70x70: Unlicensed Preaching: A Life Unpacked in 70 Films - Rilegato

Iain Sinclair

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0992643457 ISBN 13: 9780992643454

Casa editrice: Volcano Publishing, 2014

Riassunto

On turning 70 years old on 11th June 2013, Iain Sinclair writer, filmmaker, poet, walker, perpetual seeker of the perimeter and reluctant magus of the media school of psycho-geography found it hard to resist the offer of the opportunity to make his choice of 70 films that related to, and are oft interwoven across his entire writing career. This was a chance to have these films shown in a variety of venues and resonant locations across London a city Sinclair has made his own, a city he has (re)defined. This book features both Sinclair's explanation of the films chosen and their relationship to his novels and his life along with the resultant forensic documentation of this epic curatorial journey film as mirrors, film as portals, film mutated through radio waves additions to the teeming city ghost voices, film as a journey to no fixed abode. Sinclair spoke at many of the events, a constant updating and realigning, placing his choices in the here and now and soon to come. Predicting, proposing, provoking. He was aided and abetted by old friends, fellow writers Alan Moore and Robert Macfarlane, film-making co-conspiriators Andrew Kötting (Swandown) and Chris Petit (London Orbital), along with film academics Colin MacCabe and Gareth Evans and other manifestations from his fictional/factional role call. All seventy of the events were documented and these words and images now form an impressionistic memento of Iain Sinclair's 70x70 year, a defining corollary to this writer's extraordinary life. Films featured: A Time for Dying The Act of Seeing with One s Own Eyes Aguirre, the Wrath of God Ah! Sunflower (Allen Ginsberg in London) Allemagne Année 90 Neuf Zéro Around the World with Orson Welles Asylum/The Final Commission Beat The Beat Generation Berlin Alexanderplatz The Bridegroom, the Actress and the Pimp Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia British Sounds Bronco Bullfrog Candy Mountain The Cardinal and the Corpse Chappaqua Confidential Report/Mr Arkadin Content The Criminal The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz Cul-de-Sac The Cutting The Dark Eyes of London Downriver/Vessels of Wrath Estate, a Reverie The Face on the Fork The Falconer Flight to Berlin Germany in Autumn Girl Chewing Gum/The Man Phoning Mum Il Grido Hackney 8mm Diary Films Hackney Marshes Hackney Shorts (Automaton and The Last Days of Dobson) Hangover Square In a Lonely Place In the Wake of a Deadad It Always Rains on Sunday The Killing of a Chinese Bookie King Lear (Brook) King Lear (Godard) The Last Movie The Last of England The Lineup The Long Good Friday Mabuse Saga: Dr. Mabuse der Spieler, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse Maggot Street/Maggid Street Marine Court Rendezvous Memo Mori Le Mépris Niagara Nostalgia for the Light Psycho The Return of Frank James The (Rudy) Wurlitzer Documentary The Small World of Sammy Lee The Sorcerers Stromboli Swandown Sympathy for the Devil The Tarnished Angels This Our Still Life Too Hot to Handle Tornado Touch of Evil Two Weeks in Another Town Vulcano Walk the Walk Written on the Wind

Su questo libro

Recensione:

Labelled by its author as a novel of delicious fragments and a cubist self-portrait assembled from unreliable evidence , Iain Sinclair s 70×70 Unlicensed Preaching: A Life Unpacked in 70 Films might be more prosaically described as the accompanying book for a season of 70 films programmed by Sinclair to mark his 70th birthday. Sinclair being a product of the British avant garde and perhaps along with Peter Ackroyd the preeminent psychogeographer of London, 70×70 was no ordinary film season, and it is no more conventional in book form. In addition to cataloguing the 70 programmed films, the book records the screening events themselves, held in a variety of venues and special locations across London, presenting transcripts of Sinclair's introductions, as well as collaborative contributions from Alan Moore, Chris Petit, Colin MacCabe, Barrie Keeffe, Gareth Evans and Andrew Kötting. Sinclair's lucid and revealing commentary provides a fascinating perspective on his selected films, all of which relate, in some way, to his own writing career. Familiar films are re-framed in intriguing ways, while more obscure pieces are given equal weighting. For many particularly those who did not have an opportunity to attend any of the screenings the most exciting aspect of 70×70 will be the programme itself, which takes up a little under a third of the book. Plenty of familiar titles dot the pages, from Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and Welles Touch of Evil (1958) to Douglas Sirk's fantastically florid Written on the Wind (1956) always a welcome addition to any programme. European greats such as Fassbiner (Berlin Alexanderplatz), Godard (Le Mépris, King Lear), Rossellini (Stromboli), Herzog (Aguirre, the Wrath of God) and Polanski (Cul-de-sac) are all present and correct, as are pivotal American filmmakers of the later 20th century, including John Cassavetes (The Killing of a Chinese Bookie), Dennis Hopper (The Last Movie) and Sam Peckinpah, who is represented somewhat controversially by his often dismissed Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). A range of films with specific relevance to London are included, ranging from John Brahm s Patrick Hamilton adaptation Hangover Square (1945) to John Mackenzie s gangster classic The Long Good Friday (1980) to Derek Jarman s uncompromising The Last of England (1987). The latter, a coruscating critique of Thatcher s Britain, is particularly interesting in this context for its relationship to Sinclair s Downriver (1991), one of his best known novels, which envisages the UK under the rule of a grotesque Thatcher caricature named The Widow. All of these films, of course, are widely known. For many, the real thrill of 70×70 will be that of discovery, as Sinclair's selection extends to less widely available pieces as diverse as Stan Brakhage's startling 1971 experimental film The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes, which calmly records autopsy procedures, to John Smith s Hackney Marshes, a documentary commissioned by Thames Television in 1977 that captures the lives of those inhabiting the eponymous London tower blocks. Sinclair himself was involved in the making of a number of the films, including a pair of collaborations with Chris Petit, 1992's The Cardinal and the Corpse and 1998 s The Falconer. 70×70 is not a book that cries out to be read cover to cover in a single sitting. Highly personal as well as the product of a great deal of expertise, it s a book that rewards exploration, perhaps in the form of a series of visits and repeat visits. Following Sinclair's thread, one can t help but feel occasional disappointment that not all these films are easily accessible. For now, though, his fragmentary and fascinating companion volume is no small compensation. --thehollywoodnews.com

Something about lain Sinclair's latest book screams of a serious author having some serious fun. 70x70 - Unlicensed Preaching: A Life Unpacked In 70 Films is a deliciously poetic documentation of a sprawling curation project that does exactly what it says on the tin, and then some. In celebration of his 70th birthday - and in response to a suggestion made by King Mob's Paul Smith ­the Hackney wordsmith rummaged through his own back catalogue in search of traces of works he s hunted, happened upon, made and admired. From it, he pulled a film for every year to date, weaving together a rich sort of cultural autobiography. Over the next 12 months, Sinclair screened all 70 films in a series of special events across the city, trekking out to obscure parts of town to talk about everything from Douglas Sirk' s wonderful Tarnished Angels to Patricio Guzman's jaw-dropping Nostalgia for the Light. With the mammoth undertaking done and dusted, Unlicensed Preaching represents something of a project journal. The book is split into two main parts: the first a collection ofshort passages offering nutritious insight into each of the films concerned, and the second a record of the events held, comprising Sinclair's intros, transcripts ofconversations, and contributions from friends and collaborators, such as Alan Moore, Chris Petit and Andrew Kotting. The essays in the first section are sure to delight anyone with a modicum of interest in film. Whether or not you ve seen the material is of minor significance. Reading about Kiefer Sutherland making a pass at that cryogenic Burroughs voice ofworld­ weary cynicism opposite Courtney Love's emboldened Joan Vollmer in Beat - and what it is about this bizarre feature that works - is fascinating, regardless of prior knowledge. Reading about directors you are more likely to have preconceptions of - like Godard, Sirk, Welles and Hitchcock - is an education, but perhaps most interesting are the commentaries on Sinclair's own work and that of his friends. An extended piece on his collaboration with Petit and Susan Stenger on Marine Court Rendezvous - where the silenced dead catch up with their fugitive souls - is simply marvellous. And the same goes for his thoughts on Kotting's stunning This Our Still Life. The second section expands on the reasoning behind his choices and furthers the intrigue. We learn about things like the collaging and bricblage of sounds, the spillage as projects leak into each other, and much more. He loosely situates each film within both a personal and wider cultural landscape, with key figures and ideas popping up over and again. This unclassifiable book knits a complex tapestry of history, memory, documentary and fiction in a way that those familiar with Sinclair s writing will surely recognise. His sentences are often dense and always thrilling to roll your tongue around. But his ideas on the past, present and future ofcinema are what remain, steadfast and long after reading. --Hackney Citizen

Sharp-witted, cussed and writihng with insights, 70x70 is a tribute that breathes fire --Sight & Sound

L'autore:

Much of Sinclair's recent work consists of an ambitious and elaborate literary recuperation of the so-called occultist psychogeography of London. Other psychogeographers who have worked on similar material include Will Self, Stewart Home and the London Psychogeographical Association. One of a series of works focused around London is the non-fiction London Orbital; the hard cover edition was published in 2002, along with a documentary film of the same name and subject. It describes a series of trips he took tracing the M25, London's outer-ring motorway, on foot. Sinclair followed this with Edge of the Orison in 2005, a psychogeographical reconstruction of the poet John Clare's walk from Dr Matthew Allen's private lunatic asylum, at Fairmead House, High Beach, in the centre of Epping Forest in Essex, to his home in Helpston, near Peterborough. Sinclair also writes about Claybury Asylum, another psychiatric hospital in Essex, in Rodinsky's Room, a collaboration with the artist Rachel Lichtenstein. In 2008 he wrote the introduction to Wide Boys Never Work, the London Books reissue of Robert Westerby's classic London low-life novel. Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire: A Confidential Report followed in 2009. Sinclair's book Ghost Milk criticises the British government for using the 2012 Summer Olympics as an excuse to militarise London while forcing the poorest citizens out of their homes. In an interview with This Week in Science, William Gibson said that Sinclair was his favourite author. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009. Sinclair commented: "I have always admired the RSPCA. They do a lot of good work."

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Volcano Publishing
• Data di pubblicazione: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0992643457
• ISBN 13: 9780992643454
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 166