CINEMA REBORN FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER - 2023 DATES EXTENDED, KIESLOWSKI'S TRILOGY, CHARITABLE DONATIONS

 

CINEMA REBORN – DATES FOR OUR 2023 SEASON EXTENDED

 

After a lot of consultation, advice, and cooperation from our suppliers and our venue Cinema Reborn 2023 will now take place from 26 April to 2 May at the Randwick Ritz.

 

We’ll be screening eighteen films from ten countries and five continents. The full program with links to the Ritz website for bookings and the Cinema Reborn website for information on all titles will be released on 14 March. Screenings on Monday and Tuesday 1-2 May will almost entirely be repeats of a large number of the titles screened from Wednesday 26 April to Sunday 30 April. It should be noted however that a number of our titles this year will have one screening only.

Three Colours Red

 

Krysztof Kieslowksi’s THREE COLOURS TRILOGY  to feature at Europa Europa Film Festival

Krzysztof Kieslowski's remarkable trilogy has been given a magnificent 4K restoration and will be a centrepiece at the forthcoming Europa Europa Film Festival which takes place at the Randwick Ritz from 16 February to 7 March. Each of the films will screen once only at 6.20 pm on three successive Saturdays 18 February, 25 February and 4 March. For bookings hit the link above.

  

What follows are some extracts from a piece about the Trilogy by Peter Bradshaw first published in The Guardian. 

For some cinephiles, reconsidering Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colours trilogy is like finding an old photo of yourself in 90s clothes and a 90s haircut. This series of three conceptually interlocking movies – his last work, in fact, before he died following heart surgery in 1996 – was by far Kieslowski's biggest international hit… featuring the luminous stars of each: Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy and Irène Jacob, a gorgeous young aristocracy of French cinema….

 

Three Colours White

But watched again sympathetically, the movies themselves stand up, not as the dreamy conversation-pieces of a thousand studenty parties – with blokes pretending to like them to impress their dates – but as an operatic triptych, a dramatic cine-poem of intense strangeness, indulgent and confident, set somewhere which looks like the real world, but isn't.

The trilogy shifts gear from high tragedy to low comedy to intense drama in a world of happenstance and coincidence: it is variously sentimental, grandiose, sexy, eerie and uncanny. The movies are shot through with moments of bizarre black comedy, anxiety and cynicism about Europe itself. …

But watched again sympathetically, the movies themselves stand up, not as the dreamy conversation-pieces of a thousand studenty parties – with blokes pretending to like them to impress their dates – but as an operatic triptych, a dramatic cine-poem of intense strangeness, indulgent and confident, set somewhere which looks like the real world, but isn't.

Three Colours Blue

The trilogy shifts gear from high tragedy to low comedy to intense drama in a world of happenstance and coincidence: it is variously sentimental, grandiose, sexy, eerie and uncanny. The movies are shot through with moments of bizarre black comedy, anxiety and cynicism about Europe itself. With the Eurozone and the European ideal in such crisis, now is an interesting moment to watch the Three Colours again.

The films are Three Colours: Blue (1993), Three Colours: White (1994) and Three Colours: Red (1994), notionally colour-schemed in the manner of the French flag, and – again, notionally – structured around the classic themes of the French republic: liberty, equality and brotherhood. With a little effort, the relevance of each can be detected in each film, but as Kieslowski himself cheerfully conceded, these concepts were there because the production funding was French. The real themes of the trilogy are more disparate, more chaotic, less high-minded, and far more interesting: the unending torture of love, the inevitability of deceit, the fascination of voyeurism and the awful potency of men's fear and loathing of women. To throw everything away, including one's very identity, and start again – that is another powerful, recurrent motif.

Cinema Reborn Organising Committee Member Angelica Waite has convened a panel of Speakers to introduce each of the films.

Blue

Introduced by Angelica Waite, a film programmer and organising committee member at Cinema Reborn Film Festival. With a BA (Hons) in Film Studies, her Honours research explored generative processes of truthmaking in documentary film, with a focus on Abbas Kiarostami's Close-Up (1990). She is a co-founder of collaborative film screening and publication project The Film Group.  

 

White

Introduced by Matilda Mroz, a Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Sydney and the author of a number of articles and books on Polish film, including Framing the Holocaust in Polish Aftermath Cinema: Posthumous Materiality and Unwanted Knowledge (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). She has a PhD in film studies from the University of Cambridge.  

 

Red

Introduced by Janice Tong, by day the managing director for a tech media company, and by night a cinephile whose thesis was on love, time and memory in the films of Wong Kar-wai. Janice has published work in a number of books and journals, including Chinese Films in Focus II, Contretemps, and Senses of Cinema. Her blog, Night, covers a range of films and auteurs.

 

CINEMA REBORN CHARITABLE DONATIONS

Cinema Reborn is an organisation devoted exclusively to exploring the Cinema's heritage. It is managed and organised by a group of dedicated film professionals here working solely on a voluntary basis to assemble an annual selection of cinema classics from around the world.

Cinema Reborn is designed to attract both Sydney residents and visitors from other states and New Zealand. It forms part of a unique network of international events devoted to screening the cinema's past and has built relationships with film archives and long time production houses around the world. Each selection will be having its Sydney premiere in the unique surroundings of one of Sydney's few remaining art deco picture palaces.

The costs of assembling and presenting Cinema Reborn, notwithstanding the hundreds of hours freely donated by Committee Members, volunteers, writers and presenters, are such that box office revenue cannot cover the cost of acquisition of titles, freight and logistics, venue hire, additional professional support from projectionists and staff, and the production of supporting print and online material. Cinema Reborn has relied, since its inception, on the generosity of donors who support our aims and are committed to the annual project of bringing cinema classics back to a big screen in perfect new digital copies. Without such support the event could not be presented.

To make a tax deductible donation to support our work CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE AUSTRALIAN CULTURAL FUND

FILM CRITICS CIRCLE OF AUSTRALIA ANNUAL AWARDS FOR AUSTRALIAN FILMS - THE NOMINATIONS

FCCA ANNUAL AWARDS OF THE FILMS OF 2022

NOMINATIONS

7^th February 2023

Listed in Alphabetical Order

The Stranger

 

BEST FILM

THE DROVER’S WIFE                         PRODUCERS:  LEAH PURCELL, BAIN STEWART, DAVID JOWSEY, GREER SIMPKIN, ANGELA LITTLEJOHN

ELVIS                                                   PRODUCERS: BAZ LUHRMANN, CATHERINE MARTIN, GAIL BERMAN

HERE OUT WEST                                PRODUCERS: ANNABEL DAVIS, SHEILA JAYADEV & BREE-ANNE SYKES

 

THE STRANGER                                 PRODUCERS:  JOEL EDGERTON, IAIN CANNING, KIM HODGERT, EMILE SHERMAN, RACHEL GARDNER, KERRY KOHANSKY- ROBERTS

 

Elvis

BEST DIRECTOR:

BAZ LURHMANN                             ELVIS

LEAH PURCELL                                 THE DROVER’S WIFE

THOMAS M WRIGHT                       THE STRANGER

Leah Purcell, The Drover's Wife

BEST ACTRESS

KREW BOYLAN                                SERIOUSLY RED

ELLA NEWTON                                 GIRL AT THE WINDOW

LEAH PURCELL                                 THE DROVER’S WIFE

 

Joel Edgerton, Sean Harris, The Stranger

BEST ACTOR

AUSTIN BUTLER                                 ELVIS

ROB COLLINS                                  THE DROVER’S WIFE            

JOEL EDGERTON                             THE STANGER

 

BEST ACTOR SUPPORTINGB ROLE

SIMON BAKER                                  BLAZE

SEAN HARRIS                                    THE STRANGER

ANTHONY HAYES                            GOLD

RASMUS KING                                  BOSCH & ROCKIT

Karis Oka, The Girl at the Window

 

BEST ACTRESS SUPPORTING ROLE

JESSICA DE GOUW                        THE DROVER’S WIFE

KARIS OKA                                        GIRL AT THE WINDOW

YAEL STONE                                      BLAZE

LEEANNA WALSMAN                    BOSCH & ROCKIT

 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

SAM CHIPLIN                                   THE STRANGER

MANDY WALKER ASC ACS          ELVIS

MARK WAREHAM ACS                  THE DROVER’S WIFE

BEST SCREENPLAY

BAZ LURHMANN, SAM BROMELL, 

CRAIG PEARCE, JEREMY DONER            ELVIS

 

LEAH PURCELL                                 THE DROVER’S WIFE

THOMAS M WRIGHT                       THE STRANGER

 

Senses of Cinema

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

 

THE LOST CITY OF MELBOURNE                DIRECTED AND PRODUCED: GUS BERGER

 

 

MAN ON EARTH                                          DIRECTED: AMIEL COURTIN-WILSON

 

PRODUCERS: ALICE JAMIESON-DOWD &AMIEL COURTIN-WILSON

 

 

NO BAD GUYS                                             DIRECTED: GEORGE GITTOES

PRODUCERS: GEORGE GITTOES & HELLEN ROSE

 

 

SENSES OF CINEMA                                    DIRECTED AND PRODUCED

JOHN HUGHES & TOM ZUBRYCKI

 

VOLCANO MAN                                         DIRECTED: JAMES CRAWLEY

PRODUCERS:  RHIAN SKIRVING & TIM RUSSELL

 

 

 

Film Critics Circle of Australia

Email: filmcriticsaust@bigpond.com

Contact: Adrienne Mc Kibbins Awards Manager

 

 

 

WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON TUESDAY 28^TH FEBRUARY

Vale Bob Garlick - Cinephile, early MUFS activist, Collaborator with Giorgio Mangiamele - Peter Hourigan pays tribute

As an old comrade said, this means we're moving up the list.

Here is Peter's terrific tribute with a few thoughts of my own at the foot of it.

ROBERT (Bob) GARLICK

                      The early sixties are often looked back on as the period when a new, energetic Cinéphilia emerged in Australia, and Melbourne is often considered as a crucial place for this emergence, especially around the Melbourne University Film Society. I was probably in the right place at the right time, and my own Cinéphilia was shaped by that period.

                      MUFS was an enfant terrible championing Hawks, Ford, Hitchcock and even Jerry Lewis. But its activities in that period didn’t come from nowhere, but emerged from an already active and alive film society on the Melbourne University  campus.

                      Robert (Bob) Garlick was very much part of pre-generation, if I can coin that term. His death, at 85, has just been announced.  When I reached university and  became involved with MUFS, Bob had already completed his law degree and was no longer so active in MUFS. However, he was involved with the University Film Group, the society which  operated as a Film Society for graduates especially people who’d been active in MUFS and had pioneered many of the operations of MUFS. 

                     Bob Garlick kept his involvement with uni. Cinephilia through UFG, contributing articles on various films. Perhaps some of his taste seemed old fashioned to the “young turks” of the early sixties MUFS -  Eisenstein, or British cinema such as Paul Rotha would endorse or the French cinema then starting to be rejected as “le cinema de Papa”. . Not that these weren’t worthy, we’d just latched on to newer, younger cinema. 

                      In the story of Cinéphilia, it is important that we remember the people who created the conditions and the enthusiasm that the new explosion in which the new attitudes to film could flourish. Bob Garlick was very much part of that. He may not have been involved much after the early sixties, but he was part of the years that laid those important foundations for what was coming. 

                     Ultimately Bob’s cultural interests developed more strongly in Classical Music – Wagner and Berlioz were special areas of interest. 

                    Curiously, MUFS was not where I’d first met Bob. Way back before, both his family and mine lived in Mildura.  His mother and mine were friends and involved in such activities as the local book group. Several times when they’d get together, I would meet Bob. But he was six years older than me, and at that stage that meant we had very little in common until we met again at MUFS/UFG.

********************************

Thanks for that Peter

Editors Note:I was going to add another set of memories that all came flooding back but I'm just putting in the key words 

Bob Garlick....awesome presence... Labor politician....union secretary.....film critic..MUFS... Jim Merralls...Film Journal... massive admirer of Bergman, Visconti and all the other 'operatic' directors...Relf... Brian Davies.... Carlton Street houses.....most stirring memory, a rousing speech at a MUFS AGM to repel the John Helmer led forces of darkness who wanted to ban Jerry Lewis, return us to Eisenstein and claimed to have seen the films of Hank Lennon....Giorgio Mangiamele and Beyond Reason...high achiever..... Vale

Vale Ken Mogg - Peter Tammer's tribute to one of Australia's finest film scholars

 Vale Ken!

(Reprinted from Peter's Blog The Friends of the Armchair Traveller)

A farewell to muffin@labyrinth

Last week I received this sad note from Inge, a close friend of Ken Mogg:

Dear Peter,

Just a sad note that our friend Ken Mogg passed away yesterday, 2nd Feb
2023.

He had been in and out of hospital with breathing problems, was  not
eating properly,
and had gone into a care home just recently, maybe a week or so ago.
His sister rang me and said he had passed away peacefully yesterday.

I hope you are well.

Love -- Inge.

Ken and Inge made the effort to attend a screening when some of

my films were shown at the AFW workshop some years ago.

(Photo taken by Bill Mousoulis) 

So many years have passed since I first met Ken at film screenings at the Bughouse in Carlton, the MUFS screenings and Melbourne Film Festival screenings in the late sixties. 


We got to know each other better when we shared an office for about a year at Melbourne State College, 1974.


We shared a great enthusiasm for the works of many directors but foremost was our love and admiration for Hitchcock. In those early days I sensed Ken was more avid than I, but we were only getting to know each other. He assisted me greatly when I arranged screenings of a number of Hitch’s movies at the Bughouse for our students, a sort of mini film festival, I think we showed seven films over a few weekends, courtesy of Gordon who owned that theatre and was the projectionist.


Then I left Melbourne State College. We went down our separate pathways! There was a long hiatus in our friendship which only started up again about 2009. 


Between 2009 and today we exchanged thousands of emails and sent each other copies of films and books we loved. The ratio was more from Ken to me rather from me to him… he was extremely generous to me. Sometimes I would mention a title of a book or film I loved, and what do you know… a copy would arrive in the mail a few days later! I mentioned to Ken a film I had not seen for many years, “Rogue Male” with Peter O’Toole in the leading role, from the novel by Geoffrey Household. Coming all the way from London and totally unexpected a brand new copy of that novel arrived in my letterbox about ten days later.


Today, I want to concentrate on just a few instances from our many exchanges. I have chosen two films which we both considered masterpieces by Hitchcock, but which are not his best known works.

I had first encountered “The Wrong Man” with Henry Fonda and Vera Miles at a MUFS festival many years before and decided to include it in the festival I was arranging for the students at Melbourne State College. I mentioned to Ken that Godard had written a superb monograph about this film and as he usually did, Ken discovered that old review from Cahiers du Cinema and gave it to me.

Many years later we exchanged thoughts about this film via email. Here’s a response I received from Ken in 2012:


Dear Peter -

I looked at the three bits of THE WRONG MAN you advocated. All of them very impressive.


1. The finger-printing (at about the 38½' mark in my DVD copy). This segment seems to derive from the processing-of-the-criminal early in BLACKMAIL - a remarkable sequence that Bill Krohn feels may have influenced Lang's M. Both those early films imply an impersonal dimension in their respective blown-up images of fingerprints. TWM picks up on the 'impersonality' but handles it in a small-scale way that is moving. The key is Manny's impassive face, even as he co-operates in his own immolation.


2. The handcuffing and the trip to gaol (at about the 51' mark in my DVD copy). Again Manny's stunned face is the crux. Re the prison van, you may think of the lines from 'The Waste Land': 'Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,/ And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.' Remarkably, that passage comes immediately after, 'Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,/ A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,/ I had not thought death had undone so many' - which, mutatis mutandis, seems the inspiration for two passages in NxNW (the crowd, shot in washed-out colour, flowing down the subway at the start of the film; and the 'visual quote' of the Everett Shinn mural in the Oak Bar showing a foggy New York of bygone days, another 'Unreal City' not unlike the present one, the film implies).


3. Final scene in the sanatorium between Manny and Rose (and a nurse) (at about the 1hr40½' mark in my DVD copy). Very affecting. Manny (literally at one point) reaches out to Rose but is rebuffed. Rose remains immured for now in her sense of an implacable, overwhelming injustice that is not personal ('It's nothing you've done'). The last shot (frame-capture attached) before Manny retreats with the nurse back out into the corridor runs a long 47", implying the finality of the moment for now (the film is ending). It includes (n.b., no cut) Manny's backing-off remark, 'I guess I was hoping for a miracle'. Yet the mood is never less than poignant and affecting. Special note relevant to editing ... At least two elements of this scene may be said to pre-echo PSYCHO. (1) Rose clutches herself throughout, as Marion does in part of the PSYCHO 'parlour' scene. (2) When the nurse enters in the left background at the start of the shot, saying, 'Your husband is leaving now, Mrs Balestrero', it's startling, like the entrance of 'Mother' in the left background when Marion is in the shower, facing the camera. Only, of course, instead of the staccato passage that then follows (PSYCHO), we have the long-held single shot I've described (TWM). This is relevant to editing precisely because it only goes to show how much at Hitchcock's mercy (like the rest of us) the editor is, because the ultimate effect/affect is a combination of innumerable elements that Hitchcock controls and pre-plans - editing is only one of many elements. The editor (again like the rest of us) may feel he/she is pretty much free to respond to the scene, but that response is actually, and largely invisibly, dictated by the director, a very charming and benevolent person but a dictator nonetheless!


(n.b., Marion, you could say, clutches herself primarily for warmth - ironic in the context of the film which becomes progressively chilly - although what she is warming herself against may, in part, be given a 'psychological' interpretation. In Rose's case, her self-clutching is more indicative of her withdrawal inwards, such that her psychiatrist had earlier said that she was 'on the other side of the moon someplace'.)


(n.b., too, Rose in this near-final scene of TWM, just described, is in a near-equivalent position to Norman in the penultimate scene of PSYCHO, and is depicted not dissimilarly. Norman 'wears' a blanket for both warmth and to suggest his withdrawn state; and, like Rose, he 'converses' in a seemingly direct and cogent way ('They're probably watching me now') while his actual distance from present reality is patent.)


Am I moving towards some sort of overview of how editing may 'work' in Hitchcock, and be seen by him? I'm not sure, but I must hope!


Later.

Metta - KM



The next film I wish to raise in this context was “I Confess”. We both held this film in very high regard.

In our exchanges which took place over a few weeks, Ken shared many of his discoveries about the sources for the script and he also introduced me to his friend Dr. Ted Price. Now I had become entangled in an infernal triangle. 


The deep knowledge which these two shared on all of Hitchcock’s work and many other great directors was far beyond my limited capacity… they were bookworms whereas I am not. They were scholarly as I am not.


Between the two of them I was introduced to so many thoughts and judgments of which I was totally unaware that it was like being back at University, except that it was my private university with two fine teachers at my disposal.

One email gives a sample of Ken’s thoughts on “I Confess”:

Dear Peter -

On 2/10/2015 10:12 PM, you wrote:

"Some films do not stand up well after numerous viewings, but I'm pleased to tell you [I CONFESS] is still a very rich experience for me. Despite the fact that I am not at all religious and have left Catholicism and its trappings way behind me, the dim distant past, the film still, works for me quite well, very well indeed."

Thank you so much for this observation, your email as a whole, and your several other emails lately that I have not responded to. 


On I CONFESS. I have long thought that Father Logan (Monty Clift) was using his obligation re the sanctity of the confessional to shield him from having to open up to Larrue (Karl Malden) about his relationship with Ruth Grandfort (Anne Baxter). And this is confirmed in a book I have just looked at, by Richard Blake, S.J., on six Catholic directors. Here's Blake:


As Larrue drags Logan into the case and questions him about Ruth, Logan extends the boundaries of the seal beyond its legitimate scope. He uses it to avoid answering potentially embarrassing questions about his relationship with Ruth. In his refusal to cooperate with the authorities, he is using the seal to manipulate Larrue, just as Keller had used it to manipulate him. (p. 62)


Had you noticed that? And, speaking of the murderer Keller (O.E. Hasse), how much sympathy do you feel for this refugee, with his wife Alma (Dorothy Hasse), from Germany? The couple are clearly very isolated in French Quebec, a long way from their home; and even at the end, I find the shambling figure of Keller to be quite affecting as he and Logan face off (Larrue looking on, with armed policemen ready to fire) in a hotel ballroom in front of a stage that offers the trapped man no escape. Yes, I know that Keller has been shifty all along, at least since his attempted robbery that went fatally wrong; and now, at the end, he has just shot his wife and is threatening Logan. (The talk between Keller and Logan is about their both being 'lonely'.) Yet I find this comment by Blake to be, well, one-sided, inadequate:


Keller, the German refugee, inevitably reminds audiences of the dozens of cold-blooded, calculating Nazi spies that populated American screens during the war and postwar periods. He is guilty, and the film does nothing to arouse sympathy for him. (p.61)


True, or not? One last observation for now. Blake seems so set on running down Logan (and also Ruth) for not being perfect, that he seems to me to miss a couple of things. Logan, who was awarded the Military Cross for outstanding bravery, clearly is a figure of the highest rectitude, which Hitchcock expresses by repeatedly giving him an unwavering forward motion (leading to that expressive moment when he literally bumps into the sacristan, i.e., Keller, in the church, and simply out-faces him). This is contrasted with the moral decline of Keller, planting evidence (a bloodstained cassock) and almost taunting Logan to keep silent (as Keller knows the priest is bound to do) - yet somehow I still see Keller as a person, not just a figure of evil. (I wish Blake had allowed this.) Also, re Ruth, had you noticed something (not noted by Blake): until nearly the very end, when Logan is exonerated (and Ruth turns to her husband, saying, 'Take me home, Pierre'), she seems to secretly harbour the romantic notion that, just possibly, Logan had still loved her so much that he had indeed murdered the blackmailer Vilette to protect Ruth's reputation?


(Similarly, in THE WRONG MAN, Rose has a moment when she must face up to - or anyway voice - how she suspects Manny may indeed have held up the Associated Life office. She tells him: You could be guilty, you could be.')

So big thanks again for your email, Peter, including this bit:

"I love the intelligence Hitch brings to his films, regardless of the choice of themes, the content, the people he hired to work with on different occasions, including writers, actors, composers. His films are very rich and densely packed, intricate, many faceted. And "I Confess" is no exception."

Looking forward to your answers to the couple of questions I've posed above!

I hope you're well.

Good cheer - KM


The two emails I have chosen give you a glimpse of the many faceted mind of our friend Ken. They both show how wide-ranging his research was, how interrelated his complex observations of films were and a sense of his endless enquiry. I always felt that his emails were too complex and dense for me to take apart and concentrate on individual themes in response.

Another film I owe much thanks to Ken for was “The Man Who Knew Too Much” , the original version, 1934. I basically knew nothing about this film until Ken sent me a copy and I really loved it. But there are so many exchanges on so many films. And books! And politics! And octopuses! 

When Ken discovered that I was fascinated by the intelligence of octopuses he sent me copious notes which he had researched to assist me with any writing I might have done about those astonishing creatures. Sadly I have not followed up his fine research with any fine writings on the subject, but we did swap a lot of information at the time.


And then there was Schopenhauer. Well Ken tried very hard to get me engaged in the work of “Schop”. But he failed in this endeavour. I was into philosophy when I was at Uni, and shortly after that. I had read quite widely but not wide enough for Ken, because I had overlooked Schop. This was very sad for Ken because he had placed Schopenhauer on the highest pedestal and I seemed unable or unwilling to come to the party, or to genuflect at his altar. We can’t all be readers of everything, can we? There’s too much on offer and we must make choices, but on this matter I disappointed Ken and there was nothing I could do about it. 


We had much more luck with cricket! We both had a long and abiding delight in following this wonderful colonial game which the Brits had gifted to us, spread throughout their colonies, between all the ravaging and savagery and plantations and ripping off of artefacts which were dutifully sent to museums in the British Isles. When our adored leading cricketers were caught in the act of ball tampering in South Africa Ken and I were utterly dismayed, as were so many Australians… it was a huge shock to us that our heroes could be so stupid and unsportsmanlike. 


The range of subjects we covered was much wider and far more extensive than I have mentioned… I can only give you a glimpse. I don’t want to waste any of your time or of my own fading energy on our altercations over the years concerning Trumpo the clown or the brilliant strategical mind of Putin!


It’s too demanding for me to syphon through more than two thousand email exchanges between us over the past 14 years, so I hope these few examples of Ken’s responses will indicate something of the breadth and depth of Ken’s interests, the different perspectives he drew on in assessing each film. But it was not only in the case of Hitchcock’s films that Ken offered such powerful judgement. This leads me to his efforts in working with Dr.Ted Price who he introduced to me about ten years ago. 

https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2013/book-reviews/back-to-freud-superbitch-alfred-hitchcocks-50-year-obsession-with-jack-the-ripper-and-the-eternal-prostitute-a-psycho-analytic-interpretation-by-theodore-price/

Ken also assisted Dr. Ted greatly with some other projects. Dr. Ted had written some notes for his students on the film “The Passenger” by Antonioni. Both Ken and I shared a love of this film and we both thought Dr. Ted should refine his “student notes”, get them into better shape for an article for publication. NOT AN EASY TASK! Dr Ted was getting very grumpy and didn’t think it needed improvement, but Ken persisted and worked him round. He also arranged for the revised piece to be published in Senses of Cinema. This might sound like a small effort, but it took many months to achieve the final result. My part in this process was trivial, I merely supported Ken in his endeavours to get Dr. Ted to make the necessary changes, and thankfully Ken won the day!

 

https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2015/feature-articles/michelangelo-antonioni-the-truth-about-the-passenger/

Once again by being involved in this endeavour I learned more about the film than I could ever have imagined.

These few examples are merely additional to what others will have to say about Ken’s life work in  thinking and writing about cinema. I was so pleased to be able to send his paper on Vertigo to Geoff Gardner just before I gave Facebook the flick. Because Geoff took this on there are copies of the Vertigo piece and other items by Ken on Film Alert 101.

http://filmalert101.blogspot.com/2020/12/considering-alfred-hitchcocks-vertigo.html


http://filmalert101.blogspot.com/2021/06/hitchcocks-trouble-with-harry-ken-mogg.html

Because of Ken having introduced me to Dr. Ted, I was able to introduce Dr. Ted to Geoff and that resulted in Geoff posting some fine articles by Dr. Ted:

http://filmalert101.blogspot.com/2017/08/federico-fellini-secret-meaning-of-his_10.html

http://filmalert101.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-truth-about-limelight-dr-theodore.html

As you can see, for me it was like mixing in the big league trying to keep up with these guys. I’m a simple film buff, not at all serious when you compare my lazy ways with their scholasticism and their considered thoughts on so many works by so many directors.


I hope that any friends who would like to add their own personal recollections to this valedictory will take the opportunity.

Vale Ken,

Peter Tammer