THE OFFICIAL DAILY GUIDE FRIDAY 18 FEBRUARY
WHAT’S INSIDE? 2 » PICKS OF THE DAY Highlights of day two at GFF 2011 2 » FEATURE: MIRANDA PENNELL Films by the former dancer are the subject of this year’s GSFF retrospective 3 » REVIEWS Potiche Submarine Cave of Forgotten Dreams
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WATCH AT YOUR PERIL
4 » COMPETITIONS Win tickets to see Zeina Durra’s The Imperialists are Still Alive! by answering one simple question courtesy of the lovely people over at Quotables
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movie, can still shock an audience. By BECKY BARTLETT
SPONSORS
nature as frequently as he could. In 1961 he released Homicidal, including a 45-second “Fright Break” prior to the film’s climax, during which overly-nervous people could leave and get a refund, though they were heckled and ridiculed in the process. Audiences could influence the outcome of Castle’s films too. He allowed viewers to vote for their desired ending to Mr Sardonicus, although reportedly the alternative, peaceful ending was never shown. He understood that viewers loved the spectacle he offered; whether it was providing them with glasses that could conceal or reveal the onscreen spooks as desired in Thirteen Ghosts, or having a glowing skeleton floating over the seats during House on Haunted Hill. Many of his gimmicks relied upon independent cinemas’ willingness to participate, particularly during screenings of The Tingler. Viewers are reminded it’s only a movie, but sometimes, it’s much, much more.
4 » WHAT’S NEW ONLINE The latest news, comments and pictures from the festival
WILLIAM CASTLE, the undisputed king of the gimmick William Castle’s name is synonymous with gimmicks. He transformed his low-budget genre films into events in which audience participation was not only encouraged but expected – sometimes whether the audience realised it or not. His methods helped to elevate his films above the numerous other genre pictures doing the independent movie theatre rounds in the 1950s and 60s, and he gained both popularity and notoriety as a result. Cinemagoers flocked to his films, eager to see what they, as well as the characters onscreen, would be subjected to. Several of his unconventional schemes have become the stuff of legend. Castle cemented his status as gimmick king in 1958, when he offered the audiences of macabre a certificate for a life insurance policy worth $1000, to be cashed in should they die of fright. In several of his films nurses would be stationed outside the movie theatre, ready to assist anyone with a weak disposition. He preyed on audiences’ squeamish
Produced by The Skinny magazine in association with the Glasgow Film Festival Editors Designer
Jamie Dunn Becky Bartlett Mark Tolson
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CELLULOID PICKS CHOREOGRAPHY
TODAY’S
FAUST/ALEX SMOKE
18.30 @ GFT2 Glasgow DJ Alex Smoke provides a newly imagined score for F. W. Murnau’s classic film.
The Glasgow Film Festival proudly hosts a selection of works by contemporary dancer-turned-filmmaker MIRANDA PENNELL. By GARETH K. VILE
SUBMARINE
20.30 @ GFT1 The début feature from Richard Ayoade ( The IT Crowd ) is a refreshing adaptation of Joe Dunthorne’s novel of the same name.
GSFF OPENING PARTY
22.30 @ CCA With a visual show by Glasgow collective LuckyMe and musical performances by American Men, The Blessings, Eclair Fifi and a special secret guest.
FILMCAMP
11.00 @ CCA A free ticketed series of workshops for budding film makers, in association with GSFF.
As artists across disciplines become more excited by the possibilities of fusing apparently separate media, the traditional division between performance and representation has become blurred. While choreographers frequently use projections, film has responded to theatre by adapting approaches and techniques to question the very nature of the medium. Spanish born dancer, choreographer and visual artist La Ribot’s recent move into cinematography, seen at last years’s National Review of Live Art, suggested that the camera itself could dance: even Scottish Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet featured documentary footage. Miranda Pennell, having trained as a contemporary dancer and visual artist, has moved away from the simple idea of representing traditional dance on stage, preferring to film mundane activity as if it were dance. By taking social behaviour as a basis for many of her short films, she has recontextualised army drills, musicians playing only for themselves, and fighting in the pub; by simultaneously alienating the actions and engaging the viewer, her
films ask questions not only about the definition of dance, but about the connection between documentary and fictional film-making. For her latest piece, Why Colonel Bunny was Killed, receiving its Scottish premiere at the GFF, Pennell has slowed the usual cinematic pace to a series of stills. Set in the Afghan borders, a location filled with political resonance, it juxtaposes music and reclaimed images from the turn of the century. The focus of the film perhaps has a stronger narrative intention than many of her works, but it retains the haunting, almost abstract quality that is her hallmark: by encouraging the viewer’s attention to detail, she avoids the usual hectic flood of images that characterises most mainstream cinema. In her studies of a military drill and a pub brawl (which is choreographed to reflect the conventions of cinema or stage fighting rather than a closing time ruckus), the attention to detail makes the familiar oddly alien: the drill is recast as an obscure ritual, incomprehensible to the viewer. Her studies of dancers - such as You Made Me Love You - are less interested in capturing
any performance than using the movement of the camera to create the impression of dance. Although preoccupied with formal experimentation, drawing on both dance and film theory, Pennell’s work is far from a dry analysis of surface or technique. Fisticuff is a comic glance at the gap between violence on screen and real life, twisting the pub into a cosmic arena for battle; Magnetic North challenges the tension within gender stereotypes; and Colonel Bunny, simply by virtue of it location, forces serious consideration of how colonialism still shapes British engagement with the rest of the world. In a recent interview with Gail Tolley, Pennell commented that the association of her film with dance was perhaps a consequence of her training than any real connection within the work - after all, she notes, there is no actual dancing in the films. Nevertheless, it is her aesthetic, fueled by modern analysis of performance and the experimental ethos of contemporary visual art, that lends her direction the swing and style of a choreographer.
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REVIEWS SUBMARINE
Director: Richard Ayoade Starring: Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige & Noah Taylor
Richard Ayoade, of Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place and The IT Crowd fame, has constructed a quirky, witty and heartfelt debut with Submarine. Based on the novel by Joe Dunthorne, the writer/director has expertly captured the awkward, alienating experience of teenage life for those who don’t quite fit in. Wideeyed odd-ball Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) must juggle the responsibilities of keeping his parents’ marriage intact and maintaining his relationship with the equally precocious Jordana (Yasmin Paige) through a combination of deception, light arson, seduction and house break-
ing. Obstacles include not being very good at most of these things, and lascivious, mullet-sporting mystic Paddy Considine. Immediately calling to mind Wes Anderson and a more involving, less smug Noah Baumbach, Submarine manages to be genuinely hilarious whilst preserving a sinister tone riddled with existential angst more attributable to Bergman. Full of memorable lines and eccentric charm, Ayoade’s film is cine-literate and beautifully constructed. With a mesmeric central performance from Roberts, it stands out as one of the must-see films of the festival. [Chris Fyvie]
POTICHE
Director: François Ozon Starring: Cathrine Deneuve
Potiche is a per fume scented doodle, as fluffy and pretty as candyfloss, but with as l i t t l e s u b s t a n c e . S e t i n 1 9 7 7, Deneuve plays the bourgeois ‘trophy wife’ of a draconian factor y t ycoon who gets the c h a n c e t o e m b r a c e w o m e n ’s liberation when her husband is hospitalised, leaving her to run the family business. Gérard Depardieu shows up as a left-wing politician and possible love interest but the only thing he brings to proceedings is his own planet-sized iner tia. Can this saccarine farce really be the work of the man who brought us Criminal Lovers and Swimm i n g P o o l ? I n O z o n ’s l a s t Deneuve collaboration, the wonder fully daft whodunitmusical 8 Women, his leading lady enjoyed a fumble on some shag carpeting with Fanny Ardant. In Potiche, D e n u v e ’s s e x l i f e i s r e s t r i c t ed to soft focus flash-backs w i t h a y o u n g e r a c t o r. F o r f i v e d e c a d e s D e n e u v e ’s career has been a coquettish dance with the camera, but Ozon seems to see her as a d r e s s - u p d o l l . P e r h a p s t h a t ’s o n e t a b o o F r a n c e ’s e n f a n t terrible is not prepared to break: pensioner nookie. [ J amie Dunn]
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CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS 3D Director: Werner Herzog Starring: Werner Herzog
3D is widely seen as the cinematic tool of the future, so trust Werner Her zog to take it into the past. Cave of Forgotten Dreams 3D is the mercurial German’s first film in three dimensions, and while the effect is a little wobbly in spots, it pays glorious divi dends when he ventures into the depths of the Chauvet Cave, bringing 3 0,0 0 0 year- old
cave paintings to vivid life. The director ’s customar y voiceover imbues the images with depth and meaning too, with Her zog suggesting that this cave was “where the modern human soul was awakened”, and he has assembled a t ypically eccentric group of par ticipants to guide him along the dark and narrow path. There’s a scientist who used to per form in the circus, a
per fumer who explores the cave by smelling the rocks, and by the time the nuclear crocodiles have shown up you’ll have long realised that nobody but Werner Her zog could have made Cave of Forgotten Dreams . May he long continue to explore such unchar tered territor y and tell ex traordinar y stories in his own inimitable fashion. [Philip Concannon]
FRIDAY 18 FEBRUARY THE CINESKINNY 3
WHAT’S NEW ONLINE? MILLAR TIME
Mark Millar, the comic book writer behind The Ultimates and Kick-Ass, talks to The Skinny about bringing superheroes to the festival crowd, his Weegie superhero movie and an onanistic Peter Parker. http://bit.ly/millartime
TORSTEN LAUSCHMANN Journalist Mitch Miller takes a look at Torsten
Lauschmann’s one-off site specific experimental magic lantern show.
in the ‘What Did You Think?’ column below. http://on.fb.me/dVW4QB
http://bit.ly/TorstenL
SCOTLAND DIRECTS
@SkinnyFilm Follow us on Twitter for all the latest from the festival. Send us your thoughts and reviews on anything you have seen or are looking forward to @SkinnyFilm or by using #GFF11. The best tweets of the day will be featured
Here’s the GFF daily quotable: “in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night” – Allen Ginsberg, “Howl” http://qtbl.es/gff2
Howl is showing Friday 18– Saturday 19 at GFF. Visit Quotables to see many more GFF quotes as the festival goes on: http://qtbl.es/ glasgowfilm
BBC Scotland is on the hunt for talent ‘behind the camera’ with the launch of a project aimed at finding new drama directors. Scotland Directs will launch at CCA on Saturday 19th February (14.30). http://bit.ly/Scotdirects
QUIZ TIME
PIC OF THE DAY
GIVEAWAY: Zeina Durra’s Sundance hit The Imperialists are Still Alive! is a fresh and funny look at the bohemian but troubled lives of wealthy Manhattan emigres. To win two tickets to see it at GFF (Feb 19, 20.30 Cineworld, Renfrew Street), simply answer the question following our quotable clue: “A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end... but not necessarily in that order.” — Jean-Luc Godard Durra’s film’s title is a quote from Jean-Luc Godard’s La Chinoise, but what filmmaking movement is Godard famously a member of? a) German Expressionism b) French New Wave c) Italian Neorealism. Email answers to: jamie@theskinny.co.uk before 10.00pm on Sat 19 Feb
DID ` WHAT a YOU THINK?
GFF co-directors Allison Gardner and Allan Hunter do some final preperations before the festival’s opening gala
We ask 6 people coming out of a screening of New Exciting Film if they like it or not
@EDFILMFEST Good morning. Big shout out 2 our friends in the West @Glasgowfilmfest who kick off 2day, AWESOME PROGRAMME, shud B ace Fest! Good luck guys
@M_MACLENNAN Wondering what to see at @glasgowfilmfest? Some tips from me, ‘The STV trailer park: Glasgow Film Festival special’, http://stv. tv/a/228785/
@PAULCGALLAGHER Managed to grab 90 minutes and watch Richard Ayoade’s Submarine, which I recommend checking out at @glasgowfilmfest this weekend.
@GLASGOWFILMFEST Packed all my finest clothes and have kissed goodbye to my children and husband. Let the festivities at #gff begin!
@MARCGCAIRNS Anyone fancy ‘Howl’ this Saturday the @glasgowfilmfest? James Franco... how can you say no? http:// tinyurl.com/5rc3o98
@PAULEGREENWOOD Woo-hoo. Glasgow Film Festival starts today. The world’s greatest film festival is here. Who’s going to The Deer Hunter at 13.00?
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