knit one street purl one city

robinson in ruins

Soon to be released by the BFI is Patrick Keiller’s new film, Robinson in Ruins, which has new narrator Vanessa Redgrave picking up the story of Robinson’s investigations after London / Robinson in Space.

Synopsis from the BFI site :

Patrick Keiller’s latest sees his shadowy, somewhat eccentric titular researcher embark on another tour of ‘sites of scientific and historical interest’ in and around Oxford.

A decade after his earlier trips around London and England, film cans and writings are discovered suggesting that Robinson – though is that his real name? – resumed his investigations upon release from prison. Keen to cure the world of ‘a great malady’ (symptoms include the banking crisis, global warming, war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the transfer of British land to obscure owners), Robinson sought – or so we’re told by an ex-lover (Vanessa Redgrave) of the now deceased narrator of the first two films – to communicate with ‘non-human intelligences’ determined to preserve life on Earth… Keiller’s witty, revealing script weaves together philosophy, the arts, history, politics, economics, science, agriculture, architecture and much else, even as surreal, mysterious and beautiful images, imbued with a deep love of the natural world, remind us of what’s at risk. Timely indeed.
- Geoff Andrew

Read an excellent interview with Patrick Keiller at 3AM magazine

top tales

Top tales : series one are poster and card sets by fromztoa.

They’re cutups of fictitious dialogues imagined from overheard street conversations, long-forgotten books or tv episodes; in the manner of a scriptwriter reducing a story to one sentence (Roald Dahl comes to mind : see Ode to J. Smith post). Aphorisms that perhaps unsettle; unheimliche.

Archival giclee A1 + A2 artprints and A5 cardsets available to purchase now via Paypal – view Series One in the Shop here

the prime of miss jean brodie

I’m not, as usual for these occasions, going to repeat the life and times of a well-known creative personality – in this case Scotland’s most influential 20c writer (yes, no pre-qualification) Muriel Spark. The DVD of TPMJB, directed by Ronald Neame, is now finally available in the UK (august 2010) via your local retailer of films – not that Maggie Smith needs the royalties now I imagine! What follows is more alliteration-in-homage, than analysis.

Edinburgh is engine to the film. It is the social serenity of the middle classes that begets Marcia Blaine’s USP. Jean is poppy amongst the educational taliban – necessary but wrong. She is the teacher who creates the female financial director of the Royal Bank of Scotland in Waverley Steps, who essentially tells her boss his time and thinking is over.

This dichotomy of upright bruntsfield and morningside social values remixed with fascist dictatorship is convincing. We believe Jean’s love of both Giotto and Mussolini, as we are part-romanised ourselves. And that is the bomb that Spark throws the reader/viewer, leading to Sandy’s revelation to Jean of Mary MacGregor’s false Cider with Rosie moment.

As with many films of this period, Elstree / Shepperton form the backdrops to much of the drama. But Edinburgh is always properly rendered in spirit – Spark/Smith’s reality and Neame’s visual aplomb bring the 1930s – an era that seems so long ago now, but actually mirrors our own parents’ experiences – in very close.

And that is what is unsettling, and timeless – the issues remain the same, only the geopolitics (and guardian editors) shift.

Ginsberg : Moloch

Another snippet from Daisysaint – from the BBC4 docu Selling the Sixties – Ginsberg on top form (abridged version of the poem from Howl)

Borealis by Héctor Serrano Studio

No borealis in Scotland this weeknight but this is nice from last year.

…and Burns’ bit on the lights, from Tam O’Shanter…

Or like the snow falls in the river;
A moment white – then melts for ever

Or like the Borealis race
That flit before you can point their place

And a clip from Daisysaint’s superb YT channel – Tam Lin with Stephanie Beacham and Ian McShane (lovejoy).

The opening sequence here is lovely if you like fresh-minted brutalism seen from quiet motorway via Jensen, Aston and Corniche… (not too sure what the gold droptop is – Wolseley? )

Leopold Bloom to Dervla Kirwan

Well I’ve always had a soft spot for Mrs Kirwan I must admit. So that old middle-class BBC I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-genes exposé, Who Do You Think You Are, told her story – and guess what – her great-great grandfather – a Polish Jew living in Dublin called Henry Kahn – was probable model for said Mr Bloom. Naturally it doesn’t end well for Mr Kahn and family; appalling prejudice, institutional racism and medical ignorance, only a generation ago, put Kahn in a lunatic asylum, where he died after suffering several strokes.

Kudos to the BBC again – Reithian né Grauniad stance continuing or not – they are the best when it comes to this kind of personal heritage/history.

adam curtis on debt

Best person to tackle it – should turn out to be a classic Curtis documentary.

\\I am researching this area, and I thought I would put up some of the films from the BBC archive from the time when there was moral disapproval by those in power of the “lower orders” wanting to “live beyond their means”.

And beyond that there is a growing envy and resentment.//

See the films here.

his clyde less bonnie moment

Vanilla sky, Dark city, the Matrix, and now Inception all follow a simple-as-sliced-bread storyline (mixtaped from 30s city-noir) that pits individual against system. Dopplegangers and unreliable narrators make us think fantasy, think escapism, think I am not a number, invincible against the Forces of Control for many, several, seconds, in an airconditioned box.

Raoul wrote The Revolution of Everyday Life, an almost unreadable book that is nonetheless frighteningly incendiary in its own way. Individual less system = freedom (but freedom costs).

Raoul wants to kill cops. I doubt he has read the above. But he’s possibly seen the films – more like a dull rambo fantasist though.

I have a basic experience of the north tyneside area where Raoul Moat grew up. This is the Denton of A Touch of Frost. This is Chris Killip, the Battle of Orgreave, Boys from the Blackstuff (west), Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (east). It is Scando-Saxon territory : cold and rain is not a bother.

In Hollywood, it ends in some anonymous corridor in an urban glass prick. I think he’ll take the country comfort route, like Hoskins and Campbell killing the cruel farmer/adulterer-stoning-caster within themselves in Potter’s Pennies from Heaven.

the illusionist

Opening the Edinburgh FilmFest is Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist, set in Scotland with some scenes in Edinburgh. As with his previous Belleville Rendezvous, it looks to be dialogue-free. Interestingly based on an unfilmed script by Jacques Tati. Very keen on seeing how he’s rendered the city (based on his time staying in Edinburgh whilst making it).

Link to Pathe homepage on the film

BAFTA success! the devil’s plantation

Hearty congratulations are in order for May Miles Thomas, winner of a BAFTA for The Devil’s Plantation.

Well done May!

______________________________________________________
The BAFTA Scotland New Talent Awards 2010
19th March 2010
INTERACTIVE – WINNER
The Devil’s Plantation
Written, Directed And Produced By May Miles Thomas
Elemental Films
______________________________________________________

This exceptional work is the newest addition to the longstanding lexicon of scottish psychogeographical practice. See our original review here.

The ripples begin. Respect due to May’s insights and lyricism (and Owen’s flash skills!). Harry Bell is now at peace.