Pages

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Citizen Smith

Citizen Smith is a British television sitcom written by John Sullivan, first broadcast from 1977 to 1980.

It starred Robert Lindsay as Walter Henry "Wolfie" Smith, a young Marxist "urban guerrilla" in Tooting, south London, who is attempting to emulate his hero Che Guevara. Wolfie is a reference to the Irish revolutionary Wolfe Tone, who used the pseudonym "Citizen Smith" in order to evade capture by the British. Wolfie is the self-proclaimed leader of the revolutionary Tooting Popular Front (the TPF, merely a small bunch of his friends), the goals of which are "Power to the People" and "Freedom for Tooting".

Wolfie dresses in a stereotypical fashion for rebellious students of the period: logoed T-shirt, denim jeans, Afghan coat and black beret. He supports Fulham F. C. and occasionally wears a Fulham scarf. He rides a scooter and spends most of the time at his girlfriend's house, which means he constantly clashes with her parents.

Wednesday, March 06, 2024

Anchoress (1993)

In the 14th-century, a visionary girl is to become an Anchoress, a walled-in recluse, so that she can live in the Virgin's house forever. Over time she awakens to her own sensuality and explores her own female, earth-based spirituality.

The screenplay is partly based on accounts of an historical female anchorite, Christine Carpenter, who was walled into her anchorhold in a village church in Shere, Surrey, in southern England, in 1329. The story revolves around the girl's mystical visions of the Virgin Mary, the local reeve who wants to marry her, and the priest who walls her into his village church and his dislike of her mother, a midwife whom he regards as a witch.

Monday, February 26, 2024

Vali: The Witch Of Positano (1967)


A psychedelic documentary portrait shot in Positano, Italy in 1965 about Australian artist and occultist Vali Myers.

Friday, February 16, 2024

Punk 76: The Birth of Anarchy


Punk 76: The Birth Of Anarchy (2013) is one of the best docu/films about the Punk Rock explosion circa 76. Too many productions of this type fail to acknowledge and interview many of the big players outside of the usual suspects (Clash/Pistols), but this gets it right.

Outsiders - Freaks - Runts.

Enter a roll call featuring Gene October, Steve Severin, Tony James, Marco Pironi, Viv Albertine, Rat Scabies, Jah Wobble and Charlie Harper. While the literary aspects are covered by luminaries such as Caroline Coon and John Savage.

We are taken through the journey via the fashion side of things - from the safety pin/bondage era - to the leather jackets and the shock tactics involved. The social period is captured, with caustic asides to the music of the time and thus why these punkers felt a change was needed.

"Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers" (Voltaire)

Of course much of the thrill for old punks and prospective newbies, comes with the live clips we get. Always great to see the likes of Chelsea, The Lurkers, Subway Sect and The Adverts get an airing, while there's a lovely bonus that sees The Electric Chairs as well. While naturally the big players are of course featured prominently.

There's something of a hard sell going on as regards The Great Rock "N" Roll Swindle, which annoys since it's awful and full of untruths. While more time could have been afforded the rivalry with the Teddy Boys and the future influences of Punk. But this film gets pretty much most things right.

Because Gene October and the gang here are correct, Punk never went away, you see it every day, coloured hair, piercings and studs were once not the norm, and this film shows how that wave in 76 is still being felt today. 9/10

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

The Tudor Farm Series

Tudor Monastery Farm is a British factual television series, first broadcast on BBC Two on 13 November 2013. The series, the fifth in the historic farm series, following the original, Tales from the Green Valley, stars archaeologists Peter Ginn and Tom Pinfold, and historian Ruth Goodman. The team discover what farming was like during the Tudor period at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum. The program also recurringly features other historians, such as Colin Richards (an expert on rural crafts), and Professor Ronald Hutton (who specializes in folklore and religious beliefs).

The team move in, coppice hazel, build a pig enclosure, commission a guild, plough using oxen, make rushlights, make wattle-and-daub barriers, sow peas and barley using broadcasting, and celebrate religious festivals. They take custody of some Tamworth pigs. They hire workmen to scribe and illuminate documents as well as turn wooden bowls and plates.

The team work with sheep: driving, milking and shearing them; make cheese from the milk; sort, grade, card and spin wool. Additional they produce a period cold treatment from herbs, steam-bend wood, and celebrate Whitsun. They take custody of geese and drive them to market. They observe the smelting of iron as well as the weaving and fulling of cloth.

The team wean piglets, cultivate wild yeast, malt barley, make ale and bread, harvest honey and beeswax, dip candles, shave their sheep's hooves, demonstrate period hair care methods, roast lamb, and celebrate both a mass and the midsummer festival. They take custody of a boar to service their sows. They observe the shaping, moulding, and pouring of a bell, learn about period clock mechanisms and observe a wind-powered grain mill.

The team mine, smelt and cast ingots of lead; plait eel baskets and harvest eels; shape stained glass; patronize a pub; pasture their piglets in the forest; paint cloth and manage their garden. Tom sits for a camera obscura portrait.

The team launder bed linen, serve as cooks and stewards, calcine and slake lime, build a lime-ash floor, churn, press, and salt butter; sanitize the dairy, plait rushes for floormats, lay and press rag paper; prepare lye from ash; harvest tree hay for the animals; harvest and thresh their pea crop, cook a feast and make brandy. They observe period typesetting, printing and bookbinding.

The team harvest and stook and store their barley; extract salt from brine, celebrate Michaelmas, carve decorative stone, form and decorate floor tiles, produce blackpowder for Roman candle fireworks, a Damson and Bullace Melomel beverage, and perform a mystery play. The Christmas Special On 25 November 2013, the BBC announced that Tudor Monastery Farm would have a Christmas special which explored the festive season as part of BBC Two's Christmas scheduling. The episode was broadcast on 31 December 2013 and overnight figures showed that it attracted 1.57 million viewers (8.06% of the viewing audience). Official figures raised the number of viewers to 1.76 million.

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Isabelle Eberhardt (1991)

Isabelle Eberhardt is a 1991 Australian-French biographical drama film directed by Ian Pringle. The film follows the adult life of Isabelle Eberhardt and was filmed in Algiers, Paris and Geneva. It stars Mathilda May as Eberhardt and Peter O'Toole as Hubert Lyautey. It received financial backing from the Film Finance Corporation Australia and was nominated for three awards at the 1991 Australian Film Institute Awards.

Isabelle Eberhardt was screened at the 1991 Melbourne International Film Festival and was also released in cinemas in Australia, though did not have a home media release. The film received generally negative reviews.

Thursday, February 01, 2024

Desperate Teenage Lovedolls

 

Desperate Teenage Lovedolls was received as an instant cult classic when first self released within the Los Angeles punk underground in 1984. Since then, the no budget Super-8 film has gained international and above ground praise. Bunny, Kitty and Patch (Hilary Rubens, Jennifer Schwartz and Janet Housden) are three teenage runaways who form the hottest all-girl band of all-time, The Lovedolls. Their meteoric rise to the top comes not without a price, thanks to sleazy rock manager, Johnny Tremaine (Steve McDonald). Rival all-girl gang The She Devils and their leader Tanya Hearst (Tracy Lea) have it in for our heroes, as do annoying mothers and psyche ward doctors. The film also features Jeff McDonald, Phil Newman, Kim Pilkington, Vicki Peterson, Annette Zilinskas and Dez Cadena. Directed by David Markey.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

"Good Morning Mr Hitler"

"The people were so enthusiastic. They were completely taken in by all the pomp and grandure"


Recently-discovered color footage tells the story of an extraordinary Munich weekend when Adolf Hitler and nearly the entire Nazi leadership attended a three-day national cultural festival - including concerts, dancing, exhibitions and a five-mile-long parade - titled "2,000 Years of German Culture".

The film was shot in July 1939, just six weeks before the Second World War began, by an amateur film buff who wangled a special pass to shoot the event in close-up on color 16-millimeter Kodachrome. It was first shown only to the film maker's family, then hidden in the family cellar, where it lay for many years before one of his sons retrieved it. English film makers Luke Holland and Paul Yule assembled an audience of elderly Germans, framing them watching themselves in the 1939 footage and reminiscing about their experiences. Among them were sons of the unofficial cameraman who shot the 16-millimeter film and the daughter of the publisher of Hitler's Mein Kampf, who in deference to Hitler's wish for "privacy" on frequent visits to the publisher's home never said "Heil, Mein Führer", but always "Good Morning, Mr. Hitler."

The remarkable color footage presents a rarely-seen view of Adolf Hitler and of the Munich crowds (cast not in the role of anonymous adoring masses, as in Third Reich propaganda films, but as complicit participants, sharing with their leader the excitement of the parade).

The film provides a clear and chilling account of how culture, and in particular art is used to manipulate public opinion and national self-image. Numerous interviewees speak about their pride and joy in how Nazi art was "upliftning" and provided them with strength and happiness through a sense of "order". As the 93 year old artist Günter Grausmann (born 1900) says, artists subordinated themselves to ideology because they believed they would become great because they thought (or were told/ordered) that the ideology was great. But what they produced was actually 'non-art'. They have nothing to do with art. If someone gives you a commission, you must not subordinate yourself to the ideas of the commission. That is not art. That is prostitution.

A contemporary example of an artist resisting ideology in their professional work is Laurie Anderson withdrawing from a guest professor appointment at Essen’s Folkwang University in Germany in 2024.

Late last week the Folkwang University of Arts in Essen said it had “engaged in talks” with Anderson – whose works include the 1981 single O Superman and the 2015 film Heart of a Dog, dedicated to her late husband, Lou Reed – after her name surfaced among the thousands of artists who had backed the open letter, which called for “an immediate and unconditional cessation of Israeli violence against Palestinians”.

The university said it believed that art, culture and science are places “where contentious issues are kept in check”.

Its statement continued: “It has now become apparent that, in 2021, Laurie Anderson publicly supported the Palestinian artists’ ‘Letter Against Apartheid’ appeal, which, among other things, takes up calls for boycotts by the anti-Israel BDS movement,” it said. “In light of the now public question regarding her political stance, Laurie Anderson has decided to withdraw from the professorship.”

The idea "that art, culture and science are places 'where contentious issues are kept in check'" belies a denial of history and the continuation of culture in the service of power.

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Massive Attack: The Documentaries

Massive Attack is an English musical group formed in 1988 in Bristol, consisting of Robert "3D" Del Naja and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall. Their debut album Blue Lines was released in 1991, with the single "Unfinished Sympathy" reaching the charts and later being voted the 63rd greatest song of all time in a poll by NME 1998's Mezzanine, containing "Teardrop", and 2003's 100th Window charted in the UK at number 1. The group has won numerous music awards throughout their career, including a Brit Award—winning Best British Dance Act, two MTV Europe Music Awards, and two Q Awards.They have released 5 studio albums that have sold over 11 million copies worldwide.

DJs Daddy G and Andrew Vowles and graffiti artist-turned-rapper Robert Del Naja met as members of partying collective The Wild Bunch. One of the first homegrown soundsystems in the UK, The Wild Bunch became dominant on the Bristol club scene in the mid-1980s.

Massive Attack started as a spin-off production trio in 1988, with the independently released song, "Any Love", sung by falsetto-voiced singer-songwriter Carlton McCarthy,and then, with considerable backing from Neneh Cherry, they signed to Circa Records in 1990 – committing to deliver six studio albums and a "best of" compilation.

Circa became a subsidiary of, and was later subsumed into, Virgin Records, which in turn was acquired by EMI. Blue Lines (1991), was co-produced by Jonny Dollar and Cameron McVey, who also became their first manager.

Geoff Barrow, who went on to form Portishead, was an intern and trainee tape operator at Bristol's Coach House studio when the album was recorded.

McVey (credited at the time as 'Booga Bear') and his wife, Neneh Cherry provided crucial financial support and in-kind assistance to the early careers of Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky during this period, even paying regular wages to them through their Cherry Bear Organisation.

Massive Attack used guest vocalists, interspersed with Del Naja and Marshall's (initially Tricky's) own sprechgesang stylings, on top of what became regarded as an essentially British creative sampling production; a trademark sound that fused down-tempo hip hop, soul, reggae and other eclectic references, musical and lyrical.

In the nineties, the trio became known for often not being able to easily get along with one another and working increasingly separately.

Andy Vowles (Mushroom), who had once thought of himself as the trio's musical director, acrimoniously left Massive Attack in late 1999, after an ultimatum from the other two members to end the group immediately if he did not. Despite having taken Del Naja's side in the effective firing of Vowles and then participating in a show-of-unity webcast as a duo the following year, Grant Marshall (G) had also effectively left by 2001 in that he abandoned the studio altogether. Marshall returned to a studio role in 2005, having joined the touring line-up in 2003/4

Friday, January 19, 2024

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) from irenebeatriz on Vimeo.

Suffering from acute kidney failure, Boonmee has chosen to spend his final days surrounded by his loved ones in the countryside. Surprisingly, the ghost of his deceased wife appears to care for him, and his long lost son returns home in a non-human form. Contemplating the reasons for his illness, Boonmee treks through the jungle with his family to a mysterious hilltop cave—the birthplace of his first life.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Thai: ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ; RTGS: Lung Bunmi Raluek Chat) is a 2010 Thai drama film written, produced, and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The film, which explores themes of reincarnation, centers on the last days in the life of its title character, who is played by Thanapat Saisaymar. Together with his loved ones—including the spirit of his dead wife, Huay, and his lost son, Boonsong, who has returned in a non-human form—Boonmee explores his past lives as he contemplates the reasons for his illness.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives was inspired by the 1983 book A Man Who Can Recall His Past Lives by Buddhist abbot Phra Sripariyattiweti. The film is the final installment in a multi-platform art project by Apichatpong Weerasethakul called "Primitive". It premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or, becoming the first Thai film to do so.