Thanks, Connie! I'm glad I got to read it. I know this is an old conversation.
You know, I have to say it reminds me of the recent conversations we just had about Louisa not having the capacity to ask people to leave her house and thus botches her evening with DM.
At first it seemed to me that if MC had said "That's enough" and told this reporter to leave after she had seven pages of interview, all would have been fine. I wonder if he had agreed to such a long interview, which I think would indeed get tiresome to him, especially as Barb (?) didn't seem at all interested in his love of animals, and kind of shut off that whole side of him. If you are going to spend an a long time with someone, who invited you into their home, you should go wanting to learn his multifactorial sides, not just one TV show he's done. But, she really couldn't not have cared about "this bucolic chat" and that's simply rude. Her idiotic comment stating she was surprised he'd want to act in anything else aside from DM is nearly incomprehensible.
On top of all that, even after getting magnificent hints and ideas from DM fans, and even members of this Forum, she didn't even ask anything new about DM, but retread what we already know, and she even made errors about her "knowledge" of the show. (eg. it was all the vitamin D, not the calcium, that harmed poor Harry Pote). And, how do you say you absolutely love a show and then state a MAJOR character was a "dreadful bore". You've lost your entire readership right there.
She mentions she was there already for an HOUR, which is a very long interview--TV ones are usually 2-5 minutes--and was still planning for more, even after the dog told her very clearly via the water spilling on her tape recorder, that it was time to go.
I think it's very sad that the interviewer didn't just edit out the angry against the journalists section. What was her intent to publish the whole interview? Oh, she has a big scoop? Hardly. She just became a pest, and MC reacted like most of us would to a pest; he got a bit righteously irritable. She has very poor judgment, I think. I am another of the very many who of course takes MC's side against her.
Thanks, Connie! I'm glad I got to read it. I know this is an old conversation.
You know, I have to say it reminds me of the recent conversations we just had about Louisa not having the capacity to ask people to leave her house and thus botches her evening with DM.
At first it seemed to me that if MC had said "That's enough" and told this reporter to leave after she had seven pages of interview, all would have been fine. I wonder if he had agreed to such a long interview, which I think would indeed get tiresome to him, especially as Barb (?) didn't seem at all interested in his love of animals, and kind of shut off that whole side of him. If you are going to spend an a long time with someone, who invited you into their home, you should go wanting to learn his multifactorial sides, not just one TV show he's done. But, she really couldn't not have cared about "this bucolic chat" and that's simply rude. Her idiotic comment stating she was surprised he'd want to act in anything else aside from DM is nearly incomprehensible.
On top of all that, even after getting magnificent hints and ideas from DM fans, and even members of this Forum, she didn't even ask anything new about DM, but retread what we already know, and she even made errors about her "knowledge" of the show. (eg. it was all the vitamin D, not the calcium, that harmed poor Harry Pote). And, how do you say you absolutely love a show and then state a MAJOR character was a "dreadful bore". You've lost your entire readership right there.
She mentions she was there already for an HOUR, which is a very long interview--TV ones are usually 2-5 minutes--and was still planning for more, even after the dog told her very clearly via the water spilling on her tape recorder, that it was time to go.
I think it's very sad that the interviewer didn't just edit out the angry against the journalists section. What was her intent to publish the whole interview? Oh, she has a big scoop? Hardly. She just became a pest, and MC reacted like most of us would to a pest; he got a bit righteously irritable. She has very poor judgment, I think. I am another of the very many who of course takes MC's side against her.
She asked fans through Facebook and twitter to send her questions we would like for her to ask him about Doc Martin. They didn't talk about Doc Martin much, obviously. I asked her why she didn't talk about DM. I was irritated about that and let her know that. I felt she sort of played us for chumps. She tweeted me back that MC didn't want to talk about Doc Martin. Her name is Lynn Barber, and she wrote a book called "An Education", and it was made into a movie of the same name. They both got a little feisty with one another, and who knows what really happened. We only have her version of things.
KCET just wrapped series 5 here and hubby had a funny observation. It was his first time viewing, I had cheated on him (gasp!) and seen it online.
The Romeo (DM) and Juliet (Mrs. T) scene was about to commence...come to think of it, with the inclusion of Louisa and Ruth, a bit Cyrano too? I digress. So Penhale does his Spiderman bit. He turns to me to say, so PC Penhale can't climb more than a few rungs on a ladder but he can scamper up a wall?
That observation tickled me. Perhaps it wasn't the heights for Joe, he's afraid of ladders
There a number of bits in the last episode that were in fairy-tale land. For example, how was it exactly that Mrs. Tishell caught that bus immediately after the couple left her pharmacy, that took her to the castle, and then what, she walked up the long path and found the door unlocked and the room made up and read for her? Not really on, except in a fairy tale.
One of the charming things in a way about the series is that they always let you know that they're telling a story, not real life. I put the changing cast of characters of babies in that class -- just have a dormitory of ones who sort of look alike, and swap them out. We're not really trying to fool anybody, so why not? And that large baby, who was anything but a newborn, in Doc Martin's hands in the hospital in scene 1 of S5 -- same thing.
The Doc's "I'm not going to be like my father" comment was quite interesting IMO - and in the inflection that he chose to deliver it. Of course, we know much more about how his father has behaved whereas Louisa only knows about his treatment of the Doc as a child.
The Doc's "I'm not going to be like my father" comment was quite interesting IMO - and in the inflection that he chose to deliver it. Of course, we know much more about how his father has behaved whereas Louisa only knows about his treatment of the Doc as a child.
can you say more about that? To me, it came out of the blue -- I don't know what led up to it, except possibly AR's remark got him thinking about his own father. And I'm not even sure what it really means -- he won't be abusive to his son, he'll be faithful to his wife, (neither of which could ever have been a real issue for him, imo) and he doesn't need a high-powered career as a surgeon to feel OK?
can you say more about that? To me, it came out of the blue -- I don't know what led up to it, except possibly AR's remark got him thinking about his own father. And I'm not even sure what it really means -- he won't be abusive to his son, he'll be faithful to his wife, (neither of which could ever have been a real issue for him, imo) and he doesn't need a high-powered career as a surgeon to feel OK?
Maybe it was about resolving some of his self-doubts - like can he make Louisa happy, (his reason for not going through with the wedding), given that his father's behaviour ruined his mother's life - according to her anyway. Although realising that it needn't be like that and actually doing something about it are different things!
Maybe it was about resolving some of his self-doubts - like can he make Louisa happy, (his reason for not going through with the wedding), given that his father's behaviour ruined his mother's life - according to her anyway. Although realising that it needn't be like that and actually doing something about it are different things!
this has always been just such a puzzling comment to me, b/c it is clearly meant to be significant, but I just haven't, to this point, understood where it came from or what it was about. But going with your interpretation, is it possible that a lot of the seemingly frozen nature of his relationship with LG comes from the circumstance that he is doing a lot of internal churning around in his mind about whether he is, after all, capable of being a good husband and father, when his only model for this was his father -- a jerk on both counts. We do see the dream, where he seems to get the drift of what a joy-killer his father was, we do see him behave in this oddly asexual way, yearning apparently gone, after the baby was born...replicating his father's treatment of his mother in a strange way ..we know that the birth of a child stirs up sometimes a lot of old issues.
It occurs to me, somewhat belatedly, that at the beginning of S5, he may still have been where he was at the end of S3 -- thinking that he could not make her happy as a romantic partner. And a lot of S5 was the work going on underneath the surface where was struggling with and trying to resolve this issue/concern.
Just groping here, b/c I am still not quite otherwise getting the significance of that remark.
Depends which critical approach(es) you use. Formalism regards works as being self-contained, and any interpretation that is supported within the text is valid. Author intent is irrelevant.
Don’t we also have to acknowledge the sense or meaning that we, the audience, discover or realize when we view the series? I’m thinking here along the lines of a comment once made by French artist Marcel Duchamp:
The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work into contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative process.
That might seem a bit abstract, but I think it is exactly the sort of thing that we do in this forum regularly. It does seem that artists, even great ones, don’t always understand the full intent or meaning of their work. Maybe that is the mark of true creativity – the artist becomes almost an instrument of inspiration, but not always its best interpreter.
By way of example, I think many of our criticisms of series 4 and 5 stem from our own unique understanding of the DM LG love story, especially how we express what each character brings to the relationship in terms of potential and liability, etc. Likely we interpret these understandings through our own experience of relationship and life. So interpretation can, and really must vary, sometimes greatly, amongst us, but I think that is perfectly legitimate. It is a testament to the Doc Martin series that it calls out from us such deeply felt understanding and conviction. You might call it a kind of “derivative inspiration”, which, I think, has an authenticity quite apart from the specific intentions of BP, MC, Ben Bolt, etc. Authorial intent is interesting and important, but not the last word. Does that make sense?
Thks for the YT interview Connie. I must say I pronounce lemurs the same way the host did.
Regarding his childhood I noticed that LG picked up on the fact he looked sad in the photos and he immediately wanted to toss them and she wanted them for her album, there is an episode right there!!
Anyone taping the Horse Show Jubilee with MC, that would be interesting to see as I love horses, I saw a glimpse of the RCMP riding in in their red tunics, very smart.....
Don’t we also have to acknowledge the sense or meaning that we, the audience, discover or realize when we view the series? I’m thinking here along the lines of a comment once made by French artist Marcel Duchamp:
The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work into contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative process.
That might seem a bit abstract, but I think it is exactly the sort of thing that we do in this forum regularly. It does seem that artists, even great ones, don’t always understand the full intent or meaning of their work. Maybe that is the mark of true creativity – the artist becomes almost an instrument of inspiration, but not always its best interpreter.
By way of example, I think many of our criticisms of series 4 and 5 stem from our own unique understanding of the DM LG love story, especially how we express what each character brings to the relationship in terms of potential and liability, etc. Likely we interpret these understandings through our own experience of relationship and life. So interpretation can, and really must vary, sometimes greatly, amongst us, but I think that is perfectly legitimate. It is a testament to the Doc Martin series that it calls out from us such deeply felt understanding and conviction. You might call it a kind of “derivative inspiration”, which, I think, has an authenticity quite apart from the specific intentions of BP, MC, Ben Bolt, etc. Authorial intent is interesting and important, but not the last word. Does that make sense?
Yes, yes, all beautifully put. Reader-response criticism is another approach to lit interp. Thanks for that quote from Duchamp, which is new to me and so lovely; I think r-r theory caught a firm hold well after his time, but obviously he was thinking along the same lines and must have influenced its proponents.
P.S. Gordons are one of my favorite dog breeds, and certainly my favorite of the Setters. Do you own one? (I'll feel really stupid if it turns out your actual name is Gordon Setter.)
Yes, yes, all beautifully put. Reader-response criticism is another approach to lit interp. Thanks for that quote from Duchamp, which is new to me and so lovely; I think r-r theory caught a firm hold well after his time, but obviously he was thinking along the same lines and must have influenced its proponents.
P.S. Gordons are one of my favorite dog breeds, and certainly my favorite of the Setters. Do you own one? (I'll feel really stupid if it turns out your actual name is Gordon Setter.)
We had a Gordon Setter named Milo. He remains my favorite, all-time pet! Just simply the sweetest dog – and so beautiful. MC would adore him, I’m sure. Since we moved back into Portland a couple of years, we arranged for him to live with some friends of ours in the country. Too high energy for city living, I’m afraid. But we visit him often.
Been in a lurker mode of late but have really been enjoying all of your comments. And welcome new members!
Just had to pop in, hubby is watching the History Channel, Kevin Coster is in a miniseries, Hatfield and McCoys. He just blurted out, is that Al Large? Sure enough, it was and speaking with a southern drawl, no less!
KCET just wrapped series 5 here and hubby had a funny observation. It was his first time viewing, I had cheated on him (gasp!) and seen it online.
The Romeo (DM) and Juliet (Mrs. T) scene was about to commence...come to think of it, with the inclusion of Louisa and Ruth, a bit Cyrano too? I digress. So Penhale does his Spiderman bit. He turns to me to say, so PC Penhale can't climb more than a few rungs on a ladder but he can scamper up a wall?
That observation tickled me. Perhaps it wasn't the heights for Joe, he's afraid of ladders
Haha! This was all so funny. Romeo & Juliet, Cyrano and Spiderman? Very good! What a good observation about Penhale, although, he did fall down. Maybe, a little bit of Humpty Dumpty too! :rolleyes::):D
this has always been just such a puzzling comment to me, b/c it is clearly meant to be significant, but I just haven't, to this point, understood where it came from or what it was about. But going with your interpretation, is it possible that a lot of the seemingly frozen nature of his relationship with LG comes from the circumstance that he is doing a lot of internal churning around in his mind about whether he is, after all, capable of being a good husband and father, when his only model for this was his father -- a jerk on both counts. We do see the dream, where he seems to get the drift of what a joy-killer his father was, we do see him behave in this oddly asexual way, yearning apparently gone, after the baby was born...replicating his father's treatment of his mother in a strange way ..we know that the birth of a child stirs up sometimes a lot of old issues.
It occurs to me, somewhat belatedly, that at the beginning of S5, he may still have been where he was at the end of S3 -- thinking that he could not make her happy as a romantic partner. And a lot of S5 was the work going on underneath the surface where was struggling with and trying to resolve this issue/concern.
Just groping here, b/c I am still not quite otherwise getting the significance of that remark.
Wow, this puts his statement, "I'm not going to be like my father", in a whole new light. I always thought he just meant what kind of father he was going to be. But, this does explain more about his behavior in Series 5. How earlier someone stated that Martin grew up with his father making all the decisions (that would explain Martin scheduling the Christening, etc.), the lack of interest in Louisa after the birth of JH (just like his father). We do get so much of our ideals and behaviors from our parents (whether we want to or not). No wonder he was struggling so much!
this has always been just such a puzzling comment to me, b/c it is clearly meant to be significant, but I just haven't, to this point, understood where it came from or what it was about. But going with your interpretation, is it possible that a lot of the seemingly frozen nature of his relationship with LG comes from the circumstance that he is doing a lot of internal churning around in his mind about whether he is, after all, capable of being a good husband and father, when his only model for this was his father -- a jerk on both counts. We do see the dream, where he seems to get the drift of what a joy-killer his father was, we do see him behave in this oddly asexual way, yearning apparently gone, after the baby was born...replicating his father's treatment of his mother in a strange way ..we know that the birth of a child stirs up sometimes a lot of old issues.
It occurs to me, somewhat belatedly, that at the beginning of S5, he may still have been where he was at the end of S3 -- thinking that he could not make her happy as a romantic partner. And a lot of S5 was the work going on underneath the surface where was struggling with and trying to resolve this issue/concern.
Just groping here, b/c I am still not quite otherwise getting the significance of that remark.
His father wasn't just a kill joy, his father was downright cruel to him. During that episode, Morwenna bursts into the office and he yells "KNOCK", just like his father did to him. But Morwenna just blows him off and tells him about an emergency. He doesn't go on at her like his father did at him. Nor did he react badly when Louisa told him about breaking the tumbler. Whether DM realized it or not, it was clear that he wasn't going to be like his father in that regard.
I guess I am of the camp that his statement about not being like his father is mostly about him not treating his son like his father treated him, thus, JH won't be like Martin. But, I hope you're right and he meant it with regards to his treatment of Louisa, too. I think the dream signified his fear that he would treat his son the way his father treated him.
He is sort of an apologist for his father throughout the whole series (1-5). He's in denial about the effects of being locked in a closet. When AR talks about his father leaving him in a room alone to cry, Martin says that thinking has changed since then. As though it was all right that his father did that because that's what they thought was the right thing to do. Once he has his own son, he realizes that his father didn't really have to do that to him afterall, that common sense and caring would inform his father that leaving him to cry was cruel, despite what the books say. Martin's love for his son is empirical evidence to him that he won't treat his son that way.
His father wasn't just a kill joy, his father was downright cruel to him. During that episode, Morwenna bursts into the office and he yells "KNOCK", just like his father did to him. But Morwenna just blows him off and tells him about an emergency. He doesn't go on at her like his father did at him. Nor did he react badly when Louisa told him about breaking the tumbler. Whether DM realized it or not, it was clear that he wasn't going to be like his father in that regard.
I guess I am of the camp that his statement about not being like his father is mostly about him not treating his son like his father treated him, thus, JH won't be like Martin. But, I hope you're right and he meant it with regards to his treatment of Louisa, too. I think the dream signified his fear that he would treat his son the way his father treated him.
He is sort of an apologist for his father throughout the whole series (1-5). He's in denial about the effects of being locked in a closet. When AR talks about his father leaving him in a room alone to cry, Martin says that thinking has changed since then. As though it was all right that his father did that because that's what they thought was the right thing to do. Once he has his own son, he realizes that his father didn't really have to do that to him afterall, that common sense and caring would inform his father that leaving him to cry was cruel, despite what the books say. Martin's love for his son is empirical evidence to him that he won't treat his son that way.
I just admit to being still quite confused here, and your interpretation may indeed be the correct one.
About the dream -- maybe it was not so much about his fear of treating his son that way, but breaking through to his conscious mind that the way he was treated by his father was truly cruel -- which he can now recognize, because as you point out, he would never treat his own son that way, and he knows it. i think we have small clues that he is coming out of denial that his treatment by his parents didn't harm him.
The fact that he would bring up his father at the moment he is announcing his decision to stay suggests that it had something to do with his decision-making process. It still doesn't seem quite right to me that he was worried that he would mistreat his son, but he had now got over that, but maybe that's what it was. Just can't compute it.
I just admit to being still quite confused here, and your interpretation may indeed be the correct one.
About the dream -- maybe it was not so much about his fear of treating his son that way, but breaking through to his conscious mind that the way he was treated by his father was truly cruel -- which he can now recognize, because as you point out, he would never treat his own son that way, and he knows it. i think we have small clues that he is coming out of denial that his treatment by his parents didn't harm him.
The fact that he would bring up his father at the moment he is announcing his decision to stay suggests that it had something to do with his decision-making process. It still doesn't seem quite right to me that he was worried that he would mistreat his son, but he had now got over that, but maybe that's what it was. Just can't compute it.
Good point that his dream is his coming out of the denial that his father did abuse him.
While I want to believe that his statement has something to do with Louisa, do we really have any evidence that he was concerned about how he was treating Louisa? I guess he does get a wake up call about how he is treating her when she leaves him, and he is devastated by the effects her leaving has on him.
I don't mean whether we think he was a good dad or not, or if Louisa should have been more grateful, etc. I am talking about how he feels on a deeper level of how he will treat her in the long run. I think he is taking a very deep look at himself, what he's capable of in a long term relationship.
That must be the "one last chance" that he wants to have. AR doesn't mention the way his father treated his mother, just that they stayed together for his sake and that was a disaster. I guess we're supposed to infer that her statement includes the way her brother treated his wife? I would like to, but I feel like I may be grasping at something that should be there, but might not be there.
Sorry to bang on about this,.... but I just am trying to work this out, and had an "insight" -- bad or good I don't know.
What if .... that whole sequence can be read slightly differently. When he said, " doesn't matter, London, where James goes to school.. [what matters is] ..I'm not going to be like my father and he's not going to be like me..." he was really saying that the issues of London and James' school were much less important in his difficulties with their relationship, than was his fear that like his father, he was going to be a terrible husband and father, and make both Louisa and James miserable. Because after all, that's the only model of a marriage he knows really well, and it's recently been impressed on him what a disaster it was for his mother and he's coming to realize, for him.
That way of looking at it, then, casts a long shadow back to S3E7, when he was deciding that he wouldn't marry her b/c he wouldn't make her happy. Perhaps there he was not only thinking of his own inadequacies, but just as crucially, reflecting on the unhappy nature of his own parents' marriage, and feeling that it was inevitable that he would do the same to Louisa. He did not want her to turn out like his mother.
The realization that I'm not my father -- I don't have to be like him, to play out his mistakes (or his successes) is a major step forward in emotional growth. That's another reason why I feel more sanguine about S6.
Don’t we also have to acknowledge the sense or meaning that we, the audience, discover or realize when we view the series? I’m thinking here along the lines of a comment once made by French artist Marcel Duchamp:[I]The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work into contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative process.[/I]That might seem a bit abstract, but I think it is exactly the sort of thing that we do in this forum regularly. It does seem that artists, even great ones, don’t always understand the full intent or meaning of their work. Maybe that is the mark of true creativity – the artist becomes almost an instrument of inspiration, but not always its best interpreter. By way of example, I think many of our criticisms of series 4 and 5 stem from our own unique understanding of the DM LG love story, especially how we express what each character brings to the relationship in terms of potential and liability, etc. Likely we interpret these understandings through our own experience of relationship and life. So interpretation can, and really must vary, sometimes greatly, amongst us, but I think that is perfectly legitimate. It is a testament to the Doc Martin series that it calls out from us such deeply felt understanding and conviction. You might call it a kind of “derivative inspiration”, which, I think, has an authenticity quite apart from the specific intentions of BP, MC, Ben Bolt, etc. Authorial intent is interesting and important, but not the last word. Does that make sense?
This thinking is a lot older than Duchamp; it's the ancient Greek idea that, in any creative situation, there is the triumvirate of composer, performer and audience and the whole is the sum of all three parts, and as such, at any given time, differs according to the individuals involved. But, in music, and I guess the written word, the composer's/ writer's intentions must be pre-eminent and, it could be argued, the only truely valid interpretation.:):)
This thinking is a lot older than Duchamp; it's the ancient Greek idea that, in any creative situation, there is the triumvirate of composer, performer and audience and the whole is the sum of all three parts, and as such, at any given time, differs according to the individuals involved. But, in music, and I guess the written word, the composer's/ writer's intentions must be pre-eminent and, it could be argued, the only truely valid interpretation.:):)
I think what Gordon Setter says is true of course because we are all coming from different places to view/read the same thing. However, I believe simply red's assertion that the authors intent has to be paramount. Otherwise the reader is dismissing the value of the entire piece and simply saying "you fool, I know better than you what you were trying to say". That is a very arrogant thing to do.
No, can't entirely agree with either of my distinguished colleagues here.
(cc.cookie and simplyred)
I just have the sense that many times the artist (writer, composer, dramatist, painter) says more than h/she means. That has to be so because any work of art embodies the era and context in which it was produced, and some of this the artist expresses without even intending to -- just because the framework seems so natural to him/her and is hidden.
Moreover, people can "mean" things at a level that is not verbal, rational or entirely conscious.
One of the things we ask about a work of art, is, how does it have this effect on us? And I think it's fair game to analyze the effect, and then to ask how the artist accomplished this, and along with that, is that what they "intended" or is something more at work.
I wish I hadn't slept through or cut my entire course in "Philosophy of Esthetics" when an undergraduate. Maybe I would have some idea of what I was talking about.
I think we've pretty well beat to death here the idea of whether we're entitled to think of DM as someone with Asperger's even though he doesn't think so. (My view -- if they "meant" to portray someone with Asperger's they didn't succeed).
Sorry to bang on about this,.... but I just am trying to work this out, and had an "insight" -- bad or good I don't know.
What if .... that whole sequence can be read slightly differently. When he said, " doesn't matter, London, where James goes to school.. [what matters is] ..I'm not going to be like my father and he's not going to be like me..." he was really saying that the issues of London and James' school were much less important in his difficulties with their relationship, than was his fear that like his father, he was going to be a terrible husband and father, and make both Louisa and James miserable. Because after all, that's the only model of a marriage he knows really well, and it's recently been impressed on him what a disaster it was for his mother and he's coming to realize, for him.
That way of looking at it, then, casts a long shadow back to S3E7, when he was deciding that he wouldn't marry her b/c he wouldn't make her happy. Perhaps there he was not only thinking of his own inadequacies, but just as crucially, reflecting on the unhappy nature of his own parents' marriage, and feeling that it was inevitable that he would do the same to Louisa. He did not want her to turn out like his mother.
The realization that I'm not my father -- I don't have to be like him, to play out his mistakes (or his successes) is a major step forward in emotional growth. That's another reason why I feel more sanguine about S6.
This is the best interpretation from my point of view. If it was just about JH why would he be saying it to LG at such an important emotional climax. It has to go deeper than that and involve his feeling for LG too.
Dcdmfan is right that the whole series 5 was dotted with references to DM's about his abilities as both a father and a husband. But despite all this hidden angst I still don't get why they were platonically sharing a bed and a house with only the slight show of affection in the whole series. And they didn't discuss anything, except how inept Dr Di was, once in the whole series 5 .
No, can't entirely agree with either of my distinguished colleagues here.
(cc.cookie and simplyred)
I just have the sense that many times the artist (writer, composer, dramatist, painter) says more than h/she means. That has to be so because any work of art embodies the era and context in which it was produced, and some of this the artist expresses without even intending to -- just because the framework seems so natural to him/her and is hidden.
Moreover, people can "mean" things at a level that is not verbal, rational or entirely conscious.
I wish I hadn't slept through or cut my entire course in "Philosophy of Esthetics" when an undergraduate. Maybe I would have some idea of what I was talking about.
I think we've pretty well beat to death here the idea of whether we're entitled to think of DM as someone with Asperger's even though he doesn't think so. (My view -- if they "meant" to portray someone with Asperger's they didn't succeed).
I am too easily swayed. You all put forward such good arguments. I was going to ask my highly intelligent sister and come back with some telling statements that cut right to the bone, but she's busy atm dealing with kids, husbands and everyday turmoil.
Yes thank god they didn't succeed if that was their intent. Bring on series 6 where DM learns that change can be a good thing if he "wants" to change (harking back to my second favourite episode, sigh!) and grow.
Comments
Thanks, Connie! I'm glad I got to read it. I know this is an old conversation.
You know, I have to say it reminds me of the recent conversations we just had about Louisa not having the capacity to ask people to leave her house and thus botches her evening with DM.
At first it seemed to me that if MC had said "That's enough" and told this reporter to leave after she had seven pages of interview, all would have been fine. I wonder if he had agreed to such a long interview, which I think would indeed get tiresome to him, especially as Barb (?) didn't seem at all interested in his love of animals, and kind of shut off that whole side of him. If you are going to spend an a long time with someone, who invited you into their home, you should go wanting to learn his multifactorial sides, not just one TV show he's done. But, she really couldn't not have cared about "this bucolic chat" and that's simply rude. Her idiotic comment stating she was surprised he'd want to act in anything else aside from DM is nearly incomprehensible.
On top of all that, even after getting magnificent hints and ideas from DM fans, and even members of this Forum, she didn't even ask anything new about DM, but retread what we already know, and she even made errors about her "knowledge" of the show. (eg. it was all the vitamin D, not the calcium, that harmed poor Harry Pote). And, how do you say you absolutely love a show and then state a MAJOR character was a "dreadful bore". You've lost your entire readership right there.
She mentions she was there already for an HOUR, which is a very long interview--TV ones are usually 2-5 minutes--and was still planning for more, even after the dog told her very clearly via the water spilling on her tape recorder, that it was time to go.
I think it's very sad that the interviewer didn't just edit out the angry against the journalists section. What was her intent to publish the whole interview? Oh, she has a big scoop? Hardly. She just became a pest, and MC reacted like most of us would to a pest; he got a bit righteously irritable. She has very poor judgment, I think. I am another of the very many who of course takes MC's side against her.
She asked fans through Facebook and twitter to send her questions we would like for her to ask him about Doc Martin. They didn't talk about Doc Martin much, obviously. I asked her why she didn't talk about DM. I was irritated about that and let her know that. I felt she sort of played us for chumps. She tweeted me back that MC didn't want to talk about Doc Martin. Her name is Lynn Barber, and she wrote a book called "An Education", and it was made into a movie of the same name. They both got a little feisty with one another, and who knows what really happened. We only have her version of things.
There a number of bits in the last episode that were in fairy-tale land. For example, how was it exactly that Mrs. Tishell caught that bus immediately after the couple left her pharmacy, that took her to the castle, and then what, she walked up the long path and found the door unlocked and the room made up and read for her? Not really on, except in a fairy tale.
One of the charming things in a way about the series is that they always let you know that they're telling a story, not real life. I put the changing cast of characters of babies in that class -- just have a dormitory of ones who sort of look alike, and swap them out. We're not really trying to fool anybody, so why not? And that large baby, who was anything but a newborn, in Doc Martin's hands in the hospital in scene 1 of S5 -- same thing.
can you say more about that? To me, it came out of the blue -- I don't know what led up to it, except possibly AR's remark got him thinking about his own father. And I'm not even sure what it really means -- he won't be abusive to his son, he'll be faithful to his wife, (neither of which could ever have been a real issue for him, imo) and he doesn't need a high-powered career as a surgeon to feel OK?
Maybe it was about resolving some of his self-doubts - like can he make Louisa happy, (his reason for not going through with the wedding), given that his father's behaviour ruined his mother's life - according to her anyway. Although realising that it needn't be like that and actually doing something about it are different things!
this has always been just such a puzzling comment to me, b/c it is clearly meant to be significant, but I just haven't, to this point, understood where it came from or what it was about. But going with your interpretation, is it possible that a lot of the seemingly frozen nature of his relationship with LG comes from the circumstance that he is doing a lot of internal churning around in his mind about whether he is, after all, capable of being a good husband and father, when his only model for this was his father -- a jerk on both counts. We do see the dream, where he seems to get the drift of what a joy-killer his father was, we do see him behave in this oddly asexual way, yearning apparently gone, after the baby was born...replicating his father's treatment of his mother in a strange way ..we know that the birth of a child stirs up sometimes a lot of old issues.
It occurs to me, somewhat belatedly, that at the beginning of S5, he may still have been where he was at the end of S3 -- thinking that he could not make her happy as a romantic partner. And a lot of S5 was the work going on underneath the surface where was struggling with and trying to resolve this issue/concern.
Just groping here, b/c I am still not quite otherwise getting the significance of that remark.
Don’t we also have to acknowledge the sense or meaning that we, the audience, discover or realize when we view the series? I’m thinking here along the lines of a comment once made by French artist Marcel Duchamp:
The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work into contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative process.
That might seem a bit abstract, but I think it is exactly the sort of thing that we do in this forum regularly. It does seem that artists, even great ones, don’t always understand the full intent or meaning of their work. Maybe that is the mark of true creativity – the artist becomes almost an instrument of inspiration, but not always its best interpreter.
By way of example, I think many of our criticisms of series 4 and 5 stem from our own unique understanding of the DM LG love story, especially how we express what each character brings to the relationship in terms of potential and liability, etc. Likely we interpret these understandings through our own experience of relationship and life. So interpretation can, and really must vary, sometimes greatly, amongst us, but I think that is perfectly legitimate. It is a testament to the Doc Martin series that it calls out from us such deeply felt understanding and conviction. You might call it a kind of “derivative inspiration”, which, I think, has an authenticity quite apart from the specific intentions of BP, MC, Ben Bolt, etc. Authorial intent is interesting and important, but not the last word. Does that make sense?
Regarding his childhood I noticed that LG picked up on the fact he looked sad in the photos and he immediately wanted to toss them and she wanted them for her album, there is an episode right there!!
Anyone taping the Horse Show Jubilee with MC, that would be interesting to see as I love horses, I saw a glimpse of the RCMP riding in in their red tunics, very smart.....
Yes, yes, all beautifully put. Reader-response criticism is another approach to lit interp. Thanks for that quote from Duchamp, which is new to me and so lovely; I think r-r theory caught a firm hold well after his time, but obviously he was thinking along the same lines and must have influenced its proponents.
P.S. Gordons are one of my favorite dog breeds, and certainly my favorite of the Setters.
We had a Gordon Setter named Milo. He remains my favorite, all-time pet! Just simply the sweetest dog – and so beautiful. MC would adore him, I’m sure. Since we moved back into Portland a couple of years, we arranged for him to live with some friends of ours in the country. Too high energy for city living, I’m afraid. But we visit him often.
Haha! This was all so funny. Romeo & Juliet, Cyrano and Spiderman? Very good! What a good observation about Penhale, although, he did fall down. Maybe, a little bit of Humpty Dumpty too! :rolleyes::):D
Wow, this puts his statement, "I'm not going to be like my father", in a whole new light. I always thought he just meant what kind of father he was going to be. But, this does explain more about his behavior in Series 5. How earlier someone stated that Martin grew up with his father making all the decisions (that would explain Martin scheduling the Christening, etc.), the lack of interest in Louisa after the birth of JH (just like his father). We do get so much of our ideals and behaviors from our parents (whether we want to or not). No wonder he was struggling so much!
His father wasn't just a kill joy, his father was downright cruel to him. During that episode, Morwenna bursts into the office and he yells "KNOCK", just like his father did to him. But Morwenna just blows him off and tells him about an emergency. He doesn't go on at her like his father did at him. Nor did he react badly when Louisa told him about breaking the tumbler. Whether DM realized it or not, it was clear that he wasn't going to be like his father in that regard.
I guess I am of the camp that his statement about not being like his father is mostly about him not treating his son like his father treated him, thus, JH won't be like Martin. But, I hope you're right and he meant it with regards to his treatment of Louisa, too. I think the dream signified his fear that he would treat his son the way his father treated him.
He is sort of an apologist for his father throughout the whole series (1-5). He's in denial about the effects of being locked in a closet. When AR talks about his father leaving him in a room alone to cry, Martin says that thinking has changed since then. As though it was all right that his father did that because that's what they thought was the right thing to do. Once he has his own son, he realizes that his father didn't really have to do that to him afterall, that common sense and caring would inform his father that leaving him to cry was cruel, despite what the books say. Martin's love for his son is empirical evidence to him that he won't treat his son that way.
I just admit to being still quite confused here, and your interpretation may indeed be the correct one.
About the dream -- maybe it was not so much about his fear of treating his son that way, but breaking through to his conscious mind that the way he was treated by his father was truly cruel -- which he can now recognize, because as you point out, he would never treat his own son that way, and he knows it. i think we have small clues that he is coming out of denial that his treatment by his parents didn't harm him.
The fact that he would bring up his father at the moment he is announcing his decision to stay suggests that it had something to do with his decision-making process. It still doesn't seem quite right to me that he was worried that he would mistreat his son, but he had now got over that, but maybe that's what it was. Just can't compute it.
Good point that his dream is his coming out of the denial that his father did abuse him.
While I want to believe that his statement has something to do with Louisa, do we really have any evidence that he was concerned about how he was treating Louisa? I guess he does get a wake up call about how he is treating her when she leaves him, and he is devastated by the effects her leaving has on him.
I don't mean whether we think he was a good dad or not, or if Louisa should have been more grateful, etc. I am talking about how he feels on a deeper level of how he will treat her in the long run. I think he is taking a very deep look at himself, what he's capable of in a long term relationship.
That must be the "one last chance" that he wants to have. AR doesn't mention the way his father treated his mother, just that they stayed together for his sake and that was a disaster. I guess we're supposed to infer that her statement includes the way her brother treated his wife? I would like to, but I feel like I may be grasping at something that should be there, but might not be there.
Connie,
Thanks for posting. I really do appreciate that you take the time to upload and post MC material.
What if .... that whole sequence can be read slightly differently. When he said, " doesn't matter, London, where James goes to school.. [what matters is] ..I'm not going to be like my father and he's not going to be like me..." he was really saying that the issues of London and James' school were much less important in his difficulties with their relationship, than was his fear that like his father, he was going to be a terrible husband and father, and make both Louisa and James miserable. Because after all, that's the only model of a marriage he knows really well, and it's recently been impressed on him what a disaster it was for his mother and he's coming to realize, for him.
That way of looking at it, then, casts a long shadow back to S3E7, when he was deciding that he wouldn't marry her b/c he wouldn't make her happy. Perhaps there he was not only thinking of his own inadequacies, but just as crucially, reflecting on the unhappy nature of his own parents' marriage, and feeling that it was inevitable that he would do the same to Louisa. He did not want her to turn out like his mother.
The realization that I'm not my father -- I don't have to be like him, to play out his mistakes (or his successes) is a major step forward in emotional growth. That's another reason why I feel more sanguine about S6.
This thinking is a lot older than Duchamp; it's the ancient Greek idea that, in any creative situation, there is the triumvirate of composer, performer and audience and the whole is the sum of all three parts, and as such, at any given time, differs according to the individuals involved. But, in music, and I guess the written word, the composer's/ writer's intentions must be pre-eminent and, it could be argued, the only truely valid interpretation.:):)
I think what Gordon Setter says is true of course because we are all coming from different places to view/read the same thing. However, I believe simply red's assertion that the authors intent has to be paramount. Otherwise the reader is dismissing the value of the entire piece and simply saying "you fool, I know better than you what you were trying to say". That is a very arrogant thing to do.
(cc.cookie and simplyred)
I just have the sense that many times the artist (writer, composer, dramatist, painter) says more than h/she means. That has to be so because any work of art embodies the era and context in which it was produced, and some of this the artist expresses without even intending to -- just because the framework seems so natural to him/her and is hidden.
Moreover, people can "mean" things at a level that is not verbal, rational or entirely conscious.
One of the things we ask about a work of art, is, how does it have this effect on us? And I think it's fair game to analyze the effect, and then to ask how the artist accomplished this, and along with that, is that what they "intended" or is something more at work.
I wish I hadn't slept through or cut my entire course in "Philosophy of Esthetics" when an undergraduate. Maybe I would have some idea of what I was talking about.
I think we've pretty well beat to death here the idea of whether we're entitled to think of DM as someone with Asperger's even though he doesn't think so. (My view -- if they "meant" to portray someone with Asperger's they didn't succeed).
This is the best interpretation from my point of view. If it was just about JH why would he be saying it to LG at such an important emotional climax. It has to go deeper than that and involve his feeling for LG too.
Dcdmfan is right that the whole series 5 was dotted with references to DM's about his abilities as both a father and a husband. But despite all this hidden angst I still don't get why they were platonically sharing a bed and a house with only the slight show of affection in the whole series. And they didn't discuss anything, except how inept Dr Di was, once in the whole series 5 .
I am too easily swayed. You all put forward such good arguments. I was going to ask my highly intelligent sister and come back with some telling statements that cut right to the bone, but she's busy atm dealing with kids, husbands and everyday turmoil.
Yes thank god they didn't succeed if that was their intent. Bring on series 6 where DM learns that change can be a good thing if he "wants" to change (harking back to my second favourite episode, sigh!) and grow.