BFI Southbank Programme Notes

The Arbor

Clio Barnard on ‘The Arbor’ Let’s talk about Andrea Dunbar first, and why she was of interest to you, in terms of where you come from yourself. I grew up in Yorkshire, near Bradford, so it was a ...

April 11, 2023 | NORTHERN VOICES

Code Unknown

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. A youth tosses a wrapper into the lap of a Romanian woman begging in Paris… Haneke’s exploration of the various consequences of this...

April 9, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Priest

Priest arrived as the Catholic Church was under intense media scrutiny, with an ongoing ‘paedophile priest’ scandal and the ‘outing’ of a number of allegedly homosexual priests by gay pressure grou...

April 8, 2023 | NORTHERN VOICES

The Lightship

Jerzy Skolimowski on ‘The Lightship’ Somebody brought my attention to Siegfried Lenz’s book, and I thought there was great potential there for a film. There are similarities to Joseph Conrad’s Vict...

April 8, 2023 | OUTSIDERS AND EXILES
THE FILMS OF JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI

The Portrait of a Lady

The Portrait of a Lady bestows on the world one of the greatest heroines in fiction. As read by Campion’s film, Isabel Archer (Nicole Kidman) is a gauche and difficult young American on the brink o...

April 7, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Letter to Brezhnev

Frank Clarke on ‘Letter to Brezhnev’ There were so many strands and people, so much serendipity and sheer force of will which went into the making of Letter to Brezhnev that, looking back at it now...

April 7, 2023 | NORTHERN VOICES

Pickpocket

Uncomplainingly jobless in late-50s Paris, Michel starts stealing from strangers, for reasons unclear even to himself. He spouts vague theories about exceptional individuals being above the law – b...

April 6, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Obsession

+ panel and Q&A with Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, Richard Armitage, Charlie Murphy, Indira Varma and Rish Shah. Chaired by Emma Bullimore. This thrilling and seductive limited series about erotic obs...

April 6, 2023 | TV PREVIEWS

Billy Liar

A contemporary review With Billy Liar, John Schlesinger shows us that it is possible to make a film in this country that has movement, energy, grace and charm, that it is possible to make immense c...

April 6, 2023 | NORTHERN VOICES

Roll On Four O'Clock + Kisses at Fifty

Colin Welland on writing for television Most television viewers remember Colin Welland as the toothy, down-to-earth P.C. Graham of Z-Cars, the BBC series which began in the mid-Sixties. Z-Cars, w...

April 4, 2023 | NORTHERN VOICES

Identification Marks - None

Made at the Łódz Film School, thanks to planning student exercises so they could be combined into a coherent feature, Skolimowski’s debut introduced his freewheeling style and his alter ego Andrzej...

April 3, 2023 | OUTSIDERS AND EXILES
THE FILMS OF JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI

Correction Please;
or, How We Got into Pictures

+ intro by film historian, Ian Christie In these two films by Noël Burch, the processes of image making are interrogated and playfully subverted through a range of inventive and elusive narrative ...

April 3, 2023 | ART IN THE MAKING

Nashville

One afternoon in the mid-1970s, I bunked off studies to catch the first screening at the local arts cinema of an American movie set in the capital of country music. After nearly three hours in the ...

April 2, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Le Départ

The young Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski is probably the most explosive and original filmmaker in Eastern Europe. Recently he visited Denmark, where he wants to shoot his next film, and where I ...

April 2, 2023 | OUTSIDERS AND EXILES
THE FILMS OF JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI

Deep End

I never realised that the organised world of cinema thought it had lost Deep End – you have to be grateful for small mercies, because I’d have been even more upset if I’d heard that rumour when it ...

April 2, 2023 | OUTSIDERS AND EXILES
THE FILMS OF JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI

Of Time and the City

There is something mysterious about Terence Davies’ Liverpool from the outset: at the heart of this meditation on the city lies a tension, between urban change as a process that is brutal and unrem...

April 1, 2023 | NORTHERN VOICES

Last Year in Marienbad

‘I am now quite prepared to claim that Marienbad is the greatest film ever made, and to pity those who cannot see it.’ So wrote Jacques Brunius in Sight and Sound in 1962, regarding ‘the film I had...

April 1, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

La Grande Illusion

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Chronicling the fortunes of a group of French prisoners of war incarcerated in Germany during the First World War, Renoir’s film is ...

April 1, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Godfather Part II

Whichever way you look at it, The Godfather trilogy – thanks to its first two superlative instalments – undoubtedly ranks as one of the most highly respected achievements in filmmaking of the last ...

April 1, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

EO

Please note that this film contains a sequence of flashing lights which might affect customers who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy. Receiving its British premiere at the 2022 BFI London...

April 1, 2023 | OUTSIDERS AND EXILES
THE FILMS OF JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI

The Arbor

Code Unknown

Priest

The Lightship

The Portrait of a Lady

Letter to Brezhnev

Pickpocket

Obsession

Billy Liar

Roll On Four O'Clock + Kisses at Fifty

Identification Marks - None

Correction Please;or, How We Got into Pictures

Nashville

Le Départ

Deep End

Of Time and the City

Last Year in Marienbad

La Grande Illusion

The Godfather Part II

EO

FEATURED TAGS

Correction Please;
or, How We Got into Pictures