Last night I went to the closing party for Vertigo, the outstanding film magazine which has held a unique place in film writing over the last 16 years. I found myself heartbroken that the magazine should cease…come to an end…no longer be…all the ways of describing its closure felt like euphemisms for the demise of a beloved friend. Continue reading
Last week Fred Frith and I did a masterclass on film and music at Goldsmiths College, linked to my retrospective at the BFI. After some deliberation I decided to use PLAY – a short film I had made when I was about nineteen – whose enforced silence (having long since lost the original live sound-recording in an endless sequence of house moves) seemed to invite the possibility of a new score. Continue reading
There is no zero point in writing a script, of course. Just the illusion of nothingness before the something appears. But confronting emptiness, a kind of void-state, whilst sometimes terrifying (will anything ever happen?) is also exhilarating.
This summer I put down some temporary roots. These roots started as packets of seeds, mostly vegetables. I have learnt how much work goes into producing food and, at the same time, have experienced a sense of wonder at the interaction of earth, air and water (and seed) which produces such miracles as peas, carrots, beetroots, and coriander.
Writing a blog is something like whispering into the wind. Or shouting into a storm. Now that blogs have proliferated into their millions and millions – a kind of white noise – it is something of a miracle when strangers find their way to this one.