Clockers

Last night I watched a movie from 2006 on DVD called Red Road, directed by Andrea Arnold. The film is set in Glasgow, and tells the story of a CCTV operator named Jackie (played by Kate Dickie) who spends her time monitoring the city and reporting anyone in distress or committing a crime to the authorities. One day she spots a man from her past on her monitor, the last man who she wants to see, and who she thought was in prison. Jackie becomes preoccupied with following the man's actions and eventually finds herself compelled to confront him and her own past. The film is intriguing and very well-made, although almost unrelentingly bleak and grim. The title comes from the name of a quite notorious area of Glasgow.

This morning I went out and got my groceries for the week. After I had had my lunch I headed out to the Filmhouse and met up with my friend Chris from work. We were there to see a special screening of the film Clockers. The movie was made in 1995, directed by Spike Lee and based on a novel by Richard Price. The film is set in the housing projects of New York and tells the story of Strike (Mekhi Phifer), who is a "clocker" - a low-level drug dealer. When a rival dealer is shot and killed, Strike's brother Victor (Isaiah Washington) confesses to the crime, however veteran homicide detective Rocco Klein (Harvey Keitel) smells a rat and determines to find the truth. The film is lurid but gripping. The film was followed by an audience question and answer session with Richard Price, moderated by crime novelist Ian Rankin.

Afterwards Chris and I went to look around at the record and DVD shops. I got a book called Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. After that we went to the Edinburgh Book Festival and had a drink before going in to see David Simon, who has written a couple of non-fiction books and co-created the TV series The Wire. As would be expected from his work, Simon was very clever and funny. After the talk we managed to meet him and he signed my copy of Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Coincidentally, Richard Price also wrote for The Wire.

Finally, Chris and I went and had a whiskey and listened to a band play a couple of strange jazz style easy listening songs, before we went our seperate ways.