Just saw Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, Albert Finney's first starring role, and it is highly recommended, if you don't mind some fairly thick (to American ears) accents. One of the "Realist" Brit flicks of the late fifties-early sixties (Look Back in Anger, etc.), it seems to really capture the feel of provincial working-class English life, at least as far as this Yank can tell. It's easy to imagine a two-year-old Sid Vicious as one of the extras in a street scene. And one voice-over line provided the Arctic Monkeys with the title of their first album, so at least some Engloids think the film is still vital over forty-five years after its release. Put it in your Netflix queue.
This is also a good spot to mention the Austin film scene, which is a blessing and a boon. While I was a student here at the University of Texas in the mid-nineties, the UT film department had a schedule that included Hong Kong action flicks, anime, vintage Fellini, then-current Almodovar, etc., etc., etc., each shown a couple of times in a week, then a different schedule the following week. It was a feast, and a cheap one.
And I must commend the Austin Film Society, which is sponsoring the series of films (Blokes 'n' Birds: British Realist Cinema) that includes Saturday Night And Sunday Morning. It's a rare pleasure to live in a town that can support such a cultural entity, which without making a big deal out of it supplies a steady stream of well-chosen and well-presented films in honest-to-god movie theaters, as the good Lord above meant them to be seen. Chale Nafus, who I understand was a sort of mentor to Richard Linklater, selected, wrote program notes for, and presented the films.
Plus--plus--in 1992 or 3, the AFS sponsored Sven Nykvist, who was in the area shooting a Hollywood film, to come in and speak before a showing of Cries and Whispers. So I got to listen to reminiscences about Ingmar Bergman from one of his associates just for the price of a movie ticket. Then I got to see the movie they made. Prit-ty cool.
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2 comments:
Yes you are very lucky to live in a place as wonderful as Austin....
I don't know if I'd use the word "wonderful." There are things about this place that make me grit my teeth on a regular basis. But to have a decent source of non-mainstream movies in a city this size is something to appreciate.
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