Tag: Adam Scovell

Film, Folk Horror

The Uncanny in Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages (1922)- Benjamin Christensen.

In one of the first attempts I made at canonising the sub-genre of Folk Horror, I likened the majority of its films to be brilliant but mere fugues on the ideas presented in Benjamin Christensen’s Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages (1922).  Outside of Victor Sjöström’s The Phantom Carriage (1921), it was the earliest and most explicit form of the sub-genre that seemed to be surviving … Continue reading The Uncanny in Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages (1922)- Benjamin Christensen.

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Film

Deception and False Uptopia in the Films of Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth, Alps).

“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”  Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov. The above quote from Dostoevsky’s masterful work, The Brothers … Continue reading Deception and False Uptopia in the Films of Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth, Alps).

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Film, Folk Horror

Blackwood (2013) – Adam Wimpenny.

The ghost story has had a resurgence lately in film and television.  Perhaps the increasing reliance on distancing technology and social media has lead to a desire to retread older forms that now seem prescient but there’s no doubt that the genre as a whole is alive and well, especially for commercially minded lower budget film; the blueprint set up by Hammer’s adaptation of Susan … Continue reading Blackwood (2013) – Adam Wimpenny.

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Film, Folk Horror, Landscape, Short Film

Trailer – The Coastal Path.

Here’s a trailer for my next short film called The Coastal Path.  It’s a ghost story and filmed on both digital and super 8 film.  I’ll be going into detail about the film when it is eventually available to watch online (i.e. when it’s finished) but for now, I wanted a trailer just to sum up the work so far.  It has taken a lot … Continue reading Trailer – The Coastal Path.

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Film

Alain Robbe- Grillet: Six Films, 1963-1974 (BFI).

This review contains minor plot details. When a body of work is inherently made up of intricately layered themes and hidden caches of ideas, surmising the work as a whole can be extremely difficult.  This is never more prescient than in the BFI’s release of six films by French film writer and director, Alain Robbe-Grillet; a seemingly missing link in French cinema of the 1960s … Continue reading Alain Robbe- Grillet: Six Films, 1963-1974 (BFI).

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Film, Film Music and Sound

The Long Goodbye (1973, Robert Altman) – A Musical Critique of Film-Noir.

Out of all of the modern interpretations of film-noir produced in the 1970s, The Long Goodbye (1973) is by far the most aesthetically interesting.  This isn’t only because of its integration with counter-culture ideas and values, but with its continuous critical assessment of genre tropes.  This critique, which extends to the literature and music as well as the films of the hindsight-based movement, is considered … Continue reading The Long Goodbye (1973, Robert Altman) – A Musical Critique of Film-Noir.

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Film, Film Music and Sound

Eraserhead (1977) – Sickly Soundscapes (David Lynch).

For a film as heavily symbolic as David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977), readings of its aesthetic aspects are often commonplace within the cinematic discourse of the film.  Lynch has often made explicit use of the medium’s inherent dream-state as a tool to question the viewer on various topics, often finding visual expression through symbolic and highly personal direction.  Though Eraserhead was his first feature film, his … Continue reading Eraserhead (1977) – Sickly Soundscapes (David Lynch).

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Film

The Quiet City

Chantal Akerman’s News from Home (1976-77) is a visual diary reflecting on a very personal history. A feature length film of sorts, it seems born out of cathartic necessity rather than simply creative ambition. Akerman had been working throughout the 1970s, and News from Home was made after her critical appreciation had more grown in stature, largely thanks to the impossible-to-ignore vigour of her four hour 1975 feature, Jeanne Dielman, … Continue reading The Quiet City

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Film, Film Music and Sound

Mozart in Le Bonheur (1965) – Agnès Varda.

It must have come as a political shock to see a film in 1965 highlight, with such casual brutality, the privilege of the male patriarch.  Agnès Varda’s third feature, Le Bonheur, is such a contradiction in its conveyance of a happiness, ignorant of morality, that its shock is rarely diminished.  The film is a colourful, seasonal evocation of a very unusual ménage à trios which … Continue reading Mozart in Le Bonheur (1965) – Agnès Varda.

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Film, Film Music and Sound

The Female Voice in Subversive Soundtracks of the Counter-Culture Era.

The Female Voice in Subversive Soundtracks of the Counter-Culture Era. After a recent viewing of Alan J. Pakula’s crime thriller, Klute (1971), something occurred at the back of my mind that connected the film with a number of others.  At first, I struggled with my memory as to what exactly it was about the film that was bringing other films of the era to mind; … Continue reading The Female Voice in Subversive Soundtracks of the Counter-Culture Era.

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