Sunday 25th July - Saturday 31st July 2010
E-mail: enquiry@holtsummerfestival.org
Monday 26th – Friday 30th July
8.00pm – Railway Tavern, Holt – Bar open from 7.00pm and after screenings
Tickets £5 Sponsored by NFU Mutual
Artistic Director Tony Britten explains the thinking behind this year’s cinema programme:
“For this year’s Festival cinema I have again turned to classical music and its important place in the film language. When I decided to feature composers on film I was surprised to find so many examples, ranging from the inspiring to the risible. Narrowing the field to British composers, it was clear that there was still a wide choice – I have chosen films I admire; three are dramas and two, documentaries.”
Director Tony Palmer will attend the screening on Wednesday 28th July and I look forward to our public conversation directly after this event.
Holt Summer Festival gratefully acknowledges the generous hospitality of Tony Groom from The Railway Tavern, in allowing the festival to take over the recently refurbished function room for the Festival Cinema.
Monday 26th July
Toward the Unknown Region
Malcolm Arnold – a story of survival
Director Tony Palmer, 132 minutes
Malcolm Arnold was the last survivor of an extraordinary generation of British composers – Britten, Walton and Tippett, who dominated the international musical landscape in the last half of the twentieth century. Arnold was dogged by mental instability and alcoholism and, later in life increasingly sidelined by a BBC in pursuit of all things avant garde. Nevertheless, he succeeded in producing a vast amount of superlative music of all forms and was loved and admired by musicians and audiences alike.
Tony Palmer does not shirk the darker side of Sir Malcolm’s life in this fine documentary film, but it is ultimately an inspiring and uplifting story. I first saw “Toward the Unknown Region” at a packed Royal Festival Hall screening and had a moving and absorbing evening. Part commissioned by the now defunct South Bank Show it was the only time that a film of this nature was broadcast over two consecutive weeks on ITV – a testament to its importance.
Tuesday 27th July
Delius – Song of Summer
Director Ken Russell, 72 minutes (black and white)
Ken Russell is often derided for his feature film excesses – derision, I may say, that is generally motivated by a sort of tight arsed, British lack of filmic ambition. But no-one can deny that Russell’s dramatic portrait of Delius is anything less than an exquisite and perfect example of the filmmaker’s art. Made in 1968 and based on the memoir of Delius’s amanuensis, Eric Fenby, it was perhaps the finest of the many fine music and arts films to come out of the BBC’s seminal “Monitor” arts strand.
The editor of Monitor was the justly revered Huw Wheldon, who presided over a group of young Turks that included Russell, John Schlesinger, Humphrey Burton and Melvyn Bragg. All were actively encouraged and enabled to make films across the whole breadth of the arts that were intended “to make the popular good and the good popular”. This Reithian notion that one should educate as well as entertain was perhaps at its most potent during this period. Even allowing for the rose-tinted spectacles that all arts filmmakers are accustomed to wearing, it might be instructive for the present music and arts man.
Wednesday 28th July
A Time There Was – Benjamin Britten
Director Tony Palmer, 103 minutes
Tony Palmer will be attending tonight’s screening and will join Artistic Director, Tony Britten, for a short public conversation immediately after the screening. Naturally we anticipate a full house for this important event, so it is worth booking your tickets and pre-show suppers well in advance.
It is no surprise that Tony Palmer features in three out of the five festival cinema evenings – to date he has made over a hundred arts films, from the huge “Wagner” and “All You Need is Love” projects to his lovingly researched and filmed composer profiles. Made in 1979, “A Time There Was” won the Prix Italia and is a deeply moving and engaging study of an extraordinary composer.And extraordinary is an understatement – actually I would say he was a genius. When I was studying at the Royal College of Music in the seventies, there was a perception among some of my more unenlightened professors that Britten was in some way a little lightweight – perhaps a little too popular? I never understood this – surely “Peter Grimes” alone made him world class, yet alone the War Requiem, his conducting, his piano playing...? Nowadays his reputation is secure and his gifts fully appreciated, so it seems entirely appropriate to honour this ex-Gresham’s boy with an evening of celebration and discussion with his film biographer.
Thursday 29th July
Peter Warlock – Some Little Joy
Director Tony Britten, 88 minutes
There will be a short Q&A with the Director immediately after the screening.
I am going to justify the inclusion of my film drama about the eccentric composer Peter Warlock by cheekily quoting a review by one of the doyens of music criticism, Richard Osborne: “The best thing of its kind since Ken Russell’s Delius”. Alright, it was a review in The Oldie, not The Times, but I was pleased that Richard picked up on the Delius connection, because that film was certainly a big inspiration when it came to writing “Some Little Joy”.
I have loved Warlock’s music since I sang the carols as a boy treble, conducted the Capriol Suite as an adolescent and battled with the songs as a singing student at the Royal College of Music. When I discovered that Philip Heseltine, (Warlock was a pseudonym) led a life that more or less re-defined hedonism and committed suicide in 1930 at the age of thirty six, I knew I had to make the film. I even named my production company, which is based here in Holt, Capriol Films! I also knew that the film had to be a drama – a documentary probably couldn’t reflect the emotional and behavioural excesses that characterised Warlock’s short but celebrated life. I hope I have done him justice.
Friday 30th July
Henry Purcell – England, My England
Director Tony Palmer, 152 minutes
This multi-layered piece was the last work by John Osborne and finished by his friend Charles Wood after Osborne’s untimely death. The device takes us backwards and forwards from the dressing room at the Royal Court Theatre which Osborne had inhabited as a jobbing actor to the time of Purcell, taking in the many parallels between the two periods. Simon Callow relishes the dual roles of the Osborne figure and King Charles II and a very young Michael Ball is extremely impressive in a rare big screen outing as Purcell.
The film is beautifully photographed by long time Palmer colleague, Nic Knowland and contains wonderful performances by actors such as John Shrapnell, John Fortune, Robert Stephens and Rebecca Front, as well as a delightful cameo by producer Bill Kenwright playing – Bill Kenwright! And don’t be put off by the two and a half hour running time, I can assure you that the opportunity to experience singing from people such as Lynn Dawson, James Bowman, Nancy Argenta and local star Michael Chance will leave you wanting more at 10.30!