Podd: The Cinematologists Podcast

Club Zero (w/ Jessica Hausner) & Rumours (w/ Guy Maddin, Evan & Galen Johnson)

4 december 2024 | 110 min

In a bumper episode, the penultimate one of the year, Dario interviews Jessica Hausner about her new film Club Zero and Guy Maddin, Evan, and Galen Johnson about Rumours. Both films have limited UK releases this week (Friday, December 6th), and, interestingly, though they are very different films, they have thematic connections, particularly in relation to contemporary crises, social critique, and satirical modes.

Club Zero stars a very well-cast Mia Wasikowska as Ms. Novak, a girlish teacher whose radical ideas about diet lead a group of students down a dangerous path. Dario's conversation with Jessica and composer Marcus Binder explores influence, seduction, and the complexities of societal expectations through the lens of her film. They discuss the dangers of eating disorders, the pressures of social responsibility placed on children, the alienating dynamics of the school environment, and how misinformation can so easily be spread.

Rumours boasts a stacked cast led by Cate Blanchett, who represents the leaders of the G7. Dario talked to director-writer team Guy Maddin, Galen Johnson, and Evan Johnson about the film at the London Film Festival. The conversation navigates the complexities of creative expression in film, touching on themes of self-perception, audience expectations, character development, and the balance between artistic freedom and commercial viability. They discuss the challenges of navigating genre conventions, the significance of casting choices, and the implications of stereotypes in representing national identities.

Neil and Dario then reflect on both the interviews and films, examining their artistic choices, character development, and how well the themes capture contemporary anxieties around authority, ideology, and ambivalence. They also discuss the aesthetics of symbolism and the emotional distance created through cinematography, as well as the broader implications of anxiety and manipulation in youth culture. This leads to a reflection on how artists address the current socio-political moment, how crisis is influencing many film works in an implicit way, and whether a political cinema is possible while maintaining a unique voice in an uncertain, changing cultural landscape.

Thanks to Tom Finney at Blue Dolphin Films

Thanks to Chris Lawrence at Film Publicity

Thanks to George Crostwait and the team at The Garden Cinema

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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 £3 per month.

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.

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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.

Professor Vivian Sobchack, in Conversation

28 november 2024 | 87 min

In this return to the long-form interview format, The Cinematologists are deeply honoured to welcome Professor Vivian Sobchack to the podcast. In an incredibly profound and wide-ranging conversation, Dario discusses with Prof. Sobchack a diverse array of topics related to her work and life as one of the most important and influential thinkers and writers on cinema. The subjects covered include:

The Evolution of Film Studies: Vivian reflects on film studies' early formation in the United States and the profound impact of phenomenology on the discipline. She shares rich insights into how our embodied experience shapes our interaction with films.
Her Personal Journey: Vivian offers fascinating accounts of being a young female scholar during the early formation of film studies, providing unique historical perspectives on the discipline’s growth.
Film Phenomenology: If the episode has a central theme, it is Vivian's groundbreaking legacy in film phenomenology. She contextualizes her work within a broader framework, contrasting it with Marxist and psychoanalytic film criticism, and highlights the distinct contributions phenomenology offers to the study of cinema.
Cinema as an Immersive Experience: The conversation explores the intricate relationship between viewers and films, emphasising the shared, immersive experience that makes cinema a unique cultural and artistic event.
Genre Analysis and Science Fiction: Vivian discusses her analysis of genre, particularly focusing on science fiction. She draws on the cultural and philosophical implications of films like Arrival, Inception, and Her.

Reflecting on the interview, Dario and Neil unpack how Prof. Sobchack's work provides invaluable insights for developing more nuanced ways of thinking about the filmic experience. They discuss how her scholarship underscores cinema's role as a mirror to culture, technology, and the human condition. The episode highlights the importance of creating space for in-depth academic dialogue and explores the personal impact Sobchack’s work has had on the hosts. Neil and Dario also delve into the multifaceted relationship between cinema and its audience, emphasising the need to engage with film as an experience rather than merely consuming it.

Prof Sobchack's Biography:

Vivian Sobchack, born in 1940 in New York City, is widely regarded as one of the most influential American film theorists of the past 25 years. In the early 1990s, she played a pivotal role in re-establishing phenomenology as a vital methodology in film studies with her groundbreaking book, The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience (1992). Her work emphasizes the bodily and material foundations of film viewing, championing an existential-phenomenological approach to moving image media. This perspective is articulated with particular elegance in her celebrated collection of essays, Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture (2004).

A trailblazer in the field, Sobchack was the first woman elected President of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (1985-1987) and received the organization’s Distinguished Career Achievement Award in 2012. She served for over 20 years as the sole academic member of the Board of Directors at the American Film Institute (AFI). From 1992 to 2005, Sobchack was Associate Dean and Professor at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. She continues to inspire new generations of scholars as Professor Emerita at UCLA.

This episode is a 50-minute excerpt of the full 1 hour and 50 min conversation. The full interview is available on our Patreon site: Click Here Visit www.patreon.com/cinematologists for our extensive bonus content and to be part of our community.

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

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

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cinematologistspodcast

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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.

Author: The JT Leroy Story @ Falmouth Book Festival 2024 (w/Colin Midson)

11 november 2024 | 98 min

BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Episode 2

18 oktober 2024 | 74 min

Our second London Film Festival main episode is here, and it's a bumper edition. Dario is in Falmouth visiting Neil, so it's something of a nostalgic live taping from the place where The Cinematologists started. The first film on the agenda is Alex Ross Perry's Pavements, which is a meta-documentary on a mercurial 90s band, Pavement. Neil, with his music film expertise, gives detailed context to the history and mythology of the band, whose cult status is deliberately explored by Ross Perry. It is another film that plays with multiple forms and perspectives and is also an instructive counterpoint to Soundtrack to a Coup d'etat (which we covered in the previous main show).

This episode also features an interview with Australian director Justin Kurzel, who previously made the somewhat underrated version of Macbeth with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard (among an impressive ouvre). His LFF entry this year is a documentary focusing on Australian musician Warren Ellis. The film follows his career but also explores his dedication to a wildlife sanctuary in Sumatra, where rescued trafficked animals are nursed back to health.

Dario then discusses the psychological drama Under the Volcano by Polish director Damian Kocur. It tells the story of a middle-class Ukrainian family finishing a holiday in Tenerife just as the war starts. It's another film that keeps the spectre of apocalypse in the background while focusing on the nuances of familial trauma and the ethical decisions they are forced to confront.

Finally, Hailey and Ben join us to discuss Elton John: Never Too Late, a look back at the singer-songwriter's huge career in the context of his final concert in North America at Dodger Stadium.

Our extended coverage of the festival is on our Patreon channel, to support the show please consider subscribing for as little as £2.50 per month. You get access to all our bonus content.

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

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

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cinematologistspodcast

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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.

BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Episode 1

14 oktober 2024 | 83 min

Music Films

26 september 2024 | 77 min

In our second episode of the season, we discuss Neil's superb, recently published book Music Films: Documentaries, Concert Films and Other Cinematic Representations of Popular Music.

We explore their significance, evolution, and the complexities surrounding their creation and reception, along with Neil's reflections on the challenges of writing for diverse audiences and the expectations of music fans. The conversation touches on the validity of music films in modern culture, the messiness of the genre, and the importance of representation, particularly regarding black artists and women in music. They also examine the ethical implications of music documentaries and the power dynamics at play in the portrayal of artists.

Neil's book is so comprehensive we couldn't cover everything but some of the films under discussion include Don't Look Back (dir. D. A. Pennebaker, 1967), Lonely Boy (dir. Roman Kroitor and Wolf Koenig, 1962), Whatstaxx (dir. Mel Stuart), The Punk Singer (dir. Kathleen Hanna), In Bed with Madonna (dir. Alek Keshishian, 1991), The Last Angel of History (dir. John Akomfrah, 1996), American Interior (dirs. Dylan Goch, Gruff Rhys), Miss Americana (dir. Lana Wilson, 2020), and many more.

Here's a link to Dario's Substack article: 10 Music Films you may not seen (and are free on YouTube)

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

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Music Films and Their Impact 02:37 Neil's Journey with His Book 06:34 The Validity of Music Films in Modern Culture 08:54 Expanding the Canon of Music Films 11:31 The Messiness of Music Films 14:20 Writing for Diverse Audiences 17:23 Navigating the Expectations of Music Fans 19:50 The Balance of Coverage in Music Films 22:55 Exploring Authorial Voice in Music Documentaries 24:14 The Evolution of Music Film Styles 28:40 The Role of Technology in Music and Film 31:49 Gender Dynamics in Music Documentaries 34:31 Exploitation in Music Documentaries 37:28 The Complexity of Artist Representation 39:28 The Importance of Black Artists in Music Films 42:05 The Legacy of Music Documentaries 46:46 Women in Music: A Historical Perspective 50:47 The Power Dynamics in Music Films 55:32 The Ethics of Music Documentaries ___ If you haven't already, please consider becoming a subscriber to our Patreon channel: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists We are expanding our output so if you enjoy the show and find value in the work, any support you can give would be very much appreciated. You can become a member for the same price as a coffee a month.

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.

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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.

Life, Work and Cinema - Season 20 is here

19 september 2024 | 54 min

We are back for the 20th season of The Cinematologists Podcast and our 10th year. Neither of us when we started out could have envisaged that we would have done what we have with the Podcast, spoken to so many fascinating film people and cultivated such a loyal audience.

Indeed, this season represents something of a renewal, as is discussed in the first episode of the season. After taking a break from the last season Dario is back, bringing with him quite a few personal and professional changes that form the basis of a discussion about life, work and cinema.

We reflect on how the context of academia has changed so much in recent years and this has affect how we both view what we do. The also conversation also delves into themes of identity, the value of teaching, and the tension between academia and capitalism, while also highlighting the importance of authenticity and passion in their work. As we look to the future, we are feeling invigorated and excited for new opportunities and the potential even more valuable and joyful experience in making the podcast and bringing to you.

With Dario moving out of his full-time post and into a more freelance space, the Podcast will be aligning with that to some degree. Primarily this means we will be expanding the Patreon channel and hoping to sign up new members.

Another aspect of this is we will offer as many episodes as possible early and in video format on the Patreon. Our plan is to drop the videos as bonus for you on a Tuesday the week they go out and then audio version will go out on the podcast feed on Thursday.

The amount and variety of content you will receive will be much more significant. We plan to continue the newsletters and the after-show bonus episodes. Extended interviews will also be available in full only on Patreon, and coverage of events like the London Film Festival will be extensive.

Because of this, we want to try to entice more listeners to join the Patreon. We would really appreciate your help. If you value the content, please take the time to recommend and share it with your colleagues and friends and, of course, on social media.

We hope you enjoy the new season and all this new content. As always, please get in touch with any feedback or comments about the films we discuss. We always like to mention any interesting points that the listeners make on the show.

We hope you love the new season and, as always, appreciate your continued support.

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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.

Thinking Through Physical Media (w/Scott Tanner Jones)

30 juli 2024 | 76 min

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.

Thinking Through British Cinema (w/Dr. Katerina Flint-Nicol

19 juli 2024 | 98 min

Eno (w/director Gary Hustwit)

12 juli 2024 | 20 min

Pat Kelman (606 Distribution & Pat's Film Club)

17 juni 2024 | 108 min

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.

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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 Beast (w/writer-director Bertrand Bonello)

29 maj 2024 | 50 min

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.

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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.

Big Wednesday (w/filmmaker Mark Jenkin)

22 maj 2024 | 89 min

Recent 2024 Releases (w/Dario!)

25 april 2024 | 70 min

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).

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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.

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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.

Sometimes I Think About Dying (w/director Rachel Lambert)

11 april 2024 | 60 min

Professor Alison Peirse (Doing Women's Global Horror Film History)

18 mars 2024 | 68 min

Pouring Water on Troubled Oil (w/director Nariman Massoumi)

29 februari 2024 | 57 min

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.

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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.

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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.

Your Fat Friend (w/ director Jeanie Finlay)

8 februari 2024 | 57 min

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/

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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.

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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.

Our Cinematic 2023

28 december 2023 | 98 min

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.

On New Release Apathy

18 december 2023 | 60 min

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.

BONUS: Toby Amies in the Court of the Crimson King

4 december 2023 | 58 min

BONUS: Prof. Neil Fox on Film Practice and Pedagogy

13 november 2023 | 68 min

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 - [email protected]

Dr. Dario Llinares - [email protected]

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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.

Film Podcasting w/ Rico Gagliano from The Mubi Podcast

4 november 2023 | 90 min

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.

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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.

Rock Hudson: All that Heaven Allowed (w/ Dir. Stephen Kijak)

23 oktober 2023 | 76 min

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.

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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.

Apocalypse Clown (w/Producer James Dean)

23 oktober 2023 | 73 min

London Film Festival 2023

16 oktober 2023 | 72 min

A Year in a Field (w/director Christopher Morris and producer Denzil Monk)

25 september 2023 | 101 min

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

On Cinematic Pleasure

5 juli 2023 | 62 min

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

Laura Mulvey (Falmouth Film Weekend: 1978 Revisited)

22 juni 2023 | 88 min

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.

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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

Plan 75

15 juni 2023 | 85 min

Boys and Men in Close and Godland

17 maj 2023 | 53 min

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.

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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

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

Demons of the Mind: Cinema and Psychiatry in the Long 1960s

8 maj 2023 | 99 min

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

The Films of Alice Diop

14 april 2023 | 77 min

Long Way Back(w/Brett and Simon Harvey)

24 mars 2023 | 102 min

T.L.C (Tender Loving Care for Trans-Led/Trans-Loved Cinema) w/ So Mayer and Lillian Crawford

3 mars 2023 | 89 min

Berlinale Dispatches Trailer

18 februari 2023 | 3 min

Husband (w/Josh Appignanesi and Devorah Baum)

9 februari 2023 | 95 min

Akira Kurosawa at the BFI (w/ Asif Kapadia and Ian Hayden Smith)

1 februari 2023 | 100 min

Enys Men (w/ Dir. Mark Jenkin)

17 januari 2023 | 92 min

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

2022 Review (w/critic Clarisse Loughrey)

27 december 2022 | 92 min

Blood Simple (w/ Producer James Dean)

21 december 2022 | 55 min

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).

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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

Film Curation (Beyond Interpretation w/Chris Cassingham)

15 december 2022 | 49 min

Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time 2022 (Part 2)

2 december 2022 | 54 min

Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time 2022 (Part 1)

1 december 2022 | 68 min

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

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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

Irma Vep (w/ Dr Catherine Wheatley)

24 november 2022 | 53 min

Olivier Assayas has always been a filmmaker and critic who is interested in the essential question: what is cinema? His reflections are often espoused though the characters in his films, with the repeated deployment of the "film within a film" device, and now, in the recreation of his 1996 low budget cult classic Irma Vep, into a 8-episode HBO miniseries. This week Dario was joined by Reader in Film Studies Dr Catherine Wheatley to discuss the original film. But with Catherine writing a positive, joyful, review of the TV "sequel" in Sight and Sound, aspects of comparison were always going to suffuse the conversation. We talk about Assayas as a postmodern, chameleonic filmmaker, and his place in the history of French cinema as both an insider and outsider. Then of course there is the ethereal vision that is Maggie Cheung. Paradoxically, in the film she plays the mystical, femme fatale role, made famous by Musidora in Louis Feuillade's fabled 1915 Les Vampires. Assayas clearly anchors the film on her mesmerising beauty, perhaps bordering on exoticisation. But she is also normalised in the role. Playing a meta-fictional version of herself, a star on the verge of international breakthrough but somewhat lost in the chaos of a Parisian film shoot that is falling apart. Comparisons with Alicia Vikander, cast in the recent TV sequel are also a centre-point to the conversation.

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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

Censor (w/ Sarah Cleaver)

30 oktober 2022 | 59 min

London Film Festival - Part 2

17 oktober 2022 | 82 min

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

London Film Festival - Part 1

14 oktober 2022 | 95 min

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

Licence to Queer (w/ David Lowbridge-Ellis)

1 oktober 2022 | 61 min

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.

_____

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

Jonah who will be 25 in the Year 2000 (w/ Caroline Catz and James Dean)

16 september 2022 | 74 min

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

_____

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

Cape Fear (live @TheGardenCinema)

8 juli 2022 | 98 min

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

Top Gun: Maverick; Hustle; Lingui, The Sacred Bonds (and more)

16 juni 2022 | 63 min

Cannes 2022

27 maj 2022 | 95 min

Hannah Strong on Sofia Coppola

12 maj 2022 | 89 min

Nightmare Alley, The Northman and more

20 april 2022 | 73 min

Boiling Point (w/dir. Philip Barantini)

13 april 2022 | 78 min

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

Tyler Taormina (Ham on Rye, Happer’s Comet)

31 mars 2022 | 92 min

Cherish Oteka & The Black Cop

11 mars 2022 | 75 min

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.

Bill Douglas Cinema Museum

2 mars 2022 | 94 min

Michel Chion, in Conversation (Part 2)

4 februari 2022 | 67 min

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.

Michel Chion, in conversation (Part 1)

3 februari 2022 | 67 min

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.

(Repost) Ep106 Peter Bogdanovich (from Sept 2020)

7 januari 2022 | 80 min

2021 review

28 december 2021 | 82 min

Jodorowsky‘s Dune (w/ director Frank Pavich)

16 december 2021 | 85 min

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.

Raising Films and Recent Films (w/So Mayer)

1 december 2021 | 83 min

Dr Alison Peirse - Women Make Horror

6 november 2021 | 81 min

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.

———

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 (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.

London Film Festival 2021: Part 2

20 oktober 2021 | 89 min

London Film Festival 2021: Part 1

14 oktober 2021 | 29 min

Independent Magazines

2 oktober 2021 | 103 min

Rose Plays Julie (w/Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor)

16 september 2021 | 88 min

Season 13 Finale

9 juli 2021 | 75 min

Nicolas Rapold

25 juni 2021 | 87 min

Kala Azar (w/ dir. Janis Rafa)

19 juni 2021 | 80 min

Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and Legendary Tapes (w/dir. Caroline Catz)

8 juni 2021 | 105 min

Radio On (w/ Mark Jenkin)

15 maj 2021 | 72 min

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.

Ep122 - Projections Podcast (w/Mary Wild and Sarah Cleaver)

10 maj 2021 | 68 min

Ep121 - Wilderness (w/Justin Doherty and Neil Fox [obvs])

26 april 2021 | 85 min

Ep120 Western (w/ Dr Hannah Paveck)

9 april 2021 | 71 min

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.

Andrew Dominik (Crossover Ep w/Silver Screen Video Podcast)

26 mars 2021 | 115 min

Conversations About Cinema (w/ Mark Cosgrove and Francesco Tava)

19 mars 2021 | 81 min

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.

Romanian Cinema (w/Film Critic Andrei Gorzo)

12 mars 2021 | 83 min

Sex and the Cinema (w/Film Critic Beatrice Loayza)

26 februari 2021 | 78 min

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:

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.

Simon Stephenson (Set My Heart To Five)

12 februari 2021 | 81 min

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:

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.

Concert Films (Stop Making Sense and American Utopia)

30 januari 2021 | 71 min

So Long 2020

4 januari 2021 | 93 min

The Cinema of Walter Murch (w/ Dir. Jon Lefkovitz)

19 december 2020 | 83 min

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:

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

British Social Realism Now! (w/Sarah Gavron & Henry Blake)

2 december 2020 | 129 min

(Repost) Ep 6 Goodbye Dragon Inn

23 november 2020 | 82 min

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:

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.

Ang Lee (w/Ellen Cheshire & Francesco Signorello)

16 november 2020 | 104 min

Sport Documentaries - w/ Dir. Finlay Pretsell (Time Trial)

26 oktober 2020 | 128 min

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:

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: [email protected]

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.

Walkabout (w/Luc Roeg and Andrew Peirce)

12 oktober 2020 | 99 min

Studying Film in 2020 (w/Freya Billington & Dr Catherine Wheatley)

25 september 2020 | 81 min

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:

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.

Peter Bogdanovich and The Great Buster

18 september 2020 | 80 min

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.

Tokyo Story

16 juli 2020 | 72 min

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.

You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/the-cinematologists-podcast/id981479854

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

Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/users/thecinematologists

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.

Film Editing with Katie Bryer

4 juli 2020 | 90 min

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:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/the-cinematologists-podcast/id981479854

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

Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/users/thecinematologists

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

10 juni 2020 | 108 min

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.

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.

The Uncertain Kingdom

1 juni 2020 | 115 min

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.

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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.

Women Make Film (Mark Cousins)

17 maj 2020 | 96 min

5 Years & 100 Episodes

27 april 2020 | 137 min

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.

Blake Howard (One Heat Minute Productions)

1 april 2020 | 123 min

The Cinematic Voice

17 mars 2020 | 127 min

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)

You can subscribe to the show on:

Or wherever you get your podcasts.

Berlinale 2020 Part 2

2 mars 2020 | 108 min

Berlinale 2020 Part 1

1 mars 2020 | 87 min

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

21 februari 2020 | 108 min

Filmstock Extra - Kieran Evans

7 februari 2020 | 63 min

Filmstock Extra - M.R. Carey

30 januari 2020 | 60 min

Filmstock Extra - Jeanie Finlay

22 januari 2020 | 60 min

2019 review

1 januari 2020 | 148 min

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.

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BFI Musicals Pt. 2 / Funny Girl

27 december 2019 | 85 min

Ep94a BFI Musicals

23 december 2019 | 125 min

Filmstock12

14 december 2019 | 116 min

The Lobster (w/ Solem Quartet Live Score)

4 december 2019 | 57 min

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

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At Filmstock with Mark Jenkin

29 november 2019 | 95 min

Speed

15 november 2019 | 113 min

Making Waves (w/ dir. Midge Costin)

1 november 2019 | 91 min

London Film Festival 2019

16 oktober 2019 | 97 min

Film-Philosophy Conference 2019 (part 2)

6 oktober 2019 | 111 min

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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Film-Philosophy Conference 2019 (part 1)

19 september 2019 | 125 min

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.

Also listen on:

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Website: www.cinematologists.com

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(Repost) Bronco's House w/ director Mark Jenkin

3 september 2019 | 104 min

Sweet Country

28 juni 2019 | 47 min

Canons & Cinephilia (w/ So Mayer & Girish Shambu)

30 maj 2019 | 122 min

Sleep Has Her House (w/ Scott Barley)

11 maj 2019 | 109 min

California Typewriter (w/ dir. Doug Nichol)

20 april 2019 | 66 min

Children of Men

9 april 2019 | 93 min

Dr Racquel Gates

29 mars 2019 | 112 min

BFI Comedy Genius Finale

7 mars 2019 | 126 min

Berlinale 2019 Part 3

23 februari 2019 | 97 min

Berlinale 2019 Part 2

20 februari 2019 | 90 min

Berlinale 2019 Part 1

16 februari 2019 | 1 min

Clueless w/Ryan Gilbey (in association with the BFI Comedy Genius Season)

2 februari 2019 | 104 min

2018 review

30 december 2018 | 110 min

Duck Soup (in association with the BFI Comedy Genius Season)

14 december 2018 | 117 min

Her (live from the University of Chichester)

29 november 2018 | 104 min

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten (w/ director Julien Temple)

14 november 2018 | 89 min

A Ghost Story

26 oktober 2018 | 78 min

London Film Festival 2018 w/Filmmaker and Critic Marbelle

24 oktober 2018 | 52 min

The Piano (w/ Ellen Cheshire)

29 september 2018 | 100 min

American Animals director Bart Layton

15 september 2018 | 64 min

Film-Philosophy Conference 2018

15 september 2018 | 106 min

Steve McQueen

10 juli 2018 | 126 min

Lek and the Dogs (w/ Dir. Andew Kötting)

1 juli 2018 | 95 min

Unsocial Audiences

17 juni 2018 | 115 min

The Islands and the Whales (W/ dir. Mike Day)

22 maj 2018 | 102 min

Juice (w/ film critic & podcaster Leslie Pitt)

10 maj 2018 | 112 min

Claire Denis (with Dr. Felicity Gee)

19 april 2018 | 67 min

Right Now Film Festival / Brexitannia (+filmmaker Daisy Asquith)

27 mars 2018 | 105 min

In a Lonely Place (w/ Prof. Julie Grossman)

13 mars 2018 | 100 min

Dark River (with Clio Barnard and Andrew Kötting)

23 februari 2018 | 64 min

Paul Thomas Anderson

5 februari 2018 | 51 min

Contemporary Film Criticism

22 december 2017 | 64 min

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.

Post-Weinstein (plus an interview with Dr. Tamsyn Dent.)

14 december 2017 | 71 min

La Notte (featuring film critic Robert Koehler)

2 december 2017 | 108 min

(Bonus) Alex Barrett & London Symphony

21 november 2017 | 58 min

(Bonus) Brighton CineCity Co-Director Tim Brown

8 november 2017 | 33 min

A New Leaf (w/ The Ballad of Shirley Collins filmmakers)

2 november 2017 | 110 min

(Bonus) Blade Runner 2049

18 oktober 2017 | 39 min

Crossings 2017

1 oktober 2017 | 117 min

(Bonus) Social Realism?

22 september 2017 | 46 min

(Reposting) Ep1 Repo Man

16 september 2017 | 64 min

Screenplay Film Festival (With Mark Kermode and Linda Ruth Williams)

7 september 2017 | 126 min

Season 6 Trailer

6 september 2017 | 16 min

Ask Us Anything

9 juli 2017 | 114 min

B. Ruby Rich (also with Club Des Femmes and Yance Ford)

28 juni 2017 | 120 min

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.

The Levelling (with Hope Dickson Leach & Corrina Antrobus)

7 juni 2017 | 90 min

The Other Side of Hope (with academic Jaakko Seppälä)

1 juni 2017 | 94 min

Close-up (with Mania Akbari)

26 maj 2017 | 103 min

Taxi Driver

10 maj 2017 | 101 min

The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki (with director Juho Kuosmanen)

21 april 2017 | 85 min

Professor Richard Dyer

6 april 2017 | 93 min

Ben Wheatley

3 april 2017 | 104 min

Victim (with writer David Blakeslee)

21 mars 2017 | 108 min

Feminist Surrealism and Film (with Dr Sabina Stent & Dr Felicity Gee)

1 mars 2017 | 76 min

Eyes Without a Face (with academic Matt Smith)

21 februari 2017 | 97 min

Robocop

11 februari 2017 | 103 min

Essay Film Now

14 januari 2017 | 132 min

2016 review

25 december 2016 | 72 min

Gremlins (plus an interview with Lola Landekic)

17 december 2016 | 95 min

The War Room (with filmmaker George Amponsah)

7 december 2016 | 118 min

Lost in Translation (with Melody Bridges and Violet Lucca)

19 november 2016 | 118 min

Knowing Sounds: Podcasting as Academic Practice

10 november 2016 | 71 min

Before Sunrise (with film reviewer Ren Zelen)

17 oktober 2016 | 111 min

Memento

27 september 2016 | 98 min

Broken Embraces

24 augusti 2016 | 90 min

Summer Special

4 augusti 2016 | 77 min

Old Joy/I am Belfast (plus an interview with Mark Cousins)

26 juni 2016 | 110 min

The Last Detail (with film critic Christina Newland)

1 juni 2016 | 95 min

Ex_Machina

14 maj 2016 | 105 min

20000 Days on Earth (with director Kieran Evans)

7 maj 2016 | 107 min

Mad Max

24 april 2016 | 95 min

Blue Steel (with director Kim Longinotto)

2 april 2016 | 133 min

Le Quai des Brumes

19 mars 2016 | 90 min

The Hunger (with directors the Blaine brothers)

4 mars 2016 | 134 min

Bronco’s House (with director Mark Jenkin)

26 februari 2016 | 103 min

Interview with Professor Murray Pomerance

6 februari 2016 | 84 min

The Trial (with writer Josh Karp)

25 januari 2016 | 98 min

Interview with Dr. Catherine Grant

28 december 2015 | 91 min

In the Mood for Love

9 december 2015 | 92 min

The Hitch-Hiker (with writer Jack Thorne)

2 december 2015 | 96 min

Seconds (with journalist Andy Bass)

21 november 2015 | 81 min

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (with filmmaker Jeanie Finlay)

26 oktober 2015 | 86 min

Tony Manero (with Prof. Will Brooker)

4 oktober 2015 | 112 min

The Cinematologists Podcast

Film academics Dr Dario Llinares and Dr Neil Fox introduce a live screening followed by an audience Q&A.

Om podden

Avsnitt

Club Zero (w/ Jessica Hausner) & Rumours (w/ Guy Maddin, Evan & Galen Johnson)

Professor Vivian Sobchack, in Conversation

Author: The JT Leroy Story @ Falmouth Book Festival 2024 (w/Colin Midson)

BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Episode 2

BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Episode 1

Music Films

Life, Work and Cinema - Season 20 is here

Thinking Through Physical Media (w/Scott Tanner Jones)

Thinking Through British Cinema (w/Dr. Katerina Flint-Nicol

Eno (w/director Gary Hustwit)

Pat Kelman (606 Distribution & Pat's Film Club)

The Beast (w/writer-director Bertrand Bonello)

Big Wednesday (w/filmmaker Mark Jenkin)

Recent 2024 Releases (w/Dario!)

Sometimes I Think About Dying (w/director Rachel Lambert)

Professor Alison Peirse (Doing Women's Global Horror Film History)

Pouring Water on Troubled Oil (w/director Nariman Massoumi)

Your Fat Friend (w/ director Jeanie Finlay)

Our Cinematic 2023

On New Release Apathy

BONUS: Toby Amies in the Court of the Crimson King

BONUS: Prof. Neil Fox on Film Practice and Pedagogy

Film Podcasting w/ Rico Gagliano from The Mubi Podcast

Rock Hudson: All that Heaven Allowed (w/ Dir. Stephen Kijak)

Apocalypse Clown (w/Producer James Dean)

London Film Festival 2023

A Year in a Field (w/director Christopher Morris and producer Denzil Monk)

On Cinematic Pleasure

Laura Mulvey (Falmouth Film Weekend: 1978 Revisited)

Plan 75

Boys and Men in Close and Godland

Demons of the Mind: Cinema and Psychiatry in the Long 1960s

The Films of Alice Diop

Long Way Back(w/Brett and Simon Harvey)

T.L.C (Tender Loving Care for Trans-Led/Trans-Loved Cinema) w/ So Mayer and Lillian Crawford

Berlinale Dispatches Trailer

Husband (w/Josh Appignanesi and Devorah Baum)

Akira Kurosawa at the BFI (w/ Asif Kapadia and Ian Hayden Smith)

Enys Men (w/ Dir. Mark Jenkin)

2022 Review (w/critic Clarisse Loughrey)

Blood Simple (w/ Producer James Dean)

Film Curation (Beyond Interpretation w/Chris Cassingham)

Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time 2022 (Part 2)

Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time 2022 (Part 1)

Irma Vep (w/ Dr Catherine Wheatley)

Censor (w/ Sarah Cleaver)

London Film Festival - Part 2

London Film Festival - Part 1

Licence to Queer (w/ David Lowbridge-Ellis)

Jonah who will be 25 in the Year 2000 (w/ Caroline Catz and James Dean)

Cape Fear (live @TheGardenCinema)

Top Gun: Maverick; Hustle; Lingui, The Sacred Bonds (and more)

Cannes 2022

Hannah Strong on Sofia Coppola

Nightmare Alley, The Northman and more

Boiling Point (w/dir. Philip Barantini)

Tyler Taormina (Ham on Rye, Happer’s Comet)

Cherish Oteka & The Black Cop

Bill Douglas Cinema Museum

Michel Chion, in Conversation (Part 2)

Michel Chion, in conversation (Part 1)

(Repost) Ep106 Peter Bogdanovich (from Sept 2020)

2021 review

Jodorowsky‘s Dune (w/ director Frank Pavich)

Raising Films and Recent Films (w/So Mayer)

Dr Alison Peirse - Women Make Horror

London Film Festival 2021: Part 2

London Film Festival 2021: Part 1

Independent Magazines

Rose Plays Julie (w/Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor)

Season 13 Finale

Nicolas Rapold

Kala Azar (w/ dir. Janis Rafa)

Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and Legendary Tapes (w/dir. Caroline Catz)

Radio On (w/ Mark Jenkin)

Ep122 - Projections Podcast (w/Mary Wild and Sarah Cleaver)