The fear of losing one’s sight is perfectly captured in an inspiring docudrama about author and academic John Hull
Cinema’s paradoxical fascination with sightlessness has spawned movies as diverse as Terence Young’s 1967 thriller Wait Until Dark, Takeshi Kitano’s 2003 martial-arts actioner Zatôichi and Eskil Vogt’s prurient 2014 psychodrama Blind. Yet few films have portrayed the absence of vision with any degree of insight. Honourable exceptions include British film-maker Gary Tarn’s 2005 documentary Black Sun, an electrifying, expressionist portrait of painter and photographer Hugues de Montalembert, who found new ways of seeing after being blinded by a violent attack in 1978.
The film highlights the growing tactility of Hull's world, closing in on the sources of sound
Continue reading...
Cinema’s paradoxical fascination with sightlessness has spawned movies as diverse as Terence Young’s 1967 thriller Wait Until Dark, Takeshi Kitano’s 2003 martial-arts actioner Zatôichi and Eskil Vogt’s prurient 2014 psychodrama Blind. Yet few films have portrayed the absence of vision with any degree of insight. Honourable exceptions include British film-maker Gary Tarn’s 2005 documentary Black Sun, an electrifying, expressionist portrait of painter and photographer Hugues de Montalembert, who found new ways of seeing after being blinded by a violent attack in 1978.
The film highlights the growing tactility of Hull's world, closing in on the sources of sound
Continue reading...
- 7/3/2016
- by Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
- The Guardian - Film News
Payday lender's 30-minute film marks start of fightback against what it complains is ceaseless 'misrepresentation' in press
They say money can't buy love, but controversial payday lender Wonga is attempting to win the hearts of its critics with a film that promises to tell the "real stories" of its hard-pressed borrowers.
Twelve Wonga customers are the stars of a 30-minute film commissioned by the firm to counter criticism that it targets the vulnerable with interest rates of up to 5,853%.
Billed as a "modern, authentic and relevant" portrait of British life, the movie pulls at the heart strings by showing people trying to bounce back from low ebbs, including a woman who borrowed £200 to pay for flowers at two family funerals in the same week.
For Wonga the film marks the start of a PR fightback against what it calls a ceaseless "misrepresentation" in newspapers.
"The reason we commissioned that film...
They say money can't buy love, but controversial payday lender Wonga is attempting to win the hearts of its critics with a film that promises to tell the "real stories" of its hard-pressed borrowers.
Twelve Wonga customers are the stars of a 30-minute film commissioned by the firm to counter criticism that it targets the vulnerable with interest rates of up to 5,853%.
Billed as a "modern, authentic and relevant" portrait of British life, the movie pulls at the heart strings by showing people trying to bounce back from low ebbs, including a woman who borrowed £200 to pay for flowers at two family funerals in the same week.
For Wonga the film marks the start of a PR fightback against what it calls a ceaseless "misrepresentation" in newspapers.
"The reason we commissioned that film...
- 11/5/2013
- by Josh Halliday
- The Guardian - Film News
Kahlil Gibran's prose-poem may have Hallmark sentiments, but this is a cinematic rhapsody
Gary Tarn is a British director creating collages of images and ideas, in the tradition of Chris Marker – directing, shooting, editing, and composing the music. After his Bafta-nominated Black Sun, he has returned with a visual quilt inspired by the prose-poem The Prophet, a spiritual-humanist work by Kahlil Gibran. He assembles intriguing and potent images, strikingly juxtaposed, a free-form cinematic rhapsody, which is accompanied by an adapted voice-over of the original text. This may also have absorbed something from Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. I am an agnostic about Gibran – for me, his work verges on Hallmark-card-speak – and it took a while to acclimatise to Thandie Newton's narration, in a sonorous American accent. But Tarn is persuasive, and you can't help but respond to the boldness, intelligence and creativity of hisfilm-making.
Rating: 3/5
PoetryPeter Bradshaw
guardian.
Gary Tarn is a British director creating collages of images and ideas, in the tradition of Chris Marker – directing, shooting, editing, and composing the music. After his Bafta-nominated Black Sun, he has returned with a visual quilt inspired by the prose-poem The Prophet, a spiritual-humanist work by Kahlil Gibran. He assembles intriguing and potent images, strikingly juxtaposed, a free-form cinematic rhapsody, which is accompanied by an adapted voice-over of the original text. This may also have absorbed something from Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. I am an agnostic about Gibran – for me, his work verges on Hallmark-card-speak – and it took a while to acclimatise to Thandie Newton's narration, in a sonorous American accent. But Tarn is persuasive, and you can't help but respond to the boldness, intelligence and creativity of hisfilm-making.
Rating: 3/5
PoetryPeter Bradshaw
guardian.
- 9/21/2012
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
It was announced earlier this year, that Salma Hayek was teaming up with the Doha Film Institute and Participant Media to adapt Khalil Gibran’s classic novel The Prophet as an animated feature for the big screen. Each of the chapters in the novel will be directed by a different filmmaker. The film is expected in 2013; but, while you wait for that, you should be aware of this documentary on The Prophet - a film directed and composed by BAFTA-nominated Gary Tarn, and is narrated by British actress Thandie Newton "who delivers Gibran's captivating prose with an intimate reading, woven into a score for orchestra, guitar, cello and...
- 9/12/2012
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
While the excellent Doc NYC is nearing its midpoint, I have decamped to Copenhagen, returning to the equally excellent Cph:dox, which is devoted to adventurous and radical forays into non-fiction filmmaking. The selection here is huge and ambitious, mixing new work with several retrospectives, guest curations and special events. I’m just settling in today, but here are some things I’m looking forward to and hope to write about as the week goes on: The Prophet, Gary Tarn’s world premiering follow-up to Black Sun, for my money one of the most important docs of recent years; Michael Madsen’s 3D The Average of the Average about the “entirely mediocre place” of Middlefart; a retrospective and new work (The Turning, a collaboration with Antony and the Johnsons) from New York filmmaker and video artist Charles Atlas; guest curated series by Nan Goldin and Ben Rivers & Ben Russell; and “Free Radicals,...
- 11/7/2011
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
As director Gary Tarn floats the camera high above the rooftops of New York City’s bustling metropolis and people scurry far below like ants, it’s with a creeping sense of it-could-happen-to-anyone dread that we listen to narrator Hughes De Montalembert describe the brutal and senseless attack on his person that robbed him of his sight. One night, outside his home near Washington Square, two men forced him inside and demanded money. When Hughes informed them he didn’t have any the situation turned ugly and the men attacked him. While attempting to fight one of the men off with a poker from the fireplace, the other sprayed paint remover into his eyes, blinding him.
As an artist and filmmaker the sheer psychological devastation is almost beyond comprehension. But rather than give up and resign himself to the darkness, Hughes’ story is one of hope, triumph and a gentle...
As an artist and filmmaker the sheer psychological devastation is almost beyond comprehension. But rather than give up and resign himself to the darkness, Hughes’ story is one of hope, triumph and a gentle...
- 4/7/2009
- by Neil Pedley
- JustPressPlay.net
Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross' political docudrama The Road to Guantanamo took home best narrative feature and best ensemble acting honors at the ninth annual Newport International Film Festival. At the awards ceremony, held Saturday in Rhode Island, actors Diane Ladd and Brian Dennehy were given lifetime achievement awards. Other top honors went to best director Kelly Reichardt for Old Joy, and best actress Emily Rios for Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland's Quinceanera. Three features shared the top documentary prizes: Gary Tarn's Black Sun, Lauren Greenfield's Thin and Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg's The Trials of Darryl Hunt.
- 6/13/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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.