BFI Southbank Programme Notes

I Could Go On Singing

Introduced by Dirk Bogarde’s nephew, Ulric van den Bogarde (Tuesday 28 June only.) A contemporary review Movie stars have been rather out of fashion ever since Hollywood discovered the Actors’ Stu...

June 21, 2022 | JUDY GARLAND - A STAR IS REBORN

Le Havre

Aki Kaurismäki on ‘Le Havre’ A character named Marcel Marx appeared in your 1992 film La Vie de bohème: and André Wilms plays him again in Le Havre . Is he the same character? Yes, I saved some t...

June 20, 2022 | REFUGEE WEEK

A Star Is Born

Time magazine described Garland’s performance as ‘just about the finest one-woman show in modern movie history’ and it’s still hard to believe that she didn’t win the Best Actress Oscar® for it. Ne...

June 19, 2022 | JUDY GARLAND - A STAR IS REBORN

The Devil, Probably

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Contemporary reviews Having made his decision to trust his cellmate, the condemned man puts his escape plan into practice and drops ...

June 19, 2022 | OF SIN AND SALVATION
THE CINEMA OF ROBERT BRESSON

Certain Women

Taken from Maile Meloy’s stories, Kelly Reichardt’s wonderful triptych focuses on four women (and, sometimes, the men in their lives) trying to get by in rural America. The narrative is quiet, elli...

June 19, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Judy's Jukebox Singalong

To celebrate 100 years of the brilliant Judy Garland, we present a jukebox night playing clips of some of the best-known hits from her career. Our guest host Caroline George will lead you through s...

June 18, 2022 | JUDY GARLAND - A STAR IS REBORN

Looking for Langston

The influence of Isaac Julien’s groundbreaking, lyrical and poetic meditation on the life of revered Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes still ripples throughout the representation of queerness...

June 17, 2022 | BFI FLARE

Lancelot du Lac

It won’t be to all tastes, but there’s an aesthetic purity to Robert Bresson’s approach that gives Lancelot du Lac a startling, timeless quality. He chooses to shoot only parts of the body, often c...

June 16, 2022 | OF SIN AND SALVATION
THE CINEMA OF ROBERT BRESSON

Earwig

+ Q&A with director Lucile Hadžihalilović There is no straight story coming any time soon from David Lynch’s closest filmmaking heir, Lucile Hadžihalilović. Her new film – her first in English...

June 13, 2022 | PREVIEW

Stranger by the Lake

Imagine Bresson making an explicit gay erotic thriller. Unlikely, but Alain Guiraudie may have had him in mind when making this tale of a man disappointed by his encounters on a cruising beach unt...

June 12, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Swan Song

Director’s Statement Back in 1984, I walked into my small-town gay bar for the first time – The Universal Fruit and Nut Company. There he was, glittering on the dancefloor. Wearing a teal feather ...

June 10, 2022 | NEW RELEASES

Rosetta

I saw Rosetta three weeks ago, and haven’t recovered from it since. In fact, I didn’t see any film since the Dardennes’, except films for work. It moves me to the heart of my heart, this film about...

June 10, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Bergman Island

Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth are ‘Chris’ and ‘Tony’, a couple on a summer retreat to Fårö, the Swedish island home of Ingmar Berman. Both are filmmakers hoping to make progress on their respective scr...

June 10, 2022 | NEW RELEASES

All My Friends Hate Me

Just because you’re paranoid, Joseph Heller noted, doesn’t mean they aren’t after you. This is birthday boy Pete’s own Catch-22: invited by his old university crew to a country mansion celebration,...

June 10, 2022 | NEW RELEASES

Une femme douce

Dostoevsky wrote A Gentle Creature in 1876 (five years before his death) and included it in his Writer’s Journal. He had heard of three suicides, young women who had died within a matter of months....

June 9, 2022 | OF SIN AND SALVATION
THE CINEMA OF ROBERT BRESSON

Wot! No Art

Introduced by BFI National Archive Curator Steve Foxon Christopher Mason’s documentary presents a retrospective of the arts in the immediate post-war years (1945-51), when patronage for ‘public ar...

June 7, 2022 | ART IN THE MAKING

Thief

On paper, Michael Mann’s feature debut Thief is nothing groundbreaking, fit to be consigned to that vague category of ‘neo-noir’. Certainly the basic materials of the plot – the hood looking for a ...

June 7, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Style, Anti-style
and Influence
Robert Bresson Re-assessed

Good evening, and welcome to this event devised to serve as an introduction to our retrospective of the films of Robert Bresson (1933-1999). Though I am the programmer of the BFI Southbank season, ...

June 7, 2022 | OF SIN AND SALVATION
THE CINEMA OF ROBERT BRESSON

Escape from Alcatraz

Who knows whether Don Siegel saw A Man Escaped, but this account of a prisoner’s quietly determined attempts to escape the renowned island penitentiary feels surprisingly Bressonian, partly due to ...

June 6, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Spirit of the Beehive

In rural Spain under Franco, a small girl watches James Whale’s Frankenstein shortly before encountering a fugitive soldier; the ideas growing in her lively mind stand in contrast to the listless b...

June 5, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

I Could Go On Singing

Le Havre

A Star Is Born

The Devil, Probably

Certain Women

Judy's Jukebox Singalong

Looking for Langston

Lancelot du Lac

Earwig

Stranger by the Lake

Swan Song

Rosetta

Bergman Island

All My Friends Hate Me

Une femme douce

Wot! No Art

Thief

Style, Anti-style and Influence Robert Bresson Re-assessed

Escape from Alcatraz

The Spirit of the Beehive

FEATURED TAGS

Style, Anti-style
and Influence
Robert Bresson Re-assessed