Showing posts with label Tony Jones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tony Jones. Show all posts

Friday, 18 December 2015

Pre-Christmas shorts, hosted by BFI Film Academy tutor Ryd Cook

Some Tweets about a film screening at CB1, Mill Road, Cambridge

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

18 December

Some Tweets (and other text) about this film screening at CB1, Mill Road, Cambridge on Friday 18 December 2015 at 7.00 p.m.

For those who do not already know Ryd Cook (@RydCook), who was hosting this event, a Tweet at the other end of this posting shows him (after the screening, and with pizza and blazing hair), or they may recall a guy who can be found at many times of day around The Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge (@CamPicturehouse), and is usually (invariably ?) sporting knee-length shorts (and almost as often a skateboard).



Quite concisely, when there was a lot of information that Ryd wished to convey, he introduced himself as a film-maker, on his own and others’ behalfs, who has taught (for six years) on the regional BFI (@BFI) Film Academy courses for 16- to 19-year-olds, and is a long-standing member* of Project Trident (@ProjectTrident), a collective of supportively like-mindedly zany individuals (at least one of whom is always involved in one of his own films**).



Ryd also thanked CB1 (@CB1Cafe) for the use of the space, Kim Bates (@Kimi_Maii, his producer) for making it all happen, and cinema colleagues Tony Jones and Trish Sheil for screen and projector, respectively (though Ryd started to confuse himself by trying to say it the other way around – not creatively instinctual for nothing !).





The first film that Ryd showed to us had been sent to him by Rory Greener (@rory_greener), who had been one of Ryd’s students.

 Afterwards, they had had a conversation about whether Rory wanted to try to get into a career in film, and (the answer to which Ryd said that he did not know about himself at that age) Rory said that he wanted to be a cinematographer. Ryd offered Rory some advice about how to do that, and was then very impressed by receiving Enough Rope from Rory, some months later.

 With some editing tips from Ryd, Rory had made a (slightly shorter) version, which is what we watched (and some people who had worked on the film turned out to be in the screening, whereas Rory had not finished for the term, and was not yet back)...





After an interval, and with only a very short introduction (those who had acted in the film were identifiable and could be spoken to afterwards), we came to Ryd’s film Aviatrix (2015) (#AviatrixFilm), which had been seen twice before*** : during Tridentfest [Project Trident] at Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (@camfilmfest / #CamFF), and at Hot Numbers, in Gwydir Street (@hotnumbers / #GwydirSt), before a screening of a feature film there.



In directing the cast through what is, much of the time, a chamber-piece, Ryd lets us see closely into their different characters through their faces and expressions, and in the spaces between what is said.

 In a nutshell, albeit rooted in our world, Aviatrix symbolically, shows us the power of inspiration when we feel able to trust others, and they are as much inspired as we are. (In literal terms, we could not be uplifted by what might follow the closing sequence, but we embrace it figuratively, because cinema allows for the depiction of important moments.)


To close, as he judged that it had a Christmassy feel (it certainly has wintry light and snow, and a cheerful soundtrack), Ryd left us with the couple of minutes of Frosty Afternoon, whose settings on streets in and around Cambridge many would have recognized.

 For those of us thinking of making a film, he stressed how simple the cameras on most phones nowadays make it, and that he had not intended to make the film, but had just started shooting on what he had available at the time (a BlackBerry). He urged us to do likewise, as his film has twice been shown at film festivals.

 The film can be seen here, and Ryd’s channel on YouTube (@YouTube) is http://www.youtube.com/user/RydianCook.


The man of the evening himself, seen as he should be, Ryd Cook




End-notes

 * Although closely associated with Project Trident, Ryd was apparently not one of the founders, but joined within the first six to twelve months. The group’s web-site is www.projecttrident.com.

 ** When it is a project with which Ryd is personally connected, such as Thrown (2011) (written by Dave Clark, @BlueCrayon77), or Aviatrix (2015) (also written by Dave Clark), he operates under the name Little Victories Films, and appends it to the film.

Thrown had been the first film of Ryd’s seen, but there seems to be no sign of a review :



It can be seen here, and Ryd’s channel on YouTube (@YouTube) is http://www.youtube.com/user/RydianCook.


*** Tweets from those venues here :








 Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Sunday, 9 August 2015

Seen at – or adjacent to – Cambridge Film Festival (its earlier, one-screen venue of The Arts Cinema)

Seen at (or because of) Cambridge Film Festival in the mid-1980s

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

9 August

Seen at (or because of) Cambridge Film Festival in the mid-1980s

It was necessary to borrow Hugh Taylor’s copies of Cambridge Film Festival (@camfilmfest / #CamFF) programme-booklets from the early to middle 1980s (two of which, within Apsley Towers (@THEAGENTAPSLEY), are conveniently to hand), so one, almost necessarily, has not located ticket-stubs that could clinch whether one did watch any film, listed below as seen at around that time, at the Festival itself : hence ‘at – or adjacent to – Cambridge Film Festival’ in the title of this posting…

That said, one just knows as fact that one chose to see Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) in what, then, would have still been called a Festival gala performance (not ‘a screening’) : the Festival atmosphere – even then with enviably comfortable seats in the snug premises in Market Passage* – was so good, and one wanted to be part of it, rather than waiting for the film to come on release.



And, before anyone talked about ‘ear-worms’, that is what the catchy, jazzy principal theme of Hannah already was, on leaving the cinema after the credits, to both one’s fellow viewer (@AJRigbyTweet) and one's self (and for a number of days or weeks), courtesy of Dick Hyman’s arrangements, band, and leadership / playing**. The same had been true of the score of Broadway Danny Rose (1984), for which IMDb® (@IMDb) does give Hyman credit as the ‘music supervisor’ : the themes from both films have such a hook to them that one easily recalls them now. (However, at the time that when the Festival booklet had been printed, that film was said to be ‘unconfirmed’ (as may be legible, in the image below, in the column next to that for El Norte), so it did not have a date / time slot in the programme of events at the back, but was later confirmed and came on sale.)


All that being said, and for the two years in question (being those of the 8th and 10th Festivals, respectively), here was what was seen, if not at the Festival in 1984 and 1986, then as a result of it – in each case, the date and time are given simply of the first performance listed in the programme (except for Danny Rose, where one is having to guess when it would have ended by being shown) :



8th Cambridge Film Festival (15–29 July 1984)



Sunday 15 July

* 3.00 The Dresser (1983)

* 6.00 Swann in Love (1984)

* 8.30 El Norte (1983)



Thursday 19 July

* 6.30 The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum) (1975)


Saturday 21 July

* 2.00 Cal (1984)


?? Friday 27 July ??

* ?? Broadway Danny Rose (1984) ??


Saturday 28 July

* 1.30 Paris, Texas (1984) [referenced in The Night Elvis Died (La Nit Que Va Morir L’Elvis) (2010), and referred to in What is Catalan cinema ?]




* * * * *



10th Cambridge Film Festival (10–27 July 1986)



Thursday 10 July : Opening night



* 8.00 Mona Lisa (1986)




Sunday 13 July

* 6.30 Plenty (1985)


Friday 18 July

* 11.00 After Hours (1985) [How Time views After Hours (1985)]



Saturday 19 July

* 11.00 Sid and Nancy (1986)



Sunday 20 July

* 8.45 Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)





* * * * *




Twenty-five Festivals later (this will be the 35th), Director of #CamFF
Tony Jones is still in charge


End-notes

* Which runs between Market Street and Sidney Street, when that separated Joshua Taylor from Eden Lilley (one fantasized that they were lovers, cruelly separated by Victorian parents. [Or later ? One thinks of the lyrics of ‘They Can’t Take That Away from Me’ – whose meaning Tommy Smith queried at The Stables lately…]).




Well, anyway, before that became bar / club land, and when, upstairs, had been Angeline’s, a lovely restaurant in which to be made very welcome, and luxuriate in continental cuisine.




** Although not credited by IMDb®, proving unreliable again (and making one doubt oneself and one’s memory, despite owning the soundtrack (on LP)).

*** Probably less famous than Hannah, although with Allen magic of its own, Broadway Danny Rose is a super film in monochrome : with Allen as Danny (an indulgent theatrical agent), his star turn Lou Canova (Nick Apollo Forte), Mia F. as Lou’s unsympathetic secret lover (whose life-or-death attitude Danny finds immediately and alarmingly frank), and gangsters, in the funniest shoot-out in a hangar that you will ever see !




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Thursday, 28 August 2014

News and views from Cambridge Film Festival / #CamFF 2014

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

15 September (updated 17 November)

Following the elaborate planning, this posting records what actually happened, and when, with links to reviews (two still lagging behind)...


As in 2012 (and 2011), there is a code, which is :

A Abandoned - Walked out partway through

AA Wished to abandon - But, against better judgement, could not (or did not) leave partway through

B Blog - There is a posting about the film on the blog, to which the link takes one (although it may not be a review)

C Catalan preview - A film from the Camera Catalonia strand, reviewed ahead of and for the Festival

M Missed - Planned - or had tickets - to see, but had to skip

P Partly watched - A clash with an earlier (or later) film prevented seeing it as a whole

O Take One - Published on line as a guest review

S Seen - The opposite of Missed




Tony Jones, Trustee of Cambridge Film Trust and director of Cambridge Film Festival for 30 (?) years - the longest-serving UK festival director


Thursday 28 August

6.00 P Peter Sellers : The Early Shorts (1957) : Emmanuel (90 mins) - The one caught, Dearth of a Salesman, was also short on laughs...

7.00 AA The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq (summed up, pretty much, in Andrew Pulver's review for The Guardian) (Opening Film) : Screen 1 (93 mins)

10.00 B S Magic in the Moonlight (2014) (plus a riposte to TAKE ONE's reviewer) (Opening Film) : Screen 1 (97 mins)


Friday 29 August to Sunday 31 August (both inclusive)

Delayed response to the loss of a dearly loved companion subverted any plans for cinema-going on these days, but, by proxy...

Saturday 30 August

7.30 Bx2 S Ida (2013) (plus spoilery critique) : Screen ?? (80 mins)


Monday 1 September

1.30 B S A Most Wanted Man (2014) : Screen 1 (121 mins)

4.00 AA B Four Corners (2014) : Screen 1 (114 mins)

6.30 B S Under Milk Wood plus Q&A (1971) (Dylan Thomas 100) : Screen 1 (88 mins)

9.00 B S Before I Go to Sleep plus Q&A (2014) : Screen 1 (92 mins)


Tuesday 2 September

1.00 M M : Screen 1 (1931) (117 mins)

3.30 S Last Call (2013) : Screen 2 (91 mins)

6.00 S How I Came to Hate Maths (Comment j'ai détesté les maths) (2013) : Emmanuel (110 mins)

8.30 B S Mary is Happy, Mary is Happy (2013) : Emmanuel (127 mins)


Wednesday 3 September

1.30 B S Iranian (2014) : Screen 1 (105 mins)

4.00 AA Eastern Boys (2013) : Screen 1 (128 mins)

6.30 B x 2 S Stations of the Cross (and further thoughts on a second viewing) (Kreuzweg) (2014) (German) : Screen 2 (104 mins)

9.00 C S Tasting Menu (plus a riposte to TAKE ONE's reviewer) (2013) (Camera Catalonia) : Screen 2 (85 mins)

11.00 M Short Fusion : Life Lessons : Screen 2 (79 mins)


Thursday 4 September (a day for not sticking to the plan at all !)

11.00 M Night will Fall (2014) : Screen 1 (75 mins)

1.30 M Le Jour se Lève (Daybreak) (1939) : Screen 1 (93 mins)

As to be on general release, substituted by rewatching :
2.30 B x 2 S Stations of the Cross (and further thoughts on a second viewing) (Kreuzweg) (2014) (German) : Screen 2 (104 mins)

4.00 P German Short Films (German) : Screen 1 (~70 mins) (all 2013) Will have to miss the end to get to Still the Enemy Within (2014)...

6.00 M Still the Enemy Within (2014) : St Philip's Church (112 mins)
Instead rewatched :
6.00 B S Mary is Happy, Mary is Happy (2013) (Festival link) : Emmanuel (127 mins)

8.30 M Under the Lantern (1928) (Lamprecht) : St Philip's Church (129 mins)
Stay for this - or head to Festival Central for...
9.00 M We Are Many (2014) : Screen 1 (104 mins)


Friday 5 September

1.00 B C S We All Want What's Best for Her (Tots volem el millor per a ella) (2013) plus write-up of Q&A (now with photos) (Camera Catalonia) : Screen 1 (105 mins)

Just time to interview Mar Coll (director and co-writer of We All Want What's Best for Her- write-up to come...) before :
4.00 S People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag) (Lamprecht) : Emmanuel (73 mins)

5.00 P Energized : Screen 1 (91 mins) Sadly, needing to miss the start of which...

7.50 C S Son of Cain (Fill de Caín) (2013) (plus write-up of Q&A) (Camera Catalonia) : Screen 2 (90 mins)

10.30 M The Mad Magician (Retro 3-D) : Screen 2 (72 mins)


Saturday 6 September

1.00 M Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (Lamprecht) : Screen 3 (74 mins)

Missed to interview - and take punting - Jesús Monllaó, director of Son of Cain (Fill de Caín)


2.30 B S Fiction (Ficció) (Camera Catalonia) : Screen 3 (107 mins)

5.00 AA B Amour Fou : Screen 1 (96 mins)

7.30 B S Tony Benn : Will and Testament : Screen 1 (running-time not advised)

Not likely to finish in time for (as was indeed so)...

9.00 M West (Lagerfeuer) (German) : Screen 2 (102 mins)


Sunday 7 September

1.00 C S Othello (Otel.lo) (Camera Catalonia) : Screen 2 (69 mins)


The next film was missed, because of lunch and then completing an interview with Hammudi Al-Rahmoun Font, director of Otel.lo (with the kind assistance, as translator, of Cristina Roures)

4.00 M A Poem in Exile (Camera Catalonia) : Emmanuel (77 mins)


5.30 M Set Fire to the Stars (Dylan Thomas 100) : Screen 1 (90 mins)



For the sceptical, there is evidence of that punting-trip, with star pupil Hammudi

8.00 A The Grandmaster (which turned out to be Surprise Film 1) : Screen 1 (?? mins)


Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Saturday, 14 September 2013

High-class cinema comes to Childerley

This is a Festival review of Edward Scissorhands (1990)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

14 September (14 April and 22 July 2015, Tweets added)

This is a Festival review of Edward Scissorhands (1990)


Agents on location, watching the cinema from afar...


The Long Barn at Childerley Hall, which (apart from yesterday, when I went on the wrong day) I had last seen when the pairing of Northumbrian piper and fiddler Kathryn Tickell and the trio The Side rocked the place, to-night had the treat of bespoke cinema, courtesy of Tony Jones, the director of Cambridge Film festival, and his dedicated team.




This was not just any projector and a screen plus sound-system in a wonderfully atmospheric space with beams, decorative chairs, an extensive bar, and even very tasteful fairy-lights - the image was sharp, beautiful, warm and magic, so that the resolution of the long-shots almost took one by surprise, and one could hear every detail of the soundtrack. I should have expected nothing less from people with these credentials, but I loved them for it.

First up, unexpected I will warrant by many, was something to preface the billed film, Edward Scissorhands (1990) - another Tim Burton number in Frankenweenie (1984). Yes, the original, not the one released in 2012.


So a proper, old-fashioned programme, but with links :

* Winona Ryder is Edward's Kim*, and is the voice of Elsa Van Hesling in the 2012 Frankenw.

 * Both works deal with, address or feature the situation of the outsider who can only be loved, if at all,  by people being more than skin deep

* Who else to bring such an outsider from, or back from, another realm than Ben (Barret Oliver), a member of the Frankenstein family, and a Vincent Price at around 79, just a few years before the end of his life, and looking nothing like it ?




* Nosy neighbours, to whom young Frankenstein feels obliged to account for his behaviour, and for whom Edward's arrival in an unnecessary bright yellow automobile is an instant source of fascination, intrigue, and fear

* One in pure monochrome, the other with two almost distinct colour-worlds, one being the washed-out one of Price as The Inventor on his eminence and Johnny Depp as the named work of creation**, the other a Dogville sort of a place, but with the distinction of largely pastel colours pushed to make Tobermory look drab, with hues so garish as almost to be fluorescent


A good night's viewing, with a nice role for a much younger-looking Alan Arkin, but perhaps one for Dianne Wiest that did not leave her much room to move - what was given to, and made of, by Depp, Ryder, Shelley Duvall, and Daniel Stern.



End-notes

* Nearly put Kim in Edward, but that did not feel right...

 ** Edward (even though we are shown how) is left in an explicably parlous state - more important to impart etiquette and poetry than the opposable thumb ? - unless one remembers the origins in Der Struwwelpeter, and what such thinking gave rise to in Haneke's The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band) (2009)




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Thursday, 29 August 2013

I counted them all out...

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

29 August

Sadly, I do not have the skills of a Brian Hanrahan, but, going through the Festival's Main Features (that link takes one to where the PDF brochure can be downloaded), I made it twenty documentaries*, and there may be others (there and elsewhere) - in former times, which was not necessarily better save from a bean-counting perspective, they were listed in a separate section from the feature films per se, but now they mingle.

I think that I spotted a score of the DOC logos. I was looking, because, in one of our chats the other day, Festival Director Tony Jones said that emphasis is needed on how many one can see - over the 11 days, however exactly they may be spread, that is around two per day, after all, so one can see his point. (I always like to make space for three or four in the course of my Festival viewing, but, as with the whole Festival juggling cum three-dimensional crossword, compromise is inevitable.)

Tony is a nice, level-headed guy, and always makes time to talk to me. A few weeks back now, he and I chatted as we negotiated Parker's Piece in Cambridge**, and I learnt for the first time that Hawking was coming to the Festival, and about negotiations for getting Hawking people over from the States for it.

This most recent time, it was the documentaries, and also exactly what hard work for Festival stalwarts from the Arts Picturehouse and from his family (and from his son's circle) it had been to put on twinned screenings on Grantchester Meadows***. As I said to Tony, not wishing to diminish that effort and to remind him of his great enthusiasm for outdoor screenings, he wouldn't do it, if he didn't enjoy it.

The previous time, a little word that - whatever it may be, and I do not think that I am being indiscreet - Surprise Film 1**** is a World Premiere. Famously, no one knows (though @JimGRoss always guesses) what the film is / films are except Tony, and the projectionist only gets it / them just in time to do the necessary...

And I remember, last of all, coming out of Cell 211 (2009), and Tony wondering, even though he was pleased that I thought that it was a powerful screening, how it would stand for getting distributed. (If you follow that link, you will see (on IMDb) that the film, after all, did pretty well for itself.)



End-notes

* Sadly, I am an idiot, and failed to appreciate the music-documentary nature of the 33 1/3 strand, which makes the sum around thirty !

** For those who do not know it, click on this link, book yourselves some films, and get over to Cambridge to see this square of land, criss-crossed by paths, bicycles and foreign language students, and home to cricket- and football-pitches and the like on your own scenic walk from the station...

*** A real place, known to many by virtue of Fink Ployed.

**** Last year, there were two (for the first time ?), and the first of this year's is on Saturday 28 September.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Saturday, 12 January 2013

Gala with a glitch

This is a Gala review of Underground (1928), screened in NFT1 at the BFI

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

10 January

This is a Gala review of Underground (1928), screened in NFT1 at the BFI

Confession : I am not very practised (or confident) with how to view silent film :

* self-perpetuating lack of exposure to the field

* which means that my lip-reading* never gets better

* and disinclines me to make the effort to choose silent


For I find the concentration needed even greater than for a poorly subtitled film, where there is the anxious race to read and make sense of captions before the next ones come up (and, necessarily, the one in hand disappears).

None of this deterred me from this gala screening:


It had all the elements : a Q&A (and hosted by Francine Stock, to boot); the buzz of a first night at the BFI; in Underground, the restoration, by the BFI, of a film 85 years old; the involvement of silent-film musical interpreter Neil Brand, not as accompanying musician this time, but as composer of the score; and the tie-in with the 150th anniversary of the tube, with a film that almost made a character of its tunnels, staff, trains.

It brought out all sorts, from the train enthusiasts (there was one on the panel, with a looping presentation of stills) to, as it were, the silent crowd, and, of course, film buffs in general (into the latter two categories of which Brand and Stock** fitted, as did Bryony Dixon (curator at the BFI) and ?? Ben Thompson ?? (from the team of restorers)).

However, there were only two drawbacks, the minor one that, with a panel of four, each of whom had to be given a say, there was only time for five (it may have been four) audience questions, and the major hitch, which had Brand leaping from his seat and disappearing within minutes, which was that the soundtrack was no longer in synch with the projection (which, apparently, it had been earlier).

So, for example, an urchin playing on some sort of whistle was heard before he was seen. As Brand had, of course, carefully scored each moment of the 84 minutes, it was immensely distressing for him (hence his sudden exit to voice his concern), but it seemed from the apology at the end from the BFI’s director that there had been a lack of confidence that stopping the film would have allowed the problem to be remedied***.

I asked for a complementary ticket to allow me to see it as it should have been, because, although there was no doubt of the power and skill of the scoring (and of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s performance****), the concentration involved in hearing a soundtrack that did not match the visuals compounded my interpretative impairment.
That apart, it was a grand evening, and I was pleased to be able to talk briefly to Neil Brand again and offer my congratulations (and commiserations). This is why :



I had heard Brand talking to Sean Rafferty last year, on Radio 3’s late-afternoon programme In Tune (one could equally say early-evening, as I choose not to say ‘drive-time’), and was very interested both in what he had to say about the film’s dynamics, and to hear not only some of the music, but also how it had been composed. So I knew that Anthony Asquith, son of the prime minister of that name, had been the art director, I knew a skeletal amount about what the film dealt with, and I had heard Brand’s palpable enthusiasm for this commission.

I knew, therefore, that I wanted to see it, and, when I saw Brand at the Silent Film Festival (I only managed to see one film, though, where he had been playing with Mark Kermode’s band The Dodge Brothers) and then at Festival Central, I learnt that all the attention was focused on a likely release timed with the tube anniversary.

This film – including in its original sense - is terrific, and there is no doubt that the patient work of restoration, of composing the score, and of recording and tracking it has been an excellent use of resources. I want only to say enough about it that is consistent with leaving it to unfold to a new viewer, but showing what there is to be appreciated.

My Tweet will have alerted to the scheming and self-centredness of Othello, but (in no particular order) there is also, as Bryony Dixon put it, a love quadrilateral, a fight and other moments of tension, shots of trains and escalators in and around Waterloo tube-station, a magnificent chase, and a picture of the metropolis and a romantic trip to (as a member of the audience asserted, since no one knew) Hampstead Heath. What more could one want... ?


End-notes

* It is a useful adjunct to indistinct speech, as a clue (or cue) to what is being uttered, but a different proposition, I find, with no speech sounds. A film of this kind has few inter-titles (have they always been called that?), and for me, used as I am to the dialogue driving many a scene, there’s a frustration at not knowing what is said.

** Aurally, it has the ring of a partnership, warehousing, maybe, designer goods.

*** When I talked, at a later date, to Cambridge Film Festival director Tony Jones, he was confident both as to the nature of the problem, and how the technology caused would have made it not capable of easy remedy : he also seemed to know, but lost me in the detail of the technicality, how it should have been done, and so would not have been beyond repair on the spot.

**** Brand provided information about how the recording from a live performance at a screening last year, once the audience noise had been taken off, had to be intermixed with taping from that event’s rehearsal. Here, too, there had been a technical issue, because the frame-speed of the projection when the two had been recorded differed !


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Thursday, 26 April 2012

Wreckers comes home to roost: report on a Q&A at the Arts Picturehouse

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

26 April

NB This is a report on the answers given to the more significant questions, and a review of the film (presently in draft) will appear elsewhere. * In consequence, please be aware that there will, almost inevitably, be spoilers *


On Tuesday night, I watched the screening of a first feature by Dictynna Hood, someone to whom I had previously spoken, several years ago, about the documentaries that she was making. (Before she was lionized by Tony Jones and his crew, of whom Trish Sheil was going to introduce Dictynna - who wrote and directed Wreckers (2011) and host the Q&A afterwards, I just had time to ask her whether she had enjoyed making this film, which she largely had.)

As, with a Q&A, I formulate a question mentally and try to hold it during the rest of the film, to ask as soon as the initial questions from the person hosting have died down (so that I do not forget my formulation), I came out with (something like):

You mentioned fairy tales and stories from Fenland – what I found in this film was delight, a sense of possibility, things revealed, things overheard or witnessed, tension, jealousy, menace, fury, and I wonder, Dictynna, how deep you had to dig in yourself – or in ancient sources – to find these impulses?

The latter part of the question, with its humorous implications that she might do or want to do the things that her characters do, made her laugh infectiously. She had already mentioned that she had taken strands from real experiences and the lore of the four Oxfordshire villages, now changed beyond recognition by the overlay of the motorway and its traffic, so she had filmed in and around Isleham - and she mentioned the looks and queries that she had received at another screening in Oxford the day before.

As the questions came (and there was a good turn-out and much interest), Dictynna said more and more, opening up as the film does – opening up vistas – as questioners wondered about the status, as dream, of the start of the film (which, as it stands, someone had wanted her to consider dropping, and for which she had also shot a scene in a chapel, also in or near Isleham, which she said was so beautiful as to be unusable, because it looked as though it belonged in a different film – maybe, someone suggested, still to be made, when she alluded to the footage being on the cutting-room floor*).

Others asked about menace during and at the very end of the film, and it turned out that not only had the ending had been thought of very differently, but that, at one point in the conception, the whole thing could even have been much more of a horrorfest! However, not perhaps as alarming as parts of a wheat-field (whose owner Dictynna was most pleased to see in the audience) - the ones that we did not see, which had been trampled by the crew to get the on-screen shot.

In comments, there was interest in and appreciation of how the countryside had been presented, and I asked a further question about location, because there are many instances of people walking, often enough in twos, both in the village and elsewhere: Hood explained that, in shooting in Isleham (which, although not on a through-route, is apparently busy), she had focused on Dawn with David’s long-lost brother Nick (Shaun Evans) on the pavement and shut out the cars to create a deliberate effect.

The perennial question about when in the making the composer (Andrew Lovett) had been involved came up, and, unusually for films, the answer was that, as one of three with whom Hood had worked before and had been approached when it was at script stage, he self-selected by his desire to engage with the work.

Dictynna also commented that the use of music had been deliberately sparing on his part, and he had made use both of silence, and processing the actors' voices to make sounds that one could not quite distinguish, which people present seemed to agree imparted a dream-like element that they also found pervasively in Wreckers, a blurring between what was dream and what seen.

Towards the end of the session, Dictynna revealed more, including a source of the main story in a Viking text, and also a story about the devil (though Nick, she stressed, has other qualities than mere devilish ones). (As she agreed with me when I said a few words afterwards, there are all sorts of resonances, including Shakespearean ones).

Finally, we were told that two more projects are being worked on, one - of all things - a romantic comedy, so watch this space…


End-notes

* It's always made me think, subconsciously, that hairdressers must be much more house proud, because there the floor is swept clean of cuttings several times per day...
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Saturday, 17 September 2011

Golden sands of time

This is a Festival review of Bombay Beach (2011)

More views of - or at - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

18 September (Tweets / tags added, 3 January 2015)

This is a Festival review of Bombay Beach (2011)

Bombay Beach (2011) (we had no explanation of the name, sadly) took a little time to get used to, because it seemed (perhaps unnecessarily?) raw in the early shots, and, of course, one has (gained) expectations that what is near the centre of the frame will be - or be put into - focus. (I'm assuming that editing the film with some footage that meets this description at the start was a deliberate ploy.)

In any case, what I quickly came to experience as a real joy, since it is a principle that I try to employ in my photography, was the use of available light (which must have caused some difficulties in places). The whole emphasis on lighting, and on the flatness that gives a distinct horizon at sunrise and -set, was a hallmark of this film, as was the naturalness with which people seemed to get about their business, and come to mean something to us in the (relatively) short time (compared with Alma Har'el) that we (felt that we) spent with them.

Before I went in, Tony Jones, director of the Festival, said that I would want to see the film again when it is on release generally, and he is right - from the sounds of it, as he hopes to have Alma in Cambridge, plenty of time to think up questions before then. Until that point, what I will think about, other than listening to some of my Dylan tracks, is the hope that there was in all that I was allowed to witness, and try to remind myself that it is a privilege to see others' lives.

That said, and nothing to do with how the film was made, but I couldn't help being shocked at how much behaviour is controlled (for) by medication in the States. A young boy, clearly given ritalin because of ADHD (now quite well known in the UK), but also being given an anti-psychotic, then put onto 600mg lithium (instead of the ritalin, unless I misrember), which is one-half of the typical sort of dose for a six-foot man (the exact dose depends on metabolism). As to an explanation to Benny's parents of possible side-effects, particularly for lithium toxicity in the bloodstream, that appeared lacking.

Well, and I'm sorry that I forget his name, but as the elderly guy says who recovers from a mini-stroke, and whose appetite for life and what it is worth were wholly infectious, Life is a habit. For Benny, I hope that he may be able to form a habit where he is not overmedicated to meet others' ideas of who he should be, and the film, in its crazy phantasy ending, offered us that vision.


PS Very much an after-thought, and not intended to detract from the above, but I could not understand the point of the intermittently present and vividly yellow-orange subtitles: at first, they seemed to stigmatize the would-be college student, as if just his diction were not clear enough (although it was), but then they appeared at other times.

Sometimes, during the interactions in the Parish household, they were a help to know what was being said. However, most of the time I did not see the need for them, but, because of how much brighter they were than usual, I could not avoid three effects: they spoilt the appearance of the film, they drew me to read them when I could perfectly well hear what was being spoken, and, because of that, I could not block them out, and so missed important detail on the screen. If I could have pressed a button on a remote-control to turn them off, I would have done, and been happier.







Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Thursday, 8 September 2011

Festival publications (1)

More views of - or at (or before) - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


9 September

As well as the very well-presented Festival brochure (thanks to Tony Jones and his team), full of interesting information about what is showing, when, where, and what it will cost*, and available at the Picturehouse (or to download as a PDF file on the home-page) or at:
http://issuu.com/camfilmtrust/docs/cff31_brochure?mode=embed


there is also TAKE ONE, an eight-page A5 booklet, the first issue of which I found had come out to-day (and also available at the Picturehouse - or should I refer to it as Festival Central?).

I think that it is going replace the Festival Daily from previous years, and will appear less frequently (but I undertand that the on-line reviews are still going to be added every day).

As I have not yet found the text of the booklet on the Festival web-site**, I shall attempt to give a flavour of it later in lieu of a link, but can say for now that, amongst other things, it mentions:

* Dimensions (the whole inside front cover)

* Ace In The Hole (a half-page with Citizen Kane)

* Information about Jos Stelling (with a large photo) and the screening / Q&A

* Robin Hood (a full page - already shown under Films in the Forest, and now to be screened in Trinity College)

* The Camera That Changed The World (two-thirds of a page)


More of TAKE ONE (issue one) in due course - and, if there is one, a link... (now below**)



*Again, I recommend the Festival passes. For staff and customers alike, it was all a bit confusing at first, but it can now be stated: passes are on sale for £25, £50 or £75 (the last one is Blue, so I guess that the other two, in order, are Red and White, but just as easy to specify the value, I think), and you then receives that amount of credit.

Credit can only be used on festival screenings, so it is important to estimate accurately (not too much, not too little) how much will be spent overall. The chosen credit is stored on a card to spend by buying tickets, which (in addition to the discount from Picturehouse membership) gives, respectively, 20%, 25% and 30% off the ticket-price.

With the Blue card (and probably the £50 card, because some information appears contradictory), the holder also gets free tea and coffee at the bar, which - although not free beer - cannot be bad!


**Well, it's supposed to be there, and it has its own web-page, but it isn't just now:

http://www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk/review/festival-daily-online/
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