Synopsis. Artefacts (2014) is a short video piece shot on super 8 film. It captures the rural vistas around The Wirral which show hints of civilisation but fail to show the true presence of humanity. These rural areas are littered with man-made objects but the natural wilderness has won through, creating a sense of the uncanny and eerie in places almost haunted by their emptiness … Continue reading Short Film – Artefacts (Super 8 film).
The Sounds of Sacrifice: The Music of British Folk Horror Films. Introduction. In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, a small group of horror films made in Britain set themselves apart from the rest of the genre, becoming an aptly cult phenomena now acknowledged under the banner of folk horror. As a newly recognised sub-genre, it can be difficult to assess though, as new … Continue reading The Music of Folk Horror – Part 1 (Sub-Genre Theories).
While many British films take full advantage of the rural potential that “this spectered isle” can provide, there seems to be another sub-sect to this branch film, often finding its way into British horror cinema. Of course, this isn’t as clear cut as simply analysing films under the guise of “Rural Horror” or “Folk Horror” but there is a small batch of British horror films … Continue reading Films On The Strange British Coastline.
Lindsay Anderson’s If…. (1968) has so many obvious visual qualities that it can sometimes be easy to overlook its highly original and thematically motivated use of music. Anderson’s films are littered with all sorts of aural qualities though often tended to be more overt in his trilogy of Mick Travis films, the other two instalments being O’Lucky Man (1973) and Britannia Hospital (1982). If…., however, … Continue reading The Music of If…. (1968, Lindsay Anderson).
The late 1970s and early 1980s occupy a strange realm in our current affections of nostalgia. While openly acknowledged as a problematic era for politics, riots and race/police relations being at an all time low, there has been a steady but gradual yearning for the age’s art. This isn’t just in the traditional sense of nostalgia but quite a specific relationship; the era is currently … Continue reading That Sinking Feeling (Bill Forsyth, 1979) – BFI Flipside.
Paul Wright’s debut feature film, For Those In Peril, won many plaudits on its release and even managed a BAFTA nomination this year. His film is a richly layered and deeply moving fantastical tale of an isolated community who are at odds with the soul survivor of a tragedy at sea. For Those In Peril is out now on DVD and a full article on … Continue reading Interview with Paul Wright (For Those In Peril).
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Conclusions “The link between art and real history is the fact that works of art are structured like monads. History may be called the content of works of art. Analysing them is the same as becoming conscious of the immanent history stored up in them.” Adorno (1970, p.126). The bedrock of this essay has been to show how Ligeti’s … Continue reading Ligeti’s Atmosphères as a Musical Foreshadowing of Kubrick’s 2001- Part 4 (Conclusions)
The Book of Sand is probably the most ambitious project I’ve attempted so far. The technique I’ve been using to make films for the last year or so (using a photographic sports mode on a Canon 600D and then animating the results like a stop-motion) may have seemed gimmick lead but, until very recently, this has been the only way I’ve been able to make … Continue reading Short Film – The Book of Sand (Jorge Luis Borges).
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. The Eternal Return and Zarathustra’s Gift. “-and must we not return down that other lane out before us, down that long, terrible lane – must we not return eternally?” – Nietzsche (1883/1986, p.241). The final section of this argument refers back to Nietzsche and his writing on the Eternal Return. His work on the subject, both philosophically in The … Continue reading Elemental Chaos and Eternal Return in Scriabin and Andrei Tarkovsky – Part 4 (Zarathustra).
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. The ANS Synthesiser and the Final Parallel. “Has man any hope of survival in the face of all the patent signs of impending apocalyptic silence?” Tarkovsky (1987, p.229) Scriabin and Tarkovsky have a final meeting place outside of the philosophical. This meeting, on the one hand, seems almost to be coincidental but further inspection suggests that it is … Continue reading Elemental Chaos and Eternal Return in Scriabin and Andrei Tarkovsky – Part 5 (ANS Synthesiser + Conclusions).
Celluloid Wicker Man 