The Cinematologists Podcast

Tokyo Story

The first of our collaborations with the BFI Japan season focuses on what is generally regarded as a masterpiece of cinema: Yasujirö Ozu's Tokyo Story (1953). In many ways, a simple story of grandparents visiting their children in the city, but one that gradually builds on the resentments and disappointments of intergenerational alienation. Dario and Neil discuss the film in terms of its status in 'the canon', its reverence as Ozu's finest work in a prolific career, and as arguably the purest distillation of the auteur's thematic and formal concerns. A masterclass in directorial precision and visual composition that both registers as a distinct piece of cinematic art but equally, immerses the viewer into its film world where situations and character relations play out in subtle but profound ways. 
Dario and Neil also discuss some of the other films they have watched in the BFI Japan season so far, including Mikio Naruse's Floating Clouds (1955) and When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960). Again, these are films that are painted on the canvas of post-war Japan but focus on the uncertain status and role of women with both featuring the superb Hideko Takamine in the leading role. Very different are Takeshi Kitano's violent, Nihilistic thrillers Violent Cop (1989), Boiling Point (1990) and Sonatine (1993). Visceral gripping, and bleak they are riveting examples of Japanese cinema made with an American B-movie sensibility. And for some trashy fun look no further than 'king of the monster movies' Ishiro Honda: Mothra (1961), Dogora (1964) & Godzilla v King Kong (1962) can all be found on Amazon Prime.
Neil also reviews a new series of Bela Lugosi films based on the work of Edgar Allen Poe and released by Masters of Cinema: Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) The Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935).
This is our final episode of Season 11, we thank you for the continued support and hope you rejoin us back in the autumn.
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Film Editing with Katie Bryer

Katie Bryer is a freelance film editor whose brilliant work on Bruce Lee and the Outlaw, Maiden, and Virunga demonstrates the diverse possibilities of documentary storytelling. In this episode, Katie discusses the development of her craft, working through student shorts, children's television, and for the BBC on Holby City. The gaining of confidence and building of skills and experience in a role, clearly underpins the idea that doing the work, having a complete commitment to one's passion, is the key to 'getting good'. Katie discusses with Dario some of the key elements of editing as fundamental to the filmmaking process: cutting between different types of footage, focusing on character, how to define time and space, and whether one truly finds the film in the edit. Dario and Neil discuss editing in a broader sense, including highlights of some of their favourite films from an editing perspective. 
The episode also features chat about recently viewed films both new and old including The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot), The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson), Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan), The Lost Boys (Joel Schumacher), A Foreign Affair (Billy Wilder), Mr Vampire (Ricky Lau), Criss Cross (Robert Siodmak), Little Joe (Jessica Hauser), Fanny Lye Deliver'd (Thomas Clay).
Show Notes
Katie Bryer's Website
Bruce Lee and the Outlaw
Maiden
Mark Kermode's Review of The Vast of Night
You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/the-cinematologists-podcast/id981479854
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0RjNz8XDkLdbKZuj9Pktyh
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/users/thecinematologists
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.
We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.
 

Sometimes Always Never

Sometimes Always Never is the debut feature film from Liverpool filmmaker, musician and designer Carl Hunter. It marks the latest stage in a collaboration with screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce and stars Bill Nighy, Sam Riley, Alice Lowe, Jenny Agutter and Tim McInerny.
The film was released digitally in March, following a successful festival run over the past couple of years, and tells the story of Nighy searching for his long missing son, with Riley as the brother left behind. It’s a moving story, beautifully told and as lockdown got underway, Neil talked with Carl about the film, his filmmaking process and that slippery question ‘what is British cinema?’.
Prior to their chat, Carl sent Neil some images - his scrapbook of ideas and some polaroids - that informed the filmmaking process. He has kindly agreed for us to post a couple here, including the one that sold Bill Nighy on the project as discussed on this episode.
The conversation is framed by Neil and Dario’s discussion of the film and how it engages with ideas of Britishness and masculinity, the subtleties that mark the film out from other similarly themed films and the thrill of finding work to champion that sits on the fringes of the mainstream glut.
Sometimes Always Never can be rented on iTunes, Amazon, YouTube and pretty much anywhere you get your streaming rental fix.
Two of Carl and Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s previous collaborations, the brilliant Shakespeare inspired short A Winter’s Tale and the Beatles inspired short A Day In Life: Twenty Four Zero Hours can be found on YouTube here and here. They are superb shorts in their own right, but also provide a wonderful road map to their debut feature together.
You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/the-cinematologists-podcast/id981479854
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Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/users/thecinematologists
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.
We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

The Uncertain Kingdom

The Uncertain Kingdom is “an anthology of twenty short films for our uncertain times”. The brainchild of producers Isabel Feeer, Georgia Goggin and John Jencks, the anthology is released digitally on June 1st with the hope that the films will “inspire, support and encourage new conversations about our interesting times’. 10 filmmakers were invited to make work for the project, with the other 10 shorts selected from an open submission call that saw over 1000 entries and work curated under narrative, documentary and experimental banners. The aim of the project was to create a snapshot of Britain in 2020, coming from an awareness on the behalf of the producing team that these post-Brexit vote times, were interesting across the political and social spectrum (and all this before a little something called Coronavirus).
For this episode, Neil talked to one of the project’s producers John Jencks as well as narrative filmmaker John Wingard (Pavement), documentary filmmakers Alison Hargreaves (Camelot) and Stroma Cairns (Sauna), and director Antonia Campbell-Hughes (Acre Fall Between). Apologies to Iggy LDN (Sucka Punch) and Sophie King (Swan) whose interviews were recorded but whose files were found to be corrupted at editing stage.
In the episode, Dario and Neil discuss the project, the films and the short film form more broadly. They also pay tribute to filmmaker Lynn Shelton and say happy birthday to the marvellous organisation Raising Films, who celebrated five years of activism on behalf of parents and carers in the film industry recently.
The website, with more information on all the films and filmmakers and where to watch them, can be found here.
This is a link to Neil’s Longform interview with Lynn Shelton for the journal Mai: Feminism and Visual Culture, from May 2019, shared here so listeners can enjoy spending time in the company of a great filmmaker sharing so much intimate wisdom about her career and craft. Her death is a real loss to our beloved art form.
You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/the-cinematologists-podcast/id981479854
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0RjNz8XDkLdbKZuj9Pktyh
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/users/thecinematologists
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.
We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

Women Make Film (Mark Cousins)

For the first episode of a new century (of Cinematologists episodes) we are proud to present a conversation with esteemed filmmaker and cineaste Mark Cousins to celebrate the release of his mammoth, 14hr, poetic documentary project, and cinephile treasure trove, Women Make Film.
Recorded during lockdown in 2020, the conversation features Neil and Dario talking to Mark about his process and approach as well as the discoveries and rediscoveries contained within this love letter to cinema and foregrounding of forgotten, undervalued and sidelined directorial voices.
The film is released on Blu-ray by the BFI on Monday 18th May, with the BFI Player also streaming the film in 5 parts over the coming 5 weeks from the same date.
Thanks to Jill Reading at the BFI for helping set up the conversation with Mark. Also, for sending us the review copy of Ozu’s Flavour Of Green Tea and Rice, which gets discussed on this episode alongside two releases from Eureka/Masters of Cinema - The Specialists (Sergio Corbucci) and Throw Down (Johnnie To). Thanks to Steve Hills at Eureka for furnishing review copies of the latter titles.
You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/the-cinematologists-podcast/id981479854
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0RjNz8XDkLdbKZuj9Pktyh
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/users/thecinematologists
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.
We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.

5 Years & 100 Episodes

In this special episode, marking 100 episodes and five years of The Cinematologists podcast, Neil and Dario take a breath. With the help of friends and supporters of the podcast they discuss the history and evolution of the show, their formative experiences of cinemas, meaningful film viewing experiences, critics and academics that helped shaped their understanding of talking about cinema on the page and elsewhere, and what they think and hope the future of cinema(s) and the podcast might look like.
This episode, like the previous 99 and the show in general, would not be possible without the engagement of the listeners and the willingness of participants to give up their time and knowledge to help make the podcast what it is.
Thank you to everyone who has listened, come to a taping, recorded an interview, provided feedback, bought a t-shirt or just said ‘nice one’.
For episode 100 Neil and Dario especially want to thank Ellen Cheshire, Ryan Gilbey, Gwenno, Mark Jenkin, James Maitre, Marbelle, Kingsley Marshall, Andrew Peirce, Lottie Smith, Tessa and Ren Zelen for their contributions.
A wonderful time was had thinking about the comments and questions that were supplied and talking them through on the recording. Here’s hoping you the listener feel the same.
Thanks for listening.
The music for episode 100 is ‘Open Again Eventually’ by Leah Kardos, which can be heard in full here. In title and tone it felt like the right music for now, for this episode. Thanks Leah for letting us use it. To buy Leah’s latest EP ‘Bird Rib’, where this song is taken from, go to her Bandcamp page. Leah is a doctor of philosophy and senior lecturer in music at Kingston University where she co-founded the Visconti Studio with legendary music producer Tony Visconti.
You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/the-cinematologists-podcast/id981479854
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0RjNz8XDkLdbKZuj9Pktyh
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/users/thecinematologists
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/entended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50.
We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.
 
 
 
 

Blake Howard (One Heat Minute Productions)

Perhaps the most in-depth analysis possible is focused on an entire film minute by minute. This week's guest Blake Howard has patented that very idea in the format of his highly popular podcast One Heat Minute. Interviewing a guest every week and assigning them a minute from the film, this deep-dive podcast represents a synergy between obsessional fandom, close textual analysis, and explorations of what film means to those who see the form as part of their very identity. The first film that was the subject of this was Heat, and it was a testament to the success of the show that the director, Michael Mann was the final guest of that series. Since then Blake has done series: The Last (12 minutes) of the Mohican's, All the President's Minutes (his current podcast on which Dario recently appeared) and two spin-off shows which he produces: Increment Vice and the upcoming Josie and the Podcats. He has also recently start con-TEN-gen, the film critic's response to the impact of the coronavirus on his colleagues and friends.
In this episode, Dario and Blake realise they have a parallel history in their film education and their taste in films. They discuss Blake's history as a film journalist at the beginnings of the digital age, the challenges and rewards of the 'one-minute' format, film podcasts as a genre, and the possibility of a cinematic experience without images.
In this episode, Neil also reviews three reissues from Eureka/Masters of Cinema: Syncopation (William Dieterle, 1942) Buster Keaton's MGM Boxset, Long Day's Journey into Night (Sidney Lumet, 1962).
Links
Blake Howard is on Twitter as @OneBlakeMinute
Link here for One Heat Minute Productions
Contributor to www.flicks.com.au/ & Dark Horizons
Blake's Article for Vague Visages - Why Criticism: Not Quite the Apocalypse
 

The Cinematic Voice

The voice in cinema is a phenomenon that is in many ways taken for granted. Since the advent of the talkies, the speaking voice synchronised to the human body on-screen is the ingrained process for narrative exposition and character development. However, this accepted synchronisation is one of sound cinema’s fundamental illusions.
This major production for The Cinematologists features the analysis from leading film scholars and critics, each focusing on uses and interpretations of cinematic voice, using a plethora of filmic examples. Many aspects of the cinematic voice are explored including star voices, script and performance, sonic aesthetics of the voice, voice-overs, the singing voice, voices in animation, the disembodied voice, and politics of who has a voice and who listens. We draw upon many of the key thinkers on film sound including the seminal work of Michel Chion. Chion developed concepts like Audio-Vision, to explore how sound shapes how the screened image can be understood, and acousmetré, meaning the cinema’s use of disembodied off-screen voice. Using these ideas he forwards the argument that sound is not a secondary addendum to image in the cinematic experience, but fundamentally structures how we see and understand film.
Unlike our usual conversational format, this episode is an audio-essay; recorded interviews cut together with indicative clips in a sonic collage which is hopefully an immersive experience transversing the boundaries between creativity and criticism. We recommend that you listen to this episode on headphones to get the full effect. As always Dario and Neil discuss the themes of the podcast but also engage with the production and formal approach in the context of film podcasts more broadly.
Contributors to this episode are (in order of appearance are):
Dario Llinares - Website - Twitter
Clive Frayne (11:03-19:18)  - Website - Twitter
Neil Fox - (19:56-29:30) Website - Twitter
Laura Tunbridge - (32:08-37:08) Website - Twitter
Catherine Wheatley - (41:46-47:33) Website - Twitter
Ian Garwood  (48:56-55:00) - Website - Twitter
Farshid Kazemi (55:51-1:01:50) - Website
Jennifer O’Meara - (1:06:14-1:14:24) Website - Twitter
Mark Kermode (1:15:40-1:23:22) - Website - Twitter
William Brown (1:23:56-1:36:14) - Website - Twitter
My profound thanks for their time, labour and critical insight which has made this episode possible.
A full transcript of this episode is available at www.cinematologists.com
Film clips (in broadcast order)
The Jazz Singer (1927, Alan Crosland)
Blackmail (1929, Alfred Hitchcock)
Dead of Night [The Ventriloquist’s Dummy (1945, Alberto Cavalcanti)
To Have and Have Not (1944, Howard Hawks)
The Trial (1962, Orson Welles)
Dirty Harry (1972 Don Siegel)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
In the Heat of the Night (1967, Norman Jewison)
Inherent Vice (2014, Paul Thomas Anderson)
Dick Tracy (1990, Warren Beatty)
The Shawshank Redemption (1995, Frank Darabont)
Only Lovers Left Alive (2014, Jim Jarmusch)
White Men Can’t Jump (1992, Ron Shelton)
Daughters of the Dust (1991, Julie Dash)
Félicité (2017, Alain Gomis)
Mary Poppins (1964, Robert Stevenson)
Magnolia (1999) Paul Thomas Anderson
The Wind Will Carry Us (1999, Abbas Kiarostami)
All the President’s Men (Alan J. Pakula)
Her (2014, Spike Jonze)
Toy Story (1995, John Lassiter)
Puss in Boots [Antonio Banderas Voice Session]
Frozen (2013, Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck)
Anomalisa (2016, Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson)
Star Wars (1977, George Lucas)
The Exorcist (1973, William Friedkin)
The Exorcist Original Voice Recordings
The Exorcist documentary
Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979, Terry Jones)
The Dark Knight Rises (2012, Christopher Nolan)
The Great Dictator (1940, Charlie Chaplin)
Valkyrie (2008, Bryan Singer)
The Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Flemming)
Some Like it Hot (1959, Billy Wilder)
References (in order of mention):
Altman, Rick. 1980. Moving Lips: Cinema as Ventriloquism. Yale French Studies, 60 Cinema/Sound: pp. 67-79 - https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2930005.pdf?seq=1
Chion, Michel. 1999. The Voice in Cinema. Columbia University Press.
 Barthes, Roland. 1978. The Grain of the Voice. In Image, Music, Text. New York: Wang and Hill. pp.179-189.
Whittaker, Tom and Wright, Sarah. 2017. Locating the Voice in Film: Critical Approaches and Global Perspectives. Oxford University Press.
Kozlov, Sarah. 1992. Invisible Storytellers: Voice-Over Narration in American Fiction Film. University of California Press.
Cavell, Stanley. 1994. A Pitch of Philosophy: Autobiographical Exercises. Harvard University Press.
Clements, Catherine. 1989. Opera, Or The Undoing Of Women. Virago.
Cavarero, Adrianna. 2005. For More Than One Voice: Toward a Philosophy of Vocal Expression. Stanford University Press.
Kiarostami, Abbas. 2015. Lessons with Kiarostami. Sticking Place Books.
Dolar, Mladen. 2006. A Voice and Nothing More. Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Sobchak, Vivien. 2005. When the Ear Dreams: Dolby Digital and the Imagination of Sound. Film Quarterly, 58(4), pp. 2-15.
Adorno, Theodor., & Horkheimer, Max. 1944. The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.
Chow, Rey. 2017 ‘The Writing Voice in Cinema’. In Whittaker, Tom and Wright, Sarah. Eds. Locating the Voice in Film: Critical Approaches and Global Perspectives. Oxford University Press.
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