• About

Tim Cawkwell

~ currently publishing my poetry and verse. Blog entries on film and painting going back to 2014. My main website is www.timcawkwell.co.uk

Tim Cawkwell

Monthly Archives: January 2015

Coercive film scores

31 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Tim Cawkwell in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Adam Mars-Jones, film music, film scores, Times Literary Supplement

The Times Lit Supplement (23 January 2015) has a review by Adam Mars-Jones of Foxcatcher and Whiplash, headlined on the front cover as ‘Coercive film scores’. In the review he writes of his current discontent “where the eye’s priorities are routinely overruled by the ear’s and audiences are no longer able – or no longer trusted – to respond to visual story-telling without emotionally explicit music.” Right on, Adam. I wrote a letter to the TLS in support. Here it is: 

“Sir, – Not for the first time in your pages, Adam Mars-Jones carries the banner to denounce the hyperbolic use of music in films, or in your apt headline, ‘coercive’ (23 January). I’m in solidarity with him. And not just films but television where even ordinary documentaries are waterboarded in music.

We should be carrying the campaign a step further: DVDs should offer the option of watching a film without the film score; in a digital age TV programmes could provide us with the option of watching them without music. I’m holding my breath.”

Bresson & Melville: two halves of a sphere

16 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by Tim Cawkwell in Pascalian cinema, War

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Army of Shadows, Bresson, Jean-Pierre Melville, Man Escaped, Pascal

From c.5 of THE NEW FILMGOER’S GUIDE TO GOD:

“The solitary gangster struggles against the walls he erects around himself. For prisoners of war, on the other hand, incarceration is not of their making, and they have committed no wrong except that of being on the side of the vanquished. For the existentialists of mid-twentieth-century Europe it was the public oppression of Nazi Occupation, felt keenly everywhere, which led to the cogent articulation, especially in France, of a philosophical response. Hence a pessimism incubated during the war grew after it into intellectual doubt about human freedom, and gave enormous currency to a view of the world ungoverned by God, from which the only conclusion could be that he did not exist. Both Robert Bresson, the director of Diary of a Country Priest (see chapter 1), and Jean-Pierre Melville obsessed with the American gangster film, were strongly shaped by the experience of the war. Bresson spent time in a prisoner-of-war camp in 1940-41, while Melville was evacuated to England after Dunkirk and served with the Free French forces in North Africa and Italy. When each turned to making a film about France under the Occupation, they avoided exact autobiography, but in choosing a narrative, they both made very personal films, to which they could bring some of their own experience and in which their ideas about the meaning of human existence were expressed in the purest form.”

I then write about Bresson’s Un Condamne a mort s’est echappe/ A Man Escaped and Melville’s Armee des ombres/ Army in the shadows. [Apologies to the French: accents not allowed in WordPress – shame on them.] Anyway, Bresson is Pascalian and salvific, Melville atheist and non-redemptive. They’re both terrific films, though.

Here’s Fontaine’s hands in the opening of A Man Escaped awaiting the advent of grace:

ucse 1

Epiphany

03 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Tim Cawkwell in Nativity

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Christmas, Epiphany, Messiah film, Rossellini

Now, Epiphany approacheth. So after the Pasolini version of the three kings for Christmas, here’s Rossellini’s take on it:

Rossellini Messiah 2 (300x204) Rossellini Messiah 5 (300x208) Rossellini Messiah 6 (300x206)

The images are ropey because they are taken from a VHS tape I have of Rossellini’s Messiah (dubbed into German, without subtitles – luckily I know the story). It baffles me why there isn’t a decent DVD version available. Ditto Rossellini’s Acts of the Apostles.

I write about Messiah in ‘The New Filmgoer’s Guide to God’ because I regard Rossellini as being central to its story.

Recent Posts

  • RICH MAN, POOR MAN, DEAD MAN – a Covid ode
  • VERSE EPISTLE TO Mr DOMINIC CUMMINGS . . .
  • EMPIRE – WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS
  • yearning for the sixties
  • FILM PORTRAITURE 4: Bob Fleischner Dying

Recent Comments

Sarah Cawkwell on FILM PORTRAITS 2: TACITA …
Antonioni: more De C… on Antonioni’s Metaphysical…
Tim Cawkwell on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…
Donato Totaro on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…
Tim Cawkwell on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…

Archives

  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • May 2019
  • January 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014

Categories

  • Antonioni
  • artists' film
  • avant garde
  • Bible on film
  • biopics
  • Brakhage
  • Bresson
  • British cinema
  • cinema and culture
  • cinema of hyperbole
  • costume narratives
  • courtroom dramas
  • Creation
  • crucifixion films
  • crucifixion on film
  • diary films
  • disaster movies
  • documentaries
  • Doubt
  • film noir
  • film portraiture
  • gangster films
  • God
  • Hitchcock
  • humanism
  • Ireland
  • Italian gardens
  • Italy
  • John Ford
  • Kieslowski reflection
  • Kieslowski reflections
  • literature and film
  • metaphysical film
  • monastery films
  • Nativity
  • nuns on film
  • opera and film
  • painting and photography
  • Pascalian cinema
  • Pasolini
  • poetry & verse
  • Polish history
  • predestination
  • redemption
  • resurrection
  • revivalism
  • Rohmer
  • Russian cinema
  • self-publishing
  • sewer films
  • silent cinema
  • spiritual cinema
  • surrealism
  • talkies
  • Tim's poems 2020
  • time puzzles
  • Topaz
  • travel
  • Uncategorized
  • underground film
  • War
  • White Ribbon
  • Zweite Heimat

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Recent Posts

  • RICH MAN, POOR MAN, DEAD MAN – a Covid ode
  • VERSE EPISTLE TO Mr DOMINIC CUMMINGS . . .
  • EMPIRE – WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS
  • yearning for the sixties
  • FILM PORTRAITURE 4: Bob Fleischner Dying

Recent Comments

Sarah Cawkwell on FILM PORTRAITS 2: TACITA …
Antonioni: more De C… on Antonioni’s Metaphysical…
Tim Cawkwell on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…
Donato Totaro on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…
Tim Cawkwell on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…

Archives

  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • May 2019
  • January 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014

Categories

  • Antonioni
  • artists' film
  • avant garde
  • Bible on film
  • biopics
  • Brakhage
  • Bresson
  • British cinema
  • cinema and culture
  • cinema of hyperbole
  • costume narratives
  • courtroom dramas
  • Creation
  • crucifixion films
  • crucifixion on film
  • diary films
  • disaster movies
  • documentaries
  • Doubt
  • film noir
  • film portraiture
  • gangster films
  • God
  • Hitchcock
  • humanism
  • Ireland
  • Italian gardens
  • Italy
  • John Ford
  • Kieslowski reflection
  • Kieslowski reflections
  • literature and film
  • metaphysical film
  • monastery films
  • Nativity
  • nuns on film
  • opera and film
  • painting and photography
  • Pascalian cinema
  • Pasolini
  • poetry & verse
  • Polish history
  • predestination
  • redemption
  • resurrection
  • revivalism
  • Rohmer
  • Russian cinema
  • self-publishing
  • sewer films
  • silent cinema
  • spiritual cinema
  • surrealism
  • talkies
  • Tim's poems 2020
  • time puzzles
  • Topaz
  • travel
  • Uncategorized
  • underground film
  • War
  • White Ribbon
  • Zweite Heimat

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy