The Cinematologists Podcast

Michel Chion, in Conversation (Part 2)

This is part two of our interview with the seminal film scholar, critic, and composer Michel Chion. From the late 70s onwards Chion has been one of the leading voices at the intersection of film scholarship and cinephilic criticism. His work spans a huge roster of filmmakers and subjects, but it's his work on film sound with which he is arguably most identified. Books such as The Voice in Cinema (1982), Audio/Vision (1993), Music in Cinema (1995) & Film, A Sound Art in many ways defined the sub-field of film sound criticism. Chion also wrote for Cahiers du Cinéma in the 1980s and has written books on the work of Jacques Tati, Andrei Tarkovsky, Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch.
Before turning to cinema, Chion was part of the experimental school of Music Concrete under the mentorship of Pierre Schaeffer, the "godfather" of avant-garde electronic music in France. He continues to compose to this day.
Chion asked that he give his answers in French so I enlisted the help of a colleague from the University of Brighton, the sound artist, composer, and performer Johanna Bramli (check out her work here), to help with the translation. This is another interesting first for the podcast.
At the end of part 2 of this double episode, Neil and Dario discuss many aspects of the interview and Chion's approach to film scholarship. We hope you enjoy what we think is a fantastic start to the new season.
Shownotes
Chion biography (Experimental music): https://electrocd.com/en/artiste/chion_mi/Michel_Chion/biographie
Pierre Schaeffer and Music Concrete - https://www.frieze.com/article/music-22
Ercan Bouliase - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/arts/music/pierre-boulez-french-composer-dies-90.html
GRM: Group Recherché Musical https://www.musicainformatica.org/topics/groupe-de-recherches-musicales.php
Luciano Berio - https://www.universaledition.com/luciano-berio-54
Transition music for this episode taken from Michel Chion’s
La vie on Prose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK3xqAv65r0
Requiem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4XfD3yrYHI
La Grand Nettoyage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUUkA8wqlxQ
Johanna Bramil: http://www.johannabramli.com/
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 $2.50.
We also 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.
 

Michel Chion, in conversation (Part 1)

We are back with Season 15 of The Cinematologists podcast. To begin our new run we are starting with a real high point: a double episode featuring the seminal film scholar, critic, and composer Michel Chion.
From the late 70s onwards Chion has been one of the leading voices at the intersection of film scholarship and cinephilic criticism. His work spans a huge roster of filmmakers and subjects, but it's his work on film sound with which he is arguably most identified. Books such as The Voice in Cinema (1982), Audio/Vision (1993), Music in Cinema (1995) & Film, A Sound Art in many ways defined the sub-field of film sound criticism. Chion also wrote for Cahiers du Cinéma in the 1980s and has written books on the work of Jacques Tati, Andrei Tarkovsky, Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch.
Before turning to cinema, Chion was part of the experimental school of Music Concrete under the mentorship of Pierre Schaeffer, the "godfather" of avant-garde electronic music in France. He continues to compose to this day.
Chion asked that he give his answers in French so I enlisted the help of a colleague from the University of Brighton, the sound artist, composer, and performer Johanna Bramli (check out her work here), to help with the translation. This is another interesting first for the podcast.
At the end of part 2 of this double episode, Neil and Dario discuss many aspects of the interview and Chion's approach to film scholarship. We hope you enjoy what we think is a fantastic start to the new season.
Shownotes
Chion biography (Experimental music): https://electrocd.com/en/artiste/chion_mi/Michel_Chion/biographie
Pierre Schaeffer and Music Concrete - https://www.frieze.com/article/music-22
Ercan Bouliase - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/arts/music/pierre-boulez-french-composer-dies-90.html
GRM: Group Recherché Musical https://www.musicainformatica.org/topics/groupe-de-recherches-musicales.php
Luciano Berio - https://www.universaledition.com/luciano-berio-54
Transition music for this episode taken from Michel Chion’s
La vie on Prose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK3xqAv65r0
Requiem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4XfD3yrYHI
La Grand Nettoyage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUUkA8wqlxQ
Johanna Bramil: http://www.johannabramli.com/
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 $2.50.
We also 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.

(Repost) Ep106 Peter Bogdanovich (from Sept 2020)

It was one of the highlights of The Cinematologists to have Peter Bogdanovich come on the podcast. One of the key links between Old and New Hollywood his passing is just another sign that 20th-century cinema culture is receding further into history. Our chat is focused very much on his film The Great Buster and it was fantastic this he gave us so much time. We hope you enjoy this repost of the interview where we focus on his Buster Keaton documentary The Great Buster.

2021 review

A United Nations translator, negotiating through the Serbian occupation of Srebrenica; the avant-garde queerness of one the world's most influential bands; a working-class writer's climb towards artistic and social recognition; the gallows humour of asylum seekers in the UK immigration system; a young orphan search for a story of the self; a neurosurgeon fighting to understand her own consciousness; radical technology as the bait of a heist gone wrong; the deep trauma of stoic gambler, and a reckoning between tragedy and love on the road and in the theatre. 
These are just some of the themes Dario and Neil discuss in the films that feature on the Cinematologists end of year review. We thank you so much for your support over the year and hope you enjoy this look back over our cinematic highlights. We wish you a merry christmas and a happy New Year.
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 $2.50.
We also 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.

Jodorowsky‘s Dune (w/ director Frank Pavich)

In our penultimate episode of 2021, Dario speaks to Frank Pavich the director of Jodorowsky's Dune and NYHC. With all the publicity and discussion around Denis Villeneuve's blockbuster interpretation of Frank Herbert's influential Sci-Fi novel, it was fantastic to go back to the first, incredibly imaginative but ultimately failed attempt to bring the book to the screen from one of cinema's singular visionaries: Alejandro Jodorowsky. Frank talks about his first contact with Jodorowsky, his uncompromising attitude to the production scope and casting, and his assembling of a team of designers and artists including Kurt Geiger, whose drawings Pavich uses to great effect in the documentary and which would go on to define mainstream sci-fi for decades to come. 
Frank also talks about NYHC (New York Hardcore) his directorial debut, putting the making of the film into the context of his fascinating idiosyncratic film education, and how the film was made in that liminal period between the analog and digital eras of filmmaking. You can watch it online for free here.
Also, Neil reviews serval blu-ray releases including Champion directed by Mark Robson and starring Kirk Douglas, Sergio Corbucci’s The Great Silence (both from Masters of Cinema), Jean Pierre Melville’s Enfant Terrible (BFI), Alistair Mcleland’s music film on Saint Etienne, I’ve Been Trying to Tell You. 
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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 $2.50.
We also 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.
Transition music is from the OST for Jodorowsky's Dune by Kurt Stenzel. 

Raising Films and Recent Films (w/So Mayer)

In the latest episode, Dario talks to poet and activist So Mayer about their work on the recent Raising Films survey ‘How We Work Now’ about the impact of Covid-19 on those working in the screen industries whose lives also involve caring responsibilities of various shades. So and Dario discuss how vital this work is on its own terms but also as part of a broader landscape of rethinking how the film industry operates and who gets to participate.
Elsewhere there’s a deep dive into Celine Sciamma’s new film Petite Maman. There was due to be a whole episode dedicated to her latest masterwork but there were technical difficulties at the live taping at Cornwall Film Festival and the audio is unusable. We hope Neil and Dario’s deep chat about the pandemic, parent and child feelings and anxieties, makes up for that somewhat.
Then stick around for the bonus where Neil and Dario sink their teeth into some key recent 2021 releases such as Dune, The Card Counter and First Cow, as well as a wonderfully guilty pleasure.
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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.
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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 $2.50.
We also 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.
 

Dr Alison Peirse - Women Make Horror

A Tale of Two Sisters, 2003, Editor Lee Hyeon-mi
In this episode, Neil talks to one of Horror Cinema’s leading scholars and all-round creative force of nature, Dr. Alison Peirse. Alison teaches film at Leeds (and is an old colleague of Dario’s!) where she is an associate professor. She writes a brilliant newsletter called The Losers Club and is finding success on the film festival circuit with her debut video essay Three Ways to Dine Well.
Alongside monographs on 1930s and Korean horror, Alison is the editor of the recent publication Women Make Horror which is a groundbreaking piece of scholarship in form and focus, and she contributes an intellectually provocative and exhilarating piece that explodes the previous limits of not only Horror scholarship but cinema scholarship more broadly. It’s a great book.
It was a pleasure to welcome Alison to the podcast and you can learn more about her work (and sign up for her newsletter) on her terrific website here.
Elsewhere on the show Neil and Dario discuss their evolving and crystallised thoughts on academic practice growing out of the conversation with Alison and also extol the virtues of Alexandre Rockwell’s new film Sweet Thing (Neil) and the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune (Dario).
 
It’s also worth hanging around and signing up for the bonus episode where Neil and Dario get deeper into questions about film academia and purge some negative feelings that have built up over time.
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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.
 
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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 $2.50.
We also 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.

London Film Festival 2021: Part 2

The second episode in our coverage of the London Film Festival is a bumper one with Dario and Neil discussing a ton of new movies from all over the world. They are joined by regular visitor to the pod Savina Petkova, who Dario talked to at the festival itself as it wound down, who added discussions about new films by Joanna Hogg, Terence Davies and Julia Ducournau to the mix. Neil waxes lyrical about the Japanese masterpiece Drive My Car by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Hit The Road, the debut feature by Panah Panahi. Dario meanwhile loves Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God unapologetically and reserves special, high praise for Joel Coen’s first solo outing, The Tragedy of Macbeth.
Other films discussed are:
Flee (dir. Jonas Poher Rasmussen)
Compartment No. 6 (dir. Juho Kuosmanen)
Benedetta (dir. Paul Verhoeven)
Boiling Point (dir. Philip Barantini)
You can follow Savina on Twitter here where she posts links to all the wonderful pieces she writes across the year.
(Apologies for the constant banging under my audio. 6 years in and still making silly mistakes like that. NF)
______
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.
———
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 $2.50.
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.