Distant voices - still life
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Distant voices - still life |
| Original title | Distant Voices, Still Lives |
| Country of production | Great Britain |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1988 |
| length | 85 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Terence Davies |
| script | Terence Davies |
| production | Jennifer Howarth |
| camera |
William Diver , Patrick Duval |
| cut | William Diver |
| occupation | |
| |
Distant Voices - Still Lives (original title Distant Voices, Still Lives ) is a British drama film directed by Terence Davies from 1988 . The film is set in the British working-class milieu of the 1940s and 1950s, based on the director's own childhood memories. Many film critics consider Distant Voices, Still Lives to be one of the best English films of all time.
action
The film tells impressionistically in commemorative montages the life of a Catholic working-class family in Liverpool in the 1940s and 1950s, whereby the social change in Great Britain on a large scale also plays a role. The narrative of the film is not chronological and linear, but works associatively and cyclically: the characters remember, for example, an event from the past that is then shown. Again and again it becomes clear what influence popular music, Hollywood films and neighborhood parties have on the life of the working class family.
In the first part, Distant Voices , the difficult relationship between the violent father Tommy and his family is presented. Tommy, a heavy drinker, is unpredictable in his behavior and in fits of anger beats his wife and their children Eileen, Tony and Maisie. In a few moments it shows a more tender side, of which the children, however, hardly notice - for example when they are asleep in bed and their father comes into their room. The Second World War and the German air raids are also shown , with the children almost being killed at one point. Towards the end of the war, the young Tony is drafted as a soldier and rebels against his father, he smashes the window panes of the house with bloody hands. The growing up daughters also try to support their mother as much as possible. Eventually the father falls ill and is admitted to the hospital. He discharges himself and returns to his family exhausted, but dies a little later. Other scenes that are interwoven with the scenes with the father take place at Eileen's wedding, a few years after his death. Despite the difficult relationship with her father, she cries because he can no longer be at her wedding and can lead her to the altar.
The second part, Still Lives, takes place some time later in the 1950s. Eileen and her husband Dave have since had a child. Maisie marries George a little later and, since they cannot find a house, moves with her husband to live with her grandmother. Maisie's friends Micky and Jingles also marry long-time acquaintances. The marriages are not all happy and some are suggesting violence - one evening Jingles' husband loudly demands that his wife go home with him and not stay longer. Even though her children are gradually leaving the house, the mother keeps the family together and there are happy family and neighborhood celebrations. Music works as a means of reconciliation and as entertainment. When Eileen and Maisie unsuspectingly watch the film All Glory on Earth in the cinema, an accident occurs on the construction site in which Tony and George are seriously injured. The family gathers and supports the two in their recovery. The film ends with the wedding of Tony and his bride Rose.
Production background
Terence Davies had already dealt with his youth in his short films Children (1976), Madonna and Child (1980) and Death and Transfiguration (1983). Also Distant Voices, Still Lives , his first feature film, as well as the later film The Long Day Closes (1992) are based heavily on his autobiographical memories. In his presence when he was five, his father threatened to cut off his mother's hand. Violence was constant in the Davies family until his father's death. Davies stated in an interview that the autobiographical elements of the film make it difficult for him to see the films, as it is very emotional and painful for him. Davies later said that he had downgraded the father's violence compared to the incidents for the film, because otherwise no viewer would have believed the autobiographical background. The important role of song songs for the working class characters in the film is also inspired by autobiography.
Davies originally planned to release Distant Voices as a 40-minute film when he was filming . Davies decided against it and two years later shot the second part Still Lives , in which the slowly becoming happier coexistence of the family is shown after the death of the father. He published the two parts of about the same length together as an almost 90-minute feature film . Like the previous projects, Davies financed the film with funds from the British Film Institute .
With Davies on a tight budget, many of the actors were largely unknown. For example, Freda Dowie, who was cast in the central role of mother, was previously seen in victim roles in a number of television series. For Pete Postlethwaite, the role of father was his first major film appearance, having previously only played minor film and television roles. He later made the breakthrough to become an internationally known character actor.
Awards
At the 1988 Cannes Film Festival , Davies won a FIPRESCI award for the film . At the European Film Awards , Distant Voices, Still Lives was nominated in five categories, including Best Film and Best Director , but received nothing in all categories.
In 1990, Distant Voices, Still Lives won the " Film of the Year " award from the London Critics' Circle . Together with Claude Chabrol's Eine Frauensache , Distant Voices, Still Lives was recognized for Best Foreign Language Film at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards . He won the “Grand Prize” of the Union de la critique de cinéma , the official organization of Belgian film critics, for 1990. He also won the Norwegian film award Amanda for Best Foreign Film . In 1999 the British Film Institute voted him number 82 on their list of the best British films of all time.
In a survey by the renowned film magazine Time Out among a total of 150 British film experts for the “best British film of all time”, Distant Voices, Still Lives was ranked third in 2011. In the survey, only When the Gondolas Carry Mourning (1st place) and The Third Man (2nd place) ranked ahead of him. In the polls for the "best film of all time" by the film magazine Sight & Sound , Distant Voices, Still Lives was included in their personal top ten of the best films by eleven participating critics and director Carlos Reygadas - so the film ranks overall on the 154th place in the Sight & Sound critic poll.
Reviews
The reviews for Distant Voices, Still Lives have been largely positive. In its review of November 27, 1988, Der Spiegel wrote that Terence Davies conjured up images from childhood “with unswerving patience and accuracy”: “Working class, Liverpool on the threshold of the 1950s, the narrowness of a row of soot-blackened brick houses, Sunday afternoon request concert , blunt faces, Catholic smell, gray above everything the mildew of sorrow. "Davies works are" memory work in miniatures, a film art that is always looking for the smallest and simplest means, all magic, all feeling, all painful truthfulness in detail. If you want, you can think of Bresson ; they are images that want to banish what they show forever. "
The film service judged the film: “In a multitude of independent, clearly separated scenes, Terence Davies remembers his own proletarian origins and at the same time provides a sociogram of the English workforce of the 1940s and 1950s. A formally radical film that uses the music of the time as a connecting and structuring motif. Both a therapeutic document and a portrait of a working class that no longer exists. "
In 2001, Rüdiger Sturm wrote in Die Welt that Davies had created an “aesthetic of memory” in his autobiographical films that unfolded in “almost hypnotic beauty”. “In an associative stream of consciousness, penned in by no linear narrative, scenes from the life of an English working-class family are strung together. A sequence that is based on the structure of the memory, which just knows no straightforward processes. In long shots, mostly static, occasionally panning gently or driving slowly, the camera shows people, streets and interiors that are painterly illuminated. These images are pervaded by a subtle dynamic, so that the films sometimes have an almost intoxicating effect despite their formal simplicity. "
Web links
- Distant voices - still life in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Film podium: Distant Voices, Still Lives. Retrieved on August 22, 2019 (Swiss Standard German).
- ↑ VERTIGO | Distant Voices, Still Lives: An interview with Terence Davies. Retrieved August 22, 2019 .
- ↑ Kate Abbott: How we made: Terence Davies and Freda Dowie on Distant Voices, Still Lives . In: The Guardian . April 16, 2012, ISSN 0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed October 21, 2019]).
- ^ "Distant Voices, Still Lives," Now Restored, Bustles Beautifully Between Memories. Retrieved October 21, 2019 .
- ^ Terence Davies on Distant Voices Still Lives, 30 years later. Retrieved October 21, 2019 .
- ↑ Kate Abbott: How we made: Terence Davies and Freda Dowie on Distant Voices, Still Lives . In: The Guardian . April 16, 2012, ISSN 0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed October 21, 2019]).
- ↑ Kate Abbott: How we made: Terence Davies and Freda Dowie on Distant Voices, Still Lives . In: The Guardian . April 16, 2012, ISSN 0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed October 21, 2019]).
- ↑ BELGIAN FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION: Grand Prix Honors List - Movie List. Retrieved on August 22, 2019 .
- ↑ Time Out 100 best British films. In: Time Out . September 10, 2018, accessed June 16, 2020 .
- ^ Votes for Distant Voices Still Lives (1988) | BFI. Retrieved August 22, 2019 .
- ^ Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988). Retrieved on August 22, 2019 .
- ↑ : Quiet Magic "Distant Voices, Still Lives". Feature film by Terence . In: Spiegel Online . tape 48 , November 28, 1988 ( spiegel.de [accessed August 22, 2019]).
- ↑ Distant Voices - Still Life. Retrieved August 22, 2019 .
- ↑ Rüdiger Sturm: The present, a foreign country . September 12, 2001 ( welt.de [accessed August 22, 2019]).