BOOK REVIEW: MARTIN BY JEZ WINSHIP

BY KIT POWER 

So, disclosures first: Martin is the debut book in the Midnight Movie Monographs series, a limited hardback print series from Electric Dreamhouse, a PS Publishing imprint. These novella length books cost £20 each, and four titles are available right now, with more forthcoming - including, I hope, one by me, on the subject of the Ken Russell/The Who movie, Tommy.


That said, I paid for my copy, and read it for research, and would cheerfully have done so and simply said nothing if I’d had little or nothing to say, because that’s basically how I roll when it comes to reviews.


I guess I should also mention that Martin is my favourite Romero movie I’ve os far seen, and I’ve written and podcasted about it. And that there will probably be spoilers in what follows, so please go and see it, because it’s fucking amazing.


Winship’s approach to this work is deceptively simple - the book is a scene by scene discussion of the movie, a kind of commentary track in print form. Going into almost a shot-by-shot level of description, I found that the movie was almost playing out in my minds eye as I read the text. I think it’s a smart approach (*spoilers* though I’ve put my own twist on it for Tommy), but what I found really impressive was how far Winship managed to roam using this high fidelity approach. During the course of the book there are discussions of the decline of industry, and the knock on effect on small town working class life, notions of alienation and cultural identity, the immigrant experience, youth vs. age, and so much more.


One of the core themes of the movie is identity - both Martin’s family identity and his own self identification as a vampire. Winship admirably doesn’t spend much time on the ambiguity of whether or not Martin really is a vampire, instead taking a position on the matter early and proceeding to read the text with that assumption in mind. Whilst the ambiguity of Martin (on many levels) is one of the authentically genius things about the movie, I think Winship made the right call here; given the constrained wordcount, taking a position allowed for a fuller exploration of the text than having to constantly highlight the ambiguity would have done - and indeed he takes a similar approach to the film’s homoerotic subtext.


It’s a smart choice because the focus allows Winship’s obsessions with the film to really take flight - surely a big part of the point of this kind of book in the first place. By feling himself from the weight of trying to produce the definitive article on Martin, Winship instead gives himself license to revel in his own experiences as a viewer.


That’s not to say that the book isn’t meticulously written and thoroughly researched - it’s both - but rather that if feels very much like one superfan’s journey through the film - pointing out a great location or camera setup, theorizing about background, teasing out motifs and themes, and reveling in the acting performances.


As such, I found it to be a delight, and I imagine it would be a similar experience for anyone similarly enamoured of the movie. It is a very personal book - but then, Martin is a very personal movie.


KP
29/6/18