American South Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Exhibition on Screen
James McNeill Whistler

Exhibition on Screen: James McNeill Whistler

Director – David Bickerstaff – 2026 – UK – Cert. U – 90m

*****

A look at the work of 19th Century painter Whistler, seen through the lens of the 2026 Tate Britain exhibition – out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, 15th September

Before watching this latest Exhibition on Screen feature, I was able to visit Tate Britain’s stunning James McNeill Whistler show, which sits very much at the film’s core. The film had the effect of making me want to go back for further visits.

Exhibition on Screen’s film opens with shots of a Victorian concert hall interior where the unseen Whistler (voice: Bret Jones) is addressing the room with his spoken lecture on art, something the film will return to towards its close. After a montage of brushes, painting surfaces and palettes, establishing shots of Tate Britain take us straight into the current Whistler show. “People sometimes think of Whistler as being based in French art, and sometimes as being based in British art,” explains Carol Jacobi, Curator of British Art 1850-1915, Tate Britain, “whereas…he was very much an independent…and very much leading the avant-garde in both those countries.”

Susan Grace Galassi, Curator Emeritas, The Frick Collection, New York, who considers Whistler one of the greatest American artists, notes that he didn’t distinguish between fine or applied art, that he was as great a painter as he was a printmaker.… Read the rest

Sinners

Director – Ryan Coogler – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 138m

*****

In 1932, a young blues guitarist finds himself out of his depth when two brothers open a juke joint which comes unexpectedly under siege from supernatural forces – plays one night only, Sunday, March 1st, 6.30pm, as part of Film Tottenham following its release in UK cinemas on Friday, April 18th 2025

It’s a strange thing, but Warner Bros., which has a reputation for tough guy movies from its hard-edged gangster movies of the 1930s, has never made a movie about the blues. If that seems something of a stretch as an assumption, humour me here. The blues came out of the hardships of the Afro-American experience – white racism and the slave trade, poverty and hardship, and there was something raw about it, much as with those early gangster movies that shaped the Studio’s identity.

The idea of Warner Bros. making a movie about the black experience and the blues (or, indeed, building an entire genre around that idea) seems so obvious that it’s a wonder the Studio never did it before. Perhaps it’s significant that Warner Bros. were the Studio that made Elvis (Baz Luhrmann, 2023), which touches on such material.… Read the rest