Star Men .. and Sheffield

I'm back from Sheffield, where we went for just one day to see Nick's film.  And, well!  In my mind Sheffield had been a place of blackened stone and brick, with a certain gloomy period atmosphere. But when I got out of the station - wow!  Where were the tatty car park and derelict old buildings I remembered? Instead, a reflective wall of water, glimmering with colours, sweeping in a great curve up the hill.

dwindling to a quarter of the size at the other end - an ingenious optical illusion.

 On the hillside beyond, the windows of once notorious, now partly renovated Park Hill Estate glittered with jewel like colours.

Now Sheffield Hallam University buildings surround the station.  Not all of them are very beautiful but - they have tried.  We climbed the hill into town, following a mysterious mosaic channel which I suppose was meant to be filled with water - wonder why it wasn't?

it had a very fine plughole 

The place was hung with film festival banners, and we passed an outdoor screening of interesting vintage documentaries. Incidentally, that wasn't the only building I saw with a face painted on the side. Quite surreal. Wonder who he is. Some vintage Sheffield celebrity? Do you know?

And on the wall of a large ugly block a poem welcoming visitors to Sheffield by the Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. Great poem.  Click the link to read the text. 

I don't know what the rest of Sheffield is like,and secretly I would like to think that there is still a bit of grand, gloomy Victoriana somewhere, but I like a city that presents an artistic face to the world. There is a vibrancy, affluence and liveliness now that there certainly wasn't before.

So I'll come back and have a better look around, but, as I said yesterday, we were going to see a film featuring a relative,  Nick Woolf.  Nick is a retired astronomer, and fifty years ago, he took a road trip across the American southwest with some English friends, a couple of tents, a Union Jack and a wonderful old car.  That is him lurking on the left.

In those days, war-exhausted, impoverished Britain offered a great education but not much in the way of opportunities, and several of the young English astronomers on the road trip went on to have careers abroad, although a couple did become Cambridge professors. The others stayed in America, where the study of space was starting to take off in a big way.

In the documentatary Star Men, the survivors retraced their road-trip footsteps in a way both touching and quixotic, tackling alarming desert hikes and reflecting on how their work in  trying to unravel secrets of the infinite universe has shaped their views on the inner and outer life, what you know and what you'll never know.

I found the film a complete eye opener.  I'd really come to support Nick, but actually I have never been particularly excited by astronomy, so I'd probably never have seen this film if it hadn't been for him. Which would have been  my great loss, because I was absolutely gripped.  

Not only the stunning visual images -  in particular a time lapse sequence of countless stars whirling about remote Rainbow Bridge in wildest Utah  - go here for a mere still photograph  and then imagine it in motion.    I also loved the curious synchronised time-lapse swooping ballet as the elegant dishes of the Very Large Array at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory turned to invisible signals.  [credit http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/]  Much of the film was set in an otherworldly desert landscape on the edge of human life. 

Most of all, the film's artistry helped me to see just what is so fascinating and compelling about the study of the stars. I feel I now have some understanding of why we do need to study them, consider them. To put ourselves in perspective, perhaps, to aspire to impossible tasks, to unravel enormous mysteries. 

All these thoughtful and intelligent men were full of ideas and curiosity, not least on the subject of death and endings, which, at their age, preoccupies them more and more. Even though they see themselves as mere specks in infinity, and even though they all have brains at least the size of Jupiter, I was interested to see that they hold very different views on religion.  

There was a discussion at the end of the film, Nick,(the tall one in the middle)  two of the other professors and the director, Alison Rose, went up before the audience for a  Q and A session.  Someone asked Nick what he thought of his portrayal in the film. "Well - it looks like me. It sounds like me," he said.  "And,actually - it is me."   What a tribute to Rose, I thought.   

I left the screening on a high, I appreciated the chance to see a documentary made with artistry,  passion, curiosity and respect for its subject.   No dumbing down, no flattery,and, if there were any pressures from politicians and bean-counters, Rose managed to keep them out of the film.  

Star Men will do various festivals and then come out on DVD.  I think its makers, Inigo Productions, are planning to offer it to the BBC.  The BBC is still the best place to try and show good work, so I hope it finds a home there.  And I have put in my diary to attend the Sheffield DocFest next year. Maybe I'll have the chance to see more of Sheffield then! 

Come to think of it, I would love to revisit the American southwest. I did quite a bit of work there in years gone by, and I miss those amazing landscapes. I envy those of you who can get out into them sometimes, to feel the desert wind and see the huge horizons.