THE OFFICIALDAILY GUIDETHURSDAY 17 FEBRUARY

WHAT’S INSIDE?

GFF BOX OFFICEOrder tickets from the box office atwww.glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk

or call0141 332 6535

or visitGlasgow Film Theatre12 Rose Street, Glasgow, G3 6RB

info@glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk

2 » PICKS OF THE DAYHighlights of day one at GFF11

2 » INTERVIEW: ALEX SMOKEDJ Alex Smoke scores Murnau’s 1926 epic Faust

3 » REVIEWSHowl The Deer Hunter Waste Land

4 » WHAT’S NEW ONLINEBlogs on the spine-tingling The Tingler and the GFF Great Scots strand, plus the best tweets about #GFF11

4 » COMPETITIONSWin tickets to Waste Land and the GSFF Naomi Kawase Focus. Questions courtesy of the lovely people over atQuotabl.es

Produced by The Skinny magazine in association with the Glasgow Film Festival

Editors Jamie Dunn Becky BartlettDesigner Mark Tolson

SPONSORS

LAYERS OF OZONGlasgow Film Festival continues its French cinema love affair with opening gala Potiche

After last year’s riotous opening gala Micmacs, Glasgow Film Festival continues its auld alliance with our cousins across the channel by bring-ing you Potiche, a perfume scented romp from François Ozon.

Ozon is one of those directors who madden subscribers to la politique des Auteurs. Like British anti-auteur-ist film-makers Michael Winterbot-tom and Stephen Frears, his eclectic output defies categorisation. His first three features gave him a reputation as a provocateur: 1998’s Sitcom was a kind of Pasolini pastiche in which a pet rat turns a sexually repressed bourgeois household into a sweaty den of debauchery; Criminal Lovers (1999) crossed a lovers-on-the-lam yarn with The Brothers Grimm; and Water Drops on Burning Rocks (2000) saw him channel New German Cinema firecracker Rainer Werner Fassbinder. On the surface all are very different, but they share a focus on characters with fluid sexualities, and all feature an abundance of naked flesh, particularly male. He was quickly dubbed the new enfant

terrible of French cinema.His next three pictures confounded

auteurism further by focusing on the fairer sex. Under the Sand (2000) and Swimming Pool (2003), respectively a gravely serious melodrama and nutty comic thriller, featured his muse, Charlotte Rampling, while he enlisted an octet of French actresses in 8 Women (2002), including Cath-erine Deneuve, star of Potiche, to create a sardonic musical-whodunit in the style of Vincente Minnelli. With more recent films such as Ricky (2009), Angel (2007) and 5x2 (2004), he continues to play with genres and themes.

So what will he offer up tonight with Potiche? That would be telling, but with French cinema greats Deneuve, who looks as luminous as she did in her 60s and 70s heyday, and Gérard Dépardieu on board it is sure to be a entertaining opening to this year’s festival. [Jamie Dunn]

Find the CineSkinny in the GFT foyer and in other venues throughout the city to keep up to date with all things GFF.

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WhaT’s insiDe?

Gff bOx OfficeOrder tickets from the box office at

www.glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk

or call 0141 332 6535

or visitGlasgow Film Theatre

12 Rose Street, Glasgow, G3 6RB

info@glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk

2 » TOmOrrOW’s picksOur highlights of tomorrow’s films and events

2 » mexicO spOTliGhTA glimpse into the films in the Mexican strand

3 » revieWsChiko Johnny Mad Dog Elevator

4 » WhaT’s neW OnlineCheck out our online blog as well as exciting reviews, club coverage and fun stuff

4 » cheGGereD pasTMichael Gillespie talks Shakespeare, Britflicks and Keith Chegwin

4 » QuizYou can win 2 tickets to The Burning Plain

The cineskinny

Produced by The Skinny magazine in association with the Glasgow Film Festival

eDiTOrs Gail Tolley Michael GillespielayOuT Eve McConnachie

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Happy Birthday! Jonathan melville raises a glass to an archer who always hit his target.

forget Jonas armstrong in the BBC’s recent big-on-action-but-low-on-charm Robin Hood or Kevin Costner’s earnest turn in the forget-table Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: Errol Flynn as the titular hero of The Adventures of Robin Hood did more to cement the image of England’s greatest freedom fighter – or is that terrorist? – in the minds of the public than anyone before or since. As the film’s tagline screamed, “Only the rainbow can duplicate its brilliance!”

Born on June 20 1909 in Hobart, Tasmania, Flynn started his life as a serial seducer early when he was expelled from school for allegedly being caught in flagrante with a school laundress. Following failed attempts to run a tobacco plantation and copper mine in New Guinea, Flynn came to the UK in the 1930s, where he took up acting with the Northampton Repertory Company, even stopping off in Glasgow as part of one tour.

It wasn’t until 1935 that Flynn would show his prowess at swashing his buckle in Captain Blood, the first film (out of eight) in which he would co-star with Olivia de Havilland. Soon after that he was appearing in glori-ous Technicolor in Warner Bros’ The Adventures of Robin Hood, but only after screen legend James Cagney had signed up to then quit the role.

A little bit of England was recre-ated in Hollywood for this unusu-ally extravagant production, its budget of $2 million impressive for

the time. The studio’s faith in the Aussie actor was well placed, the film earning them nearly £4 million in ticket sales.

According to film critic Roger Ebert, “Flynn shows us a Robin Hood so supremely alive that the whole adventure is a lark”. It’s hard to disagree, the sheer speed and en-thusiasm on show here are almost dizzying.

While Flynn would continue to wow audiences in movies such as The Dawn Patrol (1938) and The Adventures of Don Juan (1948), he was by now typecast in the role of the swashbuckler, one he would find impossible to escape from.

Flynn’s image would not remain that of the hero throughout his life, with an accusation of statutory rape in 1942 and a scandal surrounding his failure to enroll in the armed forces during World War II returning to haunt him. Ironically, the fact that Flynn wasn’t allowed to serve due to heart problems was kept quiet by the film studios in an at-tempt to protect his image.

Still, the image the cinema-going public were most interested in was that of the screen icon, and it’s fitting that the Glasgow Film Festival should choose to show The Adventures of Robin Hood to mark the centenary of the actor’s birth.

Forget the impostors and the try-hards and settle back to enjoy 102 minutes of pure escapism with a lead at the peak of his powers. Happy Birthday Errol!

2 THE CINESKINNY THURSDAY 17 FEBRUARY WWW.THESKINNY.CO.UK

THE DEVIL HAS THE BEST TUNES

In the German legend of Faust, the eponymous protagonist trades his soul to the Devil for eternal youth. Faust (1926), the Weimar-era masterwork from F. W. Murnau needs no such pact with Beelzebub. Where other films from the period seem ar-thritic by today’s standards, Marnau’s pictures, which include Nosferatu (1922) and Sunrise (1927), rattle along at pace and Faust in particular flows with indelible, poetic visuals, like the waves of pestilence that billow from the Prince of Darkness’ wings during the film’s special-effects laden first act. The octogenarian epic’s youth-ful vigor is one of the reasons that Glasgow based musician and DJ Alex Smoke chose it for his first foray into the black art of film scoring.

“So many of the silent-era films feel like pastiche and their origins in theatre and vaudeville are really apparent,” Smoke tells me a few days before de-buting the score at the Glasgow Film Festival. But Faust, the last German film Murnau made before being lured to Hollywood, he explains, is entirely cinematic. “It’s so foreboding – it’s made for the screen. It couldn’t pos-sibly work in any other medium. I think people are surprised when they see it. It’s much more advanced than they expect from an 1920s film.”

Smoke, who is classically trained in cello and piano, has crafted a score that is as modern and vital as Murnau’s imagery. Blending a traditional orches-tral composition with his trademark minimalist electronica, he has created a sound that he believes “compliments Faust’s dark and gothic atmosphere.” In a devilish twist, Smoke also reveals that he has secreted some contempo-rary Faustian deals within the sound-scape: “there’s a strong sound design, with political Faustian pacts woven into the score – things like Blair’s ad-dress to the Chilcot Inquiry, and our obsession with consumerism.”

According to Smoke, this blending of old and new sounds is perfect for the Faust plot as it reflects mankind’s own deal with Satan. “I associate the Devil with technology, that’s the big-gest Faustian pact of our time, if you like; we’ve traded science for religion.

So I wanted to make it so that Me-phisto [the film’s version of Old Nick] is associated with the more mechanical elements of the score and as Faust’s deal goes sour noise becomes much more chaotic.”

Unlike the other similar Film and Music events at this year’s GFF, Smoke will not be performing live dur-ing the screening. There are a couple of reasons. “It’s very complex and to assemble the full orchestra would be pretty impractical. On top of that I don’t want to be standing in front of the screen or to be a distraction. It’s not really about my performance, it’s about the film.”

Is he worried that purists will be aggrieved at a techno sound being paired with a classic? “I don’t under-stand that attitude. Murnau was some-

one who was pushing the boat out so far in terms of film modernisation and experimentation. There’s nothing wrong with someone just playing the harp or whatever but there are other approaches. The great thing about si-lent films is that the music you pair with the image can reflect current times – it brings it up to date and makes it more accessible to modern audiences.”

Smoke won’t be giving up electronic music and the dance floor just yet but this project has obviously been a labour of love. “It’s really liberating to have a whole film to work on, you can let the music roam and run wild. It’s fired my imagination.”

Does the devil really have the best tunes? Make your way to the GFT on Friday at 18.30 to find out.

[Jamie Dunn]

OPENING GALA19.30 @ GFT1Potiche. A soufflé light farce from 8 Women director Francois Ozon, starring Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu

THE DEER HUNTER13.00 @ GFT1The Meryl Streep retrospective kicks off in brutal style with MichaelCimino’s Oscar winning Vietnam film The Deer Hunter

GLASGOW, I LOVE YOU18.00 @ GSAA love letter to Glasgow featuring a programme of short films from the great city’s student community.

The Skinny CyberZapd Scotland’s top ten eventsd Every Thursdayd Direct to your inbox

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TODAY’S

PICKSGlasgow DJ Alex Smoke tells us about scoring Faust, F. W. Murnau’s epic tale of good versus evil

THURSDAY 17 FEBRUARY THE CINESKINNY 3 WWW.THESKINNY.CO.UK

REVIEWSHOWLDirectors: Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman

Allen Ginsberg was the fiery voice of a whole generation of disaffected American intellectu-als and never moreso than in his first published work, the poem Howl. Epstein and Friedman’s quirky biopic of the same name weaves between an interview with Ginsberg, his early experi-ences with men and his publish-ers’ subsequent trial for obscen-ity, interpersed with powerful and often beautiful animated sequences and spoken passages from the poem. In a time of frigid social norms and artistic censor-ship, Ginsberg had the courage

to say the unsayable. Key to the film’s success is James Franco. One of the most interesting and gifted young actors working today, he relishes unconventional roles and attacks the part with gusto. As Ginsberg, he handles the relationships with Kerouac and Orlovsky sensitively, and continues to be one to watch. Howl serves as a well-crafted and accessible introduction to one of the 20th Century’s great-est poets. Ultimately Ginsberg stood for truth above all in art and life. There’s no better fight. [Scott McKellar]

THE DEER HUNTERDirector: Michael Cimino

Long, roughly edited, and

with an almost dragging real -ism, The Deer Hunter contin -ues to resonate div is ive ly s ince i ts or ig inal 1978 re lease. Naive ly heroic, a posse of smal l -town Pennsylvanian fr iends headed by the sturdy Michael (Rober t De Niro) and his vulnerable buddy Nick (Chr istopher Walken), are catapulted abrupt ly from workaday rout ine to pr imit ive terror in V ietnam. Director Mi -chael Cimino of fers a stark v i -s ion that i l luminates everyday humdrum with pecul iar beauty when set against the horror that transpires in V ietnam’s scenic paradise. Af ter trawl ing through merr y ce lebrat ions, tranqui l Pennsy lvanian v istas and their mutual love for gi r l -nex t-door L inda (Mery l Streep), the gut-wrenching power of that roulet te scene l ies foremost in seeing the two fr iends thrust hear tbreak-ingly out of contex t. Facing death, De Niro and Walken prov ide career h ighl ights as men wrest l ing for the ir l ives and souls with in the depths of he l l . Impressive ly, Cimino manages to f luctuate involv-ingly between cynic ism and compassion in what fee ls l ike a three hour c inematic ache. [ Jul iet Buchan]

Amid the bleak surroundings of Brazil’s Jardim Gramacho, the biggest landfill in the world, director Lucy Walker finds an in-spiring true story. Her documen-tary Waste Land follows artist Vik Muniz as he embarks upon an ambitious project, recruiting a number of ‘pickers’ from the site and creating huge portraits of them from discarded materi-als. It’s fascinating to watch

this project gradually develop, but the real power of Waste Land exists in the characters Walker and Muniz find toil-ing away among mountains of garbage. The film really makes us care about the likes of Tiaõ, the charismatic head of the pickers’ association, or Isis, a heartbroken woman whose life has been marked by tragedy, and the fact that we become so

involved in their stories gives Waste Land an extraordinary emotional resonance. Pedro Kos’ editing balances these stories expertly and develops an absorbing narrative, while Moby provides a fine musical score. Waste Land is a deeply moving and genuinely uplifting experi-ence, and an irresistible ode to the transformative power of art. [Philip Concannon]

WASTE LANDDirectors: Lucy Walker, João Jardim & Karen Harley

WHAT’S NEW ONLINE?Don’t worry if you don’t manage to pick up your print copy – simply get online for your CineSkinny fix. We’ll be uploading all our reviews, interviews and features onto The Skinny’s website for your reading pleasure, www.theskinny.co.ukor you can peruse each issue at:

www.glasgowfilmfesti-val. org.uk/cineskinny

SCOTS GALOREGFF Co-director Allan Hunter celebrates some of the great Scottish cinema in store at the Festival:

http://bit.ly/h1a5Of

SKINNY FILM ON FACEBOOKBecome a fan of Skin-nyFilm on Facebook and get constant updates, sneak peeks and even the chance to get your mitts

on free tickets and party invites:

http://on.fb.me/dVW4QB

THE TINGLERHeaven help us if it were to break free, run loose in the cinema, perch on your shoulder or scuttle in between the seats of the GFT. Are you brave enough?

http://bit.ly/h0b1cv

@AidanGillenFans -

OK, NOW I can hyperventilate... OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!! #TreacleJr #GFF11

@LWLies -

Really looking forward to partying with the @glasgowfilm folks tomor-row! #glasgowfilmfestival

@awareinjustice -

Alex Smoke scores Faust @glasgow-filmfest ..yes please http://bit.ly/ePQTt6

@RobertMDuffin -

@mrmarkmillar will you be at the GFF screenings of the films you curated? If so can I pleasantly harass you to sign my copy of Kick Ass? :-)

WHAT DIDYOU THINK?

We collected four of the best tweets from Twitter

PIC OF THE DAYQUIZ TIME

4 THE CINESKINNY THURSDAY 17 FEBRUARY WWW.THESKINNY.CO.UK

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GIVEAWAY 1:Naomi Kawase 1: Father, Feb 18, 15.00 - CCAThis short film programme, the first of two from Naomi Kawase, is featured in this year’s Glasgow Short Film Festival. To win tickets to this event, simply answer the question following our quotable clue:

“You mustn’t look at a film with only one point of view.” Q1: To whom is this year’s GSFF dedicated?

GIVEAWAY 2:Waste Land, Feb 18, 18.45 - Cineworld, Renfrew StreetThis inspirational documentary about Brazilian-born artist Vik Muniz won the audience award at Sundance this year. To win tickets to see it at the GGF, simply answer the question following our quotable clue:

“Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. Fame is a by-product of doing something else.”

Q2: Last year’s GFF included Oscar-nominated film Exit Through the Gift Shop. Which famous (street) artist directed the film?

email jamie@theskinny.co.uk by 10am on Friday 18 Feb to enter.

Marco D’Agostin meets mem-bers of the Glasgow Youth Festival programming team.

Here’s the GFF Daily Quotable: “Glasgow’s a punter-friendly festival that aims to put local film fans at the heart of its concerns.”

— Jane Graham, The Guardianhttp://qtbl.es/gff1

Visit Quotables to see many more GFF quotes as the festival goes on:

http://qtbl.es/glasgowfilm