Tag: Film analysis blog

Film Music and Sound, Folk Horror, Literature, Television

The Aural Aesthetics Of Ghosts in BBC Ghost Stories – Part 9 (Conclusions).

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Conclusions. “If its central characteristics remained immune to change, the ghost story did keep pace with the times through progressive modernization of settings and language.” – Cox (xix, 1991). From analysis of the BBC Ghost Stories, it is clear that the narrative function of the supernatural has a natural … Continue reading The Aural Aesthetics Of Ghosts in BBC Ghost Stories – Part 9 (Conclusions).

Unknown's avataradamscovell1 Comment
Film, Landscape, Literature

Perception Of Landscape in A Journey To Avebury (1971) – Derek Jarman.

Out of all of Derek Jarman’s pre-feature length film work, his short capture of a 1971 walking trip, A Journey To Avebury, is perhaps his most interesting and subtly complex piece of short film work.  These were the early days of Jarman’s experimentation when his work as a painter and even a set designer still seemed to dominate over his purely cinematic interests.  This was … Continue reading Perception Of Landscape in A Journey To Avebury (1971) – Derek Jarman.

Unknown's avataradamscovell14 Comments
Film, Film Music and Sound, Folk Horror, Literature

The Aural Aesthetics Of Ghosts In BBC Ghost Stories – Part 8 (The Signalman).

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. The Signalman And Aural Paranoia Over Dickensian Technology. “For those who look back on it, the Victorian age seems to be invested with a peculiar quality of difference – heightened by its relative proximity in time – that is reflected in its ghosts.  It was an age shaped, perhaps more than any … Continue reading The Aural Aesthetics Of Ghosts In BBC Ghost Stories – Part 8 (The Signalman).

Unknown's avataradamscovell2 Comments
Film, Landscape

The Forests Of Ivan’s Childhood (1962) – Andrei Tarkovsky.

For a film about war, Ivan’s Childhood (1962) by Andrei Tarkovsky dwells quite unexpectedly upon the natural landscape of its narrative.  At first, this might seem somewhat unsurprising; after all, most films set during war often make use of the battered terrain of the landscape, if only to show the fallout and power of the weaponry available.  Ivan’s Childhood does more than this and contains … Continue reading The Forests Of Ivan’s Childhood (1962) – Andrei Tarkovsky.

Unknown's avataradamscovell1 Comment
Film, Folk Horror, Landscape

The Naturalist Tendencies of Peter Greenaway’s Short Films.

When surmising the film work of Peter Greenaway, several rather luscious factors often come into play: The huge, architectural scale of his filming locations and sets; the painterly detail of his composition; Influences of Western high art; the larger than life (often Shakespearian) characters performed by the biggest stars in the UK.  All of these facets are what makes his non-narrative, upscale films such as … Continue reading The Naturalist Tendencies of Peter Greenaway’s Short Films.

Unknown's avataradamscovellLeave a comment
Folk Horror, Television

Technological Hysteria in Nigel Kneale’s The Stone Tape (1972).

The following article contains plot twists. Hysteria and Nigel Kneale’s Baby. A very particular and often quoted segment from Freud’s summations of hysterical patients will be used here to begin the contextualisation our analysis.  Whilst writing about the generalities surrounding such cases of hysteria and eventually compulsion neurosis, Freud came up with a short but rather useful sound-bite to describe every patient he had seen.  … Continue reading Technological Hysteria in Nigel Kneale’s The Stone Tape (1972).

Unknown's avataradamscovell1 Comment
Film

Winter Sleep (2014) – Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

In the vast, carved landscapes of Anatolia lies a hotel embedded into the very rock of the land itself.  Inside it are people and debates that show the fractured relationships of the creative and the giving, the emotional and the distanced.  They are speaking a mixture of words by director, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, his wife and screenwriter, Ebru, and the great Russian playwright, Anton Chekhov.  … Continue reading Winter Sleep (2014) – Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

Unknown's avataradamscovell2 Comments
Folk Horror, Television

Hysteria and Curses in Nigel Kneale’s Baby (Beasts, 1976).

When watching Nigel Kneale’s infinitely weird TV series, Beasts (1976), there’s a great sense of underlying currents behind what appear to be strange amalgamations of the everyday with something of the Other.  Though the links between the episodes are often animalistic, ranging the ghost of a dolphin in Buddyboy to the hoards of rats in During Barty’s Party, the majority of the episodes all, at … Continue reading Hysteria and Curses in Nigel Kneale’s Baby (Beasts, 1976).

Unknown's avataradamscovell1 Comment
Film Music and Sound, Folk Horror, Landscape, Television

The Aural Aesthetics of Ghosts in BBC Ghost Stories – Part 6 (Excavation).

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Human Interaction With The Landscape And Its Soundscape. “The wind was bitter from the north, but was at his back when he set out for the Globe.  He quickly rattled and clashed through the shingle and gained the sand, upon which, but for the groynes which had to be got over every few yards, the … Continue reading The Aural Aesthetics of Ghosts in BBC Ghost Stories – Part 6 (Excavation).

Unknown's avataradamscovell4 Comments
Film, Film Music and Sound

A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 9 (Conclusions).

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Conclusions. The auteristic traits of any director can have a strong, almost unstoppable effect on a film and its subject matter.  This often ranges from stylistic visual aestheticism to more thematic trends in a director’s body of work.  For this case study of the work of Ken Russell, this … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 9 (Conclusions).

Unknown's avataradamscovell1 Comment