Flann O'Brien Documentary

Flann O'Brien Documentary
"a real writer, with the true comic spirit" - James Joyce

Here is a treat, a documentary on the wonderful Irish writer Flann O'Brien a.k.a. Brian O'Nolan, writer of two of the greatest Irish novels: At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman. He also produced one of the greatest satirical newspaper columns ever - An Cruiskeen Lawn.

In some ways he is the Irish Orson Welles, starting off with such great masterpieces that everything else is seen by some as a disappointment. And there is no doubt that he descended from those heights and suffered from frustration and alcoholism.

Thanks to Mick Mahon, who edited this documentary, for sharing.

Punk Britannia, Episode II

Punk Britannia, Episode II - FRAGMENTS

Before episode three of BBC's documentary series celebrating the 35th 'Jubilee' of punk I thought I'd try to stitch together some fragments I jotted down into something resembling a blog post. I have already posted on episode one here.

For your listening pleasure (and some pain!) I have put together a playlist of the songs used in this episode.

Punk Britannia - Pre Punk 1972-1976

Punk Britannia - Pre Punk 1972-1976
Some loose thoughts and Youtube surfing inspired by watching the first episode of BBC4's Punk Britannia. This is more a string of impressions and opinions than a review.

(Q!uotes are approXXXimate, OPinions are my own!! even if they are others also!!! RIGHT!!!!)

"People would ask me what does it mean? is it a love song? The best answer I have is that New Rose is about the punk scene.." - Brian James, The Damned

What We Leave in Our Wake

People who know me would not think it strange for me to say that I am (at best) somewhat bemused by life.  The shape and values of the tide of life often seem in permanent ebb and most of our culture is like driftwood, smoothed and blunted by saltwater and sand.


What We Leave In Our Wake (trailer 21st) from Harvest Films on Vimeo.

It is invigorating to see an Irish film taking up Joyce's great challenge to ' forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.' Pat Collins has made an important  film whose contribution to the Irish may be greater than anything arising out of tomorrows 'most important election in our lifetime'. It has certainly stirred thoughts in my mind and I will be taking advantage of it's presence on the RTE Player to watch it again before it disappears. (It's there until Monday 14th March)

He shows us an Ireland of garage forecourts and stone walls, of nondescript urban landscapes whose inanity is a challenge to identity. The land gives back remnants of our past like a Connemara navvy spitting his bloody teeth on a Kilburn sidewalk, his very language already stolen from his mouth.

The Writing in the Sky

CLICK TO WATCH

I have just finished watching Garry Keane's documentary on the great Irish writer Dermot Healy. He seems to have found/formed an idyll wherein to write, in a small white cottage on the Sligo coast. A solitary writer, he is also knitted in to the local community, and wider webs of writers, wildlife, friends and family.

For six months of the year his days are marked by the thousands of Barnacle Geese who fly in from their island nesting place five minutes after the sun rises and return five minutes before the sun goes down. A clock in the sky. They spend the other six months in Greenland.

Grass grew on The Grass Arena

Just finished watching Paul Duane's intriguing and revealing documentary about the author of The Grass Arena - one of the starkest memoirs I have read of life on society's edge. The memoir tells of his life as an Irish immigrant with a violent father, as a boxer, a wino, a convict and then remarkably as a chess prodigy in his thirties, a game he learnt in prison.

The film is called John Healy - You Have Been Warned, although it has an alternate, and more poetic title Barbaric Genius.

Of Time and the City

Original Post - Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Of Time and the City - Terence Davies

I have just finished watching Terence Davies inspiring Of Time and the City, a poetic montage of archival footage of the Liverpool of his memory. Davies was born a working class catholic into poverty in Liverpool in 1945 and left in 1973. The film charts in a very subjective way the ‘history’ of Liverpool in that era.

As well as archive there is a voiceover which also uses quotes and poetry, both Davies own, Shelley and an excerpt from Eliot’s Four Quartets amoung others. There is an almost ecstatic surrender to memory and the emotional impact of human endurance in the face of hardship.

Hammering the Anvil

Original Post - Saturday, July 10, 2010

Have had the Anvil DVD on the shelf for a long time but finally got around to watching it a few days ago. It had so much press it was hard not to have preconceptions. I expected Spinal Tap with heart but that doesn't quite capture the experience.

YOU GOT TO GET IT IN THE BLOOD.

Original post - Thursday, March 04, 2010

Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus

I finally got around to watching this film, which has been on my list of films to watch for a few years now. As an admirer of Jim Whites delicate take on Southern Gothic and fascinated with the south of Flannery O’Connor and Harry Crews this road movie through the marginalized heart of the south looked like something I would surely enjoy.  ....

It is an impressionistic journey, where roadside minstrels and storytellers pop up to sing songs or tell stories of death and redemption and other affairs of the spirit. Jim White is our Virgil in this journey, and though the journey finds hellfire it also finds the vigour and resilience of the south.....

He's Your Man but this is not your Film

Original Post - Friday, September 29, 2006

Review of Leonard Cohen Doc
Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man
DIR: Lian Lunson • PROD: Mel Gibson, Lian Lunson • DOP: Geoffrey Hall, Lian Lunson, Brit Marling, John Pirozzi • ED: Mike Cahill • CAST: Leonard Cohen, Bono, Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright, Jarvis Cocker, Antony Hegarty, Martha Wainwright, Beth Orton, Hal Willner

I love Leonard Cohen. There, I've said it and now I'll face the barbs and the attacks on my masculinity. His voice (often derided for tunelessness) has a depth comparable with that of Johnny Cash. But while Johnny has a voice to go to work to, Leonard's has a dreamy quality; it is a voice to fall asleep to in the arms of dreams and philosophy. I have a recurring dream where I live in a large empty house with a Leonard Cohen album on the turntable in a room I can never quite get to. I first came across his 'Songs of Leonard Cohen' among my parents' cassettes, so his is a musical presence that goes right back to my earliest memories.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

Original post - Tuesday, April 11, 2006

The Devil and Daniel Johnston - Review
Category: Music
You can find my review of the Daniel Johnston doc at the end of the following link.
http://www.filmireland.net/reviews/the_devil_and_daniel_johnston.htm

or here -
The Devil and Daniel Johnston
DIR/WRI: Jeff Feuerzeig • PROD: Henry S. Rosenthal • DOP: Rob Featherstone, Fortunato Procopio • ED: Tyler Hubby •CAST: Daniel Johnston, Louis Black, Bill Johnston, Mabel Johnston, Jeff Tartakov.
This can be a difficult documentary to watch, as there is always a worry as to where the line between collaboration/elucidation and exploitation lies when you are dealing with someone who has ongoing psychological problems. However, the compelling nature of the story unfolding means that you are sucked in despite whatever reservations you may have.Who is Daniel Johnston? Well, he is a sort of American primitive mash-up of the Beatles and the Beach Boys as recorded by a primitive folk artist in the 1920s.

The Rocky Road To Dublin

Review for Film Ireland - original post - Friday, April 07, 2006

The Rocky Road To Dublin
DIR/WRI: Peter Lennon • PROD: Victor Herbert • DOP: Raoul Coutard • ED: Lila Bird
What do you do with your revolution? I have long been aware of the almost mythical status of Peter Lennon's Rocky Road to Dublin and like almost everyone had seen the Father Michael Cleary excerpts around the time of that particular clerical scandal (now it seems a mere innocent indiscretion). As with any film that has been trumpeted in advance I approached it with some trepidation - almost expecting to be dissappointed. I wasn't. This film is, I feel, both an important, evocative document of an Ireland that has passed away, and a starting point for an examination of Ireland today. Watching it while the continued clerical control of the National Schools has finally become the subject of Dáil debate it seems that we have hardly changed.

Bob Dylan - in the eye of the hurricane.

Original Post - Friday, April 07, 2006

Bob Dylan - No Direction Home

Scorcese's Dylan doc proved as fascinating as expected. The music (Not just Bobs') was given enough space to breathe and not just quickly chopped in and out and there were many voices and much archive to tell the story in a clear and engaging way. Scorsese didn't actually shoot any material for this. The interviews had  been conducted by Dylan manager Jeff Rosen five years ago. They included a long interview with Dylan and interviews with many of the denizens of Greenwich Village in the early sixties. (Liam Clancy, Joan Baez, Al Kooper, His job was to find a narrative structure and he has succeeded admirably, starting and finishing with the famous concert in The Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1966 where Dylan was called Judas when he plugged in his electric guitar. There is a wealth out material culled from the outtakes of 'D A Pennebaker's magnificent 'Don't Look Back' and the rarely seen sequel 'Eat the document· Murray Lerners'  footage of the Newport Folk Festivals of 1962, '63 & '64 , tv clips and other odds and ends.