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.
The characters of Nigel Kneale’s work rarely like an outsider. The drama of his plays is often built around small groups of people at odds with some concept of an outsider. The oppositional group will be diametrically opposed for a variety of reasons; sometimes for more pulp tendencies such as aliens in a space invasion scenario, but also more recognisable images of townspeople entering closed … Continue reading Fear of the Outsider in Quatermas II
As some may know, I’m currently engaged in a collaborative project with the writer, Robert Macfarlane, and also in periphery with the artist Stanley Donwood. Our aim is to produce a short visual summation of the fragmented novella booklet that Robert and Stanley released, together with writer Dan Richards, all about the Holloways of Dorset. These Holloways are sunken paths; pathways that have grown into … Continue reading Filming In The Holloways.
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.
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.
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.
Communities that live on the fringes of modern society have always had a particular interest to a certain breed of filmmakers. Ken Loach focuses on some aspects of this in his work while Pier Paolo Pasolini positively insists on involving isolated and under-represented groups of people, whether within his narratives or in the production of the films themselves. Even last year’s Sight & Sound best … Continue reading An Episode In The Life Of An Iron Picket (2013) – Danis Tanovic.
Celluloid Wicker Man 