1940's Wartime blitz swing party

photo © me

London in the 1920s.

I just came across this film. It's beautifully shot and the colours are remarkable for its time. This section of the film is from a bigger piece which captures a journey across Britain, ending up in London. It was made in 1927 by Claude Friese-Greene (cinematographer and son of moving-image pioneer William) who used an experimental biocolour process to produce it.

It's interesting to think back to the events of this period - The Great War had finished 9 years before, and I imagine nobody was really expecting there to be a second World War. Women still did not have suffrage - this came one year after the film was made.

There are so many contrasting scenes throughout - with images of the Thames, the Tower of London, Greenwich Observatory, the London docks, Whitehall, the Cenotaph, Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park, Marble Arch, Petticoat Lane, the Oval, the Changing of the Guard, Rotten Row, and the Houses of Parliament.

I adore the romantic visions of Hyde Park (04:47 mins in), contrasting with the hustle and bustle of the 'gentlemen' on Petticoat Lane (05:59) and the sweet scene of little children packing the roasted peanuts into tiny paper bags (06:52 mins in).

The BFI had recently restored this video using digital intermediate technology to remove the technical defects of the original.

There is more information on the BFI website, here

Having a Seizure

I went back to the exhibition 'Seizure' today, just a couple of days before it is finished for good. I first went after it opened in September 2009 - Al took me there when we got back from ATP NY and wanted something fun and positive in London to look at post-NY depression. We met up in Elephant & Castle and I had no idea where we were going, and soon enough we were walking through a derelict estate on Harper Road. I still had no idea what to expect when we arrived at the dreary social housing. First of all we had to queue to get into one flat, to swap our shoes for welly boots, which was exciting but also made me nervous. What exactly was I getting myself into? Next we queued outside the exhibition itself, and it was then that I stepped into another world.
All around me were blue crystals. Everything I touched, everywhere I looked, were blue crystals. It was exciting but freaky. I felt out of my comfort zone, it was like stepping onto a new planet when I never knew of it's existence.

Re-visiting the project today was exciting again. This time I was prepared (and sadly there was no welly boot experience, just a one hour queue into the main exhibit) and I was looking forward to getting back in. It didn't disappoint.

There are only two days left before this exhibition closes and the site is demolished, I would definitely visit before it's too late!


All photos © me

Federico García Lorca

I am in Granada again this Christmas visiting my sister and brother-in-law, and today I walked up to the majestic palace of Alhambra. On my walk down I came across some small cafes and little shops, and it was there I came across some more postcards to rival the already beautiful images of Granada and flamenco dancers that I found yesterday at another little shop near my sister's house. The postcards I found were of this captivating young man that just looked back at me so elegantly and with such style I just needed to learn more about him. I asked my sister who he was, and she said he was a famous gay poet from Granada; Federico García Lorca. 

(below left) Salvador Dalí y Federico García 
Lorca  - Cadaqués, Girona 1927
On further research at home, I found out he was in fact possibly the most important Spanish poet and dramatist of the twentieth century. He was a member of the 'Generation of 1927', a group of writers who advocated avant-gardism in literature. He worked on film productions alongside Dalí and Louis Buñuel, forming a strong and passionate friendship with Dalí, which then led to Dalí refusing these advances. He later interpreted that Dalí and Buñuel's short film Un Chien Andalou (1928) was based on him, which he saw as an attack upon himself, and his homosexuality.

Sadly, García Lorca was assassinated by Nationalist militia a month after the Spanish Civil War broke out, in August 1936. It is thought the motives of his death were due to his left-wing views, Republican sympathies and homosexuality - all of which made him a target for followers of Franco at the start of the civil war.

His place of rest is still unknown, although it was presumed he was placed beside a winding mountain road that connects the villages of Viznar and Alfácar. Archaeologists from Granada started to excavate the grave just a couple of months ago, in October. Sadly, only a week ago nothing was found, and so they gave up the search, failing to find his grave. The mystery remains unsolved.

 

"You will never understand that I love you/ because you sleep in me and are asleep./I hide you, weeping, persecuted/ by a voice of penetrating steel."
-  Sonetos del Amor Oscuro, Federico García Lorca

Postcards from Granada

Secret Cinema presents: Bugsy Malone

A Rose-Coloured Life

Eyes which (make love to) (kiss) mine,
A laugh that is lost from his mouth,
This is the portrait, without retouching,
Of the man to whom I belong.