Eavesdropping at the Movies: 385 – Till

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Listen on the players above, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.

We disagree on Till, which dramatises the events surrounding the infamous lynching of Emmett Till, a black fourteen-year-old boy abducted, tortured, and shot in Mississippi in 1955, and his mother’s decisive actions following the crime, which included having his mutilated body shown in a public funeral service with an open casket, and having brutal photographs of it published in the press. Emmett’s murder and Mamie’s activism forced the USA to confront the reality of its racism and catalysed the civil rights movement – of course, progress made subsequently was not instant and vast racial inequality and injustice is present in the country to this day, but the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 might not have happened if not for the events of nine years prior.

While Till‘s story has often been told and referenced in music, documentary and other media, it’s surprising to say the least that it’s taken this long to be the subject of a major feature film. Perhaps it’s the visceral nature of the case, the importance of the imagery of Emmett’s body that has led to such reticence, and, as José suggests, nervous anticipation of what might be depicted could keep audiences away. That imagery in Till is shocking and upsetting, but the film keeps a tactful eye on what it shows, and refuses to depict Emmett’s torture and murder.

Still, while we agree on the sensitivity and care with which we feel the film handles these crucial elements, we disagree on almost everything else. José sees in Till an intelligent, complex exploration of racism and power structures; Mike finds amateurism in its visual compositions and excess in its orchestral score. It’s a valuable film and one that never indulges in smugness or didacticism, but we refuse to provide a coherent opinion as to whether it’s good or not.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

‘How Would Lubitsch Do It?’ Podcast on Carmen (1918)

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Honoured to have been invited to guest on the superb ‘How Would Lubitsch Do It’ podcast to speak on Carmen. The podcast can be listened to here:

https://www.movingimageagency.com/ernstcast/s1e06

José Arroyo

 

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 384 – Avatar: The Way of Water – Second Screening

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Listen on the players above, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.

Listen to our previous podcast on Avatar: The Way of Water here.

We take a trip to London to see Avatar: The Way of Water again, this time on the biggest screen in the country at the BFI IMAX, in high frame rate and 3D. We discuss the difference in experience between seeing it here and at the IMAX Digital cinema at Cineworld Broad Street, where we saw it previously. Mike questions why the film switches between 24fps and 48fps, rather than sticking with the high frame rate throughout – director James Cameron describes how HFR assists in making 3D imagery less difficult to resolve, and implies that he limits its use to avoid the so-called “soap opera effect” that made the Hobbit films and Gemini Man look so cheap, but Mike doesn’t buy that it’s necessary to keep returning to 24fps, and thinks Cameron’s a big scaredy-cat. José, on the other hand, can’t seem to tell the difference between the frame rates at all.

We also discuss what a second viewing of the film brings into focus that we hadn’t put our finger on before, Mike comparing it to the nature documentaries that IMAX have produced for years, and José implores the film community to drop its snootiness and embrace the opportunity to see such a marvellous spectacle while it’s still in cinemas. It’s really special.

The James Cameron interview we refer to in the podcast is available here.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 383 – Matilda the Musical

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Listen on the players above, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.

The stage musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1988 novel, Matilda, about a young girl with hyperintelligence, telekinetic powers, uncaring parents and a terrifying headmistress, premiered in 2010 and has gone on to achieve enormous popularity, as well as seven Olivier Awards and five Tonys. This cinematic adaptation features the same music and the same director as the stage version, but does it have the same magic?

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 381 – Avatar: The Way of Water

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Listen on the players above, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.

A mere thirteen years after the release of the highest-grossing film of all time, its sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, arrives to a cinematic landscape that has changed significantly. James Cameron’s epic sci-fi franchise Avatar began life in 2009, when Marvel had released only two of its (at present) 30 films which would make universes, crossovers, and interconnected stories de rigueur for blockbuster cinema – and one of which would, briefly, overtake Avatar‘s record for worldwide gross. That’s how long it’s taken to create just one sequel to Avatar, with no indication that anything more complex than a linear progression of further sequels is planned. And there was no question that this sequel would, like its predecessor, make use of stereoscopic 3D – but while the 2009 film catalysed a new wave of interest in the technology, it has since fallen out of favour, as it always has over the years. As 2023 approaches, is The Way of Water out of date?

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 380 – Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

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Listen on the players above, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.

There’s an unwelcome element of particularly American and ill-fitting barbarism in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, a film that we hoped would be cleverer and more charming than it is. It’s also more of a straightforward thriller than a whodunnit, with one particular alteration to the murder mystery formula meaning that so much is kept from the audience that it stops being fun to play along. There’s still enough here to enjoy, but we’d like the third film to be more like the first, please.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

The Hazard and Somerset Series by Gregory Ashe

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When Helen Wheatley asked for recommendations for novels to read over Christmas, someone recommended the Hazard and Somerset mysteries, for which many thanks. I picked up on it, ordered some, and I’ve been immersed in them ever since. Emery Hazard returns to his hometown in Missouri for a job as a detective where he ends up being paired with John Henry-Somerset, the man he had a crush on since high school, and part of a gang of homophobic bullies who had carved a tattoo on his chest with a knife. As the series unfurls, they both deal with the past and the changing circumstances of each, as Hazard pairs off with someone else and Somerset reunites with his wife and daughter. But the sexual and romantic tension between them continues until eventually they get together, marry, adopt a teenager and along with Somerset’s daughter form a new type of family.  The crimes are all set in a small town in Missouri and paint an interesting picture of small-town life in the Midwest, a place where everyone knows each other but crimes are small-town version of national conflicts: the novels deal with political corruption; the police is in the pocket of the mayor and can’t be trusted; the religious right has armed training camps nearby where some of the police are involved; land developers are entwined with investment companies in more cosmopolitan cities are willing to kill for profit; there are paedophile rings and sexual slavery; meth labs and murder. But these all take place in a small town where Hazard is the only out public person, there is one high school, and one place the cool teenagers hang out in, at the one mall. Hazard and Somerset are drawn straight out of Honcho stereotypes, but with feelings. The developing romance is straight out of Harlequin though with some sexuall explicit scenes; a result of, I understand, readers’ demands (mostly female) They have an interesting structure. Each novel solves a particular murder but it’s  part of a larger web that gets that gets drawn out and resolved over a series of five novels. The writing is at best adequate, the characterisations are cliché-ish but the books are nonetheless unputdownable: the plotting is superb.  And in spite of the writing, one does get a sense that this is a small-town world the writer knows and makes worth knowing; and there’s also a fascinating utopian dimension to the fantasies of love, sex, family, relationships and social justice that the novels also strongly evoke. I’ve now read eight more. Gregory Ash is churning them out at the rate of three or four a year. For which I’m grateful, as I plan on reading all of them.

José Arroyo

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 379 – The Old Dark House

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Listen on the players above, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.

If you’re tempted to explore this cult classic, the restored DVD and Blu-Ray of The Old Dark House is available as part of Eureka Entertainment’s Masters of Cinema series.

José gave an introduction to the MAC’s screening of The Old Dark House, a 1932 comedy horror directed by James Whale, focusing on queerness. James Whale was openly gay – although what it meant to be openly gay in the 1930s is up for discussion – and knowledge of his sexuality has led to interpretations of his work in that light, including Frankenstein (1931) and The Invisible Man (1933). The Old Dark House arguably invites such readings more explicitly than those, with the demeanour of Ernest Thesiger as Horace Femm (not to mention his surname), the relationship between Morgan (Boris Karloff) and Saul (Brember Wills), and the casting of a woman in the role of patriarch, with actress Elspeth Dudgeon credited as John Dudgeon.

As well as its queerness, we discuss its preponderance of tropes and how well they cohere, its use of distorted imagery, its pacing and more.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

Sight and Sound Poll 2022

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There’s so much posing and bad faith around the whole Sight  & Sound list thing –oh i hate lists but here’s mine, with a 10,000 word intro about how all lists are horrible — that I feel moved to say I love lists. I love getting advice on what to see and read. They always offer a curious person a window and an opportunity. There’s no obligation. One needn’t follow up on any of it. As an immigrant kid whose parents did not speak English, lists have been especially important to me as a guide into a foreign culture. And they’ve been a good one. Grace Jones, Tom Waits and The Clash I found on my own, but it’s through lists that I discovered Sinatra and Billy Holiday, Jean Vigo and Jean Gremillon, Stendhal and Baldwin and other artists who’ve enriched my life. I can’t recall any of these lists causing damage. There was a period where I made a conscious decision to stop contributing to some — the S&S one in particular — on the principle that if the magazine had gotten too boring to read one should stop contributing to it. Maybe I was part of the problem. But I was honoured to be asked again and happy to think my suggestions might enrich someone else. The list is not definite; it’s not finite; we’re seeing it constantly changed; it can be challenged. It’s not the only list. But I’m glad they’re all there.

 

Here is mine:

 

Conversations with friends highlighted several issues, one that a list of ‘favourites’ would be different than a list of ‘best’, and that we’d all used different criteria. My list of  ‘best’ would have been different on any given day but I did have a particular set of criteria.  I didn’t care if the films had been influential or radically new. Instead I looked for what I took to be a varied or inventive use of the medium that led to a complex dramatisation and evoked an intensity of sometimes contradictory feelings. So it’s interesting merely to note that people fulfilled the brief according to different criteria.

The second point I’d like to highlight is that people, in expressing dismay over where each film had placed on the list seem to have forgotten how counting works. Nobody chose that The Searchers would come in at 15. It added up to that placement.

There were many other issues brought up but the last one I’d like to bring up here is that if you are going to see Jeanne Dielman, see it on a big screen where you don’t have access to a pause button. Modernist slow films require a cinema experience. On a small screen, it’s something else, something much less powerful and much more unprofitably boring.

 

José Arroyo

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 378 – The Menu

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Listen on the players above, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.

The Menu is a smörgåsbord both of scenes, its plot dropping ideas as soon as it picks them up in its rush to entertain, and of styles and genres, with black comedy, satire and horror combining. But while it’s witty and engaging, it’s also inconsistent, unfulfilling, and, although the flights of fancy with which it imbues some of its action are good fun, fairly trite. As is way The Menu thinks of the food it mocks, so is the film itself: it looks delicious at first blush but fails to impress under scrutiny. And such small portions!

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

Thinking Aloud About Film: A Time To Love/ Sevmek Zamani (Metin Erksan, Turkey, 1965)

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We were so impressed by Metin Ersksan’s Dry Summer (Susuz Yaz, 1963), that we decided to continue exploring his work. We’ve just seen A Time to Love/ Sevmek Zamani (1965), and remain impressed. This is the first in-house restoration by MUBI and fully understand why they chose this particular filmmaker and this particular film as a calling card for this new venture. Indeed we are grateful that they did so.

Antonioni Style

A Time to Love is an easy film to parody: an artsy, philosophical film about love and art, distinctions between being and appearances, class and alienation, traditional and modernity; greatly influenced by the art cinema of its day, particularly the work of Antonioni. But, if one gives oneself over to the style and sensibility of the work, one finds it’s a work of depth, texture and beauty as great as any produced in Western Europe in the same period. We talk about all of this and more in the accompanying podcast:

 

The podcast can also be listened to on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

José Arroyo

 

Antonioni’s L’Avventura in White Lotus

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I’m a huge fan of Antonioni’s work, and of L’Avventura in particular.  I was delighted to see it cited in White Lotus:

 

José Arroyo

In Conversation with Josh Bullin on UNSILENCED: THE RESILIENCE OF QUEER CINEMA

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I was very excited to discover Josh Bullin’s new programme of queer films scheduled to be presented at the Rio Cinema in London from November 24th to the 5th of December: Unsilenced: The Resilience of Queer Cinema, A season of films which explores contemporary queer cinema from nations where regimes remain openly oppressive towards LGBTQIA+ identities. These hidden gems are a celebration of the persistence of the queer communities in these countries and remind us of the injustices not far from home that need to be fought against.

In this podcast we talk about the individual films –WET SAND (Elene Neveriani, Georgia, 2021) , LEITIS IN WAITING( Dean Hamer, Joe Wilson & Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu; Tonga/USA, 2018) GRACEFULLY (Arash Eshaghi, Iran, 2018) & MEMORIES OF MY BODY (Garin Nugroho, Indonesia, 2019) — but also about the rationale for the programme as a whole. What goes into curating such a programme? Why are some films chosen and not others. What does a curator do? And what are the hopes for the resulting event? An illuminating discussion of what promises to be a fascinating event.

The podcast may be listened to here below:

 

The films will be screened at the Rio Cinema in London: 

The full programme can be seen below:

 

José Arroyo

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 377 – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

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Listen on the players above, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.

The sequel to the best Marvel film by far has to deal with tragic circumstances – the star of the first, Chadwick Boseman, died at the age of 43 in 2020. His role was not recast; instead, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever shows us the funeral of his character, T’Challa, and his sister, Shuri’s, difficulty in dealing with his death. Letitia Wright, playing Shuri, has primarily been a source of comic relief in the MCU until now – we discuss how she copes with the dramatic heavy lifting now required of her.

Despite the foregrounding of Shuri, Wakanda Forever is reliant on an ensemble, and quite a radical one, as José puts it: the story of a male superhero has been adapted to feature a group of women in his place, and what’s perhaps most remarkable is how the film does it without the feeling of overt messaging and tokenism that is often present in tentpole films that do something similar. And the villain, Namor, has been given an ethnic background José assures Mike was never present in the comics, his new Mayan origins and historical conflict with the conquistadores allowing for his underwater civilisation to mirror Wakanda.

While memorialising Chadwick Boseman, Wakanda Forever is able to see a future following the loss of his character. That it would deal with Boseman’s death with tact and sensitivity wasn’t in doubt, but that the world of Black Panther could thrive without him was, and this sequel shows that it’s certainly capable of doing so.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

 

The Practice of Film Criticism Podcast 2022: Fran Hughes and Tom Farrell on Twentieth Century Women (Mike Mills, 2016)

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Fran Hughes talks to Tom Farrell about Mike Mill’s 20th Century Women, a coming of age film that deals with masculinity from various feminist perspectives. These get explored in the podcast along with considerations of Jimmy Carter’s ‘Crisis of Confidence Speech’ both historically but also in relation to the various characters who share the same house in the film. The conversation recasts the main themes of the film through the lens of other key films by Mike Mills. Fran and Tom also discuss parent-child relationship, community vs individuality and how all of this relates to history and changes through time. A conversation that brings unexpected depth to a film that might seem ‘low stakes’ to some.

The podcast may be listened to here:

José Arroyo

Thinking Aloud About Film: Dry Summer/ Susuz Yaz (Metin Erksan, Turkey, 1963)

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A melodrama about two brothers, Osman and Hasan. Osman is the eldest and has power and rights over how their land is run. Hasan obeys until he realises Osman has broken every rule that binds. A complex film about patriarchy in agrarian culture and the damage it does to all the individuals involved whilst also tearing a community apart. A melodrama that seethes with sexual desire, and where that desire overrules familial relations that would normally be considered taboo. A complex film depicting a way of life that is not so distant, probably still current in some parts of the world and which is not afraid to be poetic and allegorica. It is instantly and thoroughly engaging in spite of two incidents involving animals that inadvertently act as a distanciating device and might make some think twice about watching it. Much of the podcast is devoted to exploring why we recommend people do so.

The podcast may be listened to here:

The podcast can also be listened to on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

 

If this is of interest, listeners might also wish to follow up with another extraordinary film, The Law of the Border:

José Arroyo

Lizzie Uzzell on Pride and Prejudice (Joe Wright, 2005)

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Lizzie Uzzell discusses Joe Wright’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice with José Arroyo. The podcast touches on the various adaptations of Austen’s work, the particular virtues of this one, the uses of light and landscape, the interplay between the uses of Chatsworth and the uses of mud and livestock, achievements of wit and tone, and what individual cast members add to it all.

The podcast may be listened to here:

Jose Arroyo

Practice of Film Criticism Podcast 2022: Tom Farrell and Fran Hughes on Exit Through The Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010)

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Exit Through the Gift Shop is a documentary on the commodification of street art directed by Banksy but placing Thierry Guetta, a Bansky acolyte who was inspired to enter the art world by Banksy, as the central figure through which to explore its themes. The podcast discusses Guetta’s journey, debating Banksy’s perspective and attitude towards Guetta, whilst questioning whether the figure of Guetta is real or not. Is he just a Banksy invention, a construct through which to raise questions? Does it matter? Aren’t all films constructs? The film is discussed as a documentary and compared to a range of works from Welles’ F for Fake to reality television, including Fake or Fortune. A film enriched by being open to the many interpretations the discussion in the podcast brings up: Class, critique, co-optation, power, art, commerce, hype , humour, the concept of the ‘art expert’ and much more. A fascinating discussion.  The podcast may be listened to below:

 

José Arroyo

Leon Syla on T2: Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 2017)

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Choose reading this review. Following the success of the 1996 Trainspotting, Danny Boyle chose to direct a sequel based on Irvine Welsh’s Porno. After decades of planning and rewrites, T2 Trainspotting was finally released in 2017. Rather than simply recreating the aesthetic and conventions of the first film, the sequel provides a fresh and contemporary take on the beloved characters, without tarnishing the legacy of the original. T2 Trainspotting sees Renton, Spud, Sick Boy, and Begbie return once again to the silver screen after they have created new lives for themselves following the fallout of the first film. Following a heart attack in Amsterdam, a divorce, and imminent redundancy, Renton moves back to his hometown of Edinburgh to visit his old friends. With each character, we see how time and anger have ravaged them, and how they attempt to fit in with the ‘new’ age, a pressing theme of the first film. By contrasting the old with the new, Boyle creates a relatable yet unfamiliar world that the characters inhabit. Boyle expertly explores how time has affected the characters through various narrative and editing techniques. Despite time moving forward and the constant sense of urgency through the film, the four men desperately try to cling to the past by committing crimes and re-enacting situations from the first film, in an attempt to relive their youth. In one scene, Renton and Sick Boy steal bank cards from everyone in a bar, and while this is done through a quick montage to The Prodigy’s remix of ‘Lust for Life’, the two hark back to their memories as children, using the past to slow down time and recapture their childhood. In another attempt to preserve time, Boyle also employs multiple freeze frames to immortalise certain moments, as well as have the audience focus on these parts. Boyle also guides the audience through the ‘new’ world that the men must become familiar with, given their distance from it. As the audience sees the four attempt to re-inhabit their old world, he expertly uses mirroring and clever shadow play to hark back to iconic moments from the original film, signalling that the past will always be there. What made Trainspotting so memorable when it first came out was its amazing soundtrack, and the sequel’s soundtrack holds up just as well. Linking back to the concept of time, T2 Trainspotting features old and new songs, as well as songs that have been remade or remixed to highlight the new era and sound of today. As mentioned earlier, The Prodigy remixed ‘Lust for Life’, providing a fresh take on an old classic and Underworld created ‘Slow Slippy’ specifically for the film, to show the progression of music, while still retaining the elements of the past. T2 Trainspotting manages to uphold the legacy of the original and craft a new legacy for its sequel by not only honouring what came before, but by using the past to create new criticisms and interpretations for the contemporary world.

 

Leon Syla

Thinking Aloud About Film: La femme au couteau/ The Woman with a Knife (Timite Bassori, Ivory Coast, 1969)

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The first fiction feature made in the Ivory Coast. A land-mark film. But is it good? And by what criteria? And if not good, how is it nonetheless very interesting? Art cinema, post-colonialism, and psychoanalysis as imbibed through Hitchcock films, all get an airing in this podcast.

The podcast can also be listened to on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

The Interview Richard references may be accessed here:

José Arroyo