Parlez Francais? Cahier's Article On English Films - Britmovie

Clinton Morgan · 22-06-2005, 12:40 PM

On-line edition edited by Martin Scorsese features an article on English Cinema. You have to be able to speak French and sadly I don't.

http://www.archives-cahiersducinema.com/cdc-n-500.htm

Gibbie · 22-06-2005, 08:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Clinton Morgan@Jun 22 2005, 12:40 PM
On-line edition edited by Martin Scorsese features an article on English Cinema. You have to be able to speak French and sadly I don't.

http://www.archives-cahiersducinema.com/cdc-n-500.htm
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

Essentially, he speaks of his regard for British cinema. He goes on about Powell and Pressburger which Steve will appreciate.
http://www.archives-cahiersducinema.com/pd..._page_52-55.pdf

Wetherby Pond · 22-06-2005, 11:01 PM

Cahiers not only ran a massive feature on Peter Watkins a few months ago, they even put him on the front cover - and not in the small print: slap bang in the middle.

What are the chances of that happening over here?

And if your reaction was "Peter who?", that's proved my point, and probably theirs!

alan gowdy · 23-06-2005, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Clinton Morgan@Jun 22 2005, 12:40 PM
On-line edition edited by Martin Scorsese features an article on English Cinema. You have to be able to speak French and sadly I don't.

http://www.archives-cahiersducinema.com/cdc-n-500.htm
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

Does the 'babelfish' website still do translations on-line?

Clinton Morgan · 23-06-2005, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Wetherby Pond@Jun 22 2005, 11:01 PM
What are the chances of that happening over here?

Goes to Internet Movie Database and types Peter Watkins. But before he does that he replies to Wetherby Pond with...

I know. During the release of The Chaplin Collection DVDs 'Sight and Sound' should have put the tramp on the cover with a blanket around him as opposed to Quentin Tarantino trying to look 'cool' in a leather jacket.

But we're *trying* to sell magazines! Iiiiit's a business!

Oh fornicate off!

Steve Crook · 23-06-2005, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by alan gowdy@Jun 23 2005, 04:13 PM
Does the 'babelfish' website still do translations on-line?
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

Yes, at Babelfish, as do a few others. I generally use Google language tools although Babelfish does offer the translation of a complete web page.

The trouble is that these Cahiers du Cinema archives are in PDF files and it doesn't translate those.

Steve

sanndevil · 24-06-2005, 07:36 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Steve Crook@Jun 23 2005, 06:35 PM
Yes, at Babelfish, as do a few others. I generally use Google language tools although Babelfish does offer the translation of a complete web page.

The trouble is that these Cahiers du Cinema archives are in PDF files and it doesn't translate those.

Steve
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

Under normal circumstances the text of a pdf can be selected, then copied and pasted into Babelfish. In this instance it can't because the pdf's pages are actually image scans of the physical magazine. They need to be stuck through some OCR software first. If I get some time today, I'll give it a whirl. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsup.gif[/img]

sanndevil · 24-06-2005, 02:57 PM

Ok folks - Armed with my O Level French and Babelfish transalation, I have had q stab at transaltion. A couple of sentences were just beyond my ken - I hadn't a clue what Marty was trying to say. Suffice to say I take no responsibility for getting the wrong end of the stick!

<span style="color

urple">ABOUT ENGLISH CINEMA

The English cinema always had a specific importance to me. It all started from elements as fundamental as light or the design used for the titles and the credits which associated the writing, the actors and the setting of the scene, and gave me a new vision, and another way of looking at the world.

English Cinema is particularly dear to me. It exerted a great influence on my early years and on my oevre. My first memory of an English film was in 1948 when my father bought our first television set – many British films were broadcast in the last forties and the early fifties. I watched some films many times over. In fact, my cinematographic culture consisted of British films and of course American, without forgetting some neo-realist Italian films which I discovered at the end of the Forties.

But English cinema always had for me a specific importance – this started from fundamental elements such as the use of light or the calligraphy used in the titles and credits which was brilliant in the Powell-Pressberger THE RED SHOES, and the writing, the acting and the mise-en-scene which gave me a new vision, another way of looking at the World. Later, at Film School I started to study English films in a much more systematic way; the films of Carol Reed and David Lean. Then, in the sixties and seventies the British Film Institute started to restore the feature films of Powell and Pressberger, and some aspects of these films began to appear in the films I made. Some examples: the use of the narrative voice-over - with its humour and its understatements – can be found in a short film which I made at the New York University IT’S NOT JUST YOU, MURRAY (1965), and which in turn was used in another of my films 25 years later – GOODFELLAS, and then with THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. When I think about it, the understated humour in the voice-over is directly inspired by a very beautiful film, KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS directed in the forties by Robert Hamer. There is a fabulous sequence in THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (Powell-Pressberger) where Roger Livesey and Anton Walbrook prepare for a duel – when they cross swords, the camera moves through the sunbeams – the actual dual is not as important to the director as the preparation. It is even-handed, because after the dual Roger Livesey and Anton Walbrook become friends. That particular scene inspired a scene in RAGING BULL- when Jake La Motta enters the boxing ring there is a long pan using a steadicam.

Later, in the sixties, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Albert Finney looks at himself in the mirror and says, “What Am I”? – this scene directly inspired the pre-credits sequence in MEAN STREETS when Harvey Keitel awakes from a nightmare and thinks exactly the same thing. There is also the anti-hero of THIS SPORTING LIFE by Lindsay Anderson which is the precursor to RAGING BULL. In a more general way, the techniques used in TOM JONES proved very liberating and like the pictures of the New Wave, they released us students of film in the 60s from the structure of traditional narrative flow. But the most important impact of English cinema, and one of my first cinematography experiments, I return to a film called THE MAGIC BOX. THE MAGIC BOX, directed by John Boulting and produced by Ronald Neame (who was also a big film director too – THE HORSES MOUTH, TUNES OF GLORY and many others) is as far as I know, the only film about the invention of cinema. It was also the contribution of the English Cinematography Industry to the festival of Britain in 1951, which coincided with the 50th anniversary of British cinema. The discovery of this film for me was extraordinary: I was ten years old, my father had taken me to see it at the Academy of Music in New York in 1953. The film told the story of the British Inventor William Friese-Greene, one of the ignored pioneers of the motion camera. It was a revelation! There is a scene where Friese-Greene explains the concept of retinal persistence is explained – and this is the essence of cinema! He describes it to his girlfriend while quickly making some outline drawings in the margin of a book – all these images are separated, static, but when you flick them quickly they move miraculously! It was the first time I understood films. Films, for a ten year old kid, had captivated since I had memories, and suddenly I understood how you could make them. Since then, nothing has been the same. But this film also showed the life of Friese-Greene and showed the suffering of a man whilst inventing an incredible machine which was going to open up new horizons with the spirit and heart of humanity, and left an indelible mark on me. It was crucial that my father took me to see this film, and it represented the origin of my vocation. My father could not be called a scholar – there were no books in the house; he was a printer but he adored the cinema. This doesn’t stop me wondering why he took me to see THE MAGIC BOX. I was asthmatic but that didn’t stop my parents taking me to the cinema – I like Westerns and I was often invited to see double-bills where the second feature was the western. The top billed films – like SUNSET BOULEVARD and THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL were for adults but I got to see them at the same time. But THE MAGIC BOX; I did some research fifteen days ago to see what was playing at the Academy of Music at the same time – it was SECRET FLIGHT, another British film, directed by Peter Ustinov – I thus found it particularly moving that my father – a workman – would have wanted to see a film about the birth of cinema. This makes me think of the universality of cinema and its capacity to cross borders of all kinds and to address itself to everyone on the planet. It goes without saying that it impossible to underestimate the impact this medium has upon me. I never stop thinking about film. Finally, what do I find so astonishing? Is it the beautiful colours? His style? Was it the battle to discover the techniques which make it possible to make films? Was it the history of this man, or the fights of the Friese-Greene family? Or was it the actor, Robert Donat, because I had seen THE GHOST GOES WEST many times on television and had adored it. Perhaps it was a little of all those things. Because if you put everything back together you end up recomposing the obsession of Friese-Greene. It is an obsession which, since then, I have made mine. It is the same amazement that I discovered when watching the retinal persistence scene in THE MAGIC BOX. And I must acknowledge that the amazement I felt then, I still feel today in the cutting room with Thelma as I watch the images unravel. It is nevertheless incredible. Let me explain – you take two film ends, one moves, the other moves, and when they are stuck together, you get a totally different thing. The cut creates another type of movement. It is a movement for the eye of the spirit. But, this is a collective spirit, insofar the audience shares the experience, an emotion, a memory. Finally, it is a communion, one moment of the spirit. I have always thought that the film represents the answer to an old question that humanity has posed: the desire to share a common memory, a heritage. For that reason, cinema is a universal art. The capacity of what Friese-Greene contributed to invent is so immense that is not surprising that this invention is so obsessed about. It has a kind of respect bound by its own creation. It has found the key to an alternative reality, another level of human experience. We enter the second century of cinema and English cinema remains my major reference, the films of Two Cities of Del Guidice, with London Films of Korda, Rank, Ealing, and additionally Gainsborough, Hammee, Woodfall, Goldcrest, Handmade of course without forgetting The Archers productions of Powell and Pressberger. The tradition of British cinema is such that it never stops being renewed, tradition is its foundation upon which one can build and rebuild. </span>

Hope that makes at least a little sense!

Clinton Morgan · 24-06-2005, 05:01 PM

It does make sense (just about) and it makes my mouth water for Martin Scorsese's documentary on British Cinema.

Though they'll probably show it on BBC 4 as they did with his documentary on Italian Cinema when, really, they should show it on BBC1 Sunday nights after 'Star Portraits With Rolf Harris'.

Steve Crook · 25-06-2005, 12:55 AM

Many thanks Sanndevil, a fine piece of work.

Scorsese does often mention his debt to and the influences he takes from British films. Thelma Schoonmaker-Powell (Scorsese's editor & Powell's widow) once gave a great talk at Canterbury where she gave a lot of examples of how Scorsese takes and uses those influences.

Thelma made the point that Scorsese never just COPIED any scene but that a LOT of them had major influences on him. Marty would watch the P&P (& other British films) films, inwardly digest and consider the scenes and then produce his own scenes in his own way - but he gladly acknowledges the influence that P&P in general and certain P&P scenes in particular had on him & his films.

See the full list of those influences on the PaPAS site.

Steve

Gibbie · 25-06-2005, 02:59 PM

Yes, thanks SD.

Interesting Britmovie note:

"There is also the anti-hero of THIS SPORTING LIFE by Lindsay Anderson which is the precursor to RAGING BULL."

24-06-2005, 02:57 PM	#8
sanndevil has no status. Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Streatham SW2 Posts: 387 Country: iTrader: (0)	Ok folks - Armed with my O Level French and Babelfish transalation, I have had q stab at transaltion. A couple of sentences were just beyond my ken - I hadn't a clue what Marty was trying to say. Suffice to say I take no responsibility for getting the wrong end of the stick! <span style="colorurple">ABOUT ENGLISH CINEMA The English cinema always had a specific importance to me. It all started from elements as fundamental as light or the design used for the titles and the credits which associated the writing, the actors and the setting of the scene, and gave me a new vision, and another way of looking at the world. English Cinema is particularly dear to me. It exerted a great influence on my early years and on my oevre. My first memory of an English film was in 1948 when my father bought our first television set – many British films were broadcast in the last forties and the early fifties. I watched some films many times over. In fact, my cinematographic culture consisted of British films and of course American, without forgetting some neo-realist Italian films which I discovered at the end of the Forties. But English cinema always had for me a specific importance – this started from fundamental elements such as the use of light or the calligraphy used in the titles and credits which was brilliant in the Powell-Pressberger THE RED SHOES, and the writing, the acting and the mise-en-scene which gave me a new vision, another way of looking at the World. Later, at Film School I started to study English films in a much more systematic way; the films of Carol Reed and David Lean. Then, in the sixties and seventies the British Film Institute started to restore the feature films of Powell and Pressberger, and some aspects of these films began to appear in the films I made. Some examples: the use of the narrative voice-over - with its humour and its understatements – can be found in a short film which I made at the New York University IT’S NOT JUST YOU, MURRAY (1965), and which in turn was used in another of my films 25 years later – GOODFELLAS, and then with THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. When I think about it, the understated humour in the voice-over is directly inspired by a very beautiful film, KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS directed in the forties by Robert Hamer. There is a fabulous sequence in THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (Powell-Pressberger) where Roger Livesey and Anton Walbrook prepare for a duel – when they cross swords, the camera moves through the sunbeams – the actual dual is not as important to the director as the preparation. It is even-handed, because after the dual Roger Livesey and Anton Walbrook become friends. That particular scene inspired a scene in RAGING BULL- when Jake La Motta enters the boxing ring there is a long pan using a steadicam. Later, in the sixties, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Albert Finney looks at himself in the mirror and says, “What Am I”? – this scene directly inspired the pre-credits sequence in MEAN STREETS when Harvey Keitel awakes from a nightmare and thinks exactly the same thing. There is also the anti-hero of THIS SPORTING LIFE by Lindsay Anderson which is the precursor to RAGING BULL. In a more general way, the techniques used in TOM JONES proved very liberating and like the pictures of the New Wave, they released us students of film in the 60s from the structure of traditional narrative flow. But the most important impact of English cinema, and one of my first cinematography experiments, I return to a film called THE MAGIC BOX. THE MAGIC BOX, directed by John Boulting and produced by Ronald Neame (who was also a big film director too – THE HORSES MOUTH, TUNES OF GLORY and many others) is as far as I know, the only film about the invention of cinema. It was also the contribution of the English Cinematography Industry to the festival of Britain in 1951, which coincided with the 50th anniversary of British cinema. The discovery of this film for me was extraordinary: I was ten years old, my father had taken me to see it at the Academy of Music in New York in 1953. The film told the story of the British Inventor William Friese-Greene, one of the ignored pioneers of the motion camera. It was a revelation! There is a scene where Friese-Greene explains the concept of retinal persistence is explained – and this is the essence of cinema! He describes it to his girlfriend while quickly making some outline drawings in the margin of a book – all these images are separated, static, but when you flick them quickly they move miraculously! It was the first time I understood films. Films, for a ten year old kid, had captivated since I had memories, and suddenly I understood how you could make them. Since then, nothing has been the same. But this film also showed the life of Friese-Greene and showed the suffering of a man whilst inventing an incredible machine which was going to open up new horizons with the spirit and heart of humanity, and left an indelible mark on me. It was crucial that my father took me to see this film, and it represented the origin of my vocation. My father could not be called a scholar – there were no books in the house; he was a printer but he adored the cinema. This doesn’t stop me wondering why he took me to see THE MAGIC BOX. I was asthmatic but that didn’t stop my parents taking me to the cinema – I like Westerns and I was often invited to see double-bills where the second feature was the western. The top billed films – like SUNSET BOULEVARD and THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL were for adults but I got to see them at the same time. But THE MAGIC BOX; I did some research fifteen days ago to see what was playing at the Academy of Music at the same time – it was SECRET FLIGHT, another British film, directed by Peter Ustinov – I thus found it particularly moving that my father – a workman – would have wanted to see a film about the birth of cinema. This makes me think of the universality of cinema and its capacity to cross borders of all kinds and to address itself to everyone on the planet. It goes without saying that it impossible to underestimate the impact this medium has upon me. I never stop thinking about film. Finally, what do I find so astonishing? Is it the beautiful colours? His style? Was it the battle to discover the techniques which make it possible to make films? Was it the history of this man, or the fights of the Friese-Greene family? Or was it the actor, Robert Donat, because I had seen THE GHOST GOES WEST many times on television and had adored it. Perhaps it was a little of all those things. Because if you put everything back together you end up recomposing the obsession of Friese-Greene. It is an obsession which, since then, I have made mine. It is the same amazement that I discovered when watching the retinal persistence scene in THE MAGIC BOX. And I must acknowledge that the amazement I felt then, I still feel today in the cutting room with Thelma as I watch the images unravel. It is nevertheless incredible. Let me explain – you take two film ends, one moves, the other moves, and when they are stuck together, you get a totally different thing. The cut creates another type of movement. It is a movement for the eye of the spirit. But, this is a collective spirit, insofar the audience shares the experience, an emotion, a memory. Finally, it is a communion, one moment of the spirit. I have always thought that the film represents the answer to an old question that humanity has posed: the desire to share a common memory, a heritage. For that reason, cinema is a universal art. The capacity of what Friese-Greene contributed to invent is so immense that is not surprising that this invention is so obsessed about. It has a kind of respect bound by its own creation. It has found the key to an alternative reality, another level of human experience. We enter the second century of cinema and English cinema remains my major reference, the films of Two Cities of Del Guidice, with London Films of Korda, Rank, Ealing, and additionally Gainsborough, Hammee, Woodfall, Goldcrest, Handmade of course without forgetting The Archers productions of Powell and Pressberger. The tradition of British cinema is such that it never stops being renewed, tradition is its foundation upon which one can build and rebuild. </span> Hope that makes at least a little sense!

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22-06-2005, 12:40 PM	#1
Clinton Morgan has no status. Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 158 iTrader: (0)	On-line edition edited by Martin Scorsese features an article on English Cinema. You have to be able to speak French and sadly I don't. http://www.archives-cahiersducinema.com/cdc-n-500.htm

22-06-2005, 11:01 PM	#3
Wetherby Pond has no status. Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 227 iTrader: (0)	Cahiers not only ran a massive feature on Peter Watkins a few months ago, they even put him on the front cover - and not in the small print: slap bang in the middle. What are the chances of that happening over here? And if your reaction was "Peter who?", that's proved my point, and probably theirs!

24-06-2005, 05:01 PM	#9
Clinton Morgan has no status. Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 158 iTrader: (0)	It does make sense (just about) and it makes my mouth water for Martin Scorsese's documentary on British Cinema. Though they'll probably show it on BBC 4 as they did with his documentary on Italian Cinema when, really, they should show it on BBC1 Sunday nights after 'Star Portraits With Rolf Harris'.

25-06-2005, 12:55 AM	#10
Steve Crook is still cheeky Moderator Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: London Posts: 9,647 My Mood: Country: iTrader: (1)	Many thanks Sanndevil, a fine piece of work. Scorsese does often mention his debt to and the influences he takes from British films. Thelma Schoonmaker-Powell (Scorsese's editor & Powell's widow) once gave a great talk at Canterbury where she gave a lot of examples of how Scorsese takes and uses those influences. Thelma made the point that Scorsese never just COPIED any scene but that a LOT of them had major influences on him. Marty would watch the P&P (& other British films) films, inwardly digest and consider the scenes and then produce his own scenes in his own way - but he gladly acknowledges the influence that P&P in general and certain P&P scenes in particular had on him & his films. See the full list of those influences on the PaPAS site. Steve

25-06-2005, 02:59 PM	#11
Gibbie has no status. Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 714 iTrader: (0)	Yes, thanks SD. Interesting Britmovie note: "There is also the anti-hero of THIS SPORTING LIFE by Lindsay Anderson which is the precursor to RAGING BULL."