Photos from Andrew Bartram‘s Fenland series. The memory of a day from the my childhood returned to my thoughts recently. It was born of the colour orange, the feeling of sunlight upon my face and memories of my father. Forever being hoisted from the comfort of my house into varied, arid stretches of land in search of animalistic treasure, the day in question was a … Continue reading Fictions: Whixall Moss
In the British tradition of the Chase & Pursuit drama, there are several reoccurring themes. The idea of a lone individual being chased through different landscapes by a group was popularised in Britain by the Second World War but was around far before then. The basic set-up has an individual wanted for some crime or misdemeanour (sometimes falsely). They are pursued by various parties, from the law … Continue reading Fugitive in the Landscape
I thought it would last my time – The sense that, beyond the town, There would always be fields and farms, Where the village louts could climb Such trees as were not cut down; I knew there’d be false alarms – Going, Going, Philip Larkin. Above is the opening stanza of Philip Larkin’s 1972 poem, Going, Going. The poem captures the sense of a world being lost. The … Continue reading Philip Larkin’s Spirit in Requiem For A Village (1976)
Above is the trailer for the film that I have been working on with Robert Macfarlane. Only recently, upon reading a Wikipedia entry no less, did I discover that it is an adaptation of a “Sunday Times best-seller”. Perhaps it is best to ignore the pressure of this in spite of the article actually putting my name to the project. As the edit progresses, Holloway … Continue reading Trailer – Holloway (Robert Macfarlane).
In Henry David Thoreau’s influential work, Walden (1854), he speaks of many elements of the natural landscape and the deeper meaning within it. Tying into the first movement of transcendentalism, Thoreau’s was one of a number of works that sought out inner spirituality within a journey toward the outside. One quote seems particularly prescient, both in the context of our film of study and in … Continue reading Death and Landscape in Drowning By Numbers (1988) – Peter Greenaway.
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.
Celluloid Wicker Man 