First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About Film

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/07/17/jose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-sheldon-hall-on-armchair-cinema-feature-films-on-british-television-1929-1981/

Sheldon Hall’s ARMCHAIR CINEMA: A HISTORY OF FEATURE FILMS ON BRITISH TELEVISION is a beautifully produced object, lavishly illustrated and lovely to hold. More importantly, it is a pleasure to read , full of new and fascinating information and is sure to become a landmark and reference point in the study of films on television for decades to come. In the podcast we discuss how the book came to be and how it developed, how the policy around films in television developed over the years, how research lead to a heretofore unaccounted for Hitchcock film, Leslie Halliwell’s influence as film buyer, the role of television programming in creating particular types of cinephilia, how the editing of films for television changed over the years, what Sheldon learned as a result of writing the book, what I learned as a result of reading it, and much mor

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/07/15/jose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-daniel-bird-on-sergei-parajanov/

We ask who is Parajanov and why Parajanov? We touch in the centrality of his work to the national and cultural identities of so many countries: Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Russia; its aesthetic beauty and its continuing power. Certain filmmakers continuously crop up in relation to Parajanov's work -- Eisenstein, Jarman, Greenaway, Pasolini, Kenneth Anger, Powell and Pressburger. The conversation is bounded by the war in Ukraine; post-colonial relations; the excitement of cinema poetry, the need to archive, preserve, restore and circulate; questions of anarchy in totalitarian context; and a fluid line of different degrees of queerness that runs across Parajanov's oeuvre. Beautifully restored versions of SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS and THE COLOUR OF POMEGRANATES will be screened at Cinema Rediscovered, Watershed, Bristol on July 28th.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/07/08/jose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-lorena-pino-on-ninon-seville-films-at-cinema-rediscovered-watershed-bristol-24-28th-of-july/

José Arroyo talks to Lorena Pino about the programme of Ninon Sevilla films playing at the Watershed in Bristol as part of the Cinema Rediscovered Programme, and which includes two UK Premieres -- Carita de Cielo (José Diáz Morales, Mexico, 1947) and Aventurera (Alberto Gout, Mexico, 1950) -- as well as the 4K restoration of an acknowledged if still too little-seen masterpiece, Victimas del Pecado (Emilio Fernández, Mexico, 1951). Gabriel Figueroa, the great cinematographer who worked with Buñuel and John Ford, is responsible for the great film's astonishing look.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/07/08/thinking-aloud-about-film-ritrovato-round-up-2024/

Richard and I return to the podcast with our Ritrovato Round-up. Last year I couldn’t go due to health reasons and I interviewed him; this year, the tables were turned and he interviews me. Ritrovato is so vast and generous in its programming that everyone who attended would have had a different experience of the festival. This is an account of mine. We criticise the booking system and people’s piggish habit of taking out their phones during screenings. Cinephiles do know better, which makes it all the worse. The rest is mainly hossanas. We praise Daniel Bird’s programming of the Parajanov Strand. We note how even seeing familiar films can be the basis of a rediscovery and discuss how the programme of Dietrich films at the festival should re-write the narrative of the Von Sternberg/ Dietrich collaborations from one of a Svengali act of moulding to a feminist act of self-creation. We touch on Delphine Seyrig, the Dark Heimat Strand, Gustaf Molander, Anatole Litvak and highlight Carlos Sauras’ Los golfos and Montxo Armendáriz Tasio from the Cinema Libero strand. We also discuss seeing films at the stunning Cinema Modernissimo, watching Les parapluies de Cherbourg at the Piazza Maggiore and many other bits and bobs.

An inspiring talk with Ross Higgins on the foundation of the Archives gaies du Québec. How did the archive came to be? Why did it come to be? What social and historical contexts shaped it? How did it develop from materials stored and used in his flat to an archive of national and international importance? Ross, who along with Jacques Prince, founded the archive, offers various histories and contexts, from changes in the law, to changing concepts of sexual and social identities, that informed how the archive developed and how it came to be what it now is, taking into account particularities of place but always conscious of larger forces and the interplay between them. A talk anyone interested in histories of sexualities, communities and the place of the archive in all of that, will find fascinating.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/04/04/in-conversation-with-richard-layne-on-yoko-ono-music-of-the-mind-tate-modern/

I talk to Richard Layne on ‘Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind’, currently on at Tate Modern. You might recognise Richard from our podcast, THINKING ALOUD ABOUT FILM. What you might not know is that he is a long-time fan of Yoko Ono and one of the most knowledgeable people on her work as an artist and performer. In this podcast, Richard, compares this exhibition, billed as the largest ever undertaken on the work of Yoko One, and compares it to the many others he’s attended. We talk of how he became a fan, her various types of work, the performance art, the conceptual art, her books of instructions, the connection to Fluxus. We also touch on her collaborations with some of the key figures of mid-twentieth century art (John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, John Lennon) and  how her work prefigures that of contemporary artists such as Marina Ibrahimovic. Our conversation broadly follows the flow of the exhibition itself, so I’ve included photographs from the exhibition in the blog so the listener might more clearly follow the points of conversation. Richard is very illuminating on why Yoko Ono is one of those figures that keep getting re-discovered periodically, on her extensive influence in various domains of art, from the gallery to punk, and on how she is a wonderful conduit to chance meetings with The Pet Shop Boys.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/02/13/jose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-sean-burns-on-dorothy-towers-and-death/

Sean Burns is a Birmingham-born, London-based artist; the author of DEATH, part of the LOOK AGAIN series of volumes interpreting the TATE’s collection through particular themes and published to coincide with TATE BRITAIN’S recent re-hang; and the director of DOROTHY TOWERS, a film in which I appear. In the accompanying podcast, we discuss these iconic Birmingham Tower blocks that are the subject of the film; how their design and location meant that generations of queers ended up living there and continue to do so; how these buildings have a patterned history but not just one story. There are different stories, different layers of stories, spectral and layered, plural. We discuss how ‘Queer’ in England is constantly re-written as something that only happens in London and how the film is often interpreted by audiences as a reclaiming and a validation of similar histories that have probably taken place in cities all over the country. It’s a film that also brings into play modernism, brutalism, drag, fashion, and urban design that prioritises cars over people. We discuss how the film was driven by a mandate to search but not necessarily to find; and how what is evoked is a layered history but one with the feeling that comes from a place in which death, mourning and sadness are spectral but not defining elements. A film aware of the perils of representation and thus conscientiously ethical in its approach. We talk also of Burn’s recent book on death, his obsession with Francis Bacon and George Dyer, how Ireland and Irishness are developing concerns, and whether death, mourning, and longing are themes common to all this work.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/02/12/thinking-aloud-about-film-out-of-the-blue-chen-kun-hou-taiwan-1983/

We continue our discussion of the GOLDEN DECADES: CINEMATIC MASTERS OF THE GOLDEN HORSE AWARDS with a chat on OUT OF THE BLUE (Chen Kun-Hou, Taiwan, 1983).

A fascinating film to discuss in relation to all our previous podcasts on Taiwanese Cinema and Hou Hsiao-hsien; a film directed by Chen Kun-hou, the cinematographer on Hou Hsiao-hsien’s early films such as THE GREEN, GREEN GRASS OF HOME (1982) and THE BOYS FROM FENGKUEI (1983). Chen Kun-hou is also the cinematographer on HE NEVER GIVES UP (LEE HSING, 1978), and of course Hou Hsia-hsien was the co-writer on GROWING PAINS (1983) and this one. These films also share writer, Chu T’ien-wen (the screenwriter) who went on to co-write most of Hou Hsia-hsien’s films, this one based on a novel by Chu T’ien-wen’s sister, Chu T’ien-hsin. Collectively ork that evokes an outpouring of creativity but as part of a circle of collaborators. And this particular film seems a turning point from the healthy realist cinema that was and the comedies and musicals that followed to what would become known as New Taiwanese Cinema. A key film, released just after BOYS FROM FENGKUEI; A film that takes its time, the camera lingers, yet never feels long, a story gently told about young love in trouble, filial duty, ties to family, small transgressions. Aspects bring to mind BEFORE SUNRISE (Richard Linklater, 1995) Arguably, one can’t understand New Taiwanese Cinema well without having a context; and this series is a shortcut to that context, the virtue is that it’s preselected, the films that that national industry thought the best; and within THAT, OUT OF THE BLUE is arguably the key film of that transition.

In the podcast we try to mix very personal responses to ALL OF US STRANGERS with various historical contexts and speak of the film’s setting in relation to queer childhoods in that period, section 28, trauma, erasure; the film’s formal and stylistic achievements; Andrew Haigh’s career; how the film speaks to psychoanalytic pain, a generational pain, grief, AIDS. The personal grounded in historical contexts as a platform for politics. It’s all in there

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/02/01/thinking-aloud-about-film-he-never-gives-up-li-hsing-taiwan-1978/

We continue our discussion of the GOLDEN DECADES: CINEMATIC MASTERS OF THE GOLDEN HORSE AWARDS with a chat on He Never Gives Up (LI Hsing, Taiwan, 1979). Li won the Golden Horse Award for Best Director for his films Beautiful Duckling (1965), Execution in Autumn (1972), and He Never Gives Up (1978) setting a record in Taiwan's film history that remains unbroken, marking the pinnacle of Li Hsing's directing career. It’s also part of a run -- Good Morning Taipei (1979) and The Story of A Small Town (1980) – of very successful films. This is our opportunity, a mixed blessing, to see a ‘Healthy Realist’ film, ‘uplifting’, and we now clearly see why the New Wave, so clearly a response to ‘Healthy Realism’ made such an impact. The film is based on a real story, published as A Raft in the Storm, that dealt with a child overcoming disability. We discuss, healthy realism, ideology, hope, disability, and the film’s trade in platitudes. Richard is the voice of reason; I despised many aspects of it.