The Cinematologists

As we enter the final weeks of the latest season, it is an honour to share this mini episode (a 45rpm single as opposed to 33.3rpm LP if you will) ahead of two final regular episodes before our summer break and the return of Dario for the autumn season.

Neil was invited at short notice to chat to filmmaker Gary Hustwit about his revolutionary, generative film, Eno, about the life, creative practice and philosophy of Brian Eno. Having just released a book on Music Films, Neil was excited to talk to a filmmaker for a film that feels as close to the ideal of a music film - one where the form has a synchronous relationship with the subject - as is possible.

So please enjoy this short conversation (hopefully a prelude to a longer one down the line) with Gary Hustwit, and if it’s showing near you, please try and catch the film, which due to a generative programme that works with an archive of historic and specifically filmed material, is different every time it is viewed - https://www.hustwit.com/eno.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. 

Pat Kelman, born in Essex but raised in Cornwall, has been an actor, filmmaker, theatre-maker and programmer. Presently, he finds himself releasing independent and arthouse cinema that other distributors deem too niche or challenging via his inspirational 606 Distribution company, as well as programming a wild collection of formative films and beloved double bills through his Pat's Film Club screenings that are hosted at Truro's wonderful WTW Plaza Cinema. 

Neil has been a regular at the film club and has known Pat for a numhers of years and he wanted to sit down with Pat to talk about his life in cinema and the current state of independent film releasing as well as what informs the decisions he makes regarding what to screen at his film club.

The conversation covers his formative years and the early film experiences that shaped him as a person - horror cinema and seeing certain films so/too young, the influence of filmmakers including Mike Leigh and Atom Egoyan, his time visiting London's infamous Scala cinema, the power of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (Forman, 1975), his experiences making improvised feature films and BFI funded shorts, by committee. 

What defines Pat's career is how he invests in people, and trusts people, loves cinema and is a true cinephile. Towards the end he talks about his move into horror programming and re-releasing cult films as part of 606's evolution. It was a joy to spend time talking to cinema whose work is underpinned by perpetual enthusiasm for and belief in filmmakers and audiences, and cinema as an art form.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. 

To coincide with the release of his latest film The Beast (starring Léa Seydoux and George Mackay), writer/director Bertrand Bonello came on the podcast to talk about AI and technology, acting, connection, memory, music and perplexing cinema.

It was an honour for Neil to talk filmmaking and cinema - taking in Eyes Wide Shut, David Lynch and Sunrise - for the podcast, as Neil and Dario are big admirers of Bonello’s work and it’s a privilege to have one of the world’s most interesting contemporary filmmakers on the show.

Highlights from the Episode:

• Perplexing Cinema: Bonello discusses his preference for films that engage viewers in active thought, asking questions rather than providing answers.
• Casting Insights: Learn about the challenges and triumphs of casting George McKay and the enigmatic Lea Seydoux, whose performances bring profound depth to the film.
• AI and Memory: The film’s exploration of AI delves into the subjective nature of human memory and emotion, highlighting the inherent limitations of technology in capturing the human experience.
• Music as Narrative: Bonello’s meticulous selection of music is more than an illustration—it’s a narrative tool that enhances character and story.
• Cinematic Time: Discover how Bonello plays with time in his films, creating a fluid and immersive experience for the audience.

The Beast is released by Vertigo Releasing on Friday May 31st in UK cinemas and marks the filmmaker’s boldest and most cinematically adventurous film to date. It’s one of the films of 2024 and The Cinematologists is proud to have welcomed Bertrand on the show to promote the film’s release.

Huge thanks to the publicist Chris Lawrance for making this conversation happen.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

The latest episode was the brainchild of longtime Cinematologist Mark Jenkin (Bait/Enys Men) who wanted to screen one of his favourite films, John Milius's Big Wednesday (1978) at his local cinema, the gorgeous Newlyn Filmhouse, in South West Cornwall. 

Over a languorous chat before the screening, and over some wonderful chips, Neil and Mark talk about the film and its director, surfing and Mark's upbringing in North Cornwall, the podcast, film programming, filmmaking and all sorts. During the conversation, the lovely staff from the Filmhouse pop in and out making sure the hosts are ok.

After this the episode moves into the screen, where Neil and Mark intro the film and are joined afterwards by a large portion of the sell-out crowd to reflect on the screening and the many complex and moving elements of the film, before Neil and Mark say goodnight on the steps of the cinema as staff close it for the day.

Thank you to Mark for choosing the film and being so generous with his time, thoughts and energy at the event. Thanks to Kingsley for manning the roving mic and thanks to Alastair and staff at the Filmhouse for their support, hospitality, and chips. 

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

On a recent visit to London, Neil and Dario sat down to catch up about Dario's break from this season's shows, the present and future of the podcast and some recent film releases they've both seen and enjoyed. 

They discuss two films they saw together across a relaxing shared weekend; Ilker Çatak's The Teachers' Lounge and Wim Wenders' Perfect Days. They also discuss Felipe Gálvez Haberle's The Settlers, which they have both seen, but separately. 

Conversation covers the context of the films they watched together, waxing lyrical about The Garden Cinema in Covent Garden, where they watched The Teachers' Lounge, as well as the invitation to think and converse provided by watching Perfect Days at home.

Elsewhere Dario talks about the experience of being up close and personal seeing Brian Cox in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, and Neil discusses seeing Dev Patel's Monkey Man (2024) and Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Evil Does Not Exist (2023) which leads the pair into a discussion about the Japanese filmamker, a contemporary favourite of both Neil and Dario's.

Oh, and very importantly, there were buns! Yep! Included in the episode is commentary and tasting of Dario's partner Bea's generous baking of cinnamon buns for your erstwhile hosts. (There are also in places some uneditable rogue coughs courtesy of two ageing podcast hosts. Apologies).

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

To coincide with the UK cinema release, Neil talks to director Rachel Lambert about Sometimes I Think About Dying, her third feature film.

The conversation covers making a feature that had a successful life as a short film, the artistic and thematic legacies of COVID, the importance of location and place, the all-too-human desire to be seen and the terror that comes with that, the importance of Buster Keaton and the genius of Punch Drunk Love, among many other things in a deep and far-reaching conversation.

Elsewhere, Neil talks about how much he misses Dario and recent encounters with cinema that represent the Pacific Northwest on screen. 

To view the short film that is part of the conversation and the legacy of the film, you can see it here - https://vimeo.com/366086858

For tickets to the live episode taping at Newlyn Filmhouse on Monday 15th April, for a film selected and introduced by Mark Jenkin, click here - https://newlynfilmhouse.com/NewlynFilmhouse.dll/WhatsOn?f=1002162

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

The new episode of the podcast sees Alison Peirse, now Professor of Film Studies at University of Leeds, return to the show to update us on her work in videographic scholarship and Global Women's Horror Film studies. The episode follows the recent release of a stunning special issue of the vital MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture Journal, edited by Alison, featuring a trove of video essays looking at the role of women in Global Horror filmmaking, which serves as an output of a larger-funded project. 

The conversation covers some of the essays in detail, but more depth is paid to the process of making creative academic practice work that is inclusive, radical and disruptive, to feminist anti-patriarchal practices, the wonder of Sara Ahmed and the intricacies of being a newly minted Prof!

Talk also covers Alison's much-missed newsletter The Losers' Club (which she promises will be back soon) and the feminist practice collective space Ways of Doing.

Thanks to Alison for coming back to the show and for such an engaging and enlightening conversation.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

For the latest episode of the podcast Neil talks to filmmaker and academic Dr Nariman Massoumi about his wonderful short documentary Pouring Water on Troubled Oil (2023). 

MUBI: In 1951, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company set out to produce a publicity film promoting its activities in Iran. They hired the poet Dylan Thomas. This poetic film follows Thomas’s journey capturing his encounter with the country and its people as a political upheaval for oil nationalization unfolds.

The film is not available to view yet, having been criminally overlooked by UK film festivals, but it will be at some point [and we will let you know when]. That didn't stop Neil talking to Naz about the film because in form, content and theme it has much to offer contemporary cinematic and cultural conversations. Their chat ranges across subjects and themes including documentary practice, archive work, sound design, proto-cinema and the poetic, colonialism and decolonisation and practice research in the academy.

You can hear the Cinema16 conversation between Dylan Thomas, Maya Deren and others, from 1953, that Naz mentions here.

For more information on Naz, visit here.

Elsewhere in the episode, Neil recommends the music film Getting it Back: The Story of Cymande (Mackenzie-Smith, 2023), more information on that here.

He also slyly mentions his forthcoming book, which you can pre-order here, or anywhere you get books.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

In the first episode of season 19 Neil takes the reins solo, with Dario on sabbatical, for a conversation with one of the UK’s leading filmmakers Jeanie Finlay, ahead of her popular and powerful new documentary Your Fat Friend, released in UK cinemas on Feb 9, 2024.

Jeanie returns to the podcast having recorded a live conversation about her career to date and previous release, Seahorse (2019), at the film festival Neil co-directed in Luton, Filmstock. This conversation is wide-ranging. It covers her craft and cinematic process, her evolution and growth as a filmmaker, her commitment to creating more visibility for key emerging filmmaking roles around mental health and wellbeing, Fatness, the Internet, bias, being tender to yourself, embodiment and ethics. There is also moment where talk turns to her great friend Tom Butchart, the owner and star of Sound It Out [the shop and the film].

Your Fat Friend tells the story of Aubrey Gordon following her emergence as a writer on medium [here’s a link to her first post as YrFatFriend, which Jeanie mentions in the conversation), through publishing her first book and becoming a hugely successful podcaster. It provides a profound, moving and challenging insight into a life lived online in a body that society takes umbrage with, showcasing Aubrey’s courage to keep having a vital conversation about Fatness in the face of vitriolic hate and violence and the real cultural change she is at the vanguard of as a result. Like all of Jeanie’s films, this is a film about those who are looked at but not seen and, like Seahorse, is a film about coming into being in a fuller way than was previously imagined by an incredible human being.

For more information on the film and where to see it. Visit https://www.yrfatfriendfilm.com/

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

In this final episode of 2023 (and season 18), we (Neil and Dario) ruminate on a year spent thinking cinematically and engaging with cinema in the unique way that has become the hallmark of The Cinematologists; thoughtful, personal, searching for meaning and meaningful experiences across the movie spectrum.

We both share brief discussions of two films that stuck with us from different points of the year, Neil talking about Mark Jenkin’s short A Dog Called Discord and Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s The Future Tense, while Dario ponders Patricio Guzman’s My Imaginary Country and Samsara, directed by Lois Patiño.

Then, we spend more time discussing three films each at greater length in what could be seen as their top 3 films of the year, if we were so inclined to frame them that way (and we go to great pains in the episode to make sure that they don’t come across as ‘ranked’). Dario shares his thoughts on and fondness for Laura Poitras’s All The Beauty and the Bloodshed, Celine Song’s Past Lives and Todd Haynes’s May December. While Neil decides to go deep on Cyril Schäublin’s Unrest (which he shamefully claims is set in the 1920s when it’s clearly late 19th Century!), Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains and Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves.

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Thank you to all our guests this season and to our listeners, we thank you for your continued support of The Cinematologists, and hope you join us for season 19, which commences in February 2024.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

In this episode of the Cinematologists podcast, we reflect on the pervasive apathy often accompanying the endless influx of new releases and how to combat nagging sense of FOMO which, at times, feels like it can never be satiated. When both of us saw Napoleon and agreed there wasn't much we wanted to talk about, and neither did a raft of art-house films on the various streaming platforms particularly get our juices flowing, we decided to unpack this troubling lassitude. Does the need to be "up with everything" rise and fall with the choppy waves of life? Or does our work as film lecturers naturally impact the pure desire just to watch films for their own sake? Perhaps it was something to do with that old chestnut: end of year "best of" lists. That collective social itch to define the year can seem so performative (having said that our 2023 round up will drop on the 23rd of December) . Never fear though, we work through the malaise; the value of celebrating the films that have demanded attention, spark conversations, and stayed with us, is more important to us that any arbitrary ranking.

We do get to some films in this episode. Starting with Christian Petzold's Afire, a situational character portrait from German director Christian Petzold. Two friends, Felix, an art Student and Thomas, a writer, arrive at Felix's holiday home on the Baltic Sea with the intention of working. They arrive to discover the house is occupied by Nadja , played by Petzold regular Paula Beer. Her presence is a triggering point of distraction for the insufferable Thomas, whose loathsome self-involvement is tolerated by Najda, and then gradually deconstructed.  

Iranian-British director Babak Jalali's  Fremont is a beautifully measured outsider tale that echoes the spirit of Jim Jarmusch. Anaita Wali Zada's compelling performance takes centre stage in a narrative that challenges Western expectations of immigrant tales. The film's philosophical undertones and political nuances offer something of a reversal of that well worn cliché that posits America as the promised land of freedom.

In Leave the World Behind (Sam Esmail) we witness a stellar cast, including Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, and Kevin Bacon, navigating a series unexplained events during a family retreat to Long Island. Familiar themes of racial, class and political tensions add edge to a dynamic, unpredictable narrative of social breakdown which is often uncanny and visual striking throughout.

This is our penultimate episode of the season. Just our end of year round up to come. As always we hope you enjoy the episode.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

In this special bonus, to tide you over before we are back with full, regular episodes in the run-up to year's end, Neil talks to filmmaker Toby Amies about his stunning music film In The Court of the Crimson King: King Crimson at 50. 

The conversation coincides with the film's release on streaming platforms following a critically lauded festival and cinema run. Thanks to Toby for taking the time to talk to us.

Elsewhere Neil recommends John Akomfrah's incredible new film (installation) Arcadia, at The Box in Plymouth, and the arrival of the wonderful music film Apocalypse: A Bill Callahan Tour Film on Ovid.TV 

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Our own Prof. Neil Fox in his day job is director of Falmouth University's Sound/Cinema Lab, which is behind films such as Mark Jenkin's Enys Men (2022) and Chris Morris' A Year in a Field (2022) as well as Wilderness (2017), which Neil wrote and produced. Wilderness was also made with a student crew and was proof of concept for making a feature drama within the structure of a university course. With Dario delivering a module to second-year students called Professional Life Practice, designed to help students research and understand the creative industries and learn from working experiences, Neil very generously agreed to answer a range of questions on subjects including his ethos of film pedagogy, how students should use extra-curricula events to shape their careers, the process of developing Wilderness, how students were recruited and what roles they took, understanding a professional mindset, and how the students' experiences on the film shaped their career pathways. Neil is on top form in this talk which is why we have decided to put it out as a bonus episode. It's a hugely valuable insight for film lecturers in practice and screenwriting, and definitely for students in all areas of the creative industries.

Prof. Neil Fox - Neil.Fox@falmouth.ac.uk

Dr. Dario Llinares - d.llinares@rave.ac.uk

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow. We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2. We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

A special for cinephiles and podphiles this week as we welcome the superb critic and broadcaster Rico Gagliano. Rico's official title is the Head of Audio at Mubi but it's his creative direction and voice that is the driving force of The Mubi Podcast. Indeed, the notion of creative auteurism is just one of the many topics covered in the in-depth conversation with Dario.

We discuss a little of his background – his cinephile origin story – becoming a critic and moving into radio - his role at MUBI – the process and inspirations behind The Mubi Podcast – How the company views the podcast in relation to its overall brand and analyses of various seasons and episodes.

Neil and Dario then continue the discussion around film podcasting particularly how the audio format at its best offers the opportunity for "narrative film criticism" and how the working through of ideas and opinions can find a useful space to negotiate between subjectivity and objectivity as well as ideology and aesthetics.

It was great to discover that one of our listeners has set up a Cinematologists IMDB page - https://www.imdb.com/list/ls538725164/ It lists many of the films we have focused on for the main episodes, but also lots of films we have just mentioned briefly or in passing. Thanks so much to Sven Rufus for creating this example of paratextual content which is a great accompaniment to the show.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

No matter the status of cinema, films focused on Hollywood icons seem to always retain a healthy level of interest. A key question is: do they bring anything new to the understanding of a storied figure. Stephen Kijak the director of Rock Hudson: All that Heaven Allowed, released on UK streaming this week, embarks on a sweeping ambitious, and intimate portrayal of a star whose symbolism transcended, albeit unintentionally, the silver screen. From B-Movie matinees through to the ultimate romantic leading man in the melodramas of Douglas Sirk. From Old School conservative rancher in Giant, opposite the raw James Dean, through to campy comedies with Doris Day. Not forgetting the myriad clunky formulaic studio pictures and the one outlying cult classic, John Frankenhiemer's Seconds, a role that was simultaneously against type but in retrospect a deconstruction of his closeted sexuality. All the while Hudson enjoyed an prominent role in the "hidden in plain sight", gay subculture of Hollywood. TV stardom revitalised an ailing Hollywood career in the 70s but as Hudson remained closeted to the public into the 80s, the facade of leading man heterosexual imperviousness crumbled when he was outed as the most prominent victim of AIDS. Right to the end his homosexuality was kept hidden although, watching the details of Hudson's private life, recounted by many of his friends and lovers, one wonders how.

Kijak's film is a classically structured documentary but one which astutely maps his constructed film persona his personal life using an array of clips which sync the implicit and often explicit queerness that one can read into his many roles. Neil and Dario discuss Hudson's status as an Hollywood Icon along with the formal approach of the documentary.

ROCK HUDSON: ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWED - Available to download and rent on digital platforms from 23rd October

Digital platforms include (if you wanted to mention) 

• Amazon Prime Video
• Apple TV
• Google Play
• Microsoft
• Sky 
• Virgin Media
• Talk Talk
• BT

Thanks to Stephen for his time and to Chris Lawrence for setting up the interview.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

In the first of a special (our first ever) double header, Neil and Dario discuss new Irish comedy road movie Apocalypse Clown. As it debuts on Netflix following a short cinema run, Neil talks to 'friend of the pod', producer James Dean about his collaboration with the team behind the project, comedy music troupe Dead Cat Bounce, the project's gestation and journey to the screen and the place of comedy in film culture and cinephilia. 

This is picked up by Dario and Neil who wrestle with the general (if only perceived) seriousness (earnestness?) of cinephile culture and how comedy is often ostracised or embraced tentatively at best, within it. To kick off the episode, Neil discusses the crowdfunding campaign from filmmakers Rob Curry and Tim Plester to preserve the moving image archive of folklorist Doc Rowe who has been documenting the calendar customs of the British Isles (amongst other folk practices) for over 60 years. Details on how to support the campaign and the film, with some excellent rewards, can be found here.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

In this episode, Neil and Dario go deep on a couple of favourite titles each from this year's excellent London Film Festival. Neil eulogises Pat Collins' That They May Face The Rising Sun and Shujun Wei's Only The River Flows, while Dario waxes lyrical on Hirokazu Koreeda's Monster and Tran Anh Hung's The Taste of Things. 

Elsewhere they briefly discuss some of their honourable mentions including Catherine Breillat's Last Summer and Moin Hussain's Sky Peals. Neil also mentions a not so honourable title. They compare the experiences of seeing films in the cinema, at press and public screenings, versus the online platform and Dario shares an experience of encountering a bad faith audience member following a screening of Andrew Haigh's lauded All of us Strangers, which Dario loved.

To listen to Neil's bonus episodes on LFF2023, find them collected here on The Cinematologists' Patreon page, available free for anyone to listen to.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

We’re back for season 18 and we’re kicking off with an in-depth look at new feature documentary A Year in a Field, a quiet film by Christopher Morris that is currently on tour around UK cinemas, distributed by Anti-Worlds. Produced by Bosena (Enys Men) in partnership with Stone Club and Falmouth University’s Sound/Image Cinema Lab, the film tells the story of Chris’s relationship with a 4,000 year old menhir (standing stone) in West Penwith, Kernow, and the slow burn political awakening around the climate crisis that spending time with the stone brought out of the filmmaker.

Ahead of the theatrical release Chris and Denzil joined Neil for an on-stage conversation at Falmouth venue, The Poly (a place that should be familiar to Cinematologists listeners) following a preview screening of the film for incoming school of film & television students at Falmouth University. Around the live conversation, Neil and Dario discuss the upcoming season of podcast highlights and regards A Year in a Field, discuss the potential for a political cinema and individualist versus collective responses to structural inequalities and the climate crisis. Yep, it’s a political one, right out the gate.

Welcome back to the show, it’s nice to be back with you for another season.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing 

For our final episode of season 17, before we go on our summer hiatus, we lean into cinematic pleasure. Provoked by both of us admitting some recent struggles with the relentlessness of film culture, the seeming tyranny of "so much stuff" and the some of the less edifying aspects of film discourse, we think through the hierarchies that are often attached to certain types of pleasure. Dario quotes from an academic article by Rutsky and Wyatt - Serious Pleasures: Cinematic Pleasure and the notion of Fun - which makes pleasure distinct from notions such as joy, fun, distraction and escapism. A key question question arises through the discussion: is a 'pure' form of pleasure beyond a context of either aesthetic intention or ideological meaning, even possible, when "enjoying" a film? As this is the last episode of the season, we also share some summer recommendations for you to dive into with different registers of filmic pleasure in mind.

Neil's Fun Times

The Big Lebowski 

Pacific Rim

Day of the Outlaw

Odds Against Tomorrow

Stop Making Sense

Jarmusch Double Bill of Down By Law/ Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai

Le Samourai

Branded to Kill

Anything by Joe Dante (The Burbs, Matinee, Gremlins)

Quiz Show

Inherent Vice

Dario's delights

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

The Hard Way

A Few Good Men

Training Day

Nightcrawler

Thelma and Louise

True Lies

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Paterson

All is Forgiven

Cold War

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing 

In May 2023, Laura Mulvey and Rod Stoneman returned to Falmouth 45 years following a weekend of Independent Film and Sexual Politics to reconvene a dialogue about politics, experimental film, cinematic form and radicalism. The event, Falmouth Film Weekend [1978 Revisited], was hosted by Falmouth University’s Sound/Image Cinema Lab, and was delivered by Neil, in consort with staff and student colleagues. The weekend was a mix of screenings, seminars and talks, the latter by Laura and Rod.

Filmmakers whose work was screened included Kenneth Anger, Yvonne Rainer, Stephen Dwoskin, Barbara Hammer and Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen. The programme reached back to the original line-up as well as updating it with filmmakers from that period whose work has become so important to understanding of the era, such as Carolee Schneeman, and those who followed that radical moment, such as Isaac Julien.

This episode collects Laura’s incredible talk, both reflective and critical, looking back and forward simultaneously, and shares it for Cinematologists listeners. Dario gets excited by the intellectual questions posed by the talk and he and Neil discuss form and content, ideology, the digital and its radical potentialities. It was an honour to listen to Laura Mulvey and Rod Stoneman, key figures in film theory and history, and it’s an honour to share their talks via the podcast. Rod’s can be found on our website via this link. The only reason it isn’t shared on the main feed is due to the desire to contain the episode to a single release.

NB: The ‘Graeme’ Laura refers to is Graeme Ewens, a Falmouth based former member of the London Filmmaker’s Co-operative, who was in attendance for the weekend.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing 

In association with Dead Good Film Club and Death Futures [DORS#6])

In this episode, Neil accepts an invitation from Newcastle's Dead Good Film Club and the Death Online Research Network (DORN) to host a Q&A on the Japanese film Plan 75 (2022). The panel brought together religious and humanist celebrants, death educators and palliative care specialists as part of the 6th Death Online Research Symposium held at Northumbria University, tilted 'Death Futures'.

The screening was hosted at the wonderful Tyneside Cinema in early June 2023. Elsewhere in the episode Neil and Dario get into the themes of the film and the cinematic application of them, as well as the vagaries of hosting Q&As, and Neil catches up with the Dead Good Film Club's Andy Jones about his work.

Thanks to Andrew at Tyneside Cinema, Andy at DGFC, Stacey at DORN and the panellists; Emma Satchell, Kate Owens-Palmer and Dr Mark Lee.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

In this episode Neil and Dario discuss two fairly recent films that were both prize winners at Cannes 2022: Lukas Dhont's Close and Hlynur Pálmason's Godland. In terms of setting and story the films seem very different, however there is connecting tissue in the ways that the social fabric in each film defines the experience of the male characters, their sense of self, relation to others and the world. It's this context that provides a jumping off point for a wide ranging conversation that examines how films can deal with men in cinema without defaulting to "just another film" that superficially idealises maleness or didactically critiques the discourse of toxic masculinity. The impressive intersections of form and content in both films is explored with neither wandering down easy generic territory.

Close follows the story of two close friends Leo and Remi who, after a blissful summer, start a new middle school and soon have to negotiate the playground hierarchies that seem to examine and define them. In Godland, Danish Priest Lukas is sent on a perilous journey to Iceland to set up a church in a remote community, taking with him all the paraphernalia of an early camera. Guided by "man of the Earth" Ragnar, the extreme conditions take a physical, psychological and spiritual toll which tests the priest's concept of faith.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

Both films are available to stream and the conversation does contain spoilers.

In this special audio documentary episode of The Cinematologists Podcast, we draw upon the fascinating research in an AHRC funded project Demons of the Mind: Psychiatry and Cinema in the long 1960s. Exploring the complex interrelations between cinema and the psy-sciences during a unique period of material collaboration, we cover the dimensions of mutual influence between filmmakers and psychiatric professions in a number of contexts - the depiction of psychological themes in case history adaptations, relationships between doctors and patients, changing ideas around causes and treatments of conditions, the context of censorship, and the very social perception of mental illness. The episode also focuses on the rationale for collaborations between filmmakers and psy-professionals, their ideological and moral parameters, and the formal characteristics of films influenced by psychiatry in various ways.

The episode, written, narrated and edited by Dario and featuring contributions from research investigators Dr Tim Snelson of the University of East Anglia and Dr William R. Macauley of the University of Manchester, weaves together the core arguments and findings from the project with indicative clips from a range of films that were the focus of enquiry.

After the main edit, Dario discusses with Neil the making of the podcast, thinking through both the technical elements of editing this type of podcast and the decision-making process when adapting such in-depth research to the audio form.

Dr. Tim Snelson is an associate professor in media history at the University of East Anglia (UK). His research addressing the relationship between media and social history has been published in journals including Media History, History of Human Sciences, Cultural Studies and The Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. He has explored wartime cycles of psychological horror and crime films in a book titled Phantom Ladies: Hollywood Horror and the Home Front (Rutgers University Press, 2015).

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8282-2432

Dr. William R. Macauley is a lecturer at the University of Manchester and senior research associate at the Science Museum, London. He has an academic background and extensive research experience in psychology and the history of science, technology, and medicine. His work has been published in scholarly books and journals including History of the Human Sciences, Journal of British Cinema and Television, History of Technology, and the Journal of Sonic Studies.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1748-9610

Book to accompany the research project:

Tim Snelson , William R. Macauley  and David A. Kirby, Demons of the Mind: Psychiatry and Cinema in the Long 1960s (forthcoming Edinburgh University Press, 2024).

Bibliography

Baudry, Jean-Louis, and Alan Williams. “Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus.” Film Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 2, 1974, pp. 39–47. 

Laing, R.D. 1960. The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness. (2010 edition) Penguin Modern Classics.

Laing, R.D. 1970. Sanity, Madness and the Family: Families of Schizophrenics. Penguin Books Ltd

Metz, Christian, and Alfred Guzzetti. “The Fiction Film and Its Spectator: A Metapsychological Study.” New Literary History, vol. 8, no. 1, 1976, pp. 75–105. 

Mulvey, Laura. 1975. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Screen, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 6-18

Filmography

Secrets of a Soul (1926, G. W. Pabst) 

Calling Dr Death (1943, Reginald Le Borg)

Shock (1946, Alfred L. Werker)

Dark Mirror (1946, Robert Siodmak)

Possessed (1947, Curtis Bernhardt)

The Snake Pit (1948, Anatole Litvak)

The Three Faces of Eve (1957, Nunnally Johnson)

Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock)

The Caretakers (1963, Hal Bartlett)

The Collector (1965, William Wyler)

Repulsion (1965, Roman Polanski)

In Two Minds (TV, 1967, Ken Loach)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975, Miloš Foreman)

Silence of the Lambs (1991, Jonathan Demme)

Good Will Hunting (1997, Gus Van Sant)

Girl, Interrupted (1999, James Mangold)

Joker (2019, Todd Philips)

Addition music via Artlist.io

A.J. Nutter - Winds of Design

Alon Peretz - While the Town Was Sleeping

Norvik - Waterbed

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow. Or visit www.cinematologists.com

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

Neil and Dario dedicate an episode to discussing the work of the brilliant French filmmaker Alice Diop, using the release of her debut fiction feature Saint Omer as a jumping off point into her incredible body of work.

Their conversation takes in some of her documentary work, On Call (2016), Towards Tenderness (2016) and We (2021), all of which, along with Saint Omer, are available to stream on MUBI in the UK currently.

The conversation covers a variety of topics but all respond to Diop's themes, preoccupations and formal dexterity, with Neil and Dario struggling to find the language for a filmmaker whose work is so concerned with the possibilities, limitations and power of both cinematic and spoken language.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

Brett (writer/director/editor) and Simon (producer) Harvey, are stalwarts of contemporary Cornish cinema and 2022 saw the release of their third feature film Long Way Back, which has just hit streaming platforms. 

Supported by Falmouth University's Sound/Image Cinema Lab, which has also supported the work of Mark Jenkin and for which Neil is the research and strategy lead, Long Way Back marks a departure in style and ambition for the filmmaking brothers and their company o-region.

Neil talks to them about their process and influences, the role of music in both those aspects, the Cornish film community and the challenges of the UK indie film landscape. From there, Neil and Dario discuss regional UK filmmaking, the role of film festivals, independent ambition and london-centricism as both a concept and reality. 

Elsewhere, Neil recommends new Chilean cinema release The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future, directed by Francisca Alegria and featuring a favourite actor of the hosts, Pablo Larrain regular Alfredo Castro, which prompts a chat about eco-sophical cinema.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

This is a very special episode where we were invited, by friend of the podcast So Mayer to discuss a new film screening series and project. In 2022 and 2023, a series of trans-focused film events took place across the UK as part of Inclusive Cinema’s T.L.C (aka Tender Loving Care for Trans-Led/Trans-Loved Cinema) project. 

Integrated into indie cinema and festival programmes, films were screened with Q&As and panels on diverse topics related to trans visibility in cinema, thanks to support from the BFI Film Audience Network (BFI FAN) awarding National Lottery funding. These events were recorded live and have been made into a podcast series.

Alongside these podcasts, there is a guide to Good Practice Examples for Tricky Questions also on the project's website, linked to above. These questions and answers were created alongside, and refer to, the three T.L.C. podcasts and discussions around screenings.

For this special episode of the podcast, Dario (he/him) spoke to So (they/them), along with Film Critic and podcaster Lillian Crawford (she/her), who introduced the first film of the series - screened at the Lexi Cinema - the extraordinary Japanese film Funeral Parade of Roses, in July 2022. 

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

Just a quick trailer for our Berlinale Dispatches minisodes which you can listen to Dario's daily missives from the festival, over at our Patreon feed: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists.

In this episode, Neil talks with husband and wife filmmaking team Josh Appignanesi and Devorah Baum about their new work Husband, a follow-up to 2016's meta-documentary-autofiction-comedy The New Man. Josh and Devorah are co-directors and appear in the film as versions of themselves navigating marriage, parenthood, work and a New York tour for Devorah's latest book.

The conversation covers their unique approach to marriage and moviemaking, comedy, collaboration and feelings. It's a fascinating discussion about a polarising piece of cinema.

Polarising, because as the discussion around the interview highlights, Neil and Dario had very different responses to the film and in an in-depth chat, grapple with those responses and what it says about them as viewers and people.

Husband is In UK cinemas now and on Curzon Home Cinema from 10 February"

https://homecinema.curzon.com/film/husband/

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

For this episode, Neil and Dario dive back into the work of master Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa having last talked about his cinema in the earliest days of the podcast when they screened Yojimbo for an audience in Falmouth.

The occasion for this revisit is a new, extensive retrospective of his work hosted at the BFI Southbank (and some regional partner cinemas) and on their BFI Player platform. The season is curated by filmmaker Asif Kapadia and writer Ian Hayden Smith, who Dario talked to as the two-month long season got underway.

Their discussion covers the curation approach, the influence of Kurosawa on them and the wider film community more broadly, and why he remains a key figure of focus in global film history.

Elsewhere, Neil and Dario look at some of Kurosawa's post-War films set in contemporary Japan, with a deeper focus on I Live In Fear (1955) and High and Low (1963). 

With thanks to Sarah Bemand at the BFI for the invitation to cover this season, setting up the interview with Asif and Ian and providing access to the BFI Player to view titles.

For more on the ongoing season visit the BFI website here. 

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

For our first episode of 2023, Dario speaks to a great friend of the podcast Mark Jenkin about his new Cornish "folk horror", Enys Men. Starring Mary Woodvine as a volunteer isolated on a Cornish island seemingly with the task of observing and recording the local wildlife. This sets the stage for a disquieting, time-bending, psycho-ecological fable, forged through Jenkin's singular audio-visual sensibility. 

In a wide-ranging conversation, Mark goes deep into the artistic process underpinning the film, thinks through questions the work throws up about loneliness, isolation, time and memory. The notion of genre is another topic of discussion, with the renaissance in cinematic folk horror. But Dario forward his thesis that Enys Men is a "last woman on Earth" sci-fi.      

It's also great have Neil returning to the show after his hiatus. He reviews another potential entry to the international folk horror canon Yanuari (January). From Bulgarian director Andrey Paounov and co-written by former Cinematologists guest Alex Barrett.

Shownotes

ENYS MEN is in cinemas now. 

The Cinematic DNA of ENYS MEN season [curated by director Mark Jenkin] runs at BFI Southbank until 31 January with selected films and Jenkin’s shorts collection available on BFI Player now.

ENYS MEN will be released on Blu-ray/DVD and BFI Player on 1 May. The ENYS MEN Original Score by Mark Jenkin is out now digitally via Invada Records and released on vinyl on 24 February.

Documentary mention by Mark and Neil on Folk Horror is Woodlands Dark, Days Bewitched

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

We come to the end of another cinematic year, and for our look back over 2022 Dario is joined by The Independent's film critic  Clarisse Loughrey. As usual, the episode is contextualised with a meander through some of the big themes and news stories of the year in film. This is followed  by a countdown of both Dario and Clarisse's top five films of the year. 

Both Dario and Neil want to thank our audience for their continued support throughout the year, we hope you have enjoyed the season and continue to be a listener into 2023. Dario will be publishing the January newsletter at the end of the week which will double up as something of a New Year reflection. 

All the best to you all for 2023 - Dario and Neil.

Shownotes

Clarisse Loughrey on Twitter. 

Clarisse's full films of the year list, published in The Independent.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

So this is the penultimate episode of 2022. We were at the Garden Cinema on Tuesday 20th to watch The Coen Brothers Blood Simple. My co-host for the evening was the Producer and now regular contributor to the James Dean. James was absolutely superb, both an astute appreciator of the Coen Brothers as artists, but fascinatingly relaying some nuggets of personal experience from having actually met and watched the Coen's at work. Listening to James and watching the film, which was an absolutely incredible DCP restoration by Criterion with 5.1 sound, I just was reminded about the pure joy of watching a film.

It’s almost heresy to say, but the film seems to offer itself up for the pure joy of watching, without and underlying sense of message. It’s cine-literate, but unpretentiously so, and it’s refreshingly Apolitical. Of course, the argument arises that there is no such thing a culture product that is Apolitical. Everything is defined by an underlying ideology. As a well-trained cultural studies scholar, the notion of being always already within ideology is something that has been drilled into me. Indeed, one could suggest that the Coens, whether they would explicitly acknowledge or speak to the wider allusions of their work, have been knowing chroniclers of the Absurdist contradictions at the heart of the American dream.

Yet, this is never imposed didactically. On the contrary there is arguably a respect for audiences literacy of, and practice in, to borrow from Stuart Hall, decoding and negotiating the signifiers of film. That might sound overwrought, in the way I’ve put it. What I mean is, they revel in the possibilities of cinema as form. Unlike many other filmmakers for who use references as pastiche or as an exercise in nerding out. The Coens invite you to the self-contained pleasure of the film they are presenting you with, without the necessity of connecting a reference external to the text. Even with the noir invocations, exploitation riffs, tours of pulp violence, one never feels excluding from enjoying the fundamental filmic pleasures.

Watching and listening, to this pristinely recreated digital artifact, in such a perfect auditorium, and with the knowledge of a shared audience intent, my will to analyse interpret gradually just succumbed to a purity of pleasure. Looking back, if there has been a theme to this season of the podcast, it has been a kind of tension. Between how we define and categorise films; the push to define the status of cinema in a fractured and uncertain media landscape. And the ephemeral, fleeting joy of those minute of empathy and immersion. Where the mechanistic shaping of light and sound creates a canvas of illusion which offers the chance to connect the external universe with your internal dreamscape.

With just the end of year review to come, I want to thank all the contributors to this season. Guest hosts James Dean, Caroline Catz, Mary Wild, Sarah Cleaver, David Lowbridge-Ellis, Catherine Wheatley, Savina Petcova, Chris Cassingham, Clarisse Lockree, the podcast really has functioned thanks to your generosity of time and insight. Also, thanks to all the other guests we have had on the show this season.

Thanks to George and all the staff at the Garden for Hosting the live episodes. You should all join their membership scheme immediately. It’s a magical and still largely undiscovered venue in the heart of London.

And thanks to Neil of course, who has been on a break apart from the Sight and Sound episode.  His support and encouragement behind the scenes has been invaluable. It’s been a challenge to do this without him and I’m looking forward to getting back to the main purpose of the show, which is our movie conversation (DL).

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

In this episode, Dario talks MA student in Film Curation Chris Cassingham about his graduation film series: Beyond Interpretation. Screening at the ICA in London in January, the series that explores the connections between paranoia, conspiracy, anxiety, and the precarious realities of artistic creation at the margins of the American film industry. At a time when it is increasingly difficult to make and distribute films that defy simple categorisation, resist commercial expectations of narrative and form, and whose concerns are often out of step with capitalist ideals of profit, it is important to seize every available opportunity to present them to new audiences.

Dario discusses with Chris his course at NFTS and the film curation itself as discipline, reflecting on the challenging times for exhibitors and the film industry as a whole in getting audiences to come to theatres. Dario contextualises this in his opening remarks, thinking about cinema-going as a recurring theme of the podcast, even before the pandemic. The impact of streaming has obviously had a major influence on film audiences, along with shifting criteria in what types of films mainstream audiences deem worthy to see at the cinema.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

In part 2 of our Sight and Sound special, Dario talks to the managing editor of Sight and Sound Magazine Isabel Stevens about the collation and publication of this list. With over 1600 hundred critics contributing their top tens (up from 800 in 2012), the move towards greater diversity is clear. Dario drills down into that with Isabel, along with unpacking some of the other key trends that have emerged. Isabel also takes us through her selections. 

Also on the show, we welcome back Savina Petkova for her take on being invited to contribute, the issues with lists in general, and compiling a set of 10 films that complement each other. She also addresses the inherent performativity of creating a "best-of" for public scrutiny; how one cannot help but consider the cultural reaction, even in the abstract. And of course we and take wonderful meander through her choices. It’s a great list that is based on a single theme: Love. 

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We hope you have enjoyed this double episode, it is complemented by a bonus podcast that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2. #SupportIndieMedia

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

So, after much hype, critique and discussion, the Sight and Sound Greatest films of all-time poll has been published and we have an extensive 2-part episode of The Cinematologists to cover it. Neil and Dario were both invited to contribute a top ten list to the poll, which was an unexpected honour in itself. Not only that, Sight and Sound kindly gave us access to the results early so we could record and release the episode to coincide with the publication of the list. Furthermore, Dario got to speak to Isabel Stevens, Managing Editor of Sight and Sound before the list came out (which comes in part 2).

AND, for part 1 of this double feature, Neil is back. Yes, he interrupts his hiatus to lend his astute critical savvy to the results of the poll and to speak about both his own and Dario’s choices. In the past, we have critiqued the problems of list culture and its potential negative effects on film appreciation and criticism. But in a move, particularly on Dario’s part, to ameliorate any hypocrisy of rejecting lists while gleefully contributing to “the big one”, we also discuss the positive value of list making as an access point in a chaotic cultural milieu. Of course, we also talk about the expansion of the critics invited to participate in a move towards a greater diversity and the implications this has for the film canon.

And, of course, we talk about some of the major headlines from this year's poll. First and foremost the new number 1 slot taken by Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. We discuss the dynamics around this change, how it relates to other shifts (such as the higher recognition of other female filmmakers such as Claire Denis and Agnès Varda) and how they might be received: is it both a long overdue boost for female filmmaking and feminist criticism of under-representation in processes of institutionalisation & canonisation. Or does this reflect a narrow kind of diversity, the promotion of a high-modernist cinema which is open to cries of elitism and inaccessibility? We get into these issues in typical Cinematologists depth along with analysing the other big moves and trends. Finally, we reveal our own lists and deconstruct the contrasting "methodologies" for choosing them. Please enjoy.

Shownotes

Link to the Sight and Sound List Online

Quentin Tarantino’s video archives podcast

Silver Screen Video Podcast - with David Thompson

Film Comment podcast on movie list culture and documentary.

Against Lists by Elena Gorfinkel

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

In the week leading up to Halloween, The Cinematologists Podcast returns live to The Garden Cinema for a screening and recording of Prano Baily-Bond’s debut feature Censor. A pointed and knowing homage to the 80s era of the video nasties, the story draws on the theme of moral panic, with the excellent Niamh Elgar as an officious BBFC censor whose work starts to encroach a little too much into her own trauma. With perturbing visceral panache, the ritualistic nature of cinematic spectatorship and psychological effects of film living in the liminal space between reality and myth, underpin Censor’s disquieting effects. It’s a film that divided critics and audiences and provided plenty to chew on for host Dario Llinares who will be joined by Sarah Cleaver (Projections Podcast & The Zodiac Film Club) for post screening discussion.

*Apologies for the poor quality of the live recorded sound on this episode. There was a technical fault and there was no much we could do in post-production to rectify the problem. Recommend that you use headphones for this one.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

The centre piece of our second episode is guest host Savina Petkova's interview with Ruben Östlund about his latest film Triangle of Sadness. This follow-up to the The Square, which also won the top prize at Cannes, is another acerbic satirical intervention into the hypocrisies of liberal capitalism. "Triangle" is perhaps more laugh out loud funny than his previous work, but draws on similar socio-political observations that are all too familiar but presenting them through a thought experiment which reverses hierarchies of power around wealth, value, class and social roles. 

Also, Dario talks to the LFF director Tricia Tuttle who is ending her 5 year tenure-ship this year. They discuss her legacy particular around accessibility, weathering Covid, and the expansion of programming to encompass many different forms of cinematic experience. Also the political role of festivals comes up and Tricia gives her thoughts on the collapse of the Edinburgh film festival and the many challenges that UK cinema-going faces.

Dario also talks to a student from Ravensbourne University, Tom Wright, who came to the festival as part of the BFI academy programme. He waxes lyrical about Mark Jenkins' Enys Men, which of course we will be hoping to cover in-depth in an upcoming episode. 

And Dario and Savina round up by talking about a few of the other festival highlights including Mia Hansen Love's One Fine Morning and Charlotte Wells' directorial debut Aftersun.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

Above: Christine Molloy in The Future Tense (2022)

This is the first of two episodes we will bring you from the London Film Festival. Dario is joined for both by Savina Petkova as co-host. Savina is published in Film Comment and MUBINotebook and many other places. She is on the editorial board of @photogenie_be, Is a programmer for the upcoming Cambridge Film Festival and and is soon to complete her PhD at Kings College London.

As is our style on The Cinematologists, our festival coverage in not a comprehensive overview of the festival or a breakdown of competition films or sections. We bring you more of a snapshot of our experiences, viewings and conversations.

So, Savina and Dario begin by discussing the place of London on the European festival calendar and four recommendations of films we've seen in person and on the digital platform. These are Blue Jean (Georgia Oakley), Unrest (Cyril Schäublin), All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras) and The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg).

The centrepiece of this first episode is Dario's interview with Christine Molloy and Joe Lawler, who bring a new Essay Film The Future Tense. Very difference from their last psychological revenge horror Rose Plays Julie, in The Future Tense, they turn the lens back on themselves and specifically the sense of being Irish while living in England during the political and social tumult of the last decade.

Finally, Dario talks to blogger Andrew Pope of Whitlock and Pope website about Alejandro González Iñárritu's latest film Bardo, False Chronicles of a Handful of Truths.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

In our second episode of the new season we tackle a behemoth of film culture: James Bond. Bond is not a subject we've covered before, or even talked about that much on the podcast. Except perhaps in the context of thinking about franchise cinema.

This is something of an omission, as the James Bond world is a historically seminal part of film culture, which can be explored in many different ways. The industrial significance of the films was amplified when No Time To Die, Daniel Craig's final outing as Bond, was pushed back several times because of the COVID pandemic. Furthermore, Bond, more than any other genre, series or iconic character, influenced my childhood relationship to cinema. My Grandfather was a big Connery fan, and back in the days of three TV channels, a Christmas screening of a Bond film was must see TV.  As I’ve gotten older, I become more ambivalent about the character and the world, both from filmic and thematic standpoints. Watching the Craig era, this seems like a character out of time; a notion which the producers and writers leaned into. Where does Bond go next? Conjecture and speculation about the next casting are rife and this decision will, obviously, dictate the scope and direction of the next "reinvention". However, Bond still holds nostalgic pleasures for me – and offers up interesting prompts for conversation and debate.

I’ve been thinking ways of engaging with Bond on the podcast and today's guest undoubtedly provided a fascinating entry point, one that provoked questions about the essence of the character and world created around him. I spoke to David Lowbridge-Ellis, the creator and editor of LicencetoQueer.com – the fan project that engages with Bond, essentially from a queer perspective. We talk about David's formative fandom, the character and world as the object of queer fascination, the expansion of an welcoming online community, reading texts oppositionally, possibilities of Bond's queer coding, gay assassins, Jim Fanning, and the potential next phase of Bond lore. (DL)

Shownotes

Licence to Queer - Instagram

Licence to Queer - Twitter

James Bond at 60 - BFI website.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

Supercut audio edited from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f_LyhxNWTk

Eight prophets of the everyday struggle for love, justice, political autonomy, dignity, and in the end survival, in Alain Tanner's incredibly powerful, moving, emotionally and intellectually complex film: Jonah who will be 25 in the Year 2000. In our return episode for season sixteen of the podcast, we are delighted to be joined by the director, producer and actor Caroline Catz who selected this film as one of her all time favourites and joined us in Manchester's Home cinema for this very rare screening. Alain Tanner had passed away only three days before the screening which gave a bittersweet context to proceedings, but perhaps even amplified the prescience that the film possesses. Caroline also notes that the film is co-written by John Berger, an influence to so many artists and critics. "Jonah's" themes are incredibly wide-ranging: the oppression of the working-class, education and it's methods and aims, state oppression, the concept of family, hierarchy of the sexes, and, fundamentally, why a socialist utopia is so hard to create in practice. 

As you will hear the Q&A resonated with emotion. Several of the audience members had a personal connection to the film which they discuss in beautifully elegiac ways. And indeed the conversation returned back to the radical nature of hope. Dario was also joined by the producer James Dean who came to the screening and recorded his thoughts on the film and the Q&A. 

Shownotes:

Caroline Catz on Twitter

James Dean on Twitter

Manchester Home Cinema

A version of the film is available on YouTube (no English Subs however)

Alain Tanner Obituary

Future Perfect: The Class Struggle Of "Jonah who will be 25 in the Year 2000" by Ray Pride

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

It's our season finale and we were delighted to get back into a cinema for a live screening and podcast recording, our first one since Covid. The venue was the spectacular Garden cinema in Covent Garden, a beautiful art-deco retro venue where we hope to be holding regular screenings in the autumn.

As part of their celebrating Film Noir season, we screened and discussed the 1962 psychological noir Cape Fear directed J. Lee Thompson. The film features what is considered one of the most powerfully chilling performances in cinema history: Robert Mitchum as Max Cady. Also starring Gregory Peck, Polly Bergen Lori Martin, Martin Balsam and Telly Savalas, and featuring a Bernard Herrmann score, it's a film that tested social attitudes and the censors with its subject matter.

Dario presented the screening with guest Mary Wild (@psycstar on Twitter), the co-host of the Projections Podcast (@ProjectionsPod). As an expert in psychoanalytic film theory it was fantastic to have Mary's critical insight on a film and genre that really does lend itself to psychological reading. 

Dario and Neil continue the conversation and also reflect on the 15th season of the podcast. Something we can hardly believe. We thank you for your continued support of the show and look forward to season 16 beginning in September 2022.

Show Notes

The Garden Cinema, Covent Garden.

The new season of Mary's Projections Podcast which she co-hosts with Sarah Cleaver.

The Making of Cape Fear.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

In episode 144, Neil and Dario discuss a few recent films viewed with a critical eye with regards to how they fit into film culture and more broadly how they reflect (or don't) current political attitudes. 

Dario wrote in detail about the star persona of Tom Cruise in the most recent Patreon newsletter, and both Neil and Dario reflect on the experiential pleasures and reductive nostalgia of Tom Gun: Maverick along with the obvious ideological criticism around its propagandistic militarism.

Sports movies are a recurring focus of the podcast and the recent Netflix production Hustle starring Adam Sandler and half the roster of the NBA is under discussion. 

Lastly, we focus on Lingui, The Sacred Bonds by Chadian filmmaker Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, a lyrical, gripping story of a mother trying to arrange an abortion for her daughter in the face of patriarchal theocracy.   

This is our penultimate episode. For our end-of-season finale, we are recording a live podcast at The Garden Cinema in Covent Garden, London, on the 5th of July, 6pm. Tickets are available from The Garden Cinema Website. We are really looking forward to catching up with an audience IRL.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

In this episode, Neil records an audio diary from the 2022 International Festival de Cannes. He reflects on being part of the team presenting Mark Jenkin’s Enys Men to the world, the weirdness of Cannes, and some of the films he saw while there. Titles discussed are Patricio Guzmán’s My Imaginary Country, Mia Hansen' Løve’s One Fine Morning, the 1972 anthology film about the Munich Olympics Visions of Eight and De Humani Corporis Fabrica by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel (who directed the experimental fishing documentary Leviathan). Guests include critic and podcaster John Bleasdale, academic and producer Kingsley Marshall and some of the team behind Enys Men, director Mark Jenkin and actor Mary Woodvine.

Elsewhere Neil and Dario discuss Patricio Guzmán, the film festival bubble and some recent positive comments from listeners, as well as Neil’s reflection on the final film he saw in Cannes, Annie Ernaux and David Ernaux-Briot’s The Super 8 Years.

Although, Neil forgot to tell his Louis Garrel story, so that will have to wait until the next episode.

Also, some of the diary entries are a bit peaky due to mediterranean winds, so please bear with some of the audio segments of the diary.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

The latest episode is another first for the podcast as this episode marks the first time we have gone back to talk about a filmmaker we’ve already dedicated an episode to. The reason for this landmark is Hannah Strong’s new book on Sofia Coppola for Abrams Books, Sofia Coppola: Forever Young. The book is the first in the Abrams series to see a female filmmaker given such lavish treatment.

Neil talks to Hannah about her approach to writing the book, Hannah’s personal and cinephilic connection to Coppola’s work and the trajectory her career has taken, and how she’s wrestled with and managed emerging from such an auspicious family shadow to her position as one America’s leading filmmakers in her own right.

Elsewhere, Neil and Dario talk about Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr, recently released on Blu-ray in a beautiful edition by Eureka Video/Masters of Cinema, and Sofia Coppola’s position in American film culture and the demands and expectations this position comes with.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

With Neil visiting London for the first time in a while, we took the opportunity to record an impromptu conversation with both of us in the same room. Thankfully the vibe and repartee still seem to have remained intact. We didn't have a specific theme in mind for the show so we ended up talking about recent viewings and let the conversation take us where it will. The two major films we discussed were Robert Eggers' The Northman and Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley - we had mixed feeling about both. More on the art-house side was Zero Fucks Given (Julie Lecoustre & Emmanuel Marre) and thanks to an avid lister Mark Hancock's suggestion, we get into our favourite Body Horror films. Particularly examples with a comedic element to them. We hope you enjoy the more relaxed conversational tone of this one.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

In this episode, Dario talks to director Philip Barantini about his tense, absorbing and thoroughly authentic slice of restaurant life: Boiling Point. Stephen Graham is superb as Andy, a chef on the edge breakdown with pressures coming from all angles and trying to keep his diverse team of staff working for him on a busy Christmas service. Adding to the anxiety, the restaurant is unexpectedly visited by a celebrity chef and Andy's former mentor Alastair (Jason Fleming), who brings with him notorious food critic Sara (Lourdes Faberes). 

Dario and Philip bond over their shared experiences of restaurant culture and this underpins conversation about the authenticity of the film, the use of the one-take set-up, the improvisational aspects of the script, Stephen Graham's role as a driving force on-set and on-screen, and the restaurant as a fascinating site for examinations of British social life.

Neil and Dario also round up some recent watches including Neil's Covid induced revisit of Predator and Predator 2 & Paul Schrader's The Card Counter, while Dario discusses Tony Scott's Unstoppable and Crimson Tide, and Sergio Corbucci's Il Grande Silenzio.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

Shownotes

Boiling Poing is available to stream on Netflix

Philip Barantini and his production company Three Little Birds are both on Twitter

Mary Wild's discussion with Dario on The Card Counter is available on her Patreon page.

Silver Screen Video Podcast and their series on Tony Scott

____

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

In this episode, Neil sits with emergent American filmmaker Tyler Taormina about his new, deeply strange and affecting feature Happer’s Comet, which premiered at Berlinale earlier this year. The conversation covers Tyler’s family, his approach to filmmaking, the nagging themes he can’t shake and the filmmakers his work is in dialogue with.

Additionally, Dario and Neil spend time really thinking about the theme of alienation in Tyler’s film and work, and what it says so beautifully about this moment in our time.

Thanks to Tyler for his time and Adam Kersh for introducing us to his client.

To kick things off Neil and Dario catch up on recent watches including The Batman and the folk horror documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

Documentary film and TV maker Cherish Oteka is an insightful observer and visual translator of individual experiences related to race, sex, class, religion, and the often contentious relationship of these identities to Britishness. The Black Cop, is their latest documentary short. Nominated for a BAFTA the film is a portrait of the charismatic Gamal "G" Turawa and his experiences in the Met police as a black, gay officer.

The story of "G" covers his fostering by a white family in the suburbs to a move to London with a father unknown to him, and the subsequent racial demarcation, both implicit and explicit, he experiences. Mesmerised and inspired by the powerful figure of a black police officer directing traffic, he enters the force perhaps without realising the extreme levels of institutional subordination bordering on torture he would endure. Told with incredible candor by "G" his recollections are also a reckoning with the very concept of race. His feeling of isolation is exacerbated during the 80s aids "scare". Hiding his homosexuality from his co-workers becomes even more imperative as the media amplification looks to blame the gay community directly.

Cherish's foregrounding "G" in very close-up, personal interviews are enhanced by both historical news footage and documentary reconstruction. Dario talks to Cherish in detail about the form of the film and using a range of documentary registers, along with deploying formative memories as the narrative anchoring points of life stories. The untold histories of British culture and how, as a society, we reckon with them through art forms such as film and TV, is also a central discussion point.

Neil and Dario begin by reflecting on a number of films they have recently watched including Petrov's Flu (Kirill Serebrennikov, 2022), The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2022), Paris, 13th district (Jacques Audiard,2022), C'mon C'mon (Mike Mills, 2022). 

Show Notes

Watch The Black Cop on The Guardian Website

Some more of Cherish's TV and Online work:

Too Gay for God?

A Man Called Dad

NERD: BBC Body Positivity 'Katie Snooks'

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

In this latest episode, Neil takes listeners inside the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at the University of Exeter with the help of lead curator Phil Wickham.

Phil guides Neil around the museum's different exhibits that stretch from pre-cinema to the present day, they take an amble round the archive stacks and Neil reflects on the spaces of museums, archives and libraries as place of tactile proximity to history, art and knowledge.

Elsewhere Neil and Dario discuss the role of libraries and museums in contemporary education and society.

Thanks to Phil for the invitation and tour. Thanks to Dr. Helen Hanson for lunch, Pamela Hutchinson for the nudge, and Scott Barley for the use of his track Fugue (available on his Bandcamp here) to guide the journey.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

This is part two of our interview with the seminal film scholar, critic, and composer Michel Chion. From the late 70s onwards Chion has been one of the leading voices at the intersection of film scholarship and cinephilic criticism. His work spans a huge roster of filmmakers and subjects, but it's his work on film sound with which he is arguably most identified. Books such as The Voice in Cinema (1982), Audio/Vision (1993), Music in Cinema (1995) & Film, A Sound Art in many ways defined the sub-field of film sound criticism. Chion also wrote for Cahiers du Cinéma in the 1980s and has written books on the work of Jacques Tati, Andrei Tarkovsky, Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch.

Before turning to cinema, Chion was part of the experimental school of Music Concrete under the mentorship of Pierre Schaeffer, the "godfather" of avant-garde electronic music in France. He continues to compose to this day.

Chion asked that he give his answers in French so I enlisted the help of a colleague from the University of Brighton, the sound artist, composer, and performer Johanna Bramli (check out her work here), to help with the translation. This is another interesting first for the podcast.

At the end of part 2 of this double episode, Neil and Dario discuss many aspects of the interview and Chion's approach to film scholarship. We hope you enjoy what we think is a fantastic start to the new season.

Shownotes

Chion biography (Experimental music): https://electrocd.com/en/artiste/chion_mi/Michel_Chion/biographie

Pierre Schaeffer and Music Concrete - https://www.frieze.com/article/music-22

Ercan Bouliase - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/arts/music/pierre-boulez-french-composer-dies-90.html

GRM: Group Recherché Musical https://www.musicainformatica.org/topics/groupe-de-recherches-musicales.php

Luciano Berio - https://www.universaledition.com/luciano-berio-54

Transition music for this episode taken from Michel Chion’s

La vie on Prose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK3xqAv65r0

Requiem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4XfD3yrYHI

La Grand Nettoyage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUUkA8wqlxQ

Johanna Bramil: http://www.johannabramli.com/

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

We are back with Season 15 of The Cinematologists podcast. To begin our new run we are starting with a real high point: a double episode featuring the seminal film scholar, critic, and composer Michel Chion.

From the late 70s onwards Chion has been one of the leading voices at the intersection of film scholarship and cinephilic criticism. His work spans a huge roster of filmmakers and subjects, but it's his work on film sound with which he is arguably most identified. Books such as The Voice in Cinema (1982), Audio/Vision (1993), Music in Cinema (1995) & Film, A Sound Art in many ways defined the sub-field of film sound criticism. Chion also wrote for Cahiers du Cinéma in the 1980s and has written books on the work of Jacques Tati, Andrei Tarkovsky, Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch.

Before turning to cinema, Chion was part of the experimental school of Music Concrete under the mentorship of Pierre Schaeffer, the "godfather" of avant-garde electronic music in France. He continues to compose to this day.

Chion asked that he give his answers in French so I enlisted the help of a colleague from the University of Brighton, the sound artist, composer, and performer Johanna Bramli (check out her work here), to help with the translation. This is another interesting first for the podcast.

At the end of part 2 of this double episode, Neil and Dario discuss many aspects of the interview and Chion's approach to film scholarship. We hope you enjoy what we think is a fantastic start to the new season.

Shownotes

Chion biography (Experimental music): https://electrocd.com/en/artiste/chion_mi/Michel_Chion/biographie

Pierre Schaeffer and Music Concrete - https://www.frieze.com/article/music-22

Ercan Bouliase - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/arts/music/pierre-boulez-french-composer-dies-90.html

GRM: Group Recherché Musical https://www.musicainformatica.org/topics/groupe-de-recherches-musicales.php

Luciano Berio - https://www.universaledition.com/luciano-berio-54

Transition music for this episode taken from Michel Chion’s

La vie on Prose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK3xqAv65r0

Requiem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4XfD3yrYHI

La Grand Nettoyage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUUkA8wqlxQ

Johanna Bramil: http://www.johannabramli.com/

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

It was one of the highlights of The Cinematologists to have Peter Bogdanovich come on the podcast. One of the key links between Old and New Hollywood his passing is just another sign that 20th-century cinema culture is receding further into history. Our chat is focused very much on his film The Great Buster and it was fantastic this he gave us so much time. We hope you enjoy this repost of the interview where we focus on his Buster Keaton documentary The Great Buster.

A United Nations translator, negotiating through the Serbian occupation of Srebrenica; the avant-garde queerness of one the world's most influential bands; a working-class writer's climb towards artistic and social recognition; the gallows humour of asylum seekers in the UK immigration system; a young orphan search for a story of the self; a neurosurgeon fighting to understand her own consciousness; radical technology as the bait of a heist gone wrong; the deep trauma of stoic gambler, and a reckoning between tragedy and love on the road and in the theatre. 

These are just some of the themes Dario and Neil discuss in the films that feature on the Cinematologists end of year review. We thank you so much for your support over the year and hope you enjoy this look back over our cinematic highlights. We wish you a merry christmas and a happy New Year.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

In our penultimate episode of 2021, Dario speaks to Frank Pavich the director of Jodorowsky's Dune and NYHC. With all the publicity and discussion around Denis Villeneuve's blockbuster interpretation of Frank Herbert's influential Sci-Fi novel, it was fantastic to go back to the first, incredibly imaginative but ultimately failed attempt to bring the book to the screen from one of cinema's singular visionaries: Alejandro Jodorowsky. Frank talks about his first contact with Jodorowsky, his uncompromising attitude to the production scope and casting, and his assembling of a team of designers and artists including Kurt Geiger, whose drawings Pavich uses to great effect in the documentary and which would go on to define mainstream sci-fi for decades to come. 

Frank also talks about NYHC (New York Hardcore) his directorial debut, putting the making of the film into the context of his fascinating idiosyncratic film education, and how the film was made in that liminal period between the analog and digital eras of filmmaking. You can watch it online for free here.

Also, Neil reviews serval blu-ray releases including Champion directed by Mark Robson and starring Kirk Douglas, Sergio Corbucci’s The Great Silence (both from Masters of Cinema), Jean Pierre Melville’s Enfant Terrible (BFI), Alistair Mcleland’s music film on Saint Etienne, I’ve Been Trying to Tell You. 

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

_____

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Transition music is from the OST for Jodorowsky's Dune by Kurt Stenzel. 

In the latest episode, Dario talks to poet and activist So Mayer about their work on the recent Raising Films survey ‘How We Work Now’ about the impact of Covid-19 on those working in the screen industries whose lives also involve caring responsibilities of various shades. So and Dario discuss how vital this work is on its own terms but also as part of a broader landscape of rethinking how the film industry operates and who gets to participate.

Elsewhere there’s a deep dive into Celine Sciamma’s new film Petite Maman. There was due to be a whole episode dedicated to her latest masterwork but there were technical difficulties at the live taping at Cornwall Film Festival and the audio is unusable. We hope Neil and Dario’s deep chat about the pandemic, parent and child feelings and anxieties, makes up for that somewhat.

Then stick around for the bonus where Neil and Dario sink their teeth into some key recent 2021 releases such as Dune, The Card Counter and First Cow, as well as a wonderfully guilty pleasure.

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Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

A Tale of Two Sisters, 2003, Editor Lee Hyeon-mi

In this episode, Neil talks to one of Horror Cinema’s leading scholars and all-round creative force of nature, Dr. Alison Peirse. Alison teaches film at Leeds (and is an old colleague of Dario’s!) where she is an associate professor. She writes a brilliant newsletter called The Losers Club and is finding success on the film festival circuit with her debut video essay Three Ways to Dine Well.

Alongside monographs on 1930s and Korean horror, Alison is the editor of the recent publication Women Make Horror which is a groundbreaking piece of scholarship in form and focus, and she contributes an intellectually provocative and exhilarating piece that explodes the previous limits of not only Horror scholarship but cinema scholarship more broadly. It’s a great book.

It was a pleasure to welcome Alison to the podcast and you can learn more about her work (and sign up for her newsletter) on her terrific website here.

Elsewhere on the show Neil and Dario discuss their evolving and crystallised thoughts on academic practice growing out of the conversation with Alison and also extol the virtues of Alexandre Rockwell’s new film Sweet Thing (Neil) and the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune (Dario).

It’s also worth hanging around and signing up for the bonus episode where Neil and Dario get deeper into questions about film academia and purge some negative feelings that have built up over time.

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Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

The second episode in our coverage of the London Film Festival is a bumper one with Dario and Neil discussing a ton of new movies from all over the world. They are joined by regular visitor to the pod Savina Petkova, who Dario talked to at the festival itself as it wound down, who added discussions about new films by Joanna Hogg, Terence Davies and Julia Ducournau to the mix. Neil waxes lyrical about the Japanese masterpiece Drive My Car by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Hit The Road, the debut feature by Panah Panahi. Dario meanwhile loves Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God unapologetically and reserves special, high praise for Joel Coen’s first solo outing, The Tragedy of Macbeth.

Other films discussed are:

Flee (dir. Jonas Poher Rasmussen)

Compartment No. 6 (dir. Juho Kuosmanen)

Benedetta (dir. Paul Verhoeven)

Boiling Point (dir. Philip Barantini)

You can follow Savina on Twitter here where she posts links to all the wonderful pieces she writes across the year.

(Apologies for the constant banging under my audio. 6 years in and still making silly mistakes like that. NF)

______

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

The first episode in our coverage of the London Film Festival. Dario and Neil discuss the blended format of the festival and the context by which one comes to watch specific films at certain moments because of festival serendipity. Under the spotlight for this mid-festival check-in are:

The Storms of Jeremy Thomas (Mark Cousins, 2021)

Memory Box (Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige, 2021)

Luzzu (Alex Camilleri, 2021)

Azor (Andreas Fontana, 2021)

Leave No Traces (Jan P. Matuszyński, 2021)

Citizen Ashe. (Rex Miller & Sam Pollard)

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

In this slightly longer than normal episode, Neil indulges his love of magazines by having conversations with editors of print magazines with a varying focus on film about setting up print enterprises in the digital age. He talks to Maria J Pérez Cuervo about her folk horror magazine Hellebore, Gabriel Solomons about illustrated film magazine Beneficial Shock and Cathy Lomax & Lucy Bolton about a special British film edition of art and culture periodical Garageland. All the conversations revolve around a love of magazines and we are grateful to all the contributors for their time.

Around these conversations Neil and Dario discuss collecting, objects and mortality, the physical v the digital and what they want from cultural experiences and how magazines can play into that. They also talk about Dario’s visit to the ICA to see Annette and a Leos Carax Q&A and Neil recommends the new BFI Blu-ray of Powell & Pressburger’s 1942 propaganda classic One of our Aircraft is Missing.

To buy Hellebore click here.

To buy Beneficial Shock (who have a new issue imminent) click here.

To buy Garageland click here.

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Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

For the season 14 premiere Neil and Dario discuss one of 2021’s best releases, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s dark and magnetic psychodrama Rose Plays Julie starring Ann Skelly, Orla Brady and Aidan Gillen.

Neil talks to the filmmakers about their unique, exploratory process, growing as filmmakers, working with actors and timing. Elsewhere Neil and Dario catch up about some recent watches and what they’ve been up to over the summer, before heading off to the bonus episode for Patreon subscribers to discuss Jean-Paul Belmondo and Michael K. Williams.

It’s good to be back.

Thank you to Nicki at Premier PR and Claire At Eclipse Pictures for their help in setting up the conversation and for advance access to the film.

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Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

To close out an epic season this final episode just finds Neil and Dario talking to each other, and responding to listener questions. This special episode, and the Patreon bonus episode, runs the gamut from the future of cinema, the death of horror cinema (or not?), lockdown viewing strategies, platonic male relationships, Strictly Ballroom, the BBC film Together, facial hair, celebrity lookalikes, Pedro Costa, ASMR and papyrus.

Thanks to Chloe, Dan, Brian, Andrew, Lee, Jason, Si, Guy, Mark, MarBelle and Chris for their input on this episode.

Thanks for another great season. See (& Hear) you all in the autumn.

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Show Notes:

Link to Mark Hancock’s piece on Supernova, mentioned in the show.

The song featured in the show is Baloo My Boy by Jim Williams, from Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England.

The interview clip with Christian Petzold can be found on YouTube here.

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Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

-----

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

In the latest episode, Neil talks at length to critic, editor and podcaster Nicolas Rapold about his podcast The Last Thing I Saw, as well as podcasting in general, the benefits of direct-to-subscriber content via Substack and, a favourite topic of Neil and Dario's, film culture in 2021 in general.

Elsewhere, Neil and Dario ponder ideas around conversation and podcasting, inclusivity and good faith and share war stories of near-middle-age ailments based around tennis and a visit to the barber.

The Last Thing I Saw is available wherever you get your pods, but the best way to learn more about it, and Nicolas's work, is to subscribe to his Substack here.

Thanks to Nicolas for taking time out to talk to Neil for the podcast.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow. 

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

———

Show Notes:

Link to the Gunda piece for Reverse Shot, Nicolas mentions in the show.

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Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

In this episode, Dario talks to visual artist Janis Rafa about her sensuous, enigmatic first feature, Kala Azar. Set in a nameless Southern European wasteland, a stoic young couple exist in a semi-feral periphery, they survive by collecting and cremating deceased pets for owners who need the fantasy of ritualized passing. But they also cannot help but clean up the number of dead animals which they regularly encounter lifeless by the roadside. A film that challenges the material and ideological distinction between humans and animals and forces a confrontation with uncomfortable realities of a dystopian existence that defines increasing numbers of transient souls.

Janis discusses with Dario the semi-autobiographical themes of the film, along with focusing on lives lived at the margins of modernity, trying to create an original cinematic form based on ellipses, and the transposing of an experimental arts practice into the framework of 'narrative' film.

Neil and Dario also discuss a wonderful fan letter they received from a valued Patreon subscriber and Neil reviews two Blu-ray releases: Spike Lee's Jungle Fever (1991, BFI) and Tsui Hark's Time and Tide (2000, Eureka/Masters of Cinema)

Shownotes

Watch Kala Azar on @Mubi

Janis Rafa's Website

Savina Petkova's Review

Wendy Ide's Review

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

For this episode we are honoured to be joined by the wonderful filmmaker Caroline Catz to discuss her brilliant debut feature film Delia Derbyshire: the Myths and Legendary Tapes, which Catz wrote, directed and stars in, as Derbyshire. It’s a unique music doc/drama hybrid that is well worth the time and is currently on the BBC iPlayer in the UK.

The conversation covers Caroline’s process for the film, her relationship to Derbyshire’s music and that of the Radiophonic Workshop, as well as venturing into women as artists in relation to Derbyshire, one of the film’s collaborators Cosey Fanni Tutti and Catz herself.

We are grateful that Caroline took time out to talk to us and we really like this conversation. Please excuse Neil’s cold but as the intro makes clear, this was not our usual day at the Cinematologists office.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

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Show Notes:

In the bonus episode, we discuss the music of the following artists [spiritual heirs of Derbyshire and the Radiophonic Workshop] - Kelly Lee Owens, Jane Weaver and Broadcast, who are all amazing and who you should all check out. And of course, the composer of our own theme tune, the mighty Gwenno.

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Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

We are really excited to focus an episode around the BFI Blu-ray release of Chris Petit's existential British road movie Radio On as it's a film that we had talked about for a long time. Alongside this, it gave us the perfect excuse to bring on one of our original supporters and true friend of the show, Mark Jenkin. Mark kindly took the time out from editing his new feature Enys Men, to explore why Radio On is one of his most influential films. Indeed, there is no one better to talk about the handmade sensibility of the film along with the combination of its unique aesthetics of place and time and its abstracted subjectivity of characters alienated from their social reality. 

We also discuss the film's almost singular place in British film history and examine how this is related to its European art-house sensibility, particularly in terms of the links to Wim Wenders and New German Cinema. We also discuss the way the film is structured musically, with signature Bowie tracks along with the electronic futurism of Kraftwerk and even Sting popping up to give an Eddie Cochrane tribute. There is also the question of how the film is one of the more idiosyncratic road movies, one without a specific motivation or destination, and an ending that is sublimely ambiguous and maybe even strangely uplifting.

Shownotes

John Patterson's Guardian article - A Film Without a Cinema

Oliver Lunn - BFI article on How Britain has changed since post-punk classic Radio On

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

———

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

For this exciting episode Neil and Dario are joined by two of their favourite film podcasters, Mary and Sarah from the Projections podcast, a thematic, season-oriented show that looks at a huge swathe of cinema through the lens of psychoanalysis.

In this episode, the four of them discuss psychoanalysis as a mode for cinema study, some of the problems with cancel culture, how Sarah and Mary went about starting Projections and their reflections on how the podcast has grown, sex in cinema, Eyes Wide Shut and Annie Hall.

It’s a great conversation with two smart, fascinating podcasters. Thanks to them for dropping by to talk.

You can listen to Projections wherever you get your podcasts and you can find out more about it here.

Details on Mary’s lecture and workshop series for the Freud Museum can be found here (the next one is in June so get booking!)

Details on Sarah’s Zodiac Film Club, can be found here.

———

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

———

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Today's episode focuses on the Jazz inspired bittersweet romance Wilderness, penned by our very own Neil Fox and directed by Justin Doherty. Both Neil and Justin subject themselves to an hour of intense Cinematologists questioning from Dario covering the development of the script, the unique production context, the casting and production design. We also get into the cinematic representation of relationships, particularly at their outset, and how the developmental phase of love can be a rollercoaster of contradictory feelings not always expressed in the most rational ways. The conversation also covers the release of the film to streaming sites at this particular moment, both in terms of issues around sexuality and race on screen, but also the after a year of the pandemic how much the world has changed from 2016, when the film was shot.

The film is available on streaming platforms including:

Google: https://play.google.com/store/movies/details/Wilderness?id=kzpGBLvw-LA.P&gl=GB

Amazon.co.uk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wilderness-Katharine-Davenport/dp/B08VYWVXZY/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=wilderness&qid=1619440989&s=instant-video&sr=1-1

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Valeska Grisebach's Western (2017) transposes many of the iconographies and thematics of the western genre to the setting of a contemporary border town between Bulgaria and Greece, where a group of German construction workers build a hydro-electric plant. Their presence stirs up contemporary and historically layered tensions which are exacerbated by the communication barriers between the groups. This leads to a familiar, male driven tribalism, which one of the Germans, the stoic Meinhard (played by first time actor Meinhard Neumann), looks to navigate.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr Hannah Paveck whose article in Film-Philosophy Journal - Taciturn Masculinities: Radical Quiet and Sounding Linguistic Difference in Valeska Grisebach's Western - considers the relationship between film sound, gender and settler colonialism. We talk about her use of Jean-Luc Nancy and Eugenie Brinkema to explore how the film undermines the codings of silence associated with the heroic male hero. Furthermore, she discusses the film in the context of geopolitics and the aesthetics of art-cinema particularly the Berlin School, to which Grisebach is associated along with filmmakers such as Angela Schanelec and Christian Petzold.

Neil and Dario also talk about the writing processes they are currently involved in, their processes of work, how they approach different styles and the difficulties of moving between academic writing, journalism and blogging, particularly when the expectations from publishers and reviewers for each, can be very different.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

For this episode The Cinematologists are delighted to announce their first ever Podcast Crossover Event/Episode. As big fans of the wonderful Silver Screen Video podcast, hosted by Jacob and Jonathan, Neil and Dario were delighted when they agreed to do a collaborative episode, even more delighted when it was agreed that three films by the brilliant Australian director Andrew Dominik would be the focus ,and, yet more delighted by the result - a far-ranging and hugely fun conversation between Neil, Dario, Jacob and Jonathan on Chopper (2000) starring Eric Bana in a career-defining turn and Dominik’s two exemplary dissections of American myth (and Brad Pitt collaborations), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) and Killing Them Softly (2012). This is the longest episode for a while, but boy gee whizz is it a good ‘un.

 Thanks to Jonathan and Jacob for this brilliant             conversation. Check out their amazing podcast here, and   wherever you get your pods.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

In this episode Neil talks to Mark Cosgrove, cinema curator at The Watershed in Bristol and Dr Francesco Tava, senior lecturer in philosophy at University of West England (UWE), about their current season of colonial cinema and discussions, Thought in Action, presented in partnership with MUBI.

Their conversation covers the positives of online events in the pandemic including accessing filmmakers and panel members from all over the world as well as welcoming diverse audiences, the hybrid future of cinema events and the value of meeting communally to discuss movies, and the importance of the colonial conversation being raised at this moment in history and Bristol’s prominence in that conversation.

Elsewhere Dario and Neil discuss audiences and the desire to be back in cinemas hosting live podcast events where movies are shared and discussed, they pay tribute to Yaphet Kotto, discuss the Masters of Cinema release of the 1967 Soviet folk horror, Viy, and touch on the Oscar nominations momentarily to celebrate the double nomination of the documentary Collective, in the wake of episode 117 and its focus on Romanian cinema.

For more information on the Thought in Action/Conversations about Cinema season visit here.

Upcoming panel discussion events:

Zombi Child (dir. Bonelli, 2019) - Thursday March 25, 18.00 - 19.00

Apiyemiyekî? (dir. Vaz, 2020) - Thursday April 15, 18.00 - 19.00

Bacurau (dir. Dornelles and Mendoça Filho, 2019) - Thursday April 29, 18.00 - 19.00

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

In this episode we talk to top Bucharest film critic and academic Andrei Gorzo about the aesthetics, history and political context of Romanian cinema. Andrei outlines how the fall of Nicolae Ceaușescu in 1989 effected a liberalisation of society, culture and the arts. But it not would be for another 10 years until the Romanian New Wave and directors like Cristi Puiu, Cornelie Porumboiu and Cristian Mungiu would spark a distinctive cinema emerge that would attained international acclaim. Andrei's research and writing is anchored by an encyclopaedic knowledge of international cinema and the connections between the emergence of the New Wave, Romania's communist history, the post-war European canon and popular cinema of the West. In this wide-ranging discussion, Andrei outlines the adoption of specific kind of realism, the problem of the concept of a national cinema with regards to Romania, the varying responses to the post-communist malaise, and the complex depiction of the uncertain relationship between the state and capitalism. 

Also in this episode, Neil reviews the soon to be released BFI Blu-Ray of Romeo is Bleeding, directed by Peter Medak, and starring Gary Oldman and Lena Olin.

You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

In this episode, we take on the thorny issue of sex and cinema but thankfully we had the extremely insightful film critic Beatrice Loayza to help is navigate the many strands of this subject. Beatrice has bylines in Sight & Sound, LA review of Book, Reverse Shot and Mubi notebook, but it was her recent piece in the Guardian - Some sex scenes are gratuitous, but a good one can electrify a film - that was the trigger for this conversation. Dario and Beatrice discuss the polarised debate around how sex scenes should be deployed, i.e. in the service of the plot, or for their aesthetic value in their own right. The conversation examines how the implied notion of the male gaze defines so much conversation about sex on screen, the lack of actual sexual representation in mainstream cinema, how blockbusters are particularly sex-less, the influence of the internet and the accessibility of pornography, the changing attitudes to hetero and queer sexual representation, and of course, what makes a 'good' sex scene. All of this framed through a context of continuing scrutiny of the film industry and its practices when in comes to shooting sex scenes, and the history of abuse that has been brought much more to the forefront in recent years. Dario and Neil go on to discuss the tricky subject of male power dynamics acknowledging and unpacking their own roles as straight white male viewers.

The episode also features a review A Nightmare Wakes released by horror distributors du jour Shudder, directed by Nora Unkel and starring the excellent Alix Wilton Regan. It's a fabulist, hallucinatory imagining of Mary Shelley's life, as her traumatic pregnancy and birth becoming fuel for the iconic literary monster she would give to the world. 

RS Benedict - Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

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• Spotify 
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• Podchaser 

We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

In the latest episode, Neil and Dario are drawn back to one of their favourite topics to talk about, Sci-Fi, albeit in a slightly different context. Neil talks to author and screenwriter Simon Stephenson about his acclaimed debut novel Set My Heart To Five, which tells the story of Jared - a bot who develops feelings. Simon is also adapting his book into a screenplay, with Edgar Wright attached to direct.

Around this conversation, Neil and Dario talk about a host of topics including the legacy of classic Sci-Fi cinema and in particular representations of artificial life/intelligence, Hollywood cinema of the 80s and 90s as a classic era, the differences between reading and watching Sci-Fi, the adaptation process and why Kevin Costner is great. Though for a full Costner love-in you will need to subscribe to the Patreon bonus episode that accompanies this main episode. (www.patreon.com/cinematologists)

Also as part of the episode, the hosts wax lyrical about their love for MUBI to coincide with their partnership for the release of Dea Kulumbegashvili’s Beginning - https://mubi.com/promos/thecinematologists - and on the occasion of MUBI’s 14th birthday, for which they are giving away a free day of movies on February 14th - https://mubi.com/ - a gesture you’ve just got to love.

Thank you to Simon for a wonderful chat. Buy his brilliant novel here (or wherever ethical that you buy your books), it’s out now in paperback.

Links to other material discussed in episode 115:

Into the Blue: Transposing the Frame in Derek Jarman’s Blue by Edwin Miles for Bright Wall/Dark Room.

The video essays of Ian Garwood on Vimeo

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify 
• Google Podcasts
• Podchaser 

We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

To kick off season 13 of the podcast, Neil and Dario get into the wonder of Talking Heads' and Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense (1984) and concert films in general. They touch on the performativity of music documentaries and what makes Sense such a seminal work. They also talk about its spiritual successor, David Byrne and Spike Lee's American Utopia from 2020.

Elsewhere there is a chat about Richard Fleischer's lean and nasty Mob pulp movie The Don Is Dead (1973), recently released by Masters of Cinema, our first ever release partnership with MUBI for Dea Kulumbegasvhvili's Beginning (2020) and the pair are joined by a fabulous mystery guest to talk about live performance, Brexit, the pandemic and 1988's My Neighbor Totoro. 

Please excuse the odd electroglitch on our Mystery Guest's recording.

Show Notes

Pauline Kael on Stop Making Sense

Neil on Stop Making Sense for the Quietus

Devika Girish on Beginning

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify 

Google Podcasts

Podchaser 

We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

In this final episode of Season 12 Neil and Dario chat, casually, about some of their favourite films of the past year. They chose five each to give a special focus to and elsewhere in the episode there are some honourable mentions and also shout out to the pair's favourite film podcasts of the last 12 months.

It's been a helluva year. No need to go over it again. But, The Cinematologists hope you are doing ok and thank you for your continued support of this podcast. Without the listeners and the community around the show that you have helped build, Neil and Dario's 2020 would have been much worse. 

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify 

Google Podcasts

Podchaser 

We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Walter Murch is one of the seminal figures in American cinema in terms of defining film craft. His editing and sound design work, in many ways, provides the audio-visual architecture to the most influential films of New Hollywood and his collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola on The Conversation, The Godfather and Apocalypse Now would influence a generation of filmmakers to follow. Jon Lefkovitz's feature length audio-visual essay, draws upon a wealth public interviews, discussions and lectures by Murch which demonstrate how his technical craftsmanship is borne out of a deep philosophical understanding of cinema as an art form, and how we respond, cognitively and emotionally, to it. Dario discusses with Jon the labour of love in amalgamating the hours of audio with images that visually enhance and reflect Murch's ideas. This gives rise to many topics of conversation including: cinema as a sound as much as a visual medium, the role of the cinematographer in relation to the director, Murch's continued influence on cinema from analogue to the digital age, the difference between the craft and art of film, and the cold realities of working in the film industry when you are not the one with final creative control.

The film Sight and Sound: The Cinema of Walter Murch is free to view on Vimeo. 

With the pandemic still wreaking havoc in all areas of life, Dario and Neil discuss the present and future of cinema particularly in light of Warner Bros. decision to put it all new releases onto the streaming service HBO Max at the same time as they go into cinemas.

Also under discussion are the recent viewings of David Fincher's ode to old Hollywood Mank, brutally honest and intriguingly subjective documentary Time (Garrett Bradley), highly entertaining Russian horror sci-fi but with a Hollywood sensibility Sputnik, and an even more terrifying socially conscious British horror from Remi Weeks: His House.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify 

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Podchaser 

We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Transition music - P.O.V. - Composed and performed by Jon Lefkovitz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u90H1x3AJm4

To coincide with the cinema release of the new drama County Lines, directed by one of today's guests Henry Blake, Neil and Dario discuss the form and legacies of that oft contested term 'social realism', asking if it has a place in today's British Cinema landscape and if recent releases such as Fyzal Boulifa's Lynn + Lucy and Mark Jenkin's Bait are evidence of a 'new wave'.

As well as Henry's interview with Neil, Dario talks with Sarah Gavron, director of one of the most acclaimed of the recent British 'social' dramas, Rocks, recently released in cinemas by Altitude Films and currently screening on Netflix.

Neil and Dario also wax lyrical on Steve McQueen's Lovers Rock and Neil confuses The Long Good Friday with The Long Goodbye.

Show Notes

Guy Lodge's Variety review of County Lines, mentioned by Dario on the show.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify 

Google Podcasts

Podchaser 

We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

To coincide with the Blu Ray (Arrow Films) release of Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang's wonderful elegy to the cinema Goodbye Dragon Inn, we are reposting one of our earliest episodes. Associated with what has come to be known a slow cinema, Tsai's subtly observed visual storytelling utilising long shots, intricate framing and editing but with minimalist dialogue, demands an a deep level of  attention in the viewer. The empty, dilapidated movie palace at the centre of the story a metaphor for wider rejection of the auditorium experience. Recorded live at Falmouth University, the episode now feels like a bittersweet look back at a time when the status of cinema-going was undoubtedly a topic of lament, but not to the extent that it is now. 

The episode also features an interview with academic Sarah Atkinson about her book, Beyond The Screen: Emerging Cinema and Engaging Audience - which presents an expanded conceptualization of cinema which encompasses the myriad ways film can be experienced in a digitally networked society where the auditorium is now just one location amongst many in which audiences can encounter and engage with films.

Listening back to the audio was also a reminder to us as to how far the podcast has come in the 5 years since we started. There is definitely a rough and ready feel about the audio, but we hope you 'appreciate' that.

Goodbye Dragon Inn is released on Blu Ray with Arrow Films on 23rd of November.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify 

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Podchaser 

We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

On this episode, Dario and Neil delve into the career of Ang Lee. For this discussion, they are joined by writer Ellen Cheshire, a former guest on the show (Ep69, Jane Campion's The Piano), whose new book on Ang Lee prompted this episode. 

Find out more about Ellen's books (and more importantly buy them!) here.

In addition, Neil talks to one of his students, third year undergraduate Francesco Signorello, about the 2003 film Hulk, and its impact both negatively and positively on the now ubiquitous superhero movie landscape. 

To kick things off, Neil and Dario also touch on Dario's new article for Film-Philosophy, A Cinema for the Ears: Imagining the Audio-Cinematic through Podcasting, which is available to read, open source, here.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify 

Google Podcasts

Podchaser 

We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Sports films hold formative relevance for both Dario and Neil, and the sports documentary as a sub-genre is the focus and inspiration for a wide-ranging discussion on our latest episode. How does cinema make sport cinematic and what is the difference, for filmmakers and audiences alike, between sports documentary films and watching sports on Television.

The episode is structured around an interview with Finlay Pretsell, a former cyclist and director of Time Trial: A Race to the End. On the surface, the film is a biographical account of the final year of cyclist David Millar, as he comes to terms with retirement after a successful but turbulent career. But more than that the film is an immersive experiment in bringing the audience into the physical and psychological experience of pro cycling. Time Trial is available on the BBC Iplayer and we highly recommend you check it out.

Discussion of Time Trial offers avenues through which to examine how cinema takes the sport out of the immediate yet reductive question of winners and losers. Dario outlines a taxonomy of sports documentaries but this is tricky as the most lauded examples of the genre transcend simple classification both in terms of form and content. The key question: how does cinema make sports cinematic is exemplified seminal films under discussion including Asif Kapadia's detailed archival biographies Senna (2010) and Diego Maradona (2019), the observational detail of Steve James' Hoop Dreams (1994) and Jørgen Leith's A Sunday in Hell (1977), and the transcendent charisma of the sports icon Muhammad Ali is captured with grand scope in When We Were Kings (Leon Gast, 1996) and through a more personal intimacy in I Am Ali (2014, Clare Lewins). Exposes of the darker side of sports are another strand with the multiple films on Lance Armstrong, the wider question of doping tackled in the Oscar-winning Icarus and the recent harrowing account of abuse in American gymnastics explored in Bonni Cohen and John Shenk's Athlete A (2019). 

Discussion of the intersection between cinema and sport on a conceptual level is no-where more apparent than in Julian Faraut's John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection (2018). Neil and Dario discuss how this film demonstrates that both cinema and sport push the boundaries of experience to reach the level of art. In this sense, what is essential about both art and cinema is not coherence or completeness, but moments of transcendence which offer a glimpse of something that expands human potential.

Neil also rounds up recent DVD releases from BFI and Masters of Cinema: Dementia (1955, John Parker), Sleepwalkers (1992, Mick Garris) & 976-Evil (1988, Robert Englund) and also analysed is the recent hard-hitting example of British social realism Lynn + Lucy (2019, Fyzal Boulifa)

You can subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

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We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Email: cinematologists@gmail.com

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

The occasion of Second Sight Film's wonderful 4K release of Nicolas Roeg's debut feature as sole director allowed for a chance to spend some time focusing on a favourite filmmaker of the podcast. 

Thanks to AIM Publicity we were offered the chance to talk to one of the film's actors, leading British film producer and son of the director, Luc Roeg. Neil spoke to him earlier in the year and that conversation forms the basis of this episode, alongside a chat Neil had with Melbourne based film critic Andrew Peirce on the legacy of the film in Australian film culture. 

Neil and Dario get into the slippery nature of the film's representational politics and stark, beautiful aesthetic and kick the episode off trying to remain positive in the face of an overwhelmingly bleak period for the global cinema industry.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

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We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

For the second episode of Season 12, the Cinematologists take a customary left turn from the last episode and get into the weeds about what it's like to be embarking on a new academic year in cinema, for teachers and students, undergraduates and those doing PhDs.

Neil and Dario are joined by Freya Billington from UWE and Dr Catherine Wheatley from King's College London to talk about practice and theory and their intersections, the realities of life in a blended/online teaching world for users at both ends and the need for hope, reflection and kindness in addition to the usual curiosity and determination.

While focused on the teaching of film the episode includes reflections on the social and political moment that are wider than what's going on in film education or even film itself, encompassing as much of the moment we are all in as is possible in an hour-long film podcast chat.

There's also a preamble chat that takes in new Blu-ray releases of This Gun For Hire (Eureka/MoC) and After The Fox (BFI)

Links:

Freya on Twitter

Catherine on Twitter

Neil and Freya's conversation about teaching film production in the COVID era for the journal Digital Culture and Education.

The Chantal Akerman Foundation

10 Essential Akerman Films (BFI)

Information about The Hays Code [briefly mentioned by Catherine] (BFI)

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

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or visit our website: www.cinematologists.com

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Music Credits:

‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Season 12 of the Cinematologists is here. And we start with a bang. Episode 106 features an interview with legendary filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich discussing with Dario and Neil his beautifully crafted celebration of one of silent cinema's brightest stars: Buster Keaton. The Great Buster (released on DVD and Blu-ray on Monday 21st) reminds of the genius of Keaton's comedic imagination, covering his early years in vaudeville, his entry into cinema with the string of early two-reeler "gag-fests", the classic feature period in the twenties, and onto his later career where his autonomy was curtailed by the increasingly formulaic nature of the studio system. Throughout, however, even in his later years working in commercials, television, on stage, and in many films that couldn't live up to his talent, flashes of the comedic imagination are apparent along with the incredible physicality and understanding of action in shaping humour. Peter discusses Keaton's legacy in-depth, his influence on film aesthetics and grammar, the legacy of his masterpieces in the twenties including The General, along with pointing out the virtuoso elements in his lesser-known films. He also talks about the process of putting the documentary together, his ideas for changing the chronology, interviews with star contributors, and his own voice-over performance. We hope you enjoy this opportunity to spend time in the company of one of the pivotal filmmakers of American cinema as he discusses an icon of his own.

Thanks to Tom Finney of Blue Dolphin Films for setting up the interview and if you want to see the film at the cinema there is a screening and Q&A at London's fabulous Genesis cinema on the 29th of September, hosted by friend of the show Pamela Hutchinson.

Alongside this, we are delighted to premiere our new theme music, written exclusively for the Cinematologists by Welsh singer-songwriter Gwenno. Both Neil and Dario have long been fans of her sound. We recommend that you download her latest album Le Kov.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify 

Podchaser 

or visit our website: www.cinematologists.com

We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

The first of our collaborations with the BFI Japan season focuses on what is generally regarded as a masterpiece of cinema: Yasujirö Ozu's Tokyo Story (1953). In many ways, a simple story of grandparents visiting their children in the city, but one that gradually builds on the resentments and disappointments of intergenerational alienation. Dario and Neil discuss the film in terms of its status in 'the canon', its reverence as Ozu's finest work in a prolific career, and as arguably the purest distillation of the auteur's thematic and formal concerns. A masterclass in directorial precision and visual composition that both registers as a distinct piece of cinematic art but equally, immerses the viewer into its film world where situations and character relations play out in subtle but profound ways. 

Dario and Neil also discuss some of the other films they have watched in the BFI Japan season so far, including Mikio Naruse's Floating Clouds (1955) and When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960). Again, these are films that are painted on the canvas of post-war Japan but focus on the uncertain status and role of women with both featuring the superb Hideko Takamine in the leading role. Very different are Takeshi Kitano's violent, Nihilistic thrillers Violent Cop (1989), Boiling Point (1990) and Sonatine (1993). Visceral gripping, and bleak they are riveting examples of Japanese cinema made with an American B-movie sensibility. And for some trashy fun look no further than 'king of the monster movies' Ishiro Honda: Mothra (1961), Dogora (1964) & Godzilla v King Kong (1962) can all be found on Amazon Prime.

Neil also reviews a new series of Bela Lugosi films based on the work of Edgar Allen Poe and released by Masters of Cinema: Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) The Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935).

This is our final episode of Season 11, we thank you for the continued support and hope you rejoin us back in the autumn.

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We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Katie Bryer is a freelance film editor whose brilliant work on Bruce Lee and the Outlaw, Maiden, and Virunga demonstrates the diverse possibilities of documentary storytelling. In this episode, Katie discusses the development of her craft, working through student shorts, children's television, and for the BBC on Holby City. The gaining of confidence and building of skills and experience in a role, clearly underpins the idea that doing the work, having a complete commitment to one's passion, is the key to 'getting good'. Katie discusses with Dario some of the key elements of editing as fundamental to the filmmaking process: cutting between different types of footage, focusing on character, how to define time and space, and whether one truly finds the film in the edit. Dario and Neil discuss editing in a broader sense, including highlights of some of their favourite films from an editing perspective. 

The episode also features chat about recently viewed films both new and old including The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot), The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson), Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan), The Lost Boys (Joel Schumacher), A Foreign Affair (Billy Wilder), Mr Vampire (Ricky Lau), Criss Cross (Robert Siodmak), Little Joe (Jessica Hauser), Fanny Lye Deliver'd (Thomas Clay).

Show Notes

Katie Bryer's Website

Bruce Lee and the Outlaw

Maiden

Mark Kermode's Review of The Vast of Night

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

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We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Sometimes Always Never is the debut feature film from Liverpool filmmaker, musician and designer Carl Hunter. It marks the latest stage in a collaboration with screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce and stars Bill Nighy, Sam Riley, Alice Lowe, Jenny Agutter and Tim McInerny.

The film was released digitally in March, following a successful festival run over the past couple of years, and tells the story of Nighy searching for his long missing son, with Riley as the brother left behind. It’s a moving story, beautifully told and as lockdown got underway, Neil talked with Carl about the film, his filmmaking process and that slippery question ‘what is British cinema?’.

Prior to their chat, Carl sent Neil some images - his scrapbook of ideas and some polaroids - that informed the filmmaking process. He has kindly agreed for us to post a couple here, including the one that sold Bill Nighy on the project as discussed on this episode.

The conversation is framed by Neil and Dario’s discussion of the film and how it engages with ideas of Britishness and masculinity, the subtleties that mark the film out from other similarly themed films and the thrill of finding work to champion that sits on the fringes of the mainstream glut.

Sometimes Always Never can be rented on iTunes, Amazon, YouTube and pretty much anywhere you get your streaming rental fix.

Two of Carl and Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s previous collaborations, the brilliant Shakespeare inspired short A Winter’s Tale and the Beatles inspired short A Day In Life: Twenty Four Zero Hours can be found on YouTube here and here. They are superb shorts in their own right, but also provide a wonderful road map to their debut feature together.

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We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

The Uncertain Kingdom is “an anthology of twenty short films for our uncertain times”. The brainchild of producers Isabel Feeer, Georgia Goggin and John Jencks, the anthology is released digitally on June 1st with the hope that the films will “inspire, support and encourage new conversations about our interesting times’. 10 filmmakers were invited to make work for the project, with the other 10 shorts selected from an open submission call that saw over 1000 entries and work curated under narrative, documentary and experimental banners. The aim of the project was to create a snapshot of Britain in 2020, coming from an awareness on the behalf of the producing team that these post-Brexit vote times, were interesting across the political and social spectrum (and all this before a little something called Coronavirus).

For this episode, Neil talked to one of the project’s producers John Jencks as well as narrative filmmaker John Wingard (Pavement), documentary filmmakers Alison Hargreaves (Camelot) and Stroma Cairns (Sauna), and director Antonia Campbell-Hughes (Acre Fall Between). Apologies to Iggy LDN (Sucka Punch) and Sophie King (Swan) whose interviews were recorded but whose files were found to be corrupted at editing stage.

In the episode, Dario and Neil discuss the project, the films and the short film form more broadly. They also pay tribute to filmmaker Lynn Shelton and say happy birthday to the marvellous organisation Raising Films, who celebrated five years of activism on behalf of parents and carers in the film industry recently.

The website, with more information on all the films and filmmakers and where to watch them, can be found here.

This is a link to Neil’s Longform interview with Lynn Shelton for the journal Mai: Feminism and Visual Culture, from May 2019, shared here so listeners can enjoy spending time in the company of a great filmmaker sharing so much intimate wisdom about her career and craft. Her death is a real loss to our beloved art form.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

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We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

For the first episode of a new century (of Cinematologists episodes) we are proud to present a conversation with esteemed filmmaker and cineaste Mark Cousins to celebrate the release of his mammoth, 14hr, poetic documentary project, and cinephile treasure trove, Women Make Film.

Recorded during lockdown in 2020, the conversation features Neil and Dario talking to Mark about his process and approach as well as the discoveries and rediscoveries contained within this love letter to cinema and foregrounding of forgotten, undervalued and sidelined directorial voices.

The film is released on Blu-ray by the BFI on Monday 18th May, with the BFI Player also streaming the film in 5 parts over the coming 5 weeks from the same date.

Thanks to Jill Reading at the BFI for helping set up the conversation with Mark. Also, for sending us the review copy of Ozu’s Flavour Of Green Tea and Rice, which gets discussed on this episode alongside two releases from Eureka/Masters of Cinema - The Specialists (Sergio Corbucci) and Throw Down (Johnnie To). Thanks to Steve Hills at Eureka for furnishing review copies of the latter titles.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

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We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

In this special episode, marking 100 episodes and five years of The Cinematologists podcast, Neil and Dario take a breath. With the help of friends and supporters of the podcast they discuss the history and evolution of the show, their formative experiences of cinemas, meaningful film viewing experiences, critics and academics that helped shaped their understanding of talking about cinema on the page and elsewhere, and what they think and hope the future of cinema(s) and the podcast might look like.

This episode, like the previous 99 and the show in general, would not be possible without the engagement of the listeners and the willingness of participants to give up their time and knowledge to help make the podcast what it is.

Thank you to everyone who has listened, come to a taping, recorded an interview, provided feedback, bought a t-shirt or just said ‘nice one’.

For episode 100 Neil and Dario especially want to thank Ellen Cheshire, Ryan Gilbey, Gwenno, Mark Jenkin, James Maitre, Marbelle, Kingsley Marshall, Andrew Peirce, Lottie Smith, Tessa and Ren Zelen for their contributions.

A wonderful time was had thinking about the comments and questions that were supplied and talking them through on the recording. Here’s hoping you the listener feel the same.

Thanks for listening.

The music for episode 100 is ‘Open Again Eventually’ by Leah Kardos, which can be heard in full here. In title and tone it felt like the right music for now, for this episode. Thanks Leah for letting us use it. To buy Leah’s latest EP ‘Bird Rib’, where this song is taken from, go to her Bandcamp page. Leah is a doctor of philosophy and senior lecturer in music at Kingston University where she co-founded the Visconti Studio with legendary music producer Tony Visconti.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

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We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.

We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Perhaps the most in-depth analysis possible is focused on an entire film minute by minute. This week's guest Blake Howard has patented that very idea in the format of his highly popular podcast One Heat Minute. Interviewing a guest every week and assigning them a minute from the film, this deep-dive podcast represents a synergy between obsessional fandom, close textual analysis, and explorations of what film means to those who see the form as part of their very identity. The first film that was the subject of this was Heat, and it was a testament to the success of the show that the director, Michael Mann was the final guest of that series. Since then Blake has done series: The Last (12 minutes) of the Mohican's, All the President's Minutes (his current podcast on which Dario recently appeared) and two spin-off shows which he produces: Increment Vice and the upcoming Josie and the Podcats. He has also recently start con-TEN-gen, the film critic's response to the impact of the coronavirus on his colleagues and friends.

In this episode, Dario and Blake realise they have a parallel history in their film education and their taste in films. They discuss Blake's history as a film journalist at the beginnings of the digital age, the challenges and rewards of the 'one-minute' format, film podcasts as a genre, and the possibility of a cinematic experience without images.

In this episode, Neil also reviews three reissues from Eureka/Masters of Cinema: Syncopation (William Dieterle, 1942) Buster Keaton's MGM Boxset, Long Day's Journey into Night (Sidney Lumet, 1962).

Links

Blake Howard is on Twitter as @OneBlakeMinute

Link here for One Heat Minute Productions

Contributor to www.flicks.com.au/ & Dark Horizons

Blake's Article for Vague Visages - Why Criticism: Not Quite the Apocalypse

The voice in cinema is a phenomenon that is in many ways taken for granted. Since the advent of the talkies, the speaking voice synchronised to the human body on-screen is the ingrained process for narrative exposition and character development. However, this accepted synchronisation is one of sound cinema’s fundamental illusions.

This major production for The Cinematologists features the analysis from leading film scholars and critics, each focusing on uses and interpretations of cinematic voice, using a plethora of filmic examples. Many aspects of the cinematic voice are explored including star voices, script and performance, sonic aesthetics of the voice, voice-overs, the singing voice, voices in animation, the disembodied voice, and politics of who has a voice and who listens. We draw upon many of the key thinkers on film sound including the seminal work of Michel Chion. Chion developed concepts like Audio-Vision, to explore how sound shapes how the screened image can be understood, and acousmetré, meaning the cinema’s use of disembodied off-screen voice. Using these ideas he forwards the argument that sound is not a secondary addendum to image in the cinematic experience, but fundamentally structures how we see and understand film.

Unlike our usual conversational format, this episode is an audio-essay; recorded interviews cut together with indicative clips in a sonic collage which is hopefully an immersive experience transversing the boundaries between creativity and criticism. We recommend that you listen to this episode on headphones to get the full effect. As always Dario and Neil discuss the themes of the podcast but also engage with the production and formal approach in the context of film podcasts more broadly.

Contributors to this episode are (in order of appearance are):

Dario Llinares - Website - Twitter

Clive Frayne (11:03-19:18)  - Website - Twitter

Neil Fox - (19:56-29:30) Website - Twitter

Laura Tunbridge - (32:08-37:08) Website - Twitter

Catherine Wheatley - (41:46-47:33) Website - Twitter

Ian Garwood  (48:56-55:00) - Website - Twitter

Farshid Kazemi (55:51-1:01:50) - Website

Jennifer O’Meara - (1:06:14-1:14:24) Website - Twitter

Mark Kermode (1:15:40-1:23:22) - Website - Twitter

William Brown (1:23:56-1:36:14) - Website - Twitter

My profound thanks for their time, labour and critical insight which has made this episode possible.

A full transcript of this episode is available at www.cinematologists.com

Film clips (in broadcast order)

The Jazz Singer (1927, Alan Crosland)

Blackmail (1929, Alfred Hitchcock)

Dead of Night [The Ventriloquist’s Dummy (1945, Alberto Cavalcanti)

To Have and Have Not (1944, Howard Hawks)

The Trial (1962, Orson Welles)

Dirty Harry (1972 Don Siegel)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)

In the Heat of the Night (1967, Norman Jewison)

Inherent Vice (2014, Paul Thomas Anderson)

Dick Tracy (1990, Warren Beatty)

The Shawshank Redemption (1995, Frank Darabont)

Only Lovers Left Alive (2014, Jim Jarmusch)

White Men Can’t Jump (1992, Ron Shelton)

Daughters of the Dust (1991, Julie Dash)

Félicité (2017, Alain Gomis)

Mary Poppins (1964, Robert Stevenson)

Magnolia (1999) Paul Thomas Anderson

The Wind Will Carry Us (1999, Abbas Kiarostami)

All the President’s Men (Alan J. Pakula)

Her (2014, Spike Jonze)

Toy Story (1995, John Lassiter)

Puss in Boots [Antonio Banderas Voice Session]

Frozen (2013, Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck)

Anomalisa (2016, Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson)

Star Wars (1977, George Lucas)

The Exorcist (1973, William Friedkin)

The Exorcist Original Voice Recordings

The Exorcist documentary

Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979, Terry Jones)

The Dark Knight Rises (2012, Christopher Nolan)

The Great Dictator (1940, Charlie Chaplin)

Valkyrie (2008, Bryan Singer)

The Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Flemming)

Some Like it Hot (1959, Billy Wilder)

References (in order of mention):

Altman, Rick. 1980. Moving Lips: Cinema as Ventriloquism. Yale French Studies, 60 Cinema/Sound: pp. 67-79 - https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2930005.pdf?seq=1

Chion, Michel. 1999. The Voice in Cinema. Columbia University Press.

 Barthes, Roland. 1978. The Grain of the Voice. In Image, Music, Text. New York: Wang and Hill. pp.179-189.

Whittaker, Tom and Wright, Sarah. 2017. Locating the Voice in Film: Critical Approaches and Global Perspectives. Oxford University Press.

Kozlov, Sarah. 1992. Invisible Storytellers: Voice-Over Narration in American Fiction Film. University of California Press.

Cavell, Stanley. 1994. A Pitch of Philosophy: Autobiographical Exercises. Harvard University Press.

Clements, Catherine. 1989. Opera, Or The Undoing Of Women. Virago.

Cavarero, Adrianna. 2005. For More Than One Voice: Toward a Philosophy of Vocal Expression. Stanford University Press.

Kiarostami, Abbas. 2015. Lessons with Kiarostami. Sticking Place Books.

Dolar, Mladen. 2006. A Voice and Nothing More. Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Sobchak, Vivien. 2005. When the Ear Dreams: Dolby Digital and the Imagination of Sound. Film Quarterly, 58(4), pp. 2-15.

Adorno, Theodor., & Horkheimer, Max. 1944. The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.

Chow, Rey. 2017 ‘The Writing Voice in Cinema’. In Whittaker, Tom and Wright, Sarah. Eds. Locating the Voice in Film: Critical Approaches and Global Perspectives. Oxford University Press.

Please consider sharing the show on your social networks and reviewing on your app of choice. If you would like to support us with our running cost please consider subscribing to our membership on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists)

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Or wherever you get your podcasts.

Part Two of our Berlinale 2020 special is here. You’d think that after 5 years doing this podcast I’d get a little thing like the audio right, but alas, a couple of my solo recordings here are of a very poor quality - lots of peaking and distortion, which I have tried hard to reduce. Apologies.

The content is still pretty good though methinks. Lots of chat with Dario about films including the award-winning The Woman Who Ran [Hong Sangsoo] and Never Rarely Sometimes Always [Eliza Hittman], Siberia [Abel Ferrara], Entre Perro Y Lobo - plus an interview with that film’s director Irene Gutierrez - Rizi (Days) [Tsai Ming-Liang], Nightshift (Police) [Anne Fontaine], Maggie’s Farm [James Benning], White Riot [Rubika Shah] and from the retrospective, King Vidor’s The Sky Pilot. Plus nestled in amongst my ruminations is a chat with friend of the podcast Neil Young and a few choice clips from some of the films mentioned. In the spirit of the master Tsai Ming-Liang they are intentionally un-subtitled. Enjoy. NF.

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It's Berlinale time. Our annual sojourn to our favorite European Film Festival is one of the highlights of the year and the programme looks intriguing with a host of big names in art-house cinema showing their latest work. This is the first of a two-part episode in which we bring our thoughts to bear on the big competition entries and fiction and documentary films from other sections of Berlin's extensive programme. We also interview various critics also in the city no only on their festival picks but on any emergent themes of this year's event. Wild mushroom picking, toxic masculinity and signature central sequences were just some of the obvious motifs. 

Dario and Neil see a film together (Hang Songsoo's wonderful The Woman Who Ran) at the festival for the first time and they ruminate, as usual, on all aspects of the experience. Please enjoy.

Thanks so much to the following critics for giving up their time. Please check out their writing and share/support it on your networks:

Joseph Owen - https://www.theupcoming.co.uk/2020/02/24/berlin-film-festival-2020-first-cow-review/

Savina Petkova - https://savinapetkova.contently.com/

Alex Billington - https://www.firstshowing.net/

Serena Scateni - https://vaguevisages.com/2020/02/25/berlinale-2020-review-hong-sang-soos-the-woman-who-ran/

The films discussed in this episode are:

First Cow - Kelly Reichardt

The Salt of Tears - Philippe Garrel

Undine Christian - Petzold

Never Really Sometimes Always - Eliza Hittman

Pinocchio - Matteo Garrone

Little Girl - Sébastien Lifshitz

Malkkrog - Cristi Puiu

Shirley - Josephine Decker

The Assistant - Kitty Green

Mogul Mowgli - Bassam Tariq

The Woman Who Ran - Hong SangSoo

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Adam Mars-Jones is an award-winning novelist and critic. His most recent novel, Box Hill, won the 2019 Fitzcarraldo novel prize. An apt award for someone who is also one of Britain’s most erudite and singular voices in film criticism. In late 2019 a collection of his film criticism, Second Sight, was published. It collects a significant portion of his reviews from his days as The Independent’s film critic (the paper’s first) as well as work for outlets including the Spectator.

In this, the first episode of season 11 proper, Neil sits down in Adam’s kitchen for a chat that takes in art, reappraisal, Kubrick, Altman, music, Galaxy Quest, masterpieces and Don Siegel.

Thanks to Adam for his time and to Reaktion Books for sending out a copy to us and facilitating this conversation.

You can also listen to The Cinematologists here:

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Recorded at Luton’s Filmstock Film Festival (co-directed by Neil) in November 2019, this series features long-form conversations with filmmakers recorded specially for the podcast.

Thanks to The School of Film & Television at Falmouth University for sponsoring this strand of Filmstock to enable these conversations to take place.

The series features conversations with directors Jeanie Finlay and Kieran Evans and screenwriter M.R. Carey.

Finally, it’s Neil’s conversation with director Kieran Evans. Clips screened at the talk came from Kieran’s works Be Pure. Be Vigilant. Behave., The Outer Edges, Kelly + Victor and his music video for Edwyn Collins’ I Guess We Were Young.

Filmstock screened Kieran’s film Truth & Memory, prior to the recording of this conversation.

Follow him on Twitter here.

Thanks to Mark Wooldridge for event photos.

You can also listen to The Cinematologists here:

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Our Website: www.cinematologists.com

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Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists

Recorded at Luton’s Filmstock Film Festival (co-directed by Neil) in November 2019, this series features long-form conversations with filmmakers recorded specially for the podcast.

Thanks to The School of Film & Television at Falmouth University for sponsoring this strand of Filmstock to enable these conversations to take place.

The series features conversations with directors Jeanie Finlay and Kieran Evans and screenwriter M.R. Carey.

Next up, it’s Neil’s conversation with comics, novel and screenwriter M.R. Carey. The conversation covers his work in on legendary comics such as Lucifer, his YA novel and subsequent screenplay adaptation of The Girl With All The Gifts (screened at the festival) and his writing process in depth.

For more on Mike (M.R.) go here, or follow him on Twitter here.

Thanks to Mark Wooldridge for event photos.

You can also listen to The Cinematologists here:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-cinematologists-podcast/id981479854?mt=2

Our Website: www.cinematologists.com

PlayerFM: https://player.fm/series/series-2416725

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0RjNz8XDkLdbKZuj9Pktyh

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists

Recorded at Luton’s Filmstock Film Festival (co-directed by Neil) in November 2019, this series features long-form conversations with filmmakers recorded specially for the podcast.

Thanks to The School of Film & Television at Falmouth University for sponsoring this strand of Filmstock to enable these conversations to take place.

The series features conversations with directors Jeanie Finlay and Kieran Evans and screenwriter M.R. Carey.

First up, it’s Neil’s career-spanning conversation with documentary filmmaker Jeanie Finlay. Clips screened at the talk came from Jeanie’s films Goth Cruise, Orion: The Man Who Would Be King, Game of Thrones: The Last Watch and Seahorse.

Filmstock screened Jeanie’s film Sound It Out, prior to the recording of this conversation.

For more on Jeanie, go here, or follow her on Twitter here.

Thanks to Mark Wooldridge for event photos.

You can also listen to The Cinematologists here:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-cinematologists-podcast/id981479854?mt=2

Our Website: www.cinematologists.com

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Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists

In the final episode of season 10, we look back over 2019 with film highlights we wanted to discuss again. This is not a ranking or a best of, merely a celebration of the year in film and our personal choices of the work we think should be seen and discussed. Here's a list of all the films on our agenda:

Ad Astra; Amazing Grace; Apollo 13; Atlantics; Bait; Burning; Capernaum; Dolemite is My Name; Hale County This Morning, This Evening; Happy as Lazzaro; Her Smell; High Flying Bird; High Life; If Beale Street Could Talk; The Irishman; Knife and Heart; Madeline's Madeline; Rolling Thunder Review; Three Faces; Transit.

We very much appreciate the loyalty of our audience throughout the year. It is one of the key motivators for doing on the show the way we do as we continue to grow. As you probably know, one of the issues for independent podcasts, which don't have 'stars' and the automatic audience that brings, is visibility and discoverability. We hope you continue to find value in the show and we really appreciate it when you share and recommend our episodes on social media:

Twitter: @Cinematologists;

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cinematologists/?ref=bookmarks;

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecinematologists/

If you ever have time to review the podcast on your podcast player of choice, this also helps with expanding the audience. For those who want to go a stage further please consider signing up for our Patreon membership: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. It is only $2.50 per month and you get our monthly newsletter along with bonus content and extended interviews with our guests. We are committed to keeping the show ad-free and this small support really helps with running costs and production improvements that we are always looking to make.

All the best for 2020 and thank you for your continued support. Lots of love, Dario and Neil.

You can also listen to The Cinematologists here:

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The second of instalment of our BFI Musicals two-parter sees Neil and Dario take a deep dive into the glorious world of Barbra Streisand. Neil was invited to Plymouth Arts Centre to take part in the Reclaim The Frame screening of Funny Girl (a film neither Neil nor Dario had seen), hosted by Mia Bays and the brilliant Birds Eye View organisation.

This episode sees Neil and Dario discuss the stardom and career of Streisand, alongside an interview between Neil and Mia, Mia’s introduction to the screening and the post-screening panel featuring Neil, director and music video legend Andrew ‘Wiz’ Whiston and Professor of Performance Studies at the University of Plymouth, Prof. Roberta Mock.

Thanks to Annabel Grundy and the team at BFI National Seasons for the opportunity and support.

You can also listen to The Cinematologists here:

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The first of our episodes in partnership with the BFI’s Blockbuster season on Musicals finds us discussing our relationship to the genre and its descendants as well as responding to a series of interviews conducted by Neil over the last couple of months. Guests on this special episode are the critic/historian Pamela Hutchinson who gives a brilliant overview of the musical form and suggests some gems to look out for, writer Tom MacRae who talks about the process of adapting his own West End smash Everybody’s Talking About Jamie for the screen, and Justine Waddell from Kino Klassika, an amazing organisation bringing Russian and Soviet Cinema to the screen, talks about their stunning programme of Soviet Musicals touring cinemas from January 2020.

To really celebrate the Movie Musical, this episode features a plethora of musical delights. You will be hearing (in order) – Leonard Bernstein’s overture from West Side Story, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas sung by Judy Garland, from Meet Me In St. Louis, Elvis Presley singing Trouble, from King Creole, the official trailer for the West End musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, the title song from Leto (Summer), Bradley Cooper & Lady Gaga singing Shallow, from A Star Is Born, and Science Fiction Double Feature from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, sung by Richard O’Brien. 

Thanks to Annabel Grundy and the team at BFI National Seasons for the opportunity and support.

You can also listen to The Cinematologists here:

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Today's episode features a raft of interviews recorded a Filmstock12, the Luton film festival organised by Neil with his long-time collaborator Justin Doherty, which returned this year after a 10-year hiatus. Fiercely proud of his Luton roots, Neil talks to Dario about the origins of the festival, the programming ethos, why it came back this year, and what it represents as a cultural marker for Luton.

While Neil and Justin were organising and presenting the festival Dario acted as roving interviewer at large, speaking to 5 of the filmmakers who were screening films:

1. Dan Schneidkraut, a Minneapolis based filmmaker with a provocative and unique filmmaking sensibility who actually had 3 films playing at the festival: Wish You Were Here; Shooting at the O.K. Corral & Father's Day.

2: Christine Franz the Producer and director of Bunch of Kunst the documentary about British Punk duo The Sleaford Mods.

3: Toby Matthews won the youth jury award for his Tati inspired comedy Holiday!, set in Cornish coastal town of Mousehole.

4. Lutonian Gillian Harker the actor turned writer/director talks about her intimate debut short Cross.

5. Edwin Miles screened a poignant film about the relationship he has with his Grandma, the subject of his short Rose. 

You can also listen to The Cinematologists here:

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In another first for the Cinematologists, we are hugely excited to present The Lobster with a live score from the classical group the Solem Quartet and in association with Picturehouses cinemas. Live cinema events featuring musical accompaniments are becoming more prevalent as part of the auditorium experience; they echo cinema's past but also a look to the future as audiences seek out material experiences that go beyond or add onto traditional screenings, and perhaps look for a break from the digital. This event took place at the beautiful Gate Cinema in Notting Hill, to a packed house, with Dario introducing the event and discussing the production with the musicians in a post-screening Q&A.

Devised, arranged and performed by The Solem Quartet the screening included classic pieces including Beethoven op. 18/1, Shostakovich Quartet no. 8, Schnittke Quartet no. 2, Schnittke Quintet for Piano and Strings, Stravinsky 3 Pieces for String Quartet, Britten Quartet no. 1, Strauss Don Quixote. The music underscores beautifully the dark humour and surrealist milieu of Lanthimos' social satire. 

Winner of the 2014 Royal Over-Seas League Ensemble Competition, the Solem Quartet was formed in 2011 at the University of Manchester. The Quartet takes its name from the university's motto "arduus ad solem", meaning "striving towards the sun". The quartet enjoys a busy concert schedule performing at venues both across the UK – including Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Bridgewater Hall and Holywell Music Room – and internationally. In keeping with its name, the Solem Quartet’s first project was to play the Haydn Op. 20 “Sun” Quartets. Their repertoire is extensive, spanning the period from early Haydn to a broad spectrum of living composers including Larry Goves, Anna Meredith, John Luther Adams and Emily Howard, whose quartet ‘Afference’ they performed in a BBC Proms Extra broadcast, live on BBC Radio 3.

 There are still dates available for upcoming live scorings of The Lobster. Click here for details 

You can also listen to The Cinematologists here:

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In our first episode from Filmstock 12 - the Luton based film festival organised by Neil in collaboration with Justin Doherty - we are delighted to welcome back on the podcast director Mark Jenkin. In this live Q&A Mark talks to Dario about his incredible year and the success of Bait, which has been met with universal critical acclaim and considerable box office success. That a black and white hand-processed experimental film about Cornish fisherman has become the stories of the year in film, is a testament to a filmmaker who has never compromised on his politics and artistic sensibility. Mark also discusses his career including his first feature Golden Burn and his recent diary film Vertical Shapes on a Horizontal Landscape, along with inspirations such as Robert Bresson, Nick Darke and Andrew Kötting. It's great to have Mark back to his spiritual podcast home. 

Shownotes

Watch Golden Burn Here.

Peter Bradshaw's Review from Berlinale

Mark's interview with Philip Concannon in Sight and Sound

You can also listen to The Cinematologists here:

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For episode 90 Dario and Neil go old school for the film and the format. In this classically structured episode the focus of attention is on the 1994 action classic Speed, screened for the Film at Falmouth 2019 Freshers audience at The Poly in Falmouth.

The discussion ranges across contemporary and classic action movies and stars including Harrison Ford, Arnie, The Stath, Cruise, Aliens, Dredd and much more, as well as the film as in service of pure spectacle, the uniqueness of Keanu and the special chemistry he shares in this film with co-star Sandra Bullock.

Thanks to The Poly, and Dr Verena Von Eicken for co-hosting the live event.

Here's a link to Neil's piece on Doc 'n Roll Fest for the Quietus that he discusses early on this episode.

You can also listen to The Cinematologists here:

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When we heard that a documentary about the art of film sound was being released we simply had to check it out. Fortuitously, the film was playing at this year's London Film Festival and we were lucky enough to be able to interview the film's director Midge Costin. Midge has an unbelievable C.V. herself as a sound editor working on many of the big action movies of the 80s and 90s including The Rock, Armageddon, Days of Thunder and Crimson Tide. As a graduate of the University of Southern California, she shares the history of American film sound development with the likes of Walter Murch, Ben Burtt & Gary Rydstrom. Her film tracks the experimental developments of sound design and explores the importance of sound to the very DNA of cinema. Neil and Dario discuss some of the questions and examples that the film raises in terms of the symbiosis of sound and image and, in keeping with this subject matter, Dario has created an edit utilising the aural examples that are cited throughout. 

(Thanks to Debbie Murray of Aim Publicity)

Shownotes

Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound

Fuller at Fox Boxset (reviewed by Neil at the beginning)

Crimson Tide - I Do Not Concur

Terminator 2: Parents

Tomita - Snowflakes are Dancing

A Star is Born - Barbara Streisand

Punch Drunk Love - Crash

Punch Drunk Love - Harmonium

The Sounds of Clarie Denis

The Apartment - Champagne 

Throne of Blood - Arrows

Gravity - Explorer's been hit

The Conversation - First recordings

All the President's Men - Phonecalls

Under the Skin - First victim

The Outlaw Josey Wales - Pistols

Jaws - You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

You Were Never Really Here - Fight

You can also listen to The Cinematologists here:

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While the London Film Festival is fresh in the mind, The Cinematologists bring you this round-up of some of the best films in this year's event. In order to help with this task, we have enlisted two smart and articulate young film critics to give their in-depth, considered opinions. Dario talks to Savina Petkova (MubiNotebook, Electric Ghost Magazine, Girls on Tops Tees) and James Maitre (Director's Notes, Albums in the Attic) about their festival highlights.

Before that Dario also talks to London Film Festival senior programmers Kate Taylor and Michael Blyth about the organisation, judging and the context of the festival (You can hear the full interview via our Patreon Page).

(Apologies for the somewhat echoey recording in certain parts of the show)

Shownotes

The Other Lamb (Malgorzata Szumowska)

Monos (Alejandro Landes)

The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

The Last Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot)

The Lodge (Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma) 

Nocturnal (Nathalie Biancheri)

Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov)

Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

Nimic (Yorgos Lanthimos)

The Report (Scott Z. Burns) 

Mr Jones (Agnieszka Holland) 

Rose Plays Julie (Joe Lawler & Christine Molloy)

James also mentions the Podcast The Evolution of Horror

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We’re back with the second of our double bill of episodes from the Film-Philosophy Conference held at the University of Brighton in July. Hosted by our very own Dario Llinares the event boasted an internationally renowned line-up of keynotes and delegates. 

Both episodes are made up of interviews we managed to grab as the conference progressed and, we hope gives you a sense of the eclectic mix of themes, methodologies and films that were discussed. As with part one, Neil and Dario are joined on interviewing duties by Kat Zabecka, from the University of Edinburgh.

Show Notes

0.0 Introduction – Dario, Neil and Kat welcome Kat to the Cinematologists fold.

10:06 Evy Varsamopoulou (with Neil) - Neil talks to Evy about how Ridley Scott's Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017) introduced a philosophical problematic into a cluster of interrelated and (still) topical issues and debates concerning the origin of humanity, procreation and posthuman futures.

22:30 Mark Cauchi (with Dario) - Mark tells Dario how Jarmusch’s Paterson is an effort to counteract Trumpism and the chauvinistic secularism it embodies, not merely by negatively criticizing it, as Richard Rorty lamented the Left usually does but by drawing upon and revamping a tradition of American thought and culture in order to re-envision positively what a distinctly American secularity could and should be.

42:26 Dionysios Kapsaskis (with Neil) - Neil and Dionysios get into about language and translation in the films of Jim Jarmusch, drawn from Dionysio’s paper exploring representations of translation in Jim Jarmusch’s films. Drawing on recent scholarship on the relationship between film and translation, and on critical writings on translation by Derrida and Benjamin among others, the paper focused on several scenes from Jarmusch’s films in which translation is represented or referred to.

56:26 Jenelle Troxell (with Neil) - Jenelle tells Neil how, with its emphasis on political activism, aesthetic experimentation, and psychoanalysis, the film journal Close Up anticipates the feminist film criticism of the 1970s and how the writers develop what Troxell terms a “contemplative aesthetic” - focusing on film’s capacity to generate states of deep contemplative absorption in the viewer.

01:08:22 Shai Biderman (with Neil) – Over lunch, Neil and Shai discuss Fables and parables—two storytelling devices designed to elicit folk wisdom and moral understanding of human situations and predicaments— how they have gained a stronghold in contemporary film-philosophy and how their use in the Coen Brothers’ oeuvre is worthy of special attention, if only because of their sheer abundance.

01:22:34 Sylvie Magerstaedt (with Kat) – For the last of the conversations featured, Kat sits down with Sylvie to talk about Tim Burton’s Big Fish and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie and how although they seem to extol the beauty and power of storytelling and myth creation, and by extension the power of cinema itself, they also raise certain ethical issues when it comes to honesty and truthfulness.

Clips featured on this episode include: Trailer for Prometheus (dir. Scott, 2012), a scene from Paterson (dir. Jarmusch, 2016) and the title song from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (dir. Coen, 2018), performed by Willie Watson and Tim Blake Nelson.

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Season 10 of the Cinematologists podcast kicks off with a double bill of episodes from the Film-Philosophy Conference held at the University of Brighton in July. Hosted by our very own Dario Llinares the event which boasted an internationally renowned line-up of keynotes and delegates. 

Both episodes are made up of interviews we managed to grab as the conference progressed and, we hope gives you a sense of the eclectic mix of themes, methodologies and films that were discussed. Neil and Dario are joined on interviewing duties by Kat Zabecka, who studies at the University of Edinburgh.

Shownotes

0.0 Introduction - Dario and Neil Discuss the build-up to the conference.

8:45 Janet Harbord (with Dario) Janet's keynote speech entitled Film as a Training for Neurotypical life explores gesture in medical film, focusing on the autistic gesture as a practice that resists interpretation through conventional means, troubling the terms of intention and agency.

26:40 Matt Holtmeier (with Neil) Matt discusses the video essay he screened at the conference - Vital Coasts, Mortal Oceans: The Pearl Button as Media Environmental Philosophy - interweaving Chilean philosophers Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, and Ricardo Rozzi, with Patricio Guzman’s cosomovisions in order to highlight the complex ecological insights at the intersection of indigenous thought and film form.

37:00 Savina Petkova (with Kat) Savina talks about her paper Real Metaphors. Animals in the Films of Yorgos Lanthimos and the role of animetaphors, Akira Lippit’s eloquent way of describing a non-anthropocentric way to look at animals and animal transformations.

50:42 Murray Pomerance (with Dario) Returning to The Cinematologists Murray outlines The Sound of Silence and his formulation of the "screaming silence" created by the sound design in the famous shower scene in Hitchcock's psycho.

01:10:57 Mila Zuo (with Kat). Mila's paper, entitled The Girlfriend Experience: Virtual Beauty and Love in Post-Cinematic Times, explores the ways new media technologies (and their representations) enable a fetishistic disavowal in virtual displays of feminine beauty and unfaithful love.

01:31:00 Colin Heber-Percy (with Dario) Under the Skin offers fruitful material for philosophical analysis and Colin's analysis - "The Flesh is Weak." Empathy and becoming human in Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin - analyses the film's “mechanics” of illusion, its deconstruction of cinema itself, reversing the gaze of the viewer: this is a film that observes us.

01:44:20 Lina Jurdeczka (with Neil). Lina's work - Untimely Cinephilia and Spectral Images in Phoenix and Ida - examines films that are set in cultural climates that seek to move on from the trauma of the Holocaust: Germany in 1945 and Poland in 1961. Yet formally their film-historical imaginaries emphasise the co-existence of past and present, dismantling the possibility of closure.

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This repost features director Mark Jenkin whose new release Bait opened last Friday (29th August 2019) to almost universal praise. Back in February 2016 Mark joined Dario at the Electric Palace in Hastings to screen and discuss the film. The story of a young man striving to provide a home for himself, his pregnant girlfriend and their unborn child, Bronco's House is an aesthetic meditation on property, power and the future. Like Bait the film is shot on a clockwork camera, using 16mm black and white negative stock, and processed by hand through an instant coffee based developer. Mark will be coming on the podcast again very soon, but until then we hope you enjoy this discussion wone of his seminal earlier works.

Bronco's House is available to download and stream. CLICK HERE.

It's our final episode of the season and in response to a request from one of our listeners Andrew Peirce (www.thecurb.com), we discuss the powerful outback western Sweet Country. Directed by Warwick Thornton and inspired by the true events, the film is a brutal indictment of the colonial terrorism that forged modern Australia and the specific impact on Aboriginal existence, identity and culture. The film invokes the mythos of the Western in aesthetic terms yet it is also a revisionist project that doesn't shy away from a pointed critique of European expansion and its corollary: uncompromisingly violent, white masculinity. Beautiful and terrifying we would definitely recommend watching the film before coming to our discussion.

We also reflect on our highlights of the season and Neil discuss new BFI releases of classic features and shorts by female filmmakers including Margaret Tait, Germain Dulac, Lois Weber, Dorothy Arzner and Alice Guy Blaché. Thanks for your continued support, and well be back in the autumn. 

Listen on:

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The latest episode sees The Cinematologists going deep on some of the central conversations in contemporary film culture, joined by the peerless So Mayer & Girish Shambu. 

Coinciding with So's 'A Queer Toolkit for Blowing Up The Canon' talk at HOME in Manchester, and Girish visiting the UK for the Queer & Feminist Cinephilia Workshop at the University of Birmingham, Neil talked to them both about canons, cinephilia and the responsibility of cinephiles in the current moment.

Following that conversation, Neil and Dario share their thoughts on the state of current online discourse and share their vulnerabilities about their place in it, coming back to the sanctuary of the podcast as a space that feels positive and discursive and does good work in promoting positive cinephilia and opening up the conversation to and about different voices.

Many thanks to So and Girish for their time and incredible wisdom and thoughtfulness. It's an honour to feature such important and inspiring film thinkers on The Cinematologists.

Girish Shambu - Time's Up For The Male Canon

Girish Shambu - For A New Cinephilia (A Manifesto)

So Mayer on Twitter

Girish Shambu on Twitter

On the episode So and Girish shout out some colleagues and people doing great writing and publishing that captures the essence and spirit and tone of the work of New Cinephilia and challenging the canon. Here's where listeners can find them:

Another Gaze, Cleo Journal, MAI, Maggie Hennefeld, Devika Girish, Veronica Fitzpatrick, Kelley Dong, Miriam Bale, Alissa Wilkinson, Monica Castillo, Pamela Hutchinson, Erika Balsom, Elena Gorfinkel. 

Also listen on:

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Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists

Scott Barley makes sublime, juddering, immersive, multi-sensory films. They drift across an experimental, nature doc, slow cinema axis - sometimes with brute force and sometimes with an aching tranquility. In a few years he has amassed a formidable filmography of short film work and in 2017 presented his debut feature, Sleep Has Her House, to the world.

In late 2018, Scott travelled to the School of Film & Television at Falmouth University where he and his film held the audience rapt. That conversation is presented here in full, bookended by Neil and Dario getting to grips with a piece of work that both invites and defies interpretation. They also, as is customary, talk about feeling and meaning in cinema, the type of cinema that needs and deserves attention from a podcast like this and film culture in general, and the overwhelming and altering experience of Scott’s work.

Throughout the episode there is audio from Scott’s short films, which can be found on his Vimeo page here, and from his music, which can be bought on Bandcamp here. Tracks featured are To The Lighthouse, Nebulae and Sleep Has Her House.

A special thank you to Dr Kingsley Marshall and Film at Falmouth for making this episode possible.

In closing, the episode features more pauses and collecting of thoughts than normal. Rather than edit a lot of the indecisiveness out, we’ve kept it in, because it felt right in this instance, because the film in question had a greater impact on us in that regard than normal. It is a really special piece of work. We thank Scott for sharing it with us, and can’t wait to hear what you make of this talk and Scott’s films. 

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Website: www.cinematologists.com

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Both Neil and I are avid users of the typewriter so when we got the chance to speak to Doug Nichol the director of the 2017 documentary California Typewriter, it was a great chance to wax lyrical about the virtues of this 'obsolete' technology. On the surface, the film could have been overly nostalgic or, heaven forbid, dripping with retro hipsterism, but following the owner and staff of a repair shop originally opened in 1949 in Berkeley, a more profound story of how technological change affects the society and the lives within emerges. Also fascinating are the comments from famous names - including Tom Hanks, Sam Shepard and John Mayer - who see the typewriter as indispensable to their creative practice and personal identity. Other characters in the documentary reflect a more obsessive reverence and eccentric application of the machine that in many ways defined 20th-century modernity. Indeed, the film ruminates on our fundamental relationship to technology suggesting that the analogue and the digital have a symbiotic relationship rather than one of death and replacement. 

Follow @Doug_Nichol & @Caltypefilm on Twitter.

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Website: www.cinematologists.com

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The year is 2027, the world has collapsed but Britain soldiers on. Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men has seemingly only increased in significance and appreciation since its release in 2006. Based loosely on a P.D. James novel Cuarón imagines a world that has lost hope because of human infertility but this only the narrative starting point for an aesthetically and thematically layered dystopian nightmare. Discussion of the film's many social, cultural and political elements sometimes takes away from the fact it is a brilliant piece of action cinema with an aesthetic immediacy and depth of world-building, that has become a signature of Cuarón's filmmaking

We screened the film at Kings College London and would like to thank PhD Student Joseph Jenner for organising the event and co-presenting the screening with Dario.

Show notes

Why Children of Men has never been as shocking as it is now - Nicolas Barber (BBC)

Humanity Adrift: Race, Materiality, and Allegory in Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men - Zahid R. Chaudhary (Camera Obscura)

Future Shock - Abraham Riesman (Vulture)

Why Alfonso Cuarón's anti-Blade Runner looks more relevant than ever - Stephen Dalton (BFI)

The Child to Come: Life After the Human Catastrophe - Rebekah Sheldon

Listen on:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-cinematologists-podcast/id981479854?mt=2

Website: www.cinematologists.com

PlayerFM: https://player.fm/series/series-2416725

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0RjNz8XDkLdbKZuj9Pktyh

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists

Dr Racquel Gates is assistant professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the College of Staten Island. She is the author of Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Duke, 2018).

For the latest episode, Racquel talked to Neil about her book and a number of other topics including contemporary black screen art and criticism, Eddie Murphy, Halle Berry, Whoopi Goldberg, Black cultural scholarship and the Academy, Empire, Reality TV, Sorry To Bother You and lots more. Racquel was very tolerant of Neil’s rambling enthusiasm for her work and the ideas and thoughts it spawned in him. Her book is incisive and entertaining and as a thinker Racquel expertly discusses texts while understanding the fluidity of ideas and issues around flaws, problems, virtues and areas of scholarly note. This conversation is one of our favourites. It gets into some really fascinating areas and touches on black film history and the wider contexts of the contemporary moment. We hope you enjoy it.

Here’s a link to the book Racquel mentions whose title gets lost on the episode due to a drop in the Skype signal - Horror Noire by Robin R. Means Coleman.

A link to Wesley Morris on the Longform Podcast and his NYT essay, and the Harper’s Podcast Like This Or Die, all of which are referenced in Neil and Dario’s chat around the central conversation on this episode.

Listen on:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-cinematologists-podcast/id981479854?mt=2

Website: www.cinematologists.com

PlayerFM: https://player.fm/series/series-2416725

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0RjNz8XDkLdbKZuj9Pktyh

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists

Our long-awaited final episode in partnership with the BFI’s Comedy Genius season is finally here and it’s a doozy. Compiled over the last few months as the national season was taking place between November and January, this episode sees a diverse range of film critics, academics, filmmakers and an illustrator (as well as Neil and Dario of course) sharing some of their favourite comedy films and performances.

This episode was envisaged as a joyous journey into screen comedy and our guests have picked a range of performers from cinema (as well as television and stand-up comedy) history to reflect upon. We hope it serves as a reminder of the joy and importance of laughing and the innate and deeply personal connection that audiences have with screen comedy. 

Thanks to the BFI FAN Network for supporting the making of this episode. Thanks also, to our amazing roster of participants who shared their time and their love of comedic performances in all different shades.

Our line-up:

Dr Sabina Stent talking about Spy / Scott Tanner Jones talking about Midnight Run / Dr Felicity Gee talking about Nicole Kidman in To Die For / Jason Wood talking about Sons of the Desert / Annabel Grundy talking about Jennifer Saunders / Ash Clark talking about Eddie Marsan in Happy-Go Lucky / Ren Zelen talking about Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau / Hel Harding-Jones talking about The Out Of Towners / Mark Jenkin talking about Stir Crazy / Hope Dickson Leach talking about 3 Joan Cusack performances / David Litchfield talking about Raising Arizona / Violet Lucca talking about Step Brothers & Dr Racquel Gates talking about Katt Williams and his stand-up special It’s Pimpin’ Pimpin’

The Wile E. Coyote cartoon featured in this episode can be viewed here.

Listen on:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-cinematologists-podcast/id981479854?mt=2

Website: www.cinematologists.com

PlayerFM: https://player.fm/series/series-2416725

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0RjNz8XDkLdbKZuj9Pktyh

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists

The final episode of our Berlinale trilogy is a continuation of Neil’s travels around the German capital watching films and talking to filmmakers and critics, and a culmination of Neil and Dario’s reflections on the festival and the films they both saw. The pair discuss Andre Hörmann’s Chicago boxing documentary Ringside and the episode also features some of Neil’s interview with the filmmaker as well as a section of his chat with Kim Longinotto, whose film Shooting The Mafia Neil and Dario discussed in the first Berlinale episode. Neil also shares his thoughts on the PJ Harvey documentary A Dog Called Money, the Colombian genre-bender Monos, the Kino Lorber revival of Bette Gordon’s Variety and the finally revealed to the world concert film masterpiece that is Amazing Grace.

Film critics sharing their time and reflections on this episode are Rhys Handley, Ian Mantgani and Kambole Campbell.

Thanks to everyone whose contributions have made these three episodes possible including, and maybe especially, Kingsley Marshall of Film at Falmouth.

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(Baracoa, 2019 Pablo Briones, Sean Clark)

Part 2 of the Berlinale trilogy sees Neil and Dario discuss film festival podcasting, the films Baracoa and BAIT to coincide with interviews conducted by Neil with the filmmakers behind those films, Pablo Briones and Jace Freeman, and Mark Jenkin respectively. The episode also features Neil’s chats with film critics Elle Haywood, Ella Kemp, Neil Young, Megan Christopher and Steph Watts. Finally, the episode also features Neil’s in the moment reflections on a number of films he saw.

The films discussed in this episode are:

Baracoa (Pablo Briones, The Moving Picture Boys)

BAIT (Mark Jenkin)

I Was At Home, But (Angela Schanelec)

The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)

Varda by Agnès (Agnès Varda)

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We are really excited to put out the first of three special episodes cover the 2019 Berlin Film Festival which both Dario and Neil attended in a kind of tag team configuration. Having applied for a press pass for the Cinematologists, and was taking 40 his students to the festival, Neil had organised a whole raft of interviews with directors and critics which form parts 2&3 of our Berlinale coverage. Dario made a last minute decision to go for the opening weekend. So this first episode consists of 3 mini reports of each day's and then a rather bleary-eyed catch-up with Neil after he arrived after midnight on Sunday. The films discussed in this episode are:

Rebels of the Neon God (1992, Tsai Ming-Liang)

Shooting The Mafia (Kim Longionotto)

Serendipity (Prune Nourry)

Out Stealing Horses (Hans Petter Moland)

Light of My Life (Casey Affleck)

Systèm K (Renaud Barret)

Der Boden Unter den Füben [The Ground Beneath my Feet] (Marie Kreutzer)

The first episode of Season 9 sees Dario and Neil duke it out over the merits and problems of comedy, finding themselves on opposite sides for the first time in a while. They are put in this position by guest programmer Ryan Gilbey whose choice of Amy Heckerling’s 1995 comedy Clueless. New Statesman film critic Ryan joined Neil onstage at The Poly in Falmouth to introduce the film and discuss it with the audience. Prior to the event Ryan also wrote a blog over at the New Statesman about the film.

Around the live discussion Neil and Dario talk about the function and role of comedy, subjectivity and form and whether it’s a genre that is more prone to becoming dated than others. They also bond over Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace and Ozu’s love of fart jokes.

The episode is the second of three being produced in association with the BFI for their Comedy Genius season and the live event was also made possible thanks to Film at Falmouth, Falmouth University.

Let us know which side of the debate you come down on!

You can rent or buy Clueless globally from a number of different sites including Amazon, iTunes, Google, Rakuten. You can stream it in the UK on NowTV or SkyGO.

In our final episode of 2018, we look back over the cinematic year and discuss the movies that have impressed, affected and stayed with us. We came up with the list independently but there are specific films and themes that emerge, particularly the fact that we both chose Lynne Ramsey's You Were Never Really Here as our film of the year. We hope you enjoy this look back and a big thank you to our audience for the continued support. We look forward to discussing more cinematic delights in 2019.

Dario's top 5

1. You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsey)

2. Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski) 

3. Shoplifters (Hirokazu Kore-eda) 

4. First Reformed (Paul Schrader)

5. Lean on Pete (Andrew Haigh)

Neil's top 5

1. You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsey)

2. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)

3. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

4. First Reformed (Paul Schrader)

5. The Dreamed Path (Angela Schanelec)

Other Recommendations

The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos)

The Guardians (Xavier Beauvois) 

Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev)

The Old Man and the Gun (David Lowery)

Lek and the Dogs (Andrew Kotting)

American Animals (Bart Layton)

Milford Graves Full Mantis (Jake Meginsky)

Outside In (Lynn Shelton)

The Image You Missed (Donal Foreman)

Leave No Trace (Debra Granik)

For the last regular episode of 2018 we are teaming up with the BFI and the UK wide comedy genius season for a deep dive into a Marx Brothers classic and a discussion about the craft, calibre and character of comedy.

As the official podcast of the BFI Fan Network supported season we are presenting several episodes on film comedy and we kicked proceedings off with a screening at The Poly in Falmouth of Groucho and Co’s classic 1933 satire Duck Soup.

The episode also includes Neil in conversation with a variety of figures from across the UK talking about the Comedy Genius season. They are season coordinator Annabel Grundy, artistic director of film at HOME in Manchester, Jason Wood, and Come The Revolution’s Edson Burton. Come The Revolution are a film collective based out of Bristol. Annabel talks about the aims of the season and BFI national programmes like it, and Jason and Edson discuss the themes and approaches they have taken and share some of their programming highlights.

For more info on the amazing work being done by these amazing programmers and for more info on what’s going on around the country for this season, click the links above.

For this episode, Dario was invited to the University of Chichester by Programme co-ordinator of Media and Communications Dr. Adam Locks to screen Spike Jonze's 2013 sci-fi drama Her. The discussion lived up to the reason for selecting the film, throwing up many points of analysis related directly to genre, performance and production design, but also provoking wider philosophical questions that linked to conversations we have been having on the podcast recently. The film taps into concerns around the influence of technology on our everyday experience and Jonze creates a world that is unerring familiar yet alienating. Imbued in the film are ethical questions about the potential influence of AI on how we perceive the self. Also at the heart of the discussion is the materiality of the voice which is a particularly interesting subject from a podcasting perspective. Neil and Dario expand the discussion to talk about the film in the context of Spike Jonze's previous work and the perpetual crisis of masculinity.

Shownotes

Susan Schneider in the New York Times on Her

Alan Watts: Reborn in Her - by Philip Goldberg in Huffpost

An episode of The Waking Up Podcast discussion the ethics of AI and film/tv representation

Dr Adam Locks teaches in the Department of Creative & Digital Technologies at the University of Chichester. He is co-editor of the book Critical Readings in Bodybuilding (Routledge, 2011) and co-author of The Basics: The Body (Routledge, 2014), both of which examine the body through aspects of the media. He will be launching an interview based podcast early in 2019.  

On the latest installment of the podcast, Neil shares the stage with one of his filmmaking heroes, director Julien Temple, before and after a screening of Temple’s 2007 film Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten. It’s a film with significant personal meaning for Neil as the episode explains. The film was screened on 35mm at Truro’s WTW Plaza Cinema and was made possible by the support of Kingsley Marshall at the School of Film & Television, Falmouth University.

The episode also sees Dario discuss how the film made him think differently about punk and the pair get into the politics of music documentary regarding issues such as the representation of female artists and global music cultures. There’s also talk about the latest film culture developments surrounding the demise of Filmstruck and the dominance of Netflix and how, sadly, all this stuff may not be anything new at all.

This episode also features the song ‘Afro Cuban Be Bop’ by (Joe Strummer &) The Astro-Physicians. Taken from the film I Hired A Contract Killer (dir. Kaurismaki, 1990). Available officially for the first time on the recent release Joe Strummer: 001.

The film is available to rent or buy on Amazon and iTunes and is available on UK/US DVD and Blu-ray.

For this episode, Neil and Dario were in the room together for the first time in a while and what an occasion it was. David Lowery's modern masterpiece A Ghost Story is one of Dario's favourite films of recent years and Neil was experiencing it for the first time. 

The result was an overwhelmingly emotional evening for the hosts (particularly Neil who struggled to hold it together) and the majority of the large audience - the beauty of the shared experience feels palpable on the tape, and we hope it transmits to listeners.

It was one of the greatest nights of the podcast to date, a really special communal experience where the uniqueness of the shared experience that is Cinema felt more alive than it has in a long time. It reminded many present of what makes Cinema so special, and it doesn't hurt that the film is incredible. Hear everyone wax lyrical.

Special thanks to Kingsley Marshall at Film at Falmouth for making Dario's visit happen. Please enjoy the first full episode in a long time where Neil and Dario are in the same room and on the same stage for the entire, emotional duration.

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Visit the Cinematologists Website

The London Film Festival always falls at a tricky time for the Cinematologists, coinciding with the start of the academic year. So in Episode 70 we were delighted that Dario was able to speak to the Editor-in-Chief of Directors Notes Marbelle. Covering the festival every year Marbelle searches out the films and filmmakers who might be slightly below the radar and puts together best of the festival piece for his now long-running website, which is always worth checking out along with the regular interviews both written and podcasted. Along with his festival picks Dario discusses with Marbelle the difference between written and audio interviews, film festivals in contemporary film culture and being disappointed by over-hyped films. 

Neil and Dario pick up on these themes at the end of the interview and discussing some further films that Dario has seen and Neil history of being a festival organiser.

Twitter: @MarBelle @WeAreDN

Director's Notes online Magazine: https://directorsnotes.com/

*Apologies for the variable sound quality on this episode - we hope it doesn't spoil your enjoyment too much

The latest episode, and the first of the season from the Falmouth bureau, is a celebration and examination of the work of Jane Campion.

Neil is joined on stage by author Ellen Cheshire to introduce a 25th anniversary screening of The Piano, in front of a packed audience of film fans and (new) film students. What follows the screening is a lively debate about the film, problematic viewing, feminism and more. In the episode itself Dario gives his astute views on Campion’s work and her most widely known and regarded film.

The pair also talk about new BFI Blu-ray releases The Comfort of Strangers and Eye of the Needle, Josh Appiganesi’s surreal psycho-thriller meta-doc Female Human Animal - which is due for release in cinemas over the next few weeks, Bertrand Mandico's Boro In The Box and Andrew Haigh's Lean On Pete.

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How to watch The Piano (UK/US):

Rent/Buy on iTunes

25th Anniversary UK Cinema Tour

Episode Links -

Ellen Cheshire Website

Ellen Cheshire on Twitter

In The Scene: Jane Campion by Ellen Cheshire

The Comfort of Strangers

Eye of the Needle

Female Human Animal

Female Human Animal on Twitter

See it at DocHouse on Oct 7 with Josh and Chloe Q&A

 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-cinematologists-podcast/id981479854?mt=2

In the second in our early season doubleheader, we present a live Q&A from the Duke of York's Picturehouse in Brighton with Dario talking to the director of American Animals Bart Layton. The discussion touches on the amalgamations of fictional and documentary aesthetics (linked also to Bart's previous Bafta award-winning film The Imposter, the development of a script that changes over time, actors playing real-life characters who also appear in the film, and the current social and political climate as a backdrop for stories about white masculinity. 

Season 8 of the podcast returns with an episode of discussion from the Philosophy-Conference in Gothenburg which Dario attended over the summer. The theme of the event was Feminist Film-Philosophy which was driven by the festival director Dr. Anna Backman Rogers who discusses her aims for the conference putting female filmmakers and philosophers front and centre, she also talks about her work with the MAI journal and discusses her own research particularly her analysis of Sofia Coppola as a feminist auteur.

Dario then speaks to Dr. Catherine Wheatley her keynote speech at the conference which looked at the Stanley Cavell's writings on gender and film, particularly in the light of criticisms he received from Tania Modleski who accused him of practicing a "feminism without women". Wheatley uses this dialogue as a starting point for discussions about who Film-Philosophy speaks for an to.

In the last conversation, Dario and Catherine are joined by Dr. David Sorfa for a wide-ranging discussion around the discipline of Film-Philosophy including its cross-over with film studies, how film-philosophy should be taught, and the gender questions around which filmmakers and philosophers should be studied.

Shownotes:

MAI Journal: Feminism and Visual Culture

Catherine Wheatley's obituary of Stanley Cavell - Sight and Sound

David Sorfa - What is Film-Philosophy?

To coincide with his exhibition at CAST Cornwall as part of the Groundwork programme, we teamed up with Groundwork and CAST, and the Thomas Dane Gallery in London to record artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen in conversation with Nicholas Serota at the WTW Plaza Cinema in Truro and are honoured to share that conversation with our listeners.  

The episode is based around the conversation between McQueen and Serota, and Dario and Neil’s discussion of McQueen as a filmmaker and visual artist. Steve’s work in cinema arguably makes him one of the most vital, fascinating and important working British filmmakers but as the conversation elucidates it is merely a different form of aesthetic expression for a visual artist who has created a unique, formidable and exhilarating body of work since emerging on to the British art scene in the early 1990s.

The episode also includes Josie Cockram from Groundwork discussing the programme and the work of CAST Cornwall. More information on Rachael Jones’s film Tracing Granite that is discussed in the episode as well as links to other pieces and reflections related to the programme can be found in the RECORD section of the Groundwork website.

Information on the artworks discussed by Steve McQueen on the episode:

Unexploded (2007)

Gravesend (2007)

Bear (1993)

Deadpan (1997)

Drumroll (1998)

7th Nov. (2001)

Charlotte (2004)

Western Deep / Carib’s Leap (2002)

Queen and Country (2007 – 2009)

Hunger (2008)

Static (2009)

Shame (2011)

12 Years a Slave (2013)

End Credits (2012 – Ongoing)

Ashes (2015)

*This episode contains strong language

Andrew Kötting is a unique voice in British Audio-Visual culture and after seeing and admiring much of his work it was a great pleasure to welcome him onto the podcast to introduce his enigmatic new film Lek and the Dogs. Loosely based Hattie Naylor's play Ivan and the Dogs, itself the true story of a Russian child abandoned to Moscow streets to be 'raised' by the cities stray dogs, the film is both intensely personal but perhaps more concerned with grand social and philosophical questions that his previous work. The third in his 'Earthworks' trilogy, Lek brings Kötting's trademark eclecticism in both visual and aural style and in terms of the cinematic, artistic and literary references he mines. Samuel Beckett, Montaigne, Tarkovsky, Margaret Atwood, Plato, Nicolas Roeg, John Berger, Dziga Vertov, among many others, are all points of reference in this unique cinematic essay.

Dario is joined by Andrew Kötting at his local cinema, The Electric Palace in Hastings, for a very special screening and a wide ranging discussion about the film and his creative work.

The film can be viewed on MUBI until the 7th of July. 

Show notes

Ben Nicholson's review of Lek and the Dogs in Sight and Sound

Kermode Uncut: The Kotting Club

*This episode contains strong language.

In this episode, we focus on research from a special themed edition of the Participations journal of audience research looking at the notion of unsocial audiences and non-traditional, extended and disruptive forms of spectatorship. Dario's contribution to the journal was an article on a project examining the potential of second screening as a tool for film analysis and this podcast features his interviews with three of the other contributors. He speaks to the editors of the edition Steve Gaunson and Tessa Dwyer about the background and development of the issue and their own articles on disruptive cinema in Silent Era and the phenomenon of Japanese bullet screenings. Dario then discusses the phenomena of Second Screening directly with James Blake how outlines its uses for new forms of transmedia storytelling. Finally, Dario talks to Helen Kennedy who has researched extensively on extended, live, and theatrical possibility of the cinematic specifically here in terms of Secret Cinema.

Show Notes

Dwyer, Tessa & Steve Gaunson: 'Un/social cinema – audience decorum revisited

Blake, James: 'Second Screen interaction in the cinema: Experimenting with transmedia narratives and commercialising user participation'

Llinares, Dario: '"Please turn your phone on": Analysing outcomes of second-screen spectatorship using Social Media in the cinema space'

Dwyer, Tessa: 'Hecklevision, Barrage Cinema and Bullet Screens: An intercultural analysis'

Gaunson, Steve: 'The 'Picture' habit: Bad decorum and delinquents at the Silent Cinema'

Kennedy, Helen: '"Join a cast of 1000s, to sing and dance in the Revolution": the Secret Cinema "Activist" brand and the commodification of affect within "experience communities"'

The rest of the articles from this themed section can be found here: http://www.participations.org/Volume%2014/Issue%202/contents.htm

The environment has always been a staple theme for filmmakers as it lends itself to spectacularly cinematic aesthetics, profound statements regarding humanity and nature, and often apocalyptic narratives. Mike Day's new film The Islands and the Whales certainly doesn't lack visual impressiveness but it also carries a combination of subtle storytelling and brutal honestly in its depiction of the complexities of environmental socio-politics which has local and global dimensions. 

The Faroese whale hunters have had a lot of publicity regarding their traditions which seem out of step with environmental sensibilities but The Islands and the Whales both lays bare the contradictions of Western liberal assumptions regarding how to talk about and even be an environmental activist, while also depicting the islanders' own struggles in coming to terms with how pollution is causing what seems like an inevitable end to their traditional way of life.

Dario and Neil discuss environmentalism in cinema, lament the seeming futility of individual and collective responses to climate change, and Dario speaks the the director of the film himself about the challenges of its making and the inadequate media coverage of the environmental crisis that is upon us.

Review in The Guardian

Review in The Ecologist

The focus of this episode is Ernest Dickerson's still underrated 1992 drama Juice, featuring a young (pre-fame/pre-legendary) Tupac Shakur. The live portion of the show was recorded a little while back at Falmouth University's School of Film & Television but is being released now due to the episode not being based around release schedules, as the previous Claire Denis episode was.

The timing though is fortuitous, with Childish Gambino's This is America song and music video being released earlier this week and bringing to the fore again questions around black identity, gun violence and black male bodies. 

In the episode Neil and Dario discuss the term 'black cinema', the evolution and status of black filmmaking in American and British cinema and how complex such a discussion is from an acknowledged white standpoint. 

The episode also features a clip of Dario's deep discussion about film criticism and contemporary film culture with friend of the podcast Simran Hans, which can be found in full over on our Patreon site for subscribers, as well as Neil's chat with film critic and podcaster Leslie Byron Pitt about representation in filmmaking and film criticism alongside as Basic Instinct and erotic thrillers as Leslie is one quarter of the excellent Fatal Attractions podcast. 

Links:

Ernest Dickerson on The Treatment podcast

Angelica Bastien on Odds Against Tomorrow, a brilliant film noir about racism

Wakanda Forever: Black Panther and the power of representation, by Leslie Byron Pitt (for Media Diversified)

We are joined for this extended conversation about the work of filmmaker Claire Denis by Dr. Felicity Gee. Felicity, a previous guest of the show, provides some wonderful insight into and thoughts on the work of the French filmmaker whose new film Let The Sunshine In is released by Curzon/Artificial Eye this Friday, April 20th.

The episode covers a range of topics including aesthetics and feminism, the canonisation of Beau Travail, as well as the new film and how it fits into her body of work. Music in the episode comes from some of the collaborations Denis has undertaken with the band Tindersticks.

Music:

Opening (from 35 Rhums) / The Black Mountain (from L’intrus) / Children’s Theme (from White Material) / Train Montage (from 35 Rhums) / Trouble Every Day (from Trouble Every Day).

Click here to stream the album Claire Denis Film Scores 1996-2009 by Tindersticks on Spotify

References:

Dario mention's Judith Mayne's research on Claire Denis

Ryan Gilbey's interview with Claire Denis for the New Statesman (mentioned on a previous Patreon bonus epsiode by Ryan)

Postscript 1:

I watched 35 Shots of Rum again and it is as exquisite as Dario and Felicity discuss on the episode. NF.

Postscript 2: 

I apologise for all the rummaging you hear on the episode. Due to Dario and Felicity being in the same room we couldn't record using headphones over Skype so their mic picked up my fidgeting. NF.

*We apologise for the poor sound quality of the live segments of this episode. We are still working out the optimum way to record the live events for the show. Please stick with it as there are some great interviewees and some really great discussion on this ep.*

For our 60th episode we have teamed up with the Right Now Film Festival and one of our Cornwall partner venues The Poly in Falmouth for a screening of Timothy George Kelly's documentary Brexitannia.

The discussion tries to stay rooted in the cinematic but the overwhelming anxiety, confusion and uncertainty of Brexit in the UK means this is maybe our most political chat to date. The event ended up being a chance for audience members to share in the collective anxiety and confusion with us, aided by the excellent documentary that brought everyone together. 

Neil talked to Right Now FF coordinator Amy Hepton about their touring documentary festival venture.

Also on the episode Neil talks to filmmaker and convenor of documentary at Goldsmiths Daisy Asquith about her latest film Queerama, a stunning archive documentary about British queer screen representation, released through the BFI.

Clips from Brexitannia and Queerama, as well as the latter's core musical figure John Grant are featured in the episode alongside the discussions. 

Thanks to Right Now FF and The Poly for inviting us to get involved. And thanks to Luke Smith for coming down to take some photos, including the image below.

The career of Nicolas Ray boasts many films that are part of the cinematic canon, but it was his 1950 Film Noir In a Lonely Place that cemented his directorial sensibility and his appreciation of the fragile human condition. Starring an ageing Humphrey Bogart, in one of his most complex roles, and Gloria Grahame, who perhaps even surpasses Bogey in a performance that has the wit of Bacall, the emotion of Bergman and the sexiness of Hayworth. Screened in front of a full house in Hastings' Electric Palace In a Lonely Place provokes many interesting questions around sexual politics, representation, the dark side of Hollywood and how we understand cinema through the problematic structure of genre.

For this episode, Dario interviews Professor Julie Grossman, director of Film Studies at Le Moyne College, upstate New York. Prof Grossman's book Rethinking the Femme Fatale contests the critical discourses that simplistically posit the female icon of Noir as an object of male fantasy and anxiety.

There's also an accompanying blog by audience member and film teacher Peter Blundell for you to check out, should an hour and forty minutes not be enough for you.

Prof. Julie Grossman, Le Moyne College, Syracuse, NY. 

Library of America entry on In a Lonely Place

Ed Gonzalez Review in Slant 

Serena Bramble in Senses of Cinema

Gaby Wood on In A Lonely Place for LRB

The arrival of a new film by Clio Barnard promises an in-depth and uncompromising study of character and place; Dark River, her new film set in the harsh and beautiful Yorkshire farming landscape, is no exception. The northern locale links to her previous films The Arbor and The Self Giant, as does the bleak and brutal tragedy of the human stories. However, this rural tale, based on the Rose Tremain novel Trespass, is somewhat of a departure from the urban working-class focus of those previous films. 

In this Q&A, presented in association with Cinecity, Clio talks about the film with long-time friend Andrew Kötting, touching on the development of the script from the book, the casting, her minimalist aesthetic, the P.J. Harvey soundtrack and the challenges of the rural locations.

Show notes

Clio Barnard interview in The Independent with Jacob Stolworthy

Arrow Film Dark River Press Release

Interview with Clio Barnard on The Selfish Giant

Dark River: Why British Films Have Gone Back To The Land - Nick Hasted in The Guardian

If you enjoy the podcast please consider supporting us on Patreon. You will get access to all our bonus content, the full podcast archive, our monthly newsletter, and further perks as and when we think of them.

The recent release of Paul Thomas Anderson's eighth narrative feature film Phantom Thread has the film world abuzz. No one is more excited than us here at The Cinematologists as it gives us a long-awaited chance to go deep on one of our favourite filmmakers and someone we believe to be one of, if not the greatest American filmmakers currently working.

This first episode of the new season sees Neil and Dario discuss Anderson's place in the pantheon, his unique talents and style, and the immediate impact of his latest work - so different and yet so in line with his previous films. It also precedes a forthcoming bonus episode on Inherent Vice that has been gathering dust in the Cinematologists vault awaiting the right time to see the light of day. 

For now though, here's the episode:

The release of Phantom Thread has seen some great writing and discussion emerge on the film and Anderson's career and films. Here are some of our favourites on the film and his work:

The Film Comment Podcast - Violet Lucca and Sheila O'Malley discuss Phantom Thread

Melissa Anderson on Phantom Thread for 4Columns

The Curzon Film Podcast - Jake Cunningham, Josh Slater-Williams and Dr. Irene Musemeci on Phantom Thread

We’ve been compiling this episode for about 6 months now and we’ve conducted interviews in New York, Bristol, The Shetland Islands and via Skype. We hope our delve into film criticism is worth the wait. Thank you firstly to our participants, so generous with their time and thoughts. A huge thank you also to our roving reporter Charlotte Crofts for the amazing interview with Tara Judah featured in the episode, and others we couldn’t manage to get in. Thank you finally to our listeners who suggested this episode.

The wealth of material we got was overwhelming so look out for all the interviews being uploaded in January while we are on our winter break. That should keep you going in the cold winter months.

Participants

Tara Judah https://tarajudah.com/ @midnightmovies

Sam Fragoso http://talkeasypod.com/ @SamFragoso

Simran Hans https://www.theguardian.com/profile/simran-hans @heavier_things

Ashley Clark http://www.bfi.org.uk/people/ashley-clark  @_Ash_Clark

Violet Lucca https://www.filmcomment.com/author/vlucca/ @unbuttonmyeyes

Mark Kermode https://www.theguardian.com/profile/markkermode @KermodeMovie

Prof. Linda Ruth Williams https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/film/staff/lwilliams/ @lindaruth1

Tom Shone http://tomshone.blogspot.co.uk/ @Tom_Shone

Roll of Honour

All the critics given shout outs across our interviews...

Sophie Mayer, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Cerise Howard, Emma Westwood, Thomas Caldwell, Josh Nelson, Jack Sargeant, Dana Linssen, Kees Driessen, Rüdiger Suchsland, Adrian Martin, Catherine Grant, Cristina Alvarez Lopez, Kevin B. Lee, Michael Wood, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Robin Wood, Victor Perkins, David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, Hadley Freeman, Marina Hyde, Ren Zelen, Christina Newland, Molly Haskell, Ashley Clark, James Baldwin, Graham Greene, Cahiers Critics, Bogdanovich & Schrader, Toby Hazlet, Violet Lucca, Doreen St. Felix, Jia Tolentino, Vinson Cunningham, Hilton Als, Wendy Ide, Simran Hans, Guy Lodge, Pauline Kael, Kim Newman, Roger Ebert, Andrew Sarris, Alan Jones, J Hoberman, Anne Billson, Kate Muir, Kay Austin Collins, Ira Madison, Alyssa Wilkinson, Scott Tobias, Keith Phipps, Tasha Robertson, Tim Grierson, Anjelica Jade, Nathan Heller, Jeremy O’Harris, Hunter Harris, Wesley Morris, Nick Pinkerton, Eric Hynes, Badlands Film Collective, AO Scott, Anthony Lane, David Edelstein, Elvis Mitchell, Amy Taubin,  Christian Lorentzen, Senses of Cinema, Four Columns and Reverse Shot.

The incidental music for this episode is from Giorgio Gaslini's score for Antonioni's La Notte.

The fallout from the Harvey Weinstein revelations has been seismic, dramatically exposing the well-known but largely silent culture of sexism in the film industry. Various high profile names have followed in being accused of historic and recent abuses in what could prove to be a watershed moment, not only for Hollywood but Western culture more broadly. In this episode, Dario and Neil discuss the possible dynamics of the post-Weinstein era with a contribution from Dr Tamsyn Dent (@tamsyn_dent), a lecturer in Media Production at the University of Bournemouth. Tamsyn has worked with the Raising Films organisation in producing the #Rasingourgame industry report,  a framework of accountability to ensure that diversity and inclusion are widely adopted in the Film and TV industry.

Show notes

Raising Films

Salma Hayek on Weinstein

What do we do with the art of monstrous men? by Claire Dederer

Interview in Variety with Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor on how they broke the Weinstein story

Michelangelo Antonioni is generally recognised as one of the seminal directors of the European Art House tradition. In this week’s episode, The Cinematologists return to the Electric Palace Cinema to screen his 1961 film La Notte. The central film in his classic trilogy of modern alienation – L’avventura and L’eclisse being the other two - La Notte features three of the most iconic European stars - Jeanne Moreau Marcello Mastroianni and Monica Vitti - in a tale of strained relationships set in the abstract architectural spaces of Milan and the rarefied yet superficial circles of Italian high society.

This episode also features an interview with the renowned film critic Robert Koehler who discuss his love and admiration of Antonioni's film particular focusing on the film that he sees as the filmmaker's masterpiece L'avventura.

Show notes

Senses of Cinema review of La Notte

LA Times article on La Notte restoration

Robert Koehler's Sight and Sound article on L'avventura

Dear Antonioni documentary

London Symphony is the latest feature film from director Alex Barrett. This bonus episode features a short interview with Alex and a post screening Q&A both recorded when Alex visited the School of Film & Television at Falmouth University recently. 

Below are links to the film and where to see it. 

London Symphony (Official Site)

London Symphony on BFI Player (with Mark Kermode intro)

London Symphony at Flicker Alley (Worldwide DVD)

Brighton Film Festival (CineCity) 2017 begins Friday 10th of November. In this bonus episode Dario talks to co-director Tim Brown about the history of the festival, its position and status in UK Film Culture and the partnerships with venues around the city. Dario and Tim then pick out their highlights from a packed and diverse programme.

For information and to book tickets go to: http://www.cine-city.co.uk/

In the new episode, Number 53, Neil and Dario screen and discuss Elaine May’s hilarious and acerbic 1971 comedy masterpiece A New Leaf, co-starring Walter Matthau. Neil screened the film at Falmouth University’s School of Film & Television with his colleague Kingsley before a live audience of staff and students.

Discussions in the episode cover writer/director/performers in Hollywood, the belatedly secured reputations of women in film, what comedy should be used for and when, and the genius of Walter Matthau.

The second of those topics is pertinent to the interview for this episode, which Neil conducted with Rob Curry and Tim Plester, the filmmakers behind the new documentary The Ballad Of Shirley Collins. The film is a wonderfully lyrical film and it’s now on general release - http://www.shirleycollinsmovie.com/

Key Moments:

10Mins            A New Leaf Screening Intro

34Mins            The Ballad of Shirley Collins (Interview & Chat)

1hr 5Mins        A New Leaf Post-Film Discussion

Links to articles on A New Leaf:

BFI

RogerEbert.com

NY Times (Original Release)

New Yorker (DVD Release)

With the original Blade Runner being a formative film for both Dario and Neil, they take the time to discuss the 2017 sequel directed by Denis Villeneuve: Blade Runner 2049. A lot has been said and written about this new incarnation, directly about the aesthetics, philosophical themes and narrative, but also regarding the wider ideological readings related to gender, race and class. We hope you enjoy our contribution to the discourse around a film which, if nothing else, reminds us of cinema's ability to provoke thought and exercise passion.

References

Are audiences to Lazy to appreciate Blade Runner - Wired

Male Stars Get to Age, While Women Live On in Digital Re-creations of Their Younger Selves - Nate Jones Vulture

‘Blade Runner 2049’ is about learning that you’re not the main character in your own story - Alyssa Rosenburg - The Washington Post

Blade Runner 2049 is an uneasy feminist parable about controlling the means of reproduction - Helen Lewis - The New Statesman

Episode 52 finds Neil and Dario discussing the ICA and School of Film & Television season Crossings, a programme of films, talks and events focused on the theme of migration. The season took place from June to September and looked at how cinema represents the stories of those who seek to leave their homeland for a new land, through choice or through necessity. Full details of the project can be found here.

Two films coming under the Cinematologists spotlight in this episode. The 2016 documentary Fire At Sea directed by Gianfranco Rosi and set on the Italian island of Lampedusa and John Akomfrah’s provocative and poetic essay doc The Nine Muses, from 2010. These films were screened at the Newlyn Filmhouse and The Poly in Falmouth respectively.

The focus of the chat between Neil and Dario looks at the representation of migration and migrants and refugees in cinema and whether these films are ‘preaching to the converted’, amongst other topics.

Thanks to Dr. Laura Canning (SoFT) and Nico Marzano (ICA) for inviting us to do this episode. Thanks also to Kingsley Marshall and Mark Jenkin for helping host the Newylyn event with Neil.

Links:

http://newlynfilmhouse.com/

http://thepoly.org/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3652526/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706701/?ref_=nv_sr_1

https://www.crossings2017.co.uk/

https://www.ica.art/

https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/school-of-film-television

AUDIO NOTE: Please excuse some of the peaking issues in the inserts, and some of the low volume audio in the post film Q&A sections. Still on the learning curve as a recorder and editor. NF.

In the first of what will be a regular feature, free for now but soon to be exclusive to Patreon subscribers, Neil and Dario hold a discussion about something cinematic that sits outside the regular programming. In this instance the pair chat about British social realism and in particular the work of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh as the BFI releases some of their seminal titles on Blu-ray.

The discussion covers Leigh's Life Is Sweet (1990) and Loach's Riff-Raff (1991), Raining Stones (1993) and Ladybird Ladybird (1994) - and the recent I, Daniel Blake (2016), which is not in the Loach set - asd well as getting into a more general chat about the spectre of social realism in British film history. 

Neil writes about Raining Stones in his chapter on Manchester Movies in the Directory of World Cinema: Britain 2. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: I know there's a lot of erms, you knows, stutters, and ands, but buts and what sounds like we are doing Hannibal Lecter liver bean impressions. I assure you in future Neil edited episodes this will be resolved and you'll be back to listening to the smooth sounds of the Cinematologists in no time. Thanks for your patience while I learn this new skill. NF.

In honour of the passing of the great Harry Dean Stanton we are reposting our first ever Cinematologists episode which focused on Alex Cox' 1984 cult classic Repo Man.

Andrew Pulver's obituary of Harry Dean Stanton 

Our first edition of the new season comes from the Shetland Arts Screenplay Film Festival. Dario speaks to a host of names including the festival curators Mark Kermode and Linda Ruth Williams who discuss their history with the festival and this years' programme; actor George Mackay discusses his career and we hear him introduce a sing-a-long screening of Sunshine on Leith, along with giving a poetry reading performed in the Shetland accent. Friend of the show Hope Dickson Leach talks about the family film strand of the festival programme and we have an excerpt from the Q&A with Bill Nighy who discusses his role in The Limehouse Golum. Also on the programme is Prof. Phil Scraton who wrote Hillsborough: The Truth and was the factual consultant to the Hillsborough Independent panel. His work underpinned the documentary Hillsborough which screened at the festival. Dario's cinematic highlight of the festival was Chico Pereira's Donkeyote, he speaks to the film's producer Sonja Henrici about the context of the project and contemporary documentary more broadly. Read Dario's blog on the film here. Finally, we were delighted to welcome the dulcet Shetland tones of poet, filmmaker and musician Roseanne Watt who discusses her festival highlights gives an impromptu poetry reading. Not to be missed.

George Mackay, Kathy Hubbard, Dario and Hope Dickson Leach

Show notes

Mark Kermode and Linda Ruth Williams - 10:55

Hope Dickson Leach - 21:05

George Mackay - 33:25

Sunshine on Leith Sing-a-Long intro - 43:55

Bill Nighy Q&A - 01:02:50

Prof. Phil Scraton - 01:09:20

Sonia Henrici - 01:20:47

Roseanne Watt - 01:38:20

After an enjoyable summer hiatus, when Neil got married and Dario got tanned, we preview the new season episodes and bring news of bonus content, Merch and our new Patreon page.

The podcast is 50 episodes old (kind of) and to celebrate, Neil and Dario invited questions from the podcast's loyal following. The episode is made up of a variety of questions from listeners new and old and cover a range of topics including opinions on specific films and filmmakers and ideas including 'separating the art from the artist', 'democratization and digital technology', 'the opportunities for actresses afforded by contemporary sci-fi' and 'directors who've made debuts in the last decade that are destined for the canon'.

It was really fun and humbling to record and we hope you like this mammoth dose of N&D before the podcast takes an extended summer break before returning in the autumn. 

As promised, below you can find scans of the (not very scientific or academic) research Neil did for Kieron Moore's question on debuts by filmmakers from the last ten years...

This episode of the podcast - produced in association with Club des Femmes and The Barbican - focuses on the recent retrospective and celebration of the American Film Critic, Scholar and Curator B. Ruby Rich (@brrich1) entitled Bring Ruby Rich. The centrepiece of the podcast is a wide ranging interview with Ruby herself covering, among many things, her initial entry into film criticism, her promotion of the cinema as a social space, the legacy of her concept of New Queer Cinema, and the possibility of a political cinema in the digital age. We also interview Sophie Mayer (@tr0ublemayer) and Selina Robertson (@Clubdesfemmes), from Club Des Femmes who organised the event. And there is an in-depth Q&A hosted by Ruby and featuring Yance Ford (@yford) who discusses his first feature, to be released on Netflix in September, entitled Strong Island.

An Introduction to B. Ruby Rich - Sophie Mayer - BFI Website

"I am draw to the fire" B.Ruby Rich interview by Sophie Mayer - The F Word

B Ruby Rich is one of America’s greatest contemporary film critics and academics. Currently working as a professor of Film and Digital Media at the University of California: Santa Cruz, Rich has spent much of her career, both within academia and industry, supporting and celebrating the marginalised voices of moving image. Alongside her academic work, Rich has been International Curator for the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival; has served on juries at the Sundance, Toronto, San Francisco, Oberhausen, Havana, Sydney, and Guadalajara film festivals; and is a member of the advisory board of the Provincetown Film Festival and previously of the Sundance Selection Committee. Rich was also the Director of the Electronic Media and Film Program at the New York State Council on the Arts in charge of supporting non-profit film, video, digital, and radio activities in New York City and throughout New York State in 1981-91.

Yance Ford At 19 years old during his sophomore year at Hamilton University, Yance Ford’s life was unequivocally altered by the brutal murder of his older brother, William Ford Jr.  Originally working in photography, the devastating events surrounding his brother’s death and the refusal of a white jury to persecute William’s killer, galvanised Ford into becoming a filmmaker. Ford has spent most of his professional career, as a series producer for the PBS documentary programme P.O.V, deciding which submissions make it on to air.  After working as a producer for several years, Ford was incited by a conversation with a co-worker to start working on the film that would become Strong Island (2017).

Strong Island (Yance Ford, 2017)

Yance Ford’s debut feature is a deeply moving, complex film about a family murder, memory, injustice and the institutional racism that continues to pervade America’s legal, social and economic systems. Reminiscent of Errol Morris, Ford unforgettably delivers an investigation into resistant black masculinities, cis and trans, and meditations on raw personal grief.

Many thanks to The Barbican for their support in the production of this episode.

In this episode Dario is joined at the Kino Teatr in St. Leonards by film director Hope Dickson Leach (@hopedickle) who introduces and discusses her newly released first feature The Levelling. Ellie Kendrick plays Clover, a young vet who has to reluctantly return to her father's farm after the sudden death of her brother. Deeply buried family tensions are brought to surface in a painful journey of guilt and self-examination told with an aesthetic precision that belies a low-budget first feature status. Hope outlines the production background and creative process behind this poignant and beautifully rendered drama. 

The episode also features a interview with the founder of the Bechdel Test Fest Corrina Antrobus (@corrinacorrina). Corrina discusses the development of the organisation and ruminates on various themes related to the status of women in cinema.

Hope Dickson Leach

Watch The Levelling on the BFI Player

The Bechdel Test Fest

David Edelstein's Wonder Woman Review

Jezebel's response to the Edelstein's Wonder Woman Review

David Edelstein's response to the response to his Wonder Woman review

Dario and Neil visit the Curzon in Aldgate, London, to screen Aki Kaurismäki's latest release The Other Side of Hope. Exploring similar themes to his last film Le Harve, and effecting Kaurismäki's trademark sardonic, black humour, The Other Side of Hope tells the story of an asylum seeker who is faced with an impenetrable bureaucracy. He finds unlikely help from a local restaurant owner who is facing his own personal demons and struggles with Finnish society.

Neil discusses the career of Aki Kaurismäki with Jaakko Seppälä from the University of Helsinki. Jaakko suggests Finland’s most famous filmmaker occupies a paradoxical position in the country's national consciousness and defines his style in terms of ironic minimalism.

Neil, Dario and guest presenter Mark Jenkin discuss the work of Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami particularly focusing on his 1990 'documentary' Close-Up. Having recently passed away the love and reverence for Kiarostami in the international film community was starkly apparent by the depth and breadth of tributes to him. Having watched many of his films we discuss his legacy, status and the vibrancy of filmmaking from Iran despite the hugely difficult social and political conditions.

This episode also features an interview with Iranian Filmmaker Mania Akbari. After collaborating with Kiarostami on Ten as an actress, along with her son, Akbari has gone on to a directorial career of her own, making provocative films (along with art exhibitions) that are expressly feminist in nature tackling issues such as memony, identity, the body and sexuality all with an uncompromising personal underpinning.   

Show Notes

The Most Fatal Attraction: Kiarostami's Close-up revisited - Coco Ferguson

Mania Akbari's Website

We return to the Kino Teatr in St. Leonards to screen and discuss one of the most iconic and celebrated films in movie history. Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, scripted by Paul Schrader, has become a touchstone depiction of the alienated American experience post-Vietnam centered around a scintillating performance by Robert De Niro. Dario is joined by guest presenter Alex Fitch as they discuss the film's legacy, Scorsese as a director and all the other elements that give the film its classic status. And Neil and Dario expand on may of the key themes that permeate the work of arguably the greatest living American filmmaker.

 Show notes:

Cinema is Gone

Film Comment Scorsese Interview

Close Up podcast Scorsese interview

For today's episode we team up with MUBI and Little White Lies to feature Cannes 'Un Certain Regard' prize winner The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki. Neil interviews the film's director Juho Kuosmanen about his subtle boxing love story and we also have a Q&A from a recent screening held and the ICA in London. Dario and Neil ruminate on some of the themes central to the film particularly the depictions of masculinity and struggle to find one's true self in the face of external pressures.

In the second of a long-form interview double bill, Dario talks to Professor Richard Dyer about is career and work. Professor Dyer's writing and scholarship has been extremely influential across Cultural Studies and Film Studies with recurring foci on the politics of representation, ideology and class, gender and sexuality, race, stardom to name just a few. His intellectual curiosity is infused with a identity politics that often centres around the difficult, contradictory relationship between cultural production and social reality. His work is hugely relevant to today's issues and in this interview Professor Dyer is generously self-reflexive in looking back, with a critical eye, over his long and distinguised career. 

In this episode Neil talks to film director Ben Wheatley. In a fascinating and in-depth interview and Q&A, Ben discusses his filmmaking career and his most recent release Free Fire, giving analysis and nuggets of advice that will be of interest to both ardent fans and aspiring filmmakers alike. 

Dario is joined by film lecturer Douglas McNaughton at the Electric Palace to screen Basil Dearden's profound drama Victim (1961), starring the magnetic Dirk Bogarde and the superb Sylvia Sims. In many ways a film ahead of its time dealing with the social implications of homosexuality in a time when it was still illegal and a taboo subject. On its release in the United Kingdom it proved highly controversial to the British Board of Film Censors, and in the U.S. it was refused a seal of approval from the American Motion Picture Production Code. Dario also speaks to writer and podcaster David Blakeslee who has written about the film for his Criterion Cast blog.

Show Notes

The Eclipse Viewer Podcast: http://criterioncast.com/category/podcast/eclipse-viewer

David Blakeslee's contributor's page at Criterion Cast: http://criterioncast.com/author/davi  and Criterion Reflections blog (1921 through 1967): http://criterionreflections.blogspot.com/

Neil's piece on Victim for Hope Lies at 24 Frames Per Second: https://medium.com/hope-lies-at-24-frames-per-second/i-realise-everything-dirk-bogarde-in-as-victim-51b5634fa063

Neil is joined at Falmouth University's School of Film & Television by Dr Sabina Stent (@SabinaStent) and Dr Felicity Gee (@fiandshoegaze) to discuss feminist surrealism and film. The event took place in front of students, staff and local filmmakers and artists and was a wide-ranging discussion that was invigorating and illuminating. Also, the talk of a personal politics of resistance was much needed in these troubling times.

This episode is presented in association with Mubi to coincide with their season dedicated to experimental and independent female filmmakers. Filmmakers whose work is screened as part of the season include Chantal Akerman and Agnes Varda, prominent figures in the podcast discussion. The season starts Friday March 3rd and in addition to those mentioned above showcases work by Anna Biller, Celine Sciamma, Lena Dunham, So Yong Kim and Cinematologists favourite Ida Lupino. We screened and discussed Lupino's The Hitch-hiker for an earlier episode. 

Mubi

Below you will find links to work that was screened as part of the event:

Backcomb by Sarah Pucill (1995)

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles by Chantal Akerman (1975)

Self Obliteration by Yayoi Kusama (1967)

Nadja a Paris by Eric Rohmer (1964)

The Seashell and the Clergyman by Germaine Dulac (1928)

Link to other clips discussed on the show

Lauren Elkin's Website

Dario is joined by Film Theorist Emre Caglayan at the Electric Palace in Hastings to screen and discuss Georges Franju's classic surrealist inspired horror Eyes Without a Face. A truly influential film Eyes Without a Face is often placed alongside Psycho and Peeping Tom as examples of art-house director exploring the horror genre and the film still possesses a sense of unsettling eeriness. 

Dario also interview Matt Smith an academic from Georgia State University in Atlanta to discuss the influence of the Eyes Without A Face on new extremist cinema on France at the end of the 20th century. Neil and Dario expand on Franju's legacy as a filmmaker in the French canon.

You can watch Eyes Without a Face on Youtube.

There's some soul searching in this episode as Neil and Dario try and figure out how and why to watch cinema with the world in such a state of flux. Thankfully, the film under focus is apt for this purpose. Down in Falmouth Neil and Kingsley screen and discuss a seminal childhood film for all involved, a film that seems more prescient that ever: Paul Verhoeven's 80s sci-fi classic Robocop.

It seems the enduring relevance of Robocop is on other people's minds at the moment. Check out Abraham Riesman's recent piece for Vulture here.

Also, for more discussion about cinema in an age of repression and confusion and why film matters, check out this brilliant Film Quarterly panel hosted by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Vital listening for these tumultuous times. 

For this episode, The Cinematologists were invited to cover the Arts Foundations Essay Film prize and an event they are hosting entitled Essay Film Now. Dario interviews the shortlisted filmmakers Charlie Lyne, Marianna Simnett, Samuel Stevens and Sarah Wood about their work and their thoughts on essay film as a cinematic and artistic practice. Dario also talks to the Art Foundation director Shelly Warren and with Sophie Mayer, a writer, poet and film critic about the history, political and philosophy underpinning the essay film as a form.

• For details of the Arts Foundation Prize visit their website

Interviews

• 6:30 - Sophie Mayer - Click here for Sophie's presentation at Essay Film Now.
• 26:30 - Shelley  Warren
• 33:40 - Charlie Lyne
• 56:01 - Marianna Simnett
• 01:15:29 - Samuel Stevens
• 01:36:16 - Sarah Wood

In this end of year special Neil and Dario ruminate on their highlights and lowlights of 2016s films. To all our listeners we wish you a happy holiday season and all the best for 2017.

Neil and Dario are joined by Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin at the Newlyn FilmHouse to discuss Joe Dante's riotous comedy-horror Gremlins. The experience of watching in the auditorium is a central topic of conversation as Gremlins seemed to provoke nostalgic feelings of cinema in the 80s. Chrismas films, good, bad and indifferent, are also discussed and Neil speaks to Art of the Title's Lola Landekic in a fascinating interview about the aesthetics and meaning of titles and title sequences. 

In this week's episode Neil and Kingsley introduce Pennebaker and Hegedus' observational documentary The War Room. The film covers Bill Clinton's campaign against George H.W. Bush focusing on the role of campaign chiefs James Carville and George Stephanopoulos and, in the wake of the recent election, it remains an extreme prescient work. Neil also interview filmmaker George Amponsah about his recent documentary The Hard Stop. This hard hitting account of the death of Mark Duggan from the perspective of two of his closest friends.

Show Notes

Dario's blog on Maron and podcast/radio antagonism

Video Essay by Ian Garwood

George Amponsah

Waking up podcast with Sam Harris

In this bumper episode Dario is joined by writer, filmmaker and festival director Melody Bridges to discuss Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation starring Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray. The screening took place at the fabulous Kino Theatr in St. Leonard's and features some lively views as to the reading of the film. Also, Neil interview's Violet Lucca the digital editor of Film Comment and presenter of the Film Comment podcast.

Knowing Sounds is an experimental podcast exploring the possibilities and outcomes of using the podcast medium as a creative practice underpinned by conceptual thought to produce and disseminate academic research. The podcast, which more specifically can be defined as an audio essay, is split into three sections. The first is an experimental collage of music, dialogue and sound effects from a selection of films interwoven with excerpts from audience members who attended The Cinematologists live screenings. It is designed to open up questions as to the potential for a sonic landscape to tap into the ‘cinematic imagination’ without the use of images. We thus play with aural engagement creating a space for the listener to actively negotiate the binary between the abstract emotions and intended rational meaning inferred through listening. The second section is a spoken analysis of the potential of podcasting as an academic form exploring how the mechanics sound production and dissemination in the digital age can challenge the powerful logocentric link between knowledge and writing. We also interrogate the structural formation that, paradoxically, has given rise to the ubiquity of podcasts in mainstream culture but has undermined its potential development. Furthermore, interweaving illustrative references, we analyse specific film podcasts and how they utilise a developing grammar of sonic writing to expand cultural discourse. The final section brings together other contributors to the journal of disrupted media practice commenting on their alternative methods of production and exhibition aimed at unsettling assumptions about the relationship between practice and theory.

The first screening of season 4 at the University of Brighton, Hastings campus is Richard Linklater's romantic drama Before Sunrise starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. Dario is joined on-stage by screenwriter and lecturer Rob Greens (@robgreens) and by Digital Film alumnus James Calver (@jammycalver) who are both big fans of the film and Linklater's style of filmmaking. Dario also interview's freelance film reviewer Ren Zelen who gives her take on some of the main releases at the London Film Festival. If you want to read Ren's review follow her on twitter @RenZelen.

We return with season 4 featuring a freshers week choice at Falmouth University with Christopher  Nolan's complex, existential neo-noir Memento getting the nod. Neil is joined on stage to introduce the film once again by Kingsley Marshall.

Neil and Dario also discuss how to engage to the fullest extent with all the possibilities of film culture that are out there. 

Our second summer episode is our London debut where we took the podcast to the Curzon Bloomsbury to screen Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces. Perhaps not his most highly lauded film Broken Embraces does however, offer an opportunity to discuss Almodovar's relationship to cinema itself through the film's meta-cinematic structure and constant allusions to how we see the world cinematically.

This episode also features an interview with Jose Arroyo from the University of Warwick who has written about and interviewed Almodovar.  

Dario's blog on Broken Embraces

Apologies for some poor quality sound on this episode.

In this summer interlude Dario and Neil cover a large range of subjects including the state of cinema, Bret Easton Ellis' film podcast, fandom and online culture, the Cary Grant Festival in Bristol, the joys and ills of academic conferences, and various films they have seen. 

Show notes:

Bret Easton Ellis podcast

Death Foretold is not Death - Neil's article in Director's Notes

Creators, fans and death threats: Talking to Joss Whedon, Neil Gaiman and more on the Age of Entitlement - LA Times article by Todd Martens

Cinematologists screening of Broken Embraces: 

Dario is joined by Neil at the Electric Palace in Hastings once again to screen Kelly Reichardt's poetic road movie Old Joy. A rainy afternoon in a fern-carpeted forest. Two old friends, Mark and Kurt (Will Oldham), drive up into the mountains near Portland, and get lost trying to find the hot springs. Resounding with sustained images and sounds given the time to reverberate, unarticulated tensions course through the film like a hidden creek. Finally at the turn-off to the springs, we see the sky reflected in their windshield and the whole world turns on this moment.

The episode also feature's Neil's fascinating interview with all round cinematic mensch Mark Cousins about his new film I Am Belfast.

In our penultimate episode of the season Dario is joined by film Scholar, writer and podcaster Alex Fitch to present a classic of the American new wave: The Last Detail (1973) directed by the under appreciated Hal Ashby and starring Jack Nicholson. Two hard-boiled petty officers, Buddusky and Mulhall, are detailed to take a young sailor, Meadows, to a Naval Prison to serve an eight-year sentence for a trivial offense, and they decide to show him a good time on the way. They narrowly escape a bar fight, tangle with some Marines, and visit a brothel for Meadows’ first sexual experience. After reluctantly turning him in, Buddusky and Mulhall realize they are as much prisoners of their own world as Meadows now is of his.

ario also interviews freelance film critic and journalist Christina Newland. They discuss studying film at university, writing process, feminist politics, and boxing movies along with this weeks overarching theme: the American new wave.

Christina Newland's article on Creed and the Legacy of the boxing film.

Molly Haskell (1987) From Reference to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies

Cinephilia and Beyond: ‘The Last Detail: Hal Ashby and Robert Town's Slice of the 70s America'

Dario returns to the School of Film and Television at Falmouth University to host a screening of Alex Garland's Sci-Fi drama Ex_Machina. He is joined on-stage by Dr Verena Von Eicken who selected the film and they discuss its potential to be read as a metaphorical critique of gendered power relations and the male gaze. Neil and Dario also discuss issues around the narrative structure of film, Alex Garland as a writer director and other recent examples of hard Sci-Fi such as Her (2013) and Under the Skin (2013).

Show Notes: 

Link to Laura Mulvey's seminal 1975 essay Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema

Link to Donna Haraway's 1983 essay The Cyborg Manifesto

Neil and Dario meet up in Falmouth to discuss the Nick Cave music 'documentary' 20000 Days on Earth directed by Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth. Neil also interview British film director Kieran Evans about the fundamental relationship between music and film.

Dario is joined on-stage at the Electric Palace by two final year Digital Film students studying at the University of Brighton - Kathryn Bessant and James Calver - to discuss George Miller's 1979 Ozploitation action fest Mad Max. Mel Gibson takes the title role as Max Rockatanski, the fearless cop waging war with kill-crazy bikers who target his family. It is a road-scorching, neo-punk, take-no-prisoners combat set in the lawless Australian outback.

Neil and Dario expand on themes from the film and engage in a wider discussion covering topics including the future of the arts in higher education, neoliberal ideology, dystopian cinema, Sean Parker's Screening Room proposal and Louis CK's Horace and Pete.

Show Notes:

Times Higher article on graduate earnings

Requiem for the American Dream - Documentary on Noam Chomsky

Sean Parker's The Screening Room - Daily Beast article

Horace and Pete - Louis CK

WTF with Marc Maron - Interview with Louis CK

The Teacher's Soul and the Terrors of Performativity by Stephen J. Ball

London Review of Books article about H.G. Adler's The Wall

Cinematologists contributor Kingsley Marshall picks Blue Steel to discuss his research on the work of director Kathryn Bigelow and Neil interviews British film director Kim Longinotto about her work. Dario and Neil also discuss whether films can have real social or political impact.

Kim Longinotto's Dreamcatcher, official site.

Kim Longinotto talks to fellow Cinematologists interviewee Jeanie Finlay for The Talkhouse. 

Le Quai Des Brumes is a seminal of French director Marcel Carné. Starring the enigmatic Jean Gabin it epitomises Carné’s poetic realism, often seen as influential to Hollywood film noir, evocating the intense beauty and tragedy of wartime Europe. Capturing the romantic fatalism of the protagonists the film is often defined as critique of the moral and social state of the French nation during World War II.

Neil is joined by colleague Dr Victoria Byard to introduce and discuss Tony Scott's erotic vampire horror The Hunger. Staring Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon and, of course, the late David Bowie the film draws a range of different reactions from the audience at Falmouth's School of Film and Television. On the Episode Neil also interviews film making duo the Blaine Brothers about their recent British Horror release Nina Forever and Dario and Neil cover a range of subjects including cinema's ability to preserve star iconography.

For this episode we are back at the Electric Palace in Hastings where Dario talks to Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin about his fascinating new film. In Bronco's House  a young man strives to provide a home for him, his pregnant girlfriend and their unborn child. The film is an aesthetic meditation on property, power and the future which is shot on a clockwork camera, using 16mm black and white negative stock, and process by hand through and instant coffee based developer. 

Bronco's House is available to download and stream. CLICK HERE.

In a wide ranging interview Dario talks to prolific film scholar Murray Pomerance. The discussion touches on everything from Zabriskie Point to The Force Awakes, from The Clouds of Sils Maria to The Bourne Identity, from Marnie to The Dark Knight Professor Pomerance demonstrates an in-depth knowledge, engaging presence and fascinating insights on all things cinema.

Murray Pomerance is Professor in the Department of Sociology at Ryerson University, Toronto. His publications include Moment of Action: Riddles of Cinematic Performance (forthcoming), Marnie (BFI, 2014), Alfred Hitchcock's America (Polity, 2013), The Horse Who Drank the Sky: Film Experience Beyond Narrative and Theory (Rutgers 2008), and An Eye for Hitchcock (Rutgers 2004), among others.He has edited or co-edited numerous volumes, including The Last Laugh: Strange Humors of Cinema (Wayne State, 2013), Hollywood's Chosen People: The Jewish Experience in American Cinema (Wayne State, 2012), Shining in Shadows: Movie Stars of the 2000s (Rutgers 2011), and Cinema and Modernity (Rutgers 2006), among others. In August 2009, he appeared on Broadway in conjunction with a performance of The 39 Steps and in August 2013 his visual essay (co-authored with R. Barton Palmer) appeared on the Criterion DVD of John Frankenheimer's Seconds.

For further details and publications click here.

Our first screening of 2016 is Orson Welles's at times overlooked classic, The Trial. Adapted from Franz Kafka’s dark novel about alienation, bureaucracy, and the fundamental question of freewill. The Trial stars Anthony Perkins in a role every bit as compelling as his star turn in Psycho and features Welles’s trademark kinetic cinematography which perfectly captures the terror of faceless institutional authority.

Read Richard Brody's New Yorker article on The Trial here.

This was our first screening at the wonderful Electric Palace Cinema in Hastings.

The episode features an interview with Josh Karp who recently published an exquisite book on the crazy saga of Welles's final, incomplete film, The Other Side Of The Wind. Find information on the book here.

Read a review from RogerEbert.com here.

In a special bonus episode Dario talks to Dr. Catherine Grant, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Sussex and founder of the Film Studies For Free online archive. The conversation covers a wide range of areas including Catherine's route in film academia, the current status of film and film studies particularly in the digital context, the Internet & open source publishing, teaching, research and the challenges of higher education for the arts and humanities, video essays, blogging & podcasting, feminism in film and academia, and discourses of free speech and political correctness.

Link's to Catherine's Websites: Film Studies for Free; InTransition: Journal of Videographic and Film and Moving image Studies; Reframe

Jason Mittell - Complex Television

Catherines's introduction to Laura Mulvey and Possibilities for the Digital

Bordwell and Thompson: Observations on Film Art

Girish Shambu: Film Blog

Kevin Lee: Shooting Down Pictures

Catherine's video essay using Laura Mark's notion of Haptic Criticism

Patricia White: Women's Cinema, World Cinema

Sophie Myers: Political Animal

Richard Dyer: Sissy Representations

Brett Easton Ellis Podcast: with Quintin Tarantino

In one of the highlights of the year The Cinematologists screen Wong Kar-Wai's stylish masterpiece as part of the BFI 'love' season in association with The Poly, Falmouth. A veritable modern masterpiece In the Mood for Love stars Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung in iconic roles as lovers seeking refuge from disappointment, loneliness and the harsh realities of their surroundings. Dario and Neil also discuss their cinematic highlights of the year.

The Guardian article by Peter Walker referred to in the podcast can be found here: http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2011/dec/19/in-the-mood-for-love

Dario and Neil discuss Ida Lupino's 1953 film noir The Hitch-Hiker. Neil also interviews writer Jack Thorne about, amongst other things, his up-coming theatre adaptation of Harry Potter.

Link to the Film Programme episode discussed in the episode

Link to the Senses of Cinema Ida Lupino piece mentioned by Kingsley in the episode

In our first podcast from the University of Brighton's Hastings campus we screen the strangely superb sci-fi thriller Seconds (1966). John Frankenheimer's key themes revolve around paranoia and conspiracy with titles to his credit including The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Seven Days in May (1964). This film takes a faustian theme and links it to social contexts of mistrust in government, consumerism and the increasing loss of identity in the modern age.

The episode also features an interview with writer and historian Andy Bass who has recently written an article on the shooting of the film in his home town of Scarsdale:

http://scarsdalenews.com/Scarsdale_Inquirer/8-21-15_NEWS__Rock_Hudson.html

Neil is joined on stage at Falmouth by Kingsley Marshall to introduce John Hughes' comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987). The influence and persona of John Candy and Steve Martin is discussed along with the career of John Hughes as one the quintessential American 80s directors. The podcast also features an interview with Jeanie Finlay on her surprising and offbeat musical documentary Orion: The Man Who Would Be King (2015).

Our intense desire for, and identification, with film characters and stars comes under the spotlight in this weeks' podcast. Neil is joined by filmmaker James Dean to introduce Pablo Larraín's unique and brutal Tony Manero (2008) about Chilean criminal who is obsessed with John Travolta's character from Saturday Night Fever. It is simultaneously bleak, shocking and unsettling with allusions to the darkest parts of human identity. Also on the podcast Dario interviews Professor Will Brooker from Kingston University about the year he is spending embodying the iconic David Bowie.