Review: Cinema Rediscovered 2018 – Cinema Walk

The third edition of Cinema Rediscovered festival has recently come to a close. Its mission every year since 2016 is to re-examine and re-evaluate cinema history and bring it to modern audiences. The Cinema Walk is a stalwart part of the festival’s programme, a two hour trip through the city centre featuring and examining hidden artefacts and landmarks that comprises Bristol’s cinematic heritage. Considering Bristol’s recent success in becoming a UNESCO City Of Film, it’s important to look beneath the surface and understand how the city has contributed to film and television over the last 130 years or so.

Commemorative plaque for William Friese-Greene, an inventor and travelling showman, who was born in Bristol

The Friday tour set off from the Watershed just after 10am, and the group made its way over to Bristol Cathedral for its first stop. Dr Peter Walsh was our guide; a freelance editor and researcher who works alongside the Watershed and is part of the programming and curating team for the festival, as well as the co-founder of South West Silents. He took the time to mention the innumerable films and televisions show that have utilised College Green and the Cathedral for filming locations, such as Wolfe Hall, Skins and Doctor Who. He also revealed that a surprising number of films had actually been screened within the Cathedral itself, thanks to the convergence of brilliantly bad films and the Church in one Tim Popple, a co-founder of Bristol Bad Film Club who now works for the Cathedral as a Lay Clerk. The Terminator was one of the recent films screened there, thanks to a particularly on-point analysis of the film as an analogy of the Immaculate Conception. The Medusa Touch, which was partly filmed at Bristol Cathedral, was also recently screened there and the screening featured a real-life ‘demon’ bursting forth from the rafters. All this, according to Peter, is a way to show that anywhere can be a cinema, and looking at film in such a way can help broaden our view on cinema-going and cinephilia.

College Green, where scenes of Skins were frequently filmed back in the 2000s

We also made our way to the Cary Grant statue in Millennium Square. Grant was born and raised in Bristol, and a documentary about his connection with the city and his lesser-known private life, Becoming Cary Grant, had its English premiere at last year’s Cinema Rediscovered.

The tour put a lot of emphasis on just how many films and TV shows have been filmed in Bristol, not necessarily because the stories are set in Bristol, but because it is a great city landscape to use as a backdrop. I couldn’t believe I never knew that Only Fools and Horses, famously set in Peckham, was filmed almost entirely in Bristol! And it’s not only about using the urban landscape, the Redcliffe Caves was used as a stand-in for Mars for the filming of an episode of Doctor Who during Peter Capaldi’s tenure, thanks to the famously red rock of the caves’ interior. The most fascinating part for me was when we got to Castle Park, and Peter explained that before World War II there were four or five enormous and grand cinemas in the area when it used to be the city centre, one of which had a colossal 1200-seat capacity. All of these cinemas were lost when the area came under heavy bombing raids during the War, and it was heartbreaking to learn that such an incredible hub of popular culture and cinema was wiped out in the space of one night.

Since the post-war recovery, the city has continued to expand its film culture, and we stopped at the bottom of the Christmas Steps to hear about 20th Century Flicks, the video and DVD rental shop which, since its move from Clifton, currently boasts a private screening room for birthdays and events, and the staff have an encyclopaedic knowledge of their film selection. Places and organisations such as this are a reminder that despite the city’s historic cultural losses, cinema and cinephilia continues to flourish and grow in the 21st century.

The Christmas Steps, the new home of 20th Century Flicks video and DVD rental shop

The tour was a great chance to see and hear about the lesser-known history of Bristol’s connection with cinema from an incredibly knowledgable and friendly guide. Peter said at the end that he hopes to soon be able to give regular walking tours outside of the festival, for tourists and locals who are interested. It would be a great addition to the current educational tours of this grand old city.

Further information about Peter’s work can be found at www.facebook.com/SouthWestSilents and www.twitter.com/swsilents, and general enquiries can be sent to southwestsilents@gmail.com