Hello all, as we say goodbye to the shortest month of the year and look forward to Pancake Day and Lent (for those of you who celebrate it), why not enjoy some films to get you through? Or for those that don’t, use them to take a break from revision. This month’s blog is all about one of the biggest influences in the British film industry, the British Film Institute – or BFI for short.
Formed almost 90 years ago, the BFI charitable organisation promotes and preserves film-making and television in the UK. Using funds generated from and provided by the National Lottery it encourages film distribution, production and education. The BFI is also home to the largest film archive in the world, which is comprised of close to 1 million titles (mainly British but featuring some significant international holdings as well). So, it won’t surprise you to know that all four of this month’s entries can be found in said Archive (though only one is a British production). All four films were also named on the BFI’s list of the Top 100 films of all time, published in their Sight & Sound magazine (which can also be found within the Library’s impressive Journals collection if you fancy a peak).
Each film has a slightly psychological feel to it, but our first feature is the least inclined in that sense while also being the sole British production: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960).
What may seem a basic premise is an extremely well-placed look at the minds of various youths (both when the film was first released and even still today) in the form of kitchen sink drama, a popular genre of the 50s and 60s era. Adapted from the 1958 novel of the same name, it stars celebrated actor Albert Finney (Scrooge 1970, Annie 1982, Skyfall 2012) as Arthur Seaton, a young machinist working at the Raleigh bicycle factory in Nottingham.
Arthur spends his days working hard, using his wages to drink on the weekends and have a good time, much to the chagrin of his parents. Determined not to ever be tied down to domestic life, he spends his days rebelling against his elders wishes for him. However, things soon start to change for Arthur once he begins an affair with a colleague’s wife, even developing feelings for her. Though he knows he can’t have a life with her, he begins to learn that the bachelor life is not all it’s cracked up to be, and might not quite be enough for him after all. Simple but relatable, this film is a decent watch for all rebellious youths out there, both those who see themselves as one now or did in their own young adulthood. It certainly had plenty of people taking notice upon release, so much so, that co-producer Harry Saltzman went on to co-produce the first nine James Bond films directly due to his work on this feature.
You can watch the opening scene now by clicking the link below:
From and old classic to a modern classic, our next entry is David Lynch’s neo-noir mystery Mulholland Drive (2001).
This psychedelic feature is in some ways a love letter to Hollywood and topped a 2016 BBC poll of the best films since the millennium. It stars Naomi Watts as aspiring actress Betty who arrives in Los Angeles hoping to make a name for herself, though she gets a lot more than she bargained for after a chance encounter. In said encounter she befriends an amnesiac woman who appears to be the sole survivor of a car accident. The confused woman goes by the name Rita, after seeing a poster for a film starring renowned actress Rita Hayworth, the story then follows her and Betty’s journey as they attempt to discover who Rita truly is and why she was in the car to begin with.
The many twists and turns throughout the journey will certainly play tricks on many a mind, but this film is without a doubt still very much worth a watch. It garnered mainly positive reviews over its composition and story (though unsurprisingly it left some critics a tad perplexed), so much so that it earned Lynch a nomination for a Best Director Academy Award.
Feast your eyes on some of that amazing direction by watching the trailer in the link below:
The penultimate pick of this month takes us to even more international waters, with the Japanese thriller Rashomon (1950).
Directed by Akira Kurosawa of Seven Samurai fame, it his highly revered as the most inspirational of his works. Based on two separate short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (including one of the same name), it tells the tale of a Samurai’s murder in a forest. The tale however, is recounted by 4 very different people; the Bandit, the Samurai’s wife, the Samurai himself (all three of whom claimed to have done the killing) and the Woodcutter (who claims to have borne witness to the whole debacle and holds the true knowledge of what occurred); who each give a very different account of what happened. It is therefore up to the court and the audience to decide which account is true of what really happened in the forest.
Dealing with several heavy themes, Rashomon also draws parallels with the end of WWII in Japan. These are some of the reasons why most Japanese critics did not like the film, yet it drew plenty of positive reviews in the West. It received an honorary Academy Award at the 1952 Oscars and is widely considered to be one of the greatest films of all time. Like Kurosawa’s other international hit Seven Samurai, its influence reached far and wide, even managing to have a technique known as “The Rashomon Effect” named after it – a storytelling method used in cinema, and now television, to tell the narrative from several different perspectives and point of view. This effect has been used in and inspired many other features in the decades since the film’s release, including The Usual Suspects and Gone Girl, as well as episodes of series such as Frasier, The X-Files and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Watch a clip in the link below of the discovery of the Samurai’s deceased body:
Having visited both the 1950’s and 60’s on our journey through some of the greatest films of all time, it is only fitting we finish with a trip to the 70’s, for the Mystery crime thriller Chinatown (1974).
Starring a young Jack Nicholson at the start of his fame and Faye Dunaway, it was highly inspired the California Water Wars, a series of disputes over Southern California water in the early 20th Century. It sees Nicholson’s private detective, J.J. ‘Jake’ Gittes, hired to follow the Chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. However, shortly after he begins his assignment the chief is murdered beginning the mystery. From there Gittes starts to uncover a severe criminal conspiracy at the heart of the water department, who have deceived the public into believing there is a drought, as he investigates the Chiefs death with the help of the Chief’s widow (Dunaway), and its possible connection to the department.
While director Roman Polanski has become highly controversial in the public’s eyes in the last couple of decades, there’s no doubt this film still deserves a watch. Much like the others on the list it is rated as one of the greatest movies of all time, and has an average rating of 9.4/10 on Rotten Tomatoes (that’s quite a feat), with Nicholson’s performance in particular lauded still to this day. It was also nominated for no less than 11 Academy Awards, although it won just one. Chinatown is undoubtedly a classic of the Golden era of cinema.
You can watch the clip in the link below from early on the film for a sneak preview:
All four of these magnificent and influential films are available to loan only on DVD through the Library now. These classical features may not be your usual cup of tea, but if you love or study film they most certainly should be on your watchlists!
Bradford College Planet Estream.
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