The relief to be out of the sun, To have come north once more To my islands of dark ore Where winter is so long Only a little light Gets through, and that perfect. I think this is my favourite film poem. It’s not immediately obvious that it is about film; for that you needRead More
It is perhaps the most iconic of all photographic images. Eadweard Muybridge‘s running man (he made several photographic sequences of a man running, but I’m thinking of the one illustrated here) conjures up the very idea of photography. It has captured the instant, has brought a moment out of its specific time into all time.Read More
Here’s number 4 in an occasional series that reviews unfamiliar or neglected books on film. Today’s choice is Leslie Halliwell’s Halliwell’s Film Guide (London: Granada, 1977, 2nd ed. 1979, 3rd ed. 1981, 4th ed. 1983, 5th ed. 1985, 6th ed. 1987, 7th. ed. 1989). At first sight, Halliwell’s Film Guide may not seem a suitableRead More
Memory is an entirely personal thing. What we call our memories are constructions of the brain which alter according to time and circumstance. They are not objective, and they do not correlate exactly with reality, as any court of law can demonstrate. One person’s memories will never be precisely the memories of another person. NotionsRead More
This is an extraordinary image. It’s a Japanese postcard dating from 1908 (the postage stamp says Meijii 41, which is 1908). However the image that it shows dates from November 1899. It shows on the right the greatest of all kabuki actors, Ichikawa Danjuro IX (1838-1903), and on the left Onoe Kikugoro V (1844-1903), secondRead More
Sight & Sound has published a poll of the most useful and/or inspirational film books ever written. Not the best books ever, but those which have proven of the greatest value or which are most important to the fifty or so critics invited to take part. I was one of those invited to contribute, thoughRead More
Frame still from 1935 home movie footage by Group Captain Lister showing the bombing of Warziristan villages in Afghanistan in 1935, from a 1980 BBC documentary Television is changing. This change is not simply in the modes of delivery (essentially the broadband and broadcast trend demonstrated by iPlayer, Hulu, SeeSaw, Project Canvas and such like)Read More
Here’s number 3 in an occasional series that reviews unfamiliar or neglected books on film. Today’s choice is Hanns Zischler, Kafka Goes to the Movies (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2003). Was at the movies. Wept. Lolotte. The good pastor. The little bicycle. The reconcilitation of the parents. Boundless entertainment. Before that a sad film,Read More
Here’s number 2 in an occasional series that reviews unfamiliar or neglected books on film. This time we take a look at Neil Sinyard, Filming Literature: The Art of Screen Adaptation (London/Sydney: Croom Helm, 1986). “The legacy of the nineteenth-century novel is the twentieth-century film”. The opening line of Neil Sinyard’s Filming Literature is typicalRead More
The National Archives recently issued some declassified MI5 files which cast an intriguing light on one corner of British film history. An MI5 dossier says that Sidney Bernstein, owner of the Granada cinema chain, a founder of ITV, and later Lord Bernstein and a fellow of the British Film Institute, was a Soviet informer. AsRead More