Cover
The cover tells us this is all about the year 1975, just fifty years ago. Apparently "the year that changed cinema forever".
Editorial
Mike Williams recalls that 1975 was "a big year for men in rock". But when it came to films, "Slade in Flames" was a disaster. And despite six number one hits from 1971 to 1973, their tour of America was equally awful. It was only in 1980 when, as a last minute substitute for Ozzy Osborne, that the band appeared at the Reading Festival. "They stole the show".
Opening Scenes
Sam Davies talks about Lori Eschler and Dean Hurley who were the music editor and sound designer for David Lynch's Twin Peaks. A lot of interesting technical stuff.
Editor's Choice
The article on Bristol's Cinema Rediscovered Festival in July includes recommendations from the team. These include Amadeus that is being re-released in cinemas in July.
In Production
Rachel Pronger visits a set in Shard End, Birmingham where they are filming Kieran Goddard's 2014 novel I see buildings fall like lightning. Clio Barnard directs and Tracy O'Riordan produces, Sounds interesting. Among other plans, there is a prison drama with Daniel Craig and Cillian Murphy and directed by Damien Chazelle.
In Conversation
Miriam Bale talks to film historian Donald Bogle about Dorothy Dandridge who has a season opening at the BFI Southbank. The first black woman to be nominated for a best actress Oscar for Carmen Jones in 1954. But it was another fifty years before there was a winner in Halle Berry for 2001's Monster's Ball. Bogle's 1997 biography on Dandridge was bought by Whitney Huston for the HBO biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.
Obituary
Nick James details the career of director Marcel Ophuls. (No, never heard of him). Following his first main feature, 1963's Banana Peel, it's success led to a flop: Fire at Will in 1965. So it was off to news journalism instead and documentaries, winning the Oscar for best documentary in 1989 for Hotel Terminus.
News
In Brief by Hope Rangaswami. Four tiny gems. First a film studio in Italy called Cinecitta reopens. Next, changes to the Oscars. Then the Curzon Mayfair is closing and last of all an indie cinema called The Nickel is opening.
Film Preservation
How to build an archive by Pamela Hutchinson.
A review of the BFI National Film Library now called The National Archive. Starting with it's being established in 1935 (with its first curator Ernest Lingren) up to 1945. The beginnings of how films were collected and the appeal that by 1936 there were seven hundred films including precious Chaplin and Hitchcock titles. In the early part of the second world war, the collection found "a permanent location (just down the road) in Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire", "to live in a temperature controlled environment".
Despite exhaustive searches on the internet, I have failed to determine the exact address. It's possible that this was Aston Clinton House (now demolished) on the grounds of what is now the Green Park Centre. In the History of the Archive for the BFI, we find "In 1940 the BFI opened it's first state of the art film archive at Aston Clinton".
Mean Sheets
Here are Mort Kunstler's "jam packed" posters including those for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and The Poseidon Adventure.
Reader's Letters
Nothing of interest.
The Long Take
Pamela Hutchinson compares Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda film The Triumph of the Will (1935) with Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940). She ends her article with these words: "And Chaplin's film stands as a welcome monument to optimism, a declaration of faith in human resistance as powerful in it's own way as any propaganda film - this time with laughter on it's own side". Well said Pamela.
Flick Lit
Nicole Flattery has been watching The Studio on Apple TV+ (possibly a comedy but she "struggled to find any satire" (well it is Seth Rogan). She adds it is "tooth lessness". Nicole has also been reading Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico that she enjoyed but still "struggled to find any satire". She compares both of these with Robert Altman's far superior The Player that "remains the definitive Hollywood satire".
TV Eye
Andrew Male starts by describing how he went out of his way to avoid the eight part series Dying for Sex on Disney+. Apparently a comedy drama with Michelle Williams whose picture is included. It starts with her Molly being diagnosed with an incurable cancer. But her "sexual odyssey" is "depicted with humour, without judgement and with generosity, warmth and permissiveness".
Cannes Bulletin
Isabel Stevens talks about Trump's threat of 100% tariffs on films "made in foreign lands". At the Cannes Film Festival these could have included the latest Mission Impossible, The Phoenician Scheme, and Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vogue.
The winner of the Palme d'Or was Jafar Panahi's Iranian film It was just an accident that was shown "to a thunder of clapping" at the final credits. The director had been imprisoned twice in Iran.
There are huge number of films reviewed, most of which will never see a cinema in the UK. The Sound of Falling from Germany sounds interesting but maybe too long. "A film with characters .... but a flimsy plot". I could not even get excited about the films from Aris Aster, Lynne Ramsay and Spike Lee.
After Ethan Coen's and Tricia Cooke's Drive Away Dolls (see my review) comes the second in this "B-movie trilogy" called Honey Don't. Have to look out for Margaret Qualley's "charismatic lead turn as private eye Honey O'Donoghue. I also have to look out for The Secret Agent set in 1977's Brazil.
The follow up to Joachin Trier's The Worst Person in the World (see post 14th April 2022) is the family drama Sentimental Value.
1975 - The year that changed cinema forever
The summer special celebrates a memorable year in cinema, from Jaws to Jeanne Dielman. But there are 53 pages of a cheap rehash of the magazines of that year. Fifty years on. Introduced by Adam Nayman, the main titles of the year are dressed around Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (the worst of all his films in my opinion) whose costume designer Milena Canonero talks about her work on that movie.
Among many, many features from that year there is a few pages on Al Pacino and Dog Day Afternoon (see post 24th March 2024). Jessica Kiang tells us about the "ageless masterpiece" that is Jaws, and Beverley Walker's 1975 piece on One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is reprised in full. Jan Dawson then interviews Peter Wier about his Picnic at Hanging Rock. But there was nothing else interesting.
Cemetery of Splendour
David Cronenberg's new film is The Shrouds. Erika Balsom talks to the director about "death, film and conspiracy in the digital age". Then when I read that it was partly a "cybersecurity thriller" it sounded interesting. But then "a plot that defies comprehension and resolution and paranoia prevails". So could it really be "so intellectually stimulating and immensely pleasurable"?. I think Erika has gone way over the top in her admiration for the director. Three pages of her interview tends to support that view. After one question (or really a statement) the director says "I love hearing you say that". However, the three huge stills from the film look nice. With Diane Kruger playing three roles.
Reviews: Films
The Phoenician Scheme by Wes Anderson. When I compared my review (post of 12th June) with that by Nick Bradshaw, it seemed we had watched completely different movies. (Maybe he saw it more than once as I said it was hard to keep up). Nick calls it "a mad caper, a kooky jape, a careering divertissement and an escapade of hire wire whimsy". Possibly so.
The Shrouds is the new film from David Cronenberg (see above). Nicolas Rapold tells us "the film is shot less as a conspiracy thriller than as a chamber drama ..... so a bit more room bound and talky". But that might be OK. It stars Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger "at her best in a while".
I avoided the John Wick spin-of Ballerina. But then Henry K Miller reviews Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning which he says has a "sense of an ending". I thought the French romcom Jane Austen Wrecked My Life sounded interesting, but Catherine Wheatley in her review found it "a cluttered confusing work".
The prizewinning Spanish/French film The Other Way Round sounds interesting, but not so Harvest set in Scotland sometime in the past. Anton Bitel talks about Final Destination: Bloodlines (see my review) and "the sheer scale of the prologue's disaster". He thinks it's "always darkly funny". Rachel Pronger reviews Hot Milk adapted from the book by Deborah Levy (see my review in August 2017). Rachel thinks the film "feels suspended in a constant state of anticipation". I thought the book was disturbing, but the trailer less so.
The two hander on Netflix that is Hallow Road stars Rosamond Pike and Mathew Rhys. Again, Echo Valley sounds good but only streaming on Apple+ TV. Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney in a family drama/thriller that is called a "toxic family story". None of the other films reviewed were of any interest. Those above were enough.
DVD and Blu-Ray, Books and Read
Nothing of interest.
Wider Screen
The 15th Edition of Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival is in Scotland.
From the Archive: Of Monsters and Men
Peter Wollen's article from 1993 looked at monster movies. All the way from 1925's The Lost World through to the Jurassic Park films. All because the latest in the series Jurassic World: Rebirth is out soon. But I didn't like the article, the best bits were the huge full page stills from Jurassic Park (1993), King Kong (1933), The Birds (1963) - still my scariest film ever) and The Lost World (1925).
This Month in .... 2001
A season of Steve Buscemi films at the BFI. Nothing interesting in reviews, but what would have been a great feature on the brilliant Amelie by Ginette Vincendeau.
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