The Adventures of Prince Achmed

@garethkvile @rgarciafons @GCHalls thanks: it affirmed my belief that #film and #music are always at their best shared and live
— Svend Brown (@svendbr) March 1, 2015

 Svend Brown is a Vile Arts' favourite. Not only does he programme contemporary classical music that demonstrates a

sensitivity both to its populist potential and intellectual intensity, he engages with the idea of the concert as a performance. His comment on The Adventures of Prince Achmed not only correctly assesses the success of Renaud Garcia-Fons' live soundtrack to this early animation, it reveals his underlying aesthetic, which challenges simplistic ideas about what consist of 'performance'.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed is the oldest surviving animated feature film (it is just over an hour) and is a 1926 retelling of a tale from the Arabian Nights - with the story of Aladdin thrown in for good measure. While some of the representations of oriental people could be criticised for racism, the animation style, based on shadow puppetry, holds up against contemporary techniques. The story relies on the panels to explore character rather than explanatory text - except in one sequence when director Lotte Reiniger reveals a sophisticated understanding of controlling dramatic tension - and is charming and melodramatic in equal measure.

Achmed's use of the frame will be revisited in this blog - the way that it adapts shadow puppetry and self-consciously shifts perspectives throughout is fascinating and surprisingly advanced for a 1920s' production - but Garcia Fons deserves kudos for his score. 

Most musical adaptations of silent cinema are either perfunctory (Glass' effort for Dracula is a lazy disappointment) or founded in the egotism of the musicians (55Daysof Static ruined Silent Running by bursting out into expansive post-rock every time the camera observed outer-space). Garcia Fons' ensemble, with a mixture of western and eastern instrumentation (the tabla rocked the show),

was delicate and subtle, never merely illustrating the scenes but, equally, refusing to overshadow the animation. A fluid, measure composition, it added romance and humour to a film already full of beauty and inspired images.

The 'liveness' of film is a tough idea, but Brown is saying something about the film as a performance - the way that it brings together an audience, making a community. The live music adds to the theatricality, and the sense of event... and the music itself is deepened by the visuals (a trick used effectively by Godspeed You Black Emperor). Cheers, Sven. 

Glasgow Film Festival celebrates Cinema City

Glasgow Film Festival! 18 February – 1 March

In an attempt to beat the rush, here's a few comments on Glasgow Film Festival...

This year, they have divided the programme into clear strands: this makes it much easier to plan my programme, and to write about films collectively...


Glasgow Short Film Festival: 11–15 March
Scotland’s leading short film festival returns, this time in March and extended to five sublime days of screenings devoted to petite and perfectly-formed movies. Alongside a wealth of exciting new talent competing for the Bill Douglas Award for International Short Film and the Scottish Short Film Award, GSFF will stage unique events and parties in venues across the city, including a celebration of Finnish underground film and music, and a guerrilla cinema walking tour screening films in some of the city’s overlooked public spaces. The full programme will be announced in January 2015, with some special events announced in December.

Glasgow Youth Film Festival 6­­­–8 February
GYFF has a new look this year. Now one weekend-long, the festival will focus exclusively on films which look at teenage and young adult life. As the younger child-friendly films graduate into GFF’s Modern Families strand, the youth programming team (all aged 15-19) are pulling together an issue-based programme. Industry insiders (and a few starrier teen heroes) will offer masterclasses and advice to young people who want to make a career in film or TV. GYFF are also venturing into pop-up cinema this year, with a mystery closing event at a yet-to-be disclosed location as part of Glasgow’s Green Year 2015. Full programme announced early December,


New programme strands for 2015


Strewth! As Glasgow hands over the Commonwealth Games to the Gold Coast, we celebrate Australia’s home-grown film industry, from some old favourites to a showcase of the excellent new films coming up from Down Under. The duality between broad, empty outback and the increasingly sleek metropolis, ever-present racial tensions, particularly as they relate to land ownership, and jet-black humour that occasionally veers into a gritted-teeth sense of camp, are themes that run through the last three decades of Aussie cinema, and come together in the films in this strand. Ripper, mate.


Modern Families Packed with gorgeous films which have found new, imaginative ways of telling stories to and about children, and their families. The festival has been somewhat remiss in catering to younger audience members in the past: with family-friendly screenings throughout festival weekends we’re hoping to make up for that. This strand will offer a range of perspectives on the tricky business of growing up, in animation and live action: you don’t have to bring a child with you to enjoy them, either!


Nerdvana Hey, remember when Judge Dredd creator John Wagner came to GFF? When Joss Whedon charmed three cinemas’ full of loved-up fans and the gigantic signing queue outside? When comic book legend Mark Millar took on gamer icon Robert Florence in a battle of the fans, or that time the red carpet was packed with Game of Thrones cos-players out to meet the Hound? Yeah, Glasgow Film Festival’s geeky streak is at least a mile wide. Nerdvana is a new programme consolidating all of our alt-culture interests, from gaming to comics to cult film, in one handy strand.



Cinema City The culmination of our four-year Cinema City project, this strand celebrates Glasgow’s enduring relationship with the flicks. In the 1930s, the ‘cinema city’ had more cinemas per head of population than any other in the world; and now it regularly acts as a backdrop for Hollywood blockbusters. Films and events will look at both the history of cinema-going within the city and notable Glasgow-set films. The centerpiece of this strand is our Cinema City exhibition, to be held at the Mitchell Library, comprising of memorabilia, archive footage, and oral testimony from film lovers across the city, aged from 19-92, about their memories of the movies.


Pioneer GFF has been steadily gaining a reputation as the place to catch the best filmmakers of tomorrow. We’ve screened early work by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the 2014 Cannes’ Palme D’or winner for Winter Sleep, Ben Wheatley, Lena Dunham, Niels Arden Oplev (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), and Palme D’or nominees Zhangke Jia, Xavier Dolan and Asghar Faradi, to name but a few. Pioneer celebrates emerging filmmakers – directors and writers on their debut or second feature who we think might go on to do even greater things.

CineMasters Previews and premieres of new works from the biggest names in international cinema.

Here’s Looking At You, Kid On the centenary of her birth, GFF’s retrospective strand celebrates the luminous Ingrid Bergman, tracing her career through ten of her best films. Bergman is now most famous for Casablanca (1942), but she carved a singular figure throughout sexist, code-neutered Hollywood, tending to play serious, intelligent roles: career women (psychologists, Mother Superiors), political figures (revolutionaries, spies); women of honour and decency like Joan of Arc or Casablanca’s Ilsa Lund. This strand follows her from her early days in Sweden, through three Oscar wins, to the last cinema film she made before her death in 1982.

Claudia Lennear will attend the Scottish Premiere of 20 Feet From Stardom

The Glasgow Film Festival is usually good for uncovering parts of cinematic history that have been unfortunately ignored, as well as getting a first look at new films. 20 Feet from Stardom does both, kind of: it looks at the life of  the backing singers to the stars, including Claudia Lennear rumoured to be the muse for both The Rolling Stones’ Brown Sugar (1971) and David Bowie’s Lady Grinning Soul (1973). 

While the lyrics of Brown Sugar probably represent one of rock'n'roll's many low points in its attitudes towards both sex and race (Bowie's number is heavy on the objectification, too), Lennear is one of the many people who have made a mark on popular music without ever being recognised. And the GFF has got her to come along for a Q&A after the film. 

Press Release

Nominated for Best Documentary at the 2014 Academy Awards, 20 Feet From Stardom shines a spotlight on the untold true story of the backup singers behind some of the greatest musical legends of the 21st century. From award-winning director Morgan Neville, the film includes rare archival footage, a peerless soundtrack and intimate interviews with such musical legends as Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Sheryl Crow, Mick Jagger and Sting.

Glasgow Gospel Choir will be singing songs from the documentary, as well as a selection of other hit musical numbers, before the film commences on Saturday 22 February at 15.20, in Glasgow Film Theatre’s Cinema 1. 20 Feet From Stardom will be released in the UK & Ireland on 28 March.

CROSSING THE LINE AT GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL

Glasgow Film Festival... regular fixture... distinctive identity... year on year growth... strands of cinema... ah! There we are. Here's the bit I want to talk about...

Crossing the Line is the art film section of the Glasgow Film Festival - the stuff that won't really be shown in any other place around Scotland (unless Edinburgh's Cameo and Filmhouse pick them up...). It is a mixture of visual artists making film, experiments in cinematography and other good, alternative action. Let's see what the press release says...

In 2014 these unique artists take a radical look at who we are and how we live now as they reimagine the past to give it new meaning.

The innovative programme features world premieres of new commissions for GFF by Glasgow-based artist Rachel Maclean and cult author and filmmaker Chris Petit; the UK premiere of artist Ed Atkins’ surreal and disturbing programme Man of Steel; a celebration of the legacy of Margaret Tait; an examination of Scottish identity in the year of the referendum; and screenings of the latest works by visionaries Lav Diaz, Ben Rivers & Ben Russell,Mati Diop, Yervant Gianikian & Angela Ricci-Lucchi and Basma Alsharif.

Rachael Maclean has, rightly, been the darling of Glasgow's art scene for a few years now: her short films hide a profound disquiet beneath a glowing kitsch surface. Her entry in CTL  is this year's Margaret Tait Award. In the past, she has grappled with national identity, the corporate take-over of the subconscious and the mythic resonance of celebrity trivia. 

A Whole New World explores themes related to British imperial history and national identity in the anniversary year of the Battle of Bannockburn and the First World War and is “an elaborate combination of prosthetic make-up, historical costume and Union Jack-encrusted tourist tat”.

Chris Petit, best known for his classic road movie Radio On and cult novel Robinson, for a

fascinating evening of screenings and discussion around his current project the Museum of Loneliness. Founded in 2010 on the observation that modern life’s primary relationship is now with the screen, the Museum is an anti-pantheon driven by the idea of post-cinema, embracing everything from “dead TV and the vast electro-magnetic slums of audio and visual junk, to calls waiting, elevator announcements, Muzak and obsolete weather and traffic reports.” During the event Chris will premiere his new film Reverse Archeology (2014, 12m), specially  commissioned by GFF to explore the concepts behind the Museum.

Petit is one of those artists who seem to sit on the outside of the mainstream, yet get their work into well respected places. He harks back to the more anarchic artists of the 1960s and 1970s, fascinated by awkward juxtaposition and working in the margins of form and functionality. 

Since graduating from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2009 artist Ed Atkins’ rise has been stratospheric, with solo shows at Tate Britain, Chisenhale and PS1 and commissions for the Venice and Lyon Biennales. Atkins’ mastery of CGI animation, surround-sound and poetic narrative is expanding the parameters of moving image. The artist brings his Man of Steel curated programme to GFF for its UK premiere, fresh from its world premiere at the prestigious Performa biennale in New York. Exploring the use of the alter ego in artists’ films, Atkins has put together a blackly funny and unsettling selection of work by other artists punctuated by new videos in which he sings through a variety of computer-generated, motion-captured avatars. A chimpanzee, Mrs Peanut and Betty Boop will all feature.

The first collaboration between two of the most exciting artist-filmmakers currently working – Ben Rivers (Two Years at Sea) and Ben Russell (Let Each One Go Where He May) – has resulted in the mesmerising ethnographic film A Spell to Ward off the Darkness, which eschews capitalist culture to offer three extreme alternative ways of living.

A little more on this film, taken from their website.

In depth film synopsis can be read as follows (via MUBI):

“A SPELL follows an unnamed character through three seemingly disparate moments in his life. With

little explanation, we join him in the midst of a 15-person collective on a small Estonian island; in isolation in the majestic wilderness of Northern Finland; and during a concert as the singer and guitarist of a black metal band in Norway.

Marked by loneliness, ecstatic beauty and an optimism of the darkest sort, A SPELL is a radical proposition for the existence of utopia in the present.

Starring artist / musician Robert AA Lowe (best known for his intense live performances under the name LICHENS) in the lead role, A SPELL lies somewhere between fiction and non-fiction – it is at once a document of experience and an experience itself, an inquiry into transcendence that sees the cinema as a site for transformation.”.

Cinema as a place where magical change can happen? There is always a danger that this will be two big shots talking the arse off reality, but it is a risk I am usually willing to take. I am not quite sure what the 'darkest optimism might be, though. 

In Place of Work – Margaret Tait Revisited, the pioneering Orcadian filmmaker’s legacy and influence on experimental filmmaking will be celebrated. Two Scottish-based artists Stina Wirfelt and Oliver Mezger have sensitively reinterpreted Tait’s work, underlining its continuing relevance to contemporary Scotland. Their new short films will screen alongside Tait’s own ‘film-poem’ Place of Work (1976, 31m) and will be followed by a discussion led by Tait expert Dr Sarah Neely.

Since she has a name in her honour, it is good to get a relatively rare chance to see some of Tait's work on the big screen.

Known to audiences for her stunning performance in Claire Denis’ 35 Shots of Rum, Mati Diop’s own formally adventurous films are a revelation. In A Thousand Suns, Diop merges fantasy and reality as she imagines the fate of the two lead characters from Touki Bouki, the classic Senegalese film made by her late uncle Djibril Diop Mambéty in 1973. Her beguiling film will be followed by a screening of Touki Bouki – this double bill offers a compelling insight into personal, national and cinematic histories.

Listings

A Spell to Ward off the Darkness

Glasgow Film Theatre, Sunday 23 (15.45) & Monday 24 February (12.45)

Directors: Ben Rivers, Ben Russell / France/Germany/Estonia 2013, 1h35m, N/C 15+

Margaret Tait Award: A Whole New World

Glasgow Film Theatre, Monday 24 February (21.30)

Director: Rachel Maclean Cast: Rachel Maclean / United Kingdom 2014, 32min, English/French/Arabic/Hindi/Cantonese/Zulu with subtitles.

Barbaric Land plus Farther than the Eye Can See
Glasgow Film Theatre, Tuesday 25 (18.45) & Wednesday 26 February (16.00)

Barbaric Land: Directors: Yervant Gianikian, Angela Ricci-Lucchi / France 2013, 1h5m, French and Italian with subtitles, N/C 18+
Farther than the Eye Can See: Director: Basma Alsharif / Jordan/United Arab Emirates 2012, 13m, N/C 18+

Man of Steel

Glasgow Film Theatre (21.00)
Event 1h30m approx, N/C 18+, Man of Steel first premiered as part of the Performa 13 biennial, organised by Performa Curator Mark Beasley.

Norte, the End of History

Cineworld Renfrew Street, 26 (18.30) &y (13.45)
Director: Lav Diaz, Cast: Sid Lucero, Angeli Bayani, Archie Alemania / Philippines 2013, 4h10m, Tagalog with subtitles, N/C 18+

Tae Think Again: Rethinking Identity in Contemporary Scotland 
Centre for Contemporary Arts, Wednesday 26 February (18.30)

Event 1h45m approx, N/C 12+, Tae Think Again was originally developed as a symposium co-commissioned by Edinburgh Art Festival and Edinburgh Printmakers.

Museum of Loneliness with Chris Petit

Glasgow Film Theatre, 
Event running time 1h45m approx, N/C 15+

Place of Work – Margaret Tait Revisited

Centre for Contemporary Arts, Friday 28 February (20.15)
Event 1h50m approx, N/C 8+

Touki Bouki plus A Thousand Suns

Glasgow Film Theatre, Sunday 2 March (13.30)
Touki Bouki: Director: Djibril Diop Mambéty, Cast: Magaye Niang, Mareme Niang, Aminata Fall / Senegal 1973, 1h25m, Wolof/Arabic/French with subtitles, N/C 12+
A Thousand Suns: Director: Mati Diop, Cast: Magaye Niang / France 2013, 45m, Wolof with subtitles, N/C 12+

The Cinematography of Blind Joe Death

I remember the first time I heard John Fahey. It was on a compilation of experimental artists, and sounded like a man barely able to string together a simple melody. The hesitancy in the playing, the tension in the silences between two notes that would eventually seem to be an obvious progression: I decided that either this musician was a genius or another cheeky chancer fooling people like me who posture as "open-minded."

Setting it alongside a recording of The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death, it was pretty clear that the tentative plucking was deliberate. I spent the next five years collecting whatever I could find by Fahey, mostly in the racks at Glasgow's Monorail Music.

In Search of Blind Joe Death does not do justice to Fahey's career. Very much an introduction to the man and his music - and being very generous about his later experiments in making tuneless noise - it arranges some impressive talking heads (his ex-wife, Pete Townshend) to make the claim that he is far too obscure for a man of such talent. While that is certainly true - Fahey was responsible for re-invigorating both bluegrass and the blues, filtering them through an Indian sensitivity to improvisation, and literally rediscovered a few great lost bluesmen by sending hopeful postcards to their last known address - the narrative takes the predictable path.

The young man of such talent is displaced by the battles against substance abuse (alcohol, sleeping pills and soft drinks that gave him diabetes) before retreating into an old age of isolation: just like in that documentary about Hunter S Thompson, the mythical tale of the artist who showed such promise interrupts any serious attempt to consider their legacy.

The film is a primer on Fahey's life, allusive but not analytical. Reading from Fahey's writings give biographical details, without illuminating the character of a man whom his ex-wife calls "a spiritual detective," a phrase suggesting that his ideas and music were interlinked. Despite the Big Words splashed over his album titles (Time, Causality, Epiphany, Live in Tasmania), there's little sense of Fahey's intelligence - a problem made worse by interview footage of his last years.

Fortunately, there is plenty of Fahey's music to enjoy, and extracts from interviews with those who knew him. As a fan, I enjoyed hearing how Thurston Moore recognised a kindred spirit in Fahey, or Townshend's description of him as a sort of William Burroughs of the guitar is a splendid tribute. The ending is depressing - no beautiful early sides can make up for an old age spent naked in bed in a grotty hotel room.

In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey

Tuesday 19 February

Festival Fever

Creative Scotland's latest advert proudly boasts that Alba is "a festival nation, every day of the year." Certainly, the festival has become the model for performance programming over the past few years: New Territories might have done, but even the mundane season programming of venues like Tramway has the characteristics of festival booking. Themes, related artists, clear connections between different strands and, inevitably, the overall branding. Glasgow has been the festival city for a decade, and Edinburgh even has festivals outside of August.

The festival model makes a considerable amount of economic sense. The support of Glasgow Film Festival by Glasgow City Council's marketing branch is explicitly intended to attract more tourists into the city: the superb Minimal festival allows Svend Brown to attract major composers and orchestras into the city for a weekend of fun for the same sort of cost as a single concert. The Edinburgh International Festival is an established name across the world, and the Fringe is in a symbiotic relationship with its curated parent. A bunch of events sharing an identity is more marketable - it saves on the advertising when only one poster is needed to sell several events.

Then there is the aesthetic advantages. A festival offers the chance for audiences to see what other work matches their interests, or take risks on new art that they have not tried. From a critical point of view, the chance to consider performances not in isolation but as part of broader movements is exciting: the atmosphere around the GFF, the Fringe or manipulate can encourage a more rounded study of an art.


Manipulate, the annual festival of "visual theatre" which has expanded this year from its base in the Traverse to delve into Fife, nip up to Aberdeen, pop over to Glasgow and head south to Norwich, concentrates on a theatrical form which is often under-represented. Artistic director Simon Hart has become an articulate and popular advocate of drama that has roots in object manipulation but is more excited by breaking boundaries.

Apart from providing an introduction to the diversity of forms within the form, manipulate has transformed Puppet Animation Scotland into a dynamic force for change: not only supporting emerging artists but bringing the best of the world into Edinburgh. By having a fortnight of events, manipulate can cover the local (Vox Motus' Slick) alongside the international (Stuffed Puppet Theatre, Cloud Eye Control) and cover the trends and innovations in a context that even helps to define the difficult notion of "visual theatre."

The energy of Celtic Connections - originally instituted to combat the limited arts programme in January - follows a similar pattern, introducing the new wave of folk alongside veterans. The Glasgow Film Festival has retained an audience rather than industry focus, matching the popular (Jimmy Cagney retrospective) and the experimental (Crossing the Line strand).

The festival might represent a defensive response to the triple dip recession (or whatever it is calling itself at the moment), a circling of wagons to share responsibility between companies and venues and promotors for protecting the art. Equally, it may well be the battering ram to break through into the public consciousness.

Glasgow Film Festival 2013

A quick overview of this year's Glasgow Film Festival reveals a festival that is growing. Since the Edinburgh Film Festival pulled it socks up last year, and reminded the world why it has a reputation with the big boys, GFF's continued emphasis on the audience rather the industry has seen it take an unlikely time of year and turn the ten days of film into an annual fixture.

There's a few obvious highlights: the final gala, for Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing, is a perfect match for the GFF's mix of populist and serious art. Whedon is probably best known for his stint as the writer of The X-Men, following Grant Morrison's notorious run, but he was the script editor on some American soap and had a series about this cheerleader who killed vampires. Having shown his sensitivity to poetic language by having Thor argue with Loki during Avengers Assemble, his more DIY take on Shakespeare sees him embrace a more personal cinematography.

Jane Birkin, the woman who did the sexy bits on Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus has been booked before the festival even begins to remind older men why they associate the French language with unbridled sensuality: she's doing the Songs of Serge at The Arches. For those seeking a more austere musical pleasure, there's a day of live soundtracks over classic movies at the Sonic Cineplex. Jeff Mills is the big name, but Glasgow legend Twitch is going to do a number over Baraka, one of the best films ever that has no narrative, no characters and a rather explicit moral message.

Most excitingly for the visual art fans (and I am not saying, like Alan Moore, that film isn't great. It's just that sometimes, only the radical approach is going to cut it...) Entre chien et loup is taking over the Grand Central Hotel for a spot of experimental video action.

More news will follow: the Kapow strand is chock full of comic book fun and the short film festival is now its own thing, kicking off the fun early. There's even a movie about the man who started Scottish Ballet.


All over Glasgow, 14- 24 February 

85a get Svanky

For Glasgow Film Festival 2012' "Crossing the line" program, 85A ecstatically present the work of genius Czech filmmaker, Jan Svankmajer, in all its demented glory! Each short film showcased this evening will be housed inside specially constructed theatres, coaxing his surreal imagery off the screen and into life before you!
Tailor-made installations, costumed performers, a cosy bar, all beckon you ‘down to the cellar’, and with the main cinema-space ultimately transforming into a thumping discothèque… a night at the megaplex, this is not! Přijít! Vidět! Slyšet!


85a are looking increasingly like the heirs to the great Glasgow Miracle - assuming that the anti-art law doesn't lead to a mass exodus of creatives to Berlin. A collective of talents based in the visual arts, 85a have been busy making films, building installations and events - including The Phantom Band's Christmas special at Stereo - and settled into The Glue Factory as a home. Svankmajer was a natural choice for them: surreal in his mixture of live action and animation, he gives personality and soul to inanimate objects without losing a dark, even sinister atmosphere. And while the film selections were imaginative and thrilling - his big hits like Alice were eschewed for a rounded retrospective - it was 85a's design of The Glue Factory that pulled away from the "night at the multiplex".


There's a palpable sense of occasion to the re-modelling of the space: one film is projected inside an old boiler, another in a home-made house. Grimm cabaret duo Louna introduce two programmes, before throwing down with an especially bloody number: affiliate Spud lends an electronic soundtrack to a tale of existential dread and humour. While Svankmajer's Prague is often the star of his shorts - as Missy Lorelei notes, The Ossuary is a twisted tourist advert - 85a make The Glue Factory a character in their play. Death, clad in monkish cloak and pale face, wanders around the rooms, collecting an audience for a special showing: that this seems normal, not surreal, is a testament to the thoroughness of 85a's vision.


Throughout the films, Svankmajer invites comparisons with Kafka, filtered through a sensibility informed by slap-stick comedy and compassion: yes, the universe is hostile and strange, but it can be funny to watch. Throughout the evening, 85a take the background of The Glue Factory - it's an old, disused space and has a health'n'safety nightmare vibe - and convert it into a fun palace for adults, with popcorn.