ART FILMS
IMAGO: MERET OPPENHEIM
IMAGO: Meret Oppenheim (1996) is a 90-minute art film by Pamela Robertson-Pearce (director) and Anselm Spoerri (producer). The narration by Glenda Jackson is based on texts, letters, dreams and poems by Meret Oppenheim. It has been shown in cinemas in Europe and America, and won several awards, including the Swiss Film Board's Outstanding Quality Prize, Oakland's Golden Apple Award and Mulhouse's Grand Prix. The fame of the Swiss artist Meret Oppenheim (1913-85) rests on one piece, "The Fur-lined Teacup", one of the archetypal Surrealist works. By creating it in 1936 at the age of 23, she leapt into the art-history books - but a year later she had retreated from Paris to Basle to study art in order to live up to her worldwide reputation, and plunged into a depression that lasted 17 years. "Nobody gives you freedom, you have to take it," she remarked, and eventually she was able to emerge from the shadow of that teacup and become a mature artist, her links with Dada and Surrealism still alive. Based on Meret Oppenheim's own words, this film is an inspiring tribute to a woman who transformed herself after a long crisis. Pamela first met Meret Oppenheim as a child when the artist visited Stockholm for a major exhibition of her work in 1967. After graduating from St Martin's College of Art in London, she approached her about making a film based on her life and work, and had started working together on this when Meret Oppenheim died, in 1985. After a period of reassessment, Pamela decided to continue the project, filming in the places where Meret Oppenheim had lived, and drawing on her writings. The film which emerged, IMAGO, took eight years to make.This short extract from IMAGO covers Meret Oppenheim's Paris years.
LEONORA CARRINGTON from Gifted Beauty
Leonora Carrington (born 1917) is an English-born surrealist artist and writer who has lived in Mexico since the Second World War. She is the last surviving original member of the celebrated group of 20th-century women Surrealist artists who came together in Paris which included Leonor Fini, Frida Kahlo (co-opted by André Breton), Lee Miller, Meret Oppenheim and Remedios Varo. This video is an excerpt from the film Gifted Beauty (Ragg Film, 2000) which examines the work of all six artists along with that of the contemporary Norwegian artist Vilde von Krogh. It features the interviews with Leonora Carrington (in Mexico City and New York City) used in the film made by filmmaker and assistant director Pamela Robertson-Pearce, along with her footage of Mexico (the Day of the Dead and Leonora Carrington's sculptures in the boulevard on Paseo Reforma, Mexico City). Gifted Beauty was directed by Anne Kjersti Bjørn, with music by Maia Urstad and animations by Gustav Kvall.
BORDERLINE
Borderline is a work in process: by this I mean that Borderline is still evolving as I continue using video to respond to my new environment, the remote Tarset valley in rural Northumberland. Everything you see was filmed within four miles of where I've lived for the past five years. In sharing this with you I hope that you too can see why it interests me - this land of extreme contrasts and subtle changes. First shown at Northumbria University's conference Northernness: Ideas and Images of North in Visual Culture in June 2009. The whole of the present version of Borderline can be seen on this Vimeo link.
POETRY FILMS
IN PERSON: 30 POETS
30 poets from around the world read to you in person... This is a new concept in publishing from Bloodaxe Books: your own personal poetry festival brought into your home. This trailer features 5 poems by 5 of the poets: Benjamin Zephaniah, Imtiaz Dharker, Brendan Kennelly, Jackie Kay and C.K. Williams. This DVD-book edited by Neil Astley was published by Bloodaxe in 2008. All the poems read by the writers on the films are in the anthology which comes with the films. The filmed readings last a total of 6 hours, and can be played on 2 DVDs pouched inside the back cover of the book.
LIFE IS IMMENSE: VISITING SAMUEL MENASHE
This video is an excerpt from a film featuring a visit I made to Samuel Menashe with editor Neil Astley in the tiny New York apartment where he has lived since the 1950s. Now in his mid 80s, Menashe still knows all his poems by heart, and between engaging digressions on poetry, life and death, he recites numerous examples with engaging humour, warmth and zest. The poems included in this clip are 'Daily Bread', 'Family Silver', 'Night Music (pizzicato)', 'Improvidence' and 'Voyage'. The film was issued on DVD with Samuel Menashe's New and Selected Poems (2009) from Bloodaxe Books in the UK.
JOHN AGARD LIVE!
Excerpt from videos of two live performances on a DVD issued by Bloodaxe Books with John Agard's Alternative Anthem: Selected Poems (2009). Here John Agard and fellow Guyanan Keith Waithe perform 'Flute Boy', a piece specially written by Agard for his flute maestro friend. Then Waithe accompanies Agard's performance of his poem 'Marriage of Opposites'. Finally, the third poem in this excerpt is Agard's much celebrated 'Half-caste', now on the syllabus in many English schools.
RUTH STONE
Ruth Stone is a true American original. Now aged 94, she is still writing poetry of extraordinary variety and radiance. We filmed her in Vermont in 2008 and 2009. Ruth is almost blind but knows many of her poems by heart, and recites (or sings) several poems in this excerpt from the September 2008 filming (prompted occasionally by editor Neil Astley). Born in Virginia in 1915, she has lived in rural Vermont for much of her life. In 1959, after her husband committed suicide, she had to raise three daughters alone, all the time writing what she called her 'love poems, all written to a dead man' who forced her to 'reside in limbo' with her daughters. The poems are all from her retrospective What Loves Comes To: New & Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, USA; Bloodaxe Books, UK, 2008): 'In an Iridescent Time', 'Orchard', 'The Talking Fish', 'The Excuse', 'Advice', 'I Have Three Daughters' (which she sings), 'Metamorphosis', 'Bargain, 'Mantra' and 'The Season'.
I am continuing to film poets for DVD and website use by Bloodaxe Books. To see many more of these poetry videos, go to:
http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/articles.asp?id=36