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At the end of the 1800s a new art form
flickered into live.
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It looked like our dreams.
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Movies are multi-billion dollar
global entertainment industry now.
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But what drives them
isn't box-office or showbiz.
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It's passion, innovation!
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So let's travel the world
to find this innovation for ourselves.
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To discover it in this man,
Stanley Donen,
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who made Singing in the Rain.
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And in Jane Campion in Australia.
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And in the films of Ky�ko Kagawa
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who was in perhaps
the greatest movie ever made.
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And Amitabh Bachchan,
the most famous actor in the world.
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And in the movies
of Martin Scorcese and Spike Lee,
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Lars Von Trier and Akira Kurosawa.
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Welcome to the story of film,
an odyssey.
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An epic tale of innovation
across twelve decades,
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six continents
and a thousand films.
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In this chapter we discover
a new generation of Chines films
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and David Lynch's movie,
Blue Velvet.
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The 1980s, greed is good.
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Thatcher and Reagan
are in power in the west.
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Around the world, conservative ideologues
tell false stories about life and love.
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The most innovative filmmakers
speak back at these falsehoods.
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This is their story.
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The story of '80s protest.
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The story of speaking truth to
power in the '80s starts here:
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China.
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Probably the most interesting place
on earth at the time.
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China looked like this
in the '80s.
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But it looked like this too.
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There was a new openness
in China.
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It was debating where it stood in the world,
how modern and Democratic it wanted to be.
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Standing up
to the old Maoist repressions.
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The fervent was thrilling
and moving.
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And out of it came the greatest rebirth
in filmmaking of the whole decade.
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Mao's cultural revolution had stamped out
the fire of movie-making in China,
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and closed its legendary film school,
the Beijing film academy.
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Director Tian Zhuangzhuang.
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The so-called, 5th Generation,
who graduated from it in 1982,
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would be the most distinguished ever
to spill out of a film school.
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They made some
of the best films of the '80s.
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Tian's film, The Horse Thief,
[Dao ma zei]
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spoke truth to power because it focused
on a very un-Maoist subject.
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We're at a traditional burial.
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A horse thief's young son
has died.
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Tian films Buddhist monks
in subtle slow motion.
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And these vultures who eat the corpse,
a horrifying idea to westerners
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but a sacred sky burial
for the horse thief and his family.
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Tian was interested
in the mystical traditions
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of his characters,
themes that were banned under Mao.
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The themes of Sergei Parajanov
in the Ukraine.
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Having eaten the body,
the vultures take its spirit into the sky.
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And Tian's films
looked different.
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He framed like this
and treated color like this.
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Martin Scorsese called
The Horse Thief
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the best film of the decade.
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Whereas Maoist films were about patriotic
and exemplary types,
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the 5th Generation were challenging
their times
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by making movies about
individual psychology.
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The greatest village film made in China
in the '80s was this one, Yellow Earth.
[Huang tu di]
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Again, we're far away
from modernity and big cities.
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Static shots, a sense of the scale
of the landscape.
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Muted yellows and Greens.
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Communist soldiers
collecting folksongs.
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He writes the ones he hears,
here, in this notebook.
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Then the soldier meets
this 14-year-old girl
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and the film becomes about her gentle,
but confident femininity.
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She's sewing.
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Her head's down-turned.
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The frame's static.
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She questions the soldier
but doesn't look at him.
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Women in Maoist cinema were supposed
to be strutting and heroic.
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Director, Chen Kaige, and cinematographer,
Zhang Yimou,
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who had himself became a successful director,
framed the imagery like Chinese painting.
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Instead of being here,
the horizon would be here.
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Or here.
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Male and female stood together
in Yellow Earth's
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remarkably framed landscapes.
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The film wasn't Maoist
because it had little action or conflict.
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But nor was it traditionally male
and Confucian.
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The girl wants to join the army,
to strike out at life
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rather than to stay home.
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Instead, it used emptiness
within the frame
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as a compositional element,
and saw maleness within femaleness,
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and good within bad.
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Ideas more associated with
another great Asian philosophy: Taoism.
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All this was deeply challenging.
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The legacy of Chinese film
of the '80s was complex.
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Tian worked consistently until 1993,
when his film about the cultural revolution,
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The blue Kite, [Lan feng zheng] was banned
and he was forbidden to work
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for nearly a decade.
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Yellow Earth's cinematographer,
Zhang Yimou,
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went on to direct some of the most
rigorously beautiful movies of the '90s.
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His film, Raise the red Lantern,
was boldly symmetrical
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and had a striking
orange-red color palette.
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But even it didn't prepare us
for his mastery of digital cinema.
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We're in a richly decorated
poony pavilion.
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Zhang studied Chinese painting
and uses its ultra-widescreen compositions.
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Slow motion and a gravity defying
Buddhist sense of the grace of movement.
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A pictorial master class.
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The imagery in Chinese cinema was becoming
as beautiful as anywhere in the world.
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All that was in the future.
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But back in the '80s, five years
after the release of Yellow Earth,
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the sun went down on China's moving and
exciting decade of self-discovery.
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Thousands of pro-democracy protestors
were killed by their own government
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in Tiananmen square.
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One of the greatest images ever
of speaking truth to power.
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In another communist sphere, Eastern Europe
and the Soviet Union in the '80s,
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the powerful communist authorities
were starting to lose their grip.
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Life was tough but people persevered
and society began to open up.
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Filmmakers told stories about taboo subjects,
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the resulting movies literally changed
the world in some cases,
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and are some of the most
troubling films ever made.
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This film, Repentance, [Monanieba]
created a sensation.
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It tells, in an almost comic
book manner, of this dictator.
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He has a Hitler moustache
but, like Stalin, is Georgian.
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A woman imagines
that she and her man are buried.
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An echo of this much earlier
Soviet film, Arsenal.
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A haunting static shot
of a smiling dead soldier.
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The Stalin-like dictator eventually dies
but, astonishingly, a woman digs up his body
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and stands it here,
in the garden of his morally corrupt son.
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The corpse looks unremarkable,
like it's just relaxing against a tree.
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Director Abuladze had it filmed
from far away, in daylight.
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A symbol of course, of the fact
that atrocity cannot be buried.
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That the Stalinist genocide
stinks of death.
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The president of Georgia
and the new modernizing boss
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of the Soviet Union in the '80s,
Mikhail Gorbachev, saw the film
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and approved it for release.
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It was seen by millions
and helped spark glasnost,
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the period of new openness
in the Soviet union.
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A rare example of film
actually changing the world.
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Repentance was premiered here,
the film union building Dom Kino, in Moscow.
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As was this astonishing Soviet film
from the mid '80s, Come and See.
[Idi i smotri]
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We're in Belarus in 1943.
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Nazi bombs have just exploded.
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Into the frame comes
the teenage boy of the story.
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He's fighting the Nazis.
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The camera moves up a bit,
to adult height.
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The boy seems to get smaller
because of the wide angle lens.
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The peak of his cap seems
to reach out to us.
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The bomb has given him tinnitus.
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Whistle.
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Roar.
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He meets a girl,
they go to his village.
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He can't find his family.
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They run to look for them.
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Then the girl looks back,
and sees them.
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He doesn't.
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The wide angle camera tracking them,
as if it's the awful thing she's just seen.
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In their flight, they come
across this bog.
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This is acting at the limit
of endurance.
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The roar of fear.
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We hardly hear their screams.
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The absurdity of a Viennese Waltz
on the sound track.
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No film is more physical.
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Another Soviet film
about a near burial.
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Come and See's acting, sound design,
staring wide angle camerawork,
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and moral seriousness made it
the greatest war film ever made.
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00:15:06,733 --> 00:15:09,619
The director of Come and See,
Elem Klimov,
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became head
of the Soviet film union in '80s.
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In this very room in the union building,
he and politicians discussed censorship,
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the digging up of the past,
and films that had been banned
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because they were anti-Soviet, because they
spoke truths other than the sanctioned ones.
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One such film was this one, Long Goodbyes,
[Dolgie provody]
directed by the brilliant Kira Muratova.
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We see a middle aged woman.
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Cut to a train.
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Looking outside first, then zoom out
to show that the mother is talking to her son.
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Jump cut.
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He's trying to sleep.
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She talks.
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The strange high-pitched voice
on the sound track.
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No sound of the train itself.
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Throughout the film, Muratova
has the mother and son
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look away from each other.
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She nags him.
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The music erupts.
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Match cut to a man.
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Then to the son.
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A strange jump cut on his hands.
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The man has been replaced
by an older man.
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More splintered cuts
from different angles.
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Then we're outside the train
and then we seem to be in an airplane.
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What was all this about?
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This earlier scene helps us see.
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The mom and son again.
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Not looking at each other again.
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Filmed in a long lens again.
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A lens so long that the space
seems paper thin.
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Muratova's theme here was the way
people can suffocate each other.
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00:17:32,541 --> 00:17:36,697
Soviet films of the '70s and '80s
were supposed to be about social themes
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00:17:36,721 --> 00:17:39,980
but this one's
about psychological bondage.
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00:17:42,311 --> 00:17:45,568
They couldn't accuse Muratova
of being anti-Soviet
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but the archives say
that the authorities were
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"terribly unnerved by the form"
of this film.
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And so, like the films
of Sergei Paradjanov,
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whom Muratova adored,
Long Goodbyes was banned.
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Maybe they thought Muratova's long lenses
and almost hidden camera positions
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were commenting
on Soviet surveillance?
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Whatever.
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00:18:09,372 --> 00:18:14,273
One official wrote:
"How can you allow such an outrage?"
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Written on chalk on the film's canister was:
"Not to be given out."
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00:18:20,765 --> 00:18:23,843
But back in this smoke-filled room
in the late '80s,
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a decade after it was made,
Muratova's beautiful film
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00:18:27,807 --> 00:18:31,981
was unbanned
and released to acclaim.
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It had come back from the dead
to speak a truth to power.
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00:18:37,356 --> 00:18:42,122
She's one of the most underrated director's
in the whole story of film.
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00:18:45,688 --> 00:18:49,950
By the '80s, large chunks
of the eastern block looked like this.
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But what if you did this to it?
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And what if you shifted
its color to this?
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These are the questions that the Polish
director, Krzysztof Kieslowski, asked.
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00:19:03,210 --> 00:19:06,801
His answers were
about love and death.
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00:19:07,624 --> 00:19:12,408
Meet Yacek, this 20-year-old,
in an '80s Polish city.
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00:19:14,525 --> 00:19:17,793
Kieslowski pictures him
in yellow-green imagery.
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00:19:17,817 --> 00:19:21,023
The shots are hooded, jaundiced.
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00:19:22,219 --> 00:19:24,121
He sees a rock.
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00:19:26,166 --> 00:19:29,178
He decides to do harm
with the rock.
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If he can do this,
he can do anything.
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This makes us scared of him.
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00:19:42,436 --> 00:19:44,275
An old Hitchcock trick.
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00:19:45,213 --> 00:19:47,146
What'll he do next?
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This is what he does next.
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00:19:55,833 --> 00:19:57,904
He gets in a taxi.
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00:19:59,157 --> 00:20:03,122
He's going to kill the taxi driver,
but the driver doesn't know this.
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00:20:03,146 --> 00:20:06,248
He stops to let kids
cross the road.
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An echo of the scene in Hitchcock's
Psycho, where Janet Leigh,
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00:20:12,784 --> 00:20:16,624
who doesn't know she's about to die,
let's people cross the road.
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00:20:20,673 --> 00:20:24,726
But where Hitchcock's film
was fear as entertainment,
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Kieslowski's film is about
the dirt and sickness of fear.
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00:20:29,572 --> 00:20:31,876
Yacek strangles the man.
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00:20:31,900 --> 00:20:36,827
We see the man's foot come out of his sock,
he takes forever to die.
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00:20:49,784 --> 00:20:53,243
The scene lasts 3 minutes,
45 seconds.
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00:20:53,247 --> 00:20:54,980
35 shots.
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00:20:55,004 --> 00:20:56,659
Real time.
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00:21:00,295 --> 00:21:02,315
The man's saliva.
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00:21:05,734 --> 00:21:10,130
The masking of the imagery is so heavy
that, at times, it looks like night.
236
00:21:10,154 --> 00:21:12,206
The man's false teeth.
237
00:21:12,652 --> 00:21:17,269
The murder reduced to a sock,
spit, and dentures.
238
00:21:18,409 --> 00:21:20,382
Extraordinary innovation.
239
00:21:23,436 --> 00:21:28,064
Then we jump a year and Yacek is
sentenced to death for his crime.
240
00:21:28,093 --> 00:21:30,783
Green light
and hooded imagery again.
241
00:21:30,807 --> 00:21:33,121
The ugly fury of death.
242
00:21:33,230 --> 00:21:34,967
He's gone in a moment.
243
00:21:45,293 --> 00:21:48,189
And then the shit drips
from his body.
244
00:22:00,579 --> 00:22:06,337
Only at the end, in this starburst,
after Yacek has died, is the light white.
245
00:22:08,219 --> 00:22:09,683
A Short Film About Killing
[Kr�tki film o zabijaniu]
246
00:22:09,707 --> 00:22:13,630
has used physical things to rage
against the dying of the light.
247
00:22:14,177 --> 00:22:16,782
Literally, because
the greenness and masking
248
00:22:16,806 --> 00:22:19,699
make it look like the light
of the world is dying.
249
00:22:20,883 --> 00:22:24,072
A Short Film About Killing
has to be seen to be believed.
250
00:22:24,096 --> 00:22:27,129
It changed the death penalty
in Poland.
251
00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:34,207
Talking truth to power, indeed.
252
00:22:52,318 --> 00:22:55,143
African cinema in the '80s
was not undergoing
253
00:22:55,167 --> 00:22:58,188
such dark days
as the films of Eastern Europe.
254
00:22:58,506 --> 00:23:01,682
Although some African countries were forced
to mortgage their economies
255
00:23:01,706 --> 00:23:06,740
to the international monetary fund,
innovation in African movies soared.
256
00:23:08,564 --> 00:23:12,851
In the '70s, African films had been
about society, the here and now,
257
00:23:12,875 --> 00:23:15,396
the immediate post-colonial world.
258
00:23:16,284 --> 00:23:20,012
But in the '80s, directors started to look
beyond the present tense,
259
00:23:20,036 --> 00:23:24,933
to the horizon, the past,
before colonization.
260
00:23:26,716 --> 00:23:30,085
A rethink of
what African cinema was for.
261
00:23:31,339 --> 00:23:35,105
This man, Gaston Kabor�, did
this brilliantly.
262
00:23:36,500 --> 00:23:40,341
His movie, Wend Kuuni,
was one of the first films to do so.
263
00:23:40,365 --> 00:23:43,236
A landmark in African cinema.
264
00:23:45,547 --> 00:23:48,919
This orphan boy called Wend Kuuni,
which means "gift from god",
265
00:23:48,944 --> 00:23:52,299
has been found in the bush,
he doesn't speak.
266
00:23:52,323 --> 00:23:53,995
He herds goats.
267
00:23:54,975 --> 00:23:57,945
Director Kabor�'s camera
follows him from a distance
268
00:23:57,970 --> 00:24:01,824
and frames him alone,
outside the village.
269
00:24:05,477 --> 00:24:08,972
Then we get a flashback to a time
when his mom was still alive.
270
00:24:09,668 --> 00:24:12,825
The boy's sick,
they're under a tree in the shade.
271
00:24:13,338 --> 00:24:17,169
Then Kabor� makes the time line
of his film more complex.
272
00:24:17,675 --> 00:24:24,559
I put in, when Kuuni, a flashback
inside another flashback
273
00:24:24,584 --> 00:24:28,831
and I did it without questioning myself
and it worked.
274
00:24:29,842 --> 00:24:33,623
Here, the mother
has her own flashback to her husband.
275
00:24:33,647 --> 00:24:36,077
A flashback within a flashback.
276
00:24:41,412 --> 00:24:48,636
You see how aesthetic could be invented
just because an artist is doing
277
00:24:48,660 --> 00:24:58,793
what he feels or she feels to be good
for the story he or she is telling.
278
00:25:13,671 --> 00:25:18,215
Then we return to the first flashback,
the boy's memory of his mom.
279
00:25:18,239 --> 00:25:22,071
And soon afterwards,
we get back to the present tense.
280
00:25:23,289 --> 00:25:26,743
I believe in mixed instinct
in art.
281
00:25:26,767 --> 00:25:33,631
I believe in audacity,
you know, in art.
282
00:25:33,655 --> 00:25:46,084
And Africa has a tremendous treasure
of stories, tales, mythology, legends.
283
00:25:48,184 --> 00:25:52,165
We need that because
it's the food of the souls.
284
00:25:53,431 --> 00:25:57,133
Kabor�'s film speaks truth
to the past, you could say.
285
00:25:57,157 --> 00:26:02,461
But then came another African film
about the past, the dream time.
286
00:26:06,725 --> 00:26:09,765
In this film, Yeelen,
which means "brightness,"
287
00:26:09,789 --> 00:26:14,316
this man, Niankoro, has been tracking
down his sorcerer father.
288
00:26:15,889 --> 00:26:18,988
Director Souleymane Ciss�
tracks around Niankoro,
289
00:26:19,012 --> 00:26:21,503
like in a Sergio Leone
shoot out.
290
00:26:21,983 --> 00:26:25,783
Niankoro has to destroy
his father so he's in tears.
291
00:26:26,701 --> 00:26:28,139
He faces him.
292
00:26:39,164 --> 00:26:45,165
A water buffalo in slow motion
and a Sci-Fi roar on the sound track.
293
00:27:14,125 --> 00:27:17,865
Ciss� tracks up
to Niankoro's stony look.
294
00:27:50,478 --> 00:27:53,802
Then his father becomes a mythic elephant,
295
00:27:56,942 --> 00:27:59,770
and Niankoro is a lion.
296
00:28:16,274 --> 00:28:21,388
And then mystical rods seem to channel
the brightness of the cosmos.
297
00:28:44,584 --> 00:28:47,269
Yeelen is as big as
Lawrence of Arabia.
298
00:28:47,294 --> 00:28:50,759
As shape-shifting as
2001: A Space Odyssey.
299
00:28:50,761 --> 00:28:56,418
A magic realist film, and one of cinema's
most complex works of art.
300
00:29:06,941 --> 00:29:08,536
In America in the '80s,
301
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:11,997
if power was anywhere
it was here on Wall Street.
302
00:29:13,568 --> 00:29:14,917
Greed was good here.
303
00:29:14,919 --> 00:29:18,042
Money gushed through this canyon
like a torrent.
304
00:29:18,940 --> 00:29:22,534
This man, Ronald Reagan,
America's president,
305
00:29:22,559 --> 00:29:26,014
said that the money
would trickle down to places like this...
306
00:29:32,456 --> 00:29:33,922
But it didn't.
307
00:29:39,217 --> 00:29:42,176
A new television channel,
Music Television,
308
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:46,600
broadcast its first music video,
this one, in 1981.
309
00:29:53,514 --> 00:29:55,283
The song was about video.
310
00:29:55,284 --> 00:29:58,252
The imagery used screens
within screens.
311
00:29:58,276 --> 00:30:02,082
Pink light, fast editing
and stepped cuts.
312
00:30:02,106 --> 00:30:04,147
All of these things
became part of the language
313
00:30:04,171 --> 00:30:06,194
of popular imagery around the world.
314
00:30:16,205 --> 00:30:20,178
A scene like this shows
how music video influenced film.
315
00:30:20,202 --> 00:30:23,663
The editing is fast, the angles
are numerous and sexy.
316
00:30:24,654 --> 00:30:26,990
The music is the only thing
on the sound track,
317
00:30:27,014 --> 00:30:31,610
we don't hear her feet, for example,
and the scene has no story element.
318
00:30:31,634 --> 00:30:33,872
It's pure impressionism.
319
00:30:36,394 --> 00:30:41,058
But '80s America was mostly
a male Reagan-ite dreamland.
320
00:30:41,083 --> 00:30:43,731
This film was part
of the dreamland.
321
00:30:44,731 --> 00:30:47,949
Rich color.
A roller coaster in the sky.
322
00:30:49,919 --> 00:30:53,091
Close-ups of pilots,
like those in Star Wars.
323
00:30:53,115 --> 00:30:55,777
Tom Cruise is flying
over the Persian Gulf.
324
00:30:55,801 --> 00:30:59,913
He encounters Russian mig pilots,
so flies upside down,
325
00:30:59,937 --> 00:31:03,729
this close,
and gives them the finger.
326
00:31:04,570 --> 00:31:06,518
Greetings.
327
00:31:08,570 --> 00:31:10,724
Watch the birdie.
328
00:31:11,635 --> 00:31:13,836
Jeez, I crack myself up.
329
00:31:15,633 --> 00:31:18,492
Pure cold war, male fantasy.
330
00:31:19,665 --> 00:31:25,009
Many of the shots last just 2 or 3 seconds,
the cutting rate of pop promos and adverts.
331
00:31:25,033 --> 00:31:26,759
Edited on computers.
332
00:31:26,783 --> 00:31:29,330
Scenes could be moved around,
shorted, lengthened
333
00:31:29,354 --> 00:31:32,757
and reviewed
in computer edit suites in seconds.
334
00:31:33,636 --> 00:31:37,173
An advert for the new masculinity
the new America,
335
00:31:37,198 --> 00:31:39,775
the new cinema,
and the new dreaming.
336
00:31:40,765 --> 00:31:44,170
No American dream
was more potent than this one.
337
00:31:47,854 --> 00:31:53,102
We float into David Lynch's Blue Velvet,
like a spaceship landing on earth.
338
00:31:53,126 --> 00:31:55,721
We're in an idealized
American small town.
339
00:31:55,745 --> 00:31:58,904
The sort of place
where firemen wave as they pass.
340
00:32:04,230 --> 00:32:08,503
White picket fence,
children go to school in slow motion.
341
00:32:15,349 --> 00:32:19,595
But Lynch's velvety textures usually
give way to something more fearful.
342
00:32:20,191 --> 00:32:22,966
He took us to the dark world
of Victorian London
343
00:32:22,990 --> 00:32:26,168
in The Elephant Man, for example,
and tracked in to a close up
344
00:32:26,192 --> 00:32:29,320
of a doctor who's sympathetic
to John Merrick.
345
00:32:29,344 --> 00:32:33,833
Just as the actor,
Anthony Hopkins, drops a tear.
346
00:32:33,857 --> 00:32:36,847
Luck and beautiful craftsmanship.
347
00:32:56,405 --> 00:33:00,148
But the movie shows us
the surrealism of Lynch's imagination.
348
00:33:00,172 --> 00:33:05,684
As he filmed side on, the bulbous growths
on Merrick's skull, here for example,
349
00:33:05,708 --> 00:33:10,365
he was reminded of the explosions
of smoke from a recently erupted volcano,
350
00:33:10,389 --> 00:33:12,499
Mount St. Helens.
351
00:33:14,366 --> 00:33:17,171
A deeply original, visual rhyme.
352
00:33:18,337 --> 00:33:21,304
Such connections
take us to the crux of Lynch.
353
00:33:21,328 --> 00:33:26,551
His films protest against the rationality
and understandability of everyday life.
354
00:33:27,171 --> 00:33:31,827
He worked with unconscious material
the way that a carpenter works with wood.
355
00:33:35,341 --> 00:33:38,077
He says that the key scene
of many of his films,
356
00:33:38,101 --> 00:33:41,808
the scene that often combines
the beauty of life with its terror,
357
00:33:41,832 --> 00:33:44,587
is the "eye of the duck scene."
358
00:33:46,183 --> 00:33:49,096
Because, as he put it,
"when you look at a duck,
359
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:52,256
the eye is always
in the right place."
360
00:33:58,117 --> 00:33:59,611
? A candy colored clown ?
361
00:33:59,636 --> 00:34:01,405
? they call the sandman ?
362
00:34:01,406 --> 00:34:04,761
The eye of the duck scene in
Blue Velvet is this one.
363
00:34:05,484 --> 00:34:07,155
? Just to sprinkle stardust ?
364
00:34:07,179 --> 00:34:10,596
? and to whisper go to sleep ?
365
00:34:10,620 --> 00:34:15,250
? everything is alright ?
366
00:34:15,274 --> 00:34:19,777
? I close my eyes ?
367
00:34:19,802 --> 00:34:24,182
? then I drift away ?
368
00:34:24,207 --> 00:34:27,392
? into the magic night ?
369
00:34:27,417 --> 00:34:30,226
The beauty of Roy Orbison's song
combines with
370
00:34:30,250 --> 00:34:33,087
the intoxication of
Dennis Hopper's character.
371
00:34:33,112 --> 00:34:37,008
? Oh smile and pray, ?
372
00:34:37,010 --> 00:34:41,673
? like dreamers do. ?
373
00:34:41,675 --> 00:34:45,505
? Then I fall asleep to dream ??
374
00:34:45,530 --> 00:34:48,159
As if that beauty hurts.
375
00:34:51,789 --> 00:34:54,127
In dreams indeed.
376
00:34:55,325 --> 00:34:56,874
Like Ronald Reagan, David Lynch
377
00:34:56,898 --> 00:35:00,207
had an almost abstract fear
of the outside world.
378
00:35:01,548 --> 00:35:04,128
But he didn't try to push
that fear away.
379
00:35:04,152 --> 00:35:07,460
He stared at it through
a brilliant frame.
380
00:35:09,562 --> 00:35:13,757
Lynch said that as people get older,
their window on the world closes.
381
00:35:13,781 --> 00:35:18,586
This is what was happening
to his country in the '80s, and its cinema.
382
00:35:31,450 --> 00:35:34,446
After David Lynch,
the second great American director
383
00:35:34,471 --> 00:35:38,005
to emerge in the '80s,
was Spike Lee.
384
00:35:38,012 --> 00:35:41,865
He thumbed his nose at white America
and bourgeois blackness
385
00:35:41,889 --> 00:35:44,587
and was inventive
with movie form.
386
00:35:45,861 --> 00:35:50,379
Take his film, Do the Right Thing,
which was shot on this block in Brooklyn.
387
00:35:50,403 --> 00:35:54,793
It's set on a single, sweltering day
and builds like a pressure cooker
388
00:35:54,817 --> 00:35:58,648
as tensions between local blacks,
Latinos, and whites
389
00:35:58,672 --> 00:36:01,326
are sparked
by events at a pizzeria.
390
00:36:02,397 --> 00:36:06,719
Lee and his cinematographer,
Ernst Dickerson, use heightened colors
391
00:36:06,743 --> 00:36:09,350
to match the film's
boiling themes.
392
00:36:10,263 --> 00:36:14,841
They filmed with tilted camera angles
to render things off kilter.
393
00:36:14,846 --> 00:36:17,061
Move on.
You're blocking my view.
394
00:36:19,222 --> 00:36:22,613
You are ugly enough.
Don't stare at me!
395
00:36:22,637 --> 00:36:25,104
The evil eye doesn't work on me.
Mother-sister.
396
00:36:26,017 --> 00:36:28,945
A technique borrowed
from one of Lee's favorite films,
397
00:36:28,969 --> 00:36:33,216
The Third Man,
in which the non-horizontal camera
398
00:36:33,240 --> 00:36:36,702
was used to show the imbalance
of the world of the story.
399
00:36:39,033 --> 00:36:42,919
Lee himself plays the character Mookie,
in the film's climax,
400
00:36:42,943 --> 00:36:47,573
the most striking moment
of protest in '80s American cinema.
401
00:36:47,597 --> 00:36:49,544
Again, saturated color.
402
00:36:49,568 --> 00:36:52,412
Lee picks up a trashcan.
403
00:36:56,559 --> 00:36:58,592
The camera tracks with him.
404
00:37:03,670 --> 00:37:05,015
Hey!
405
00:37:05,668 --> 00:37:08,594
Then it rushes with the can
as Lee throws it
406
00:37:08,618 --> 00:37:10,714
through the window
of the pizzeria.
407
00:37:18,319 --> 00:37:23,122
At the end, Lee pairs a quotation
from Martin Luther King denouncing violence
408
00:37:23,146 --> 00:37:28,337
with one from Malcolm X,
advocating it in self-defense.
409
00:37:32,805 --> 00:37:35,374
David Lynch and Spike Lee
were high water marks
410
00:37:35,398 --> 00:37:38,857
in the otherwise low tide
of American cinema in the '80s.
411
00:37:39,261 --> 00:37:43,382
Neither, however, spoke the truth
about modern life and helped create
412
00:37:43,406 --> 00:37:46,964
the radical independent film movement
in America in the '80s
413
00:37:46,988 --> 00:37:49,306
as much as this man and woman.
414
00:37:49,330 --> 00:37:53,154
Writer-director John Sayles and
producer, Maggie Renzi.
415
00:37:53,178 --> 00:37:56,485
They used a road less travelled
to get their movies made,
416
00:37:56,510 --> 00:37:59,599
and became America's state
of the nation filmmakers.
417
00:37:59,623 --> 00:38:03,965
When we started we really
had no idea of the future.
418
00:38:03,967 --> 00:38:09,011
Yeah, that there was any place for us,
we didn't really analyze it a whole lot.
419
00:38:09,017 --> 00:38:10,335
We just started making stories.
420
00:38:10,336 --> 00:38:12,156
We probably knew by that time
421
00:38:12,181 --> 00:38:15,206
that like Lucas and Spielberg
had gone to film school,
422
00:38:15,230 --> 00:38:18,527
but they belonged to Hollywood
which was a place that we never
423
00:38:18,551 --> 00:38:20,599
thought we would have
anything to do with, although,
424
00:38:20,624 --> 00:38:22,440
John had started writing
for Hollywood.
425
00:38:22,464 --> 00:38:24,571
So there you were
on the periphery of it,
426
00:38:24,595 --> 00:38:26,261
but there was no expectation that
427
00:38:26,285 --> 00:38:29,517
we were building a career when we
made "Return of the Secaucus Seven".
428
00:38:31,671 --> 00:38:34,883
It was about the reunion
of a group of college friends,
429
00:38:34,907 --> 00:38:39,896
ten years after they'd been arrested
on the way to an anti-war demonstration.
430
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:44,996
The film felt truthful because
it wasn't edited in a flashy, MTV, way.
431
00:38:45,442 --> 00:38:50,863
The camera patiently observed intelligent,
adult conversations about politics.
432
00:38:50,845 --> 00:38:52,621
- I mean fighting
for what you believe in.
433
00:38:52,645 --> 00:38:55,293
- No offense, but your senator
is just fighting to keep his job
434
00:38:55,318 --> 00:38:56,716
and his house on
Martha's vineyard.
435
00:38:56,740 --> 00:38:58,389
- Do you know that?
Do you really know that?
436
00:38:58,412 --> 00:38:59,713
Have you looked at his record?
437
00:38:59,738 --> 00:39:02,050
- Alright, how did he stand
on the canal treaty?
438
00:39:02,075 --> 00:39:02,815
- Wait a minute.
439
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:05,236
When we started making movies,
one of the things
440
00:39:05,260 --> 00:39:10,790
I was always interested in was:
What do I see in life around me
441
00:39:10,814 --> 00:39:12,684
that I don't see
on a big screen?
442
00:39:13,562 --> 00:39:17,593
When I started working for the studios,
a lot of those were more heroic movies
443
00:39:17,617 --> 00:39:21,753
and I was aware of,
you know, that's movie making.
444
00:39:21,778 --> 00:39:22,249
You know?
445
00:39:22,274 --> 00:39:24,826
There is the hero
and the girl and the best friend
446
00:39:24,850 --> 00:39:26,590
and everybody else is an extra.
447
00:39:26,614 --> 00:39:32,645
Whereas the stories I was interested in,
and I came out of being a novelist,
448
00:39:32,669 --> 00:39:41,115
on screen, the characters were more complex
and they weren't absolutely heroic.
449
00:39:41,139 --> 00:39:45,212
They might be the protagonist but
like your friends they might be somebody
450
00:39:45,237 --> 00:39:49,925
you love and care about,
but they don't always act in a noble way.
451
00:39:49,950 --> 00:39:52,260
They don't always do
what you wish they would do.
452
00:39:53,707 --> 00:39:56,424
I think from the beginning
the smartest thing we did
453
00:39:56,448 --> 00:39:59,239
is decide to make
the movies in our own way.
454
00:39:59,263 --> 00:40:03,672
That meant casting them in our way
and having complete creative control
455
00:40:03,696 --> 00:40:07,740
over the way we made
them, and that includes
456
00:40:07,764 --> 00:40:11,020
non-hierarchical
and not luxurious.
457
00:40:11,043 --> 00:40:15,543
It was like Hollywood was only there to
see if John could get screenwriting work.
458
00:40:15,568 --> 00:40:18,117
I have less and less respect
for them.
459
00:40:18,141 --> 00:40:21,243
I think they don't even do
what they do very well anymore.
460
00:40:21,267 --> 00:40:23,372
They spend much too much money.
461
00:40:23,396 --> 00:40:27,323
They have lost whole huge sections
of the market place.
462
00:40:27,347 --> 00:40:29,854
I was talking before
about the adult audience.
463
00:40:29,878 --> 00:40:34,120
It takes them, you know,
nine writers to come up with a script
464
00:40:34,145 --> 00:40:36,481
that's no better
than the first version.
465
00:40:36,505 --> 00:40:39,723
I used to be afraid of them
and intimated by them,
466
00:40:39,747 --> 00:40:42,766
and now I realize that they don't
do their jobs very well.
467
00:40:43,426 --> 00:40:45,936
And that's one reason
why the dinosaur is dying.
468
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:47,648
And now you are older than them.
469
00:40:47,673 --> 00:40:51,727
And now I'm older, now I could be
their mother heaven for fend.
470
00:40:51,751 --> 00:40:58,848
Our movies do require paying attention,
taking time, engaging with characters
471
00:40:58,873 --> 00:41:03,418
and because of that,
I mean the legacy is good.
472
00:41:03,443 --> 00:41:06,439
It's tough... Tough to get the money
for what we do,
473
00:41:06,464 --> 00:41:08,815
but when I meet the
audience I'm always glad
474
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:10,487
that we have never changed that.
475
00:41:10,511 --> 00:41:14,028
Yeah, and most, you know,
mainstream filmmakers that we know
476
00:41:14,052 --> 00:41:17,767
who work within the studio system,
haven't done much better than we have.
477
00:41:17,791 --> 00:41:20,378
As far as the number of movies
they've gotten to make
478
00:41:20,403 --> 00:41:23,093
and getting to make
their dream projects or whatever.
479
00:41:23,117 --> 00:41:25,404
And they're much more likely
to end up saying,
480
00:41:25,428 --> 00:41:29,283
"oh you should have seen my cut,"
which we've never had to do.
481
00:41:30,651 --> 00:41:35,930
Sayles and Rrenzi were the standard bearers
for new independent American film.
482
00:41:35,954 --> 00:41:41,573
Much of the do-it-yourself and political cinema
of the '90s derives from their approach.
483
00:41:45,678 --> 00:41:48,568
In France in the '80s,
movies seemed to want to kick
484
00:41:48,592 --> 00:41:52,041
the protest films of Sayles
and Renzi in the teeth.
485
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:56,763
Influenced by advertising,
cinema became shining again.
486
00:41:59,371 --> 00:42:03,985
French philosophy had become interested
in popular culture and postmodernism.
487
00:42:05,853 --> 00:42:07,925
This was a protest too.
488
00:42:08,123 --> 00:42:11,111
A reaction against seriousness.
489
00:42:17,892 --> 00:42:21,628
Into all this sped Luc Besson's,
Subway.
490
00:42:21,653 --> 00:42:25,318
Besson had excelled at pop promos
and had lived in America.
491
00:42:26,382 --> 00:42:28,958
A roller-skater's snatched
a handbag.
492
00:42:28,982 --> 00:42:33,102
His flight from the cops filmed
like a car chase on skates.
493
00:42:33,126 --> 00:42:34,540
The flow of action.
494
00:42:34,564 --> 00:42:36,523
The camera in his point of view.
495
00:42:36,583 --> 00:42:40,118
Wide angle shots
to make the space deeper.
496
00:42:47,063 --> 00:42:50,520
The best new French director of the '80s,
Leos Carax,
497
00:42:50,544 --> 00:42:54,172
combined the visual hyperactivity
of Besson with a punky sense
498
00:42:54,196 --> 00:42:56,534
of outrage at modern life.
499
00:42:59,271 --> 00:43:03,223
We're on the Pont Neuf in the grand center
of Paris, the city of light.
500
00:43:03,229 --> 00:43:04,429
Fireworks.
501
00:43:04,454 --> 00:43:05,962
Public enemy plays.
502
00:43:05,964 --> 00:43:08,198
Juliette Binoche.
503
00:43:16,161 --> 00:43:19,319
This could be a modern dance
about high class people,
504
00:43:19,344 --> 00:43:21,977
but in fact
these characters are homeless.
505
00:43:21,985 --> 00:43:23,978
They sleep rough on the bridge.
506
00:43:23,980 --> 00:43:27,111
She's going blind, he's a drunk.
507
00:43:30,134 --> 00:43:35,232
Around this gritty truth about modern life,
Carax built his gigantic film.
508
00:43:35,238 --> 00:43:37,769
The most expensive
ever made in Paris.
509
00:43:37,793 --> 00:43:42,346
He had the entire bridge rebuilt as a set,
a "folie de grandeur,"
510
00:43:42,370 --> 00:43:48,439
with sweeping camera moves, glossy
and wasteful in a glossy, wasteful age.
511
00:43:49,938 --> 00:43:53,495
The plight of homelessness
was treated with the exact same style
512
00:43:53,519 --> 00:43:55,034
as this Hollywood musical.
513
00:43:55,794 --> 00:44:03,435
Grand studio sets of Paris, modern dance,
color splashed across the screen.
514
00:44:10,725 --> 00:44:14,313
Romantic ecstasy and agony.
515
00:44:19,665 --> 00:44:25,007
Sashay down to Spain in the '80s and you
find that protest had had a sex change.
516
00:44:25,031 --> 00:44:30,305
On the left is Pedro Almod�var
in his 1982 film Labyrinth of Passions.
517
00:44:30,329 --> 00:44:35,558
Camp, a touch of goth in his eyeliner
and purple drawn-on sideburns.
518
00:44:35,582 --> 00:44:37,816
Purple '80s lighting.
519
00:44:40,613 --> 00:44:42,666
Dictator Franco had died.
520
00:44:42,690 --> 00:44:47,044
Madrid's underground culture
was transgressive, anarchic.
521
00:44:48,119 --> 00:44:54,297
And to this, Almod�var lobbed in a dash
of the stylistic antics of this Beatles film.
522
00:44:54,321 --> 00:44:59,076
He loved its celebration of pop music,
camera work that makes you feel you're there.
523
00:44:59,296 --> 00:45:01,275
It's youthful surface.
524
00:45:06,285 --> 00:45:08,808
A scene like this
was so provocative.
525
00:45:08,832 --> 00:45:13,066
It's a porn shoot,
which conservative Spain would have hated.
526
00:45:13,090 --> 00:45:16,603
But the porn star is male,
even more of a no-no.
527
00:45:16,627 --> 00:45:20,272
And it's making fun of the so called
Driller Killer, video nasty.
528
00:45:20,296 --> 00:45:24,462
And the porn star's wearing fur,
and the color's bright,
529
00:45:24,487 --> 00:45:27,009
and the style
is cheap, not classy.
530
00:45:36,207 --> 00:45:39,066
Almod�var's signature
was the comic grotesque.
531
00:45:39,090 --> 00:45:43,426
He challenged old-fashioned Spain
with sex and style.
532
00:45:46,541 --> 00:45:49,076
And in complete contrast,
to see the range
533
00:45:49,100 --> 00:45:52,310
of Spanish cinema after Franco,
look at this film.
534
00:45:52,334 --> 00:45:53,704
The Quince Tree Sun
[El sol del membrillo]
535
00:45:53,729 --> 00:45:56,192
directed by Victor Erice.
536
00:45:57,463 --> 00:46:01,193
A man has been painting
this quince tree for weeks.
537
00:46:01,195 --> 00:46:04,649
He painted a line on the fruit
then drew a line on the canvas,
538
00:46:04,674 --> 00:46:07,371
to get the fruit's
position exactly right.
539
00:46:07,395 --> 00:46:12,387
But then, the fruit tree drooped a bit,
so he painted another line and another.
540
00:46:13,258 --> 00:46:15,443
Erice uses no camera moves.
541
00:46:15,445 --> 00:46:19,536
Natural light and a gentle pace
to capture the passing of time
542
00:46:19,561 --> 00:46:21,905
and the delicacy of the moment.
543
00:46:26,653 --> 00:46:29,779
Spain, under Franco,
was all about lies.
544
00:46:31,173 --> 00:46:35,288
The Quince Tree Sun
was a return to the truth.
545
00:46:35,312 --> 00:46:38,240
A national detox.
546
00:46:48,184 --> 00:46:54,177
Where politics softened in Spain
in the '80s, here in Britain they hardened.
547
00:46:54,183 --> 00:46:58,363
A right-wing government
brought protesters to the streets.
548
00:46:58,365 --> 00:47:01,420
The government's view was
that culture should reassure
549
00:47:01,444 --> 00:47:04,681
and bolster a traditional sense
of national pride.
550
00:47:05,153 --> 00:47:10,316
But the best filmmakers kicked back
or focused on other identities.
551
00:47:14,923 --> 00:47:15,995
We're in London.
552
00:47:16,019 --> 00:47:18,328
A high level shot
like a musical.
553
00:47:18,352 --> 00:47:23,159
A middle class Pakistani business man
is reopening his launderette.
554
00:47:23,183 --> 00:47:25,901
The right-wing government
liked entrepreneurs.
555
00:47:25,925 --> 00:47:28,426
Immigrants, less so.
556
00:47:28,450 --> 00:47:31,188
He dances with this white woman.
557
00:47:31,472 --> 00:47:33,693
A Sardu of South London.
Yes.
558
00:47:33,718 --> 00:47:36,840
But the film lobbed in
more provocations.
559
00:47:36,864 --> 00:47:40,637
In the back room
the entrepreneur's nephew is having sex.
560
00:47:40,661 --> 00:47:42,050
With a bloke.
561
00:47:42,074 --> 00:47:43,710
A white bloke.
562
00:47:43,734 --> 00:47:48,049
The guy dribbles champagne, the drink
of '80s "nouveau riche" yuppies,
563
00:47:48,073 --> 00:47:50,775
into the mouth of the nephew.
564
00:47:53,143 --> 00:47:55,551
Gay, mixed race sex.
565
00:47:55,575 --> 00:47:58,477
Oh, and the white bloke
is a Neo Nazi.
566
00:47:59,807 --> 00:48:03,070
A waltz of multi-cultural Britain.
567
00:48:04,629 --> 00:48:08,712
My Beautiful Laundrette was a knee
in the balls to the right-wing government.
568
00:48:08,737 --> 00:48:14,667
As much as a provocation
as Bunuel's films were in Franco's Spain.
569
00:48:18,814 --> 00:48:21,149
Shit!
570
00:48:21,173 --> 00:48:25,386
Far more serious
but equally bold was this Scottish film.
571
00:48:25,410 --> 00:48:30,844
This boy, wee Jamie, is being brought up
in poverty by his granny.
572
00:48:35,752 --> 00:48:37,561
She sits at the fire.
573
00:48:37,585 --> 00:48:39,269
Keeps her back to him.
574
00:48:39,293 --> 00:48:43,076
He's always behind her here,
in the cold, watching.
575
00:48:44,274 --> 00:48:47,306
This shot's exactly
from Jamie's point of view.
576
00:48:47,330 --> 00:48:48,716
Under the table.
577
00:48:48,740 --> 00:48:51,369
We see the top of it
in the image.
578
00:48:51,393 --> 00:48:55,534
The granny sits down as usual,
ignoring Jamie.
579
00:48:57,781 --> 00:49:01,946
But then, unusually,
she takes a swig of beer.
580
00:49:04,945 --> 00:49:07,861
The beer seems
to warm her heart...
581
00:49:16,977 --> 00:49:20,931
Because she reaches back
into Jamie's space.
582
00:49:20,932 --> 00:49:24,619
As director Bill Douglas
had rigorously filmed the spaces,
583
00:49:24,643 --> 00:49:27,641
we know
how unusual this reach is.
584
00:49:34,586 --> 00:49:40,972
A simple scene but one of the great moments
of reconciliation in cinema.
585
00:49:42,826 --> 00:49:45,086
Who is it, my darling?
586
00:49:49,338 --> 00:49:53,720
Another Scottish filmmaker, Bill Forsyth,
looked at working class life too,
587
00:49:53,745 --> 00:49:55,460
but he was more romantic.
588
00:49:55,484 --> 00:50:01,140
I mean I could just sit in a hole
and look at a housing estate
589
00:50:01,164 --> 00:50:05,406
and listen to the ice cream van,
you know, for quite a long while, you know,
590
00:50:05,431 --> 00:50:08,440
that would fill me
with good feelings.
591
00:50:09,048 --> 00:50:11,003
Do you want to dance?
592
00:50:11,027 --> 00:50:11,950
It's really good.
593
00:50:11,974 --> 00:50:15,714
You just lie flat down
and dance.
594
00:50:15,738 --> 00:50:16,831
I'll show you what I mean.
595
00:50:16,855 --> 00:50:20,089
I'll start it off and you just join in
when you feel confident enough.
596
00:50:20,113 --> 00:50:21,009
Okay.
597
00:50:22,941 --> 00:50:26,214
Forsyth's movie,
Gregory's Girl, looked at young people
598
00:50:26,238 --> 00:50:29,309
and the ordinary places
where they fall in love.
599
00:50:31,003 --> 00:50:34,200
For most of the film,
the camera's horizontal, as normal,
600
00:50:34,225 --> 00:50:37,654
but then he has it tilted,
a touch of poetry.
601
00:50:37,662 --> 00:50:40,607
We are clinging to the surface
of this planet while it spins through space
602
00:50:40,630 --> 00:50:46,093
at a 1,000 miles an hour,
held only by the mystery force gravity.
603
00:50:46,118 --> 00:50:47,070
Wow.
604
00:50:47,121 --> 00:50:51,088
A lot of people panic when you tell them
that and they just fall off.
605
00:50:51,112 --> 00:50:53,311
I see you're not falling off.
606
00:50:53,336 --> 00:50:54,710
That means you've got
the hang of it.
607
00:50:54,969 --> 00:50:58,794
You know, people in landscape,
I don't mean that in a visual way,
608
00:50:58,818 --> 00:51:02,965
but just someone finding themselves
somewhere in that moment of, you know,
609
00:51:02,989 --> 00:51:07,523
apprehension that you are here
and this is where you are.
610
00:51:07,805 --> 00:51:10,473
It's a difficult moment
to describe.
611
00:51:10,475 --> 00:51:15,035
But it's a moment
that is very, very cinematic for me.
612
00:51:16,965 --> 00:51:20,881
This man, Terence Davies,
made the greatest British film of the '80s,
613
00:51:20,906 --> 00:51:23,616
Distant Voices, Still Lives.
614
00:51:23,640 --> 00:51:28,494
We're in Davies' own childhood,
Liverpool in the 1950s.
615
00:51:28,518 --> 00:51:32,189
A family home
terrorized by a brutal father.
616
00:51:32,213 --> 00:51:37,159
We see his mom in the present
and then hear the kids in the past.
617
00:51:37,183 --> 00:51:41,415
We're flashed backwards in time
without a cut.
618
00:51:41,439 --> 00:51:44,298
So this image is a memory image.
619
00:51:44,323 --> 00:51:46,504
Tony are those two sisters
of yours up yet?
620
00:51:46,529 --> 00:51:47,088
Yeah.
621
00:51:47,113 --> 00:51:48,526
They're just coming down.
622
00:51:50,581 --> 00:51:52,301
Hiya mum.
623
00:51:52,326 --> 00:51:54,511
Morning Maisie.
624
00:51:54,536 --> 00:51:56,530
Morning mum.
625
00:51:56,554 --> 00:51:58,641
Morning Eileen.
626
00:51:58,665 --> 00:52:00,290
Nervous, love?
627
00:52:00,314 --> 00:52:01,623
A bit.
628
00:52:01,657 --> 00:52:05,258
Have a cup and a ciggy.
629
00:52:05,283 --> 00:52:08,982
? I get the blues ?
630
00:52:09,006 --> 00:52:12,605
? when it's raining. ?
631
00:52:12,638 --> 00:52:16,446
? The blues I can't lose ?
632
00:52:16,470 --> 00:52:19,450
? when it rains. ?
633
00:52:19,474 --> 00:52:22,826
? Now each little rain drop ?
634
00:52:22,953 --> 00:52:25,578
Davies' camera tracks down
the hallway.
635
00:52:25,603 --> 00:52:27,070
? Falls on my window pane ?
636
00:52:27,094 --> 00:52:31,226
? reminds me of the tears I shed ?
637
00:52:31,250 --> 00:52:35,090
? the tears were all in vain ?
638
00:52:35,114 --> 00:52:38,739
? so I sit and wait ?
639
00:52:38,763 --> 00:52:42,325
? for the sun to shine ?
640
00:52:42,349 --> 00:52:48,737
? to shine all my blues away ?
641
00:52:48,761 --> 00:52:52,469
? it rained when I met you ?
642
00:52:52,506 --> 00:52:56,512
? and it rained when I lost you ?
643
00:52:56,536 --> 00:53:00,686
? so I get the blues ?
644
00:53:00,710 --> 00:53:04,186
? when it rains ??
645
00:53:04,536 --> 00:53:08,113
One of Davies' signatures
is the very slow dissolve.
646
00:53:09,871 --> 00:53:16,040
? There's a man going 'round ?
647
00:53:16,065 --> 00:53:21,756
? taking names. ?
648
00:53:21,780 --> 00:53:24,752
? There's a man... ??
649
00:53:24,777 --> 00:53:27,551
Davies nearly always
frames symmetrically.
650
00:53:27,789 --> 00:53:31,257
I think it's due to Catholicism
and because when I was growing up
651
00:53:31,282 --> 00:53:34,264
it was the Tridentine mass and you were...
652
00:53:34,289 --> 00:53:37,334
The altar was there and you
were looking at it like this
653
00:53:37,359 --> 00:53:39,251
and it was literally like that.
654
00:53:39,275 --> 00:53:47,087
And everything in the church
tended to be like that, symmetrical.
655
00:53:47,112 --> 00:53:52,224
My great love is Vermeer,
and I am sure that has had a huge
656
00:53:52,248 --> 00:53:56,449
subconscious effect on me,
you know, that stillness that you get,
657
00:53:56,474 --> 00:54:01,173
that everything tends to be
symmetrical and beautifully composed.
658
00:54:01,174 --> 00:54:05,158
There's the most wonderful
stillness about it.
659
00:54:05,612 --> 00:54:08,543
Davies' love of the slow
forward tracking shot
660
00:54:08,567 --> 00:54:12,001
comes from this moment
in Intolerance.
661
00:54:12,424 --> 00:54:14,733
And they literally
built a crane.
662
00:54:14,757 --> 00:54:18,783
And they haul the camera up this crane
and you see it come up like this.
663
00:54:18,807 --> 00:54:21,569
And these elephants and all these people
going up these steps.
664
00:54:21,593 --> 00:54:23,291
Absolutely breathtaking.
665
00:54:23,942 --> 00:54:29,343
If you were feeling exactly the same
at the beginning and the end of the track,
666
00:54:29,368 --> 00:54:31,988
you're using the track incorrectly.
667
00:54:32,012 --> 00:54:35,294
You've got to feel different
towards the subject.
668
00:54:39,601 --> 00:54:42,633
And another influence on Davies
was this crane shot,
669
00:54:42,658 --> 00:54:45,156
in the Hollywood musical
Young at Heart.
670
00:54:45,180 --> 00:54:47,887
A main character seems
to have killed himself,
671
00:54:47,922 --> 00:54:49,830
a painful moment in the story.
672
00:54:49,855 --> 00:54:54,626
But the camera glides beautifully
into a perfect world.
673
00:55:01,869 --> 00:55:07,152
And Davies uses this combination of beauty
and pain in Distant Voices, Still Lives.
674
00:55:07,176 --> 00:55:09,549
His youth was often painful.
675
00:55:09,573 --> 00:55:12,815
He lines it up
and re-enters it through cinema.
676
00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:17,217
? There's a man going 'round
taking names ?
677
00:55:17,241 --> 00:55:22,163
In doing so he makes it beautiful
and so transcends the pain.
678
00:55:25,409 --> 00:55:29,877
A wholly cinematic way
of speaking truth to power.
679
00:55:33,595 --> 00:55:39,139
? Oh death is that man ?
680
00:55:39,163 --> 00:55:43,940
? taking names. ?
681
00:55:43,964 --> 00:55:46,314
? He has taken... ??
682
00:55:47,858 --> 00:55:51,939
And then look at this movie
by the Welsh filmmaker Peter Greenaway.
683
00:55:51,963 --> 00:55:56,653
Like Terence Davies, Greenaway likes
his frames to be perfectly symmetrical.
684
00:55:58,351 --> 00:56:01,151
But here he takes symmetry
much further.
685
00:56:01,436 --> 00:56:03,705
Why do we have to have
two nostrils?
686
00:56:03,729 --> 00:56:05,858
Why do we have to have
two of everything?
687
00:56:05,883 --> 00:56:07,160
Symmetry is all.
688
00:56:07,184 --> 00:56:08,251
We're twins.
689
00:56:08,906 --> 00:56:11,617
The two chairs
and lamps balance.
690
00:56:11,642 --> 00:56:15,109
The woman's hair is echoed
by the gilt mirror.
691
00:56:15,133 --> 00:56:20,060
Everything is symmetrical except
that the woman has only one leg.
692
00:56:21,656 --> 00:56:27,011
And so, like the director himself,
she wants to make the scene, her world,
693
00:56:27,035 --> 00:56:31,613
symmetrical,
so she has the other leg cut off.
694
00:56:32,545 --> 00:56:37,141
Greenaway analyzed imagery more
than any other British director.
695
00:56:37,143 --> 00:56:42,034
He says that the story of film
is only just beginning.
696
00:56:44,220 --> 00:56:47,404
If British cinema of the '80s
was a brilliant tempest,
697
00:56:47,428 --> 00:56:51,567
its god of thunder
was Derek Jarman.
698
00:56:52,553 --> 00:56:55,787
A man walks through a bleak,
ruined landscape.
699
00:56:55,811 --> 00:56:59,680
It's like we're in an Italian
rubble movie after World War II.
700
00:56:59,704 --> 00:57:04,264
This is intercut, fast, '80s style,
with men with machine guns,
701
00:57:04,288 --> 00:57:09,223
and Morris dancers, a symbol
of genteel village England.
702
00:57:10,201 --> 00:57:12,844
It's like there's been
an ideological storm.
703
00:57:23,623 --> 00:57:27,270
Jarman's rage and values
could not be clearer.
704
00:57:27,294 --> 00:57:30,513
Here, a male dancer is intercut
with a wreath
705
00:57:30,537 --> 00:57:34,237
to remember the war dead
of the British empire,
706
00:57:34,261 --> 00:57:38,073
and with a fire,
and we hear a Nazi speech.
707
00:57:44,358 --> 00:57:47,051
Video editing meets Leni Riefenstahl,
708
00:57:47,075 --> 00:57:51,557
meets Kenneth Anger's imagery
of magic, and dance, and frenzy.
709
00:57:52,315 --> 00:57:55,734
The Last of England
was a thunderbolt in '80s cinema.
710
00:57:57,365 --> 00:58:02,744
It's hard to imagine a greater provocation
to the establishment.
711
00:58:05,955 --> 00:58:09,282
As was this film, Videodrome.
712
00:58:11,083 --> 00:58:17,615
A man is watching TV alone, late at night,
half switched off, half turned on.
713
00:58:18,205 --> 00:58:20,717
The TV throbs.
714
00:58:23,582 --> 00:58:25,248
I want you, Max.
715
00:58:26,543 --> 00:58:27,596
You.
716
00:58:30,131 --> 00:58:31,969
Come on.
717
00:58:34,133 --> 00:58:35,641
Come on.
718
00:58:40,907 --> 00:58:46,692
The idea that a machine can be sensual,
something that we can kiss, have sex with.
719
00:58:46,716 --> 00:58:50,624
Writer director David Cronenberg
is foreseeing the sexualization
720
00:58:50,649 --> 00:58:54,275
of our solitary relationships
with screens.
721
00:58:55,830 --> 00:58:56,792
Please.
722
00:59:13,946 --> 00:59:16,167
Cronenberg continued
to be fascinated
723
00:59:16,191 --> 00:59:20,926
by the boundary between hard and soft,
skin and metal, in modern life.
724
00:59:21,987 --> 00:59:25,793
Never more so than in this scene
from his film Crash.
725
00:59:26,955 --> 00:59:30,250
A car show room
as an erotic place.
726
00:59:30,274 --> 00:59:32,350
Almost whispered dialogue.
727
00:59:33,016 --> 00:59:35,092
I'm caught.
728
00:59:37,493 --> 00:59:40,168
No outside traffic noise
or music.
729
00:59:40,192 --> 00:59:41,967
Gleaming metal.
730
00:59:41,991 --> 00:59:43,878
Pacing like velvet.
731
00:59:43,902 --> 00:59:48,597
Rosanna Arquette's hair the same color
as the leather upholstery.
732
01:00:05,125 --> 01:00:10,620
Cronenberg's using a novel by J.G. Ballard
to tell modern, liberal society
733
01:00:10,645 --> 01:00:14,781
that we are all more down
and dirty than we pretend.
734
01:00:18,148 --> 01:00:22,409
Canadian directors have been
particularly good at blasting hypocrisy.
735
01:00:22,433 --> 01:00:26,860
Norman McLaren won an Oscar
for this astonishing stop frame animation,
736
01:00:26,884 --> 01:00:31,179
in which two neighbors fight
over a single flower in their garden.
737
01:00:34,523 --> 01:00:37,705
They use an innovative
electronic score.
738
01:00:37,729 --> 01:00:41,345
A white picket fence,
a symbol of suburbia.
739
01:00:45,747 --> 01:00:51,002
Painter Pablo Picasso
called it the best film ever made.
740
01:00:54,056 --> 01:00:57,106
And in French speaking Canada
the decade ended
741
01:00:57,130 --> 01:01:01,848
with this brilliant assault
on hypocrisy and '80s consensus.
742
01:01:03,316 --> 01:01:06,712
A group of actors stages a passion play
as a promenade,
743
01:01:06,736 --> 01:01:09,972
where the audience walks
to follow the action.
744
01:01:09,996 --> 01:01:12,392
The brutalization of Christ
is very real
745
01:01:12,416 --> 01:01:16,636
but the actors describing
historical crucifixions do so coolly,
746
01:01:16,660 --> 01:01:18,788
like a textbook almost.
747
01:01:28,372 --> 01:01:30,490
And they make the audience
feel uncomfortable
748
01:01:30,514 --> 01:01:32,927
by pointing out their voyeurism.
749
01:01:46,588 --> 01:01:52,280
Jesus of Montreal, like the best films
of the '80s, again speaks truth to power.
750
01:01:52,305 --> 01:01:56,425
This time, the power is us,
the audience.
751
01:02:02,118 --> 01:02:05,846
It and Cronenberg's films
tell us that we lie to ourselves
752
01:02:05,870 --> 01:02:09,544
about our bodies,
our sex, our values.
753
01:02:10,867 --> 01:02:14,790
The bravery of the best '80s films
was exciting.
754
01:02:14,792 --> 01:02:19,841
And then came the '90s,
the era of digital and the Internet.
755
01:02:19,843 --> 01:02:27,197
When reality started to lose its realness,
but cinema entered another golden age.
756
01:02:29,348 --> 01:02:32,718
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