John Cassavetes' Opening Night Blu-Ray Review

Opening Night is the latest John Cassavetes film BFI being re-released on a dual format blu-ray/dvd combo. They started they’re reissues back in April 2012 with the landmark films Shadows and Faces (which I just picked up the other day). One of the very first reviews I did for the people’s movies / cinehouse was Shadows which to this day remains my favourite Cassavetes directorial effort.

Opening Night is a later Cassavetes film in that golden period of American cinema known as the New Hollywood of the 1970s. Cassavetes was one of the first truly independent American directors of feature films (sometime mistaken as the first but Sam Fuller was a decade before). John would act or sometimes direct Hollywood films so he could fund (and distribute) his more personal improvisational melodramas. John Sayles would later do a similar thing but in that case screenwriting.

Opening Night is very much A Woman Under the Influence (one of Cassavetes’ best films and most well known) goes Broadway. Like A Woman Under the Influence it’s stars John Cassavetes’ real life wife Gena Rowlands who plays the central character Myrtle Gordon, a actress who is rehearsing for her latest play. The play is about a woman unable to admit she is aging and it has many parallels to her own mid-life crisis. Myrtle witnesses a young woman who gets killed after trying to meet her after a preview of the play and this deeply troubles her and she feels responsible for her death. Her feelings of guilt start to interfere with her professional work but she also has a serious drinking problem as well. The film deals with her very complicated relationships with the stage director (played by frequent Cassavetes collaborator Ben Gazzara) producer, fellow actors (including one played by John Cassavetes) etc. She also starts having hallucinations of the dead girl near the end of the film, which reminds you of Black Swan, a similar themed film about the parallels of a stage life and personal life and the eventual merging of the 2.

Like many of Cassavetes films he could certain use with some reigning in during the editing process (many of his films have went though many cuts and released and then withdrawn and re-released) and the film suffers from many way too long. It’s round the 2 hour and 30 minute mark with many scenes of the play wasting the running time and being pretty obvious with it’s parallels with Myrtle’s life. Cassavetes was first and foremost an actor and all his films are very much actor’s pieces and he is great and bringing out great performances but they can become too actory and stagey (most evident in this film for obvious reasons). Cassavetes has always struggled with pacing in his films and this is no exception but it has a great performance by Gena Rowlands. I would recommend seeing A Woman Under the Influence before you see this, which is the superior film and performance.

★★★½☆

Ian Schultz

DVD/BD Release Date:27th May 2013 (UK)
Director: John Cassavetes
Cast:John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara, Joan Blondell

Buy: Opening Night (DVD & Blu-ray)

Anthony Asquith's Underground To Get BFI Release This June

Anthony Asquith's Underground (1928), a subterranean tale of love, jealousy, treachery and murder, evokes the daily life of the average Londoner better than any other film in Britain's silent canon. Restored by the BFI National Archive and following an acclaimed theatrical release in January, the BFI now brings the film to DVD and Blu-ray for the first time on 17 June 2013 in a Dual Format Edition. It is presented with a new orchestral score composed by Neil Brand and performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra; along with five short complementary films and an alternative score by musician/sound recordist Chris Watson

In the late 1920s Asquith, along with Hitchcock, was one of the most audacious young talents in British film and Underground was his own original screenplay. With its scenes of the bustling tube (passenger behaviour is strikingly familiar) and the capital’s parks, double-decker buses, pubs and shabby bedsits, Asquith masterfully balances the light and dark sides of city life, aided by a superb cast of Brian Aherne and Elissa Landi as the nice young lovers and Norah Baring and Cyril McLaglen as their unhappy counterparts

At just 26, Asquith's direction is assured, efficient and spare with some remarkably cinematic flourishes, clearly inspired by contemporary German and Russian filmmaking. It climaxes with a thrilling chase scene across the rooftops of the Lots Road Power Station.

For many years the restoration of Underground presented insurmountable difficulties, but developments in digital technology have enabled the BFI to make a significant improvement to the surviving film elements.

Special features
• Feature presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition
• Newly commissioned score by Neil Brand presented in 5.1 and 2.0
• Alternative score by Chris Watson
• The Premier and His Little Son (1909-12, 1 min): previously unseen footage of Anthony Asquith as a child
• A Trip on the Metropolitan Railway (1910, 13 mins, DVD only)
• Scenes at Piccadilly Circus and Hyde Park Corner (1930-32, 6 mins, DVD only)
• Seven More Stations (1948, 12 mins, DVD only): a film about the expansion of the Central Line beyond Stratford
• Under Night Streets (1958, 20 mins): a documentary about the tube's nightshift workers
• Illustrated booklet featuring film notes and new essays by Christian Wolmar and Neil Brand.

Pre-order/buy: Underground (DVD + Blu-ray)

BFI To Release Weird Adventures On DVD In June

The last feature made by the distinguished duo of Powell and Pressburger is one of three films featured on a new volume of Children's Film Foundation tales, Weird Adventures, released on DVD by the BFI on 17 June 2013.

This latest collection brings together Alberto Cavalcanti’s The Monster of Highgate Ponds (1961), Powell and Pressburger’s The Boy Who Turned Yellow (1972) and A Hitch in Time (Jan Darnley-Smith, 1978) which stars Patrick Troughton.

In The Monster of Highgate Ponds young David promises to guard a mysterious egg which his uncle brings back from Malaysia. But, when a baby monster hatches, mayhem ensues as David struggles to keep the unruly, but friendly, creature from falling into the clutches of two ruthless crooks. This enchanting tale, shot on location on Hampstead Heath, features brilliant animated sequences by the legendary Halas & Batchelor, who also produced the film, and was directed by the celebrated Ealing director Alberto Cavalcanti (Went the Day Well?).

The Boy Who Turned Yellow is the splendidly eccentric final collaboration from eminent filmmaking duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes). London schoolboy John Saunders turns bright yellow after losing his pet mouse on a school trip. Is the mysterious colour change the result of an alien invasion or does the answer lie closer to home?

In A Hitch in Time, Patrick Troughton (Doctor Who) plays time-hopping inventor Professor Adam Wagstaff. Discovered working on his time machine by two curious kids, Wagstaff decides to send them back through the ages. But, with malfunctions a-plenty, will they be able to make it back? Featuring Jeff Rawle (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) as 'Sniffy' Kemp, the teacher out to spoil everybody's fun, A Hitch in Time is a riotous retelling of history.

For over 30 years the Children's Film Foundation produced quality entertainment for young audiences, employing the cream of British filmmaking talent. Newly transferred from the best available elements held in the BFI National Archive, these much-loved and fondly remembered films finally return to the screen after many years out of distribution in specially curated DVD releases from the BFI. The fourth volume of CFF films, Bumps in the Night, will be released in October 2013.



Special Features

• Brand new High Definition transfers of all films;
• Illustrated booklet with writing by Michael Powell, Lem Kitaj (who played Munro in The Boy Who Turned Yellow), Vivian Halas and BFI curator Vic Pratt

Pre-Order/Buy:Children's Film Foundation Collection: Weird Adventures (The Boy Who Turned Yellow | The Monster of Highgate Pond | A Hitch in Time) [DVD]

 

BFI To Release Jean Rouch's Chronicle Of A Summer This Month on Dual Play

On 27 May 2013 the BFI releases the hugely influential French documentary Chronicle of a Summer, newly restored, on Blu-ray and DVD (in a Dual Format Edition) for the first time in the UK.

Shot in Paris during the summer of 1960 and released the following year, Chronicle of a Summer is the compelling result of a collaboration between anthropologist filmmaker Jean Rouch and sociologist Edgar Morin.

Jean Rouch (Moi, un noir, Les maîtres fous) and Edgar Morin set out to chronicle the everyday lives of Parisians using a mixture of intimate interviews, debates and observation. Artists, factory workers, office employees, students and others open up to the camera to share their experiences, fears and aspirations. The film became one of the most influential of the sixties, and redefined the documentary form with its use of handheld cameras and observational techniques.

Rouch, whose work inspired the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette and Roberto Rossellini, trained his ethnographic lens on the metropolis, recording a series of extraordinary sequences, including a French survivor’s Holocaust testimony, to reveal the political underlying the personal in a society struggling into the post-colonial era.

The film questions the level of reality and truth in documentary filmmaking, and offers a fascinating insight into 1960’s Parisian society.



Special Features:
• Presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition
• Brand new restoration
• Un été + 50 (Florence Daumon, 2011, 75 mins): documentary on the making of Chronicle of a Summer featuring new interviews with the participants including Edgar Morin and Régis Debray
• Jean Rouch at the NFT (1978, 55 mins): audio recording of a lecture delivered by Jean Rouch on Dziga Vertov and Robert Flaherty's influence on his work and that of his peers
• Illustrated booklet with newly commissioned essays by Professor Ginette Vincendeau

Pre-order /Buy: Chronicle of a Summer (DVD + Blu-ray)

BFI To Release Carlos Saura's Hauntingly brilliant Cría cuervos This May

One of cinema’s most hauntingly vivid depictions of a child’s fantasy-imbued reality, Cría cuervos is a darkly unsettling and deeply touching film which stands as a landmark of Spanish cinema. Released for the first time in the UK, on 27 May 2013, this BFI Dual Format Edition (DVD and Blu-ray discs) also contains an hour-long portrait of Carlos Saura (Carmen, Blood Wedding) and an on-stage interview with the director.

Shot in the summer of 1975 as General Franco lay dying, Saura's masterpiece takes its title from a sinister Spanish proverb: Raise ravens and they'll pluck out your eyes.

Eight-year-old Ana (the spellbinding Ana Torrent from The Spirit of the Beehive) lives in a mysterious mansion in central Madrid, cut off from the roaring traffic and urban bustle by a high-walled garden. Recently orphaned, she believes herself to have poisoned her cold, authoritarian father (Héctor Alterio), a high-ranking military man whom she blames for the death of her much adored, musically gifted mother (Geraldine Chaplin in a performance of exquisite tenderness). Now cared for, along with her two sisters, by her uptight, scolding Aunt Paulina (Mónica Randall), Ana has ample opportunity to observe the frustrations – emotional, sexual, and professional – of her adult female relatives. This is a world of secrets and lies in which only the family maid Rosa (Florinda Chico) will respond frankly to questions about sex or the Spanish Civil War.

Cría cuervos was nominated for a Golden Globe and won the Grand Prize at Cannes in 1977. It enjoyed a highly successful BFI theatrical release in June 2011 when it received 5 star reviews.

Special Features

• Presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition;
• Portrait of Carlos Saura (José Luis López-Linares, 2004, 63 mins, DVD only)
• On-stage interview with Carlos Saura (2012, 23 mins, DVD only)
• Optional alternative English language soundtrack;
• Original theatrical trailers;
• Illustrated booklet featuring new essays and notes from Maria Delgado, Mar Diestro-Dópido and Michael Brooke.


Pre-Order/Buy Cria Cuervos:Dual Format Edition [DVD + Blu-ray] [1976]

John Cassavetes Opening Night To Get BFI UK Home Release This May

The latest release in the BFI’s John Cassavetes Collection, out on 27 May 2013, is the award-winning Opening Night (1977), starring Gena Rowlands, John Cassavetes and Ben Gazarra.

Released on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK, it is presented in a Dual Format Edition (also contains a DVD disc). Numerous extras include an audio commentary, a documentary – Memories of John and Peter Falk (Columbo) talking about John Cassavetes.

Broadway actress Myrtle Gordon (Gena Rowlands) rehearses for her latest play about a woman in denial at the onset of her autumn years. When Myrtle witnesses the accidental death of an adoring young fan, it leads to a crisis of confidence in both her professional and her personal life which threatens to undermine the whole production.

Featuring a startling and compelling performance by Gena Rowlands, which won her the Silver Bear for Best Actress in 1978, Opening Night is arguably one of John Cassavetes’ most self-reflexive works and offers an insightful and intriguing evocation of the theatrical experience from both sides of the proscenium.

Click here to see Peter Falk talking about the director, along with a short clip from the film:

Special Features

• Presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition;
• Audio commentary by Tom Charity, Mike Ferris and Bo Harwood;
• Memories of John (DVD only, 29 mins);
• Falk on Cassavetes: the later years (DVD only, 14 mins);
• Illustrated booklet featuring interviews and essays from Tom Charity, Al Ruban and Peter Bogdanovich

Pre-Order/Buy: Opening Night (DVD & Blu-ray) 1977

BFI Adding Pasolini's Theorem (Teorema) To Home Release This May

Following its theatrical release this month, the BFI will bring Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Theorem (1968) to Blu-ray for the first time in the UK when it is released complete and uncut in a Dual Format Edition (includes a DVD disc) on 27 May 2013. The new high definition digital transfer has restored picture and sound. Special features include a filmed interview with Terence Stamp, a feature commentary and an optional English language soundtrack.

A handsome, enigmatic stranger (Terence Stamp) arrives at a bourgeois household in Milan and successively seduces each family member, not forgetting the maid. Then, as abruptly and mysteriously as he arrived, he departs, leaving the distraught members of the household to make what sense they can of their lives in the void of his absence.

In this cool, richly complex and provocative political allegory, Pasolini uses his schematic plot to explore family dynamics, the intersection of class and sex, and the nature of different sexualities. After winning a prize at the Venice Film Festival, Theorem was subsequently banned on an obscenity charge, but Pasolini later won an acquittal on the grounds of the film’s ‘high artistic value’.

Theorem is visually ravishing, with superb performances from its international cast and a brilliantly eclectic soundtrack featuring music by composers ranging from Mozart to Morricone.

Special Features
• Presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition;
• Optional alternative English language soundtrack;
• Audio commentary by Italian film expert Robert Gordon;
• An Interview with Terence Stamp (2007, 34 mins, DVD only);
• 2013 theatrical release trailer;
• Illustrated booklet with an essay by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, a review by Philip Strick and biographies of Pasolini and Stamp.

Pe-order/buy:Theorem (DVD + Blu-ray)

Tess Blu-Ray Review

Tess was the film Roman Polanski made at the end of quite arguably his great period coming on the tails of The Tenant and Chinatown (his masterpiece). Tess however is a very different kettle of fish to those 2 films, one is homage to film noir and one a rather disturbing psychological thriller. Tess based on novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. He made Tess in part as a tribute to his wife Sharon Tate who of course was brutally murdered by The Manson family. Sharon gave Roman a copy not long before her untimely death saying “it would make a great film”.

Tess is about a young woman naturally called Tess. Her family the Durbeyfields find out they a part of old noble family. They have fallen on very hard times and her father makes her see their “relatives”. Her father is hoping for some kind hand-out or work. Tess arrives and her Alec d'Urberville falls madly for her and tries to seduce her but Tess isn’t interested. Alec in reality just bought the name to seem more important than he is. He rapes her and impregnates hers but the child soon dies after birth. She starts working on a dairy farm and begins working as a milkmaid and falls in love with Angel Clare. They start a relationship and get married but it does not end well for all parties concerned.

The film is probably most noted for it being the film that propelled Klaus Kinski’s beautiful daughter Nastassja Kinski to worldwide stardom and it’s luscious photography. Nastassja’s accent is patchy at times but it’s more adequate. The supporting cast is very disappointing especially compared to Polanski’s previous work with no real standouts. It’s from all accounts very faithful to the original Thomas Hardy novel (I’ve never read it) and it’s shows cause for such a simple tale, it does drag a bit especially with it’s near 3 hour running time. Despite its flaws it’s absolutely gorgeous to look at and Nastassja Kinski has always being a captivating screen presence.

Tess was the centrepiece of a recent retrospective of Roman Polanski’s work at London’s BFI and it’s no wonder they have re-released it on a blu-ray/dvd double pack. Polanski is better at psychological torment which Tess touches on near the end with it’s unfortunate incident but check out his earlier work before you watch Tess.

Ian Schultz

★★★★☆

Rating: 12
Directed By: Roman Polanski
Cast: Nastassja Kinski, Peter Firth, Leigh Lawson 
Buy:Tess (DVD & Blu-ray) [1979]

Ellipse The Movie Needs Your Help , Film and Science worlds collide at the Royal Observatory

Love Science Fiction? Fancy joining Sci-fi London and help them fund a great little Sci-fi  Project? Yes! Read On!

Following in the steps of the vastly successful projects helped along by Kickstarter, Sponsume (www.sponsume.com) are asking Science and Sci-Fi film fans to help fund the final edits and special effects of movie Ellipse to ensure it achieves its full filmic potential. Filmed at the impressive Royal Observatory, the story aims to inspire and encourage interest in science and the creative arts with emphasis to inspire girls to engage with the science sector.

The film, which premieres at the BFI Southbank on Friday 3rd May 2013 is so extraordinary in its authenticity of scientific representation. Real research sits at the core of the film with data from NASA's Kepler mission and EXOPLANET app. Hanno Rein, from the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton has chosen several stars with Exoplanets to feature on screen and in the accompanying educational pack for schools written by Dr Lewis Dartnell and Marek Kukula, the Public Astronomer at the Observatory.

Synopsis

Directed by award winning Ilana Rein and produced by Louis Savy, founder of UK’s premiere science fiction event SCI-FI LONDON, the film starts off in 17th century London where Louise de Kérouaille, a mistress of Charles II and keen amateur mathematician, persuades the King to build an observatory in Greenwich. She encounters an unusual character, LEO (Brian Bovell). Centuries later, RO (Deborah Bouchard), a young girl also meets LEO and her interest in astronomy begins. As an astrophysicist in adult life, working with real NASA data, RO can investigate whether we are really alone.

Louis Savy, Festival Director, SCI-FI-LONDON says: “Science fiction film has been a key influence on so many of today’s scientists as film sparked their imaginations when they were kids. I want to contribute to making those sparks for today’s generation. Also, I must have seen over 10,000 sci-fi shorts and features coming through the festival and think it’s about time we made one!”

Award-winning Ilana Rein directs Ellipse. She says: "I love that so many incredibly talented people are on board for Ellipse – it proves to me that people recognize that we are creating a film that will spread inspiration through art. I know that women are vastly underrepresented in the sciences and we hope to help be a part of changing that in the coming generation. Having the Royal Observatory as a location is a filmmaker's dream and the fact that it's a true sci-fi story filmed there adds to the excitement."

Encouraging girls towards following their dreams in science
Women are vastly underrepresented in science, and we need thoughtful, positive strategies to engage young girls in science subjects at school. Ellipse begins with a 10 year old girl in a London park, and shows her successful journey as an astrophysicist, leading a crucial mission to the discovery of life in other solar systems. The female lead and real NASA data used in the film work together: Ellipse encourages girls to believe there is room for women in the sciences.

Crowd-funding films The producers of the film needed to fund this film as cuts to the Observatory's budget wouldn't allow for this type of project. Therefore the film has had to use a crowd funding platform, Sponsume.com, to help finance the project.

The details are here: http://www.sponsume.com/project/ellipse

BFI To Release The Coi Collection Volume 8 - Your Children And You This April

The latest volume in the BFI’s ongoing series of film collections from the archives of the Central Office of Information, Your Children and You, released on 15 April, takes a look at social attitudes towards parenting and children in the post-war era. Hand-knitted woollies, a short back and sides, strict family roles, kids being encouraged to play outside, cut-glass English accents and endlessly charming boys and girls are all in evidence. And, somewhat surprisingly perhaps, there are no slaps, slippers or canes are to be found anywhere.

From post-war films to promote healthy eating, good schooling and getting your little ones off to sleep – three crucial issues for today’s parents – to a 1980s documentary on Mary Warnock’s work around ethical issues in the early days of IVF, this unique collection charts our ever-evolving attitudes to child-rearing.

On 15 April 2013 the BFI releases Your Children and You, a fascinating DVD collection of Government-sponsored films from 1946-1985 advising parents, teachers, students and carers on pregnancy, birth, parenting, childhood, child development, child psychology and school days.

From 1940s films promoting healthy eating, good schooling and getting your little ones off to sleep - three crucial issues for today's parents - to a 1980s documentary on Mary Warnock's work around ethical issues in the early days of IVF, this unique collection charts our ever-evolving attitudes to child-rearing.

The majority of films here were made during the 1940s, when a spike in the birth rate immediately after World War II meant there was a pressing need to give clear and effective instructions to first-time parents on the dos and don'ts of bringing up baby.

Highlights of the collection include: Your Children and You (1946), an unexpectedly contemporary guide to the practicalities of caring for babies and youngsters; Children Growing Up with Other People (1947), an observational film about childhood and adolescence; The Three A's: A County Modern School (1947), a portrait of the pioneering and idyllic-looking Allertonshire County Modern School in North Yorkshire; Charley Junior's Schooldays (1949), in which Halas and Batchelor colour animation illustrates the workings of the new Education Act; and Children's Thought and Language (1971), which looks at the development of language and reasoning amongst young children.

Also included are four complementary bonus films about childbirth and motherhood from the collection held in the Wellcome Library, giving an insight into the pre-NHS health and welfare landscape before 1948. Three of the films feature newly recorded soundtracks. Bathing and Dressing (1935) is a meticulous demonstration of how to bathe and change a very young baby, Toxaemia of Pregnancy (1958) is an educational film about this serious condition, Maternity: A Film of Queen Charlotte's Hospital (1935) is about antenatal and postnatal care in the 1930s, and Childbirth as an Athletic Feat (1939) demonstrates antenatal exercises suitable for mothers-to-be.

Disc One
• Your Children and You (1946)
• Children Growing Up with Other People (1947)
• Your Children's Meals (1947)
• The Three A's: A County Modern School (1947)
• Charley Junior's Schooldays (1949)
…plus bonus Wellcome Library films:
• Bathing and Dressing, Parts 1 & 2 (1935) (new soundtrack)
• Toxaemia of Pregnancy (1958) (original audio)

Disc Two
• Your Children's Sleep (1948)
• A Family Affair (1950)
• Child Welfare (1962)
• Children's Society: Aunts and Uncles (1960)
• Children's Thought and Language (1971)
• A Woman's Place (Test Tube Babies) (1985)
…plus bonus Wellcome Library films:
• Maternity: A film of Queen Charlotte's Hospital (1932) (new musical accompaniment)
• Childbirth as an Athletic Feat (1939) (new musical accompaniment)

In addition to the four Wellcome Library films, there is an illustrated booklet with essays and film notes by BFI National Archive curators and Wellcome Library experts.

Pre-order/buy:COI Collection: Volume 8 - Your Children and You [DVD]

BFI to release Roman Polanski's Tess (1979) on DVD & Blu-ray This March

On 18 March the BFI will release Tess, the triple Oscar-winning 1979 adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s novel, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, directed by Roman Polanski (Chinatown, The Pianist). This beautiful-looking film, mastered from a stunning 4K ultra high resolution digital restoration, is presented in a Dual Format Edition, bringing it to Blu-ray for the first time in the UK. Special features include three documentaries covering the adaptation, the technical challenges and the filming experience.

Nastassia Kinski (Cat People, Paris, Texas) gives a career-defining performance as the ill-fated peasant girl of noble origin, whose beauty is both her fortune and her undoing and has strong support from Peter Firth (Equus, The Hunt for Red October, Spooks) and Leigh Lawson (Being Julia, Casanova, Silent Witness).

Reportedly the most expensive film ever made in France at the time, both the long shoot and post-production work had their problems. Original cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth died suddenly during filming and was replaced by Ghislain Cloquet. The Wessex setting needed to be authentically recreated in France, right down to a replica Stonehenge. The film was the first in France to use Dolby Stereo and with an initial cut of over three hours, months more work was needed to reduce it by 20 minutes.

The film went on to win Oscars for Art Direction, Cinematography and Costume Design, the latter won by Anthony Powell, whose original designs are seen here in a short film, a BAFTA for Cinematography and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film.

Hardy’s enduring 1891 novel continues to sell strongly and last year booksellers reported a huge spike in sales after its appearance and significance in the 4 million-selling erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey.

Special Features:
• New 4K digital restoration
• Presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition
• Tess: From Novel to Screen (Laurent Bouzereau, 2004, 29 minutes, DVD only): Polanski on the adaptation of Hardy's classic novel with contributions from Hardy scholars and cast and crew
• Filming Tess (Laurent Bouzereau, 2004, 26 mins, DVD only): cast and crew discuss the technical challenges they faced
• Tess: The Experience (Laurent Bouzereau, 2004, 20 mins, DVD only): those who worked on Tess discuss their experiences
• Costume Designs (2013, 2 mins): Anthony Powell's award-winning designs
• Original theatrical trailer
• Illustrated booklet with essays and credits

Pre-order / Buy:Tess (DVD & Blu-ray) [1979]

Park Circus To Re-Release Jerry Schatzberg's Digitally Restored Scarecrow

Park Circus have announced 26th April 2013 sees the UK re-release of Jerry Schatzberg's Scarecrow,starring Al Pacino and Gene Hackman. Scarecrow has been digitally remastered to celebrate the Palme d'Or winning film's 40th Anniversary.

From professional photographer Jerry Schatzberg won the Palme d’Or in 1973 for this rarely screened eccentric on-the-road American classic, starring the acclaimed duo Gene Hackman and Al Pacino. A tale of intense and newfound friendship between lowly Max (Hackman – stated as his favourite ever role) and Lion (Pacino), Scarecrow is digitally restored and ripe for rediscovery on the big screen.
Opening amidst an isolated backdrop of dusty American landscape, Max, just released from prison, happens upon Lion. A muted meeting at first soon blossoms into the beginning of a new friendship that takes them hitchhiking across America to realise Max’s dream of opening his own car wash in Pittsburgh. Encountering a series of oddball characters along the way, often delving deep into the protagonists’ peculiarities and personal problems, Scarecrow is an intriguing, gritty gem from a significant period of great American cinema.

Scarecrow has been newly restored by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film will open in the UK on 26th April at BFI Southbank and selected cinemas nationwide.

Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas! Watch 100 Year Old Santa Claus Films

Well I hope all the boy and girls in film fanland tonight will brush their teeth, hang up their stockings and get some shut eye as our favourite overweight man with a big white beard and a iconic red and white suite will be delivering his presents as we sleep. Ole Santa Clause is the icon for this time of the year outside the religion importance of this time of the year and is subject to many Christmas based films every year. Lets step back in time to over 100 years ago and thanks to BFI (via Filmschoolrejects) we have 5 films all short films which show Old Saint Nick or the spirit of Christmas.

George Albert Smith‘s 1898 short Santa Claus (aka The Visit From Santa Claus), which is one of the first on screen adaptations of Santa showing the big man deliver gifts to a house but compare it to The Night Before Christmas not the Tim Burton  film but Edwin S Porter's version. produced by none other than Thomas Edison which expands on the delivering with going into Santa's workshop as well as a wonderful sleigh ride. A Little Girl Who Did Not Believe in Santa Claus based on Virginia O’Hanlon story Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus which expands more on the characters magic and a myth of a boy who lasso's Santa taking him back to Virginia and to homes of poor kids which apparently he doesn't do! In the 1914 docunmentary come fantasy Making Christmas Crackers, we see a set of women create the crackers we like to pull at our dinners with the final part we see Santa appear when some kids pull a giant cracker. Finally we have   Wladyslaw Starewicz's  The Insects’ Christmas a creepy but intriguing Polish short which sees a Santa ornament celebrate Christmas in the company of insects.

We all take Christmas for granted and expect certain things, traditions so it's always fascinating to go back to a period before high tech films, computers, technology in general dominated our lives, when life was more innocent and the true message of Christmas wasn't about commercialization.










The Insects' Christmas from David Cairns on Vimeo.

Penny Woolcock's From the Sea to the Land Beyond BFI's First 2013 Release

This fascinating and moving film by award-winning director Penny Woolcock is a lyrical portrait of Britain’s coastline,created through an exquisite combination of evocative archive footage – drawn from the BFI National Archive – and stirring music. Brighton-based band British Sea Power set the course for this cinematic voyage with an original score that ebbs and flows with the natural sounds of seagulls, ships and
just the occasional snippet of speech. Uplifting and inspirational, From the Sea to the Land Beyond is released on DVD on 21 January 2013.


Travelling from 1901 through both World Wars, into peacetime and the modern age, From the Sea to the Land Beyond shows our coast as a place of leisure, industry and wild nature. With an emphasis on the romantic and the ritualistic, the archive footage used in the film’s assembly is rich and varied. Both film and music incorporate themes of work, play, childhood, romance,melancholy, hope, transportation, wilderness, the power of the elements and the beauty of wildlife.

Amongst many memorable and poignant images are those of a woman scaling a sheer cliff face to collect eggs, a group of Edwardian gentlemen playing beach combat games on the verge of World War I, bathers in top hats, a troupe of dancers on a pristine beach, the arrival by ship of émigrés from the Caribbean and India, the building of the Channel Tunnel, and present-day holidaymakers battling the wind and rain in Blackpool.

The film is comprised mainly of clips from four major BFI National Archive collections: the world-famous Mitchell and Kenyon films; Topical Budget (British silent era newsreels); public information films from the COI collection; travelogues from the British Transport Film Unit.

In her introductory essay in the DVD booklet, director Penny Woolcock (Tina Goes Shopping, The Principles of Lust) writes:‘In these days of formatted, factual entertainment and docu-soaps, tabloid television is created with twitchy fingers on the remote control in mind. Filmmakers find it hard to resist demands for commentaries that inform the viewer what they are about to see and reminding them of it as soon as it is over, and shovelling all the best bits in the film into the first couple of minutes andrepeating later. The opportunity of making something without these attendant anxieties was irresistible.’

Included amongst the DVD’s special features are some of the archive films which were used in From the Sea to the Land Beyond. One of them, Beside the Seaside, directed by Marion Grierson in 1935, is a wittily observant documentary that shows Londoners flocking to the coast to enjoy themselves during a heatwave. This, and the other archive films included as extras, feature newly recorded introductions by Penny Woolcock.

From the Sea to the Land Beyond was conceived and produced by Heather Croall, director of  Sheffield Doc/Fest, and Mark Atkin, director of Crossover Labs. It premiered in Sheffield's Crucible Theatre with a live score – to a standing ovation – in June 2012. The project was funded by The Space, an initiative of the BBC and The Arts Council. British Sea Power, a band famed for their live shows, have subsequently performed their original score at further screenings of the film.


Special features

• Making the Sea and the Land Beyond (2013, 25 mins): documentary with interviews withBritish Sea Power, Penny Woolcock and producers Mark Atkin and Heather Croall S.S Saxonia in Liverpool (James Kenyon, Sagar Mitchell, 1901, 3 mins): passengers and crew boarding the SS Saxonia

• Cunard Mail Steamer Lucania Leaving for America (James Kenyon, Sagar Mitchell,1901,3 mins): early footage of the Lucania passenger liner

• Beside the Seaside (Marion Grierson, 1935, 23 mins): Londoners flock to the South Coast to enjoy themselves by the seaside during a heatwave

• Worker’s Weekend (Ralph Eaton, 1943, 13 mins): the workers of the Vickers Armstrong factory in Broughton assemble a Wellington Bomber in the record time of 24½ hours

• Caller Herrin' (Alan Harper, 1947, 20 mins): the story of the herring fisheries in the North Sea
• Introductions to all the short films by Penny Woolcock
• British Sea Power in rehearsal (Ian Potts, 2012, 6 mins): footage of the band working on the film score
• Film and location identification track
• Illustrated booklet with an introductory essay by Penny Woolcock, film notes and credits

Pre-Order: From the Sea to the Land Beyond [DVD]

London: The Modern Babylon DVD Review

With 2012, Diamond Jubilee, Para-Olympics, Olympic Games and all, placing London under the gaze of the world’s media; London: The Modern Babylon gives the capital city another chance to take centre-stage.

Julien Temple’s kaleidoscopic ode to London mixes archive footage with interviews, film and television clips, documenting its history throughout the Twentieth Century up to the present day, from idyllic Edwardian summers, through war, immigration, rock and roll, and boom and bust. Temple mixes his footage, juxtaposing his images to create a fluid tableau of events covering the last hundred years or so. Early Twentieth Century immigrants appear alongside their modern day counterparts, suffragettes and Mary Jane’s Mishap, accounts of racial tension and class divides with the voyeuristic first-person filter of Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom. From 1905 to 2012 it’s a glimpse at a city which has changed immeasurably over the decades, but still retains an enduring sense of identity.

As is to be expected from the man who helmed such films as The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle and Oil City Confidential, music plays a pivotal role in the creation of this two hour, London-centric collage. Footage of bombed-out terraces and air-raid shelters roll along to the beat of Mr Churchill Says, while riots and anti-war demos (not surprisingly) dance to the tune of Street Fighting Man. The result is an entrancing amalgam of sights and sounds that feels immensely substantial, pertinent and raw, even if so much of this trip down memory lane might really be old news.

The stars of the show are without question the city’s inhabitants. Tony Benn, and the late Malcolm McLaren pop up to wax lyrical about their home town, along with numerous commoners who have made the city their home over the years. It’s an intriguing and expressive way of reinforcing the notion that an organisation is only as good as its people.

London may receive an inordinate amount of exposure in comparison to this nation’s other cities of note, but Temple’s ability to weave and create such an alluring, musical, rhythmic tribute should be of interest to even those who hail from very distant towns.

Chris Banks (@Chris_in_2D)

★★★★☆

Rating:15
UK DVD Release Date:29th October 2012
Directed by: Julien Temple
Cast: Michael Gambon, Hetty Bower , Miss Marsh , Tony Benn
Buy:London: The Modern BabylonOn DVD

Hitchcock's The Ring - Live Streaming Event tomorrow!

As part of the BFI's THE GENIUS OF HITCHCOCK season, tomorrow night at 8pm will see the live streaming of Hitchcock’s 1927 boxing melodrama, THE RING, via The Space(http://thespace.org/), in co-ordination with a screening of the film at London's Hackney Empire (a venue that Hitchcock himself frequented).

The Ring, a film that helped inspire The Artist according to its director Michel Hazanavicius, has also been given a new musical score by British jazz and hip-hop musician Soweto Kinch. A unique and exciting opportunity to see a classic film for free, the stream will begin on thespace.org at 8pm and viewers are encouraged to use hashtag #thering to talk about the film on Twitter.

For more details, visit http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/hitchcocks-ring-streams-live-online/
THE GENIUS OF HITCHCOCK, is a major celebration of the iconic British film director, the Master of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock. This event will showcase the complete works of his silent films, including the restoration and scoring of Hitchcock’s nine surviving silent’s films by the BFI National Archive as part of the London 2012 Festival celebrations.

The BFI has also created a dedicated microsite called - The 39 Steps to Hitchcock, this a step-by-step guide through one man's genius and features exclusive film extracts, interviews with close collaborators (Kim Novak, Tippi Hedren and more) and is a simple journey through his life and career through galleries curated by Hitchcock experts - bfi.org.uk/39steps .

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The Genius of Hitchcock Published via LongTail.tv

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