Author Archives: Michael Brooke

A Blonde in Love

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DVD cover of A Blonde in LoveSecond Run’s latest DVD is out today, complete with a 5,000-word booklet essay by yours truly. Compared with the research challenges posed by the two Jan Němec films (Diamonds of the Night and The Party and the Guests), this was a breeze to write: as one of the most internationally renowned of all the Czech New Wave films, A Blonde in Love has been extensively documented in English, not least in Miloš Forman’s autobiography Turnaround, and so there was lots of anecdotal material to draw on.

Aware that the booklet was the only extra (planned interviews with Forman and/or co-writer Ivan Passer had foundered in the face of a release deadline), I tried to come up with something that hadn’t been offered on other editions, and decided to devote the second half of the booklet to a full-blown reception study. Thanks to Václav Březina’s invaluable Lexikon českého filmu (broadly speaking, the Czech equivalent of Halliwell’s Film Guide, purchased on impulse in Prague circa 1997), I had access to contemporary box office figures, and was able to compare the film’s success with that of Forman’s other Czech films, and the other Czech titles in Second Run’s catalogue. Handily, the figures were in admissions, not Czech crowns, so direct comparisons could be made regardless of inflation:

  • A Blonde in Love – 2,255,858
  • The Firemen’s Ball – 1,348,547
  • Marketa Lazarová – 1,251,048
  • Romeo, Juliet and Darkness – 1,202,677
  • Black Peter – 978,142
  • Larks on a String – 750,803
  • Morgiana – 595,959
  • The Cremator – 590,242
  • Audition/Talent Competition – 545,161
  • Intimate Lighting – 345,129
  • The Valley of the Bees – 329,671
  • The Ear – 272,785
  • Adelheid – 258,247
  • Daisies – 213,782
  • Valerie and her Week of Wonders – 196,923
  • The Party and the Guests – 86,124
  • Diamonds of the Night – 76,001

(The figures are ticket sales between the original release and 1995 – I imagine they wouldn’t be that different today, unless any had a big theatrical reissue in the last fifteen years).

It’s interesting to see the very high placing for Romeo, Juliet and Darkness, which I always assumed was one of the more obscure titles in Second Run’s catalogue – and also that Larks on a String was a solid hit despite not opening in public until 1990 (though My Sweet Little Village had become an all-time box-office champ not much earlier, with a whopping 4,428,556 admissions, so Jiří Menzel clearly had a substantial following). And it’s amusing to see Diamonds of the Night at the bottom of the list, as it was officially registered as a box office hit on account of being sold abroad as part of a package containing far more lucrative titles – Czech Communist accounting regarded them as being equally successful even when they blatantly weren’t.

I also discovered that the film was pretty close to an unqualified critical hit in Britain (where it had a major impact on Lindsay Anderson, Mike Leigh and Ken Loach) and that it caused surprisingly big censorship rows in both Argentina and Australia. Looking at it now, it’s hard to believe that it was ever officially X-rated, though at the time this would only have prevented under-16s from seeing it, so the current (and fair) 15 certificate isn’t that different.

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Screenonline in December

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Lotte ReinigerBFI Screenonline has just updated its homepage, continuing its coverage of the Shadows of Progress postwar documentary project, and highlighting Soap Opera, Newsreels and the films of exactly a century ago (the latter part of an ongoing series that has already tackled 1906, 1907, 1908 and 1909).

I spent much of the month compiling soap opera credits, a task about as soul-destroying as it gets – but I did get the chance to write the main entry on EastEnders. I also took the opportunity of writing up Arctic London (1929, Topical Budget 912-1), a newsreel about weather conditions rather similar to our recent ones.

Sight & Sound: December 2010

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Cover of Sight & Sound December 2010The latest Sight & Sound is out, complete with the following pieces by me:

  • brilliantlove (p. 56) – review of Ashley Horner’s paean to youthful erotic obsession: a very promising first half leads to a second without much to say;
  • Red & White (p. 73) – review of Yadi Sugandi’s slick, not unenjoyable but terminally clichéd Indonesian war movie;
  • Last Night (p. 86) – review of Park Circus’ DVD of Don McKellar’s very Canadian comedy of manners as assorted people contemplate the planet’s imminent but unexplained demise;
  • Films by Claudia Llosa (p. 86) – review of Dogwoof’s double-bill DVD of the first two features by the Peruvian director, over which the twin spirits of Luis Buñuel and Werner Herzog loom large;
  • Morgiana (p. 87) – review of Second Run’s DVD of Juraj Herz’s delirious Gainsborough-on-acid Gothic melodrama;
  • Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (p. 89) – review of Masters of Cinema’s excellent Blu-ray edition of Frank Tashlin’s 1950s consumerist satire;
  • The World (p. 90) – review of Masters of Cinema’s superlative Blu-ray edition of Jia Zhangke’s unsettling blend of documentary and fiction, filmed in a genuine theme park.

Shadows of Progress: the book

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Cover of Shadows of ProgressToday sees the publication of the first instalment of a major new BFI project that will ultimately span a DVD box, a comprehensive big-screen retrospective and online coverage across various platforms (Mediatheque, Screenonline, YouTube), all dedicated to exploring the surprisingly unspoilt territory of the British postwar documentary film.

Two-and-a-half years ago, Land of Progress traced the history from 1931 to 1950, in the process covering what as far as most people are concerned was the golden age of British documentary. Since then, despite no drop in output (quite the reverse, in fact), serious critical study of later documentaries has generally been restricted to the more critically-favoured likes of the Free Cinema movement and the easily accessible output of British Transport Films. Meanwhile, the bulk of British documentary output from the period (roughly 1950-77) remained in the vaults of their production companies, sponsors or the BFI National Archive.

So when the Shadows of Progress project was formally approved, part of the challenge was to contextualise this material. Though the forthcoming DVD box (a four-disc set, like its predecessor) would also include a 100-page book, it was felt that this wasn’t nearly enough, and that the project should also encompass a far more extensive 400-page survey of the entire postwar documentary scene. Overseen by Patrick Russell (the BFI’s Senior Curator of Non-Fiction) and James Piers Taylor, the book’s first half presents an overall history of the period, with particular focus on the various production companies and major sponsors and how they interacted. The second, longer, half focuses on individual filmmakers, with chapters commissioned from BFI staff (mostly non-fiction curators) and external experts:

  • ‘People, Productivity and Change: Peter Bradford’ by Timothy Boon;
  • ‘The World Still Sings: Jack Howells’ by Dave Berry;
  • ”I Don’t Think He Did Anything After That’: Paul Dickson’ by Leo Enticknap;
  • ‘Conflict and Confluence: Michael Orrom’ by Katy McGahan;
  • ‘Documentary on the Move: Tony Thompson, Bill Mason, Geoffrey Jones’ by Steven Foxon;
  • ‘Pictures Should Be Steady: James Hill’ by James Piers Taylor;
  • ‘Less Film Society – More Fleet Street: Peter Hopkinson’ by James Piers Taylor;
  • ‘Science and Society: Peter de Normanville, Sarah Erulkar’ by Ros Cranston & Katy McGahan;
  • ‘Shooting the Message: John Krish’ by Patrick Russell;
  • ‘Who’s Driving?: Peter Pickering’ by Patrick Russell;
  • ‘The Passing Stranger: Anthony Simmons’ by Michael Brooke;
  • ‘Meet the Pioneers – Early Lindsay Anderson’ by Erik Hedling;
  • ‘A Person Apart: Guy Brenton’ by Ros Cranston;
  • ‘Tracts of Time: Derek Williams’ by Patrick Russell;
  • ‘Savage Voyages: Eric Marquis’ by Rebecca Vick;
  • ‘Between Two Worlds: Derrick Knight’ by Bert Hogenkamp;

My own chapter looked at the career of Anthony Simmons, who was probably the most commercially successful of these filmmakers after Lindsay Anderson. Happily, he’s still alive and well and was only too glad to reminisce about his career. In addition to conducting two interviews myself (one on video for the DVD box, another much longer one in private) and having long chats over various lunches, I also had access to Rodney Giesler’s four-tape interview conducted in 1997 for the invaluable BECTU History Project – and, most crucially, was able to watch virtually all the films that I needed to see, including his unfinished and unreleased debut Bulgarian Village (1947). In fact, I think the only one that I couldn’t get hold of was his feature debut Your Money or Your Wife (1960), but both Tony and the contemporary reviews suggested that I wasn’t missing much (and in any case it wasn’t a documentary).

When writing a project like this, there’s a huge weight of responsibility that comes with the knowledge that this will be the definitive resource for postwar documentary research for some time to come – and that any mistakes will duly find themselves reprinted in countless follow-ups. It’s now several months since I proofread my final draft, and I’m not aware of any mistakes that have crept into my own contribution, so fingers crossed that things stay that way. And I’m greatly looking forward to finding the time to read the rest of the book.

Reviews

Sight & Sound: November 2010

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Cover of Sight & Sound November 2010The latest Sight & Sound is out, complete with the following pieces by me:

  • The Arbor – review of Clio Barnard’s alarmingly original take on the concept of drama-documentary;
  • Involuntary – review of Ruben Östlund’s agreeably off-kilter study of Swedish social foibles;
  • Possession – review of Second Sight’s excellent DVD of Andrzej Żuławski’s ferociously confrontational study of marital breakdown: probably the most complex and intelligent of the films that made the DPP’s “video nasties” list;
  • The Burmese Harp – review of Masters of Cinema’s Blu-ray-only edition of Kon Ichikawa’s anti-war masterpiece;
  • Compulsion – review of Second Sight’s DVD of Richard Fleischer’s widescreen treatment of the Leopold and Loeb murder case that also inspired Rope and Swoon;
  • Satyajit Ray Volume 3 – review of Artificial Eye’s latest box set, containing the revelatory Deliverance, the masterly Tagore adaptation The Home and the World, and the disappointing Ibsen adaptation An Enemy of the People;
  • While the City Sleeps – review of Fritz Lang’s wickedly funny thriller about media priorities when faced with a life-or-death drama.

YouTube: The Sea in Their Blood (1983)

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When I started exploring the BFI’s new Blu-ray release of Peter Greenaway’s A Zed and Two Noughts, I found this wonderfully bonkers surprise nestling in the extras (it wasn’t included on the DVD), and had to publish some of it on YouTube. It’s nominally a serious COI-funded documentary about various aspects of Britain’s coastline, but you’d guess its director and composer (Michael Nyman) in seconds.