The Truth 24 Times a Second (Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett)

Member Name: andrewl

Product:	Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett
Date:	30/01/06 (131 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some brilliant characters and plenty of references for film enthusiasts to spot

Disadvantages: Some duff jokes, not enough plot and overly obvious targets

The Discworld is, of course, a flat world carried on the backs of four elephants that balance on Great A'Tuin, a giant space turtle. To suggest in any way that around the fifth book the turtle should have been quietly rewritten as a space cash cow would be churlish. Terry Pratchett has made a fortune out of writing a brilliant series of novels set in this perversely logical fantasy world. And, just to nail my colours to the mast, the series has defied the law of diminishing returns by getting better and better. Yes it has.

When the series kicked off with The Colour of Magic many years ago, the supporting characters were generally one-note fantasy clichés whose sole real purpose was to feed lines to the more knowing and sarcastic leads. Whole novels seemed to be constructed around very bad puns (Equal Rites), high concept storylines that even Bruckheimer would balk at (Death gets an apprentice!) and the End of The World (The Light Fantastic, Sourcery, er, Equal Rites again...). They developed into a series of mature comedies that tackle themes of identity, time and mortality against a fantasy setting of which the author almost seems embarrassed at times. I know which I prefer.

But anyway, another stock in trade has been the 'how many clever references to a particular artform can I cram into one novel' Discworld adventure. Wyrd Sisters visited Shakespearean tragedy, and Soul Music raided classic rock n' roll. Maskerade robbed opera and musical theatre blind. And Moving Pictures saw Pratchett mock the silver screen.

The people of Ankh-Morpork have discovered the secret of octo-cellulose, and everyone is clamouring to be involved in the 'moving pictures' business. Student wizard Victor Tugelbend finds himself playing the Discworld's first screen idol opposite milkmaid Ginger, at the same time as he half-heartedly tries to unravel the mystery of the Holy Wood.

Cinematic references flood the text, from films like Gone With the Wind (remade as 'Blown Away') to studios like 20th Century Fox (Century of the Fruitbat). Even the narrator and incidental characters get in on the action, with direct lifts from War of the Worlds and The Blues Brothers crowding in. It's a joy trying to spot them all, even if most of them are pretty easy.

In fact, as the mystery of Holy Wood is not particularly interesting, or ever treated with a great deal of urgency by any of the characters, spotting film references is the prime motive to read the book, as well as the development of supporting player Cut-My-Own-Throat Dibbler as he moves from sausage seller to movie mogul.

Alongside the cinematic stuff, though, Moving Pictures is an important novel within the Discworld canon as it introduces some great characters. Sporting wizard Mustrum Ridcully appears as the new Archchancellor of Unseen University, and the passage where the elderly wizards' expectations of a twinkly-eyed nature-loving mage are contrasted with the hearty, bloodsport-crazed reality is simply hilarious.

Under Ridcully is the Bursar. The Bursar appeared in several Discworld novels before this one, and a sadder person than I would be able to tell you if he has always been the same man. I'm sure he's died at least once. Anyway, Moving Pictures sees the beginnings of a character arc which eventually sees the clinical number cruncher reduced to a pill-popping lunatic due to the strain of working for Ridcully.

But none of these stand scrutiny next to the stroke of genius that is Gaspode the Wonder Dog. Gaspode is a truly intelligent dog, a flea-bitten mongrel that wanders around the story moaning about his lot in life, blagging free beer and being ignored as he tries to tell people what's happening. He is nothing short of Marvin the Paranoid Android in Pratchett form, a fantastically melancholy and cynical character.

These chaps are all worth noting because they really do save the book in many ways. All the film stuff is all very well and occasionally quite funny, but it also gets a bit repetitive. Victor and Ginger keep wandering around the ruins, they keep making 'clickies' and Dibbler keeps having the same arguments with Silverfish, the man whose studio he has taken over. By the time the gags about trolls eating people roll round AGAIN, you're really crying out for another dose of Gaspode asking cat lovers if they wash in their own spit.

The film stuff is also, frankly, a bit half-arsed. Pratchett goes for a lot of cheap gags about Tom and Jerry and Lassie and cliffhanger serials - presumably aiming to evoke the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood - but never gets really stuck into any films for sustained satire apart from King Kong and Gone With the Wind. Which are pretty much the most obvious targets you could think of, given that it's not until the next novel that CMOT Dibbler finds himself clutching a snowglobe.

The first time I read Moving Pictures, more than ten years ago, I was chuffed to bits to spot the Blues Brothers reference. Now I finish the book quite frustrated at the missed opportunity to get in some quality parody. Given the priceless Conan mockery in Pratchett's second Discworld book, we all know he can do it. I'm not suggesting the Discworld equivalent of the Reservoir Dogs ear-slicing scene, but it's a great shame there's not a bit more in there for film enthusiasts.

It seems probable that Pratchett concentrated his efforts on the most obvious and iconic films to keep the book's appeal as broad as possible. For all my French cinema loving pretensions, I would in no way expect a thoroughly commercial author to start peppering his novel with pastiches of Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle. But this narrow focus, along with the whole 'set against the background of a world gone mad' motif that runs through suggests a large dose of contempt from the author for both Hollywood (which I'm sure is intentional) and cinema (which I would hope isn't).

The more I pick at the novel, the more a cherished classic of my adolescence crumbles away. There's a high 'gag rate' with both film references and Pratchett's more normal word play and character humour. These gags are always going to be of variable quality, but there's quite a few that miss quite embarrassingly. For every inspired piece of dialogue about 'banged grains' or naming talking animals, there's the lame running joke about Oscars or Dibbler's dull attempts to cram advertising for a local restaurant into Blown Away.

When the dust has settled though, I've read Moving Pictures probably seven or eight times, and I'll certainly read it again in the future. It's not the best Discworld novel, but it's certainly worthy of its place in that series with a large cast of effortlessly entertaining supporting characters. If you're a fan of 'classic Hollywood' you'll enjoy spotting all the various references that cram the book, and if you're a fan of Pratchett you've already got a copy anyway. I gather it sells for £6.99 these days, but it's been around long enough that you can probably pick it up for far less second hand.

Summary: I've read Moving Pictures seven or eight times, and I'll certainly read it again.