Showing posts with label Belston Night Works. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Belston Night Works. Show all posts

Wednesday 12 August 2020

Outline for a proposed film 2.1 [corrected / with casting ideas] : Primavera [or Dario ?] - or The Mandrake Serenade

Outline for a proposed film 2.1 : Primavera [or Dario ?] - or The Mandrake Serenade

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


16 July

Outline for a proposed film 2.1 [corrected / with casting ideas] :
Primavera [or Dario ?] - or The Mandrake Serenade

'Reap what ye shall sow'



For Rosy and Brent



1. Lucia Argenta and Michael Hope meet at a performance of Verdi's Otello, and, talking during the interval, become friends : he is in Milan for a year during his degree (Italian and French), and she is older. (Despite the name, Michael is unaware that Lucia married date-rape Carlo Argenta when young, who killed himself in guilt that he had shaken her and she then miscarried.) She did not go to university, but has already established herself in business, buying and selling rare recordings [as Dischi Mandragora]

2. They are close, but never lovers - something holds him off, even at romantic operas at La Scala, and he never quite trusts Vincenzo, Lucia's father [Vincenzo, from the old Italian Mandragora family], who was widowed early, during the birth of Lucia's younger sister, Primavera (who is away, in Manchester, at Royal Northern)

3. Michael and Lucia write to each other when he returns to the family home in Lancashire (where he sings in a church choir, led by Nancy Kadmuss), before completing his degree
4. A year or so on, Lucia is visiting Primavera in Manchester (who chose to stay there, despite giving up on becoming a professional singer) and, to see Lucia again, Michael (who has never met Primavera) is invited to a party that Primavera is throwing in Lucia's honour

5. Primavera works there in music publishing, and Michael works for a company that makes travel arrangements for musicians

6. Unknown to him (and of which Primavera is also unaware), Lucia and Vincenzo (who is also visiting, but not in evidence at the party) contrive for Michael and Primavera to meet early on at the party, and have bewitched them both with love-potions

7. The effect is such that they abandon their wontedly cautious behaviour and disappear to the roof-garden, where they kiss and pet heavily, then return to the party separately

8. As the party continues, so does the effect of the love-philtres, and Primavera (having told Lucia how struck she is on Michael) manages to suggest privately that Michael should stay the night, who, without his usual level of reserve, agrees

9. One of the last to leave, Lucia had earlier seemed to slip out of the party and to have brought back a chilled bottle of a quality Italian sparkling wine for Primavera (and Michael), but, in fact, she gets the bottle from Vincenzo, and lets him in (to hide in the roof-garden ?), when she returns, as the bottle will knock Primavera and Michael out soon after they take it to bed, and, when Vincenzo has seen that they are unconscious, he will let Lucia back in, who rapes Michael to orgasm while he watches / listens next door, afterwards emptying away all but a small residue in each glass (and leaving the empty bottle, as if the couple had consumed its contents)

10. FF through a montage or other telling of Primavera's being mortified that she does not remember the vigorous love-making, without protection, that proves to have made her pregnant, and that, although Michael also does not have any conscious memory of that first time, he seems never to find her or her love-making exciting, and yet they marry and stay together because of their son, Dario, with only the distant attentions of his grandfather and apparent aunt, except for family visits

11. The suggestion that, although they are a couple out of duty, they do not even find themselves blessed by Dario (or vice versa), and that - not just through teething, etc. - they have never been able to rely on undisturbed sleep, and have moved to detached property (where tensions with neighbours no longer arise), and near Michael's parents. George and Anne (who can give support with childcare)

12. Yet tensions repeatedly happen, when Dario pesters and pesters to be allowed to play in the garden, but invariably wreaks 'destructive wonders' on the planting, etc., as soon as anyone's back is turned (which behaviourally mirrors their life with him in microcosm), so that Primavera finally asks Michael to fence off the garden and gives Dario his own patch of the garden near the house, where nothing that he plants he does not soon uproot or trample on - until three seeds are given to him by Nancy, Michael's old choir-mistress, as part of Dario's Christmas present, all of which, now oddly assiduous, he feeds and waters into vigorous life, as he approaches his seventh birthday

13. Dario's screams and rages at night have finally subsided, but Michael and Primavera, driven mad by a shrieking of unidentifiable origin when they tried to sleep, have resorted to heavy-duty ear-plugs, which means that they are unaware that, after arriving on Dario's birthday, and on an early flight, Lucia and Vincenzo have been greeted at the door by Dario, and proudly shown his three established plants - which so repulse and horrify Vincenzo, at some gut level, that he wrenches them out of the ground, unaware of their shrieks, and that first Lucia, and then Dario, fall down dead behind him, and we see him - as if at the end of Mozart's Don Giovanni - reached for by arms and pulled down, through the patch of soil, and into [???]


ENDS

© Copyright Belston Night Works 2020


Preliminary ideas for casting :

Michael Hope ~ George MacKay

Lucia Argenta ~ Saoirse Ronan

Primavera ~ Florence Pugh

Vincenzo Mandragora ~ Ralph Fiennes

Nancy Kadmuss ~ Carl Peck (or, also, Fiennes (in the vein of Alec Guinness) ?)

Dario ~ Timothée Chalamet [by CGI, made to seem a child of four to nearly seven] ?

George Hope ~ Also Fiennes

Anne Hope ~ KST




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)`

Tuesday 11 August 2020

Stacks : An illustrated poem

Stacks : An illustrated poem

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


6 May - 11 August

Stacks : An illustrated poem

For S. T. Saunders







© Copyright Belston Night Works 2020




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Friday 31 July 2020

Outline for a proposed film 2.0 : Primavera [or Dario ?] - or The Mandrake Serenade

Outline for a proposed 2.0: Dario [or Primavera ?] - or The Mandrake Serenade

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


16 July

Outline for a proposed film 2.0 : Dario [or Primavera ?] - or The Mandrake Serenade

NB Now superseded by version 2.1 - fully corrected, and with preliminary ideas for casting


'Reap what ye shall sow'



For Rosy and Brent


1. Maria Mandragora and Michael Hope meet at a performance of Verdi's Otello, and, talking during the interval, become friends : he is in Milan for a year during his degree (Italian and French), and she is older, and did not go to university, but has already established herself in business, buying and selling rare recordings as Mandragora

2. They are close, but never lovers - something holds him off, even at romantic operas at La Scala, and he never quite trusts Vincenzo Argenta, Luigi's father, who was widowed early, after the birth of Maria's younger sister Primavera (away, in Manchester, at Royal Northern)

3. Michael and Maria write to each other when he returns to the family home in Lancaster (where he sings in a church choir), before completing his degree
4. A year or so on, Maria is visiting Primavera in Manchester (who chose to stay there, despite giving up on becoming a professional singer) and, to see Maria again, Michael (who has never met Primavera) is invited to a party that she is throwing in Maria's honour

5. Primavera works there in music publishing, and Michael works for a company that makes travel arrangements for musicians

6. Unknown to Michael, Maria and Vincenzo (who is also visiting, but not in evidence at the party) contrive for Primavera and him to meet early on at the party (of which Primavera is also unaware), and bewitch them both with love-potions

7. The effect is such that they abandon their wontedly cautious behaviour and disappear to the roof-garden, where they kiss and pet heavily, then return to the party separately

8. As the party continues, so does the effect of the love-philtres, and Primavera (having told Maria how struck she is on Michael) manages to suggest privately that Michael should stay the night, who, without his usual level of reserve, agrees

9. One of the last to leave, Maria had earlier seemed to slip out of the party and to have brought back a chilled bottle of a quality Italian sparkling wine for Primavera (and Michael), but, in fact, she gets the bottle from Vincenzo, and lets him in (to hide in the roof-garden ?), when she returns, as the bottle will knock Primavera and Michael out soon after they take it to bed, and, when Vincenzo has seen that they are unconscious, he will let Maria back in, who rapes Michael to orgasm while he watches / listens next door, afterwards emptying away all but a small residue in each glass (and leaving the empty bottle, as if the couple had consumed its contents)

10. FF through a montage or other telling of Primavera's being mortified that she does not remember the vigorous love-making, without protection, that proves to have made her pregnant, and that, although Michael also does not have any conscious memory of that first time, he seems never to find her or her love-making exciting, and yet they marry and stay together because of their son Dario, with only the distant attentions of his grandfather and apparent uncle, except for family visits

11. The suggestion that, although they are a couple out of duty, they do not even find themselves blessed by Dario (or vice versa), and that, not just through teething, etc., they have never been able to rely on undisturbed sleep, and that they move to be near Michael's parents to have their support with childcare and a detached property where tensions with neighbours no longer arise

12. Yet tensions repeatedly happen, when Dario pesters and pesters to be allowed to play in the garden, but invariably wreaks destructive wonders on it, as soon as anyone's back is turned (which behaviourally mirrors their life with him in microcosm), so that Primavera finally asks Michael to fence off the garden and gives Dario his own patch of the garden near the house, where nothing that he plants he does not soon uproot or trample on - until three seeds are given to him by Michael's old choir-mistress, as part of Dario's Christmas present, all of which, now oddly assiduous, he feeds and waters into vigorous life, as he approaches his seventh birthday

13. Dario's screams and rages at night have finally subsided, but Michael and Primavera, driven mad by a shrieking of unidentifiable origin at night, have resorted to heavy-duty ear-plugs, which means that they are unaware that, after arriving on Dario's birthday on an early flight, Maria and Vincenzo have been greeted at the door by Dario, and proudly shown his three established plants - which so repulse and horrify Vincenzo, at some gut level, that he wrenches them out of the ground, unaware of their shrieks, and that first Maria, and then Dario, fall down dead behind him, and we see him - as if at the end of Mozart's Don Giovanni - reached for by arms and pulled down, through the patch of soil, and into Hades


ENDS

© Copyright Belston Night Works 2020




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Wednesday 29 July 2020

Outline for a proposed film : Dario - or The Mandrake Consignment

Outline for a proposed film : Dario - or The Mandrake Consignment

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


16 July

Outline for a proposed film :
Dario - or The Mandrake Consignment

'Reap what ye shall sow'


For Rosy and Brent



1. Luigi Mandragora and Nancy Hope meet at a performance of Verdi's Otello, and, talking during the interval, become friends : she is in Verona for a year during her degree (Italian and French), and he is older, and did not go to university, but has already established himself in business, buying and selling rare recordings

2. They are close, but never lovers - something holds her off, even at romantic operas in The Arena, and she never quite trusts Maria Argenta, Luigi"s mother, who was widowed early, after the birth of his younger brother Dario (away, in London, at The Guildhall)

3. Nancy and Luigi write to each other when she returns to the family home in Suffolk (where she sings in a church choir), before completing her degree

4. Several years on, Luigi is visiting Dario in London (who chose to stay there, despite giving up on becoming a professional singer) and, to see Luigi again, Nancy (who has never met Dario) is invited to a party that he is throwing in Luigi's honour

5. Nancy works for a company in London that makes travel arrangements for musicians, and Dario works in music publishing

6. Unknown to her, Luigi and Maria (who is also visiting, but not in evidence at the party) contrive for Dario and her to meet (of which Dario is also unaware), and bewitch them both with love-potions

7. The effect is such that they abandon their wontedly cautious behaviour and disappear to the roof-garden, where they kiss and pet heavily, then return to the party separately

8. As the party continues, so does the effect of the love-philtres, and Dario (having told Luigi how struck he is on Nancy) manages to ask Nancy privately to stay the night, who, without her usual level of reserve, agrees

9. One of the last to leave, Luigi has seemed to slip out of the party and to have brought back a chilled bottle of a quality Italian sparkling wine for Dario (and Nancy), but, in fact, he gets the bottle from Maria, and lets her in (to hide in the roof-garden ?), when he returns, the bottle will knock Nancy and Dario out soon after they take it to bed, and, when Maria has seen that they are unconscious, she will let Luigi back in, who rapes Nancy to orgasm while she watches / listens next door, afterwards emptying away all but a small rresidue in each glass (and leaving the empty bottle as if the couple had consumed its contents)

10. FF through a montage or other telling of Dario being mortified that he does not remember the vigorous love-making, without protection, that proves to have made Nancy pregnant, and that, although she does not have any conscious memory of that first time, she seems never to find him or his love-making exciting, and yet they marry and stay together because of Lucia, with the distant attentions of her grandmother and apparent uncle, except for family visits

11. The suggestion that, although they are a couple out of duty, they do not even find themselves blessed by Lucia (or vice versa), and that, not just through teething, etc., they have never been able to rely on undisturbed sleep, and that they move to be near Nancy's parents to have their support with childcare and a detached property where tensions with neighbours no longer arise

12. Yet they repeatedly happen, when Lucia pesters and pesters to be allowed to play in the garden, but invariably wreaks destructive wonders on it, as soon as anyone's back is turned (which behaviourally mirrors their life with her in microcosm), so that Dario finally fences off the garden and gives Lucia her own patch of the garden near the house, where nothing that she plants is not soon uprooted or trampled on - until three seeds that are given to her by Nancy's old choir-master for Lucia's at Christmas, all of which, now oddly assiduous, feeds and waters into vigorous life, as ahe approaches her seventh birthday

13. Lucia's screams and rages at night have finally subsided, but Nancy and Dario, driven mad by a shrieking of unidentifiable origin at night, have resorted to heavy-duty ear-plugs at night, which means that they are unaware that, after arriving on an early flight, Maria and Luigi have been greeted by Lucia on her birthday and proudly shown her three established plants - which so repulse and horrify Maria, at some gut level, that she wrenches them out of the ground, unaware of their shrieks, and that first Luigi, and then Lucia, fall down dead behind her, and we see her, as if at the end of Mozart's Don Giovanni reached for by arms and pulled down, through the patch of soil, and into Hades


ENDS


© Copyright Belston Night Works 2020


However, Rosy [#UCFF's esteemed editor at TAKE ONE] then gave these notes... :

Gender flip all the characters and I’ll exec produce. And don’t come back to me with a Considine attitude.


[In obedience to which dictates [which assuredly reference #UCFF's Q&A comments on Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur (2011)], we then derived version 2.0...]


NB Now superseded by version 2.1 - fully corrected, and with preliminary ideas for casting




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Tuesday 29 November 2016

Dream : A Poem-Play

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2016 (20 to 27 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


29 November


Dream : A Poem–Play


Knots, in the spirit of That Time, with a hint of Pinter


A : I pretend to insult you

B : I pretend to hear you

C : You pretend to be insulted

D : You pretend to care enough to make insults

A : I pretend to know what will hurt you

B : I pretend that you were right

C : You pretend that convincingly pretending matters

D : You pretend that you are even trying to hurt

A : I pretend to feel regret

B : I pretend to be angered when you feign softening

C : You pretend that anger is an appropriate response

D : You pretend that it is worthwhile to seem hurt in the face of your sickening insincerity

Omnes : (Pause) Might we not just... pretend to stop ?




© Belston Night Works 2016




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Friday 20 May 2016

A Nupe Ohm : An Englishman in Cambridge

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2016 (20 to 27 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


20 May, Post-script added 28 May


An Englishman in Cambridge


When there are looks,
Or stares,
Of dread disapproval,


One wonders when,
Or where,
These people grew up -


Or failed
To grow up -
That it seems,


To them,
That blokes can't have
Long hair



© Belston Night Works 2016




Post-script:


On being a shit (Part I) :




On being a shit (Part II) :





Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Wednesday 6 April 2016

'The Thief of Time' (another nupe ohm)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2016 (20 to 27 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


6 April


The Thief of Time


After Peter Gabriel’s ‘That Voice Again’


The stolen seconds do not tick away
When we lie embraced, excluding the day
And its other worlds of What might have been :

Not then our full reflection on the seen,
The heard, felt and drunk, the skin’s lovely sheen,
And the moans and grunts in which – some say ? –

Body truly communicates itself
To body and mind to mind, indiscrete
As penis pushes its passage, soft pelf
Touches kind, and lips seek where they can meet.


Later, cakes and ale all spent, is when Time
Makes stock-take. Asks how this was well meant ? ;
This, though said or done ill, is not a crime ? ;
Or what (unsaid by both) the mind’s intent ?


© Belston Night Works 2016





Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Tuesday 6 January 2015

Shakespeare in Love : Sonnet 155 [Apocryphal]

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (28 August to 7 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


6 January*


To Stella


Than Stella, with her limpid pools,
(Whereon the poet fondly looks)
No better cure for bitter fools

And if these lines, so careless wrought,
Wring pity from her fulsome dart –
No better place than what we sought –

Then Heav’n above, for all its heart,
Demand this tribute : That the mules
(Which evermore the Christ shall cart,

As long as Gospels be our books)
May bless thee as they ever ought,
And bray this message to the cooks :


Rejoice ! Come in ! And let the feast ensue –
Dear nuptials blessed by God, and fit for you.




© Belston Night Works 2015



End-notes

* Allegedly Twelfth Night, but that seems to reshash the argument that (as it is) 1 January 2001 was the first day of the millennium...





Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Tuesday 30 April 2013

Burns made me do it...

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


1 May

A poem, written in the pub - if not over a malt - yesterday, because of seeing* :

How would you talk about the liquid of whisky.....? Is there a word you would say, or a formula or a poem, or what? pic.twitter.com/ffwPYUE1Fw




Here goes:



To a Dram


Note one thing :
These words,
The water of life,
Are not


Metaphor,
Simile,
Analogy,
Allegory...


No, a direct
Statement
Of pure fact,
Pure as barley


As water
As living yeast,
Which drives
Sugar to thrive


Huge vessels
Whose real size
Defies our mind
(All those litres !)


Cannot contain
The breath of God,
A holy embrace
That blossoms


'Volatile', we say,
'Mercurial'
And all of these –
And none – is Scotch…



©   Copyright Belston Night Works 2013




End-notes

* This should be, for those in the know, 'an embedded Tweet', but Pratter tells me that I'm not authorized** - pretty rough Version, The Agent, not the Authorized Version...

** In fact, I now see that '@WildAndMagic's account is protected'. How lovely !


Sunday 9 December 2012

My stonking film scenario !

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


9 December

Isn't Tweeting wonderfully liberating and creative... ?








© Copyright Belston Night Works 2012


Tuesday 20 November 2012

Assisted suicide : Writer's Rest meets Unofficial Cambridge Film Festival

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


21 November


















Short story now Work in Progress (no Exagmination or Incamination involved)...