Film Graze

Join us as we take a look at this decade's version of the BFI Sight & Sound official canon, which saw 1600 critics submitting their top ten films. This year's pair of lists - hundreds of directors are polled separately - sees some surprise reshuffles, old favourites make their debuts, some losers left gone with the wind and some truly bizarre submissions from the world's most beloved filmmakers. Stay tuned till the end to hear our own unsolicited submissions. Featuring a cover of 'Out of Site' by Built to Spill. Emmett's top ten: CELINE & JULIE GO BOATING JOHNNY GUITAR WAGON MASTER SHANGHAI EXPRESS PLAYTIME Z WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES AU HASARD BALTHASAR STRAY DOGS SINGIN' IN THE RAIN Sam's top ten: SAMBIZANGA TROPICAL MALADY EUROPA (1933) ASH IS PUREST WHITE YOU, THE LIVING THE CHRONICLE OF ANNA MAGDALENA BACH BARBARA AMERICAN TORSO DIAMONDS OF THE NIGHT LA COMMUNE, PARIS 1871 Episode Art by Sam The Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time Critics' Poll 2022: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time The Directors' Poll: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/directors-100-greatest-films-all-time — Subscribe to Film Graze on your podcast app of choice, and leave us a positive rating and review if you enjoy the show. twitter.com/FilmGraze letterboxd.com/Film_Graze/ instagram.com/film.graze/ Produced by Emmett Cruddas

This episode takes the form of a trip around all the corners of London (besides the West), revisiting the highlights of 2022’s calendar of rep screenings, film clubs, retrospectives, festivals and rescorings in an attempt to prove we haven’t not been participating in film culture while the podcast feed’s been a little quiet. Inside are looks at a bunch of old favourites, new discoveries and some wild programming. Featuring a cover of 'Big Railroad Blues’ by Cannon’s Jug Stompers (arr. The Grateful Dead) Institutions visited: The BFI Southbank The Garden Cinema Sands Films Kennington Bioscope The 5 to 9 Film Club The Barbican The Goethe Institute Godardmageddon The Prince Charles Cinema Picturehouse Cinemas Screenings Discussed: Shoot the Piano Player The Last Metro Jules et Jim Wings of Desire Alice in the Cities Mothra The Baby of Macon The Draughtsmans Contract Satantango Werckmeister Harmonies A Brighter Summer Day La Regle Du Jeu All That Jazz Les Vacances de m Hulot The Scarlet Empress Make Way For Tomorrow Every Revolution is a Roll Of The Dice Sicilia! Six Bagatelles The Death of Empendocles Cezanne Les Carabiniers Something Different Okraina Divine Street Scene Ball of Fire Les Affaires Publiques Foolish Wives The Wedding March Dragnet Girl The Gold Diggers Destiny Vampyr Casque D’Or The Mother and the Whore The Grateful Dead: Tivolis Koncertsal 04/17/72 Episode Art by Sam — Subscribe to Film Graze on your podcast app of choice, and leave us a positive rating and review if you enjoy the show. twitter.com/FilmGraze letterboxd.com/Film_Graze/ instagram.com/film.graze/ Produced by Emmett Cruddas

For the first in an end-of-year extravaganza of episodes, we're back to discuss the work of legendary Chilean documentary filmmaker Patricio Guzman.  Active since the early '70s, Guzman started out as a chronicler of the Allende years, capturing the right-wing backlash and subsequent coup on camera before going into a decades-long exile in Europe. Since then, his films have dealt almost exclusively with the painful memory of the junta and its victims, the violent injustices of the Pinochet years and the condition of his homeland, turning away from the conventional third-cinema documentary form of his early work towards something increasingly poetic, metaphorical and personal. With Guzman's latest film, MY IMAGINARY COUNTRY, having its UK premiere at LFF 2022, and THE CORDILLERA OF DREAMS (the final part of a trilogy alongside NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT and THE PEARL BUTTON) also going on general release this year, we (belatedly) take the opportunity to appraise his seminal filmography. Featuring covers of Victor Jara's El Cigarrito (Sam) and Manifesto (Emmett) Episode art by Sam.  FILMOGRAPHY The Battle of Chile (1975-79) Chile: Obstinate Memory (1997) Galaxy of Problems (2010) Nostalgia For The Light (2010) The Pearl Button (2015) The Cordillera of Dreams (2019) My Imaginary Country (2022) BIBLIOGRAPHY  Patricio Guzman, 'Politics and Documentary in People's Chile' (1977) in Cinema and social change in Latin America: conversations with filmmakers, ed. Julianne Burton (Austin, 1986). Inez Hedges, 'Obstinate Memory: Chris Marker's and Patricio Guzman's Pictures for a Revolution' in World Cinema and Cultural Memory (2015) Paula Lagos Labbé, 'Political and Affective Shifts in Contemporary Chilean Documentary' in Chilean Cinema in the Twenty-First Century, eds. Carl Fischer and Vania Barraza (Detroit, 2020) Belinda Small, 'Rethinking the Human, Rethinking the Essay Film: The Ecocritical Work of The Pearl Button' in Beyond the essay film: subjectivity, textuality, and technology, ed. Julia Vassilieva and Deane Williams (Amsterdam, 2020) Valeria Valenzuela, 'Giro subjetivo en el documental latinoamericano: De la cámara-puño al sujeto-cámara' (2011), https://www.lafuga.cl/giro-subjetivo-en-el-documental-latinoamericano/439 — Subscribe to Film Graze on your podcast app of choice, and leave us a positive rating and review if you enjoy the show. twitter.com/FilmGraze letterboxd.com/Film_Graze/ instagram.com/film.graze/ Produced by Sam Storey and Emmett Cruddas

We’re not the only ones grazing for this episode as we take a look at an intriguing new trend in cinema: the proliferance of feature-length ‘observational’ documentaries about livestock. Victor Kossakovsky’s GUNDA (2021) and Andrea Arnold’s COW (2021) wring tension, drama and political impetus out of paying £15 to watch a farm animal’s daily life projected 60-feet tall with strikingly different aesthetic approaches, prompting us to revisit a true classic of our time in Michelangelo Frammartino’s Hircine masterpiece LE QUATTRO VOLTE (2010), as well as other cinematic precedents by Georges Franju, Robert Bresson and Béla Tarr. Frammartino’s new film IL BUCO, his first in twelve years and a truly awe-inspiring development of his style, previewed at the London Film Festival last year and will be released by New Wave Films on June 10th. The soundtrack features a cover of ‘Reincarnation’ by Roger Miller. Select filmography: Cow (2021) Gunda (2020) Le Quattro Volte (2010) The Metamorphosis of Birds (2020) The Turin Horse (2011) River (2021) Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) Le Sang des bêtes (1949) Subscribe to Film Graze on your podcast app of choice and leave us a positive rating and review if you enjoy the show. twitter.com/FilmGraze letterboxd.com/Film_Graze/ instagram.com/film.graze/ Produced by Sam Storey

Apichatpong ‘Joe’ Weerasethekul’s new film MEMORIA is the latest piece of an absolutely essential filmography, one that walks in multiple realities, exploring national and personal memory with distinct humour, poetry and a truly transcendental style. It’s also his first feature shot outside his native north-eastern Thailand, and features an all-time great performance from god of cinema/Film Graze bete noire Tilda Swinton. We look at Joe’s entire oeuvre going back to MYSTERIOUS OBJECT AT NOON, in a conversation encompassing his gallery work, approach to genre, sublime music taste and affinity with hospitals. We also try to situate his work within the larger contexts of both Thai and international cinema (including filmmakers like Bruce Bailie and Anocha Suwichakornpong) and touch upon state censorship and the ways in which Thai filmmakers in the past and present grapple with their national history and contemporary political landscape(s). With discussions of films of endless depth like TROPICAL MALADY and UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES, tune in to find out why Emmett has wanted to do this episode since before the podcast began and exactly how far under their spell Sam fell. The soundtrack includes Phil Graves’ covers of ‘Love Is A Song’ by DJ Soulscape, ‘Reincarnation’ by Roger Miller, ‘I Would Hurt A Fly’ by Built To Spill and selections from the score to Mekong Hotel. Films Discussed: Mysterious Object At Noon (2000) Blissfully Yours (2002) The Adventure of Iron Pussy (2003) Tropical Malady (2003) Syndromes and a Century (2006) Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) Mekong Hotel (2013) Cemetery of Splendour (2015) Memoria (2021) Subscribe to Film Graze on your podcast app of choice and leave us a positive rating if you enjoy the show. twitter.com/FilmGraze letterboxd.com/Film_Graze/ instagram.com/film.graze/ Co-produced by Emmett Cruddas and Sam Storey

With 'Licorice Pizza' out in cinemas and being met with a resolutely split-down-the-middle audience reception, we look at the career of one of the most significant American filmmakers of our lifetimes - Paul Thomas Anderson - featuring several absolute classics like The Master, Magnolia and Inherent Vice. This episode features the first and only use of the word 'talented' on the Film Graze Podcast as we reckon with the San Fernando Valley's favourite son's disconcertingly accomplished juvenalia, the influence of Robert Altman on his entire body of work and his collaborations with some of the most acclaimed musicians of our time like Fiona Apple, Joanna Newsom and Radiohead. Films discussed: The Dirk Diggler Story (1988) Cigarettes and Coffee (1993) Hard Eight (1996) Boogie Nights (1997) Magnolia (1999) Punch-Drunk Love (2002) There Will Be Blood (2007) The Master (2012) Inherent Vice (2014) Junun (2015) Phantom Thread (2017) Licorice Pizza (2021) Big thank you to Martin O'Dea of https://hungrysandwich.club/ for our new logo and graphics!! The soundtrack includes Phil Graves' covers of 'Etude Op. 10, No. 3 ('No Other Love')' by Frederic Chopin, 'Let Me Roll It' by Paul McCartney & Wings, 'He Needs Me' by Harry Nilsson, 'Journey Through The Past' and 'Harvest' by Neil Young and '(I'd Like To Get You On A) Slow Boat To China' by Frank Loesser. Subscribe to Film Graze on your podcast app of choice and give us a positive rating/review if you enjoy the show. Film Graze 041 on the films of Apichatpong Weerasethekul coming soon. twitter.com/FilmGraze letterboxd.com/Film_Graze/ instagram.com/film.graze/ co-produced by Emmett Cruddas and Sam Storey

We’re back with another historical episode, this time casting our gaze back onto the distant cinema of 2021... Yes, this is the one where we get to talk about everything we didn’t get the chance to last year (as well as revisiting some things we did), in a chat which stretches from Tsai Ming Liang’s DAYS to ARSÈNE WENGER: INVINCIBLE. While neither of us had or have seen the new Spiderman film, we do discuss, however fleetingly, such blockbuster treats as DUNE and BOND, Sir Ridley Scott’s duo of dramas THE LAST DUEL and HOUSE OF GUCCI, alongside arthouse favourites like Andreas Fontana’s AZOR and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s DRIVE MY CAR. Featuring covers of ‘American Tterroristt’ (RXK Nephew) from Emmett and ‘Estilo Pampaneo’ (Abel Fleury), ‘Drive My Car’ (Eiko Ishibashi) and ‘I’m An Accompanist’ (Sparks) from Sam. Subscribe to Film Graze on your podcast app of choice and leave us a positive rating if you enjoy the show. Filmography: Annette (dir. Leos Carax) Arsène Wenger: Invincible (dir. Gabriel Clarke and Christian Jeanpierre) Azor (dir. Andreas Fontana) Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (dir. Radu Jude) Bad Trip (dir. Kitao Sakurai) C’mon C’Mon (dir. Mike Mills) Cry Macho (dir. Clint Eastwood) Days (dir. Tsai Ming Liang) Drive My Car (dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi) Dune (dir. Denis Villeneuve) Europa (dir. Stefan and Franciszka Themerson) First Cow (dir. Kelly Reichardt) House of Gucci (dir. Ridley Scott) Limbo (dir. Ben Sharock) Martin Eden (dir. Pietro Marcello) No Time to Die (dir. Cary Joji Fukunaga) Petite Maman (dir. Celine Sciamma) PVT Chat (dir. Ben Hozie) Spencer (dir. Pablo Larraín) State Funeral (dir. Sergei Loznitsa) Summer of Soul (dir. Questlove) The Card Counter (dir. Paul Schrader) The French Dispatch (dir. Wes Anderson) The Green Knight (dir. David Lowery) The Last Duel (dir. Ridley Scott) The Power of the Dog (dir. Jane Campion) The Velvet Underground (dir. Todd Haynes) Undine (dir. Christian Petzold) Uppercase Print (dir. Radu Jude) West Side Story (dir. Steven Spielberg) Zola (dir. Janicza Bravo) twitter.com/FilmGraze letterboxd.com/Film_Graze/ instagram.com/film.graze/ Produced by Emmett Cruddas

For our final episode of 2021 we're going back to 1921 one more time for a look at American cinema 100 years ago! We discuss enduring classics like Charlie Chaplin's THE KID alongside other key comedies by the likes of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Max Linder, films by D.W. Griffith (ORPHANS OF THE STORM), Henry King (TOL'ABLE DAVID) and Lois Weber (THE BLOT), the star power of Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Rudolph Valentino, left-wing filmmaking, the one supposedly ‘avant-garde’ American film of 1921 (MANHATTA), a plethora of lost and forgotten films, 'international cinema' in the US and much more! Recommended reading includes: Kevin Brownlow, 'The Parades Gone By…' (1968) Ibid, 'Behind the Mask of Innocence' (1990) and there are quotes read out from Steven J. Ross, 'Working Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America' (1998) Filmography: A Daughter of the Law (dir. Grace Cunard) A Sailor-Made Man (dir. Harold Lloyd and Fred C. Newmayer) Action (dir. John Ford) Dream Street (dir. D.W. Griffith) Hard Luck (dir. Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline) I Do (dir. Harold Lloyd and Fred C. Newmayer) Manhatta (dir. Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler) Never Weaken (dir. Harold Lloyd and Fred C. Newmayer) Orphans of the Storm (dir. D.W. Griffith) Seven Years Bad Luck (dir. Max Linder) The Ace of Hearts (dir. Wallace Worseley) The Blot (dir. Lois Weber) The Boat (dir. Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline) The Contrast (dir. Guy Hedlund) The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (dir. Rex Ingram) The Goat (dir. Keaton and Edward F. Cline) The Idle Class (dir. Chaplin) The Kid (dir. Chaplin) The Love Light (dir. Frances Marion) The Lucky Dog (dir. Jess Robins) The New Disciple (dir. Ollie Sellers) The Play House (dir. Keaton and Edward F. Cline) The Sheik (dir. George Melford) The Sky Pilot (dir. King Vidor) The Three Musketeers (dir. Fred Niblo) The Wallop (dir. John Ford) Tol'able David (dir. Henry King) The soundtrack includes covers of ‘100 Years Ago’ by the Rolling Stones and ‘Lonesome Road Blues’ from Emmett, and an accordion interpretation of ‘1921’ by the Who from Sam. Subscribe to Film Graze on your podcast app of choice and please give us a positive rating/review if you enjoy the show. twitter.com/FilmGraze letterboxd.com/Film_Graze instagram.com/film.graze Produced by Sam Storey

We’re delighted to be joined this episode by Mehelli Modi, founder of legendary arthouse label Second Run DVD, for a wide-ranging conversation about the love of film. We chat about some recent and upcoming Second Run releases, including such gems as Zbyněk Brynych’s …AND THE FIFTH HORSEMAN IS FEAR (1965) and Zoltán Fábri majestic romantic drama MERRY-GO-ROUND (1956), Mehelli shares some wonderful stories about working with such Film Graze Faves as Tsai Ming-liang, Miklós Jancsó and Béla Tarr, we discuss access to international cinema in the twentieth century and the present, the idea of the documentary, the dimensions of the Czech New Wave and much more! The cover photo is from ...AND THE FIFTH HORSEMAN IS FEAR. Visit the Second Run DVD site below to see the details of their ever-growing catalogue of treasures: https://www.secondrundvd.com/browse2.html And check out their webstore here: https://secondrundvd.ecwid.com/ Subscribe to Film Graze on your podcast app of choice and please leave us a positive rating/review if you enjoy the pod. twitter.com/FilmGraze letterboxd.com/Film_Graze/ instagram.com/film.graze/ Produced by Sam Storey

This week we catch up on some festival viewings over the last couple of months and get to graze on the work of some of our favourite filmmakers. From the London Film Festival, we discuss the presentation of Stefan and Franciszka Themerson's EUROPA (1931), an extraordinary Polish avant-garde short long thought lost after its confiscation by the Nazis, and Sam reviews Radu Jude's hilarious and timely new feature BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN (2021). Next, Emmett reports on Tsai Ming-Liang's long-awaited return to feature filmmaking with the mesmeric DAYS (2020), presented at the Queer East Film Festival. We then discuss the programme at this year's Japanese Avant-garde and Experimental Film Festival, including Shuji Terayama's BOXER (1977), Tatsumi Kumashiro’s LOVERS ARE WET (1973) and Kon Ichikawa's TOKYO OLYMPIAD (1965), before rounding things up with a look back on the recent presentation of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet's FROM THE CLOUD TO THE RESISTANCE (1979) at the Institut Francais as part of the Open City Documentary Festival. With covers of 'Days' by the Kinks and the theme from 'Boxer' by J.A. Seazer. Subscribe to Film Graze on your podcast app of choice and please leave us a positive rating/review if you enjoy the pod. twitter.com/FilmGraze letterboxd.com/Film_Graze/ instagram.com/film.graze/ Produced by Sam Storey