First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About Film

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/13/hou-hsiao-hsien-16-contexts-7-dangerous-youth-hsin-chi-1969/ Continuing with our discussion of Hsin Chi films. This time the focus is on DANGEROUS YOUTH. We offer a bit of background on Hsin Chi; discuss how the film is similar to Nagisa Oshima's CRUEL STORY OF YOUTH, Godard's BREATHLESS, BEAT GIRL, and all the motorcycle gang Roger Corman films of the mid-sixti...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/11/hou-hsiao-hsien-15-contexts-6-foolish-bride-naive-bridegroom-hsin-chi-1967/ We continue our discussion of the films kindly made available in wonderful versions by the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute. This time we discuss the second Hsin Chi film on view, FOOLISH BRIDE, NAIVE BRIDEGROOM, a wonderfully inventive screwball comedy displaying a wide array of ci...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/09/hou-hsiao-hsien-14-contexts-5-the-bride-who-returned-from-hell-hsin-chi-1965/ We discuss THE BRIDE WHO RETURNED FROM HELL, from a cycle of Hsin Chi films the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute is currently providing free on Youtube and in excellent restorations. We discuss its debt to Rebecca, Strangers on a Train, The Innocents, the Bond films, melodrama and...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/07/hou-hsiao-hsien-13-contexts-4-may-13-day-of-sorrows-lin-tuan-chiu-1965/ We once more thank the Taiwan Film and Audio-Visual Institute for the opportunity to see these marvellous copies of Lin Tuan-Chiu film. In the podcast we discuss the combination of genres in the film -- melodrama, court-room drama, documentary, murder-mystery, musical. We discuss the acting...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/07/hou-hsiao-hsien-12-contexts-3-six-suspects/ We extend our thanks once more to the Taiwan Film & Audio-visual Institute for making these three Lin Tuan-Chiu films available. In this podcast we discuss Six Suspects, a 1965 mystery/noir that was never released. We discuss its peculiar flashback structure, the beauty of the imagery and composition in contrast to the...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/05/hou-hsiao-hsien-11-contexts-b-kind-hu-dragon-inn-1967-a-touch-of-zen-1971/ In this podcast we discuss the recent MUBI showings of Dragon Inn and A Touch of Zen, its relationship to the Wuxia genre and its influence on films such Crouching Tiger/ Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000), Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002) and House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou, 2004, its later infl...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/04/the-husbands-secret-zhang-fu-de-mi-mi-lin-tuan-qiu-taiwan-1960/ A treat. Part of a new series of mid-century Taiwanese films made available in a wonderful restoration through the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute. We are discussing the film as a context for, as a way of better understanding the cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien. But we can't help but discuss other e...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/05/26/hou-hsiao-hsien-9-daughter-of-the-nile-1987/ We discuss Daughter of the Nile as a transitional film for Hou, the relatively few  locations (the house, KFC, the nightclub, the beach etc) in which the film is set, the now typical Hou way of filming from repeating fixed camera positions with little or no movement; the way the protagonist remains relatively unknowab...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/05/21/hou-hsiao-hsien-8-dust-in-the-wind-1986/ A beautiful film, a continuation of a cycle of autobiographical films (The Boys From Fengkuei, A Summer at Grandpa's). We continue our discussion of framing, ellipses, cinema, letters, the country and the city, heartbreak and exploitation, and all those other formal and thematic elements that make Hou's cinema so great.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/05/16/hou-hsiao-hsien-7-a-time-to-live-and-a-time-to-die/ We continue our discussion of the work of Hou Hsiao-hsien, this time with a focus on The Time to Live and The Time to Die, the second in his cycle of autobiographical films after The Boys from Fenkuei. We discuss what is depth in this film and talk about Hou's consideration of 'traces 'in the surfaces of his fi...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/05/14/hou-hsiao-hsien-6-a-summer-at-grandpas-1983/ We delve further into the cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien. We discuss the narrative structure, how various plots unfold and deepen what seems initially a light story where not much seems to happen. We discuss the continuing interest in differences between the country and the city, the use of trains, how the kids develop an...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/05/09/thinking-aloud-about-film-hou-hsiao-hsieng-5-the-boys-from-fengkuei-aka-all-the-youthful-days-1983/ Hou has described this as the favourite amongst his films. Richard and José discuss why this might be so: the compositions; the long takes that allow for action vertically, horizontally, and on different planes of the image. The juxtaposition between the rowdy tee...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/05/07/thinking-aloud-about-film-hou-hsiao-hsien-4-the-sandwich-man-1983/ A discussion of The Sandwich Man, an omnibus film with episodes from Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wan Jeng, Tseng Shuan-hsiang, that is said to have helped launch New Taiwanese Cinema. We talk about the three different episodes, how so many New Waves incorporated omnibus or portmanteau films as a form of sel...

In this podcast, Richard and I discuss how much we both like this film, an early one of Hou's that we argue continues to be largely dismissed in account of his work. Here we admire what we see as his growth as a filmmaker: the increasing use of expressive long-takes, the filming from the inside of trains, the imaginative compositions, the handling of many people in the frame whilst still keeping d...

One of the great surprises and pleasures of the Wales One World Film Festival was the opportunity to see Filmfarsi, a great documentary film on the significance of popular Iranian cinema from 1953-1979. In this podcast I talk to the film's director, Ehsan Khoshbakht , to find out more about the process that led to the film, the Iranian film industry in this period, the relationship of the cinema t...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/04/28/thinking-aloud-about-film-hou-hsiao-hsien-2-cheerful-wind-aka-play-while-you-play/ Thinking Aloud About Film continues it's exploration of the cinema of Hou Hsia-hsien with a discussion of Cheerful Wind aka Play While you Play, a charming musical romantic comedy, an exploration of filmmaking itself, and a re-teeming of the cast that made the previous Cute Girl s...

Trailer for a new series of podcasts by Richard Layne and José Arroyo that will be an umbrella for all themed podcasts we've been doing so far, Youssef Chahine, selections from Ritrovato in Bologna, and currently, a series of talks on the early cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/04/25/thinking-aloud-about-film-the-cinema-of-hou-hsiao-hsien-1-cute-girl-1980/ Richard and I turn our attention to the early cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien. Four of his films are now on MUBI and at least the first one is delightful: a romantic comedy not to different from those characteristic of American Cinema in the 1930s, but with broader humour and more pop songs. A d...

We continue our little exploration of Middle-Eastern Films that connect to the work of Chahine. This discussion is on Maroun Bagdadi's Beirut, oh Beirut, currently playing on Netflix. We discuss the beauty of the film. Richard connects it to late sixties Godard in style. I found it more moving and sad than what I remember of that period of Godard's work. We discuss the film in relation to Chahine'...

Adam Carver is a Midlands-based producer, performer and cultural activist. He was recently Festival Director for SHOUT and is producer for Ginny Lemon's Palaver. I saw the great Fantabulosa show they did at the Birmingham Museum and Gallery just before lockdown, a thrilling queer positive performance piece for children and family audiences. I wanted to talk to him to find out how lockdown had affe...

Richard returns! We discuss the famous Al-Karnak (Karnak Café) directed byAli Badr Kahn in 1975. A political film, a critique of the previous regime, based on a novella by Naguib Mahfouz, and a 'model of de-Nasserfication'. The film is pulpy, melodramatic, sensationalist, a box-office smash. A very interesting work to discuss in relation to Chahine's The Sparrow (1972), which deals with similar su...

I join up with Dr. Fiona Cox aka Kitty Mazinsky, for wide-ranging discussion of Francis Lee's fascinating film

We return to Chadi Abdel Salam's Al-Momia/ The Night of Counting the Years to get an Egyptian perspective on the great and beautiful film. The timing is perfect too as the next day the mummies of the kings were moved to a new home for the first time since the events depicted in the film.

Hussein returns to offer us a fascinating Egyptian perspective on the career of Youssef Chahine beginning with Cairo as Seen By Chahine (1991) and talking us through The Emigrant (94), Destiny, The Other (99). We also touch on The Choice (1970), Silence, on tourne! (2001).

At the request of our listeners, we are expanding the podcast onto other instances of Egyptian cinema. We saw Shadi Abdel Salam's Al-mummia/ The Night of Counting The Years in the wonderful version restored with the help of Martin Scorsese and the Cineteca di Bologna. It's a truly great film: poetic, allegorical, about the past and the nation, people robbed, robbing others, robbing themselves, ste...