Edward Bond, the Oscar-nominated Blow-Up screenwriter and playwright whose Saved and Early Morning were banned in the UK, fueling a legal review that led to the end of stage censorship in the country, has died, his agency said. He was 89.
Casarotto Ramsay and Associates said he died Sunday but did not reveal the cause.
“Edward was one of the greatest dramatists of the 20th century,” the agency tweeted. “He made his mark upon the theatrical world with radical, thought-provoking, and unerringly original work.”
Bond’s first screenplay was the English-language dialogue for Blow-Up, Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 classic that starred David Hemming and Vanessa Redgrave. Earning him an Original Screenplay Oscar nom, it was the first of about a dozen film credits including Walkabout (1971) and Laughter in the Dark (1968).
Born on July 18, 1934, in London, Bond quit school as a teenager and would see his debut play, The Pope’s Wedding, produced...
Casarotto Ramsay and Associates said he died Sunday but did not reveal the cause.
“Edward was one of the greatest dramatists of the 20th century,” the agency tweeted. “He made his mark upon the theatrical world with radical, thought-provoking, and unerringly original work.”
Bond’s first screenplay was the English-language dialogue for Blow-Up, Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 classic that starred David Hemming and Vanessa Redgrave. Earning him an Original Screenplay Oscar nom, it was the first of about a dozen film credits including Walkabout (1971) and Laughter in the Dark (1968).
Born on July 18, 1934, in London, Bond quit school as a teenager and would see his debut play, The Pope’s Wedding, produced...
- 3/5/2024
- by Erik Pedersen
- Deadline Film + TV
A TV documentary titled Barbie Uncovered and an adaptation of Homer’s classic The Odyssey starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche are among the titles to receive cash during the latest round of U.K. Global Screen Fund awards.
Financed through the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Dcms), the latest round handed out over £1.2 million in cash awards through the fund’s International Co-production strand, supporting UK producers to work as partners on international co-productions. To date, the strand has now awarded over £5 million to 33 co-productions.
This latest round of awards sees the UK co-producing with 12 territories and will be the first time the fund has supported collaborations with India and Finland. The funding will also support partnerships with Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, France, Italy, Greece, Germany, Ireland, Canada, and New Zealand.
TV doc Barbie Uncovered is an unofficial majority UK co-production with New Zealand. The UK...
Financed through the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Dcms), the latest round handed out over £1.2 million in cash awards through the fund’s International Co-production strand, supporting UK producers to work as partners on international co-productions. To date, the strand has now awarded over £5 million to 33 co-productions.
This latest round of awards sees the UK co-producing with 12 territories and will be the first time the fund has supported collaborations with India and Finland. The funding will also support partnerships with Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, France, Italy, Greece, Germany, Ireland, Canada, and New Zealand.
TV doc Barbie Uncovered is an unofficial majority UK co-production with New Zealand. The UK...
- 7/25/2023
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
TV documentary “Barbie Uncovered” and an adaptation of Homer’s “The Odyssey” starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche are among the latest projects awarded by the U.K. Global Screen Fund.
On “Barbie Uncovered,” an unofficial majority U.K. co-production with New Zealand, the U.K. producers are Ross Wilson from Rw Productions and Alan Clements from Two Media Rivers who will co-produce with New Zealand’s Daniel Story and Cass Avery from Augusto. It will be directed by Eddie Hutton-Mills and focuses on the unknown history of the global icon Barbie and the dramatic and dark story behind the creation of the world’s most famous doll.
On “The Odyssey” adaptation “The Return,” a minority U.K. co-production with Italy, Greece and France made under the European Convention, the U.K. producers are James Clayton and Uberto Pasolini from Red Wave Films who will co‐produce with Italy’s...
On “Barbie Uncovered,” an unofficial majority U.K. co-production with New Zealand, the U.K. producers are Ross Wilson from Rw Productions and Alan Clements from Two Media Rivers who will co-produce with New Zealand’s Daniel Story and Cass Avery from Augusto. It will be directed by Eddie Hutton-Mills and focuses on the unknown history of the global icon Barbie and the dramatic and dark story behind the creation of the world’s most famous doll.
On “The Odyssey” adaptation “The Return,” a minority U.K. co-production with Italy, Greece and France made under the European Convention, the U.K. producers are James Clayton and Uberto Pasolini from Red Wave Films who will co‐produce with Italy’s...
- 7/25/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Black Adam, The Old Guard and Aladdin star Marwan Kenzari is set to join Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche in The Return, which is due to film this spring.
Bleecker Street recently picked up North American rights to the project, which will be directed by Uberto Pasolini, and is based on Homer’s ancient classic The Odyssey. HanWay is continuing sales at the EFM.
Pic marks the first time Fiennes and Binoche have worked together since they starred in Oscar-winning title The English Patient in 1996. Charlie Plummer (Lean on Pete) also stars. Script is written by Edward Bond, John Collee and Pasolini and production is expected to begin in Greece in spring before continuing to Italy.
Story sees Fiennes play Odysseus who, 20 years after being washed up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable, finally returns home. But much has changed for this King’s kingdom since he...
Bleecker Street recently picked up North American rights to the project, which will be directed by Uberto Pasolini, and is based on Homer’s ancient classic The Odyssey. HanWay is continuing sales at the EFM.
Pic marks the first time Fiennes and Binoche have worked together since they starred in Oscar-winning title The English Patient in 1996. Charlie Plummer (Lean on Pete) also stars. Script is written by Edward Bond, John Collee and Pasolini and production is expected to begin in Greece in spring before continuing to Italy.
Story sees Fiennes play Odysseus who, 20 years after being washed up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable, finally returns home. But much has changed for this King’s kingdom since he...
- 2/17/2023
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Fans of “The English Patient” will soon get their wish to see Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche reunite on screen for the first time in 25 years. The pair will star in a new take on Homer’s ancient classic “The Odyssey” called “The Return” as directed by Uberto Pasolini. Bleecker Street has acquired the rights to the film for a planned release in 2024.
“The Return” was first announced in April with both Fiennes and Binoche attached, but the details haven’t firmed up until now. Bleecker Street picked up the North American theatrical rights to the movie out of the European Film Market (EFM) going on now in Berlin. HanWay Films will maintain international rights, and has already locked deals in several territories.
Production on “The Return” will kick off in Greece this spring, filming in Corfu and the Peloponnese, before continuing in Italy.
The film tracks the events at...
“The Return” was first announced in April with both Fiennes and Binoche attached, but the details haven’t firmed up until now. Bleecker Street picked up the North American theatrical rights to the movie out of the European Film Market (EFM) going on now in Berlin. HanWay Films will maintain international rights, and has already locked deals in several territories.
Production on “The Return” will kick off in Greece this spring, filming in Corfu and the Peloponnese, before continuing in Italy.
The film tracks the events at...
- 2/16/2023
- by Brian Welk
- Indiewire
HanWay Films handles sales at EFM.
Bleecker Street has acquired North American rights from HanWay Films to historical epic The Return, a retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey which reunites Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche 25 years after The English Patient.
HanWay continues international sales at the EFM and has licensed Benelux (The Searchers), Portugal (Nos Lusomundo), Turkey (Mars), Poland (Monolith), former Yugoslavia (Cinemania), Baltics (Gpi), the Middle East (Front Row), South Africa (Filmfinity), and Singapore (Shaw). Cinesky has exclusive airline rights.
Uberto Pasolini (Nowhere Special) will direct from a screenplay he co-wrote with Edward Bond and John Collee (Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World...
Bleecker Street has acquired North American rights from HanWay Films to historical epic The Return, a retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey which reunites Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche 25 years after The English Patient.
HanWay continues international sales at the EFM and has licensed Benelux (The Searchers), Portugal (Nos Lusomundo), Turkey (Mars), Poland (Monolith), former Yugoslavia (Cinemania), Baltics (Gpi), the Middle East (Front Row), South Africa (Filmfinity), and Singapore (Shaw). Cinesky has exclusive airline rights.
Uberto Pasolini (Nowhere Special) will direct from a screenplay he co-wrote with Edward Bond and John Collee (Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World...
- 2/16/2023
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Bleecker Street continues its acquisition spree with the pick-up of historical epic “The Return,” which reunites Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche.
The project, which will be based on Homer’s ancient classic “The Odyssey,” is directed by Academy Award nominee Uberto Pasolini and written by Edward Bond, John Collee and Pasolini.
The project, announced last year, reunited “The English Patient” co-stars Fiennes and Binoche after 25 years. The pic will also star Venice Film Festival Best Young Actor Award winner Charlie Plummer, with production beginning in Greece this spring in the regions of Corfu and the Peloponnese, before continuing in Italy. Bleecker Street will release the film in theaters in 2024.
Here’s any official synopsis for the film: After 20 years away Odysseus (Fiennes) washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The King has finally returned home but much has changed in his kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan war.
The project, which will be based on Homer’s ancient classic “The Odyssey,” is directed by Academy Award nominee Uberto Pasolini and written by Edward Bond, John Collee and Pasolini.
The project, announced last year, reunited “The English Patient” co-stars Fiennes and Binoche after 25 years. The pic will also star Venice Film Festival Best Young Actor Award winner Charlie Plummer, with production beginning in Greece this spring in the regions of Corfu and the Peloponnese, before continuing in Italy. Bleecker Street will release the film in theaters in 2024.
Here’s any official synopsis for the film: After 20 years away Odysseus (Fiennes) washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The King has finally returned home but much has changed in his kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan war.
- 2/16/2023
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
Bleecker Street Takes North American Rights to ‘The Return’ Starring Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche
In one of the first domestic deals ahead of this year’s Berlin European Film Market, Bleecker Street has picked up North American rights to The Return, an historical epic based on Homer’s ancient classic The Odyssey and starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche.
Uberto Pasolini, director of Nowhere Special and producer of The Full Monty, will direct the feature from a script he co-wrote with Edward Bond (Blow-Up, Walkabout) and John Collee (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World).
After 20 years away, King Odysseus (Fiennes) washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. Much has changed in his kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan war. His beloved wife Penelope (Binoche) is now a prisoner in her own home, hounded by her many ambitious suitors to choose a new husband, a new king. Their son Telemachus, who has grown up fatherless, is...
Uberto Pasolini, director of Nowhere Special and producer of The Full Monty, will direct the feature from a script he co-wrote with Edward Bond (Blow-Up, Walkabout) and John Collee (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World).
After 20 years away, King Odysseus (Fiennes) washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. Much has changed in his kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan war. His beloved wife Penelope (Binoche) is now a prisoner in her own home, hounded by her many ambitious suitors to choose a new husband, a new king. Their son Telemachus, who has grown up fatherless, is...
- 2/16/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Bleecker Street has picked up North American distribution rights to Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche historical epic The Return on the eve of the European Film Market. The project, which is directed by Uberto Pasolini, is based on Homer’s ancient classic The Odyssey.
It marks the first time Fiennes and Binoche have worked together since they starred in Oscar-winning title The English Patient in 1996. Charlie Plummer (Lean on Pete) also stars. Script is written by Edward Bond, John Collee and Pasolini and production is expected to begin in Greece in Spring before continuing to Italy.
Bleecker Street is planning a 2024 theatrical release.
Story sees Fiennes play Odysseus who, 20 years after being washed up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable, finally returns home. But much has changed for this King’s kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan War. His beloved wife Penelope (Binoche) is now...
It marks the first time Fiennes and Binoche have worked together since they starred in Oscar-winning title The English Patient in 1996. Charlie Plummer (Lean on Pete) also stars. Script is written by Edward Bond, John Collee and Pasolini and production is expected to begin in Greece in Spring before continuing to Italy.
Bleecker Street is planning a 2024 theatrical release.
Story sees Fiennes play Odysseus who, 20 years after being washed up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable, finally returns home. But much has changed for this King’s kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan War. His beloved wife Penelope (Binoche) is now...
- 2/16/2023
- by Diana Lodderhose
- Deadline Film + TV
Juliette Binoche spoke about what she described as the challenging process of working with Jean-Luc Godard during a press conference at the San Sebastian film festival.
Binoche — who is at the festival to receive a Donostia award, the festival’s prestigious lifetime achievement gong — was asked to talk about Godard following news of his death earlier this week. In response, she began to discuss the process of auditioning for their sole collaboration, the 1985 film Haily Mary.
“There was a series of casting I did with him that lasted a long time. And then in the last rehearsal, I had to be naked, combing my hair, and saying a poem I learned by heart,” she said. “He didn’t choose me for the role but he created a new role for me.”
Binoche continued to say that Godard was unlike any other directors she had previously encountered while working on the...
Binoche — who is at the festival to receive a Donostia award, the festival’s prestigious lifetime achievement gong — was asked to talk about Godard following news of his death earlier this week. In response, she began to discuss the process of auditioning for their sole collaboration, the 1985 film Haily Mary.
“There was a series of casting I did with him that lasted a long time. And then in the last rehearsal, I had to be naked, combing my hair, and saying a poem I learned by heart,” she said. “He didn’t choose me for the role but he created a new role for me.”
Binoche continued to say that Godard was unlike any other directors she had previously encountered while working on the...
- 9/18/2022
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, who starred together in the Oscars Best Picture winner “The English Patient” from 1996, are set to reunite in a film that’s a new take on Homer’s epic “The Odyssey.”
Uberto Pasolini, a producer on “The Full Monty” from 1997, will direct Fiennes and Binoche in “The Return.” The film is described as an original take and retelling of Odysseus’ return home from war. John Collee. UK playwright Edward Bond (“Blow-Up”) wrote the script.
HanWay Films has come aboard “The Return” to handle worldwide sales and present the film to buyers at the Cannes Film Festival and Marché du Film next month. Here’s the full synopsis for the film:
After 20 years away Odysseus (Fiennes) washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The King has finally returned home but much has changed in his kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan war.
Uberto Pasolini, a producer on “The Full Monty” from 1997, will direct Fiennes and Binoche in “The Return.” The film is described as an original take and retelling of Odysseus’ return home from war. John Collee. UK playwright Edward Bond (“Blow-Up”) wrote the script.
HanWay Films has come aboard “The Return” to handle worldwide sales and present the film to buyers at the Cannes Film Festival and Marché du Film next month. Here’s the full synopsis for the film:
After 20 years away Odysseus (Fiennes) washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The King has finally returned home but much has changed in his kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan war.
- 4/28/2022
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
Script from John Collee and Edward Bond.
Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche will lead the cast of Uberto Pasolini’s The Return, starring together for the first time since 1996 classic The English Patient.
The Return is a retelling of Homer’s epic Greek poem The Odyssey, about the return of hero Odysseus from the war. The film will shoot in 2023; HanWay Films has boarded worldwide sales, which will commence in Cannes next month.
Pasolini will direct from a script by Master & Commander writer John Collee and UK playwright Edward Bond.
The film will be produced by James Clayton and Pasolini...
Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche will lead the cast of Uberto Pasolini’s The Return, starring together for the first time since 1996 classic The English Patient.
The Return is a retelling of Homer’s epic Greek poem The Odyssey, about the return of hero Odysseus from the war. The film will shoot in 2023; HanWay Films has boarded worldwide sales, which will commence in Cannes next month.
Pasolini will direct from a script by Master & Commander writer John Collee and UK playwright Edward Bond.
The film will be produced by James Clayton and Pasolini...
- 4/28/2022
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
The English Patient stars Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche have been set to lead Uberto Pasolini’s Odysseus retelling The Return, which will launch sales next month in Cannes.
HanWay Films is handling worldwide sales of the feature film, which is described as a “gritty retelling” of the timeless story of Odysseus’ return home from war. Script is by Master & Commander‘s John Collee and UK playwright Edward Bond.
After 20 years away, Odysseus (Fiennes) washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The King has finally returned home but much has changed in his kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan war.
His beloved wife Penelope (Binoche) is now a prisoner in her own home, hounded by her many ambitious suitors to choose a new husband, a new king. Their son Telemachus, who has grown up fatherless, is facing death at the hands of the suitors...
HanWay Films is handling worldwide sales of the feature film, which is described as a “gritty retelling” of the timeless story of Odysseus’ return home from war. Script is by Master & Commander‘s John Collee and UK playwright Edward Bond.
After 20 years away, Odysseus (Fiennes) washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The King has finally returned home but much has changed in his kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan war.
His beloved wife Penelope (Binoche) is now a prisoner in her own home, hounded by her many ambitious suitors to choose a new husband, a new king. Their son Telemachus, who has grown up fatherless, is facing death at the hands of the suitors...
- 4/28/2022
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
“The English Patient” co-stars Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes will reunite in Uberto Pasolini’s “The Return,” a gritty retelling of Odysseus’ return home from war.
The film is an original take on Homer’s “The Odyssey” with a script by John Collee (“Master & Commander”) and U.K. playwright Edward Bond, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Blow-Up.”
“The Return” is produced by James Clayton and Pasolini for Red Wave Films, while Roberto Sessa’s Picomedia is providing funding. HanWay Films will handle worldwide sales, and will introduce the pic to buyers at next month’s Cannes Film Festival.
Binoche and Fiennes last starred together in Anthony Minghella’s masterful 1996 adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prize-winning novel “The English Patient.” The film won nine Oscars in 1997, include best film, and best supporting actress for Binoche. Fiennes was also nominated for best actor.
The film is an original take on Homer’s “The Odyssey” with a script by John Collee (“Master & Commander”) and U.K. playwright Edward Bond, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Blow-Up.”
“The Return” is produced by James Clayton and Pasolini for Red Wave Films, while Roberto Sessa’s Picomedia is providing funding. HanWay Films will handle worldwide sales, and will introduce the pic to buyers at next month’s Cannes Film Festival.
Binoche and Fiennes last starred together in Anthony Minghella’s masterful 1996 adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prize-winning novel “The English Patient.” The film won nine Oscars in 1997, include best film, and best supporting actress for Binoche. Fiennes was also nominated for best actor.
- 4/28/2022
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
The Cannes favourite may have worn out his charm with this insufferable story of the author’s multiple affairs
The fey movies of Arnaud Desplechin are indulgences that I can sometimes indulge. I had a sweet tooth for his glutinous A Christmas Tale from 2008 and loved his mysterious fantasy Kings and Queen (2004) and intriguing Edward Bond adaptation Playing “In the Company of Men” from the year before that. Desplechin has been a Cannes favourite for so long that it’s almost impossible to imagine the festival without one of his dreamy-jaunty jeux d’ésprit on the menu.
But this latest film, showing in the new Cannes Premiere section, is just unbearable – like being condescendingly simpered at for an hour and a half: a film full of people smiling knowingly and laughing delightedly at each other’s not-especially-funny-or-interesting remarks, and it’s all the more insufferable for things the film gets fundamentally and structurally wrong.
The fey movies of Arnaud Desplechin are indulgences that I can sometimes indulge. I had a sweet tooth for his glutinous A Christmas Tale from 2008 and loved his mysterious fantasy Kings and Queen (2004) and intriguing Edward Bond adaptation Playing “In the Company of Men” from the year before that. Desplechin has been a Cannes favourite for so long that it’s almost impossible to imagine the festival without one of his dreamy-jaunty jeux d’ésprit on the menu.
But this latest film, showing in the new Cannes Premiere section, is just unbearable – like being condescendingly simpered at for an hour and a half: a film full of people smiling knowingly and laughing delightedly at each other’s not-especially-funny-or-interesting remarks, and it’s all the more insufferable for things the film gets fundamentally and structurally wrong.
- 7/13/2021
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
'Nicholas and Alexandra': Movie starred Michael Jayston and Janet Suzman 'Nicholas and Alexandra' movie review: Opulent 1971 spectacle lacks emotional core Nicholas and Alexandra is surely one of the most sumptuous film productions ever made. The elaborate sets and costumes, Richard Rodney Bennett's lush musical score, and frequent David Lean collaborator Freddie Young's richly textured cinematography provide the perfect period atmosphere for this historical epic. Missing, however, is a screenplay that offers dialogue instead of speeches, and a directorial hand that brings out emotional truth instead of soapy melodrama. Nicholas and Alexandra begins when, after several unsuccessful attempts, Tsar Nicholas II (Michael Jayston) finally becomes the father of a boy. Shortly thereafter, he and his wife, the German-born Empress Alexandra (Janet Suzman), have their happiness crushed when they discover that their infant son is a hemophiliac. In addition to his familial turmoil, the Tsar must also deal with popular...
- 5/7/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Actor Nigel Terry has passed away at the age of 69.
Famed for playing King Arthur in John Boorman's Excalibur in 1981, opposite Helen Mirren, Terry passed away from emphysema on April 30.
He made his big-screen debut in 1968's The Lion in Winter alongside Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn and Anthony Hopkins.
The actor took lead roles in Caravaggio (1986) and War Requiem (1989) and a number of others, but most of his work was on the stage.
He worked extensively at the Royal Court in the '70s in productions such as Edward Bond's The Fool and Caryl Churchill's Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, and for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and Julius Caesar.
Terry continued his stage work throughout the '80s under the direction of the likes of Danny Boyle and Max Stafford-Clark.
His last film was 2004's epic Troy starring Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom,...
Famed for playing King Arthur in John Boorman's Excalibur in 1981, opposite Helen Mirren, Terry passed away from emphysema on April 30.
He made his big-screen debut in 1968's The Lion in Winter alongside Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn and Anthony Hopkins.
The actor took lead roles in Caravaggio (1986) and War Requiem (1989) and a number of others, but most of his work was on the stage.
He worked extensively at the Royal Court in the '70s in productions such as Edward Bond's The Fool and Caryl Churchill's Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, and for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and Julius Caesar.
Terry continued his stage work throughout the '80s under the direction of the likes of Danny Boyle and Max Stafford-Clark.
His last film was 2004's epic Troy starring Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom,...
- 5/4/2015
- Digital Spy
Stage and screen actor who excelled in playing authority figures and appeared in TV shows such as Brookside and Lovejoy
Malcolm Tierney, who has died aged 75 of pulmonary fibrosis, was a reliable and versatile supporting actor for 50 years, familiar to television audiences as the cigar-smoking, bullying villain Tommy McArdle in Brookside, nasty Charlie Gimbert in Lovejoy and smoothie Geoffrey Ellsworth-Smythe in David Nobbs's A Bit of a Do, a Yorkshire small-town comedy chronicle starring David Jason and Gwen Taylor.
Always serious and quietly spoken offstage, with glinting blue eyes and a steady, cruel gaze that served him well as authority figures on screen, Tierney was a working-class Mancunian who became a core member of the Workers' Revolutionary party in the 1970s. He never wavered in his socialist beliefs, even when the Wrp imploded ("That's all in my past now," he said), and always opposed restricted entry to the actors' union,...
Malcolm Tierney, who has died aged 75 of pulmonary fibrosis, was a reliable and versatile supporting actor for 50 years, familiar to television audiences as the cigar-smoking, bullying villain Tommy McArdle in Brookside, nasty Charlie Gimbert in Lovejoy and smoothie Geoffrey Ellsworth-Smythe in David Nobbs's A Bit of a Do, a Yorkshire small-town comedy chronicle starring David Jason and Gwen Taylor.
Always serious and quietly spoken offstage, with glinting blue eyes and a steady, cruel gaze that served him well as authority figures on screen, Tierney was a working-class Mancunian who became a core member of the Workers' Revolutionary party in the 1970s. He never wavered in his socialist beliefs, even when the Wrp imploded ("That's all in my past now," he said), and always opposed restricted entry to the actors' union,...
- 2/22/2014
- by Michael Coveney, Vanessa Redgrave
- The Guardian - Film News
Updated & Exclusive: Beta closes a number of key deals on Venice award-winner Still Life.
Still Life director Uberto Pasolini has several new projects on the boil as a producer through his company Redwave. One is a UK/French comedy that is being co-scripted by Simon Nye and that he will make with Rita Dagher’s Senorita Films. Another is a British comedy written by comedian Deborah Frances-White. Meanwhile, he is still working with director Alan Taylor (Palookaville, Thor) on The Horseman, a western adapted from David Anthony Durham’s civil war set novel, Gabriel’s Story.
He is also hatching a version of The Odyssey from a script by Edward Bond. (Pasolini nearly made the project a decade ago with Neil Jordan and is re-firing it now.)
Meanwhile, Beta has sold Still Life to Bim for Italy, Wild Bunch for Benelux, Palace in Australia, Filmcoopi in Switzerland, Arthaus in Norway, Folkets Bio in Sweden...
Still Life director Uberto Pasolini has several new projects on the boil as a producer through his company Redwave. One is a UK/French comedy that is being co-scripted by Simon Nye and that he will make with Rita Dagher’s Senorita Films. Another is a British comedy written by comedian Deborah Frances-White. Meanwhile, he is still working with director Alan Taylor (Palookaville, Thor) on The Horseman, a western adapted from David Anthony Durham’s civil war set novel, Gabriel’s Story.
He is also hatching a version of The Odyssey from a script by Edward Bond. (Pasolini nearly made the project a decade ago with Neil Jordan and is re-firing it now.)
Meanwhile, Beta has sold Still Life to Bim for Italy, Wild Bunch for Benelux, Palace in Australia, Filmcoopi in Switzerland, Arthaus in Norway, Folkets Bio in Sweden...
- 9/15/2013
- by geoffrey@macnab.demon.co.uk (Geoffrey Macnab)
- ScreenDaily
Kill List director Ben Wheatley turns the period drama to his usual subversive ends in a grisly slice of English civil-war psychedelia
• Stuart Heritage will be liveblogging the UK television premiere of A Field in England from 10.45pm tonight. Join him here from about 8.30pm GMT
During the English civil war, Thomas Hobbes wrote in his Leviathan that without general submission to the sovereign, our natural selfishness would predominate, chaos would reign and the life of man would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". If Hobbes had seen this film, he would amend the passage to read "intensely solitary, very poor, extremely nasty, horribly brutish and rather similar to Mr Ben Wheatley's 91-minute mummery, A Field in England." Or perhaps, given that these circumstances apply despite the characters' submission to a sovereign, of sorts, he might want to delete it altogether.
Wheatley's new film is grisly and visceral,...
• Stuart Heritage will be liveblogging the UK television premiere of A Field in England from 10.45pm tonight. Join him here from about 8.30pm GMT
During the English civil war, Thomas Hobbes wrote in his Leviathan that without general submission to the sovereign, our natural selfishness would predominate, chaos would reign and the life of man would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". If Hobbes had seen this film, he would amend the passage to read "intensely solitary, very poor, extremely nasty, horribly brutish and rather similar to Mr Ben Wheatley's 91-minute mummery, A Field in England." Or perhaps, given that these circumstances apply despite the characters' submission to a sovereign, of sorts, he might want to delete it altogether.
Wheatley's new film is grisly and visceral,...
- 7/5/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Festival theatre's Angus Jackson to direct Langella in role often called the Ever~est of acting at Minerva theatre in November
Frank Langella, the triple-Tony award winning actor who memorably portrayed Richard Nixon on stage and screen, is to take on King Lear for the Chichester Festival Theatre, it will be announced on Thursday.
The role is often called the Everest of acting and has been played in recent years by Derek Jacobi at the Donmar Warehouse and Ian McKellen at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Langella has accepted an invitation to star in a production at the Minerva theatre in November which will then transfer to New York in the new year.
It will be directed by associate director of the theatre Angus Jackson, who said: "It is tremendously exciting that he's reached a moment to do King Lear and he's going to do it with us, with me and in the Minerva.
Frank Langella, the triple-Tony award winning actor who memorably portrayed Richard Nixon on stage and screen, is to take on King Lear for the Chichester Festival Theatre, it will be announced on Thursday.
The role is often called the Everest of acting and has been played in recent years by Derek Jacobi at the Donmar Warehouse and Ian McKellen at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Langella has accepted an invitation to star in a production at the Minerva theatre in November which will then transfer to New York in the new year.
It will be directed by associate director of the theatre Angus Jackson, who said: "It is tremendously exciting that he's reached a moment to do King Lear and he's going to do it with us, with me and in the Minerva.
- 6/20/2013
- by Mark Brown
- The Guardian - Film News
Actor will feature in piece written by Belarus Free Theatre and Laura Wade. Meanwhile, the latest short film in the series, Bed Trick, is released today
Jude Law will team up with the Belarus Free Theatre for the next in the series of short films coproduced by the Guardian and the Young Vic theatre.
Over the course of this year, the two organisations will present a series of four films created by the stars and creatives behind Young Vic productions, supported by Bloomberg.
Law, who played Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus at the Young Vic in 2002 and has supported Belarus Free Theatre for a number of years, will appear in a film the company has written in collaboration with Laura Wade, the playwright behind the Royal Court's hit Posh.
It will be followed by new short written and directed by Olivier award-winning actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who stars in Aimé Césaire...
Jude Law will team up with the Belarus Free Theatre for the next in the series of short films coproduced by the Guardian and the Young Vic theatre.
Over the course of this year, the two organisations will present a series of four films created by the stars and creatives behind Young Vic productions, supported by Bloomberg.
Law, who played Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus at the Young Vic in 2002 and has supported Belarus Free Theatre for a number of years, will appear in a film the company has written in collaboration with Laura Wade, the playwright behind the Royal Court's hit Posh.
It will be followed by new short written and directed by Olivier award-winning actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who stars in Aimé Césaire...
- 5/16/2013
- by Matt Trueman
- The Guardian - Film News
I couldn't have known, as my late husband and I brushed past the figure in the front row of a Hair rehearsal in 1968 at the Cambridge theatre, that the man-imp who gently prodded me would become one of my closest pals. Victor Spinetti soon invited us to his soirees, where his partner, Graham, prepared meatloaf for literary and showbiz friends.
Vic cherished friends and family. When Joan Littlewood and I visited him on tour, he gazed adoringly at her with the same look he would turn on his ebullient mum, Lil. However long between meetings or emails (after I introduced him to the internet), he would shed the performer's facade to reveal the real Vic. Or "The Old Vic", as he called himself, facing the passing of time with grace and laughter.
Only those close to him saw the pain, vitriol and vulnerability which informed his comedy. He could be bitter,...
Vic cherished friends and family. When Joan Littlewood and I visited him on tour, he gazed adoringly at her with the same look he would turn on his ebullient mum, Lil. However long between meetings or emails (after I introduced him to the internet), he would shed the performer's facade to reveal the real Vic. Or "The Old Vic", as he called himself, facing the passing of time with grace and laughter.
Only those close to him saw the pain, vitriol and vulnerability which informed his comedy. He could be bitter,...
- 6/22/2012
- by Beth Porter
- The Guardian - Film News
After directing Edward Bond's Bingo at the Young Vic, with Patrick Stewart in the lead, I decided to make a short film inspired by the play
Edward Bond's play Bingo, which focuses on the last months of Shakespeare's life, captures many of the beauties and horrors of the poet's age. At one point, Shakespeare's character describes "women with shopping bags stepping over puddles of blood" on the streets of London. At another, he stands under the body of a beggar woman who has been hung from a gibbet, and remembers watching bear-baiting. "The baited bear … tied to the stake," he says, as if reliving the scene. "Its dirty coat needs brushing. Dried mud and spume. Pale dust."
Paris Gardens, where bears were baited, is in Southwark – just around the corner from the Young Vic, where I've recently been directing Bond's play. Now one of the few visible remnants...
Edward Bond's play Bingo, which focuses on the last months of Shakespeare's life, captures many of the beauties and horrors of the poet's age. At one point, Shakespeare's character describes "women with shopping bags stepping over puddles of blood" on the streets of London. At another, he stands under the body of a beggar woman who has been hung from a gibbet, and remembers watching bear-baiting. "The baited bear … tied to the stake," he says, as if reliving the scene. "Its dirty coat needs brushing. Dried mud and spume. Pale dust."
Paris Gardens, where bears were baited, is in Southwark – just around the corner from the Young Vic, where I've recently been directing Bond's play. Now one of the few visible remnants...
- 4/19/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
The legendary Italian scriptwriter and novelist, who died yesterday, worked with a host of Europe's greatest auteurs. Here we pick the highlights of his extraordinary oeuvre
It was Tonino Guerra's fate to become the scriptwriter of choice for a string of master directors whose status as auteurs – "authors" of their films – tended to diminish the status of the writers involved. Nevertheless, Guerra established himself as a major figure in Italian cinema during its golden period in the 1960s and early 70s, as well as venturing further afield to collaborate with the likes of Tarkovsky and Angelopoulos.
But it is the amazing string of films he made with Michelangelo Antonioni for which he will primarily be remembered. After spending time as a schoolteacher in his 20s, he broke into the film industry in his 30s, receiving his first credit aged 37 for Man and Wolves, by Bitter Rice director Giuseppe de Santis.
It was Tonino Guerra's fate to become the scriptwriter of choice for a string of master directors whose status as auteurs – "authors" of their films – tended to diminish the status of the writers involved. Nevertheless, Guerra established himself as a major figure in Italian cinema during its golden period in the 1960s and early 70s, as well as venturing further afield to collaborate with the likes of Tarkovsky and Angelopoulos.
But it is the amazing string of films he made with Michelangelo Antonioni for which he will primarily be remembered. After spending time as a schoolteacher in his 20s, he broke into the film industry in his 30s, receiving his first credit aged 37 for Man and Wolves, by Bitter Rice director Giuseppe de Santis.
- 3/22/2012
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Our critics' picks of this week's openings, plus your last chance to see and what to book now
• Which cultural events are in your diary this week? Tell us in the comments below
Opening this weekTheatre
Bingo
Patrick Stewart stars as the ageing Shakespeare in Edward Bond's play in which the playwright, now a rich landowner, is facing pressure from local Stratford people. Young Vic, London SE1 (020-7922 2922), until March 31.
An Appointment with the Wicker Man
National Theatre Scotland take on the cult 1970s movie with a play within a play about an amateur dramatic society on a remote Scottish island who are putting the play on stage. But when one of their actors falls ill, a replacement is called in from the mainland. His Majesties, Aberdeen (01224 641122), Tuesday to Saturday, then touring until 24 March.
Film
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (dir. Stephen Daldry)
Oscar-nominated drama, based on the Jonathan Safran Foer novel.
• Which cultural events are in your diary this week? Tell us in the comments below
Opening this weekTheatre
Bingo
Patrick Stewart stars as the ageing Shakespeare in Edward Bond's play in which the playwright, now a rich landowner, is facing pressure from local Stratford people. Young Vic, London SE1 (020-7922 2922), until March 31.
An Appointment with the Wicker Man
National Theatre Scotland take on the cult 1970s movie with a play within a play about an amateur dramatic society on a remote Scottish island who are putting the play on stage. But when one of their actors falls ill, a replacement is called in from the mainland. His Majesties, Aberdeen (01224 641122), Tuesday to Saturday, then touring until 24 March.
Film
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (dir. Stephen Daldry)
Oscar-nominated drama, based on the Jonathan Safran Foer novel.
- 2/20/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
2011 was one of the best years for film in recent years. There are about 25 films that could have made my top ten list and each film in my top 5 could be my number one. I saw about 100 films this year and I still wish I could have seen more. I feel very comfortable with my top ten and I feel like it was a good representative of the year in film. However I do feel that people looking at this article should go over to Sound On Sight and see all the staff’s individual lists, as well as the honorable mentions that just missed my list. You will find a great collection of films on those lists.
1. Martha Marcy May Marlene
Directed by Sean Durkin
I saw Sean Durkin’s directorial debut in August and knew as soon as the last frame came up that this was the best picture of the year.
1. Martha Marcy May Marlene
Directed by Sean Durkin
I saw Sean Durkin’s directorial debut in August and knew as soon as the last frame came up that this was the best picture of the year.
- 12/31/2011
- by Josh Youngerman
- SoundOnSight
With British theatre looking backwards, even the one new play that almost everyone enjoyed was a skilful reworking of an 18th-century classic
The British theatre is living off its past. Just think of the plays that left a strong impression in 2011: Caryl Churchill's Top Girls (1982), Harold Pinter's Betrayal (1978), Edward Bond's Saved (1965), Arnold Wesker's The Kitchen (1959) and his Chicken Soup With Barley (1958), and Terence Rattigan's Flare Path (1942). Even the one new play that almost everyone enjoyed, Richard Bean's One Man, Two Guvnors, was a skilful reworking of an 18th-century classic.
I admired Mike Bartlett's 13 at the National and Alan Ayckbourn's Neighbourhood Watch in Scarborough for their ability, in very different ways, to reflect the tenor of the times. Two other old hands, David Hare with South Downs and David Edgar with Written on the Heart, turned in highly accomplished pieces. But, even...
The British theatre is living off its past. Just think of the plays that left a strong impression in 2011: Caryl Churchill's Top Girls (1982), Harold Pinter's Betrayal (1978), Edward Bond's Saved (1965), Arnold Wesker's The Kitchen (1959) and his Chicken Soup With Barley (1958), and Terence Rattigan's Flare Path (1942). Even the one new play that almost everyone enjoyed, Richard Bean's One Man, Two Guvnors, was a skilful reworking of an 18th-century classic.
I admired Mike Bartlett's 13 at the National and Alan Ayckbourn's Neighbourhood Watch in Scarborough for their ability, in very different ways, to reflect the tenor of the times. Two other old hands, David Hare with South Downs and David Edgar with Written on the Heart, turned in highly accomplished pieces. But, even...
- 12/5/2011
- by Michael Billington
- The Guardian - Film News
The defiant romantic of British cinema never lacked for critics but his prime inspiration was surely in music
Part glam rocker, part wild-haired conductor, Ken Russell was the populist maestro of the screen, the great defiant romantic of British cinema. Russell's films showed his great love for music and composers: Elgar, Tchaikovsky, Delius, Strauss, Liszt – and Sandy Wilson and Roger Daltrey. Other film-makers might have found their creative impetus in novels or plays; Russell's inspiration was surely primarily in music. His ideas, his images, his rows, his career itself were all one colossal, chaotic rhapsody.
His adventures were a rebuke to British parochialism, literalism and complacency, and he had something of Kubrick's flair for startling or mind-bending spectacle. Russell gave us the nude wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in the Oscar-winning Women In Love (1969) in which each actor, with Russell's cheerful consent, was said to have taken...
Part glam rocker, part wild-haired conductor, Ken Russell was the populist maestro of the screen, the great defiant romantic of British cinema. Russell's films showed his great love for music and composers: Elgar, Tchaikovsky, Delius, Strauss, Liszt – and Sandy Wilson and Roger Daltrey. Other film-makers might have found their creative impetus in novels or plays; Russell's inspiration was surely primarily in music. His ideas, his images, his rows, his career itself were all one colossal, chaotic rhapsody.
His adventures were a rebuke to British parochialism, literalism and complacency, and he had something of Kubrick's flair for startling or mind-bending spectacle. Russell gave us the nude wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in the Oscar-winning Women In Love (1969) in which each actor, with Russell's cheerful consent, was said to have taken...
- 11/29/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
A remake of Straw Dogs reminds us that 1971, which also spawned A Clockwork Orange and 10 Rillington Place, was a wonderful annus horribilis of shock cinema in Britain
Recently, in honour of this week's release of the Straw Dogs remake, an interviewer from Film 2011 listened to me indulgently while I rambled on the subject of 1971 And All That.
1971 was the year of highly controversial and violent movies like Sam Peckinpah's original Straw Dogs and Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. It was also the year of Dirty Harry, and I have myself blogged about William Friedkin's 1971 film The French Connection, a pretty brutal film positively drenched in 1971-ness. What was it that made the year 1971 the annus mirabilis (or horribilis) of shock cinema in Britain? It could have been something to do with the fact that this was the year of John Trevelyan's retirement as a markedly liberal director of...
Recently, in honour of this week's release of the Straw Dogs remake, an interviewer from Film 2011 listened to me indulgently while I rambled on the subject of 1971 And All That.
1971 was the year of highly controversial and violent movies like Sam Peckinpah's original Straw Dogs and Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. It was also the year of Dirty Harry, and I have myself blogged about William Friedkin's 1971 film The French Connection, a pretty brutal film positively drenched in 1971-ness. What was it that made the year 1971 the annus mirabilis (or horribilis) of shock cinema in Britain? It could have been something to do with the fact that this was the year of John Trevelyan's retirement as a markedly liberal director of...
- 10/31/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Lyric Hammersmith, London; Theatre Royal Bath
People go to Saved thinking they know what they will see. They've been told often enough. A baby is stoned to death in a park by a group of youths; a middle-aged woman has her stocking provocatively darned (she's inside it: 'You watch where yer pokin') by her daughter's young admirer. These are the scenes that caused Edward Bond's play to be banned by the Lord Chamberlain in 1965; these are the scenes that have made it famous.
Yet in Sean Holmes's superb production, the play looks less simply confrontational and rebarbative than the stoning suggests. It is intricate, far-reaching and believable. Intervening history – the killing of James Bulger, the Baby P case – may have added to its credibility, but its real force isn't adventitious. The horror begins to look inevitable.
The action uncurls with a series of terrible small blows. A young mother...
People go to Saved thinking they know what they will see. They've been told often enough. A baby is stoned to death in a park by a group of youths; a middle-aged woman has her stocking provocatively darned (she's inside it: 'You watch where yer pokin') by her daughter's young admirer. These are the scenes that caused Edward Bond's play to be banned by the Lord Chamberlain in 1965; these are the scenes that have made it famous.
Yet in Sean Holmes's superb production, the play looks less simply confrontational and rebarbative than the stoning suggests. It is intricate, far-reaching and believable. Intervening history – the killing of James Bulger, the Baby P case – may have added to its credibility, but its real force isn't adventitious. The horror begins to look inevitable.
The action uncurls with a series of terrible small blows. A young mother...
- 10/14/2011
- by Susannah Clapp
- The Guardian - Film News
Paddy Considine is a forceful actor who has given a number of striking performances in films with provincial, working-class settings by Shane Meadows and Pawel Pawlikowski. His accomplished feature debut as writer-director, Tyrannosaur, is an expanded version of Dog Altogether, a prize-winning short he made in 2007. It's the most painfully violent slice of British realism I've seen since Gary Oldman's Nil by Mouth, a film Considine greatly admires, and it brings together two sadly bruised figures from different social backgrounds in the suburbs of a Yorkshire city.
Joseph (Peter Mullan) is a middle-aged, working-class widower, a foul-mouthed drunk, violent and self-destructive, and he's first seen kicking his dog to death in a back alley. This daring opening, as shocking in its way as the stoning of the child in Edward Bond's play Saved, is followed by a succession of terrible encounters between Joseph, the staff of a post office,...
Joseph (Peter Mullan) is a middle-aged, working-class widower, a foul-mouthed drunk, violent and self-destructive, and he's first seen kicking his dog to death in a back alley. This daring opening, as shocking in its way as the stoning of the child in Edward Bond's play Saved, is followed by a succession of terrible encounters between Joseph, the staff of a post office,...
- 10/8/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
The RSC's legendary voice coach Cicely Berry has taught everyone from Sean Connery to Samuel L Jackson. But can she fix Laura Barnett's diction?
Cicely Berry is not impressed. I'm sitting on the floor, with my back against her legs, jiggling up and down while attempting to perform the "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" soliloquy from Macbeth. The last time I said these words aloud, I was about 12 years old and wearing a school uniform. And I certainly wasn't bouncing up and down at the time.
"You're not moving enough!" says Berry, the Royal Shakespeare Company's voice director. I bounce harder. "That's better! Can you feel the resonance?" I can. My voice has grown deeper, the words shake the pit of my stomach. "Creeps in this petty pace from day to day!" Suddenly, I sound like a proper actor. Almost.
Professional actors do this sort of voice exercise all...
Cicely Berry is not impressed. I'm sitting on the floor, with my back against her legs, jiggling up and down while attempting to perform the "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" soliloquy from Macbeth. The last time I said these words aloud, I was about 12 years old and wearing a school uniform. And I certainly wasn't bouncing up and down at the time.
"You're not moving enough!" says Berry, the Royal Shakespeare Company's voice director. I bounce harder. "That's better! Can you feel the resonance?" I can. My voice has grown deeper, the words shake the pit of my stomach. "Creeps in this petty pace from day to day!" Suddenly, I sound like a proper actor. Almost.
Professional actors do this sort of voice exercise all...
- 7/24/2011
- by Laura Barnett
- The Guardian - Film News
Blowup (1966) Direction: Michelangelo Antonioni Cast: David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, John Castle, Veruschka, Jane Birkin, Gillian Hills, Peter Bowles Screenplay: Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra, Edward Bond Oscar Movies David Hemmings, Veruschka, Blowup By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica: Made in Great Britain in 1966, the flat-out great Blowup was Michelangelo Antonioni's first English-language effort. "Inspired" by Argentinean writer Julio Cortazar's short story Las babas del diablo, Blowup was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay (Antonioni, Tonino Guerra, and Edward Bond), in addition to winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes and the National Society of Film Critics' Best Film Award. Having first seen the two Hollywood films most influenced by Blowup, Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974) and Brian De Palma's Blowout (1981), I did not know quite what to expect since the former is an excellent film — arguably, Coppola's best — and the latter is...
- 3/13/2011
- by Dan Schneider
- Alt Film Guide
Walkabout (1971)
Directed by Nicolas Roeg
Written by Edward Bond
Australia, 1971
There are two words, two unencumbered English words that are guaranteed to reduce a certain generation of heterosexual Englishmen to quivering wrecks, and those two words are Jenny Agutter. She began her film career not in The Railway Children but in the first film solely directed by Nicolas Roeg (the authorship on Performance is still under debate), a hugely influential figure on European and American cinema (paging Mr. Soderbergh) whose visionary contributions to the art form have been admired and echoed across the globe. In a recent Sight & Sound article editor Nick James made a convincing argument for the 1970′s UK cinema being amongst the most intriguing and resonant of the past century, arguing that sandwiched between the free love and civil responsibility of the Sixties and the Social Realist backlash against Thatcher and unfettered capitalism in the eighties there...
Directed by Nicolas Roeg
Written by Edward Bond
Australia, 1971
There are two words, two unencumbered English words that are guaranteed to reduce a certain generation of heterosexual Englishmen to quivering wrecks, and those two words are Jenny Agutter. She began her film career not in The Railway Children but in the first film solely directed by Nicolas Roeg (the authorship on Performance is still under debate), a hugely influential figure on European and American cinema (paging Mr. Soderbergh) whose visionary contributions to the art form have been admired and echoed across the globe. In a recent Sight & Sound article editor Nick James made a convincing argument for the 1970′s UK cinema being amongst the most intriguing and resonant of the past century, arguing that sandwiched between the free love and civil responsibility of the Sixties and the Social Realist backlash against Thatcher and unfettered capitalism in the eighties there...
- 3/8/2011
- by John
- SoundOnSight
The very talented Michael Sheen is all set to tackle the extremely challenging role of Hamlet this coming fall at the Young Vic. Hamlet will start performances Oct. 28, before their official opening Nov. 9, and the season runs through Jan. 21 2012. Michael has commented that the role of Hamlet speaks to him now more than ever. Read more below:
Now Patrick Stewart and Michael Sheen, two of Britain’s finest actors, are starring as Shakespeare and Hamlet in a new season at the Young Vic.
Stewart, 70, who began his career with the Royal Shakespeare Company, plays the Bard in his final years in Edward Bond’s Bingo next month. The hotly anticipated Hamlet, with Sheen in the title role, opens in October.
It follows David Tennant and Jude Law’s stints as the Dane: the role is considered a definitive point in a young actor’s career. Sheen, 41, said he was coming to it later in life and wanted to make it “difficult and jagged again, unsettling and uncomfortable and disorientating.” Director Ian Rickson makes his Shakespearean debut after Sheen approached him for the job.
The actor said: “The opportunity to tell this story has come up from time to time but it never felt right. Working with someone as inspiring and supportive as Ian, in a space full of possibility like The Young Vic, on a play that speaks to me now more than ever, made me feel this was the right time.”
Read the full story here.
What do you think of Michael Sheen taking on the role of Hamlet?...
Now Patrick Stewart and Michael Sheen, two of Britain’s finest actors, are starring as Shakespeare and Hamlet in a new season at the Young Vic.
Stewart, 70, who began his career with the Royal Shakespeare Company, plays the Bard in his final years in Edward Bond’s Bingo next month. The hotly anticipated Hamlet, with Sheen in the title role, opens in October.
It follows David Tennant and Jude Law’s stints as the Dane: the role is considered a definitive point in a young actor’s career. Sheen, 41, said he was coming to it later in life and wanted to make it “difficult and jagged again, unsettling and uncomfortable and disorientating.” Director Ian Rickson makes his Shakespearean debut after Sheen approached him for the job.
The actor said: “The opportunity to tell this story has come up from time to time but it never felt right. Working with someone as inspiring and supportive as Ian, in a space full of possibility like The Young Vic, on a play that speaks to me now more than ever, made me feel this was the right time.”
Read the full story here.
What do you think of Michael Sheen taking on the role of Hamlet?...
- 2/1/2011
- by Evie
- twilightersanonymous.com
In 1997, Simon Hattenstone went to the pub with Pete Postlethwaite while the actor, who died earlier this week, was starring in Macbeth. Read the interview again
Act One: lunchtime, a pub in Bristol. Three men, actor Pete Postlethwaite, Dennis, a publicist, and Dick, a producer, sit supping pints of Guinness. Enter a Journalist, who has never met the actor before.
Postlethwaite: "Simon, Simon. What can we do about this?"
Dennis: "You're late, and Pete has a full dress rehearsal in 20 minutes."
Exit Dick to get a round of drinks.
Postlethwaite: "Any chance of hanging around for three hours or so? Then we'll have a proper chat. A proper drink, a good time."
However often you've watched Pete Postlethwaite on stage or screen, it's hard to prepare for the close-up: the compact body, dainty feet dressed in Kickers, the skin – cross-hatched with thin red contours – resembling a faintly exotic cheese,...
Act One: lunchtime, a pub in Bristol. Three men, actor Pete Postlethwaite, Dennis, a publicist, and Dick, a producer, sit supping pints of Guinness. Enter a Journalist, who has never met the actor before.
Postlethwaite: "Simon, Simon. What can we do about this?"
Dennis: "You're late, and Pete has a full dress rehearsal in 20 minutes."
Exit Dick to get a round of drinks.
Postlethwaite: "Any chance of hanging around for three hours or so? Then we'll have a proper chat. A proper drink, a good time."
However often you've watched Pete Postlethwaite on stage or screen, it's hard to prepare for the close-up: the compact body, dainty feet dressed in Kickers, the skin – cross-hatched with thin red contours – resembling a faintly exotic cheese,...
- 1/6/2011
- by Simon Hattenstone
- The Guardian - Film News
HollywoodNews.com: The 14th Annual Hollywood Film Festival and Hollywood Awards, presented by Starz, are pleased to announce that producers Danny Boyle and Christian Colson will be honored with the “Hollywood Producer Award,” screenwriter Aaron Sorkin will get the “Hollywood Screenwriter Award,” and Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall will be honored with the “Hollywood Editor Award” at the festival’s Hollywood Awards Gala Ceremony.
The announcement was made today by Carlos de Abreu, Founder of the Hollywood Awards Gala.
“We are honored to recognize these exceptionally talented artists for their outstanding work and creative vision at this year’s Hollywood Awards Gala,” said de Abreu.
Previously announced honorees for this year’s Hollywood Awards Gala include: Sean Penn for the “Humanitarian Award”; Helena Bonham Carter for the “Supporting Actress Award”; Sam Rockwell for the “Supporting Actor Award”; Andrew Garfield for the “Breakthrough Actor Award”; Mia Wasikowska for the “Breakthrough Actress...
The announcement was made today by Carlos de Abreu, Founder of the Hollywood Awards Gala.
“We are honored to recognize these exceptionally talented artists for their outstanding work and creative vision at this year’s Hollywood Awards Gala,” said de Abreu.
Previously announced honorees for this year’s Hollywood Awards Gala include: Sean Penn for the “Humanitarian Award”; Helena Bonham Carter for the “Supporting Actress Award”; Sam Rockwell for the “Supporting Actor Award”; Andrew Garfield for the “Breakthrough Actor Award”; Mia Wasikowska for the “Breakthrough Actress...
- 9/27/2010
- by Linny Lum
- Hollywoodnews.com
EastEnders star Melissa Suffield has landed a role in the theatre. The actress, who was axed from the BBC soap in May for her "unruly" behaviour, will play Sheila in Olly's Prison, according to Pa. The play is running at the c*** Tavern theatre in Kilburn, London as part of a series of Edward Bond plays. Speaking when she was axed from EastEnders, (more)...
- 8/21/2010
- by By Colin Daniels
- Digital Spy
Claire Denis's powerful, disturbing film about modern Africa is her best since Beau Travail, writes Peter Bradshaw
Claire Denis has always been a poet of mood and moment, and here succeeds in linking these skills to the creation of a story with oppressive tension and atmosphere. White Material could be her best film since Beau Travail: a disturbing piece of work whose power and grip increase, almost imperceptibly, as the film progresses to its awful and inevitable conclusion. Isabelle Huppert plays Maria Vial, a coffee farmer in an unnamed African state – Francophone, and presumably a former French colony – which is in meltdown. There is lawlessness on the streets and, as in Rwanda, radio DJs pour out inflammatory broadcasts. The colonial whites are being blamed. Every day is more dangerous for Maria, but she stubbornly refuses to leave, perhaps because she cannot imagine a life back in France, perhaps...
Claire Denis has always been a poet of mood and moment, and here succeeds in linking these skills to the creation of a story with oppressive tension and atmosphere. White Material could be her best film since Beau Travail: a disturbing piece of work whose power and grip increase, almost imperceptibly, as the film progresses to its awful and inevitable conclusion. Isabelle Huppert plays Maria Vial, a coffee farmer in an unnamed African state – Francophone, and presumably a former French colony – which is in meltdown. There is lawlessness on the streets and, as in Rwanda, radio DJs pour out inflammatory broadcasts. The colonial whites are being blamed. Every day is more dangerous for Maria, but she stubbornly refuses to leave, perhaps because she cannot imagine a life back in France, perhaps...
- 7/2/2010
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Release Date: Available Now Director/Cinematographer: Nicolas Roeg Writers: James Vance Marshall (novel), Edward Bond (screenplay) Starring: Jenny Agutter, David Gulpilil, Lucien John Studio/Runtime: Criterion, 100 min. After the 1990 Anjelica Huston vehicle The Witches, British director Nicolas Roeg slid into a netherworld of episodic TV fare and direct-to-video oblivion. But the man deserves a nod, if only for the heady run from his 1970 collaborative directorial debut Performance through 1980’s harrowing Bad Timing. (Just ask Wilco producer, former Sonic Youth guitarist and cinephile Jim O’Rourke, who has three solo albums that namecheck Roeg’s oeuvre.) But the director stands...
- 6/22/2010
- Pastemagazine.com
Both men have a history of radical work in theatre, and also understand that spectacle is nothing without a human touch – exactly the qualities the Olympics will need
I can't help feeling a delighted astonishment at the news that Stephen Daldry and Danny Boyle are to be in charge of the Olympics spectacle: the former as creative producer, the latter as director of the opening ceremony. Both started out as mavericks working on minute budgets. Now they'll have big bucks to spend on ceremonies that will help to define the success, or otherwise, of the London Olympics. Yet they seem to me exactly the right men for the job.
I first met Daldry 20 years ago when he was a gangling guy in sneakers who looked as if he needed a good meal. Yet, even as a fringe theatre director with no money to play with, he thought on a big...
I can't help feeling a delighted astonishment at the news that Stephen Daldry and Danny Boyle are to be in charge of the Olympics spectacle: the former as creative producer, the latter as director of the opening ceremony. Both started out as mavericks working on minute budgets. Now they'll have big bucks to spend on ceremonies that will help to define the success, or otherwise, of the London Olympics. Yet they seem to me exactly the right men for the job.
I first met Daldry 20 years ago when he was a gangling guy in sneakers who looked as if he needed a good meal. Yet, even as a fringe theatre director with no money to play with, he thought on a big...
- 6/17/2010
- by Michael Billington
- The Guardian - Film News
Nicolas Roeg’s 1971 feature Walkabout opens with a close-up of bricks and mortar, shifting over to street and traffic. Beneath it blasts the sound of a didgeridoo, a musical instrument of the Australian Aborigines, reminding viewers that the buildings now standing in Australia haven’t always been there. What follows repeats the meaning embedded in that combination of sound and image, and expands it to the human soul. Scripted by Edward Bond, who made some controversial contributions to the London stage, this loose adaptation of James Vance Marshall’s novel follows a teenage English girl (Jenny Agutter) and her ...
- 5/19/2010
- avclub.com
Walkabout Directed by: Nicolas Roeg Written by: Edward Bond Starring: Jenny Agutter, Lucien John, David Gulpilil Something is amiss in Sydney, Australia! It seems as though the pressures of life down under have hit one father particularly hard as he decides to drive his two kids -- a girl of 14 and her younger brother -- into the outback and execute them. After his plan goes awry, the man lights his car on fire and shoots himself, leaving his children stranded in the wilderness "with only their cunning to protect them" (Wayne's World, 1992). Thus begins...Walkabout! The title of the film refers to an Aboriginal rite of passage in which a young male is sent off to live in the bush for an extended period of time, forced to survive off of natural resources. After spending a night alone, the two abandoned kids happen to meet up with one of these...
- 5/18/2010
- by Jay C.
- FilmJunk
Nicolas Roeg's 1971 film Walkabout is an atmospheric tale of self-discovery that welds lush sound and visuals to a cryptic narrative. A new Criterion DVD and Blu-Ray release represents the third time the company has released Walkabout in the past 13 years. Those who own an older version will certainly want to upgrade because the new restored transfer is splendid.
In the film, a very chatty boy (Lucien Roeg, billed here as Lucien John) and his older sister (Jenny Agutter) are left to die in the Australian outback by their father. After the English siblings wander deep into the wilds with little food and water, they meet an aborigine (David Gulpill), who is undergoing a walkabout: a ritualistic journey wherein aboriginal males wander alone to fend for themselves. The pair tag along on the boy's journey, which takes them to places both strange and familiar. Even though the circumstances brings them together,...
In the film, a very chatty boy (Lucien Roeg, billed here as Lucien John) and his older sister (Jenny Agutter) are left to die in the Australian outback by their father. After the English siblings wander deep into the wilds with little food and water, they meet an aborigine (David Gulpill), who is undergoing a walkabout: a ritualistic journey wherein aboriginal males wander alone to fend for themselves. The pair tag along on the boy's journey, which takes them to places both strange and familiar. Even though the circumstances brings them together,...
- 5/16/2010
- Screen Anarchy
In this lull before the whirlwind of the 63rd edition starts, the question that I've been pondering is this: why have these past Cannes discoveries never crossed the Channel for a UK release?
Here we are in Cannes, the day before the official opening: the Tuesday Lull. It's the calm before the storm, which, traditionally, is not all that calm. The red carpet is still being hammered into place and the Grand Palais prepared by grey-suited officials bustling about everywhere. Last year, my friend Nigel Andrews of the Financial Times told me he saw a Cannes local walk down the Croisette, survey the scene and loudly sigh: "Les conneries commencent …" ("The bullshit begins …"). For journalists covering the festival, this is a time for savouring all the possibilities of movie experience that must surely be available in the next 10 days, before you're suddenly plunged straight into it, and there never seems to be enough time,...
Here we are in Cannes, the day before the official opening: the Tuesday Lull. It's the calm before the storm, which, traditionally, is not all that calm. The red carpet is still being hammered into place and the Grand Palais prepared by grey-suited officials bustling about everywhere. Last year, my friend Nigel Andrews of the Financial Times told me he saw a Cannes local walk down the Croisette, survey the scene and loudly sigh: "Les conneries commencent …" ("The bullshit begins …"). For journalists covering the festival, this is a time for savouring all the possibilities of movie experience that must surely be available in the next 10 days, before you're suddenly plunged straight into it, and there never seems to be enough time,...
- 5/11/2010
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Director of Slumdog Millionaire and Trainspotting will make his National Theatre debut next winter with Frankenstein adaption
He won eight Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire and huge acclaim for such stylish films as Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Sunshine. But now, just when his cinematic success is at its most giddying, Danny Boyle is to return to his theatrical roots – having been, in his words, "distracted for 15 years by the movies".
Boyle will make his National Theatre debut next winter, directing an adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, it was announced today.
According to the National's artistic director, Sir Nicholas Hytner, Boyle was one of the first artists he approached when he started at the theatre eight years ago. It was then that Boyle – over cake at a cafe – outlined his ideas about a Frankenstein production.
According to Hytner: "He has a very particular take … and he described to me in...
He won eight Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire and huge acclaim for such stylish films as Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Sunshine. But now, just when his cinematic success is at its most giddying, Danny Boyle is to return to his theatrical roots – having been, in his words, "distracted for 15 years by the movies".
Boyle will make his National Theatre debut next winter, directing an adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, it was announced today.
According to the National's artistic director, Sir Nicholas Hytner, Boyle was one of the first artists he approached when he started at the theatre eight years ago. It was then that Boyle – over cake at a cafe – outlined his ideas about a Frankenstein production.
According to Hytner: "He has a very particular take … and he described to me in...
- 1/22/2010
- by Charlotte Higgins
- The Guardian - Film News
"Walkabout" is director Nicolas Roeg's 1971 British feature set in Australia, adapting the novel by author James Vance Marshall, available in an unedited director's cut through the Criterion Collection.
The story starts with a high school girl (Jenny Agutter), her younger brother (Luc Roeg) and their father, a geologist, going for a drive into the Australian outback, where they stop for a family picnic.
Suddenly, without warning or reason, the father begins shooting at them and when they run behind rocks for cover, he sets the car on fire and kills himself.
The girl conceals what has happened from her brother as they spend a night sleeping on rocks, climbing high into the mountains for a vantage point to see the ocean. As they begin their trek towards the sea, they grow weak from exposure, until an Aboriginal boy (David Gulpilil) appears and saves their lives by taking them through the frontier.
The story starts with a high school girl (Jenny Agutter), her younger brother (Luc Roeg) and their father, a geologist, going for a drive into the Australian outback, where they stop for a family picnic.
Suddenly, without warning or reason, the father begins shooting at them and when they run behind rocks for cover, he sets the car on fire and kills himself.
The girl conceals what has happened from her brother as they spend a night sleeping on rocks, climbing high into the mountains for a vantage point to see the ocean. As they begin their trek towards the sea, they grow weak from exposure, until an Aboriginal boy (David Gulpilil) appears and saves their lives by taking them through the frontier.
- 12/9/2009
- by Michael Stevens
- SneakPeek
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.