In media res, the pleasure of finding Alice Coote and Julius Drake in Winterreise (uncorrected proof)

A full canvas and an unlimited palette : the pleasure of finding Alice Coote and Julius Drake in Winterreise

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

28 January

A full canvas and an unlimited palette : the pleasure of finding Alice Coote and Julius Drake
in Winterreise, D. 911 (uncorrected proof)

In media res, the pleasure of finding @AliceCoote and @juliusdrake, on @BBCRadio3, in a December performance of Winterreise, D. 911, and - as rightly described, later, by @MannGeorgia as spell-binding - waiting in the car for the concluding 20 minutes ! :https://t.co/ZHHKI84JS4

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 29, 2020

Hearing barely the latter sixteen* numbers, one could :

(a) not only at first not place it - was it necessarily even Schubert, and not actually Dichterliebe, or Frauenlieben und Leben ? - but, as the libretto, once more, unfolded, that unease / dis-ease to be longer than one needed in those Straßen in den Städten [oder in den Dörfern ?] ; but also

(b) 'caught' how supremely sensitive to the text and its affective pulls and hesitations, doubts and despairs, these players were :

With freedom used both for vocalist to float or extend lines, and for Julius Drake, as pianist, also to sing, in many ways - fully resonantly ; sometimes as an almost metrically resigned hymnal, acting as a kind of 'foregrounded background' commentary ; in defiant / strident tones, usw.


From mezzo-soprano Alice Coote, free and sure use of collatura, slurred notes, selective vibrato, and - equally with the pianistic ones - variations in dynamic force, note-duration and stress.

At times, in the closing numbers, we had the sighs or deep breaths of weariness, lost hope and love, and of abandonment, all of which - ultimately, with the inevitability of as much the Dona nobis pacem of Bach's h-moll Messe, BWV 232, as Totentanz - preparing us for and taking us to dem Leiermann, so folkloric, haunting, öd und leer, and einfach da :

Beethoven's Muß es sein ?, answered by Es muß sei. It 'just is' so.


This disintegration in and of the hurdy-gurdy man is essentially one with the inexorable, slow transformation of the Singer-Poet into a degenerated form - witnessing no longer in a glass, darkly, but [...] face to face, and - having been thrust out of some Eden - der Welt abgekommen ?

Moving music**, movingly and beautfully brought to us from a Wigmore Hall that, clearly, hesitated to stir in the moments at the end !


End-notes :

* From memory, are there 32, 24 or maybe 26 texts in this Liederkreis ?

** Even without knowing what proofs / fair copies Schubert was checking in his final illness...


If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

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

'The Planets' (Holst) - unfamiliarly brought to us by Andrew Manze (not surprisingly)

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

27 January

'The Planets' (Holst) - unfamiliarly brought to us by Andrew Manze (not surprisingly)

* Regardless of whether the astrological element really signifies much [https://t.co/tucwNBnnct], or whether Pluto is or isn't 'a planet' :

* We're told that 'planet' is from πλάνητες ἀστέρες (planētes asteres, 'wandering stars') or simply πλανῆται (planētai, 'wanderers') ->

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 27, 2020

But *who* are the actual 'wanderers' in this Solar System... ?

With a geocentric view even of it / us, there are seven movements, one for each of the then-known planets - but (naturally ?) omitting Earth, as if the others alone (seen from Earth), are The Planets, and we are... ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 27, 2020

Anyway, it is such a fine performance / capture on recording / piece of broadcasting that one can hear here *so much more* :

Just with '4 flutes (third doubling first piccolo and fourth doubling second piccolo and "bass flute in G", actually an alto flute)', one hears piccolo !

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 27, 2020

To close :

I Tweeted this yesterday - 1972 was the year of which too little note was taken :https://t.co/7KooVF4Lss

And, after a spectacular performance on R3 (conducted by Clare College's own Andrew Manze), one has a fuller appreciation of time in 'Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age (1915)'

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 27, 2020

If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

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

At Lunch Two (2019 / 2020 season) : With Britten Sinfonia at West Road Concert Hall (work in progress)

At Lunch Two (2019 / 2020 season) : Britten Sinfonia at West Road Concert Hall (work in progress)

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

21 January

At Lunch Two (2019 / 2020 season) : With Britten Sinfonia at West Road Concert Hall
(work in progress)

Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 2, No. 8 (1728) ~ Jean-Marie Leclair (1697 – 1764)

1. Adagio
2. Allegro
3. Sarabande
4. Allegro assai


The initial theme of the Adagio, and its gestures, wholly attract our attention – to the extent that it almost sounds as if the movement (or, therefore, the work as a whole) has opened near the end (or, at least, in the middle of what might be expected of such a work). We soon notice that the violin and viola are echoic – the latter, certainly, repeats the former (though does not mimic it per se), if not vice versa, and the writing is in an especially expressive tone, which one could, of course, rely on cellist Caroline Dearnley to bring out beautifully from her wonted instrument.

In the Allegro, again an element of the catch or round, if not of antiphony. However, now with the piano* more obviously joining in, and with a 'frisky' overall ambience, which, as the psychology of music tells us (though perhaps not consciously), operates by way of preparation for what follows within the composition as a whole : the succeeding Sarabande - as so often with the Bach Suites for Solo Cello (or the keyboard or violin Partitas, whose dates of 1685 to 1750 virtually mirror those of Leclair) – is the heart of the piece.

Here, there is a melding of the string-sounds of all three instruments - maybe we forget to our cost that, though some might encourage us to think of the piano as percussive, there are strings (just not bowed (or - in this repertoire - plucked)). The balance that John Lenehan achieves with his fellow...


* * * * *



[...]

At @WestRoadCH, people were saying afterwards such enthusiastic things about the reduction, to smaller forces, of the Mahler settings :)

In one person's case, who was going to urge the London gig on a friend, what had been kept or captured in the skill behind the concision ! https://t.co/SqvwfpXLhI

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 25, 2020

[...]


Bukoliki (1952, 1962 (arr. comp.)) ~ Witold Lutosławski (1913 - 1994)

1. Allegro vivace
2. Allegro sostenuto
3. Allegro molto
4. Andantino
5. Allegro marciale


To begin, 'an intensity' of very vigorous writing for cello in the Allegro vivace, but which is, as the movement plays out, a contrast to the succeeding section's more meditative or musing nature – and which, as the set of pieces plays out, is part of a pattern of juxtaposition. And then, Lutoslawski has Clare Finnimore (viola) and Caroline Dearnley (cello) jump back, at least to Tempo I and to the initial variety of affect, but not to a note-for-note reprise, but another re-working of the material. Then, more or less betokening the close, a re-working of Tempo II follows – which is a sort of ABAB that we might associate with, or recognize from, Bartók ?

In the Allegro sostenuto, there is – more evidently (or as one adjusts to this set of pieces ?) – a juxtaposition, at the start, of a deft pizzicato cello and a languidly legato viola – another alternation of an ABAB kind ? – whereas, in the third piece, maybe Lutosławski has sufficiently stated his folk-music credentials to pass the work off as that, but then sneaks in some illicit jazz chord-progressions or intervals**, and, as if he is a covering-up naughty school-boy, behaves as if they were never there... ?

Of the set, the wildly atmospheric Andantino had open sounds and spaces, which spoke of yearning and tenderness, and which also provided yet another point of contact (as well as of contrast), this time with the rhythmicity of the final Allegro marciale : its emphasis is on metrical stress, as the material is first presented us, but then on employing it teasingly – leading us on, and holding us off from, our expectations.

We love this photo of Claire Finnimore and Caroline Dearnley rehearsing Lutosławski’s Bukoliki at @WestRoadCH on Tuesday (taken by our Principal Second Violin Miranda Dale). pic.twitter.com/OwEEpHukJP

— Britten Sinfonia (@BrittenSinfonia) January 23, 2020

No surprise at all that these accomplished musicians***, so used to each other (and to us) from their time with Britten Sinfonia, and to each other’s playing, should play the Lutoslawski so compellingly, but - as is the norm rather than the exception with the Sinfonia programming - rather how this beacon of composition shone in its setting in this hall and in this selection of At Lunch works !


[...]


End-notes :

* Surely, in 1728, not written for even an early forte piano ?

** In Ida (2013), Pawel Pawlikowski seeks to use his authorial / directorial position to allude to the Polish underground jazz-scene, but only as part of a tale with a would-be ‘conversation’ between the secular and sacred (or, rather, the sacred and profane), which was probably better left to Hermann Hesse ?

Joanna Kulig - who ‘migrated to’ Cold War (2018) - as ‘Singer’ in Ida (2013)

*** Both the composition / arrangement and the accomplishment reminded of when Thomas Gould and Clare Finnimore had played a selection of Béla Bartók’s Duos), in At Lunch 4 (2015 / 2016 season).


If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

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

When is 'watching a film' not watching a film ?

When is 'watching a film' not watching a film ?

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

22 January

When is 'watching a film' not watching a film ?

All's also fine, if we can pretend that - for the reasons stated in the answer that I gave my Honourable friend just given - watching a screener is :

(a) A cinematic experience - needed for the best of arthouse, etc. ?

(b) In any way 'seeing [film-title] at [name of ff]'*.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 22, 2020

** Delete as appropriate***.

*** If necessary, this Tweet and its two preceding ones**** ?

**** 'Your mission, should you choose to accept it', etc., *may* be applicable, but Gustav Metzger didn't give us auto-destructive Tweets*****.

***** That's some other application ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 22, 2020

(and then missed 'em all)


If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

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

From the (pre-#UCFF) archive : A review of Kosmos (2009)

From the (pre-#UCFF) archive : A review of Kosmos (2009)

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

Cambridge Film Festival 2010

From the (pre-#UCFF) archive : A review of Kosmos (2009)

* Contains spoilers *

Kosmos is what he calls himself, when he is asked his name. He has previously saved the young woman’s brother, and he is delighted to hear her baying at him like a wolf, inviting him to follow her, to chase her. When he says that he is Kosmos, she says that she is Neptün, and I find myself thinking more of the seas, than of the planet. (Meeting the girl’s father, he gives a different name, but he is credited as Kosmos (Sermet Yesil), and she as Neptün (Türkü Turan).)

What we see is his visit to this indeterminate Muslim town in the snow, from when he arrives to when he leaves. All that we really know, as a foreign audience, is that he strays into areas where he should not be, that there are sounds of explosions, and that there is a border closed, which some would like opened, but which others say is just for their profit.

If we are trying to judge him, to see whether the words that he speaks when asked questions and which have a ring of teaching such as from the Koran or the book of Ecclesiastes, then we will find that he does things to disapprove of. (But don’t we all. He does not claim to be a great holy man, but answers people’s questions, and seems to seek to help.)

Ultimately, it is the disapproval, and the reliance that others have put upon him to cure as if it is without cost to himself (when we see at the start how he gives of himself to give life back to the boy whom he has rescued from the river), which cut short his time there. Some see him for who he is, but even the teacher, who sleeps with him, seeks to put her guilt on him – what he is looking for, he says, is love.

With Neptün, whether or not they sleep together, there is an unbridled energy and exuberance, a dance as of elemental forces such as their names suggest. Even his acts of healing, and what happens with natural phenomena (reminiscent of what Tarkovksy does in Mirror), suggest that he has a connection that others have forgotten about or overlooked, and which the girl sees in him more fully. The woman who places reliance in the medication Tralin ® , an anti-depressant, seems at the opposite extreme, but he is nonetheless distressed for her.

The crash-landing of some sort of lunar module, which the authorities want hushed up, but which he has already seen, seem to herald a time when judgement turns against him, and he has to leave, although not without showing his care for those who are hurting. He leaves as he arrived, and, except when he is with Neptün, there is always an ambiguous quality about his anguish and about his joy, as if their being two sides of the same coin is very close to him.

This is a remarkable piece of cinema, and would invite me to see it again. What I would have to be clear about is not to do so to find out more about who Kosmos is, since we know only the time when he is with the people in this town and often have to guess at his motives or motivations, but to see how he is valued, to see what people see in him.


If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

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

Story-telling : By juxtaposition - or free association ?

Some responses to watching Little Women (2019) (twice) (work in progress)

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

10 January

Some responses to watching Little Women (2019) (twice) (work in progress)

¹ Too many to distract oneself with (clumsily trying to note them in the dark), and it may be that they have some origin in the source text(s)² ?

² It has been suggested to the unknowing #UCFF that Good Wives is also being adapted, here, under this title.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 11, 2020

Thanks for the recommendation, Jim - just *watched* the responses to the question which part of film-making they like most, and then with Greta Gerwig, fascinatingly going off piste, remarking that all of them have made films about faith, and about not wasting what time one has.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 12, 2020

More magnificent still, on a re-watch :

It bloomed again, in the way that all good film-making will, even though - and because - the overall arc and shape is known :

An earlier scene, anticipating what is to come, has its place - and the tenderness between Laura Dern and her screen-daughter Saoirse Ronan touches more.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 12, 2020

It seems that Watson was born in Paris, but Florence Pugh (Amy) and she are British. When Eliza Scanlen (Beth) is Australian by birth, one can only look to Saoirse Ronan for a daughter of Concord, MA, as cast by Greta Gerwig who is of American origin... :https://t.co/oapgdgn1hX

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 13, 2020

[...]

In a brand new interview for the New Beverly blog, @SunsetGunShot talks to writer-director Greta Gerwig about Little Women: https://t.co/1ciDfxVFSy pic.twitter.com/EJm3zkPK24

— New Beverly Cinema (@newbeverly) January 13, 2020

If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

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

Some Tweets about Knives Out (2019)

Some Tweets about Knives Out (2019)

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

30 December

Some Tweets about Knives Out (2019)

VLADIMIR : That passed the time.

ESTRAGON :It would have passed in any case.

VLADIMIR : Yes, but not so rapidly.

Samuel Beckettt ~ Waiting for Godot

* Surprisingly, the film's Wikipedia page says 'Principal photography began on October 30, 2018, in Boston, Massachusetts and wrapped on December 20, 2018' [https://t.co/jPrvcbtgbC, citing references, and exterior / interior locations] - as its on-screen look / feel belies that

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 31, 2019

¹ Probably Ransom Drysdale (Chris Evans) refers to Benoit Blanc's (Craig's) 'drawl', and mentions Kentucky, but did Craig sound Tennessee or Louisiana ? (Still, scene to scene, Ana de Armas' accent wandered far more as Marta Cabrera³.)

² Steve Yedlin [https://t.co/3vaPjIO6dH]

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 31, 2019

³ Harlan Thrombey's (Christopher Plummer's) largely unconcerned family casually refer to her as at least Paraguayan, Uruguayan and Brazilian (which has misled some, with questions about the film, not to doubt their sincerity, but to ask where she is 'really from')

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 31, 2019

Postlude(s) :

Rian Johnson’s film "Knives Out" tells a political tale within the genre of murder mystery.
https://t.co/ekZtmpGzcD

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) January 5, 2020

KNIVES OUT.... spoilers?

Marta looking at Thrombey's portrait at the beginning of the film, when the investigation into his death is taking place, a stern look on his face.

Marta looking at the portrait at the end of the film, when she takes over the house, his face now warm. pic.twitter.com/vcaTS87bTf

— Luke Ryan (@RazorwireRyan) January 17, 2020

Yep

Did spot that

It's part and parcel of the film-making whether character-presentations cohere (as well as location-scouting for a suitably quirky interior). isn't it ?

Maybe just me...

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 17, 2020

Yep

Did spot that

It's part and parcel of the film-making whether character-presentations cohere (as well as location-scouting for a suitably quirky interior). isn't it ?

Maybe just me...

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 17, 2020

If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

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

'Thoughtful' violence in Drive (2011) and You Were Never Really Here (2017) - or the principal elements of film noir ?

Responding to 'Thoughtful Violence in Drive & You Were Never Really Here'

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

Lines of thought sparked off by 'Thoughtful Violence in Drive & You Were Never Really Here' [Nancy Epton, writing for TAKE ONE]

Driver (D) and Joe (J) are, as one recalls, [capable of] being exploited

Drive says little or nothing why D does 'jobs' outside his mechanic's, etc., duties or does not seek better reward (from Shannon)

Allusively, Lynne Ramsay shows us much more about J, but both are film noir

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 25, 2019

* Ah, but I's car has over-heated - and she has shopping, and her son...

* The lift again, and her apartment

* The immediate dialogue :

I : So, have you just moved to LA ?

D : No, I've been here a while.

I : You're just new here [the building] ?

D : H'mm, m'mm.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 27, 2019

When Standard (Oscar Isaac) has been beaten up, and D finds B and him, he hears - as a man already hooked - the story of the mushrooming protection-money, and the job at 'the pawn shop in the valley' :

D has even driven B and I

Afterwards, I feigns not to know what S has told D

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 27, 2019

A whole other debate opens up, when one takes the nobility of the cause into account in cases of explicit revenge, as to whether the violence is justified, e.g. The Villainess (2017) [https://t.co/5OwELtTujd], or Tarantino's stylized fountains of blood in Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003).

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 27, 2019

If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

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

Restored, maybe revived, but what does The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) have to say to us ?

Restored, maybe revived, but what does The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) have to say to us ?

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

Restored, maybe revived, but what does The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) have to say to us ?

Prelude :

It wasn't to-day (or even this week) - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Screen 2 to-night, c. 6.10) might well make up for the non-Italianate snack...

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 9, 2019

Not so much rage over a lost penny as 'a rant during an interrupted bed-time' ? :

The theme's recurrence is, in itself, insufficient to give the film the coherence that it otherwise lacks, when it spends so much of 91 mins just being about time's passing, and not The Algerian War, the effects of military service, Madame Emery's story, or even who Madeleine is.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 21, 2019

We pan up, and it's as close as we get to dance or real movement, or Umbrellas of Cherbourg except as implausible boutique (whose Mme Emery expresses angst in violent wallpaper) :

Nothing much suggests, say, that she really deals dope, or that Roland Cassard will shaft them all.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 21, 2019

* Whatever the initial ('mystical') appeal when he set it, it seems that, according to Peter Gutmann's 'Classical Notes', Schoenberg may later have come to see the sentimentality of Richard Dehmel's text as 'repulsive' [https://t.co/j7Kq7D81bV].

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 21, 2019

Postlude / reflections :

Singin' in the Rain (1952) was aptly and succinctly introduced at @camfilmfest 2019 by @NeilKBrand [Day 2], so is one really 'saying as one found it' that it seems a worthier object of restoration'n'revival - or did Neil make a case that then informed / transformed our viewing ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 21, 2019

¹ Excepting being aware (from decades earlier, on t.v.) of the sequences with Gene Kelly² and Cyd Charisse, or Michael Parkinson's much-referenced avowal ? [So, not the whole film, watched as / in a cinema.]

² Neil certainly asked us to regard Donald O'Connor as Kelly's equal.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 21, 2019

If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

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

Frank, we did all we could for the man ~ Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci)

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

20 December

To be watching for 207 mins in a venue that I didn't know before (my first time at @RoystonPictureP - not my last !), I tried to make sure of booking an aisle-seat (only to find that I mistook the layout...) :

It really was no endurance for me whatever, as Scorsese knows pacing.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 27, 2019

The scenes when Frank Sheeran (De Niro) is being honoured at a testimonial, and Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino) presents him with his award, may not be the chronological centre of The Irishman (2019), but – placing those scenes, on a re-watch – the rest of the film spirals out from there...

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 7, 2020

With much hindsight, this is where Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) sees that tempers and tensions spiralled out of control - for the film, it's where the Bufalinos' and Sheerans' road-trip and this other narrative converge, and the long haul of De Niro's performance richly pays off.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 8, 2020

¹ Although reacquiring the means to get there was just before @camfilmfest (agonizingly too close not to be thoroughly exhausted by then...)

² First seen at @RoystonPictureP, now run and programmed by Saffron S.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 7, 2020

Need we really consider Joker (2019) as some sort of Scorsese film – or The Irishman (2019) as Scorsese’s contribution to the film universe of Marvel ? :

Todd Phillips, in 122 mins, outstays his welcome and wastes his chances in Joker (2019), whereas Martin Scorsese (in his film-adaption of Charles Brandt's book) stays the course in the 209 mins of The Irishman (2019) (another film with Robert De Niro), and makes the run-time tell

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 21, 2019

Meanwhile, in some other universe (when it is Phillips who grossly steals from Scorsese's films, but not in any way to justify the theft), does someone seriously suggest that the indebtedness is the other way around, in 'Why 'The Irishman' Is Scorsese's MCU Movie' !


[...]


Postlude :

'Kathrine Narducci, Kevin O'Rourke, Jesse Plemons, Welker White, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Gino Cafarelli, Marin Ireland, Michele Cannon, and Robin Kerbis in The Irishman (2019)'

Their agents must have been working over time to secure such a pointless accreditation ! ;)

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 27, 2019

If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

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

The 100 greatest films directed by women : A critique of method and / or purpose¹ (work in progress)

The 100 greatest films directed by women : A critique of method and / or purpose¹

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

The 100 greatest films directed by women : A critique of method and / or purpose¹ (work in progress)

BBC Culture polled 368 film experts from 84 countries in order to find the best films from female film-makers – here’s the top 100

One had already heard that BBC Culture introduced its list this year by saying There was one stark statistic that jumped out from the results of last year’s BBC Culture poll to find the 100 greatest foreign-language films of all time : just four out of that 100 were directed by women :

However, despite at least one list with a deficiency, does it seem that BBC Culture has been intent, in setting up this new list of 100 films, in not learning lessons ? In other words, rather than a list that recommends as many as six films directed by the lately deceased Agnès Varda (and another five of Kathryn Bigelow's, so more than 10% of the 100 between them), maybe it could have been limited to just one film each (a maximum of two) by the best 100 or so female directors...

At #UCFF, with a paucity of film-writing¹ in 2019, we're instead astounded to realize that, when we saw Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) on release, or Sleepless in Seattle (1993), they would be nos 58 and 83 in @bbcCultureShow's new list², respectively :https://t.co/YlqO6QJ3UV

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 19, 2019

And, if one looks at the list by decade² (tallying them by release-date), how well is the history of film-making really represented ? As the second set of figures in square brackets shows below : 23% of these greatest films were released in or after 2011 (which rises to 43% of the films, when one adds those from the preceding decade) ; the majority are from the last three decades ; and only 16% were released before 1971.


By decade² (number of films chosen per decade, and an increasing / decreasing tally in square brackets) :

* 1910s : 1 [1 / 99]

* 1920s : 2 [3 / 97]

* 1930s : 2 [5 / 95]

* 1940s : 3 [8 / 92]

* 1950s : 1 [9 / 91]

* 1960s : 7 [16 / 84]

* 1970s : 13 [29 / 71]

* 1980s : 12 [41 / 59]

* 1990s : 16 [57 / 43]

* 2000s : 20 [77 / 23]

* 2010s : 23 [100 / 0]



[...]



Enough of the Tweets, etc. ! Here (with needful changes³) is the list of 100 films [as annotated⁴] :

1. The Piano (1993) ~ Jane Campion (1) [English, British Sign Language, Maori]

2. Cléo from 5 to 7 (Cléo de 5 à 7) (1962) ~ Agnès Varda (1) [French]

3. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles ~ Chantal Akerman (1) [French]

4. Beau Travail (1999) ~ Claire Denis (1) [French]

5. Lost in Translation (2003) Sofia Coppola (1) [English, Japanese, German, French]

6. Daisies (Sedmikrásky) (1966) ~ Věra Chytilová [Czech]

7. The Hurt Locker (2008) ~ Kathryn Bigelow (1) [English, Arabic]

8. Toni Erdmann (2016) ~ Maren Ade [German, English, Romanian]

9. Fish Tank (2009) ~ Andrea Arnold (1) [English]

10. Daughters of the Dust (1991) ~ Julie Dash [English, French]

11. The Ascent (Voskhozhdenie) (1977) ~ Larisa Shepitko [Russian, German]

12. Zero Dark Thirty (2012) ~ Kathryn Bigelow (2) [English, Arabic]

13. Vagabond (Sans toit ni loi) (1985) ~ Agnès Varda (2) [French, Arabic, English]

14. Point Break (1991) ~ Kathryn Bigelow (3) [English]

15. La Ciénaga ( The Swamp) (2001) ~ Lucrecia Martel (1) [Spanish]

16. Wanda (1970) ~ Barbara Loden [English]

17. Seven Beauties (Pasqualino Settebellezze) (1975) ~ Lina Wertmüller [Italian, German, Neapolitan, Spanish]

18. American Psycho (2000) ~ Mary Harron [English, Spanish, Cantonese]

19. Orlando (1992) ~ Sally Potter [English, French]

20. Clueless (1995) ~ Amy Heckerling [English, Spanish]

21. Winter’s Bone (2010) ~ Debra Granik [English]

23¹. We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) ~ Lynne Ramsay (1) [English]

23¹. The Hitch-Hiker (1953) ~ Ida Lupino (1) [English, Spanish]

24. Lady Bird [IMDb page (2017) ~ Greta Gerwig [English, Spanish]

25. The House is Black (1963) ~ Forugh Farrokhzad [Persian]

26. Stories we Tell (2012) ~ Sarah Polley [English]

27. Selma (2014) ~ Ava DuVernay (1) [English]

28. Le bonheur (1965) ~ Agnès Varda (3) [French]

29. Monsoon Wedding (2001) ~ Mira Nair (1) [Hindi, English]

30. Zama (2017) ~ Lucrecia Martel (2) [Spanish, Portuguese]

31. The Gleaners and I (Les glaneurs et la glaneuse) (2000) ~ Agnès Varda (4) [French]

32. The Night Porter (Il portiere di notte) (1974) ~ Liliana Cavani [English]

33. You Were Never Really Here (2017) ~ Lynne Ramsay (2) [English]

34. Morvern Callar (2002) ~ Lynne Ramsay (3) [English, Spanish]

35. The Matrix (1999) ~ Lana and Lilly Wachowski [English]

36. Wendy and Lucy (2008) ~ Kelly Reichardt (1) [English]

37. Olympia Part One : Festival of The Nations (Olympia 1. Teil - Fest der Völker) (1938) / Olympia Part Two : Festival of Beauty (Olympia 2. Teil - Fest der Schönheit) (1938) ~ Leni Riefenstahl (1) [German, English, Italian, French, Japanese, Portuguese] / [German]

38. Paris is Burning (1990) ~ Jennie Livingston [English]

39. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu) (2019) ~ Céline Sciamma (1) [French, Italian]

40. Boys Don’t Cry (1999) ~ Kimberly Peirce [English]

41. Capernaum (Capharnaüm) (2018) ~ Nadine Labaki [Arabic, Amharic]

42. The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed) (1926) ~ Lotte Reiniger [Silent]

43. The Virgin Suicides (1999) ~ Sofia Coppola (2) [English]

44. American Honey (2016) ~ Andrea Arnold (2) [English]

45. Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens) (1935) ~ Leni Riefenstahl (2) [German]

46. Near Dark (1987) ~ Kathryn Bigelow (3) [English]

47. An Angel at my Table (1990) ~ Jane Campion (2) [English, Spanish]

48. The Asthenic Syndrome (Astenicheskiy sindrom) (1989) Kira Muratova (1) [Russian]

49. Salaam Bombay ! (1988) Mira Nair (2) [Hindi, English]

50. Outrage (1950) Ida Lupino (2) [English]

51. Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) ~ Barbara Kopple [English]

52. Happy as Lazzaro (Lazzaro felice) (2018) ~ Alice Rohrwacher [Italian]

53. The Headless Woman (La mujer sin cabeza) (2008) ~ Lucrecia Martel (3) [Spanish]

54. Bright Star (2009) ~ Jane Campion (3) [English, French]

55. Monster (2003) ~ Patty Jenkins [English]

56. 13th (2016) ~ Ava DuVernay (2) [English]

57. The Babadook (2014) ~ Jennifer Kent [English]

58. Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) ~ Susan Seidelman [English]

59. The Long Farewell (1971) ~ Kira Muratova (2) [Russian, English]

60. A League of their Own (1992) ~ Penny Marshall (1) [English]

61. India Song (1975) ~ Marguerite Duras [French]

62. Strange Days (1995) ~ Kathryn Bigelow (4) [English]

63. Marie Antoinette (2006) ~ Sofia Coppola (3) [English, Latin, French]

64. The Rider (2017) ~ Chloé Zhao [English]

65. Leave no Trace (2018) ~ Debra Granik [English]

66. Ratcatcher (1999) ~ Lynne Ramsay (4) [English]

67. The German Sisters (Die bleierne Zeit) (1981) ~ Margarethe von Trotta [German, Italian]

68. Eve’s Bayou (1997) ~ Kasi Lemmons [English]

69. The Connection (1961) ~ Shirley Clarke (1) [English]

70. Whale Rider (2002) ~ Niki Caro [English, Maori]

71. The Seashell and the Clergyman (La coquille et le clergyman) (1928) ~ Germaine Dulac [Silent]

72. Europa Europa (1980) ~ Agnieszka Holland [German, Russian, Polish, Hebrew]

73. On Body and Soul (Teströl és lélekröl) (2017) ~ Ildikó Enyedi [Hungarian]

74. Chocolat (1988) ~ Claire Denis (2) [English, French]

75. Meek’s Cutoff (2010) ~ Kelly Reichardt (2) [English]

76. Girlhood (Bande de filles) (2014) ~ Céline Sciamma (2) [French]

77. Tomboy (2011) ~ Céline Sciamma (3) [French]

78. The Apple (Sib) (1998) ~ Samira Makhmalbaf [Persian]

79. Shoes (1916) ~ Lois Weber [Silent]

80. Big (1988) ~ Penny Marshall (2) [English]

81. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) ~ Ana Lily Amirpour [Persian]

82. At Land (Szárazföldön) (1944) ~ Maya Deren (1) [Silent]

83. Sleepless in Seattle (1993) ~ Nora Ephron [English]

84. Portrait of Jason (1967) ~ Shirley Clarke (2) [English]

85. One Sings, The Other Doesn’t (L'une chante l'autre pas) (1977) ~ Agnès Varda (5) [French]

86. Wadjda (2012) ~ Haifaa Al-Mansour [Arabic]

87. 35 Shots of Rum (35 rhums) (2008) ~ Claire Denis (3) [French, German]

88. The Silences of the Palace (Samt el qusur) (1994) ~ Moufida Tlatli [Arabic, French]

89. The Beaches of Agnès (Les plages d’ Agnès) (2008) ~ Agnès Varda (6) [French, English]

90. Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) ~ Amy Heckerling [English]

91. White Material (2009) ~ Claire Denis (4) [French]

92. Raw (Grave) (2016) ~ Julia Ducournau [French]

93. Red Road (2006) ~ Andrea Arnold (3) [English]

94. News From Home (1977) ~ Chantal Akerman (2) [French]

95. Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946) ~ Maya Deren (2) [Silent]

96. The Meetings of Anna (Les rendez-vous d'Anna) (1977) ~ Chantal Akerman (3) [French]

97. Adoption (Örökbefogadás) (1975) ~ Márta Mészáros [Hungarian]

98. Somewhere (2010) ~ Sofia Coppola (4) [English, Italian]

99. The Souvenir (2019) ~ Joanna Hogg [English]

100. The Kids are All Right (2010) ~ Lisa Cholodenko [English]



To indicate another absurd bias, a tally of language(s)⁵ spoken in the 100 list [five films are silent] :


English (only) : 37 [37 = running total]

French : 13 [50]

Therefore, one-half of this greatest 100 is, if not in English, then in French - very inclusive


English (as principal language⁵) + Spanish : 5 [55]

English + French or French + English : 5 [60]

English + Arabic : 2 [62]


English + other languages : 6 [68]

French + other languages : 3 [71]

Then, when one has added in where English or French is the principal language⁵, but others are spoken, one has accounted for more than 70% of the films


Silent : 5 [76]

Persian : 3 [79]

German : 1½ [81½]

Hungarian : 2 [83½]

Spanish : 2 [85½]


Hindi + English : 2 [87½]


Other sole languages, or combinations of languages : 12½?? [100]



Twitter end-notes :

¹ '100 greatest films directed by women', correcting a bias, in its earlier list of foreign-language films, of few directed by women - with one where just 19 directors made 56% of the films (Agnès Varda and Kathryn Bigelow = 11%)

² Since the decade doesn't end for another year

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 19, 2019

End-notes :

¹ Put another way, one suspects that BBC Culture polled its 384 people will little idea why, but to end up with a ranked list, because it could, and did not have one - this list seemed to acknowledge no joint placings, which would have been odd in one of such compromise and of such length, but the task of re-ordering has found two placed at no. 23 (and no no. 22) [again, one would normally expect, if this is not a typo, both to be placed at 22, with no 23].

² #UCFF is stubbornly insisting that, for example, the 1940s begin with 1941 and end with 1950.

³ #UCFF's needful changes :

(1) The preference for a descending list has been imposed, because an ascending list is a convention, which does not make sense when one can fully scroll through it (as against when one has, at least, to click a link to progress from, say, the section for films 100-91 to that for those numbered 90-81.

(2) It is not a convention to give the release-date as the original list did, so that has also been changed.

(3) The insistence on persisting in putting film titles IN CAPITALS, not italicizing them, is a mistake that has meandered on from when putting on the Shift key in copy was the simplest way to denote a title.


⁴ Directors' names are in italic, with the increasing tally of their films in parentheses afterwards (i.e. where they are from the 19 on whose work the list calls for 56% of its 100 entries). Where #UCFF has a review, the title links to it ; where it has watched the film and approved, TBC ???

⁵ These have been accepted as given by the IMDb-page for each page (to which the non-underlined film-titles link), the language (or languages) : IMDb confirms that the first language, where two or more are given, should be the principal language : it specifiesto those submitting this information that ‘If more than one language was spoken, please enter them in order of frequency such that the main language is entered first’.


If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

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

Michael Berkeley's Private Passions on Radio 3 - with Ken Loach (work in progress)

Michael Berkeley's Private Passions on Radio 3 - with Ken Loach

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

10 November

Comments on film, music in film, and film-making from Michael Berkeley's Private Passions on Radio 3 - with Ken Loach (work in progress)

If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

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