Tag: Royal College of Art

Squaring The Circle:
(The Story Of
Hipgnosis)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 10 July 2023
No Comments on Squaring The Circle:
(The Story Of
Hipgnosis)
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Director – Anton Corbijn – 2022 – UK – Cert. – 101m

*****

The story of the visual creatives behind album sleeves, for Pink Floyd and others, who revolutionised the field from the late 1960s and through the 1970s – now out on Blu-ray/DVD combo and various streaming services plus BFI Player following its release in cinemas in the UK and Ireland on Friday, July 14th

Everyone who bought LP records from the late 1960s through to the very end of the 1970s knows the name Hipgnosis. As one interviewee points out, you would go in to the centre of your town to buy the latest album and mull over all the written information on the sleeve on the bus coming home to find out who played on it and who was responsible for the cover. Many of the most memorable sleeves were designed by Hipgnosis, the name coming from ‘hip’, meaning ‘cool’, and ‘gnosis’ meaning ‘secret wisdom’.

Director Corbijn made his name in black and white photography and album sleeves for such bands as U2 and Depeche Mode in the 1980s, so has a background in the album cover world in a later decade. He is therefore extremely well placed to tackle the subject and chooses to film many of his interviewees in trademark black and white.… Read the rest

Tags 10cc, 1960s, 1970s, 6 Denmark Street, A Saucerful Of Secrets, album, album sleeve, animals, anti-establishment, Anton Corbijn, art, artist, Atom Heart Mother, Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell, bankrupt, bankruptcy, Battersea Power Station, Beatles, boring, burning man, Cambridge, camera, Coil, cow, darkroom, David Gilmour, drugs, Elegy, Emerson, fire, Genesis, giant pig, Giant’s Causeway, Graham Gouldman, hand-coloured photograph, Hipgnosis, Houses Of The Holy, Humphrey Ocean Roger Dean, iconic, illustration, Ireland, Jill Furmanovsky, Jimmy Page, Keith Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Led Zeppelin, Legerton Court, light, London, LP, LP sleeve, LSD, manager, monolith, music video, Nick Mason, Noel Gallagher, Paul McCartney, Peter Christopherson, Peter Gabriel, Peter Grant, photographer, photography, Pink Floyd, presence, prism, record, record sleeve, red balls, refraction, Repulsion, Rick Wright, Robert Plant, Roger Waters, Roman Polanski, Royal College of Art, South Kensington, space rock, statue, Storm Thorgerson, stuntman, The Dark Side Of The Moon, The Nice, The Original Soundtrack, Throbbing Gristle, throwaway, Tottenham Court Road, UK, Wings Greatest, Wish You Were Here

Art Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Eric Ravilious:
Drawn To War

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 26 June 2022
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Drawn To War
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Director – Margy Kinmonth – 2022 – UK – Cert. PG – 87m

***1/2

The career of the British watercolour artist tragically killed while serving as an official war artist in World War Two – now available to watch online following UK cinema release on Friday, July 1st 2022

The first official war artist to be commissioned in World War Two, Eric Ravilious was on an aircraft which set out from Iceland in 1942 and never came back. There is no exact record of what took place, covered by the phrase “missing in action”, but in all likelihood the plane went down in the sea. Kinmonth finds simple images to convey the incident, which appears in both her opening introduction to Ravilious’ life and her closing reel representing his passing – a warplane descending, our viewpoint falling towards the surface of the sea, an indistinct body moving in water filled with bubbles. At the end, the cold blue of the water contrasts with the gentler, rural green of the family house and surroundings back home.

After his death, Ravilious’ art was largely ignored. Alan Bennett, an admirer of the artist’s work, puts this down to the work’s cheerful and unthreatening nature and a prevailing view that art should grapple with dark and foreboding subject matter.… Read the rest

Tags 1920s, 1930s, 1939, 1940s, 1942, a modest living, active service, Acton, Ai Weiwei, aircraft, Alan Bennett, artist, censor, coast, coastal defences, cramped interior, danger, destroyer, drawing, Eastbourne College of Art, Edward Bawden, enemy aircraft, Eric Ravilious, Essex, exhibition, Freddie Fox, Great Bardfield, Great Bardfield Artists, Greyson Perry, Harriet Walter, Henry Moore, HMS Dolphin, HMS Highlander, husbands and wives, Iceland, Jeremy Irons, Kenneth Clark, landscape, London, lost at sea, magnetic mine, Margy Kinmonth, Ministry of Information, Ministry of Information censor, missing in action, MOI, MOI censor, Morley College, Newhaven, official war artist, painting, Paul Nash, public exhibition, RAF, RCA, RN, Robert McFarlane, Royal Air Force, Royal College of Art, Royal Navy, Royal Observer Corps, Second World War, Society of Wood Engravers, student friend, submarine, submarine base, Tamsin Greig, Tirzah Garwood, Tush, UK, uncertainty, underwater, unsuitable for public exhibition, war, war artist, warplane, watercolour, World War 2, World War II, World War Two, WW2

Features Live Action Movies

Ridley, Ripley,
Thelma & Louise

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 20 August 1991
No Comments on Ridley, Ripley,
Thelma & Louise

Alien

Director – Ridley Scott – 1979 – US – X – 116 mins 35 secs

*****

Blade Runner

Director – Ridley Scott – 1982 – US – AA – 117 mins 04 secs

*****

Thelma & Louise

Director – Ridley Scott – 1991 – US – 15 – 129 mins 22 secs

*****

At the end of Alien, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), having defeated the monster, strips down to her underwear only to discover that she hasn’t defeated it at all and it’s still in the space shuttle with her in the archetypal Hollywood false ending of recent years. It begged the question, why did Ripley remove her clothing at this point if not for the obvious gratification of the male members of the audience (and, one should add, the accompanying box office returns)?

At the end of Thelma & Louise, the eponymous heroines (Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon respectively), on the run after the former’s rapist has been murdered after the event by the latter, find themselves trapped between the Grand Canyon’s gaping precipice on one side of them and massed hordes of police marksmen, ready to open fire if they don’t surrender, on the other. No pandering to male voyeurism here.… Read the rest