it never is like a story

Perhaps a clarification is needed. Far from criticising the annual BFI London Film Festival this blog has nothing but applause for its ability to muster 150 odd films into a coherent force of cinema appreciation. Having managed to see about 75% of those this year I can speak from experience. Yet like any large organisation factions will always form fostering single agendas. One I've heard verbalised over the years is "we're not interested in entertainment". All that can be voiced in response to that is, one man's poison is another man's socialism. To even think that the woes of a nation's people are galvanised around an 'art house' film is of course ridiculous. On a weekend they are off watching a Hollywood movie rather than seeing themselves cavort on screen and would be doing so even without the marketing strategies of a major studio. There are of course exceptions like Brazil's police corruption Elite Squad now in its sequel release.

That's not to say that the likes of Ken Loach exposing moral and political hypocrisy have had their day. By no means true. But I felt this year at the London Film Festival, and have always felt, that the Festival continues to survive and succeed not through offering an alternative cinematic politics, rather, by celebrating the diversity of cinema's possibilities: one man's 'entertainment' is another man's 'watching paint dry'.

Such musing congealed this week through watching 4 DVD re-issues of Francis Ford Coppola's work: The Outsiders (1983), The Conversation (1974), One from the Heart (1982) and Hammett (1982, directed by Wim Wenders at Coppola's Zoetrope Studios in California). And the irony of much good work born out of Hollywood is that it would only have had a life in the first place thanks to the independents in film production. A point often missed by Tinseltown's critics. Paramount, for example, only agreed to make The Conversation because of Coppola's The Godfather success - keeping him happy until he made Part 2. Warner Brothers turned down most of Coppola's early scripts such as American Graffiti (George Lucas, 1973) and cut roughly 22 minutes from The Outsiders in order to liven the pace and focus on one character - all restored in this DVD version from 2003. Yet it's those very two qualities that make The Outsiders what it is: a sweeping 'Gone With the Wind' story of three brothers. Not the childhood survival story of just one kid.

Opinions have always been divided about Coppola's work but undeniable is his love of cinema - paraded upon the big screen. I confess to have always been smitten with that parade. The Outsiders romantic theme (composed by Coppola's father Carmine and sung by Stevie Wonder) oughta seem smaltzy. But it fits the cinemascope camera work like a glove (Coppola, as always, trying new techniques in this movie such as split diopters). This isn't and was never meant to be like a Dardennes brothers movie of human 'reality' (for want of a better word). Coppola was begged to make a film of S.E. Hinton's 1967 novel by a school class in his local town of Fresno who even signed a petition. This was post Apocalypse Now and Coppola was working on a relatively low budget. And from an audition of around 1,000 unknowns, he and his casting director/producer Fred Roos launched the careers of Tom Cruise (pre Risky Business), Matt Dillon, Partick Swayze, Diane Lane, Emilio Estevez and Rob Lowe. The 2-disc DVD is loaded with extras including a commentary from Coppola and one from the 2003 cast reunion for the new cut. "After you everyone in my life was a bozo," laments Patrick Swayze of Coppola.

Listening to Coppola's commentary on The Conversation you see why such an accolade is heartfelt and not just shootin' some breeze. The DVD extras of Coppola's original script dictation tapes (to be typed up by his assistant) at a local cafe are just fascinating. This is all further enhanced by Walter Murch's separate commentary - being his first editing job and non-union he was credited with sound montage. For a general audience both commentaries will be intriguing. For the die hard cineastes Murch has some great editing and art direction tips, we learn that the first cut was 5 hours, that Haskell Wexler was originally DP but there was a falling out, and that Harry's dream sequence was supposed to end the film (Coppola's dictated ending was different again). Composer David Shire had hoped for a big orchestral score but it was Coppola who persuaded him to write the solo piano score (Shire reveals in his interview extra that it was this score that generated most of his work ever since): a score cleverly sound mixed by Murch as the film progresses.

No extras (alas) on One from the Heart and Hammett but what CINEMA. At one point you wish Coppola had just gone the whole hog and made the former a musical. But then you realise that's precisely the point: that it isn't. It is all real or rather sur-real. And wow, remember the great Raul Julia, looks to kill and a dancer/singer. And oh, Nastassja Kinsky as a lonely, errant circus performer. This IS about the ordinary lives of people struggling to be someplace else in their head. And who better to bring the tattered glitter of our imaginations to town than Tom Waits. "The most highly implausible thing I've ever seen in my life."

Pierre Thoretton's documentary on fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent L'Amour Fou may seem a strange segue. But what is different here is that Pierre Bergé's (his partner in business and love) reflections aren't simply a bio-pic of the man. The details of his art and antique collecting, his houses - the Normandy 'Proustian' dacha, the grand auction after his death, aren't just celebrations of dead objects. As Bergé put it they are like birds flying away to a new life rather than a coffin. And he creates an image of Yves Saint Laurent as a man in constant search of escape. His couture would take flight giving women "confidence and allowing them to assert themselves". He was 2 years ahead of the student occupation of the Odeon theater by creating ready to wear (prêt-à-porter) clothes reflecting the needs of the street. "He was never fooled by haute couture," notes Bergé. Like most artists, perhaps, he achieved in his art what he couldn't in life "an absolute purity...a kind of [musical] harmony...the more you simplify, the more you risk boring people". Screening at the ICA Nov 7 (DVD Nov 21).

So much of this year's BFI London Film Festival had films of escape, the road, of a past that would never be hence - the staples of cinema. What price fame in Miss Bala (general release, Oct 28) where a young Mexican girl, by accident, is caught up in a drug cartel war. She has no choice but to win the beauty pageant (rigged in her favour) and co-operate with the government coup. Perhaps a scenario not as far away from one's doorstep as we'd like to believe.

The protagonist in Americano (debut directed by Mathieu son of Agnès Varda and Jacques Demy) travels to Mexico in a strange search for his dead mother's friend. The strands wrap together maybe a little too neatly in pursuing Lola (some of life does!) but it's an inventive, stylised journey recommended worth the taking if or when it's ever released. Las Acacias (released by Verve, Dec 2) won director Pablo Giorgelli this year's prestigious Sutherland Award. Nothing happens on this lumber truck trek from Paraguay to Buenos Aires but of course we watch the man and his 'hitchhiker' with baby in lap. And by simply watching maybe we remember more about the world around us. Raindance offered attention holding parallel road trips either side of the Pacific in All That Remains while Spanish director Alberto Morais's 80 year old widower begins inhabiting his Spanish Civil war past on his road trip, The Waves (Las Olas) (LFF).

Still yet to be UK released is Julia Loktev's Day Night Day Night (2006) from last year's LFF. She obviously has a fan base here 'cause the Saturday matinee of her latest The Loneliest Planet (in one of the larger Vue cinemas) was 'technically' sold out and in reality certainly near that. If you hadn't read Loktev's festival catalogue entry, "how do you forgive someone that does not want to be forgiven?" you'd be asking similar questions anyway after seeing this film. It mirrors the intensity of Day Night Day Night but revolves around two hikers, their guide and a wilderness. Is HERE from American music video director Branden King any less focussed than Loktev as he follows two trekkers - a satellite mapper and a photographer to Armenia? An unfair comparison perhaps but an interesting one in discussing the power of cinema.

Brit debut Junkhearts falls far short of most of the aforementioned films -it did, however, earn Candese Reid Best Actress at this year's Fest Awards. Actor Dexter Fletcher's Wild Bill (LFF) was an extremely accurate depiction of a London ex-crim trying to go straight and be an initially reluctant single dad. It ain't a happy nor contrived ending. Sparks fly from the dialogue of gay themed Weekend (opening this week), and though it's well worn territory there's much that's sizzlingly fresh from the cast and director in early 'Godard-ian' mode Andrew Haigh. Or was it Rohmer? I'm not sure he was thinking of either;) Another Brit debut Broken Lines (from last year's LFF) has been out a month plus, so catch the DVD. Strong performances (including Paul Bettany against type as a beleaguered boxer) and a keen sense of screen sculpting from director Sallie Aprahamian.

Award for Best Brit feature at Raindance this year went to Ron Eyal and Eleanor Burke's Stranger Things. A grieving young Oona returns to her deceased mother's house striking up a rapport with the resident tramp. Many will find it more engaging than Junkhearts and Eyal and Burke are well on top of their actors and concept. Whether Johnny Daukes' Acts of Godfrey will ever get a release is anyone's guess! But it's one of the funniest, most original things to emerge in ages out of Brit cinema. Anyone remember Richard Jones' production of La Bête that played Broadway and the West End? Well Godfrey is all in rhyming verse as well - Simon Callow (narrator) must have fallen off his chair in amazement when this script hit his palate. Divine intervention, sales motivation, love and revenge meet Pam Ayres is the pitch. Believe it or not it works! American writer/director Andy Viner's sitcom/vampire/horror Dick Night was also clever fun and deserving of being seen more widely. Norwegians in Los Angeles Marie Kristiansen/Patrik Syversen have a great future given their DSLR feature Exteriors. Two struggling young actresses, two 'a-hole' boyfriends but the result is reminiscent of John Cassevetes.
At The Zabludowicz Collection is the first UK solo exhibition of US photographer/video artist Laurel Nakadate, and the way her photos soak in 'light' are quite compelling.

Across the pond in New York Jack Goes Boating (out this week in London) is Philip Seymour Hoffman's directing debut (also acting in most scenes) that will surely warm your heart. More than that? Well, does it need more than that is really the question? Based on Bob Glaudini's play (originally performed by Hoffman, John Ortiz and Daphne Rubin-Vega) the film easily out-runs most actor/director debuts. Or indeed directing debuts full stop. If we crave 'more than that' it boils down to the script that we've sorta heard before: ordinary people trying to make do with being ordinary. Is Jack not being able to cook or swim a-typical ordinary? In learning to do these things to get the attention of the girl stuck selling funerals Connie (Amy Ryan) extraordinary? Glaudini's play, for many tastes, may just get too stuck on being normal. Hoffman elevates these characters (including his own) to stalwarts in Manhattan's shifting neuroses. But there's an even stranger heart yearning to break loose in Hoffman's performance and we long to be pumped through those extra-ordinary arteries. We don't necessarily want to go Terry Gilliam waltzing in Grand Central (Fisher King) but we sure don't want to go back to driving the limo ourselves. It's not wrong to dream; only errant to delude ourselves that we are the king.
Charms and Miracles continues at the Wellcome Institute (Video interviews HERE). And I'm too late in mentioning Bill Fontana's sound sculpture for the Institute's front entrance. Sorry...but get a taste of it HERE. And you missed Audio Obscura - a new sound work by poet and novelist Lavinia Greenlaw conceived for the public spaces of St Pancras International. Wandering around with her stories in my ears was a great way of retreating from the nerves of heaving travelers. The result was creating a third narrative all of one's own.

And a new Picturehouse cinema has just opened in Hackney. Distributed by the same company, artist Miranda July's second feature The Future opens this week. Too whimsical? Insubstantial? It's Miranda July, she's predictably unpredictable. And quite possibly extraordinary? Jacques Deray's little seen La Piscine (The Swimming Pool) (1969) has received a very nice clean up (out on Blu-ray): Alain Delon and a tres jejeune Jane Birkin wandering around a Côte d'Azur pool scantily clad. But the co-script with Jean-Claude Carrière is quite a subtle satire on aspiration and the idle rich and becomes almost Brechtian when Michel Legrand's song Ask yourself why? chimes in over the soirée.