Tag: fathers and sons

Benediction

Glum heroes

Benediction
Directed by Terence Davies
Certificate 12a, 137 minutes
Released 20 May

Films about poets are few; however, the director Terence Davies has now made two in a row as different as their historical subjects. The earlier A Quiet Passion (Reform, April 2017) concerns the introverted, isolated, American spinster Emily Dickinson while the current Benediction is about First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden) – a homosexual man when this sexual preference was illegal, before the word ‘gay’ was used to describe such things.

His Military Cross earned for bravery as a First World War officer drops into a stream then sinks, an image expressing Sassoon’s dissatisfaction with the way the war is being run, and the hardships endured by the troops. He writes in protest to the top brass, but instead of the court-martial and platform to speak he expects, he is diagnosed with ‘shell shock’, partly thanks to literary mentor Robbie Ross (Simon Russell-Beale). Sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh… [Read more…]

Full review published in Reform magazine.

Ennio: The Maestro
(Ennio)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 22 April 2022
No Comments on Ennio: The Maestro
(Ennio)

Director – Giuseppe Tornatore – 2021 – Italy – Cert. 15 – 156m

****

Documentary Ennio: The Maestro looks at the career of Italian film composer Ennio Morricone – out in cinemas on Friday, April 22nd

It’s difficult to know where to start with Ennio Morricone, whose career in film music covers some 70 years. Tornatore adopts the chronological approach, starting with his early life. The composer’s father was a trumpeter who pushed young Ennio to learn that same instrument, leading to entry into Rome’s Santa Cecilia Conservatory where he studied both trumpet and composition. His father had raised him with a strong work ethic – using the trumpet to feed your family – and much of his early work was as a trumpeter on movie soundtrack sessions, including Othello (Orson Welles, 1951).

His wife secured him a brief stint at TV channel RAI where she was working, but on being told that he wouldn’t be able to perform anything recorded there anywhere else, Morricone quit almost immediately. Inspired by seeing experimental composer John Cage perform live, he formed the Nuovo Consonanza Improvisation Group to experiment with what he called “traumatic sounds”. This approach would inform a number of his later soundtracks.… Read the rest

Tags ¡Queimada!, A Fistful Of Dollars, A Quiet Place In The Country, arpeggio, Brian De Palma, Bruce Springsteen, Burn!, chronology, Cinema Paradiso, Clint Eastwood, composition, conservatory, counterpoint, Dario Argento, documentarian, documentary filmmaker, Edda Dell’Orso, Elio Petri, Ennio Morricone, experimental music, fathers and sons, feed your family, For a Few Dollars More, Four Flies On Grey Velvet, gangster movie, Gillo Pontecorvo, Giuliano Montaldo, Giuseppe Tornatore, Glenn Phillips, Gunfight In The Red Sands, Hollywood, I Cannibali, Il Barattolo, improvisation, Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion, Italy, Joan Baez, John Cage, La Scorta, Legend Of 1900, Liliana Cavali, maestro, Metallica, movies, Nuovo Consonanza, Nuovo Consonanza Improvisation Group, Once Upon A Time In America, Once Upon A Time In The West, orchestra, Orson Welles, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Quentin Tarantino, RAI, RCA, recording session, Ricki Tognazzi, Roland Joffé, Rome, Sacco & Vanzetti, Salvatore Argento, Santa Cecilia Conservatory, school, Sergio Leone, soundtrack, Terrence Malick, The Bad And The Ugly, The Battle Of Algiers, The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, The Cat O’ Nine Tails, The Good, The Hateful Eight, The Hawks And The Sparrows, The Mission, The Untouchables, The Year Of The Cannibals, traumatic sounds, trumpet, tumpeter, TV, US, Western, work ethic, Yojimbo

Features Live Action Movies

The Northman

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 13 April 2022
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Sticky post

Director – Robert Eggers – 2022 – US – Cert. 15 – 136m

*****

A 10th Century Viking prince vows revenge on his father king’s killer and sees it through to death – out in cinemas on Friday, April 15th

Young Viking Prince Amleth (Oscar Novak from The Batman) is thrilled when his warrior father King Aurvandil War-Raven (Ethan Hawke) returns with a line of prisoners in two to his fortified stronghold and Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman). Father and son are devoted to each other, participating in a private ritual involving bodily sounds and consumption of an hallucinogenic liquid that causes the boy to experience a vision of his family line: a tree of life where the trunk is a spine and branches are umbilical cords attached to grown kings as the viewpoint pans up reveal the boy attached to the highest cord. He is now prepared to take over the rule of the kingdom when his father dies.

He doesn’t seem to get on quite so well with his mother, who warns him never to enter her room unannounced. At a banquet in honour of Aurvandil, his dour brother Fjölnir (Claes Bang from The Square, Ruben Östlund, 2017) takes exception to court jester Heimir the Fool (Willem Dafoe).… Read the rest

Tags ambush, Amleth, Anya Taylor-Joy, arrow, avenge, banquet, beheading, berserker, Björk), body parts, CG, CG effects, CG FX, choreography, Claes Bang, court jester, cudgel, decapitation, dismemberment, drama, dynasty, earthy, Eldar Skar, Elliott Rose, environment, Ethan Hawke, family line, farm, fathers and sons, fight choreography, five-a-side, flee, fool, gore, Gustav Lindh, hallucinogenic, hamlet, husbands and wives, interactive, jester, king, king and queen, mayhem, menstrual blood, multiple camera coverage, murder, myth, Nicole Kidman, Oscar Novak, period, period detail, prisoners, pursuit, queen, regicide, research, revenge, revenge drama, revenge tragedy, ritual, Robert Eggers, seer, Shakespeare, single take, Slav, slave, slavery, stabbing, stronghold, sword, tragedy, tree of life, umbilical cord, vengeance, violent, vision, warrior, Willem Dafoe, woodland