Programme Notes

BFI Southbank

The Long Goodbye

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Leigh Brackett was one of the few women to publish science fiction in the pulp magazine era, albeit under a gender-neutral byline. ...

May 23, 2021 | ROBERT ALTMAN - AMERICAN OUTSIDER

The Big City

Based on a short story by Narendranath Mitra, The Big City tells a relatable story about fear and courage, with a loveable protagonist offering a female point-of-view on issues such as money, labou...

May 23, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Beau Travail

With a pre-recorded introduction by director Kirsten Johnson. SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Directed by Claire Denis, and scripted by Denis and her regular writi...

May 23, 2021 | DREAM PALACE - THE FILMS THAT CINEMAS WERE BUILT FOR

The Wonders

With a pre-recorded introduction by director Mark Cousins. Director Alice Rohrwacher on ‘The Wonders’ With Nanni Moretti, Paolo Sorrentino and Matteo Garrone still wondering how they managed to r...

May 22, 2021 | DREAM PALACE - THE FILMS THAT CINEMAS WERE BUILT FOR

Steamboat Bill, Jr.

Steamboat Bill, Jr., like The Cameraman, displays a mastery of mise-en-cadre which no other comedies have equalled. The difficulty lies in choosing only a few illustrations from a film in which eve...

May 22, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Human Voice

+ Pre-recorded intro and Q&A with Pedro Almodóvar and Tilda Swinton Madness and melancholy intersect to thrilling effect as Almodóvar reimagines Jean Cocteau’s short play The Human Voice for a...

May 22, 2021 | IN PERSON AND PREVIEWS

Hair

With a pre-recorded introduction by director Kleber Mendonça Filho. ‘I didn’t understand a word of it because of my bad English but I loved the music and loved the whole spirit of the piece,’ Milo...

May 22, 2021 | DREAM PALACE - THE FILMS THAT CINEMAS WERE BUILT FOR

Dreamgirls

Bill Condon’s Dreamgirls reaches the UK on a wave of nods and awards that includes Golden Globe wins for newcomer Jennifer Hudson and the film itself, and a raft of Oscar nominations. A dazzling mu...

May 22, 2021 | HER VOICE - BLACK WOMEN FROM THE SPOTLIGHT TO THE SCREEN

Cléo from 5 to 7

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Agnès Varda came up the hard way. Starting as official photographer for the Théâtre National Populaire, she somehow managed to finan...

May 22, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Beginning

With a pre-recorded introduction by director Luca Guadagnino. Director Dea Kulumbegashvili on ‘Beginning’ Beginning is a profoundly mysterious film – full of surprises, even shocks, but with very...

May 22, 2021 | DREAM PALACE - THE FILMS THAT CINEMAS WERE BUILT FOR

Rare Beasts

+ Q&A with writer-director Billie Piper (on Saturday 22 May only). Mandy (Billie Piper) is a mother, a writer, a nihilist. Mandy is a modern woman in a crisis. Raising a son, Larch (Toby Woolf...

May 21, 2021 | WOMAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Disconcertingly, after the tuneless rendering of the Star Spangled Banner that introduced Brewster McCloud, or the ‘Tokyo Rose’ tra...

May 21, 2021 | ROBERT ALTMAN - AMERICAN OUTSIDER

The Last Picture Show

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Released in 1971 amidst the dope-fuelled rush of the New Hollywood, Peter Bogdanovich’s second feature The Last Picture Show was in ...

May 21, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

David Byrne's
American Utopia

Introduced by Tricia Tuttle, BFI Festivals Director (Friday 21 May only). David Byrne on ‘American Utopia’ Thirty-six years after Talking Heads and director Jonathan Demme changed the idea of wha...

May 21, 2021 | DREAM PALACE - THE FILMS THAT CINEMAS WERE BUILT FOR

County Lines

As drug-related activity has fanned out from major metropolitan centres to provincial areas, the term ‘county lines’ has recently been much used in the UK media. It was perhaps inevitable that Brit...

May 21, 2021 | NEW RELEASES

Car Wash

Introduced by director Gurinder Chadha (Friday 21 May screening only). ‘Car Wash’: a contemporary review At a time when many of the old-style forms of community-minded entertainment have virtuall...

May 21, 2021 | DREAM PALACE - THE FILMS THAT CINEMAS WERE BUILT FOR

California Split

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. In the remarkable unbroken panning shot at the beginning of Thieves like Us – with the convicts glimpsed at the start of its parabo...

May 21, 2021 | ROBERT ALTMAN - AMERICAN OUTSIDER

Footloose

With a pre-recorded introduction by director Francis Lee. Kevin Bacon plays Ren MacCormack, a city teen who relocates from Chicago to the Midwest sticks, where he finds that rock music and dancing...

May 20, 2021 | DREAM PALACE - THE FILMS THAT CINEMAS WERE BUILT FOR

L'eclisse

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. I was 15 when I first saw Antonioni’s L’eclisse. It was screened for only one afternoon at the Tooting Classic. I skipped school ga...

May 20, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

Introduced by Justin Johnson, BFI Lead Programmer (Thursday 20 May only). Eating is a constant theme in the films of Alfred Hitchcock. More oddly, as Donald Spoto observed in his biography, lavato...

May 20, 2021 | DREAM PALACE - THE FILMS THAT CINEMAS WERE BUILT FOR

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