In memory of the great British film director, we re-launch the Alexander Mackendrick Lecture at Raindance.
 
This year, acclaimed director Terence Davies, whose films include The Long Day Closes, The Neon Bible and The House of Mirth, discusses his directing career, his cinematic influences, and his thoughts on the craft of directing.
 
The Alexander Mackendrick Lecture was created by Raindance in 2000 as a cinematic masterclass, in reflection of Mackendrick’s career both as a director and subsequently as the Dean of the Film School at the California Institute of the Arts, where his teaching methods revolutionised filmmaking education.
 
Previous participants include Stephen Frears, Kevin Macdonald, Shekhar Kapur and Nicolas Roeg.
 
The Lecture will be followed by a screening of Terence Davies’s BIFA and BAFTA nominated Of Time And The City.

Terence Davies

Raindance is delighted to welcome Terence Davies to this year’s festival. Ahead of his appearance at the Alexander Mackendrick Lecture, Jonathan Wakeham looks back at his work so far.

Terence Davies has been called many things. Eric Stoltz called him "a Tasmanian devil crossed with Doris Day". He's described himself as looking "like an avocado". But he's perhaps best known, in Mark Kermode's words, as "Britain's greatest living film director".

He is also the first Mackendrick subject to have been taught by Mackendrick himself: "It was quite wonderful: you could actually learn about rhythm and timing and where a shot dies."[i] Mackendrick was obsessed with craft — "process, not product" was his mantra — and Davies is one of the most rigorous directors working today: "I write down everything as I hear and see it in my mind — every track, pan, dissolve, crane, piece of music. So the script becomes an aide-memoire, which is why I never do a storyboard"[ii].

Mackendrick also wrote that "Cinema deals with feelings, sensations, intuitions and movement, things that communicate to audiences at a level not necessarily subject to conscious, rational comprehension"[iii], and Davies' work is a prime example of this. Most British directors photograph dialogue. Davies photographs emotion. His rapturous tracking shots, long-held close-ups and precisely chosen music can move you to tears, even as you're wondering quite how: if you've ever cried while watching carpet, you've seen a Terence Davies film.

And Mackendrick was devoted to emotional truth, the absolute heart of Davies' work: "If you're true to your subject, people recognise that. You don't have to be Austrian to love Schubert, or Russian to love Chekhov — they're true to what they felt and what they experienced."[iv] Davies' great understanding is that, to be universal, you must be specific: audiences worldwide respond to his movies not because they're gay, raised Catholic, or Liverpudlian, but because they've felt desire, shame or a longing for home.

Davies' films are unique in British cinema: deeply personal, beautifully made. So what next? His work isn't famous for its humour — when Mackendrick, after seeing Madonna and Child, was asked, "It's a gay movie, isn't it?" he replied "Not at the moment" — but Davies has a spiky wit that makes you long to see his planned romantic comedy, Mad About The Boy. There's also a movie of Sunset Song, or his adaptation of Ed McBain. But whatever his next project, Davies' movies don't belong in an art house. They belong in everyone's house, and it's a great honour to Raindance that, on October 6th, he's coming to ours.

Filmography

2008   Of Time And The City

2000   The House Of Mirth

1995   The Neon Bible

1992   The Long Day Closes

1988   Distant Voices, Still Lives

1984   The Terence Davies Trilogy: Children (1976), Madonna

And Child (1980), Death And Transfiguration (1983)