Robin Baker

That’s great to know. I haven’t seen it, but I love this photo that was taken during the interview

What a brilliant recording that is!

Angela Lansbury would have been 100 today. Which is more than sufficient excuse post this publicity shot by Keith Hamshere, taken to promote Death in the Nile (1978). Lansbury's scenery-chewing performance as Salome Otterbourne is a joy.

2/2. I hope that the destruction of Gaza is being fully documented right now and the films of it are preserved. In 100+ years time, people still need to be able to see the horror that innocent Palestinians have had (and continue) to endure and question how it was allowed to happen.

1/2. I watched 'En dirigeable sur les champs de bataille' (1919) for the first time a few years ago. These are just short extracts from the 72 min film, recording the destruction across northern France that took place during WW1. The horror of watching it is overwhelming.

The severed faces of ancient statues always make me look longer and harder. For a classically handsome face - usually notable for its symmetry - this chap has a wonderfully skewy nose.

From the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Bodrum, Turkey), c350 BCE. Now in the British Museum.

Last night I watched the marvellous The Cranes are Flying, a 1957 Soviet movie that I wish Vladimir Putin would watch. Here's my Letterboxd review, and a short thread of stills to show how superbly constructed a movie it is. (They won't show how ALIVE it is: it's a film that delights in movement.)

That sounds very compelling. The painting appears to show a subterranean cinema, so the info that this was a former wine cellar makes sense.

3/3. I wondered if the film on screen was an invention of Roberts, or whether it was based on an actual film? It looks very much like a western. Other than that, there appear to be very few clues.

2/3. Tate's catalogue states that the painting is "based on a small cinema in Warren Street which is now used as a television studio." But this map of London's silent cinemas - www.map.londonssilentcinemas.com/dhp-projects... - shows no evidence of a cinema on Warren Street. Any thoughts?

1/3. The Cinema (1920) by William Roberts - on display at Tate Britain. I love this painting, especially some of the details such as the pianist glimpsed through a gap in the curtains. But it posed a couple of questions that maybe silent film friends might be able to help answer.

2/2. There's a vein of surrealism running through Jennings' films as he seeks strangeness in the everyday - such as the sequence of the kazoo band in SPARE TIME, also made in 1939. But today was the first time that I had seen one of his surrealist paintings. It's on display at Tate Britain.

1/2. Swiss Roll by Humphrey Jennings, 1939.

The man who gave us some of the most potent and poetic wartime propaganda films also gave us a sponge cake juxtaposed by the Matterhorn.

The first half was full of richness and complexity that set up so many expectations. The second half was a chase film, albeit an exceptionally good one.

I loved ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025), but spent the second half wishing that the film was the potential masterpiece I thought it might be during the first half.

Do!

I did a lot of 'ooohing' when watching it last night

You must! I found it hugely rewarding to watch it side-by-side with Kalatozov's THE CRANES ARE FLYING (see previous post) and am planning a rewatch of SOY CUBA.

YouTube video by Mosfilm Letter never sent | DRAMA | FULL MOVIE

3/3. There's a superb, recently restored transfer on YouTube uploaded by production company Mosfilm www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPSc...

2/3. Sergey Urusevsky's cinematography is remarkable, especially the tracking shots across the inhospitable landscapes. I would love to find out more about the production. What the actors must have endured on location makes Lillian Gish's experience on an ice floe in WAY DOWN EAST (1920) look tame.

1/3. Figures in a landscape - LETTER NEVER SENT (Mikhail Kalatozov, USSR, 1960). My second Kalatozov of the week. It's a 'survival' film - 4 young geologists battling the elements in a remote part of Siberia - driven as much by a sense of impending terror as by the dangerous beauty of the landscape.

YouTube video by Mosfilm The Cranes are Flying | DRAMA | FULL MOVIE

2/2. I'm hugely grateful to @jacquiwine.bsky.social for the recommendation. It was a film that I thought I had seen years ago - but clearly hadn't! It's unforgettable.

There's a great transfer of the film posted by production company Mosfilm on YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rIN...

1/2. THE CRANES ARE FLYING (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957) comes highly recommended. It has the energy of nouvelle vague with the poetry of Jean Vigo. This is one of many sequences that show the brilliance of Kalatozov, cinematographer Sergey Urusevsky, editor Mariya Timofeyeva and star Tatiana Samoilova.

😬 I did it once, too. Not a good feeling. My commiserations.

The line-up for 2025's Channel 4 South Asian Film Season has just been announced. Highlights include Guru Dutt's MR AND MRS '55 (1955) and JOYLAND (Saim Sadiq, 2022). Nasreen Munni Kabir has been programming the season since the 80s. It's a remarkable achievement www.channel4.com/4viewers/blo...

We love this poster by @sparklymouse.bsky.social designed for Rainer Werner Fassbinder's classic melodrama, THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT (West Germany, 1972).

The film shows at BAC on Sat 1 Nov, 7.30pm bridport-arts.com/event/the-bi...

Erich von Stroheim was born 140 years ago today, which is more than sufficient excuse to post this publicity still of him taken to promote FOOLISH WIVES (1922).

It's a shame that more actor/directors don't don silk shirt, knickerbockers, girdle, stockings and suspenders for the camera.

Maria's dance performed by Brigitte Helm in METROPOLIS (Fritz Lang, 1927) - music by Palooka 5. Few films are packed with so many extraordinary, iconic moments.

Palooka 5 will be accompanying METROPOLIS live at BAC on Fri 10 Oct, 7.30pm bridport-arts.com/event/metrop...

Delighted to be participating in the Film Heritage Foundation's Film Preservation & Restoration Workshop. I'll be teaching the sessions on programming archive film.

12–19 Nov, Bhubaneswar, India
Applications close on Sep 26

filmheritagefoundation.co.in/film-preserv...

Robert Redford enjoys a pint under Waterloo Bridge, London, 1973.