Shows
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in Conversation with Diego Cepeda on OUTSKIRTShttps://notesonfilm1.com/2025/04/18/jose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-diego-cepeda-on-outskirts/
I recently discovered the existence of a new and exciting film magazine: OUTSKIRTS. It’s in English, though mostly written by people for whom English is a second language or who don’t speak English at all: translation, in multiple senses, is an integral part of the magazine. It’s a handsome physical object, originating in the Locarno Critics Academy but speaking a different film culture, off-centre, from the margins or the periphery. In this podcast I talk to one of the editors, Diego Cepeda (the others are Nathan Latoré, Sofie Cato Maas, Raymond Shik and Christo...2025-04-181h 04
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThinking Aloud About Film: l'innocente (Luchino Visconti, 1976)We discuss Visconti’s final film, currently available to see through the BFI streaming service, in conjunction with the Visconti season recently held at the Southbank, and in a lush and lovely print. Richard had to convince me to podcast on this and I’m glad we did. We both think it a great film, without being anywhere near Visconti’s greatest, a measure of the director’s extraordinary achievements. Here we discuss it in relation to D’Annunzzio’s original novel (The Intruder is the literal translation of the novel’s Italian title); the lushness of décor and costuming, whic...2025-03-2922 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmShanghai Blues (Tsui Hark, 1984)Tsui Hark’s SHANGHAI BLUES (1984), starring Kenny Bee, Sylvia Chang and Sally Yeh, is currently playing on MUBI. A commercial romantic comedy with musical numbers galore and lots of screwball and slapstick, the film is easy to like. We discuss the pleasures in the performers, the interwar Shanghai setting, the beauty of its look and design, the inventiveness of its shot design and composition. We note how rare it is to see a look designed purely to please instead of to evoke, convey and signify in contemporary cinema. Might this also be a limitation? The film feels like a quickly ex...2025-03-0923 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in Conversation with Dr. Ben Lamb on THE WIREWonderful to have an opportunity to discuss THE WIRE (David Simon, showrunner: 2002-2008) -- a show which got mixed reviews and diminishing audiences but nonetheless survived to become a cultural touchstone -- with Dr. Ben Lamb. Ben is the author of You’re Nicked: Investigating British Television Police Series, for Manchester University Press as well as the producer of award winning films such as Rewinding the Welfare State: A Social History of the North East on Film and In the Veins: Coalming Communities In his new book on the series – THE WIRE -- Ben Lamb discusses the history of the prod...2025-02-1152 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo In Conversation With Fiona Cox On Wicked (Jon M. Chu, 2024)Fiona Cox, PhD in Film Studies by day, and, under the name of Kitty Mazinksy, chanteuse extraordinaire by night, is the ideal person to talk to about WICKED (Jon M. Chu, 2024). She’s read the book, seen the musical four times and has even performed in it. She now talks to me about musicals, the politics of the film, the dancing, the singing, the numbers, the length. Are critics right about tonal problems in the film? About finding fault with the way it looks? What about the casting and the songs? What does the film convey about race, queerness, female so...2024-12-021h 03
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThinking Aloud About Film: Volver (Pedro Almodóvar, 2006)https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/11/29/thinking-aloud-about-film-volver-pedro-almodovar-2006/
Richard and I return to discuss VOLVER (Pedro Almodóvar, 2006), interesting to see always but particularly for Richard now having seen WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS (1984) and his earlier films, which he hadn’t seen before, and thus more fully appreciating one of the ‘returns’ in VOVER, that of Carmen Maura. We discuss the recurring motifs: Strong women, dreadful men, female solidarity, rape, relationships between mother and child, cemeteries, a star entrance through a tombstone. We note the evidence of Almodóvar’s rural background, how his films always reference and often feature the rural as s...2024-11-2935 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmPOFCRIT PODCAST 2024: Jake Diamond on I Am Legend (Francis Lawrence, 2007)https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/11/15/pofcrit-podcast-2024-jake-diamond-on-i-am-legend-francis-lawrence-2007/
In this podcast we will discuss the often-overlooked 2007 adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. Following Will Smith's rendition of Dr Robert Neville, a virologist and last man on earth, it focuses on the psychological deterioration and complex need for coping mechanisms one would face when confronted with complete existentialism. We will discuss the difficulties of adaptation and where focus can often be shifted with minute changes, forcing different interpretations; as well as how the 2007 version - with its complicated production - is the most poignant when it comes to the horror of isolation. Additionally...2024-11-1548 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Gus Van Sant Podcast 5A: Richard Drew on To Die For (1995)https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/11/08/the-gus-van-sant-podcast-5-richard-drew-on-to-die-for-1995/
I very much wanted to speak to the wonderful Richard Drew about TO DIE FOR (Gus Van Sant, 1995). Richard has a degree in Film and Literature so knows something about film, yet unusually for the guests on this podcast, he is not a Gus Van Sant fan. More importantly, Richard is a television producer, now based in Los Angeles, but who got his start on the ground floor of Reality TV in England and has worked on BIG BROTHER, SECOND SURVIVOR, FAME ACADEMY, and many more. He is now SVP of Development at Law and...2024-11-0853 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmPordenone Silent Film Festival 43https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/10/16/on-the-giornate-del-cinema-muto-43-pordenone-silent-film-festival/
Richard and I were unable to attend the Pordenone Silent Film Festival this year. Luckily for us, they provided an online daily program for the duration of the festival. In the podcast Richard and I discuss each of the daily programs, the various thematic strands, what was available to us and what we missed.2024-10-1627 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmPractice of Film Criticism 2024: Harry Molloy on Superman (Richard Donner, 1978)https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/10/07/practice-of-film-criticism-2024-harry-molloy-on-superman-richard-donner-1978/
‘You’ll believe a man can fly?’ was the tagline of Superman the Movie (1978) the use of the word ‘can’ rather than ascribing a quality to the film creates a world of possibilities for the feature. Superman as a film represents a dream-like possibility of a perfect man who can defy gravity, lift anything, and run at incredible speeds, and the film revels in the utopian idea of this man who has everything. This edition of the Film Criticism podcast will discuss how the film expresses these themes and how they differ from the modern discourse of the...2024-10-0739 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in Conversation With Edmund Stenson on BlinkJosé Arroyo in Conversation with Edmund Stenson, co-director with Daniel Rohar, of BLINK, a documentary which will be premiering at the London Film Festival with three screenings on October 13th, 14th and 19th. It will get a nationwide theatrical release across the United States with Disney/ National Geographic beginning next week on October 4th. An extraordinary achievement for a documentary.
The film tells the story of the Lemay-Pelletier family who discover that their eldest child Mia suffers from a rare genetic disease, retinitis pigmentosa, that will eventually end in blindness. To make matters worse, it turns out that three of t...2024-09-2452 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Gus Van Sant Podcast -- Mala Noche (1985)https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/09/22/the-gus-van-sant-podcast-1-mala-noche-1985/
A new podcast to accompany a new mini-research project. Richard’s kindly humoured me and consented to help kickstart this project, but he’ll only co-host with me for the first three films so I shall be reaching out to some of you to talk to me about the rest – and certainly if you have a particular interest in any of Van Sant’s films and would like to podcast on them with me, do please get in touch. I’m hoping to build a resource here, not only with the podcasts but eventually with clips, ima...2024-09-2228 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmIn Converssation with Alastair Phillips on Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/08/16/jose-arroyo-in-converssation-with-alastair-phillips-on-tokyo-story-yasujiro-ozu-1953/
I’ve been wanting to talk to Alastair Phillips about his ‘BFI Classic’ monograph on TOKYO STORY (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953) since it was first published late last year. I found reading the book after watching the film truly illuminating, deepening and enriching the experience: a real achievement with a film already so familiar. It draws on Japanese sources not yet available in English, offering new information on the film’s production and reception and combines this with Alastair’s characteristically precise and informative textual analysis. It’s no surprise that the book is already on its second printing.
...2024-08-1657 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in Conversation With Siavash Minoukadehhttps://notesonfilm1.com/2024/08/01/jose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-siavash-minoukadeh/
At Cinema Rediscovered I attended a panel on film programming and film curating chaired by Maddy Probst and found the collaborations between the festival and the young programmers impressive and inspiring. The strand I attended most assiduously was Siavash Minoukadeh’s Queer Cinema From the Eastern Bloc, co-curated with Fedor Tot. In the accompanying podcast I talk to Siavash about how he came to be a curator, how this particular programme came to be, what his collaborations with Fedor Tot and the Festival were like, what risks were involved, and what the feedback on the program ha...2024-08-0138 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmCinema Rediscovered 2024 - Previewhttps://notesonfilm1.com/2024/07/20/cinema-rediscovered-2024-preview/
Richard and I preview the 2024 Cinema Rediscovered Programme taking place in Bristol, July 24-28. We’ve already podcast on the Parajanov films and the Ninon Sevilla ‘cabaretera’ films so we here highlight some of the other strands such as the 70s cycle of ‘New” American films of the 70s titled OUT OF THEIR DEPTH: CORRUPTION, SCANDAL AND LIES IN THE NEW HOLLYWOOD and QUEER CINEMA FROM THE EASTER BLOC. We also highlight restorations of films from Charles Burnett, Bela Tarr, Edward Yang and many others, as well as the rare opportunity to see films by the likes...2024-07-2013 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in Conversation with Sheldon Hall on ARMCHAIR CINEMAhttps://notesonfilm1.com/2024/07/17/jose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-sheldon-hall-on-armchair-cinema-feature-films-on-british-television-1929-1981/
Sheldon Hall’s ARMCHAIR CINEMA: A HISTORY OF FEATURE FILMS ON BRITISH TELEVISION is a beautifully produced object, lavishly illustrated and lovely to hold. More importantly, it is a pleasure to read , full of new and fascinating information and is sure to become a landmark and reference point in the study of films on television for decades to come. In the podcast we discuss how the book came to be and how it developed, how the policy around films in television developed over the years, how research lead to a heretofore unaccounted for Hitchcock film, Le...2024-07-171h 11
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmDaniel Bird on Sergei Parajanovhttps://notesonfilm1.com/2024/07/15/jose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-daniel-bird-on-sergei-parajanov/
We ask who is Parajanov and why Parajanov? We touch in the centrality of his work to the national and cultural identities of so many countries: Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Russia; its aesthetic beauty and its continuing power. Certain filmmakers continuously crop up in relation to Parajanov's work -- Eisenstein, Jarman, Greenaway, Pasolini, Kenneth Anger, Powell and Pressburger. The conversation is bounded by the war in Ukraine; post-colonial relations; the excitement of cinema poetry, the need to archive, preserve, restore and circulate; questions of anarchy in totalitarian context; and a fluid line of different degrees of queerness...2024-07-1553 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in Conversation with Lorena Pinohttps://notesonfilm1.com/2024/07/08/jose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-lorena-pino-on-ninon-seville-films-at-cinema-rediscovered-watershed-bristol-24-28th-of-july/
José Arroyo talks to Lorena Pino about the programme of Ninon Sevilla films playing at the Watershed in Bristol as part of the Cinema Rediscovered Programme, and which includes two UK Premieres -- Carita de Cielo (José Diáz Morales, Mexico, 1947) and Aventurera (Alberto Gout, Mexico, 1950) -- as well as the 4K restoration of an acknowledged if still too little-seen masterpiece, Victimas del Pecado (Emilio Fernández, Mexico, 1951). Gabriel Figueroa, the great cinematographer who worked with Buñuel and John Ford, is responsible for the great film's astonishing look.2024-07-0833 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThinking Aloud About Film: Ritrovato Round-up 2024https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/07/08/thinking-aloud-about-film-ritrovato-round-up-2024/
Richard and I return to the podcast with our Ritrovato Round-up. Last year I couldn’t go due to health reasons and I interviewed him; this year, the tables were turned and he interviews me. Ritrovato is so vast and generous in its programming that everyone who attended would have had a different experience of the festival. This is an account of mine. We criticise the booking system and people’s piggish habit of taking out their phones during screenings. Cinephiles do know better, which makes it all the worse. The rest is mainly hossanas. We prai...2024-07-0840 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in conversation with Ross Higgins on the Archives Gaies du QuébecAn inspiring talk with Ross Higgins on the foundation of the Archives gaies du Québec. How did the archive came to be? Why did it come to be? What social and historical contexts shaped it? How did it develop from materials stored and used in his flat to an archive of national and international importance? Ross, who along with Jacques Prince, founded the archive, offers various histories and contexts, from changes in the law, to changing concepts of sexual and social identities, that informed how the archive developed and how it came to be what it now is, taking i...2024-06-031h 38
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmIn Conversation with Richard Layne on 'Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind'https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/04/04/in-conversation-with-richard-layne-on-yoko-ono-music-of-the-mind-tate-modern/
I talk to Richard Layne on ‘Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind’, currently on at Tate Modern. You might recognise Richard from our podcast, THINKING ALOUD ABOUT FILM. What you might not know is that he is a long-time fan of Yoko Ono and one of the most knowledgeable people on her work as an artist and performer. In this podcast, Richard, compares this exhibition, billed as the largest ever undertaken on the work of Yoko One, and compares it to the many others he’s attended. We talk of how he became a fan, her variou...2024-04-0437 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in Conversation with Sean Burns on DOROTHY TOWERS and DEATHhttps://notesonfilm1.com/2024/02/13/jose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-sean-burns-on-dorothy-towers-and-death/
Sean Burns is a Birmingham-born, London-based artist; the author of DEATH, part of the LOOK AGAIN series of volumes interpreting the TATE’s collection through particular themes and published to coincide with TATE BRITAIN’S recent re-hang; and the director of DOROTHY TOWERS, a film in which I appear. In the accompanying podcast, we discuss these iconic Birmingham Tower blocks that are the subject of the film; how their design and location meant that generations of queers ended up living there and continue to do so; how these buildings have a patterned history but not just one...2024-02-1348 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmOut Of The Blue ((Chen Kun-Hou, Taiwan, 1983)https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/02/12/thinking-aloud-about-film-out-of-the-blue-chen-kun-hou-taiwan-1983/
We continue our discussion of the GOLDEN DECADES: CINEMATIC MASTERS OF THE GOLDEN HORSE AWARDS with a chat on OUT OF THE BLUE (Chen Kun-Hou, Taiwan, 1983).
A fascinating film to discuss in relation to all our previous podcasts on Taiwanese Cinema and Hou Hsiao-hsien; a film directed by Chen Kun-hou, the cinematographer on Hou Hsiao-hsien’s early films such as THE GREEN, GREEN GRASS OF HOME (1982) and THE BOYS FROM FENGKUEI (1983). Chen Kun-hou is also the cinematographer on HE NEVER GIVES UP (LEE HSING, 1978), and of course Hou Hsia-hsien was the co-writer on GROWING PAINS (1983) and th...2024-02-1225 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmHe Never Gives Up (Li Hsing, Taiwan, 1978)https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/02/01/thinking-aloud-about-film-he-never-gives-up-li-hsing-taiwan-1978/
We continue our discussion of the GOLDEN DECADES: CINEMATIC MASTERS OF THE GOLDEN HORSE AWARDS with a chat on He Never Gives Up (LI Hsing, Taiwan, 1979). Li won the Golden Horse Award for Best Director for his films Beautiful Duckling (1965), Execution in Autumn (1972), and He Never Gives Up (1978) setting a record in Taiwan's film history that remains unbroken, marking the pinnacle of Li Hsing's directing career. It’s also part of a run -- Good Morning Taipei (1979) and The Story of A Small Town (1980) – of very successful films. This is our opportunity, a mixed blessing, to see...2024-02-0124 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in Conversation with Jan Jílekhttps://notesonfilm1.com/2023/10/26/jose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-jan-jilek/
I participated in the Film Festival/ Summer Film School at Uherské Hradiště and was bowled over by the experience. Thousands of people streaming the streets of an extraordinarily pretty town in the Czech Republic – many of them very young – arriving from all parts of the country and abroad to see films, listen to lectures, participate in discussions. The town itself contributing all of its institutional resources to make it possible. Uherské Hradiště had turned over schools, gyms, and every available tent to the Festival/ Summer School so that young people can just roll out their slee...2023-10-2657 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmCinema Rediscovered 2023https://notesonfilm1.com/2023/07/22/thinking-aloud-about-film-cinema-rediscovered-2023/
Cinema Rediscovered, which takes place annually in Bristol, is one of the most exciting events in the cinema calendar year. In the accompanying podcast, Richard discusses the various strands of the program (Reframing Film; Restored and Re-discovered; Look Who's Back -- The Hollywood Renaissance and the Blacklist; Dowb abd Dirty: American D.IY, Restored) and José offers tips on many of the various films that make up the program. There are many reasons to visit Bristol, and attending this festival is tops of the list.2023-07-2219 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThinking Aloud About Film: Ritrivato 23I was unable to attend this year's Ritrovato; a pity as the programming is often a preview of films that subsequently screen elsewhere and inevitably become highlights of the year. Luckily, Richard was there to report on what he saw he saw.
In the podcast, we discuss the following sections of the festival:The Time Machine: 1923, where films from a century ago get highlighted; The Space Machine section, particularly the Cinema Libero selections, of which Richard was able to see every feature film. We discuss the New Film Foundation Restorations, of which Richard highlights BUSHMAN ( David Schickele, 1981) and TIME OF T...2023-07-0639 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmStella Dallas (Henry Kind, 1925)https://notesonfilm1.com/2023/05/11/thinking-aloud-about-film-stella-dallas-henry-king-usa-1925/
We discuss the latest in the series of magnificent Film Foundation Screenings, the 1925 version of STELLA DALLAS directed by Henry King and restored by MOMA. It’s a glorious experience to see a film now almost 100 years old, looking brand new, probably seeing it in a better condition than most audiences would have seen it upon first release, particularly if they didn’t live in major metropolitan centres. The quality of the image, the toning, the tinting: it’s a sensuous joy. We also praise the film itself. It’s a work that continues to move. We compa...2023-05-1117 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmFox And His Friends (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany, 1975)A film that frightened me when I first saw it as a teenager. Richard’s only now seen it. Does it hold up? Made at a time when there was a real dearth of representation, this is as queer as a film can be, on many levels. The problem is not homosexuality but bourgeois exploitation, including by gay men. Why hasn’t Fassbinder been canonised by all the young queer boys? We speculate on that and much more in the accompanying podcast.2023-04-2425 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThinking Aloud About Film: Beware of the Holy Whorehttps://notesonfilm1.com/2023/04/09/thinking-aloud-about-film-beware-of-the-holy-whore-rainer-werner-fassbinder-west-germany-1971/
I’ve been watching all the Fassbinder films I can get my hands on in chronological order and find this the culmination of his early works, a great film about filmmaking to rank alongside Minnelli’s TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN (1962) Godard’s CONTEMPT (1963) or Truffaut’s DAY FOR NIGHT (1973). Richard hasn’t seen a Fassbinder film for two decades and finds it harder to get into. We discuss the structure, the marvellous visual and dramatic handling of a very large cast, the gorgeous glossy look –surprising in Fassbinder films to this point -- and snake-like long takes...2023-04-0929 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmHippodrome Silent Film Festival 2023 Bo'Nesshttps://notesonfilm1.com/2023/03/29/thinking-aloud-about-film-hippodrome-silent-film-festival-2023-boness/
Intrepid investigative journalist Richard Layne returns to the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival to report on the films and the glamour of Silent Cinema in Bo’Ness, a model of what place and event can do together: a site of scholarship, restoration, fandom and even the commission of aspects of production, bringing together a cultural intersection of the local and the international. An unmissable event that I unfortunately had to miss but luckily for us, Richard was there and leaves no stone unturned.2023-03-2922 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmPlace Without Limits/ El lugar sin limites (Arturo Ripstein, Mexico, 1978)https://notesonfilm1.com/2023/02/26/the-place-without-limits-el-lugar-sin-limites-arturo-ripstein-mexico-1978/
A film that shocked and delighted with the unexpected. A film that makes one re-think a history of queer representation and 70s cinema. A transnational project in the sense that it's based on a Chilean novel by José Donoso, with a script in which Manuel Puig (Argentina) collaborated and of course made in Mexico. It brings to mind Tennessee Williams and Puig's own Kiss of the Spider-woman. It's a funny tragedy, a critique of machismo featuring one of the most fearless queens in the history of cinema. Every Arturo Ripstein film we've seen so far seems t...2023-02-2529 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmInterview With Matthew Hayshttps://notesonfilm1.com/2023/01/24/jose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-matthew-hays-on-queer-film-classics/
José Arroyo talks to Matthew Hays about Queer Film Classics. Matt is, along with Thomas Waugh, the co-editor of the series, first for Arsenal Press and currently for McGill-Queen's University Press. The conversation touches on the concept behind the series, the rationale for selection of individual titles, and what he's learned from the close to two decades he's been co-editing the series, eventually to comprise approximately 40 titles, and including books on films as diverse as Scorpio Rising and I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, Boys in the Sand and Death in Venice, Orlando and Zeo Patience .... and m...2023-01-2434 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmLizzie Uzzell on Pride And Prejudice (Joe Wright, 2005)Lizzie Uzzell discusses Joe Wright's adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice with José Arroyo. The podcast touches on the various adaptations of Austen's work, the particular virtues of this one, the uses of light and landscape, the interplay between the uses of Chatsworth and the uses of mud and livestock , achievements of wit and tone, and what individual cast members add to it all.2022-11-1027 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThinking Aloud About Film: Pedro Almodóvar 5 - Matador, with special guest Harry Russellhttps://notesonfilm1.com/2022/10/13/thinking-aloud-about-film-pedro-almodovar-5-matador-with-special-guest-harry-russell/
We continue to think aloud about Pedró Almodovar, this time focussing on Matador. Richard is ill so I am joined by Harry Russell to discuss the film. Some of the topics touched upon are the themes of sex and death, Spanish-ness and bullfighting, camp, masculinity, the classical structuring of the plot, the glossy production values, and why whilst it is hugely entertaining, it might still not be up to the heights of Almodóvar's other work.2022-10-1337 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmPedro Almodovar 2 - Labyrinth Of Passion (1982)https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/08/21/thinking-aloud-about-film-pedro-almodovar-2-labyrinth-of-passion/
We discuss Almodóvar's second feature, Labyrinth of Passion, where Almodóvar himself appears both as director and rock star in minor roles. We talk about its convoluted plot, its verbal and visual campyness, its anti-authoritarian stance and its status as a youth film. We note how even in his second film, there are evident connections with his first film (not least in the recurring cast) and plot strands that will re-appear subsequently (the airport scene in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown). We talk about it (briefly) as a document of its ti...2022-08-2126 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmMoneyboys (C.B. Yi, Taiwan, 2021https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/06/22/thinking-aloud-about-film-moneyboys-c-b-yi-taiwan-2021/
Why are we talking about Moneyboys? Well Jose’s recently read The Hustler/ Die Pupenjunge, City of Night, and Dancer from the Dance and is fascinated by gutter and underbelly, night and shadows, criminality and liminality, the ways social and psychic alienation can combine with carnal immersion though sexual connection, the tension in sex work between certain types of freedom and certain types of bondage. Moneyboys is too high class to touch on many of those things. But Richard is interested in Taiwanese Cinema, in Hou Hsiao-hsien and Haneke, interests which do intersect with Money Boys so...2022-06-2224 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmRichard Dyer On Judy Garlandhttps://notesonfilm1.com/2022/06/21/in-conversation-with-richard-dyer-on-judy-garland/
I wanted to talk to someone about Judy Garland as soon as I saw the BFI program celebrating the 100th anniversary of her birth, 'Judy Garland Reborn'. And who better to talk about Judy to than Richard Dyer? The conversation is an informal one, a recorded zoom call between friends, that then cuts off at the end as soon as the 45 minute zoom time-limit ends. But it does cover a lot of ground: her artistry, her persona, her significance to gay men, her performances in various films, her duet with Barbra Streisand...and much more.2022-06-2142 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThinking Aloud About Film; O Soleil, (Med Hondon, France, 1970)https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/06/03/thinking-aloud-about-film-soleil-o-oh-sun-med-hondo-france-1970/
The Criterion Collection calls SOLEIL Ó/ OH, SUN , ‘A furious cry of resistance against racist oppression and a revolutionary landmark of political cinema’. The Celluloid Liberation Front, writing for MUBI, calls it ‘one of the most dazzling debuts in the history of cinema’; ‘A work of erudite formalism and incendiary refinement’; ‘never didactic’. We dispute all of this. The film is definitely, flamboyant, anti-clerical, modernist, anti-colonial, deploying folklore and experimenting with style. An important film then, very much of its time, but which can now seem to lack complexity and subtlety, though perhaps subtlety was never its aim; and perhaps...2022-06-0318 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in Conversation with Tom Waugh on Hard to Imaginehttps://notesonfilm1.com/2022/05/27/ose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-tom-waugh-on-hard-to-imagine/
The groundbreaking and influential 'Hard to Imagine: Gay Male Eroticism and Photography and Film from their Beginnings to Stonewall' is coming to its 25th anniversary. In this podcast we ask Tom Waugh about the intellectual and social context in which the research took place, the methods developed to produce it, the way materials were gathered, who was interviewed, the many barriers to its publication, how the book was received then and why it continues to be so influential now.2022-05-261h 16
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmAlex Santos-Edgar & José Arroyo on La Haine (Matthieu Kassovitz, 1995)In this podcast Alex Santos-Edgar and I discuss La Haine (Matthieu Kassovitz, 1995): it's style, its influence, how Paris figures, where masculinity and race figure in it...and more:2022-05-1233 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in Conversation with Andrew Moor on Derek JarmanA conversation with Dr. Andrew Moor on Derek Jarman, arising from the Derek Jarman Protest exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery, on Jarman's significance in British Culture, his legacy as a multimedia artist and his contributions to art, protest cultures and queer cultures.2022-04-0849 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThinking Aloud About Film with Pamela Hutchinson on Hippfesthttps://notesonfilm1.com/2022/03/29/thing-aloud-about-film-with-pamela-hutchinson-on-hippfest/
Hippfest is how fans and admirers endearingly refer to the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival that takes place annually at Scotland’s oldest cinema – The Hippodrome, built in 1912, in Bo’ness. Under Alison Strauss’ guidance, the festival has become a force internationally, bringing to the UK newly discovered or newly restored silent classics, and presented in a varied and imaginative programme under the best conditions: with programme notes by leading scholars (Dina Iordanova, Charles Musser, David Cairns) with accompaniment by leading musicians (Neil Brand), sometimes with scores especially composed for the film (by the likes of John Sweeney...2022-03-2928 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmTaipei Suicide Story (Keff, Taiwan, 2020)https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/01/23/thinking-aloud-about-film-taipei-suicide-story-keff-taiwan-2020/
A medium length fiction film with a great central concept: A suicide hotel where people can only stay one night. They are permitted to leave in the morning if they change their mind but leave they must. What happens when a young woman chooses to stay and the desk clerk begins falling for her? We talk about the beauty of the compositions, the black humour of the film, the uses of colour, we praise the cinematography by Tzu-Hao Kao and the performances (especially Tender Huang's). But is the film still a bit thin? Richard and I...2022-01-2311 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThinking Aloud About Film: The Youssef Chahine Film Club No. 3: Mandabi (Ousmane Sembène, 1968)https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/12/04/the-youssef-chahine-film-club-no-3-mandabi-ousmane-sembene-1968/
A discussion of Ousmane Sembène's Mandabi. José had never seen it before and found it a revelation. Richard's now seen it twice, once at the cinema in a beautiful restoration that's now been put out by Criterion. The film is currently screening on MUBI and we highly recommend it. We talk issues of representation, gender, colonialism, how structures seem designed to oppress a sector of the population which nonetheless constitutes 'the people'. We also talk film aesthetics and what it was about the film that Youssef Chahine might have found so appealing.2021-12-0423 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmPeony Birds (Huang Yu-Shan, 1990), Taiwan Film Festival Edinburghhttps://notesonfilm1.com/2021/11/02/peony-birds-huang-yu-shan-1990/
A discussion of Peony Birds, part of a strand of films by women directors or films focussing on women that is a most welcome additions to the Taiwan Film Festival in Edinburgh. It is also a slight historical corrective to what may be seen as the 'all-boys' account of New Taiwanese Cinema from the 1980s and 1990s. In the podcast we discuss, how Peony Birds an inter-generational film focussing on mother-daughter relationships that deal with themes of love, money, class as well as differing perspectives on similar actions. Richard and José are divided on the film i...2021-10-2213 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 40: Let's Talk (Marianne Khoury, 2019)https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/09/27/the-youssef-chahine-podcast-no-40-lets-talk-marianne-khoury-2019/
Let's talk about 'Let's Talk', Marianne Khoury's exploration of mother/daughter relationships across generations. The film is of interest to us because we wondered if it would enhance our understanding of Chahine's cinema; and it does! Marianne's mother was Chahine's sister, and her story was dramatised by Chahine in Dawn of a New Day (1964). Khoury also demonstrates how part of the family's narrative is the origin and source of strands of Alexandria .... Why (1979) and An Egyptian Story (1982), so the accounts on this film give us an interesting spin on how Chahine treats the same material...2021-09-2747 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmReturn Of Prodigal Podcast: The Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 39: Youssef Chahine on MUBIWe return to the work of Youssef Chahine, spurred on by by MUBI's decision to screen a selection of his works, in what turns out to be marvellous copies. We focus on two of his films, Daddy Amin (1950) and The Devil of the Desert (1954), we compare the visual quality of the MUBI versions to those we saw previously, confirm our admiration for Youssef Chahine's skills as a director, José takes a dig at the arrogance of a British film culture that assumes one can just move from writing or directing for the stage to directing a movie, and not even R...2021-09-2033 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in Conversation With ....Ana María Sánchez-Arce on The Cinema of Pedro AlmodóvarA conversation with Ana María Sánchez-Arce on The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar, her new book, the most recent on the subject and, in my view, one of the very best. What did she learn about Pedro Almodóvar's cinema when writing the book and what can we learn from reading it? I wish we could have talked for longer.2021-09-1454 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo In Conversation with....Ilaria Puliti...on Luca (Enrico Casarosa, 2021).A conversation with Ilaria Puliti on Luca, focussing on how it lends itself to readings of queerness and of migration, and also relating the film's world to postwar Italian culture and society.2021-08-1843 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmRitrovato 2021 with Richard Layne & José Arroyo: Digital Offeringshttps://notesonfilm1.com/2021/08/02/ritrovato-2021-with-richard-layne-jose-arroyo-digital-offerings/
We thank the Cineteca di Bologna for the 2021 digital offerings and return for the third year in a row to discuss their programme. This year we reflect on the digital absence of major strands such as the Romy Schneider or George Stevens films which were only shown in situ. We discuss difficulties with translation and sub-titling, note how the digital offerings were quite US and Eurocentric, atypical for this festival, and discuss some of the highlights of Richard's viewing, silent cinema, Wolfgang Staudte films, the only film on the Algerian War made as it was...2021-08-0234 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmHou Hsian-hsien 19: Context 10 - Taipei Story (Edward Yang, 1985)https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/25/hou-hsiao-hsien-19-context-10-edward-young-1985/
Richard and I discuss our admiration of Edward Yang's Taipei Story. It's connection to Hou Hsiao-hsien, who stars and co-wrote the screenplay. It's a mosaic of a film in which a relationship between two people who care for each other falls apart and as it does so we get to see stories of a people and of a city in transition in a country situated within two imperial cultures, Japanese and American, with mainland China always hovering on the background. It's a beautiful film, with really striking, original and beautiful imagery: Yang's flat face-on...2021-06-2531 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmHou Hsiao-hsien 18: Contexts 9 -- Flowers of Taipei: Taiwan New Cinema (Chinlin Hsieh, 2014)https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/21/hou-hsiao-hsien-18-context-9-flowers-of-taipei-taiwan-new-cinema-chinlin-hsieh-2014/
A discussion of FLOWERS OF TAIPEI, a documentary on Taiwan New Cinema. José saw it twice; the first time finding it interesting but almost instantly forgettable; the second time it incensed him, seeming an attempt to get a production to pay for a director's networking opportunities rather than a work that actually illuminates what Taiwan New Cinema might be; its history, contexts, development. We do get to see it's impact on major names from East Asia. Richard is as always the voice of reason.2021-06-2117 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmHou Hsiao-hsien 9: Daughter Of The Nile (1987)https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/05/26/hou-hsiao-hsien-9-daughter-of-the-nile-1987/
We discuss Daughter of the Nile as a transitional film for Hou, the relatively few locations (the house, KFC, the nightclub, the beach etc) in which the film is set, the now typical Hou way of filming from repeating fixed camera positions with little or no movement; the way the protagonist remains relatively unknowable, the fractured family on the edges of criminality across generations, the lack of judgment on that, the continued use of fart jokes, the context in which the film was made (end of Martial law, ongoing relationship with American consumer culture etc). A...2021-05-2632 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmHou Hsiao-hsien 5 - The Boys from Fengkuei aka All The Youthful Days (1983)https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/05/09/thinking-aloud-about-film-hou-hsiao-hsieng-5-the-boys-from-fengkuei-aka-all-the-youthful-days-1983/
Hou has described this as the favourite amongst his films. Richard and José discuss why this might be so: the compositions; the long takes that allow for action vertically, horizontally, and on different planes of the image. The juxtaposition between the rowdy teenage delinquency we see with the classical musical. The easy ellipsis into memory. The evident influence of Italian neo-realism, particularly Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers, which is explicitly referenced and Fellini's I Vitelloni, which has a similar set-up. We discuss the falling into place of a particular style that would come to be a...2021-05-0935 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmHou Hsiao-hsien 3: The Green, Green Grass Of Home (1982)In this podcast, Richard and I discuss how much we both like this film, an early one of Hou's that we argue continues to be largely dismissed in account of his work. Here we admire what we see as his growth as a filmmaker: the increasing use of expressive long-takes, the filming from the inside of trains, the imaginative compositions, the handling of many people in the frame whilst still keeping dramatic focus, the deft control over various narrative threads. We notice that this is the third time in three fllms that we get scatalogical jokes but how now they're...2021-05-0129 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in Conversation with…. Ehsan Khoshbakht on FilmfarsiOne of the great surprises and pleasures of the Wales One World Film Festival was the opportunity to see Filmfarsi, a great documentary film on the significance of popular Iranian cinema from 1953-1979. In this podcast I talk to the film's director, Ehsan Khoshbakht , to find out more about the process that led to the film, the Iranian film industry in this period, the relationship of the cinema to the Iranian New Wave, how much of this cinema was lost in the aftermath of the revolution and why this was so, and the process of recovering the films which are...2021-04-301h 01
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmHou Hsiao-hsien 2 - Cheerful Wind (1981)https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/04/28/thinking-aloud-about-film-hou-hsiao-hsien-2-cheerful-wind-aka-play-while-you-play/
Thinking Aloud About Film continues it's exploration of the cinema of Hou Hsia-hsien with a discussion of Cheerful Wind aka Play While you Play, a charming musical romantic comedy, an exploration of filmmaking itself, and a re-teeming of the cast that made the previous Cute Girl such a success.2021-04-2831 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThinking Aloud About FilmTrailer for a new series of podcasts by Richard Layne and José Arroyo that will be an umbrella for all themed podcasts we've been doing so far, Youssef Chahine, selections from Ritrovato in Bologna, and currently, a series of talks on the early cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien.2021-04-2504 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThinking Aloud About Film: Hou Hsiao-hsien 1 - Cute Girl (1980)https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/04/25/thinking-aloud-about-film-the-cinema-of-hou-hsiao-hsien-1-cute-girl-1980/
Richard and I turn our attention to the early cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien. Four of his films are now on MUBI and at least the first one is delightful: a romantic comedy not to different from those characteristic of American Cinema in the 1930s, but with broader humour and more pop songs. A delightful first work, very commercial .... and very different from what was to follow.2021-04-2426 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No: 37 - Beirut, Oh BeirutWe continue our little exploration of Middle-Eastern Films that connect to the work of Chahine. This discussion is on Maroun Bagdadi's Beirut, oh Beirut, currently playing on Netflix. We discuss the beauty of the film. Richard connects it to late sixties Godard in style. I found it more moving and sad than what I remember of that period of Godard's work. We discuss the film in relation to Chahine's The Sparrow and to Al-Karnak. The film has a particular nostalgic feel, the depiction of buildings, landscapes, places and spaces for feeling that are soon to be destroyed, perhaps forever, and...2021-04-1632 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in Conversation with…. Adam Carver/ Fatt ButcherAdam Carver is a Midlands-based producer, performer and cultural activist. He was recently Festival Director for SHOUT and is producer for Ginny Lemon's Palaver. I saw the great Fantabulosa show they did at the Birmingham Museum and Gallery just before lockdown, a thrilling queer positive performance piece for children and family audiences. I wanted to talk to him to find out how lockdown had affected him personally as a performer and also on: queer arts in the Midlands, the infrastructure for live performance in Birmingham and his own transgressive transformation into Fatt Butcher, a sublime and edgy transformation into drag...2021-04-111h 02
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast: No. 36 - Al-KarnakRichard returns! We discuss the famous Al-Karnak (Karnak Café) directed byAli Badr Kahn in 1975. A political film, a critique of the previous regime, based on a novella by Naguib Mahfouz, and a 'model of de-Nasserfication'. The film is pulpy, melodramatic, sensationalist, a box-office smash. A very interesting work to discuss in relation to Chahine's The Sparrow (1972), which deals with similar subject matter but in a a very different way. Ali Badr Kahn and Mahfouz had previously collaborated with Chahine as well so the film is an interesting to focus to a whole series of issues that intersect with Chahine's work.2021-04-1031 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo In Conversation With Fiona Cox ...on Ammonite (Francis Lee, UK, 2020)I join up with Dr. Fiona Cox aka Kitty Mazinsky, for wide-ranging discussion of Francis Lee's fascinating film2021-04-0757 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmAl Mommia/ The Night of Counting The Years: An Egyptian PerspectiveWe return to Chadi Abdel Salam's Al-Momia/ The Night of Counting the Years to get an Egyptian perspective on the great and beautiful film. The timing is perfect too as the next day the mummies of the kings were moved to a new home for the first time since the events depicted in the film.2021-04-0619 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmAn Egyptian Perspective on the Cinema of Youssef Chahine Part IVHussein returns to offer us a fascinating Egyptian perspective on the career of Youssef Chahine beginning with Cairo as Seen By Chahine (1991) and talking us through The Emigrant (94), Destiny, The Other (99). We also touch on The Choice (1970), Silence, on tourne! (2001).2021-04-0555 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast: Al-mummia/ The Night Of Counting The Years With Music (1)At the request of our listeners, we are expanding the podcast onto other instances of Egyptian cinema. We saw Shadi Abdel Salam's Al-mummia/ The Night of Counting The Years in the wonderful version restored with the help of Martin Scorsese and the Cineteca di Bologna. It's a truly great film: poetic, allegorical, about the past and the nation, people robbed, robbing others, robbing themselves, stealing their own past and rescuing it. But not without a cost. A very beautiful film that I'm sure will reward further viewing. Much of this podcast is a combination of appreciation and queries about what...2021-03-3031 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast: An Egyptian Perspective Part IIIWe return for the third part of our conversation with Hussein, offering an Egyptian perspective on his career and its contexts and significance. In this episode we touch on 'The Sparrow', 'The Return of the Prodigal Son', 'Adieu Bonaparte' and 'Alexandria...Again and Forever'. We will return for a final episode discussing the last stage of Chahine's brilliant career beginning with 'Cario as Seen by Chahine'.2021-03-2758 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in Conversation with Misha Iakovlev on SKAM(Shame)A conversation with scholar Misha Iakovlev on the fascinating Norwegian television show, originally aimed at young girls, that has elicited fervent fan following from different countries and for different reasons. Released across various platforms and edited together to broadcast, it's a fascinating example of queer transnational transmedial television that offers us a lot to discuss and much else to think about some more.2021-03-2338 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmDownpourWe continue our discussion of the Iranian programming at the Wales One World Film Festival with Bahram Beyzaie's great, Downpour: influenced by Italian Neo-realism and European Art Cinema, one of the films that spearheaded the Iranian New Wave counter cinema, poetic and critical, and managing to synthesise realism and allegory. A great film. The full post can be found here: https://notesonfilm1.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=17426&action=edit&calypsoify=12021-03-2035 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmYoussef Chahine's Career to 1985: An Egyptian Perspective Part IIWe continue our discussion with Hussein, to garner an Egyptian perspective on the career of Youssef Chahine to 1985. We touch on Nile Boy, Blazing Sun, 'The Turn of the Decade' films (Forever Love, In Your Hands, Lover's Code, A Man in My Life. We discuss how some phrases from his films have become common parlance in Egyptian culture. We touch on the complicated relationship with Mohsen Mohieddin and we end with Dalida and The Sixth Day. It's a conversation still to be continued.2021-03-191h 01
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Deer ((Masoud Kimiai, 1974)We continue with our exploration of the Iranian Cinema on offer at the Wales One World festival with a discussion of the extraordinary The Deer, a metaphor for pre-revolutionary Iran's social relations, focussing on down and outs living in a courtyard with a heroin addict and a bank robber as heroes. The influence of Italian neo-realism is everywhere present in a film that is simultaneously symbolic but also pulpy and visceral. It's an iconic film extra-textually as well: a cinema showing the film was burned down killing hundreds of people. It's a film that is still banned in Iran.2021-03-1723 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo and Richard Layne on Filmfarsi (Ehsan Khoshbakht), WOW FestivalA discussion of Filmfarsi, a film by Ehsan Khoshbakht, of a mode of filmmaking extremely popular in Iran -- urban gangster films, melodramas, musicals -- set in urban working class milieus, that evoked and challenged the country's vaunted leap in modernity. It's a cinema quickly banned after the '79 revolution, and a cult on VHS. The filmmaker shows the wide range of filmmaking, its transnational perspective, its ritual and fetishistic post -79 consumption, and well evokes why it was so powerful, why it's been banned and why it is so cherished.2021-03-1632 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 31: Chahine and Dawn of a New Day: An Egyptian PerspectiveThis podcast has been very lucky with its listeners. Hussein, not only provided us with a possibility of viewing the wonderful Dawn of a New Day, but produced the sub-titles necessary to understand it. I took the opportunity of talking to Hussein to ask him about things we as English-speaking viewers simply did not understand. i.e an Egyptian perspective on the politics, the history, the significance of streets and buildings, the customs, the reputation of the actors in the film. All proved illuminating and enlightening and has certainly helped me understand Dawn of a New Day better. The conversation...2021-03-1250 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 30: Context: Encounter with the UnknownA discussion of Atef Salem's 1959 Encounter with the Unknown, part of a cycle of films we will be covering as a way of setting a context for better understanding the work of Youssef Chahine. We discuss the very glamorous pairing of Omar Shariff and Samia Gamal, the superb mise-en-scène and visuals, what such skill brings to a rickety script and what it cannot, the relative lack of conceptual and thematic richness in comparison to Chahine and much else. You can follow the blogpost at: https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/03/03/the-youssef-chahine-podcast-no-30-encounter-with-the-unknown-%d9%85%d9%88%d8%b9%d8%af-%d9%85%d8%b9-%d...2021-03-0327 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast N0. 29: Dawn of a New DayRichard Layne and I return with a discussion of Dawn of a New Day, one of Chahine's best. It echoes Sirk once more and has traces of An Affair to Remember and European Art Cinema like Antonioni's La notte or Fellini's La dolce vita whilst remaining very much a popular melodrama about love which is also a commentary on the state of the nation and its future. A very beautiful film and so accessible it's a real pity it's not part of the current Netflix package.2021-02-2537 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo in Conversation with Fiona Cox on It's a SinA discussion between friends, informed but eager for exchange and hoping to contribute to a discussion. We probably missed many reference points but as soon as we stopped talking I realised the most obvious one is 120 BPM.2021-02-091h 16
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 28: Alexandria...New YorkAn extended discussion of Youssef Chahine's Alexandria New York. 'I love American cinema but America doesn't love me'. Anyone who loves Chahine's cinema will find this irresistible. A film made by someone who thinks and knows how to visualise and dramatise. We will see it again2021-01-0952 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 27: Silence...on tourne!A discussion of Silence...on tourne focussing on the many characteristic flourishes we like so much in Chahine's oeuvre but exploring also why they are less satisfying in this particular work.2020-12-0522 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 26, The Ring Seller/ Biya el-KhawatimA discussion of one of Youssef Chahine's most enjoyable films, The Ring Seller/ Biya el-Khawatim. We discuss the film in relation to Chahine's oeuvre, to national and transnational cultures, to the musical genre in relation to theatrical operetta and zarzuela but also in relation to films like Powell/Pressburger's Oh.... Rosalinda! and Arthur Freed musicals.2020-11-2836 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 25: DestinyThe Youssef Chahine Podcast returns for a discussion of Destiny, with its images of book burnings, its themes of love and religious tolerance, its genre-bending mix of historical epic and musical extravaganza, and Chahine's characteristic artfulness with the techne of filmmaking.2020-11-2238 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 24 L'autreAfter a brief gap, José Arroyo and Richard Layne return for the 24th episode of the Youssef Chahine Pocast, an extended discussion of L'autre/ The Other. a film about Orientalism, Imperialism, Terrorism; an examination of class structures with a gender analysis; a film about a land and its people...yet one that also recalls popular melodramatic and glitzy works like Dynasty. Not quite top Chahine but a film that's nonetheless made us think and that we've grown to love.2020-11-0752 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 23: C'est toi mon amour/ Inta HabibiRichard returns to discuss Youssef Chahine's fascinating musical in the light of Tara Shehata's great podcast on the film last week.2020-09-2438 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast with Special Guest Star Tara ShehataThe Youssef Chahine Podcast talks to filmmaker Tara Shehata about two Youssef Chahine musicals, C'es toi mon amour/ ENTA HABIBI (1957) and Silence, on tourne!/Skoot hansawwar (2001).2020-09-1646 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 21: Devil of the Sahara/ The Desert's DevilA discussion of the Youssef Chahine's Devil of the Sahara aka The Desert's Devil. We discuss the influence of Zorro and Robin Hood on the film, how Sharif is deployed as a combination of Errol Flynn AND Tyrone Power. We praise the film's production values; how it's a piece of entertainment filmed with a verve and flair that comes across even in the very bad copy we had access to. The film has exciting action sequences that make one re-think action in his later films and very successful large-scale musical numbers -- the influence of Minnelli evident throughout -- that...2020-09-1232 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmWomen Without Men But With Music MixdownA discussion of Nissae Bila Regal, Women Without Men, sometimes also known as Only Women, a Youssef Chahine film from 1953 with superb production values, musical numbers a la MGM and a plot that recalls Federico Garcîa Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba. We discuss many of the themes that are to recur throughout Chahine's oeuvre: the influence of Hollywood cinema, melodrama, an exploration of modernisation, gender roles, a discussion of an idea of nation.....and much more.2020-09-0731 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast: Yaser Hammad on Chahine.Yaser Hammad is a young Saudi filmmaker as well as the screenwriter of Saudi Arabia's first ever feature film, Roll'em. Meeting Yaser here has been one of the great pleasures of doing the Chahine podcast. Not only is he, like us, a great admirer of Chahine but, unlike us, he's got access to all the Arab writing on Chahine and is much more knowledgeable about actors, songs, the whole pop and social culture around Chahine. His additions, corrections, interventions have been so invaluable that I asked him to join us for this podcast so that our listeners may also benefit...2020-09-0454 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 18: Baba Amin (1950)A discussion of Youssef Chahine's very first feature, Baba Amin/ Papa Amin/ Daddy Amin. We discuss how the first half seems like the work of a different, less talented filmmaker, how the second half comes alive with charm, inventiveness, song; how Faten Hamama once more comes across as one of the great presences of world cinema; the connection to the Astaire/ Rogers Swing Time; its interesting mix of musical and melodrama, and how auteurism here results in an enhanced appreciation of the work.2020-08-2229 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 17: Cairo As Seen By ChahineAn appreciation of Chahine's short but great Cairo as Seen By Chahine. We discuss the film's self-reflexiveness. How its aware of framing, composition, Foreign expectations, relations and obligations concerning style and subject matter. How to film and evoke a city? How to do it with respect and love for its inhabitants? How to politely warn about dangers around and dangers ahead and how to understand what drives desperate people there. We could have had a much longer discussion. But then, it would have been longer than the film.2020-08-1824 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 16: Le sixième jourA discussion of Le sixième jour, which Chahine dedicates to Gene Kelly as a thank you for having filled his youth with joy. A rare Chahine film that is centred on a female star, female desire and female self-actualisation in a patriarchal culture. A hybrid of a woman's film and musical. It's set during a cholera pandemic, which resonates with the present, and also features a story of the unrequited love of a 26 year old street performer for an unhappy and much older housewife that still feels transgressive. Richard loved it very much. I less so. But we agree t...2020-08-1449 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo And Richard Layne On The EmigrantJosé Arroyo and Richard Layne discuss Youssef Chahine's The Emigrant in the light of the previous conversation with Martin Stollery and in the light of Dr. Stollery's monograph on the film.2020-08-0851 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast: Adieu BonaparteRichard Layne and José Arroyo discuss Adieu Bonaparte, the notorious Franco-Egyptian co-production, and the only Chahine film we've been able to find on Blu-ray (under France's 'Heritage' collection). Of interest to anyone concerned with questions of North African Cinema, Colonialism, Arab Cultures or the various ways sexuality has been queered in non-Western countries.2020-08-0545 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmJosé Arroyo In Conversation with Martin Stollery on Youssef Chahine's The EmigrantMartin Stollery is the author of a monograph on Youssef Chahine's The Emigrant, the most sustained analysis of any one Youssef Chahine film I've been able to find in English. Here we talk about the film itself, how it allegorises, the meaning and uses of water in Chahine's films, the famous court case that is part of the context of the film's release, and the film's relationship to Biblical epics as well as Youssef Chahine's more personal style of filmmaking. An illuminating discussion of texts, contexts and modes of analysis that ends with a renewed appreciation of Chahine's achievements as...2020-08-041h 05
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmYoussef Chahine Podcast No. 11A discussion of Youssef Chahine's ALEXANDRIA, WHY? with José Arroyo, Richard Layne and special guest star Andrew Moor. Richard Dyer named this as one of his favourite queer films of all time.2020-07-1657 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast with José Arroyo and Richard Layne, No. 10 Return of the Prodigal SonA great discussion of a fascinating film, part Teen musical, part Tennessee Williams, and an exploration of the social and political issue that arose after the death of Nasser and Egypt's defeat in the Six Day War with Israel, filmed with great verve and style.2020-07-1548 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 9: People of the Nile 1972After our podcast of Un jour, Le Nile, Richard discovered the 1972 recut and partly remade version of the film on You Tube and we decided to see it, explore its differences from the 1968 version and the director's cut and see how that might have affected its narrative, its politics and the way that ire represents sexuality. What is a filmmaker against the combined diplomatic and internal exigencies of the USSR and Egypt?2020-07-1235 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 6: The Land aka The EarthThe Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 6: The Land aka The Earth by Jose Arroyo & Richard Layne2020-07-0644 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcast no. 4: José And Richard On Saladin (Egypt, 1963)A discussion of Youssef Chahine's Saladin which offers some context on the cinematic representation of Saladin in relation to Richard the Lion Heart, some historical information in its relation to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's efforts to maintain a United Arab Republic, and Chahine's attempts to narrate those aspirations through the story of Saladin. We admire the film's use of the CinemaScope frame, its staging in depth, its use of colour, and editing; and bemoan the way some of the action is directed. A huge popular success in its day. An Arab answer to the epics then so popular in...2020-06-2941 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmThe Youssef Chahine Podcasts: Dark Water With Richard Layne and José ArroyoA discussion of Youssef Chahine's Dark Water, currently on Netflix. José and Richard discuss how the film introduces the viewer to another culture which might seem sexist and authoritarian to modern sensibilities and that in spite of that is moving, compelling and beautiful. The podcast ranges over the sensuality depicted, the detection of elements of Shakespeare's Othello and Hamlet in some scenes, how the frame is alive with community and yet how one detects a patterning in the depiction of that community that connotes a queer culture in that that community which provides comfort and support can also turn on t...2020-06-2443 min
First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About FilmOn Blazing Sun with Richard LayneJosé Arroyo and Richard Layne discovered the work of Youssef Chahine at a retrospective of his work at Bologna last year, are thrilled that so many previously difficult-to-see films of his are now available on Netflix, and hope that these podcasts encourage people to watch and discuss the films. This is the first in a series. We hope to cover as many of them as possible, and in chronological order. We hope you join us on this journey2020-06-2227 min