Film / Reviews
Review: Cinema Rediscovered, Watershed
It’s perhaps fitting that Cinema Rediscovered, an inaugural exploration and celebration of classic cinema, should kick off at Bristol’s cradle of film, the Watershed. Nowhere else in the city would the very fabric and essence of cinema be championed so extensively or warmly, and indeed said enthusiasm was in full flight on Thursday night with a celebration of late, great cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, veteran of the Ealing comedies and the first three Indiana Jones movies.
Following introductions from cinema curator Mark Cosgrove and BBC broadcaster Matthew Sweet, not to mention Slocombe’s former assistant turned cameraman Robin Vidgeon, it was onto The Lion in Winter itself, a rip-roaring, witty and one suspects distinctly tongue-in-cheek Oscar winner in which Slocombe’s expert blend of static distance shots and raw hand-held close-ups brilliantly complements the broiling, iconic performances from Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn, as, respectively, King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine.
No mere championing of a filmmaker or his work, this was a deeply felt meeting of minds between film lovers, one backed by partners including Bristol video shop institution 20th Century Flicks. But why now, and why Bristol? As Mark Cosgrove explains, the inspiration in fact stemmed from the near-continent, specifically Bologna film festival Il Bologna Ritrovato that he has been attending for the past several years.
is needed now More than ever
“What struck me is how they present the history of film, they treat it with enormous respect,” he says of the 30-year-old festival, “and they get huge audiences, close to 5000 people watching classics like Rebel Without a Cause.”
Yet as Mark also says, it’s not about plugging people back into a love of their favourite films but also a love of the big screen experience. “You know, people can watch films on their laptops, online, and yet there a certain films that demand to be seen on the big screen. And when you see them in the cinema, their significance is really amplified. The funny thing about film is that it doesn’t really exist until it’s on-screen in its physical state… There’s been a strong appetite from Watershed audiences to see these movies, plus a resurgent interest in restoration, so it’s for all these reasons that I thought the time was right.”
The Watershed’s five-day-long delve into classic filmmaking, which concludes on with Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, is, one hopes, the beginning of a new age of cinemagoing in Bristol, one that can stand proud with the Slapstick Festival and others as a glorious testament to the ingenuity of the city’s creative culture. It’s certainly off to a tremendous start.
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
