Tag: East End

Exhibition on Screen
James McNeill Whistler

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date September 14 2026
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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

Tags 1855, 19th century, 2026, A. O. Koritskii, America, American, American South, aristocrats, Arrangement, art, Art Critic, art historian, art history, art lessons, artisan, avant-garde, backstreets, bars, birthplace, blue Japanese porcelain, bohemian, Boston, Bret Jones, British art, brushes, butterfly, Can-Can, Carol Jacobi, Charles Baudelaire, Charles Lang Freer, Chelsea, chief engineer, Coastal Survey, coastline, coin, collection, commission, common people, concert hall, Connecticut, countryside, critic, cult of personality, curator, dancer, dandy, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, David Bickerstaff, display, disreputable, draughtsmanship, draw, drawing, drawings of coastlines, East End, England, etch, etching, everyday life, exhibition, Exhibition On Screen, F.R. Leyland, fabric, falling out, family, feud, fine and applied art, Finette, France, freedom, French art, Gustave Courbet, Harmony, Henry Murger, house brushes, independent, interior, interior design, irascible, James McNeill Whistler, Japan, Japanese, Japanese porcelain, Kensington, La Vie Boheme, lecture on art, letters, life size photographs, London, Lowell, Manet, Massachusetts, military surveyor, Mme Gérard, modern life, Modernism, money and payment, monogram, moral, motif, New York, Nocturne, one good eye, ordinary, outsider, painter, painting, painting as painting, painting surfaces and palettes, panel, Paris, Patricia de Montfort, peacock, peasants, Phil Grabsky, poet, Pomfret, porcelain, Pre-Raphaelite, printmaker, printmaking, prostitutes, provocateur, Rachel Campbell-Johnston, railway construction, railway engineer, railways, Rembrandt, responsible male, river, river bridges, river painting, River Thames, Rotherhithe, rural and urban, Russia, Salon d’Exposition, self-portrait with a pipe, self-promotion, self-publishing, shelving, ships, smoking a cigarette, Southerner, Spanish wall coverings, St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg to Moscow, Stephen Calloway, sting in the tail, story, struggling artist, studies, subject, surveyor, Susan Grace Galassi, Symphony, Tate Britain, temper, Thames, The Frick Collection, The Peacock Room, UK, upbringing, urban, Velázquez, Victorian, Wapping, West Point Military Academy, Whistler, Whistler’s mother, workmen

Features Live Action Movies

No Trees in the Street

Director – J. Lee Thompson – 1959 – UK – Cert. 12 – 96m

****

An essentially honest young woman living in her parents’ East End slum fails to stop her impetuous younger brother from becoming involved in the criminal underworld – one of two J. Lee Thompson movies out on UK Blu-ray, DVD and Digital

Framed by a contemporary story of plain clothes policeman Frank (Ronald Howard) trying to talk sense into a knife-carrying teenager (David Hemmings), this takes place in the East End street where the latter lives some 20 years previously. The name has changed: back then, Somerset Street was known as Kennedy Street. The policeman, who is local, has always worked this beat. 20 years ago, he was trying to prevent another young man from drifting into a life of crime.

That other young man is Tommy (Melvyn Hayes), who lives with his father, mother and older sister Hetty (Sylvia Syms) in fairly basic accommodation. It’s a poor area and honest work is hard to come by. Both brother and sister would like to find a way out, into a better life. Both have less than honest ways of doing so, in the form of local ‘businessman’ Wilkie (Herbert Lom).… Read the rest

Tags 1950s, a better life, abusive, accommodation, aerial photography, attraction, British, businessman, Carole Lesley, character study, crime, criminal, David Hemmings, East End, Elstree Studios, first starring role, French New Wave, gangland girl, good girl, Herbert Lom, honest, housing, J. Lee Thompson, Joan Miller, job, Kennedy Street, kitchen sink realism, knife, Lana Morris, Lee-Thompson Godwin/Willis, Liam Redmond, living at home, London, Melvyn Hayes, music hall, object of affection, older sister, on the beat, performer, plain clothes policeman, police beat, policeman, poor, poverty, pragmatism, production company, quirky characters, romantic interest, Ronald Howard, roots, screenplay, set, siblings, slum, smooth operator, Somerset Street, Stanley Holloway, stealing, straight and narrow, Sylvia Syms, Ted Willis, teenager, theatre, torment, troubled youth, UK, underworld, unemployment, unloading a van, unrequited love, waste ground, young offenders, young woman, younger brother

Animation Documentary Features Live Action Movies Music

White Riot

Director – Rubika Shah – 2019 – UK – Cert. 15 – 80m

***1/2

Documentary charts the rise of the UK’s Rock Against Racism movement of the late 1970s and features among others The Clash, Steel Pulse and Tom Robinson – in cinemas and on BFI Player and Curzon Home Cinema from Friday, September 18th

Curiously prescient for our own time, the late nineteen seventies saw the rise of the far right movement in Britain characterised by the National Front and its desire to send all non-white British residents “back where they came from”. One of the other things that happened at that time in the UK was in the seemingly unrelated area of music: punk rock. Something clicked for photographer Red Saunders when the NME dispatched him to shoot Punk Night at London’s ICA venue. He saw an immediacy and an energy to what was going on, with bands the The Clash singing about social issues such as unemployment.

Fuelled by some ill-advised, vaguely Teutonic sentiments from David Bowie and, more specifically, a gig where guitarist Eric Clapton encouraged people to go and vote for racist MP Enoch Powell and everything he represented, Saunders set up the Rock Against Racism (RAR) movement to bring together youth from the UK’s various different ethnic backgrounds.… Read the rest

Tags activism, East End, fanzine, far right, live action animation composite, London, politics, popular culture, punk, Punk Rock, racism, reggae, Trafalgar Square, UK, Victoria Park

Features Live Action Movies

Rocks

Director – Sarah Gavron – 2019 – UK – Cert. 12 – 93m

****

A 15-year-old, East End London schoolgirl must look after her seven-year-old brother when their mother abandons them – in cinemas from Friday, September 18th

From its opening, in which a bunch of ethnically diverse, 15-year-old girls from Hackney in London’s East End clown around together, lean on a balcony and film each other on a mobile phone, it’s clear that this is something very different. It’s been made with a young, mostly female cast many of whom have little or no acting experience via intensive workshopping and improvisation. Thrown into this mix somewhere along the process a highly personal script outline has emerged from Theresa Ikoko, one of two writers involved in the lengthy development process, which seems a perfect fit for the young cast.

Although the story source was Ikoko, I’m guessing that the input of co-writer Claire Wilson is just as significant. And while I believe you can never underestimate the importance of a good script which lays the foundations of a production, in this particular instance many other collaborators both behind and in front of the cameras have also contributed a great deal, with director Gavron and her producers holding it all together.… Read the rest

Tags abandonment, collaboration, East End, ethnic diversity, girls, Hackney, home, improvisation, London, school, sleepover, social services, survival, theft, UK, women