IF YOU HAD JUST THREE WORKS OF ART ...

The American author Richard Roud once claimed about Jean Renoir's 'La Regle du Jeu (1939) : "if France were destroyed tomorrow and nothing remained but this film, the whole country and its civilisation could be reconstructed from it.'"

I've never forgotten this quote and it has now inspired my new favourite dinner party question (with the addition of two extra choices) that is, "if you had just three works of art (ideally one book, one film and one piece of music) to reconstruct your country/society from in the event of civilisational collapse what would they be?"

And if you're especially confident and possibly well travelled and not in fear of being accused of appropriation then you might answer on behalf of other countries you've explored, lived in or culturally immersed yourself in from afar.

Anyway, relating to England specifically here are my three choices:

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (1943)

Deep down Major-General Clive Wynne-Candy is a romantic who's both in love with a woman and with war, or at least the rules of love and war as he originally grew up understanding them as a young soldier in the British army.

Over the course of the nearly three hour film running time he falls in love with the image of the same woman (all played by Deborah Kerr) throughout three generational incarnations and fights in three wars, the Boer, WW1 and WW2 and in both regards finds that through the ups and downs of his life, his underlying, foundational consistency of character remains and that is ultimately good for him and for England.

It is the resilient spirit and character of Candy, that just like England itself, ultimately triumphs over its Nazi adversaries despite doubting itself at times and falling prey to melancholic introspection.

Another twist of Powell and Pressburger's masterpiece is that Candy's best friend is the German, Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, who he shares a deep bond with throughout the three wars the film charts. This affecting portrayal of friendship over national conflict is endearing and heartwarming and though both men are truly products of their culture, they have enough shared affinities (not least the love of the same woman) to transcend the obvious hostitlties of war.

ELGAR SYMPHONY 1 (1908)

I could write something elegant and profound about this masterpiece symphony but I think it best I refer you instead to the great Neville Cardus (my all time favourite writer on music) and quote what he has to say about it.

"We know his secret who have listened to Elgar during the music festivals in the cathedral cities of Worcester, Gloucester and Hereford at the time of ripening summer. Here at the harvest of the year, in country washed by the rivers of the west, we have known music as music everywhere should be; part of the soil, creative, free, serious, life-giving. The thought that an art has grown up from the very ground you are treading and is bearing its fruit all around you is something very different from the feeling that it has been brought to you from a long way. Elgar in his own countryside was like Bruckner at Linz, more than a maker of music for concerts; he was an informing spirit, of the air and the environment that made us alive. One mellowing afternoon in September, I listened to the A flat symphony in the cathedral at Worcester. Where I was seated, at my side, lay a sculptured knight, arms folded. The light of the living day came through the stained-glass windows; the past and the present mingled in the eternity of the arched roof. I think it was Schlegel who said that architecture is frozen music. On this afternoon it was as though the old stone and the windows and tracery became audible in Elgar's music. And through the symphony's graver strains we heard also the exhilaration of brass bands, sturdy marching rhythms and sunset cadences; this was a symphony in which an Englishman praised God and praised his country. I am neither patriotic in a political sense nor religious. The same can be said of Bernard Shaw. Yet on this occasion in Worcester Cathedral both Shaw and myself sat and listened to the A flat symphony and were moved to our foundations." - Neville Cardus

Not much to add here except to say that I too have walked the same countryside that inspired this music and can often hear its many grand and noble themes in the air or perhaps through my Bluetooth headphones as I've communed with the deep, timeless spirit of England through all its many storms and calmer days.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS (1954)

Well, for my book I feel terrible about not choosing my beloved 'The Wind In The Willows' by Kenneth Grahame but in terms of its sheer ambition in terms of scale and size and what it represents as a timeless mythological mirror to England itself, J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Lord Of The Rings' has to be my first choice for this exercise.

The only trouble is, I always hate it when Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin leave the Shire (a perfect metaphor for my own hobbit-like existence no doubt) but nevertheless, from Hobbiton to Mordor the three books cover so much terrain both geographically and thematically that I'll forgive them for going on their adventures with the burdensome ring in the first place, even though I know they, too, are attempting to save their world (middle earth) from civilisational collapse.

Fictional fantasy though it may seem on the surface, the landscapes and locations of 'The Lord Of The Rings' are instantly recognisable to any one living in England,  from The Green Dragon pub in Hobbiton, to Farmer Maggot's farm at Barmfurlong, to the sinister woodlands, marshes and waterfalls as well as the craggy hills and mountaintops. Often I've imagined I've caught sight of Tom Bombadil sleeping under an old willow tree on my walks across the valleys or felt certain I could hear the galloping hooves of horses bearing Black Riders coming fast toward me off the beaten paths.

The Lord Of The Rings is genius for simultaneously being both a work of fiction and yet a work of reality for who hasn't felt in recent times as if the allegory of Sauron and his omnipresent evil are not somehow all about us as we, the little people try and protect the good things of this earth just as those four hobbits do when they set off that morning in April.

No?

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed my three nominated works of art and I hope to one day find out yours.