BFI – Page 10 – { feuilleton }

“Who is this who is coming?”

Whistle and I’ll Come to You (1968).

He blew tentatively and stopped suddenly, startled and yet pleased at the note he had elicited. It had a quality of infinite distance in it, and, soft as it was, he somehow felt it must be audible for miles round. It was a sound, too, that seemed to have the power (which many scents possess) of forming pictures in the brain. He saw quite clearly for a moment a vision of a wide, dark expanse at night, with a fresh wind blowing, and in the midst a lonely figure—how employed, he could not tell. Perhaps he would have seen more had not the picture been broken by the sudden surge of a gust of wind against his casement, so sudden that it made him look up, just in time to see the white glint of a sea-bird’s wing somewhere outside the dark panes.

MR James, Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad.

One of the alleged highlights of this year’s Christmas television from the BBC was a new adaptation of an MR James ghost story, Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad. The film starred John Hurt and came with the same truncated title, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, as was used for Jonathan Miller’s 1968 version, also a BBC production. The story title comes originally from a poem by Robert Burns. The new work was adapted by Neil Cross and directed by Andy de Emmony, and I describe it as an alleged highlight since I wasn’t impressed at all by the drama, the most recent attempt by the BBC to continue a generally creditable tradition of screening ghost stories at Christmas. Before I deal with my disgruntlement I’ll take the opportunity to point the way to some earlier derivations. (And if you don’t want the story spoiled, away and read it first.)

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Len Lye

Rainbow Dance (1936).

Fortunate Londoners can see a BFI screening of early film shorts by Len Lye (1901–1980) this Friday at the NFT. (Details here.) Lye is one of the pioneers of abstract cinema and his work still astounds for its inventiveness and playful interaction between synchronised image and music. Many of his works were created by painting directly onto the film strip, a technique later pursued by animators like Norman McLaren. Free Radicals has long been a favourite, created with nothing more than a drum track and scratches on black-and-white film; five minutes of hypnotic genius. The BFI programme list below features links to YouTube versions. Some are poor quality but worth watching all the same:

This slot is dedicated to Len Lye, a towering figure in experimental film. The films are: Tusalava (1929, 9min, silent); Peanut Vendor (1933, 2min); Kaleidoscope (1935, 4min); A Colour Box (1935, 3min); The Birth of a Robot (1936, 6min); Rainbow Dance (1936, 4min); Colour Flight (1937, 4min); Swinging the Lambeth Walk (1940, 4min); Rhythm (1957, 1min); Free Radicals (1958, 5min); Particles in Space (1966, 4min); Cameramen at War (1944, 14min); Everyday (dir Hans Richter, 1929, 17min). Approx 77min total.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The abstract cinema archive

Short films by Sergei Parajanov

Hakob Hovnatanyan (1967).

I’ve been enthusing for years about the unique films of Sergei Parajanov (1924–1990), usually in vain since his work hasn’t always been easy to see and is (for now) poorly served by DVD. His two masterworks, Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (1964) and The Colour of Pomegranates (1968), have both been issued on disc but in shoddy versions with prints that are scratched and desaturated, and the latter suffers from poor subtitling. Parajanov’s films make bold use of colour and a washed-out print does him no favours at all. In an ideal world the BFI or Criterion would give these films the attention they deserve.

Grumbles aside, Ubuweb comes up trumps again by posting three of Parajanov’s shorter works, none of which I’d seen before. These give some idea of his distinctive tableaux style, and his recurrent preoccupation with decorative details and close views of objects.

• Parajanov.com

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Disasters of War

Kenneth Anger on DVD again

Nearly two years after their American release, and not a moment too soon, the films which comprise Kenneth Anger‘s superb Magick Lantern Cycle turn up at last in the UK. Good to see these being produced by the BFI, their previous collections of shorts by the Brothers Quay and Jan Svankmajer are distinguished by quality transfers, great packaging and very thorough documentation. Surprising, then, that the box art of the BFI set is rather naff-looking compared to the Fantoma releases. On the plus side, those of us in Region 2 receive the additional extra of an Anger documentary by Elio Gelminis. The BFI is also making these films available for the first time on Blu-ray. Now I’m hoping they might get round to doing a decent job with all the films of Sergei Parajanov, especially that cult favourite of mine, Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors.

Renowned as the author of the scandalous best-selling book Hollywood Babylon, Kenneth Anger is a legend in this own time. The mythology that has grown around him has many sources, from his involvement with the occult, astrology and the pop world of Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull and Jimmy Page, to the announcement of his own death in the pages of the Village Voice, and the destruction, loss and banning of his films. At the heart of all this mythology is a filmmaker of prodigious talent, whose skill and imagination create films of great visual force, influencing filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and RW Fassbinder.

Disc one:
* Fireworks (1947)
* Puce Moment (1949)
* Rabbit’s Moon (1950/1971, the rarely seen 16mins version)
* Eaux d’Artifice (1953)
* Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954)
* Scorpio Rising (1964)
* Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965)
* Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969)
* Rabbit’s Moon (1979 version)
* Lucifer Rising (1981)

Disc two:
* Anger Me (2006) – Elio Gelminis documentary on Kenneth Anger

Extras
* Newly recorded commentaries by Kenneth Anger
* The Man We Want to Hang (2002) – Anger’s film on the paintings of Aleister Crowley

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Mouse Heaven by Kenneth Anger
• The Man We Want to Hang by Kenneth Anger
• Relighting the Magick Lantern
• Jan Svankmajer: The Complete Short Films
• Kenneth Anger on DVD…finally
• The Brothers Quay on DVD

Jan Svankmajer: The Complete Short Films

Historia Naturae, Suita (1967).

Another very welcome DVD release from the BFI. Svankmajer’s shorts have always been my favourites of his film work. I love his Alice feature film (for me, the best screen adaptation of Alice in Wonderland), and Faust (although the jabbering devils get annoying) but on the whole his longer films don’t seem to work as well as the earlier works. The short films present his Surrealist intentions in their purest expression, whether using his own jerky form of stop-motion animation or the aggressive montage seen in The Ossuary and elsewhere.

As with the Brothers Quay release from last year, there’s a great set of extras with this. If you’re curious about the films but have never seen them, searching for his name on YouTube turns up a few examples.

The most comprehensive DVD collection ever assembled of all 26 short films by the legendary Czech Surrealist filmmaker-animator Jan Svankmajer is released by the BFI on 25 June. Technically and conceptually astonishing in their own right, these films are also as remarkable for their philosophical consistency as for their frequently mind-boggling imagery.

Drawing on a tradition of Surrealism based in the capital of magic and alchemy—Prague—Svankmajer uses a range of techniques, combining live action, puppet theatre, stop-motion and drawn animation, claymation, cut-outs, re-edited archive footage and montage.

With nearly eight hours of material, compiled on three discs and packaged in a deluxe digipack with a 56-page illustrated booklet, the DVD is a truly must-have item for any Svankmajer fan. Its release follows a visit by the director to BFI Southbank on 29 May to discuss his work, after a preview of his latest film Lunacy. Lunacy opens for a two-week run on 1 June, part of a complete Jan Svankmajer retrospective season at BFI Southbank from 1–16 June, a selection of which will then go on tour.

Compiled by BFI Screenonline’s Michael Brooke, who also produced last year’s highly acclaimed release Quay Brothers: The Short Films 1979–2003, the DVD collection spans almost 30 years, from The Last Trick (1964) to Food (1992). All the classics are included—Punch and Judy, The Flat, Jabberwocky, Dimensions of Dialogue, Down to the Cellar and both versions of The Ossuary (with the original banned tour-guide soundtrack and the replacement music track), alongside many British video premieres. It even contains the music video made for former Stranglers front man Hugh Cornwell (Another Kind of Love) and two ‘Art Breaks’ created for MTV.

The third disc of two-and-a-half hours of extra material includes a bonus short, Johanes Doktor Faust (1958); the original 54-minute version of The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer (1984) with a brand new introduction by the Quay Brothers; the French documentary Les Chimères des Svankmajer (2001); interviews with Jan and Eva Svankmajer and examples of their work in other media. There’s also a chance to see some Svankmajer special effects, created for commercial Czech features when he was banned from making his own films. The 54-page booklet includes an introduction to Svankmajer by Michael O’Pray; detailed film notes by Michael Brooke, Simon Field, Michael O’Pray, Julian Petley, A.L. Rees and Philip Strick; notes on the extras and much more.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Short films by Walerian Borowczyk
• Taxandria, or Raoul Servais meets Paul Delvaux
• The Brothers Quay on DVD
• Barta’s Golem