Tag: talent

The Piano Teacher
(La Pianiste)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 6 June 2025
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(La Pianiste)
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Director – Michael Haneke – 2001 – Austria, France – Cert. 18 – 131m

*****

A masochistic piano teacher with an abusive mother embarks on an affair with a young male student – the opening film of Complicit: A Michael Haneke Retrospective, in UK cinemas from Friday, June 6th and on BFI Player from Thursday, September 11th 2025

Warning: NSFW.

This is at once representative of Haneke’s wider body of work and very different from it.

Representative because he is one of those directors whose personal use of cinematic vocabulary has been so honed over his years of making movies that he is able to clearly and precisely articulate problematic, controversial and taboo ideas and subject matter that few directors would be able to handle without descending into exploitation or commercialism. He is a director steeped in cinema, fascinated by how the process of making a movie constructs the narrative or other viewing and listening experience, and how that is perceived and understood by audiences.

Different because although Haneke generally writes as well and directs his own films, they are mostly original pieces whereas this one is an adaptation of a book, The Piano Teacher / Die Klavierspielerin by Elfriede Jelinek.… Read the rest

Tags absent father, abusive mother, abusive relationship, adaptation, affair, Alfred Hitchcock, Anna Sigalevitch, Annie Giradot, apartment, applications procedure, arousal, auditorium, Austria, bath, bathroom, bedroom door, Benoît Magimel, blood, booth, broken glass, character study, cloakroom, Complicit: A Michael Haneke Retrospective, cruelty, cubicle, domestic arrangements, domineering mother, Elfriede Jelinek, extreme, father’s death, flat, France, frustrated, gifted, glass tumbler, handbag, harrowing, home late, human connection, Isabelle Huppert, lacerate, lavatory cubicle, letter, love, masochist, Michael Haneke, mother, mothers and children, mothers and daughters, mummy issues, music, music academy, musical studies, NSFW, overbearing, parents and daughters, perverse, physical encounter, pianist, piano keyboard, possessive, pupil's legs, razor blade, rebellion, recital, rehearsal, relationship, Schubert, Schumann, search handbag, secure the bedroom door, self harm, sex shop, sexual dysfunction, sexuality, split screen, student, Susanne Lothar, taboo, talent, teacher and pupil, teacher and student, The Piano Teacher, unfulfilled, used tissues, Vienna, wardrobe

Features Live Action Movies

The Life of Chuck

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 18 August 2025
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Director – Mike Flanagan – 2024 – US – Cert. 15 – 110m

*****

From the End of the World to the life and essence of what defines one man – remarkable Stephen King adaptation is out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, August 20th

This is an adaptation of a Stephen King novella, originally one of the four stories comprising the volume If It Bleeds, published in 2020. King is known as a horror writer, but every so often he comes up with something that defies that mould, including stories that have been turned into such films as Stand by Me (Rob Reiner, 1986), The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994) and Apt Pupil (Bryan Singer, 1998). His story The Life of Chuck is different again.

And, as is apparent from its outset, it employs a three act structure – a standard device in classic Hollywood screenwriting that makes the property the obvious basis for a film for any filmmaker savvy enough to spot that element – which the author unexpectedly flips on its head by reversing it. Inspired, in part, by that structure, Mike Flanagan’s film follows this template, starting off with a title card announcing Act 3 and then proceeding to tell its three related acts, all of which in one way of another concern defining moments in the life of a man named Charles Krantz (his dying in hospital, an episode one day in his adult life, an experience in his childhood).… Read the rest

Tags accountancy, Annalise Basso, apocalypse, Benjamin Pajak, billboards, California, career, Carl Lumbly, Charles Krantz 39 Great Years. Thanks Chuck!, childhood, Chiwetel Ejiofor, church, Cody Flanagan, conversation, cupola, dance class, dance in the kitchen, dark, drum kit, dying, end of the world, ex-wife, financially dependable, gain entrance, ghosts, grandparents and children, gridlock, grief, high school, hobby, hospital, identity, internet down, Jacob Tremblay, Karen Gillan, locked, Man made in the Image of God, Mark Hamill, maths, Matthew Lillard, Mia Sara, Mike Flanagan, night, Nobody, nurse, obsession, one day in his adult life, ordinary person, out of bounds, pace of life, padlock, parents and schoolchildren, Pornhub, power blackout, PTA meetings, residential area, reversed three act structure, rhythm, school teacher, slowing down, stained-glass windows, stars go out, Stephen King, strangers, street, sunny day, swirling red dress, talent, The Pocket Queen, three act structure, Tom Hiddleston, TV network transmission cuts out, walking to work, what defines one man, windows lights go out

Features Live Action Movies Music

Control

Director – Anton Corbijn – 2007 – UK – Cert. 15 – 122m

*****

UK release date 05/10/2007

The story of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis: his disintegrating marriage, struggles with epilepsy and eventual suicide – review originally published in Third Way magazine, September 2007

For the uninitiated, post-punk Mancunian band Joy Division formed in 1977, then achieved near immediate cult status through Tony Wilson’s Granada TV show and Factory Records label. The four-piece band grew out of a three-piece (guitar, bass, drums) who Ian Curtis (Sam Riley from Widow Clicquot, Thomas Napper, 2023; Firebrand, Karim Ainouz, 2023; Byzantium, Neil Jordan, 2012) joined as singer and songwriter. The resultant recordings still resonate down the annals of rock: even today, songs such as (to name but three) Transmission, the eponymous She’s Lost Control and Love Will Tear Us Apart carry an undeniable charge.

Curtis took his life in May 1980 just prior to the band’s first scheduled American tour. His three survivors carried on under the moniker New Order to become incredibly successful; yet to this writer’s mind, their work pales beside those early Curtis / Joy Division songs. Quite simply, his work with the band has a focus, a power and a bleakness rare in rock.… Read the rest

Tags 1977, 1980, adultery, affair, American tour, Annik Honoré, Anton Corbijn, band, bass, Belgian, biography, black and white, bleakness, ceiling airer, church, cult status, cultural icon, death, Deborah Curtis, destruction, drama, drums, epilepsy, extra-martial affair, Factory Records, focus, four-piece, Granada TV, guitar, hanging, health issues, husbands and wives, Ian Curtis, journalist, Joy Division, lead singer, loner, Love Will Tear Us Apart, Manchester, Mancunian band, marriage, marriage issues, May 1980, new order, ominous, post-punk, power, punctuation, recording session, repeating double aerosol can squirt, rock music, rock photographer, Sam Morton, Sam Riley, She’s Lost Control, singer, solemnising the marriage, songwriter. Recordings, struggle, suicide, survivors, talent, three-piece, Tony Wilson, torment, Touching From A Distance, Transmission, U2, UK, unable to cope, wife

Features Live Action Movies Music

A Complete Unknown

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 16 January 2025
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Director – James Mangold – 2024 – US – Cert. 15 – 141m

*****

A feature narrative recreation of Bob Dylan’s career in New York up to the 1965 Newport Folk Festival gig where he switched acoustic guitar for electric – out in UK cinemas on Friday, January 17th

1961. Carrying his acoustic guitar, complete unknown Bobby Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) arrives in New York trying to find the hospital where legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie is being treated for terminal illness. After some false starts, Bobby finds the place, with Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) sitting by Woody (Scoot McNairy) at his bedside. Pete welcomes him, and Woody, who can barely speak, indicates he would like to have the young man play one of his own compositions. Bobby obliges. Both men are impressed. Sensing the youth has nowhere to stay, Pete invites him to stay at his house with his Japanese-American wife Toshi (Eriko Hatsune) and their two daughters.

Pete, who recognises in Bob a powerful talent and a new, artistic voice, is deeply committed to both political activism and folk music as a vehicle for social change. One of the organisers of the annual Newport Folk Festival, he takes the young Dylan under his wing and helps him get gigs.… Read the rest

Tags “I woke up famous”, 1961, 1965, A Complete Unknown, acoustic and electric, acoustic guitar, afternoon political discussion groups, Al Kooper, album cover photographs, annual, artistic voice, backing band, bar to watch a gig, bedside, Blowin' in the Wind, Bob Dylan, Boyd Holbrook, boyfriend, catalyst, Columbia Records, composition, conservative, contract, cultural history, Edward Norton, Einstein, electric guitar, Elle Fanning, folk music, folk singer, gig, guitar, Highway 61 Revisited, hospital, immersive experience, immortality, James Mangold, Japanese-American, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Like a Rolling Stone, Monica Barbaro, New York, New York apartment, newer material, Newport Folk Festival, Newport Folk Festival 1965, nowhere to stay, old tunes, organiser, overnight celebrity, painte, Pete Seeger, political activism, popular music, pull the plug, quiet corner, reaching a wider market, recognised by fans, recording studio, recordings, rock and roll, romance, Scoot McNairy, set list, social change, standards, Sylvie Russo, talent, terminal illness, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, The Kinks, Timothée Chalamet, tipping point, Todd Haynes, unknown and celebrity, Woody Guthrie, You Really Got Me, youth, youth audience

Documentary Features Live Action Movies Music

Bill Frisell:
A Portrait

Director – Emma Franz – 2017 – US – 118m

*****

Jazz guitarist Bill Frisell is a unique talent, a shy man and an extraordinary individual about whom fellow musician turned director Franz has made a remarkable film – now on DVD, BD and VoD

This extraordinary character study of one of the most significant jazz guitarists of modern times is remarkable not only for the portrait it paints of Frisell himself but also for the noteworthy list of names it interviews in passing. The newcomer with little knowledge of who’s who in jazz could take a notebook and and acquaint themselves with a remarkable number of incredible musicians of one sort or another, from the late drummer Paul Motian through more familiar, popular stars like singer Paul Simon and guitarist Bonnie Raitt to big band orchestra leader and composer Michael Gibbs. Indeed, the latter’s 2009 concert at London’s Barbican Centre featuring Frisell bookends the film allowing Franz to close on ‘Throughout’, the first of Frisell’s self-composed tunes the guitarist ever recorded. And that’s just one reason why you should watch Bill Frisell: A Portrait.

Australian independent director Franz worked for a while as a musician herself, which means that her director’s eyes and ears are attuned to what musicians do in composition and performance as well as how their minds work.… Read the rest