaf of interviews published over the years, including several with Hoskyns and the result is a good read, a good biography. Once again, it had me going back to the music to listen to it with new ears, always a good sign.

Three books, three different approaches. All three are worth reading, but do any of them crack the mystery of their subject? Ultimately no. Where talent for music, film or leadership comes from is unsolvable. Welles and Waits have given us great art, Harris is one of those responsible for our freedom. They are imperfect as we all are. Perhaps in the biggest terms, biographies are another tool in our ongoing attempt to make sense of human existence and the meaning of life. Or perhaps we just find people interesting.

"I've got those ... 'but what do you know?' blues." The real Shakespeare and conspiracies (Part 2)

Does any of it matter? In the end, Shakespeare’s plays will survive bad conspiracy theories the same way they survive bad productions. But where it does matter is the manner in which the argument is made.

It took 200 years for anyone to even consider that anyone but Shakespeare wrote his plays. Considering how many people knew about it, that’s some pretty good work by the conspirators. Only six people initially knew about the Watergate break-in, and it leaked like a sieve. But from the first i.e. 200 years after, we hear the familiar tropes of the conspiracy theorist. They are the ones intelligent enough to see through the lies and brave enough to broadcast their findings to the world. They are being hindered by the mainstream who see their work as a threat to their livelihoods. They are the underdog fighting the entire industry who want to destroy them.

There is a reason such a scenario appeals. Because such a thing does happen. William McBride, for example, was the one researcher who discovered the link between thalidomide and birth defects. It was a struggle, involving taking on a big pharmaceutical company, but his findings were found to be true and thalidomide was banned for pregnant women. Later on McBride besmirched his own reputation when he claimed to find a similar link between birth defects and Debenox. In this case he had falsified and manipulated data. His study was discredited and ultimately he was struck off the medical register. He has since been reinstated but the damage to his reputation was done.

The conspiracy also feeds into some of our myths and stories – the struggle of the underdog, David vs Goliath, one brave person taking on a evil organisation and winning. How many novels, poems and movies have been based on a similar idea?

The truth, the exposer will say, will out. The fact is, it does. A radical researcher, historian, doctor or whoever, if they are actually telling the truth, will find their results and ideas validated in the long run. The ones who are deluded, mistaken or making false reports are also found out. When Dan Schechtman first presented his theories on quasicrystals he was told by no less than Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling that it was nonsense and he was a quasi-scientist. This year he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for that very work. Likewise Andrew Wakefield’s paper linking autism and vaccination, though popular and finding supporters and adherents throughout the world, has been found to be fraudulent.

Wakefield’s work continues to do its damage now. Previously controlled diseases like mumps and measles are experiencing new outbreaks, threatening the health of thousands of people around the world. There are parts of Australia where it is unadvisable to take newborns, because of the high-rate of non-immunised children in the area. Wakefield’s supporters will say that the fraudulent finding is part of the conspiracy to hush up his findings. However, the medical professional and pharmaceutical companies are quite open about the potential side-effects of immunisation, including convulsions and a form of meningitis. Parents are warned of these dangers, and researchers are working on eliminating them. But the profession also knows the small amount of risk involved is far outweighed by the greater good done through immunisation programmes worldwide.

And here is another part of the conspiracy theory trope: you can’t trust the experts. People who have spent their lives studying a subject are either too close to the subject, too vested in the subject, or too financially tied to their subject and either cannot understand this new work or are actively trying to destroy it. The expert is either stuck in a lofty ivory tower, or an active force for evil. This seems harmless eccentric belief applied to the Shakespeare authorship question. It is far more sinister when applied to the medical profession, scientists and history.

I have already discussed the real damage done by Wakefield’s fraud. In the debate over global warming we hear of scientists who have their income predicated on creating studies supporting anthropogenic global warming, and so they falsify their reports to back the financial interest of their masters, and ultimately their own. As a scientific argument, this is rubbish. If one wants to argue about science then, as they did with William McBride and Andrew Wakefield, engage them on their methodology and figures. Engaging them on their motivation is ludicrous and no argument at all.

In history, this style of argument is in its most sinister in regard to the Holocaust. The Holocaust is dismissed as a fraud, an industry to let historians and survivors make money and to allow Israel its own way in foreign relations. David Irving was an arch-denier, given inexplicable credibility by the historical profession, through a mix of self-promotion and an ability to track down previously unknown documents and sources. Sadly, he used these skills to promote Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism and racism. When one historian, though she was not the first, called him a denier, he sued her and her publisher Penguin Books. Backed by Penguin and a team of lawyers and supporters from various areas, Deborah Lipstadt fought the action and won. Irving was spectacularly hoist on his own petard and exposed as the racist, anti-Semitic, non-historian that he is.

There is such a thing as healthy scepticism. Authorities whether they be medical, scientific, historic or political, need to be checked, queried and challenged. However, a mindless rejection of authority is as brain-dead and I think even more dangerous than mindless acceptance. Think for yourself, but get your information from people who know more than you do.

However, I can report that I have disproved one conspiracy theory. Between Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, blogs and Wikipedia, we have definitely proved that a million monkeys at a million typewriters will not produce the works of Shakespeare.