https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/05/hou-hsiao-hsien-11-contexts-b-kind-hu-dragon-inn-1967-a-touch-of-zen-1971/
In this podcast we discuss the recent MUBI showings of Dragon Inn and A Touch of Zen, its relationship to the Wuxia genre and its influence on films such Crouching Tiger/ Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000), Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002) and House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou, 2004, its later influence on more recent Taiwanese cinema, so obvious in Tsai Ming Liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn and Hou's own The Assassin (2015).

Hou Hsiao-hsien 11: Contexts 2: King Hu, Dragon Inn (1967) & A Touch of Zen

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/25/hou-hsiao-hsien-19-context-10-edward-young-1985/
Richard and I discuss our admiration of Edward Yang's Taipei Story. It's connection to Hou Hsiao-hsien, who stars and co-wrote the screenplay. It's a mosaic of a film in which a relationship between two people who care for each other falls apart and as it does so we get to see stories of a people and of a city in transition in a country situated within two imperial cultures, Japanese and American, with mainland China always hovering on the background. It's a beautiful film, with really striking, original and beautiful imagery: Yang's flat face-on camera, uses of screens, reflections, the city always ever present in what is ultimately a chamber piece focussing on a couple and their immediate relations, the couple caught between a longed for past (on his part) and an uncertain future in hers. A truly great film.

Hou Hsian-hsien 19: Context 10 - Taipei Story (Edward Yang, 1985)

https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/06/03/thinking-aloud-about-film-soleil-o-oh-sun-med-hondo-france-1970/
The Criterion Collection calls SOLEIL Ó/ OH, SUN , ‘A furious cry of resistance against racist oppression and a revolutionary landmark of political cinema’. The Celluloid Liberation Front, writing for MUBI, calls it ‘one of the most dazzling debuts in the history of cinema’; ‘A work of erudite formalism and incendiary refinement’; ‘never didactic’. We dispute all of this. The film is definitely, flamboyant, anti-clerical, modernist, anti-colonial, deploying folklore and experimenting with style. An important film then, very much of its time, but which can now seem to lack complexity and subtlety, though perhaps subtlety was never its aim; and perhaps we should also acknowledge that our perspective is that of two white men.  Richard appreciated it more than I. We both urge everyone to see it. We discuss all of this in the accompanying podcast. Part of the series of important restorations being screened on MUBI

Thinking Aloud About Film; O Soleil, (Med Hondon, France, 1970)

https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/08/21/thinking-aloud-about-film-pedro-almodovar-2-labyrinth-of-passion/
We discuss Almodóvar's second feature, Labyrinth of Passion, where Almodóvar himself appears both as director and rock star in minor roles. We talk about its convoluted plot, its verbal and visual campyness, its anti-authoritarian stance and its status as a youth film. We note how even in his second film, there are evident connections with his first film (not least in the recurring cast) and plot strands that will re-appear subsequently (the airport scene in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown). We talk about it (briefly) as a document of its time, particularly in relation to the Nueva Movida Madrileña. The plot is straight out of Hello magazine; the idea that sex, drugs and art are a fun path without pitfalls to liberation is straight out of underground comics. Richard Lester's cinema is a clear influence. Fanny McNamara steals the show. We could have talked for a lot longer.

Pedro Almodovar 2 - Labyrinth Of Passion (1982)

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/02/13/jose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-sean-burns-on-dorothy-towers-and-death/
Sean Burns is a Birmingham-born, London-based artist; the author of DEATH, part of the LOOK AGAIN series of volumes interpreting the TATE’s collection through particular themes and published to coincide with TATE BRITAIN’S recent re-hang; and the director of DOROTHY TOWERS, a film in which I appear. In the accompanying podcast, we discuss these iconic Birmingham Tower blocks that are the subject of the film; how their design and location meant that generations of queers ended up living there and continue to do so; how these buildings have a patterned history but not just one story. There are different stories, different layers of stories, spectral and layered, plural. We discuss how ‘Queer’ in England is constantly re-written as something that only happens in London and how the film is often interpreted by audiences as a reclaiming and a validation of similar histories that have probably taken place in cities all over the country. It’s a film that also brings into play modernism, brutalism, drag, fashion, and urban design that prioritises cars over people. We discuss how the film was driven by a mandate to search but not necessarily to find; and how what is evoked is a layered history but one with the feeling that comes from a place in which death, mourning and sadness are spectral but not defining elements. A film aware of the perils of representation and thus conscientiously ethical in its approach. We talk also of Burn’s recent book on death, his obsession with Francis Bacon and George Dyer, how Ireland and Irishness are developing concerns, and whether death, mourning, and longing are themes common to all this work.

José Arroyo in Conversation with Sean Burns on DOROTHY TOWERS and DEATH

A conversation with Pamela Hutchinson on her great new book, as witty as it is informative, Pandora's Box, a BFI film classic. What you hear in the background is the bubbles in a glass of champagne and one can only hope that our chat is as fizzy. The conversation ranges from the film's aesthetic achievements to its continued influence, the appeal of Louise Brooks, what Marlene Dietrich might have done with the part and what the film has to tell us on sexual desire, the options open to women and the prevalence of rape culture then and now. Pandora's Box seems more pertinent than ever and just as powerful and beautiful as it always was. Pamela Hutchinson's book is not just a beautifully written introduction to the film but one which provides new information and  enhances our understanding in various ways but does so with great charm and wit.

In Conversation with Pam Hutchinson on Pandora's Box

In Conversation With...Professor John Mercer on: Rock Hudson, the work of Rappaport and Reichenbach currently available to see on the Henri platform of the Cinémathèque Françaisse; and on fragments of queer visual histories.

José Arroyo in Conversation with Sean Burns on DOROTHY TOWERS and DEATH

Jose Arroyo

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