Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
by David Simon
Canongate, £8.99

As the great Randy Newman sang, his lyrical genius pared to the bone by the despair of his narrator: “Oh Baltimore, man it’s hard just to live, just to live.” It is, however, very easy to die a violent death, as viewers of the TV series The Wire know. The Wire has been widely praised for its authenticity and complexity. Two decades ago, its creator, David Simon, immersed himself in the world of crime, spending a year with the drug dealers and addicts on Baltimore’s street corners and another year shadowing the detectives charged with investigating homicide in a city where murder is a daily event. Canongate, cute as ever when it comes to marketing opportunities, have re-issued Homicide and The Corner to capitalise on the success of The Wire.

Antichrist
Director: Lars von Trier

Rudo y Cursi
Director: Carlos Cuarón

Danish auteur Lars Trier famously added a “von’ to his surname to sound more distinguished. To me, this most disingenuous of talented but frustratingly shallow film directors ought to be called “Larks von Trier”. With each film, he is having a laugh at his collaborators’ expense and at the audience. His films are preceded by self-generated hype, an announcement such as the signing of Dogme 95, heralding a so-called aesthetic purity that invites an audience to receive his movies in a certain way.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
Director: Tony Scott

While seldom ranked among American cinema’s greatest classics, Joseph Sargent’s The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) is among many viewers’ semi-guilty pleasures – familiarity breeding content via seemingly endless late-night showings. Based on the bestselling 1973 novel by “John Godey” (ex-Hollywood publicist Morton Freedgood), it chronicles, in compulsively watchable and amiably unpretentious fashion, an audacious criminal escapade whereby a gang take a subway train hostage: the 1.23pm from Pelham Bay Park Station in the Bronx (hence the oft-misunderstood title).

Paradise of Exiles: The Anglo-American Gardens of Florence by Katie Campbell
Frances Lincoln, £35

Although Henry James knew but never lived in the rolling Tuscan hills surrounding Florence, it is his restrained, tasteful, super-sensitive spirit that pervades Katie Campbell’s account of the expatriate Anglo-American community that settled there in the latter part of the 19th century. The hills are sufficiently close to Florence to enjoy its culture and society while being well away from the madding crowd.

Jerusalem
Royal Court, London

Dreams of Violence
Soho Theatre, London

Once upon a time, some 30 years ago, British theatre staged bold state-of-the-nation plays. Then these went out of fashion in the “me” decade and the nasty 1990s. Recently, not only has political theatre made a comeback, but also plays about the state of Britain are popping up all over the place. Two have just opened in London. And they make for contrasting viewing.