In the final episode of the latest season – Neil’s solo adventure – Neil talks to filmmaker, writer and comedian Scott Tanner Jones about collecting physical media. In an episode with a similar approach to the previous one with Kat Flint-Nicol, Neil brings to the podcast a conversation about themes and ideas that permeate his thinking around a particular area of film, and wider popular culture. In this episode Neil and Scott discuss their approaches to collecting films (and records) in physical form.

The conversation takes in areas such as curating what you watch, interest in particular physical media boutique labels, how physical media isn’t the be all and end all, cataloguing the year in film in different ways, studio interest and care in their back catalogues, Scott’s favourite places in his adopted hometown of LA to watch movies, the demand on our eyeballs and they answer the question, is David Lynch quirky?

Films discussed in this episode include Cocoon, Something Wild, Midnight Cowboy, E.T., Midnight Run, MaXXXine, La Chimera, Evil Does Not Exist and Hit Man.

To close out the episode and season, Neil shares some of his thoughts on his favourite releases of 2024 so far, and his first half of the year in film watching more broadly.

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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 penultimate episode of the season, Neil sits down with friend and colleague Kat Flint-Nicol to think through British cinema. The aim was to focus on regionality, but the conversation is much-more wide ranging than that. It captures the complex intersectionality of place, class, genre, industry gatekeeping, and the relationship between industry and culture. 

Films, places and texts discussed in this discursive chat include Rochester and Dickens, and David Lean’s Great Expectations, Terence Davies, The Commitments, Nick Love, Sexy Beast and the crime cinema that followed it, Muscle and Hyena, Guy Ritchie, Last Orders, Ray Winstone, Rose Glass and Shane Meadows. 

It is fascinating conversation and hopefully provides insight into Neil and Kat’s current thinking about the complexities of British Cinema historically and contemporarily.

—

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.

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

—

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 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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Our Website: www.cinematologists.com

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

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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Our Website: www.cinematologists.com

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

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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Our Website: www.cinematologists.com

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

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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Our Website: www.cinematologists.com

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

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.

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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

You can also listen to The Cinematologists here:

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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.

Also listen on:

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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.

———

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.

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. 

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

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

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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:

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

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

Website: www.cinematologists.com

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

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.

Also listen on:

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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 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:

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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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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.

(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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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 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 

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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 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

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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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 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.