The Cinematologists Podcast

In this final episode of Season 12 Neil and Dario chat, casually, about some of their favourite films of the past year. They chose five each to give a special focus to and elsewhere in the episode there are some honourable mentions and also shout out to the pair's favourite film podcasts of the last 12 months.

It's been a helluva year. No need to go over it again. But, The Cinematologists hope you are doing ok and thank you for your continued support of this podcast. Without the listeners and the community around the show that you have helped build, Neil and Dario's 2020 would have been much worse. 

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

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Podchaser 

We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Walter Murch is one of the seminal figures in American cinema in terms of defining film craft. His editing and sound design work, in many ways, provides the audio-visual architecture to the most influential films of New Hollywood and his collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola on The Conversation, The Godfather and Apocalypse Now would influence a generation of filmmakers to follow. Jon Lefkovitz's feature length audio-visual essay, draws upon a wealth public interviews, discussions and lectures by Murch which demonstrate how his technical craftsmanship is borne out of a deep philosophical understanding of cinema as an art form, and how we respond, cognitively and emotionally, to it. Dario discusses with Jon the labour of love in amalgamating the hours of audio with images that visually enhance and reflect Murch's ideas. This gives rise to many topics of conversation including: cinema as a sound as much as a visual medium, the role of the cinematographer in relation to the director, Murch's continued influence on cinema from analogue to the digital age, the difference between the craft and art of film, and the cold realities of working in the film industry when you are not the one with final creative control.

The film Sight and Sound: The Cinema of Walter Murch is free to view on Vimeo. 

With the pandemic still wreaking havoc in all areas of life, Dario and Neil discuss the present and future of cinema particularly in light of Warner Bros. decision to put it all new releases onto the streaming service HBO Max at the same time as they go into cinemas.

Also under discussion are the recent viewings of David Fincher's ode to old Hollywood Mank, brutally honest and intriguingly subjective documentary Time (Garrett Bradley), highly entertaining Russian horror sci-fi but with a Hollywood sensibility Sputnik, and an even more terrifying socially conscious British horror from Remi Weeks: His House.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify 

Google Podcasts

Podchaser 

We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Transition music - P.O.V. - Composed and performed by Jon Lefkovitz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u90H1x3AJm4

To coincide with the cinema release of the new drama County Lines, directed by one of today's guests Henry Blake, Neil and Dario discuss the form and legacies of that oft contested term 'social realism', asking if it has a place in today's British Cinema landscape and if recent releases such as Fyzal Boulifa's Lynn + Lucy and Mark Jenkin's Bait are evidence of a 'new wave'.

As well as Henry's interview with Neil, Dario talks with Sarah Gavron, director of one of the most acclaimed of the recent British 'social' dramas, Rocks, recently released in cinemas by Altitude Films and currently screening on Netflix.

Neil and Dario also wax lyrical on Steve McQueen's Lovers Rock and Neil confuses The Long Good Friday with The Long Goodbye.

Show Notes

Guy Lodge's Variety review of County Lines, mentioned by Dario on the show.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify 

Google Podcasts

Podchaser 

We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

To coincide with the Blu Ray (Arrow Films) release of Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang's wonderful elegy to the cinema Goodbye Dragon Inn, we are reposting one of our earliest episodes. Associated with what has come to be known a slow cinema, Tsai's subtly observed visual storytelling utilising long shots, intricate framing and editing but with minimalist dialogue, demands an a deep level of  attention in the viewer. The empty, dilapidated movie palace at the centre of the story a metaphor for wider rejection of the auditorium experience. Recorded live at Falmouth University, the episode now feels like a bittersweet look back at a time when the status of cinema-going was undoubtedly a topic of lament, but not to the extent that it is now. 

The episode also features an interview with academic Sarah Atkinson about her book, Beyond The Screen: Emerging Cinema and Engaging Audience - which presents an expanded conceptualization of cinema which encompasses the myriad ways film can be experienced in a digitally networked society where the auditorium is now just one location amongst many in which audiences can encounter and engage with films.

Listening back to the audio was also a reminder to us as to how far the podcast has come in the 5 years since we started. There is definitely a rough and ready feel about the audio, but we hope you 'appreciate' that.

Goodbye Dragon Inn is released on Blu Ray with Arrow Films on 23rd of November.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify 

Google Podcasts

Podchaser 

We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

On this episode, Dario and Neil delve into the career of Ang Lee. For this discussion, they are joined by writer Ellen Cheshire, a former guest on the show (Ep69, Jane Campion's The Piano), whose new book on Ang Lee prompted this episode. 

Find out more about Ellen's books (and more importantly buy them!) here.

In addition, Neil talks to one of his students, third year undergraduate Francesco Signorello, about the 2003 film Hulk, and its impact both negatively and positively on the now ubiquitous superhero movie landscape. 

To kick things off, Neil and Dario also touch on Dario's new article for Film-Philosophy, A Cinema for the Ears: Imagining the Audio-Cinematic through Podcasting, which is available to read, open source, here.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify 

Google Podcasts

Podchaser 

We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Sports films hold formative relevance for both Dario and Neil, and the sports documentary as a sub-genre is the focus and inspiration for a wide-ranging discussion on our latest episode. How does cinema make sport cinematic and what is the difference, for filmmakers and audiences alike, between sports documentary films and watching sports on Television.

The episode is structured around an interview with Finlay Pretsell, a former cyclist and director of Time Trial: A Race to the End. On the surface, the film is a biographical account of the final year of cyclist David Millar, as he comes to terms with retirement after a successful but turbulent career. But more than that the film is an immersive experiment in bringing the audience into the physical and psychological experience of pro cycling. Time Trial is available on the BBC Iplayer and we highly recommend you check it out.

Discussion of Time Trial offers avenues through which to examine how cinema takes the sport out of the immediate yet reductive question of winners and losers. Dario outlines a taxonomy of sports documentaries but this is tricky as the most lauded examples of the genre transcend simple classification both in terms of form and content. The key question: how does cinema make sports cinematic is exemplified seminal films under discussion including Asif Kapadia's detailed archival biographies Senna (2010) and Diego Maradona (2019), the observational detail of Steve James' Hoop Dreams (1994) and Jørgen Leith's A Sunday in Hell (1977), and the transcendent charisma of the sports icon Muhammad Ali is captured with grand scope in When We Were Kings (Leon Gast, 1996) and through a more personal intimacy in I Am Ali (2014, Clare Lewins). Exposes of the darker side of sports are another strand with the multiple films on Lance Armstrong, the wider question of doping tackled in the Oscar-winning Icarus and the recent harrowing account of abuse in American gymnastics explored in Bonni Cohen and John Shenk's Athlete A (2019). 

Discussion of the intersection between cinema and sport on a conceptual level is no-where more apparent than in Julian Faraut's John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection (2018). Neil and Dario discuss how this film demonstrates that both cinema and sport push the boundaries of experience to reach the level of art. In this sense, what is essential about both art and cinema is not coherence or completeness, but moments of transcendence which offer a glimpse of something that expands human potential.

Neil also rounds up recent DVD releases from BFI and Masters of Cinema: Dementia (1955, John Parker), Sleepwalkers (1992, Mick Garris) & 976-Evil (1988, Robert Englund) and also analysed is the recent hard-hitting example of British social realism Lynn + Lucy (2019, Fyzal Boulifa)

You can subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify 

Google Podcasts

Podchaser 

We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Email: [email protected]

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

The occasion of Second Sight Film's wonderful 4K release of Nicolas Roeg's debut feature as sole director allowed for a chance to spend some time focusing on a favourite filmmaker of the podcast. 

Thanks to AIM Publicity we were offered the chance to talk to one of the film's actors, leading British film producer and son of the director, Luc Roeg. Neil spoke to him earlier in the year and that conversation forms the basis of this episode, alongside a chat Neil had with Melbourne based film critic Andrew Peirce on the legacy of the film in Australian film culture. 

Neil and Dario get into the slippery nature of the film's representational politics and stark, beautiful aesthetic and kick the episode off trying to remain positive in the face of an overwhelmingly bleak period for the global cinema industry.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify 

Google Podcasts

Podchaser 

We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

For the second episode of Season 12, the Cinematologists take a customary left turn from the last episode and get into the weeds about what it's like to be embarking on a new academic year in cinema, for teachers and students, undergraduates and those doing PhDs.

Neil and Dario are joined by Freya Billington from UWE and Dr Catherine Wheatley from King's College London to talk about practice and theory and their intersections, the realities of life in a blended/online teaching world for users at both ends and the need for hope, reflection and kindness in addition to the usual curiosity and determination.

While focused on the teaching of film the episode includes reflections on the social and political moment that are wider than what's going on in film education or even film itself, encompassing as much of the moment we are all in as is possible in an hour-long film podcast chat.

There's also a preamble chat that takes in new Blu-ray releases of This Gun For Hire (Eureka/MoC) and After The Fox (BFI)

Links:

Freya on Twitter

Catherine on Twitter

Neil and Freya's conversation about teaching film production in the COVID era for the journal Digital Culture and Education.

The Chantal Akerman Foundation

10 Essential Akerman Films (BFI)

Information about The Hays Code [briefly mentioned by Catherine] (BFI)

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify 

Google Podcasts

Podchaser 

or visit our website: www.cinematologists.com

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Season 12 of the Cinematologists is here. And we start with a bang. Episode 106 features an interview with legendary filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich discussing with Dario and Neil his beautifully crafted celebration of one of silent cinema's brightest stars: Buster Keaton. The Great Buster (released on DVD and Blu-ray on Monday 21st) reminds of the genius of Keaton's comedic imagination, covering his early years in vaudeville, his entry into cinema with the string of early two-reeler "gag-fests", the classic feature period in the twenties, and onto his later career where his autonomy was curtailed by the increasingly formulaic nature of the studio system. Throughout, however, even in his later years working in commercials, television, on stage, and in many films that couldn't live up to his talent, flashes of the comedic imagination are apparent along with the incredible physicality and understanding of action in shaping humour. Peter discusses Keaton's legacy in-depth, his influence on film aesthetics and grammar, the legacy of his masterpieces in the twenties including The General, along with pointing out the virtuoso elements in his lesser-known films. He also talks about the process of putting the documentary together, his ideas for changing the chronology, interviews with star contributors, and his own voice-over performance. We hope you enjoy this opportunity to spend time in the company of one of the pivotal filmmakers of American cinema as he discusses an icon of his own.

Thanks to Tom Finney of Blue Dolphin Films for setting up the interview and if you want to see the film at the cinema there is a screening and Q&A at London's fabulous Genesis cinema on the 29th of September, hosted by friend of the show Pamela Hutchinson.

Alongside this, we are delighted to premiere our new theme music, written exclusively for the Cinematologists by Welsh singer-songwriter Gwenno. Both Neil and Dario have long been fans of her sound. We recommend that you download her latest album Le Kov.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify 

Podchaser 

or visit our website: www.cinematologists.com

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

The first of our collaborations with the BFI Japan season focuses on what is generally regarded as a masterpiece of cinema: Yasujirö Ozu's Tokyo Story (1953). In many ways, a simple story of grandparents visiting their children in the city, but one that gradually builds on the resentments and disappointments of intergenerational alienation. Dario and Neil discuss the film in terms of its status in 'the canon', its reverence as Ozu's finest work in a prolific career, and as arguably the purest distillation of the auteur's thematic and formal concerns. A masterclass in directorial precision and visual composition that both registers as a distinct piece of cinematic art but equally, immerses the viewer into its film world where situations and character relations play out in subtle but profound ways. 

Dario and Neil also discuss some of the other films they have watched in the BFI Japan season so far, including Mikio Naruse's Floating Clouds (1955) and When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960). Again, these are films that are painted on the canvas of post-war Japan but focus on the uncertain status and role of women with both featuring the superb Hideko Takamine in the leading role. Very different are Takeshi Kitano's violent, Nihilistic thrillers Violent Cop (1989), Boiling Point (1990) and Sonatine (1993). Visceral gripping, and bleak they are riveting examples of Japanese cinema made with an American B-movie sensibility. And for some trashy fun look no further than 'king of the monster movies' Ishiro Honda: Mothra (1961), Dogora (1964) & Godzilla v King Kong (1962) can all be found on Amazon Prime.

Neil also reviews a new series of Bela Lugosi films based on the work of Edgar Allen Poe and released by Masters of Cinema: Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) The Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935).

This is our final episode of Season 11, we thank you for the continued support and hope you rejoin us back in the autumn.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/the-cinematologists-podcast/id981479854

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0RjNz8XDkLdbKZuj9Pktyh

Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/users/thecinematologists

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.