Directors on Directors: Olivia Wilde & Emerald Fennell

While on the hunt for some cultural podcasts to explore, I stumbled on this conversation posted to Variety earlier this month, in which directors Emerald Fennell (A Promising Young Woman) and Olivia Wilde (Booksmart) praise each other's work and compare notes on directing. I found it so fascinating to hear their experiences of being in the director's chair and doing it their way. 

While my own directing has been limited to shorts and no-budget work, I had a spark of recognition in hearing them say how unhelpful the paradigm of the tortured tyrant as director is. Why not be more egalitarian? Listen to suggestions? Keep the actors in the loop of the shoot? It all makes a lot of sense. They also have their own quirks and interest in details which is what makes work personal. As Wilde says at the end, "Be weird, be bold, make it yours." 

BFI Flare launch

As with everything else screen-related over the last year, Flare's annual launch went online. So, no programmes or cake presentation, but the usual montage of clips from the films was screened. I was a bit late getting to the correct Facebook page, as it was not well sign-posted, but did see some familiar faces presenting the clips. The key points are that the festival will screen this year on the BFI Player and all the shorts will be free. 

I have had a nose through the online programme and am quite excited about the long awaited world premiere of Rebel Dykes, a post-punk documentary which has been offering WIP screenings for some years now at conferences. Other docs focus on Billy Tipton and Gloria Allen. Biopics on Tove Jansson and Rainer Werner Fassbinder are also in the mix. And the late Cloris Leachman stars in Jump, Darling, which sounds intriguing. 

Here is the festival trailer.

The Botanical Mind: Art, Mysticism and The Cosmic Tree online

 One of the many casualties of the COVID crisis was this exhibit, scheduled to open last year at Camden Arts Centre in London. However, the gallery grasped the opportunity to move the exhibit online and indeed reflect on how its themes resonate in this peculiar time we are living through. 

Indeed, why wouldn't you reflect on how nature forms patterns, how it perseveres, how the living world operates through an interaction of plants and animals? There is much to unpack in these concepts. This introductory video introduces many of the concepts and there are also playlists and podcasts on the exhibit website. 

Pauline Boty's Nightmare

 While I have been in lockdown I have kept myself busy taking online courses, the most recent of which included Pop Art and Modern Sculpture. It was in the former that I made the acquaintance of the incredible talent that was Pauline Boty. A new name to me, she blazed brilliantly and briefly in the 1960s, creating striking Pop Art paintings that satirised sexual mores of the time, while also acting and broadcasting. Sadly, she died at 28 in 1966.

Like so many women artists Boty's star ebbed after her death and her paintings languished in family barns for many years awaiting rediscovery by discerning critics. 

This video is an excerpt from a documentary by Ken Russell and features music by Delia Derbyshire.