Michael Koresky
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038617
- eISBN:
- 9780252096549
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038617.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the film career of British director Terence Davies. The cinema of Davies is one of contradictions—between beauty and ugliness, the real and the artificial, progression and ...
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This chapter examines the film career of British director Terence Davies. The cinema of Davies is one of contradictions—between beauty and ugliness, the real and the artificial, progression and tradition, motion and stasis. These opposites reflect a certain struggle, for the filmmaker and his characters, to make sense of a confusing and sometimes violent world. For Davies, this struggle constitutes a reckoning with his past, a highly personal account of a fractured childhood; for the viewer it has resulted in one of the richest, most idiosyncratic, and arrestingly experimental bodies of work put out by a narrative filmmaker. The chapter focuses on the distinct emotional quandaries Davies' films evoke in the viewer and proposes that their tonal and political in-betweenness is a form of cinematic queering. Through the exploration of their contradictions, these films function within seemingly recognizable generic parameters only to then explode and thus queer conventional notions of narrative cinema.Less
This chapter examines the film career of British director Terence Davies. The cinema of Davies is one of contradictions—between beauty and ugliness, the real and the artificial, progression and tradition, motion and stasis. These opposites reflect a certain struggle, for the filmmaker and his characters, to make sense of a confusing and sometimes violent world. For Davies, this struggle constitutes a reckoning with his past, a highly personal account of a fractured childhood; for the viewer it has resulted in one of the richest, most idiosyncratic, and arrestingly experimental bodies of work put out by a narrative filmmaker. The chapter focuses on the distinct emotional quandaries Davies' films evoke in the viewer and proposes that their tonal and political in-betweenness is a form of cinematic queering. Through the exploration of their contradictions, these films function within seemingly recognizable generic parameters only to then explode and thus queer conventional notions of narrative cinema.
John Orr
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748640140
- eISBN:
- 9780748671090
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748640140.003.0009
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
In the latter part of the twentieth century, two indigenous visions arguably dominate in terms of vision, not in terms of output: in Scottish cinema that of Bill Douglas, in English cinema that of ...
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In the latter part of the twentieth century, two indigenous visions arguably dominate in terms of vision, not in terms of output: in Scottish cinema that of Bill Douglas, in English cinema that of Terence Davies. Both careers were haunted by failure to realise key projects. Douglas had devoted much of his time to a screen version of James Hogg's classic Scottish novel The Confessions of a Justified Sinner, for which there exists an extant screenplay but little more; Davies has tried for many years to bankroll a version of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song — two great Scottish artworks but neither in the end brought to the big screen. This chapter explores mimetic modernism and family mysteries in the Douglas trilogy: My Childhood, My Ain Folk and My Way Home. It also discusses romanticism and the poetry of memory in Davies' films such as Distant Voices, Still Lives, Children, Death and Transfiguration, Madonna and Child, The Long Day Closes and The House of Mirth. The chapter also looks at Iain Softley's The Wings of the Dove.Less
In the latter part of the twentieth century, two indigenous visions arguably dominate in terms of vision, not in terms of output: in Scottish cinema that of Bill Douglas, in English cinema that of Terence Davies. Both careers were haunted by failure to realise key projects. Douglas had devoted much of his time to a screen version of James Hogg's classic Scottish novel The Confessions of a Justified Sinner, for which there exists an extant screenplay but little more; Davies has tried for many years to bankroll a version of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song — two great Scottish artworks but neither in the end brought to the big screen. This chapter explores mimetic modernism and family mysteries in the Douglas trilogy: My Childhood, My Ain Folk and My Way Home. It also discusses romanticism and the poetry of memory in Davies' films such as Distant Voices, Still Lives, Children, Death and Transfiguration, Madonna and Child, The Long Day Closes and The House of Mirth. The chapter also looks at Iain Softley's The Wings of the Dove.
Michael Koresky
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038617
- eISBN:
- 9780252096549
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038617.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Called the most important British filmmaker of his generation, Terence Davies made his reputation with modern classics like Distant Voices, Still Lives, and The Long Day Closes, personal works ...
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Called the most important British filmmaker of his generation, Terence Davies made his reputation with modern classics like Distant Voices, Still Lives, and The Long Day Closes, personal works exploring his fractured childhood in Liverpool. His idiosyncratic and unorthodox narrative films defy easy categorization; though they would seem to exist within the realms of realism and personal memory cinema, the films lay bare the director's personal pain in a daringly abstract way. The book explores the unique emotional tenor of Davies' work by focusing on four paradoxes within the director's oeuvre: films that are autobiographical yet fictional; melancholy yet elating; conservative in tone and theme yet radically constructed; and obsessed with the passing of time yet frozen in time and space. Through these contradictions, the films' intricate designs reveal a cumulative, deeply personal meditation on the self. The book also analyzes how Davies' ongoing negotiation of—and struggle with—questions of identity related to his past and his homosexuality imbue the details and jarring juxtapositions in his films with a queer sensibility, which is too often overlooked due to the complexity of Davies' work and his unfashionable ambivalence toward his own sexual orientation.Less
Called the most important British filmmaker of his generation, Terence Davies made his reputation with modern classics like Distant Voices, Still Lives, and The Long Day Closes, personal works exploring his fractured childhood in Liverpool. His idiosyncratic and unorthodox narrative films defy easy categorization; though they would seem to exist within the realms of realism and personal memory cinema, the films lay bare the director's personal pain in a daringly abstract way. The book explores the unique emotional tenor of Davies' work by focusing on four paradoxes within the director's oeuvre: films that are autobiographical yet fictional; melancholy yet elating; conservative in tone and theme yet radically constructed; and obsessed with the passing of time yet frozen in time and space. Through these contradictions, the films' intricate designs reveal a cumulative, deeply personal meditation on the self. The book also analyzes how Davies' ongoing negotiation of—and struggle with—questions of identity related to his past and his homosexuality imbue the details and jarring juxtapositions in his films with a queer sensibility, which is too often overlooked due to the complexity of Davies' work and his unfashionable ambivalence toward his own sexual orientation.
John Orr
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748640140
- eISBN:
- 9780748671090
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748640140.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
If there is a clash between romanticism and modernism in what is called ‘British’ cinema, it is as much internal as external. Most great directors in Britain are romantics to some degree and ...
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If there is a clash between romanticism and modernism in what is called ‘British’ cinema, it is as much internal as external. Most great directors in Britain are romantics to some degree and modernists to another. In film, paradoxically, the great British romantics like Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, Carol Reed and Ian Powell have often worked though classical ‘invisible’ narration and under tight censorship: the great romantic films invoke war and its aftermath or the end of Empire and frame within them the romantic ironies of personal passion. A film in which the romantic the modern fluidly intersect is Patrick Keiller's documentary fiction London (1994). This book explores the twentieth-century history of the relationship between romanticism and modernism in British cinema starting at the end of the silent era in 1929, stops deliberately in the year 2000 with Terence Davies' The House of Mirth, then starts again with a postscript in the new century.Less
If there is a clash between romanticism and modernism in what is called ‘British’ cinema, it is as much internal as external. Most great directors in Britain are romantics to some degree and modernists to another. In film, paradoxically, the great British romantics like Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, Carol Reed and Ian Powell have often worked though classical ‘invisible’ narration and under tight censorship: the great romantic films invoke war and its aftermath or the end of Empire and frame within them the romantic ironies of personal passion. A film in which the romantic the modern fluidly intersect is Patrick Keiller's documentary fiction London (1994). This book explores the twentieth-century history of the relationship between romanticism and modernism in British cinema starting at the end of the silent era in 1929, stops deliberately in the year 2000 with Terence Davies' The House of Mirth, then starts again with a postscript in the new century.
John Orr
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748640140
- eISBN:
- 9780748671090
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748640140.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book examines the neglected relationship between romanticism and modernism in British cinema from 1929 to the present day. Encompassing a broad selection of films, filmmakers and debates, it ...
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This book examines the neglected relationship between romanticism and modernism in British cinema from 1929 to the present day. Encompassing a broad selection of films, filmmakers and debates, it brings a new perspective to how scholars might understand and interrogate the major traditions that have shaped Britain's cinema history. The book identifies two prominent genres in the British template that often go unrecognised, the fugitive film and the trauma film, whose narratives have bridged the gap between romantic and modern forms. Here Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, Ian Powell, Carol Reed and Robert Hamer are identified as key romantics; Nicolas Roeg, Joseph Losey, Michelangelo Antonioni, Stanley Kubrick and Jerzy Skolimowski as later modernists. The book goes on to assess the narrowing divide through the films of Terence Davies and Bill Douglas, and concludes by analysing its persistence in the new century, in the prize-winning features Control and Hunger.Less
This book examines the neglected relationship between romanticism and modernism in British cinema from 1929 to the present day. Encompassing a broad selection of films, filmmakers and debates, it brings a new perspective to how scholars might understand and interrogate the major traditions that have shaped Britain's cinema history. The book identifies two prominent genres in the British template that often go unrecognised, the fugitive film and the trauma film, whose narratives have bridged the gap between romantic and modern forms. Here Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, Ian Powell, Carol Reed and Robert Hamer are identified as key romantics; Nicolas Roeg, Joseph Losey, Michelangelo Antonioni, Stanley Kubrick and Jerzy Skolimowski as later modernists. The book goes on to assess the narrowing divide through the films of Terence Davies and Bill Douglas, and concludes by analysing its persistence in the new century, in the prize-winning features Control and Hunger.
Michael Koresky
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038617
- eISBN:
- 9780252096549
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038617.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter presents an interview that took place at Terence Davies's home in Mistley, Essex, on October 16, 2012. Topics discussed include the influence of T. S. Eliot's The Four Quartets; whether ...
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This chapter presents an interview that took place at Terence Davies's home in Mistley, Essex, on October 16, 2012. Topics discussed include the influence of T. S. Eliot's The Four Quartets; whether Davies has finally found his own language after years of making movies; the reasons why he continues to make movies despite his belief that cinema is a potentially a dying form and the fact that he no longer enjoys watching movies; the reasons why some of films are in black-and-white; his views about his alter ego character Robert Tucker in the Trilogy; his views on realism; and the importance of telling a narrative in a nonstraightforward way.Less
This chapter presents an interview that took place at Terence Davies's home in Mistley, Essex, on October 16, 2012. Topics discussed include the influence of T. S. Eliot's The Four Quartets; whether Davies has finally found his own language after years of making movies; the reasons why he continues to make movies despite his belief that cinema is a potentially a dying form and the fact that he no longer enjoys watching movies; the reasons why some of films are in black-and-white; his views about his alter ego character Robert Tucker in the Trilogy; his views on realism; and the importance of telling a narrative in a nonstraightforward way.
James Tweedie
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- June 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190873875
- eISBN:
- 9780190873912
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190873875.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Like the tableau vivant, the cinematic still life experienced a stunning revival and reinvention in the late twentieth century. In contrast to the stereotypically postmodern overload of images, the ...
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Like the tableau vivant, the cinematic still life experienced a stunning revival and reinvention in the late twentieth century. In contrast to the stereotypically postmodern overload of images, the still life in film initiates a moment of repose and contemplation within a medium more often defined by the forward rush of moving pictures. It also involves a profound meditation on the relationship between images and objects consistent with practices as diverse as the Spanish baroque still life and the Surrealist variation on the genre. With the work of Terence Davies and Alain Cavalier’s Thérèse (1986) as its primary touchstones, this chapter situates this renewed interest in the cinematic still life within the context of both the late twentieth-century cinema of painters and a socially oriented art cinema that focuses on marginal people and overlooked objects rather than the hegemonic historical narratives also undergoing a revival at the time.Less
Like the tableau vivant, the cinematic still life experienced a stunning revival and reinvention in the late twentieth century. In contrast to the stereotypically postmodern overload of images, the still life in film initiates a moment of repose and contemplation within a medium more often defined by the forward rush of moving pictures. It also involves a profound meditation on the relationship between images and objects consistent with practices as diverse as the Spanish baroque still life and the Surrealist variation on the genre. With the work of Terence Davies and Alain Cavalier’s Thérèse (1986) as its primary touchstones, this chapter situates this renewed interest in the cinematic still life within the context of both the late twentieth-century cinema of painters and a socially oriented art cinema that focuses on marginal people and overlooked objects rather than the hegemonic historical narratives also undergoing a revival at the time.
Deryn Rees-Jones and Michael Murphy (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846310737
- eISBN:
- 9781846314476
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846314476
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Featuring interviews and essays from the likes of Alan Bleasdale, Terence Davies, Linda Grant, Roger McGough, Willy Russell, Levi Tafari, and Paul Du Noyer, the book asks if there is a distinctive ...
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Featuring interviews and essays from the likes of Alan Bleasdale, Terence Davies, Linda Grant, Roger McGough, Willy Russell, Levi Tafari, and Paul Du Noyer, the book asks if there is a distinctive Liverpool literary voice, and if so, how it can be identified. It locates Liverpool as a city with a complex literary and cultural heritage, charting its ongoing connections and affiliations with Ireland, Wales, and the United States as well as the importance of its working-class culture, particularly arising from its seafaring history. The introduction considers the ways in which Liverpool, though central because of its status as second port of Empire, was, by the middle of the twentieth century, very much at the margins of British culture. The chapters explore poetry, novels, drama, TV drama, and film from writers as diverse as James Hanley, Malcolm Lowry, J. G. Farrell, Beryl Bainbridge, Brian Patten, Linda la Plante, and Ramsey Campbell, and demonstrate the remarkable strength and depth of creative talent in the city.Less
Featuring interviews and essays from the likes of Alan Bleasdale, Terence Davies, Linda Grant, Roger McGough, Willy Russell, Levi Tafari, and Paul Du Noyer, the book asks if there is a distinctive Liverpool literary voice, and if so, how it can be identified. It locates Liverpool as a city with a complex literary and cultural heritage, charting its ongoing connections and affiliations with Ireland, Wales, and the United States as well as the importance of its working-class culture, particularly arising from its seafaring history. The introduction considers the ways in which Liverpool, though central because of its status as second port of Empire, was, by the middle of the twentieth century, very much at the margins of British culture. The chapters explore poetry, novels, drama, TV drama, and film from writers as diverse as James Hanley, Malcolm Lowry, J. G. Farrell, Beryl Bainbridge, Brian Patten, Linda la Plante, and Ramsey Campbell, and demonstrate the remarkable strength and depth of creative talent in the city.
