1961 Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

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

The Duke

Director – Roger Michell – 2020 – UK – Cert. 12a – 96m

**1/2

A man steals Goya’s painting of The Duke Of Wellingon from the National Gallery in 1961… Based on a true story – out to rent on PVoD on Monday, April 11th

1960s Newcastle. Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) wages a one-man war against pensioners paying the licence fee. He removes the BBC coil so that the set will only play ITV. His wife Dorothy (Helen Mirren), a cleaner for the wife of a local councillor, just wants him to behave like every else and try and fit in. Seeing the nation pay £140 000 to stop Goya’s painting of The Duke Of Wellington being sold abroad, he can only think of how much better the money could be spent – how many pensioners’ TV licences it could cover, for example.

Thus, he takes a trip to London to deliver an unsolicited manuscript of a play to the BBC, then lobby both Parliament and the press (The Daily Express) about free licences. All of which endeavours meet with failure. However, a plan to steal The Duke from the National Gallery works and the painting is soon in his back bedroom, where son Jack (Fionn Whitehead from Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan, 2017) bills a false wall in the wardrobe to help him hide it. … Read the rest