The Cinematologists Podcast

2022 Review (w/critic Clarisse Loughrey)

We come to the end of another cinematic year, and for our look back over 2022 Dario is joined by The Independent's film critic  Clarisse Loughrey. As usual, the episode is contextualised with a meander through some of the big themes and news stories of the year in film. This is followed  by a countdown of both Dario and Clarisse's top five films of the year. 
Both Dario and Neil want to thank our audience for their continued support throughout the year, we hope you have enjoyed the season and continue to be a listener into 2023. Dario will be publishing the January newsletter at the end of the week which will double up as something of a New Year reflection. 
All the best to you all for 2023 - Dario and Neil.
Shownotes
Clarisse Loughrey on Twitter. 
Clarisse's full films of the year list, published in The Independent.
You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (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.
_____
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing
 

Blood Simple (w/ Producer James Dean)

So this is the penultimate episode of 2022. We were at the Garden Cinema on Tuesday 20th to watch The Coen Brothers Blood Simple. My co-host for the evening was the Producer and now regular contributor to the James Dean. James was absolutely superb, both an astute appreciator of the Coen Brothers as artists, but fascinatingly relaying some nuggets of personal experience from having actually met and watched the Coen's at work. Listening to James and watching the film, which was an absolutely incredible DCP restoration by Criterion with 5.1 sound, I just was reminded about the pure joy of watching a film.
It’s almost heresy to say, but the film seems to offer itself up for the pure joy of watching, without and underlying sense of message. It’s cine-literate, but unpretentiously so, and it’s refreshingly Apolitical. Of course, the argument arises that there is no such thing a culture product that is Apolitical. Everything is defined by an underlying ideology. As a well-trained cultural studies scholar, the notion of being always already within ideology is something that has been drilled into me. Indeed, one could suggest that the Coens, whether they would explicitly acknowledge or speak to the wider allusions of their work, have been knowing chroniclers of the Absurdist contradictions at the heart of the American dream.
Yet, this is never imposed didactically. On the contrary there is arguably a respect for audiences literacy of, and practice in, to borrow from Stuart Hall, decoding and negotiating the signifiers of film. That might sound overwrought, in the way I’ve put it. What I mean is, they revel in the possibilities of cinema as form. Unlike many other filmmakers for who use references as pastiche or as an exercise in nerding out. The Coens invite you to the self-contained pleasure of the film they are presenting you with, without the necessity of connecting a reference external to the text. Even with the noir invocations, exploitation riffs, tours of pulp violence, one never feels excluding from enjoying the fundamental filmic pleasures.
Watching and listening, to this pristinely recreated digital artifact, in such a perfect auditorium, and with the knowledge of a shared audience intent, my will to analyse interpret gradually just succumbed to a purity of pleasure. Looking back, if there has been a theme to this season of the podcast, it has been a kind of tension. Between how we define and categorise films; the push to define the status of cinema in a fractured and uncertain media landscape. And the ephemeral, fleeting joy of those minute of empathy and immersion. Where the mechanistic shaping of light and sound creates a canvas of illusion which offers the chance to connect the external universe with your internal dreamscape.
With just the end of year review to come, I want to thank all the contributors to this season. Guest hosts James Dean, Caroline Catz, Mary Wild, Sarah Cleaver, David Lowbridge-Ellis, Catherine Wheatley, Savina Petcova, Chris Cassingham, Clarisse Lockree, the podcast really has functioned thanks to your generosity of time and insight. Also, thanks to all the other guests we have had on the show this season.
Thanks to George and all the staff at the Garden for Hosting the live episodes. You should all join their membership scheme immediately. It’s a magical and still largely undiscovered venue in the heart of London.
And thanks to Neil of course, who has been on a break apart from the Sight and Sound episode.  His support and encouragement behind the scenes has been invaluable. It’s been a challenge to do this without him and I’m looking forward to getting back to the main purpose of the show, which is our movie conversation (DL).
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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (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.
_____
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing
 

Film Curation (Beyond Interpretation w/Chris Cassingham)

In this episode, Dario talks MA student in Film Curation Chris Cassingham about his graduation film series: Beyond Interpretation. Screening at the ICA in London in January, the series that explores the connections between paranoia, conspiracy, anxiety, and the precarious realities of artistic creation at the margins of the American film industry. At a time when it is increasingly difficult to make and distribute films that defy simple categorisation, resist commercial expectations of narrative and form, and whose concerns are often out of step with capitalist ideals of profit, it is important to seize every available opportunity to present them to new audiences.
Dario discusses with Chris his course at NFTS and the film curation itself as discipline, reflecting on the challenging times for exhibitors and the film industry as a whole in getting audiences to come to theatres. Dario contextualises this in his opening remarks, thinking about cinema-going as a recurring theme of the podcast, even before the pandemic. The impact of streaming has obviously had a major influence on film audiences, along with shifting criteria in what types of films mainstream audiences deem worthy to see at the cinema.
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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (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.
_____
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time 2022 (Part 2)

In part 2 of our Sight and Sound special, Dario talks to the managing editor of Sight and Sound Magazine Isabel Stevens about the collation and publication of this list. With over 1600 hundred critics contributing their top tens (up from 800 in 2012), the move towards greater diversity is clear. Dario drills down into that with Isabel, along with unpacking some of the other key trends that have emerged. Isabel also takes us through her selections. 
Also on the show, we welcome back Savina Petkova for her take on being invited to contribute, the issues with lists in general, and compiling a set of 10 films that complement each other. She also addresses the inherent performativity of creating a "best-of" for public scrutiny; how one cannot help but consider the cultural reaction, even in the abstract. And of course we and take wonderful meander through her choices. It’s a great list that is based on a single theme: Love. 
You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We hope you have enjoyed this double episode, it is complemented by a bonus podcast that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2. #SupportIndieMedia
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (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.
_____
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing
 

Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time 2022 (Part 1)

So, after much hype, critique and discussion, the Sight and Sound Greatest films of all-time poll has been published and we have an extensive 2-part episode of The Cinematologists to cover it. Neil and Dario were both invited to contribute a top ten list to the poll, which was an unexpected honour in itself. Not only that, Sight and Sound kindly gave us access to the results early so we could record and release the episode to coincide with the publication of the list. Furthermore, Dario got to speak to Isabel Stevens, Managing Editor of Sight and Sound before the list came out (which comes in part 2).
AND, for part 1 of this double feature, Neil is back. Yes, he interrupts his hiatus to lend his astute critical savvy to the results of the poll and to speak about both his own and Dario’s choices. In the past, we have critiqued the problems of list culture and its potential negative effects on film appreciation and criticism. But in a move, particularly on Dario’s part, to ameliorate any hypocrisy of rejecting lists while gleefully contributing to “the big one”, we also discuss the positive value of list making as an access point in a chaotic cultural milieu. Of course, we also talk about the expansion of the critics invited to participate in a move towards a greater diversity and the implications this has for the film canon.
And, of course, we talk about some of the major headlines from this year's poll. First and foremost the new number 1 slot taken by Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. We discuss the dynamics around this change, how it relates to other shifts (such as the higher recognition of other female filmmakers such as Claire Denis and Agnès Varda) and how they might be received: is it both a long overdue boost for female filmmaking and feminist criticism of under-representation in processes of institutionalisation & canonisation. Or does this reflect a narrow kind of diversity, the promotion of a high-modernist cinema which is open to cries of elitism and inaccessibility? We get into these issues in typical Cinematologists depth along with analysing the other big moves and trends. Finally, we reveal our own lists and deconstruct the contrasting "methodologies" for choosing them. Please enjoy.
Shownotes
Link to the Sight and Sound List Online
Quentin Tarantino’s video archives podcast
Silver Screen Video Podcast - with David Thompson
Film Comment podcast on movie list culture and documentary.
Against Lists by Elena Gorfinkel
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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (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.
_____
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

Irma Vep (w/ Dr Catherine Wheatley)

Olivier Assayas has always been a filmmaker and critic who is interested in the essential question: what is cinema? His reflections are often espoused though the characters in his films, with the repeated deployment of the "film within a film" device, and now, in the recreation of his 1996 low budget cult classic Irma Vep, into a 8-episode HBO miniseries. This week Dario was joined by Reader in Film Studies Dr Catherine Wheatley to discuss the original film. But with Catherine writing a positive, joyful, review of the TV "sequel" in Sight and Sound, aspects of comparison were always going to suffuse the conversation. We talk about Assayas as a postmodern, chameleonic filmmaker, and his place in the history of French cinema as both an insider and outsider.
Then of course there is the ethereal vision that is Maggie Cheung. Paradoxically, in the film she plays the mystical, femme fatale role, made famous by Musidora in Louis Feuillade's fabled 1915 Les Vampires. Assayas clearly anchors the film on her mesmerising beauty, perhaps bordering on exoticisation. But she is also normalised in the role. Playing a meta-fictional version of herself, a star on the verge of international breakthrough but somewhat lost in the chaos of a Parisian film shoot that is falling apart. Comparisons with Alicia Vikander, cast in the recent TV sequel are also a centre-point to the conversation.
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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (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.
_____
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing
 

Censor (w/ Sarah Cleaver)

In the week leading up to Halloween, The Cinematologists Podcast returns live to The Garden Cinema for a screening and recording of Prano Baily-Bond’s debut feature Censor. A pointed and knowing homage to the 80s era of the video nasties, the story draws on the theme of moral panic, with the excellent Niamh Elgar as an officious BBFC censor whose work starts to encroach a little too much into her own trauma. With perturbing visceral panache, the ritualistic nature of cinematic spectatorship and psychological effects of film living in the liminal space between reality and myth, underpin Censor’s disquieting effects. It’s a film that divided critics and audiences and provided plenty to chew on for host Dario Llinares who will be joined by Sarah Cleaver (Projections Podcast & The Zodiac Film Club) for post screening discussion.
*Apologies for the poor quality of the live recorded sound on this episode. There was a technical fault and there was no much we could do in post-production to rectify the problem. Recommend that you use headphones for this one.
You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (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.
_____
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing

London Film Festival - Part 2

The centre piece of our second episode is guest host Savina Petkova's interview with Ruben Östlund about his latest film Triangle of Sadness. This follow-up to the The Square, which also won the top prize at Cannes, is another acerbic satirical intervention into the hypocrisies of liberal capitalism. "Triangle" is perhaps more laugh out loud funny than his previous work, but draws on similar socio-political observations that are all too familiar but presenting them through a thought experiment which reverses hierarchies of power around wealth, value, class and social roles. 
Also, Dario talks to the LFF director Tricia Tuttle who is ending her 5 year tenure-ship this year. They discuss her legacy particular around accessibility, weathering Covid, and the expansion of programming to encompass many different forms of cinematic experience. Also the political role of festivals comes up and Tricia gives her thoughts on the collapse of the Edinburgh film festival and the many challenges that UK cinema-going faces.
Dario also talks to a student from Ravensbourne University, Tom Wright, who came to the festival as part of the BFI academy programme. He waxes lyrical about Mark Jenkins' Enys Men, which of course we will be hoping to cover in-depth in an upcoming episode. 
And Dario and Savina round up by talking about a few of the other festival highlights including Mia Hansen Love's One Fine Morning and Charlotte Wells' directorial debut Aftersun.
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You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (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.
_____
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing