BFI Southbank Programme Notes

The Wit and Wisdom of A.A. Milne

Most of us know the stories and poems of A.A. Milne, creator of Winnie the Pooh. Here is a rare chance to experience more of his unique humour in two silent comedies made a century ago, playing alo...

August 15, 2021 | SILENT CINEMA

The Star

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. In a role said to have been based on her nemesis Joan Crawford, Bette Davis plays Margaret, a struggling movie star desperate to re...

August 15, 2021 | BETTE DAVIS – HOLLYWOOD REBEL

The Hateful Eight

Quentin Tarantino had frequently repurposed Morricone cues for his own pictures, with Navajo Joe (1966) and Death Rides a Horse (1967) surfacing in Kill Bill: Vol.1 (2003) and the music for Revolve...

August 15, 2021 | MORRICONE

Thunder on Sycamore Street

Followed by a discussion with actor Ashley Walters, novelist and screenwriter Stephen S. Thompson, arts producer and TV historian John Wyver, and casting director Carolyn McLeod. Chaired by season ...

August 14, 2021 | EARL CAMERON

A Fear of Strangers +
The Chocolate Tree

Written by Leon Griffiths, whose later credits include Minder, A Fear of Strangers was written in 1958 but banned for six years by the Independent Television Authority, over concerns about Chief In...

August 14, 2021 | EARL CAMERON

Almost Famous

It’s been four years since Cameron Crowe’s last – and best – film Jerry Maguire. But during that period he hasn’t been idle: returning to his journalistic roots, he found time to put together a 370...

August 12, 2021 | MEMBER PICKS

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
(Átame!)

Almodóvar’s very dark romantic comedy concerns a troubled man who kidnaps an actress in the belief that they are destined to be together. An imaginative contemporary variation on the Beauty and th...

August 11, 2021 | MORRICONE

Cutter's Way

The mysteries were always there. From the first trance gestures of the opening credits of Ivan Passer’s Cutter’s Way, it was clear something special and hypnotic was happening: the slo-mo dance of ...

August 11, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Matewan

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Ever since he made his directing debut with Return of the Secaucus Seven in 1979, John Sayles’s reputation has rested largely on bo...

August 10, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

I’m Your Man
(Ich bin dein Mensch)

When Ira Levin wrote The Stepford Wives the world was a very different place. The 1972 society he satirised wasn’t reliant on pocket-sized technology and patriarchal hierarchies were woefully rigid...

August 9, 2021 | PREVIEWS

Days of Heaven

Despite being second choice after guitarist Leo Kottke opted to write songs rather than the entire score, Morricone received his first Oscar nomination for Terrence Malick’s elegiac tale of the Tex...

August 9, 2021 | MORRICONE

Once upon a Time in the West

Reflecting Morricone’s admiration for the Second Viennese School, this remains among his peak achievements. His score is tightly bound into the pitiless study of frontier greed and depravity concoc...

August 8, 2021 | MORRICONE

The Mission

Having crafted what many consider his masterpiece, Morricone was rightly dismayed by the fact that Herbie Hancock received the Oscar for best original score for essentially arranging the work of ot...

August 8, 2021 | MORRICONE

Flame in the Streets

Flame in the Streets originated in a stage play, Hot Summer Night, which Ted Willis wrote in 1958 and adapted for television the following year as part of ABC’s Armchair Theatre, which also provide...

August 8, 2021 | EARL CAMERON

A Farewell to Arms

Ernest Hemingway’s story of a doomed love affair between an American ambulance driver and a nurse is turned into a full-blown tearjerker by Frank Borzage. With luminous close-ups of Gary Cooper and...

August 8, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

White Dog

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. White Dog opens, like Kieslowski’s Three Colours: Red, with a young woman – Julie Sawyer, an actress (played by Kristy McNichol) – ...

August 7, 2021 | MORRICONE

Welcome to Whicker's World

Born in Cairo a century ago on 2 August 1921, household name Alan Whicker was famed for his daring and insightful interviews as an investigative television reporter. Innovative and adventurous, cro...

August 7, 2021 | THE ALAN WHICKER CENTENARY

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

This fictional take on the tempestuous and troubled relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and the Duke of Essex chronicles the rise and fall of a privileged and popular member of the royal court. ...

August 7, 2021 | BETTE DAVIS – HOLLYWOOD REBEL

The Life and Legacy of
Alan Whicker

Jane Ray, Whicker’s radio producer – now Artistic Director of The Whickers, Alan’s charitable Foundation funding the next generation of documentary makers – is joined by Michael Palin, Michael Park...