The Cinematologists Podcast

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit dariollinares.substack.comWelcome FriendsA bonus release this one, for my paying subscribers. I’m currently slammed with back-to-back student tutorials, 9–5, all week long, so new writing is taking a brief hiatus.My drafts folder seems to project a raised-eyebrowed expectancy, with several pieces sitting there in various states of completion. I have a piece on Bertrand Bonello’s

In the second in our early season doubleheader, we present a live Q&A from the Duke of York's Picturehouse in Brighton with Dario talking to the director of American Animals Bart Layton. The discussion touches on the amalgamations of fictional and documentary aesthetics (linked also to Bart's previous Bafta award-winning film The Imposter, the development of a script that changes over time, actors playing real-life characters who also appear in the film, and the current social and political climate as a backdrop for stories about white masculinity.   This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome friends.As always, our final episode of a calendar year is a look back at our cinematic highlights, structured around Neil’s and my top ten films lists. We always try to put this in something of a broader context, suggesting the always subjective criteria of judgement that go into our selections and the sense of incompleteness, compromise and general fallibility of ranking one’s artistic pleasure and admiration. But Neil is right when he comments on the show that lists are a way of organising thought amid the incessant noise of cultural overload.That question of structure becomes a recurring preoccupation across the conversation. Neil mentions that, when assembling his ten, he found himself instinctively pairing films; spotting “cousins” that echo each other in tone, narrative, or thematic focus.This is something of a recognition that cinematic appreciation often works through a clustering: films that don’t merely share “topics” (capitalism, community, violence, grief), but share strategies for coping with a world that increasingly refuses coherence.For me, an undeniable feature of 2025 in cinema has been the many narratives that reflect a feeling of senselessness—stories that don’t “resolve” so much as metabolise disorder. We keep circling filmmakers who can register the insanity of the present without converting it into a tidy thesis. Radu Jude is the obvious touchstone here: we talk about how his filmmaking avoids the temptation of big declarative statements, holding sincerity and cynicism, humour and despair, in the same hand.Kontinental 25, as much as any other film this year, explores the granular experience of politics as a kind of moral nausea, digital immediacy of its form aping the doom-scroll logic of being pulled from one sickening little story to the next.We keep returning to the sense that many “state of the nation” films this year (especially in the American context) operated as overt statements—almost insistently discursive—while, at the same time, we explored quieter, more contemplative works that approached personal and social crisis through subtler uses of form, tone, and time.Many films this year, implicitly and explicitly, explored the tensions of capitalism as a kind of lived texture: bureaucracy, managerialism, the violence of systems that call themselves neutral. From the handheld realism of Souleymane’s Story (Boris Lojkine) right through to the expansive mythos and genre pleasures of Sinners (Ryan Coogler), the political economy of history and identity becomes a driving force.Indeed, Neil looks beyond the reductive “folk horror” label attached to Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Harvest, reading it instead as a study of collective life, of a community’s ethical capacity being tested by difference. Yet, in the end, capitalism arrives not as an abstract system but as an administrative colonisation that annihilates any sense of physical and cultural grounding.Political critique, meanwhile, was often built into formal aesthetics and narrative structure, delivered through inventive reworkings of familiar genres. Sinners, along with Zach Cregger’s Weapons and Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, were, of course, operating within the métier of horror. Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk (the only film in my top ten I didn’t see at the cinema) is a brutal, unrelenting take on the speculative-dystopian trope of lethal competition, one that reads as a symbolic portrait of social psychopathy.Alongside these political currents sits another, quieter one: the insistence that time, how it’s felt, withheld, folded, or weaponised, might be cinema’s most underappreciated tool. Neil’s mini-rant about people calling Reichardt “slow” is really about the poverty of contemporary attention. The film knows it’s slow; it’s inviting you to spend time, to register the “felt time” of what happened before the film even begins. Elsewhere, we keep noticing films that structure revelation itself as an ethical question: when do we learn things, and how do we learn them?It’s why Nickel Boys becomes such a touchstone film for me, one that is criminally under-discussed. RaMell Ross’s attunement to memory and subjectivity, rather than objective historical biography, is realised through an innovative use of the POV shot—retooling it as an “aesthetics of alignment with empathy,” an apparatus through which we’re offered a multi-layered window into psycho-social trauma.I don’t want to reveal all the films we discuss—particularly our top choices—which, if you’ve followed The Cinematologists podcast, might strike you as paradoxically both as you might expect and somewhat contrary to expectations.At the end of the show, we spend a little time reflecting on The Cinematologists. We talk about the show’s ten-year run as a fitting “bracketing,” and hope it stands as a testament to a valuable, collaborative body of work. We discuss the different stages of the podcast, how it has evolved over time, and why, for various reasons in our work and personal lives, this feels like the right moment to stop.We’re no longer “young academics,” no longer driven by the same imperative to fill a gap in the culture. And we’ve always said that if the podcast ever became a chore—or, worse, if it looked like it might compromise our friendship—it would be time to draw things to a close.For me, I know I’ll reflect more in depth, in time, on what The Cinematologists has meant: the defining anchor of my cultural life, and a way of orienting my thoughts around the artform I love. I do need a little space, though, to adequately reckon with how much I’ve gained, the hard and soft skills that have made me a better writer, speaker, and thinker. Most importantly, producing the show with Neil for over a decade has taught me so much about the nature of collaboration, a commitment to practice, and what it means to be a friend.And, of course, thank you so much to everyone who has listened and come with us on this journey._____For the full Cinematologists archive, head to: https://dariollinares.substack.com/s/the-cinematologists-newsletter-archiveFor more bonus content: www.patreon.com/cinematologists_____Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

The final regular episode of the podcast, not just for the season, but yes, for good, is a doozy. Writer Violet Lucca returns to the podcast for the first time since 2017 and for her first full, solo conversation, to discuss her incredible book on David Cronenberg, Clinical Trials (2024, Abrams). I talk to Violet about her process of writing the book, wit in criticism, sex and identity, and the politics of the time the films were made and what they say now, the emotional impact of rewatching films and the transformative power of writing about cinema, amongst other topics. And of course we explore specific titles in the Cronenburg filmography, in particular Crash (1996), Existenz (1999) and his most recent release The Shrouds (2024).After my conversation with Violet, we delve into the complexities of Cronenberg’s work, particularly regarding sexuality and identity, and wrap up with a few thoughts looking ahead to the final episode of the pod.Other topics in the episode include reflections on the writing of year-end film lists ahead of our final, upcoming episode, the importance of micro cinemas to film exhibition culture, and highlight former guest Pat Kelman’s crowdfunding campaign to aid film distribution in Cornwall, and for Cornish filmmakers in particular. Following (NF)———Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/cinematologistsFor the full podcast archive: https://dariollinares.substack.com/s/the-cinematologists-newsletter-archive———Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome, friends.I have to admit that I’ve experienced a questionable amount of pleasure in researching for this latest episode of The Cinematologists Podcast. When I say “research”, I basically mean that every evening for the past two weeks I’ve been guiltlessly revelling in the violence, glamour and moral ambiguity of the cinema’s greatest hitmen (and women), assassins, and lone killers.It’s the question of these pleasures - of watching such characters move silently through the modern milieu we share: restaurants, banks, hotels, airports - and of their status as avatars for the commodity fetishism we’re socialised to desire, whether it’s clothes, cars, exotic locations or, indeed, guns, that we take as the starting point.These pleasures are aesthetic, to be sure, and a core line of our conversation explores the visual and sonic mechanisms filmmakers use to make the lone killer look impossibly cool.But on a deeper level, there are myriad symbolic pleasures to unpack, primarily derived from the assassin’s fundamental essence as a professional arbiter of death. By “symbolic pleasures” I mean the fantasies we get to borrow and try on at a safe distance. Cinema has always trafficked in these kinds of projected desires and anxieties, that’s what genres, stars and archetypes are for. But the lone killer amplifies this function, condensing into a single figure our contradictory longing for total freedom and autonomy, yet within the familiar framework of modernist culture, politics, and economics.We outline the dimensions of these symbolic pleasures. Total agency without negotiation or compromise, for instance. The killer embodies absolute decision-making and self-determination. In a culture of soft coercions, bureaucracy, b******t meetings, and interminable incompetence, the killer taps into a dark form of detached liberation. Although this notion is itself confounded to comic effect in Andrew Dominik’s brilliant Killing Them Softly (2012).The lone killer also exudes the romance of the outsider. The shadowy loner, an anti-citizen manipulating the system from the margins, carries a sense of mystery that endures, particularly in a time when sharing every aspect of our lives has become something of a default performative practice. Indeed, it’s fascinating to consider the lone killer as a symbol of alienation. They’re what a certain kind of loneliness looks like when it becomes active rather than depressive: isolation turned into method, detachment honed into a way of being in the world.For some killers, sexual desire is absolutely central to the mythos. Bond is the clearest prototype here, because scholarship has long framed him as a figure where violence is packaged with aspirational consumption and sexual charisma, all intertwined. And then there’s the sexual charge, which often isn’t “romance” so much as mobility: sex as another form of non-attachment, a proof that the killer can pass through bodies and spaces without being pinned down by them. Yet Bond films (and to an extent the character himself) have been read through a queer lens – breaking down the heteromasculine fantasy the films seem to promote (an aspect we discuss in some depth on this episode of the podcast: License to Queer).The real hook, though, is the fantasy of having no responsibilities to other humans. Or, more accurately, the fantasy of choosing your responsibilities. These protagonists often keep one small “human” attachment in a sealed container while everyone else becomes abstraction: targets, obstacles, and collateral damage. That compartmentalisation is the emotional technology that allows the lifestyle to function.Sexuality reads differently, of course, when the lone killer is a woman. The adoption of the femme fatale persona becomes both a weapon and a trap: seduction as tactical performance, but also as a ready-made framework through which her violence is contained, coded and often punished. The female lone killer frequently has to navigate the double bind of being hyper-visible as an object of desire while trying to claim the same cool detachment and professional focus afforded to her male counterparts.Then there’s competence as seduction. So many of these films function as “craft porn”: extended sequences of planning, surveillance, weapon prep, logistics, timing. We’re invited to admire mastery long before we’re asked to consider the consequences. That emphasis on hyper-competence often feeds into another recurring strand of lone-killer characterisation: a kind of obsessive, compulsive pathology. There is frequently an implicit, and sometimes explicit, suggestion that the killer is an outsider not just because of what they do, but because of how they are wired – uncomfortable with ordinary social interaction, more at home with systems and routines than with people. Being “out of sync” with the social world is then reframed as the superpower that underwrites their cold precision and attention to detail. It’s a trope that, to put it mildly, comes with its own problems around how neurodivergence and emotional detachment are conflated and aestheticised.Perhaps most importantly of all, though, the hitman/assassin symbolises the pleasure of circumventing – even actively challenging – the contradictions of the moral frameworks we’re all supposedly compelled by. On one level, it’s straightforward: breaking the laws of modern society to “get the job done” is stylised into an art form. But for many of these characters, especially those who aren’t simply nihilistic or coldly driven by money, there’s also a kind of ersatz morality at play. They possess a code, an ethos that operates as a moral alibi. Their relativist ethics become a way to expose the contingency, compromise, and hypocrisy of our broader systems of justice and citizenship. In watching them, we get to flirt with the fantasy of stepping outside that contradiction altogether.dariollinares.substack.comwww.cinematologists.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit dariollinares.substack.comThe notion of the cinematic is an oft-floated term: a kind of critical get-out clause for when a writer (or speaker) wants to register approval without getting pinned down. It lets you gesture beyond the prosaic, narrative, structure, even aesthetics (too easily reduced to “mere beauty”), towards something supposedly larger and more complex to define.Ci…

Gwenno, on the set of her short film, Tresor (2022) [Copyright: Bosena / Alex Fish]We have the perfect theme song for our podcast, courtesy of the musician, artist and writer Gwenno. In Bristol in September, for the Encounters film festival, Neil took some time to chat to Gwenno at length about culture, social media, memory, capitalism and community, to put on [tape] some shared thoughts about life and art, before the podcast winds down. Even before writing and recording the theme tune to the Cinematologists - available to purchase and stream here - Gwenno was a friend of the show, and Neil wanted to give listeners the chance to hear from someone whose ideas and approaches to the making and absorbing of art have come to inspire and challenge his own. He also just really likes talking to her, and wanted podcast listeners to experience that pleasure also. Around that central conversation, inspired by it, Neil and Dario get into it about intersections of art and culture as they frequently do, plus challenges faced by contemporary youth, the critical engagement of students with the film industry, the quest for artistic authenticity, and the evolving nature of countercultures in the digital age. The conversation also touches on the impact of technology on creativity, the role of education in fostering cultural exploration, and reflections on historical subcultures like rave culture. Thanks to Maddie at Watershed in Bristol for providing a space to record during the Encounters Film Festival. Gwenno is currently touring and if she’s near you, you should go and see her, she’s an incredible live performer. This episode also features her songs ‘Tresor’, from the album and film of the same name, from 2022, and available to buy here, and ‘St Ives New School’, from this year’s brilliant record Utopia, which you can buy here. ———Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/cinematologists———You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast, so please do that if you enjoy the show.———Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

As always on The Cinematologists podcast, we like to address topics of salience, but in our own way and in our own time. The death of David Lynch left an irreplaceable hole in the fabric of cinema and, rightly, prompted immediate tributes from collaborators, as well as countless reflections on his status as an artist and filmmaker.The spectre of his influence has found its way into many episodes over the years: Scott Tanner Jones discussing Lynch’s impact in this episode on Physical Media, also in Neil’s conversation with Bertrand Bonello on The Beast, and in my conversation with Michel Chion, and has been referenced in numerous others. This was the third screening in Mark’s unofficial L.A. trilogy with us, following Big Wednesday and The Doors.Lost Highway has always existed at the edge of even Lynch’s already strange filmography. Critically dismissed at the time and commercially ignored (like most of Lynch’s work), it is now seen by many as the beginning of his late “L.A. Trilogy,” preceding Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire. For both Neil and Mark, this film is personal, formative, and endlessly rewatchable—precisely because it resists resolution.Set in a murky Los Angeles that exists halfway between industrial hellscape and erotic fever dream, Lost Highway is a Möbius strip of a movie, beginning where it ends, and unravelling its characters and its viewers alike. It conjures its mood not just through narrative but through textures: light, shadow, analogue tape, blown-out industrial soundscapes, and those unnameable feelings that reverberate long after the final frame.The conversation is as engaging and in-depth as you’d expect, with Mark, Neil and the audience at Newlyn in top form. Key themes discussed include:* Lynch and memory’s strange register:Mark reflects on how Lynch’s films live in a different kind of memory register than most; more a series of fleeting snapshots than the coherence of active recall. Because of that, every viewing reveals new aspects; haunting fragments displace and rearrange entire subplots that had taken hold in the subconscious. In that sense, we consider Lynch’s cinema as a form of recursive hauntology.* The loop as trap (road to road):From the very first shot of that endless road to the repetition of sounds and visuals at the film’s end, Mark explores Lost Highway as a recursive loop that traps its characters in a fugue state of guilt, desire, and dissociation.* Structural ouroboros and influence:This structural ouroboros recalls the severed ear in Blue Velvet, or the rabbit-hole narrative of Mulholland Drive. For Mark, as a filmmaker, this formal approach is profoundly influential to his own sense of cinematic composition, time and narrative fracture.* Sexual jealousy and the violence of looking:The film’s narrative is anchored in the protagonist’s feelings of inadequacy, paranoia, and desire. The Mystery Man, played with uncanny chill by Robert Blake, becomes a vessel for projecting disowned guilt and dissociation.* Hollywood as a transformation machine:Patricia Arquette’s double role, and the thematic through-line of transformation (from Fred to Pete; from brunette to blonde), prompt a reading of the film as a noir dream of Hollywood, where people are consumed, remade, and destroyed by the gaze.* Sound as cinema:A recurring motif across the discussion is Lynch’s sonic world-building. Angelo Badalamenti’s score, Barry Adamson’s textures, and contributions from Nine Inch Nails, Rammstein, David Bowie, and Marilyn Manson shape the film’s contours. It’s a work felt not just through images but through air movement and industrial pressure waves.* A sense of closure:Neil and Mark discuss the finality of Lynch’s oeuvre. “Everything is set now,” Mark says of the filmography. “There will be no more work from him. You watch it now in the context of a finished body of work, rather than imagining what he might do next.” Neil ends the episode quoting from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s reflections on the Long Take in Cinema and Life, which felt apt.Neil and I continue the conversation around the central tension of the episode: how—or even whether—we’re supposed to “understand” Lost Highway. I reference Warren Buckland’s analysis of the film as a “puzzle film”: one whose clues scramble narrative logic and deny classical causality. Viewers are caught between “flaunted gaps” (overt mysteries like the videotapes) and “suppressed gaps” (dream sequences that promise meaning but deliver obfuscation).Lost Highway confronts you with the truth that “nothing makes sense.” Its refusal to resolve mirrors a deeper psychological or existential unease—a thematic throughline that aligns with other so-called “vibes films” we mention, such as Inherent Vice, Under the Silver Lake, and even Cronenberg’s recent The Shrouds—an interesting counterpoint in grief, surveillance, and ambience. A good engagement with this idea and Lynch’s career can be found in Ruby’s Hamilton’s recent piece for the London Review of Books.We talk about the character-swap device as Lynch tapping into a pathology of being unable to reconcile the self and the other. Lynch doesn’t just show identity breakdown; he renders it as form. The Fred–Pete body swap isn’t a mere plot twist—it’s an allegory of dissociation, repression, and the unassimilated parts of the psyche. A psychoanalytic reading points to how Lynch dramatises the internal exile of our “dark sides,” now returned as spectres, doubles, and avatars.Another key point of discussion is the brilliance of Patricia Arquette—mesmerising in a mode that adopts and then reverses the power dynamics of the gaze. Rather than being simply the object of the male gaze, Arquette’s character weaponises it—using sexuality and performative presence to manipulate, dominate, and escape. It’s arguably an apposite post-feminist staging of power inside patriarchal mechanics. As Neil reflects, Lynch’s women are never merely passive; they are agents, even in systems built to consume them.These are just some of the strands of discussion, but there’s much more to get your cinematic teeth into—including an ongoing bit about the appearance of ’Allo ’Allo! actor Guy Siner. (American listeners, you may need to google that one.)———Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/cinematologists———You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast, so please do that if you enjoy the show.———Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

It felt apt that Neil and I were both in London for this year’s edition of the festival. Over the years of The Cinematologists, we’ve covered a range of international events, always striving to capture not just our critical responses to the films, but something of the atmosphere, the resonance of the experience itself.Living in London, I usually don’t feel that full, immersive festival bubble. There’s always the pull of everyday life at the edges. By contrast, attending an international festival abroad brings with it a heightened sense of dislocation—a kind of lived difference that reanimates the senses. That estrangement, combined with the charged intensity of being inside a self-contained epicentre of cinematic energy, somehow deepens both the viewing experience and one’s critical focus.With Neil in town for what amounted to an extended long weekend, I resolved to pack as much into five intense days of screenings, conversations, and cinematic overload. Normally, I prefer to experience films alone, especially at festivals. The solitude seems to both sharpen my concentration in the watching itself. But after a decade of co-hosting The Cinematologists, Neil and I have developed an unspoken rhythm - an ease in conversation and, just as importantly, sit together in that post-screening quiet, letting the film settle before the dialogue begins.We recorded the episode after our final screening together—François Ozon’s adaptation of Albert Camus’ L’Étranger. It proved an apt conclusion: gorgeously shot, restrained yet expressive, and, to my mind, remarkably faithful to the source material. Neil and I found ourselves immediately drawn into questions of form and aesthetics—recurring preoccupations on the podcast in recent years. How, and why, do filmmakers adopt particular visual modes to explore aspects of the human condition? And, more provocatively, is there an ethical contradiction in rendering violence, trauma, crisis, or poverty with beauty?Across this year’s programme, that tension between sensuous visuality and political critique felt ever-present—a paradox that became the connective tissue of our conversations throughout the episode. Many of the films, often formally inventive and emotionally arresting, provoked questions about how cinema confronts and represents the cruel absurdities of contemporary experience, something I’ve been preoccupied with throughout this cinematic year.Ozon’s film, of course, approaches this quite literally, but for me, so many of the works we saw continued a broader trend: filmmakers striving to make sense of senselessness through audio-visual forms that both frame the social and implicate the viewer. Themes of displacement, memory, alienation, and the ethics of representation ran through much of our discussion, as did a shared sense that contemporary filmmakers are consciously reconfiguring documentary, fiction, and hybrid modes to articulate a pervasive cultural unease.We hope you enjoy the conversation, and as usual, we welcome any comments on the films or what we say about them.As always, thanks for coming back or clicking for the first time on Contrawise. If you’re here for the first time, I’m an errant academic, writing and speaking about cinema, media, and art with a philosophical approach.Films discussed on the episodeThe Stranger (dir. Francois Ozon)Ozon’s adaptation of Camus’ existential classic centres on Meursault, a detached and indifferent Frenchman in colonial Algeria who, weeks after his mother’s funeral, impulsively kills an unnamed Arab man on a sun-drenched beach. The subsequent trial becomes an inquiry not only into the murder but into the absurdist senselessness.Starring the excellent Benjamin Voisin, embodying the character’s apathy, alienation, and refusal to conform to moral expectations. Shot with Ozon’s characteristically meticulous visual control, the film is gorgeously rendered—its romantic luminosity almost at odds with the bleakness of the material. In our discussion, we consider whether this sumptuous aesthetic intensifies or undermines the sense of existential ennui that lies at the heart of Camus’ seminal text.Kontinental ‘25 (dir. Radu Jude)Perhaps the most compelling film of the festival for both of us, Kontinental 25 cements Jude’s position as one of the most innovative criticially astute filmmakers working today. Shot on an iPhone 15 in just nine days, we delve into its structure: long, single-take dialogues that blur the boundaries between satire, social critique, and observational realism. Jude’s commitment to implicating the viewer in contemporary dilemmas - homelessness, inequality, liberal guilt - is both brutal and hilarious. A masterclass in how form and ideology intertwine.The Mastermind (dir. Kelly Reichardt)Neil’s solo review of Reichardt’s latest, featuring Josh O’Connor. We’ve always loved Reichardt on the podcast; an early live event focused on Old Joy (2006), and how her genre work and character studies are steeped in rich, observational minimalism. Neil explores how the film takes the heist genre and infuses it with her ongoing cinematic interests in economic precarity, disconnection, and quiet desperation.It continues a fascination with the work of O’Connor for Neil too, following him finally ‘getting’ the actor in his favourite 2024 release, Alice Rohrwacher’s sublime La Chimera. With The Mastermind, Neil particularly liked how Reichardt plays with genre twists, from classic heist mode to something more reflective in terms of a character’s odyssey of reckoning on the road. Definitely a favourite from the fest, and the year as a whole.It Was Just an Accident (dir. Jafar Panahi)Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, winner of this year’s Palme d’Or, is a deceptively simple film that unfolds into the profound. Unlike his more overtly meta-cinematic works, this is a relatively linear narrative, yet it bears all of the Iranian auteur’s hallmarks: moral tension, black humour, and an acute sense of the everyday as political theatre.The story begins with a family driving through the Iranian countryside at night. A momentary lapse—a dog struck on a quiet road—sets in motion a chain of events that spiral into something far darker. When their car breaks down, they arrive at a remote garage run by a man named Vahid. Hearing the father’s prosthetic leg knock against the floorboards, Vahid becomes convinced he has found one of his former torturers from a prison camp where he was held blindfolded decades earlier. What follows is an unsettling, almost allegorical narrative of suspicion, revenge, and moral reckoning. Panahi transforms this familiar premise into a complex study of guilt, trauma, and retribution.Rose of Nevada (dir. Mark Jenkin)Mark Jenkin’s third feature - produced in association with Neil’s Sound/Image Cinema Lab - continues his commitment to the tactile, handmade qualities of cinema while venturing into his most expansive and narratively ambitious work to date. On the surface, Rose of Nevada employs a familiar conceit: two young fishermen, played by Callum Turner and George MacKay, are sent aboard a trawler that mysteriously reappears after having been lost at sea for thirty years. Once they set sail, time begins to fold in on itself, and what follows is a haunting, non-sci-fi exploration of memory, loss, and the persistence of the past.Rose of Nevada is, quite simply, ravishing to look at. The colours - deep, saturated, defiantly un-digital - seem to breathe with the Cornish landscape and seascape. Abstract intercuts of bark, light, water, and surface give the film a kind of expressionist pulse; images shimmer between the material and the metaphysical.We discuss Jenkin’s characteristic approach to performance - “Bressonian deadpan” - where actors deliver lines with studied restraint, becoming cyphers for ideas and emotional undercurrents rather than expressive psychological portraits. The film feels like a confluence of Jenkin’s earlier work - Bait’s class-inflected regional politics and Enys Men’s metaphysical strangeness - now realised at a larger scale and with bolder artistic confidence. It recalls the material realism of Leviathan and even the mythic textures of Jaws, though entirely on Jenkin’s own terms.And, I share my “I went swimming with George MacKay” anecdote.My interview with Mark from earlier in 2025 when he had just finished editing the film.Also mentioned in the episodeSinging Wings (dir. Hemen Khaledi)Dry Leaf (dir. Alexandre Koberidze)The Son and The Sea (dir. Stroma Cairns)After the Hunt (dir. Luca Guadagnino)Becoming Human (dir. Polen Ly)Dreams (dir. Michel Frano)With Hassan in Gaza (dir. Kamal Aljafari)Palestine 36 (dir. Annemarie Jacir)You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast, so please do that if you enjoy the show.———Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

Filming Don’t Look Now. Copyright: Peter Cassell.Neil and Justin John Doherty have been friends since 1995. To mark thirty years of friendship, in the latest episode of the podcast they talk about Justin’s latest creative peak, an art-book with amazing, never seen before, behind the scenes photos and production artefacts, love letters and conversations, about his favourite film, the Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland starring, Don’t Look Now. The conversation starts with Neil’s reminisce of how the film has been Justin’s favourite as long as they have known each other, upon meeting at Luton Sixth Form College. In a conversation recorded at Bristol’s Encounters Film Festival (Thank you to Maddy Probst at Watershed for providing us a space to talk) they discuss the film, the way the book came into being, and Justin’s approach to the form of the book, capturing as it does so beautifully in literary form, the cinematic wonder of Roeg’s Du Maurier adaptation. They also talk about the power of cinema, and art, at formative moments in life, and how the book embodies Justin’s overall creative philosophies regards space and place, proximity and welcoming people in. Elsewhere, in their conversation recorded at the London Film Festival where they both spent time with Justin, Dario and Neil discuss the different modes of engaging with and experiencing beloved texts, having both seen Dario’s favourite (or one of) film, Godard’s Pierrot le Fou (1965) at the gorgeous Ciné Lumière on a break from LFF duty. Justin is talking about the book, and film, with Jason Wood at the BFI Library on October 24th. You can see a lovely piece about the book by the Guardian, here.And you can buy the magnificent book, here. A must for anyone who loves Cinema, and beautiful, obsessional tributes to Cinema.You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast, so please do that if you enjoy the show.———Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.Recent posts on Cinema Body/Cinema Mind: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

We are back! Season 22 kicks off with a stellar, loose, multi-layered, melancholic, heated and nervy, shambling odyssey of an episode, which befits the central discussion, centred as it is around the release of Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another.The timing of the release of the new PTA is fortuitous as he is a filmmaker that we have circled around over the years, given my love for the filmmaker, as well as his place in contemporary American cinema. It’s also good timing as the film has found itself lodged at the centre of film discourse in so many ways since its release last Friday (September 26th).Before we get into it, looking in depth at the film and the conversations and reactions it has provoked, the episode starts with a bang, of an announcement about the future of the podcast (no spoilers here), followed by a short ode to one of the great screen actors of all-time, Robert Redford, and how we have marked his passing in terms of their viewing choices. Their chat covers what made Redford such a unique, enigmatic Hollywood star, his on and off-screen legacies, including a lovely anecdote from Dario about seeing his final film, David Lowery’s The Old Man & The Gun (2018) at the London Film Festival.The second-half of the episode is given over to One Battle After Another. We unpack my love of PTA and how that informs his viewing of his films when they are released and the film’s approach to form and how it relates to the original text that inspired it, Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, which feels like a stronger source text than some reporting suggests. We go on to explore how Pynchon and PTA share a sense of juxtaposing zaniness with bone deep sadness at the way America is and has been, as well as what makes the cinematic spectacle and theatrical experience of the film so magnetic and rewarding.Then there’s the conversation around the film, that flows from the above but is contextual. They talk about the ‘takes’ and responses to the film, where critique feels valid and where it feels misguided. Much of this centres around the ideas of what a Hollywood film can and should do in terms of being revolutionary, and indeed what any film created in a capitalist structure can do, but also we unpack how the film might be read as a comment on revolutionary Cinema, what happens to revolutions over time, the ongoing revolution of resistance to white American control, and the impact of white revolutionaries in fights that they have the privilege of being able to walk away from to a large degree. And also, why this film, despite its incredible dynamism and grotesque operatic performances, is so damn sad.And if that whets your appetite for this season, we have you covered, this is just the beginning. From here, it’s one podcast after another. Sorry. Couldn’t resist. (NF) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

This special episode of The Cinematologists is a contribution to the Students on Screen  project convened by Dr Kay Calver and Dr Bethan Michael-Fox, to coincide with a special issue of Open Screens they have edited, which explores screen representations of students across a plethora of Global screen media forms.On behalf of The Cinematologists, Neil contributed a paper - drawing from his decade-old doctoral work - on representations of film students in anglophone cinema, and put together this episode, which is both a dissemination of and critical artefact of, the special issue.For this episode Neil talks to Kay and Beth about the Students on Screen project, as conveners and issue editors, as well as three contributors to the special collection. The contributors are Dr Sharon Coleclough, Dr Devaleena Kundu and Dr Oli Belas. The critical focus of all the conversations includes critical regard for the spaces where representations of students in fiction and non-fiction screen spaces can improve, address, or further address gaps in lived experience.Elsewhere in the episode, Neil and Dario discuss representations of students on screen, Neil’s paper, and in an extended analysis, a film that Neil doesn’t cover in his piece, but is worthy of discussion, 2014’s The Rewrite, directed by Marc Lawrence and starring Hugh Grant and Marisa Tomei.For more information on the Students on Screen project, click the link above, and for more information, on the journal Open Screens, click here.———Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/cinematologists———You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast, so please do that if you enjoy the show.———Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

For the final [main] episode of this season, the 21st, we are delighted to welcome writer and podcaster John Bleasdale (Writers on Film) to the show, to discuss his excellent book on Terrence Malick, The Magic Hours: The Films and Hidden Life of Terrence Malick.Neil talks to John about his approach to research and interview/archive given the glaring lack of a central subject's voice, Malick and John's own relationship to the big themes around philosophy and faith, the power of understanding Malick's later period work anew through the lens of [auto]biography, and the ways that Malick's early work truly shifted American film language.Elsewhere Neil and Dario discuss Malick's work in thematic/aesthetic periods, how Malick used formal experimentation to explore biographical trauma and regret in his most divisive work, approaching famous people, and how books and podcasts provide valuable routes into engagement with film and cinema, to understanding wider contexts, particularly for challenging and envelope-pushing work.———Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/cinematologists———You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast, so please do that if you enjoy the show.———Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.   This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome friends.Thanks for stopping by and welcome to the many new free subscribers that have signed up in the last few weeks. A very special thanks to Helen, Bluetrue, R.J. MacReady, & sukhveer kang for becoming paid subscribers. I really do appreciate your support. Postcards should be coming your way anytime (if you haven’t yet DM’d me your address, please do that if you want a little physical media token of my gratitude).Subscribe nowI’m working on a couple of longer written pieces, to be published next week. These are articles that have been on my mind for a little while and I wanted to take a bit of extra time in crafting the argument and furnishing the research.They both speak quite zeitgiesty. One reflects a prevalent cinematic trend, in which form and theme, as I see it, emerges from the “absurdities” of the contemporary socio-political experience. In the other piece, I’m working on putting one element of the emergence of FilmStack in a larger historical context.Yes, I’m being a little enigmatic, but that’s my prerogative. Hopefully, some of you might be suitably intrigued. In the meantime, I wanted to share a recent episode of The Cinematologists Podcast featuring my co-host Neil’s [Indistinct Chatter] in-depth conversation with American indie Filmmaker Alex Ross Perry.Hi latest work - Pavements - is a self-reflexive, tonally playful, and structurally audacious film that might loosely be called a “music documentary,” though such a categorisation feels entirely insufficient.Joe Keery & Stephen MalkmusIt is as much a study of fandom and memory as it is a biographical account of the influential '90s indie band Pavement. Through a collage of archival materials, faux-biopic fragments, split-screen juxtapositions, and full-blown musical theatre sequences the film constructs a mythopoetic portrait of a band whose identity was always wrapped in contradictions: sincerity and irony, virtuosity and nonchalance, lo-fi chaos and lyrical precision.What unfolds in our conversation is a deep dive into:The editorial complexity of telling four parallel stories simultaneously: the band’s rise, their reunion, a fictional musical, and a staged film-within-a-film.Perry’s desire to create a film whose form reflects the band’s sensibility — fractured, contradictory, but ultimately cohesive.The challenge of navigating tone when the project itself subverts traditional modes of storytelling, even as it draws from them.The role of humour, performance, and self-awareness in both Pavement’s legacy and the filmmaking process.Why sincerity can only function when set against the backdrop of knowing absurdity.In an era where the “music doc” has become as formulaic as the legacy biopic, Pavements is a fascinating outlier: elegiac essay film, audiovisual slash fiction, unreliable cultural history and hyper-self-conscious indie experiment. It’s a film that doesn’t so much document a band as contribute a mythological re-staging. In their conversation, Neil and Alex dig into some fascinating terrain: the legacies of Gen X fandom and its oscillation between slacker irony and obsessive authenticity; the cultural fatigue that breeds dislocations between cynicism and sincerity; and the strange condition of loving something while also deconstructing it in real time. What emerges is a compelling meditation on aesthetic form as a kind of fandom in itself, a way of expressing reverence not through hagiography but through playful reconstruction. Pavements ultimately asks: What does it mean to remember a band that never fully wanted to be remembered? And how do you make a film that honours ambivalence without resolving it?There’s also discussion of Perry’s other new release, Videoheaven, a formally rigorous, found-footage love letter to the ephemeral space of the video store - tracing its representation in over 180 films from the mid-80s to the present. The conversation explores how both films, in their different registers, offer meditations on media archaeology, nostalgia, and the ways in which personal and collective cultural memory are shaped through images, sound, and spaces.In our post-interview conversation, Neil and I attempt to deconstruct the meta-textual layers at play, beginning with a reflection on the interview process itself: that is, the inherently performative and constructed nature of podcast discourse, especially when it’s in dialogue with a film already so self-consciously aware of its own artifice. From there, we try to unpack the slipperiness of articulating what makes a film like Pavements “good.” That category, “goodness”, often operates at the level of instinct or affect, shaped by personal taste, mood, cultural memory; it resists codification and certainly defies objective criteria. And this is especially true when the film’s formal strategies seem designed to destabilise conventional modes of storytelling and undercut sincerity at every turn. Yet paradoxically, that very tension, between irony and emotional investment, between knowingness and vulnerability, is what makes Pavements work. It mirrors the band’s own history, their aesthetic ethos, and the contradictions they never resolved and never needed to.Pavements is now available to view on MUBI.Videoheaven, which is available to screen direct from Cinema Conservancy.Neil and I first discussed Pavements on our second 2024 London Film Festival episode, the festival where the film had its UK premiere. As always, thanks for coming back or clicking for the first time on Contrawise. If you like what you have read/watched/listened to, I’d really appreciate it if you can restack/share to your networks.A gesture of human curatorial practice is more valuable than any algorithm recommendation.ShareWe really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast, so please do that if you enjoy the show. If you’re not already a subscriber, please consider doing so by hitting the button below. Become part of the network of curious, fascinating people!Subscribe nowThere’s always an unease in asking for financial support, especially when one is competing in today’s oversaturated digital marking. So any support is genuinely appreciated and will allow me to continue to build a resource for those interested in cinema, media and the human experience.A subscription is £5 per month (£50 for the year). You get access to the full articles, podcasts, and film resources I produce. I’ll also send you and physical postcard, wherever you may reside:Become a paid SubscriberOr, if you don’t want to subscribe but think to yourself: “yeah, I’d shout that guy a coffee if we ever met IRL”, you can do that here:Buy me a coffeeMusic Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit dariollinares.substack.comWelcome friends,It’s been an somewhat frustrating uneven week of film watching and writing. London’s recent heatwaves have nudged my daily routine into what has become a typical summer cadence - work kicking off around 6am and tapering off by early afternoon. It’s a strategy to placate my internal productivity tyrant: my focus is aided by the cooler mornings by 2pm I’ve kinda reached the limit of writing energy.This week though, the humdrum churn of life-admin has thrown a wrench into that flow. Those invisible hours spent on forms, emails, meetings, and the nebulous category of “developmental labour.”; the kind of tasks that don’t feed the present but one has to treat as investments in a deferred future.To be honest, Wimbledon hasn’t helped either. I’ve been watching - and playing - a lot of tennis (not at Wimbledon I hasten to add). If I think back, July always ends up as the month with the lightest film consumption for me. But that’s fine. Taking a break from a specific aspect of one cultural life can be holistically rejuvenating.What I have been watching, however, is a significant amount of student work. I'm currently supervising sixteen MA students on the Editing and Post-Production pathway, all working towards their final films. We had a full slate of tutorials on Monday, and - as always - there was a spectrum: some students presenting lucid, well-developed concepts with evidence of meaningful theoretical engagement, while others are still lost in the fog of first-draft thinking. Procrastination? Paralysis? Or just the slow gestation that creative work often demands? Or just outright laziness? As a teacher, one has to find a balance between gentle positive encouragement and lighting a fire under them. What struck me mid-way through that day, however, was the number of students were gravitating toward sound. Not just as a technical component, but as a thematic and/or conceptual focus.From experiments with film scores versus pop music in horror; to explorations of silence and non-silence in vertical editing structures; to reflexive work interrogating the female documentary voice, these students are wrestling with sonic textures as expressive tools. And that, in turn, got me thinking more acutely about my own long-standing interest in film sound. It’s an interest that's been shaped, deepened, and in some ways redefined by over a decade of podcasting and audio editing.Once again, it’s been spooky how the cinematic gods of serendipity work. It’s been fascinating to read through responses to the latest Filmstack Challenge #4, hosted by the brilliant Swabreen Bakr. If you're not already following her Substack Anti-Brain Rot, do yourself a favour and subscribe immediately. Her ability to interweave personal narrative with cultural critique, supported by sharp resource curation, offers some of the most vital film writing out this platform.Swabreen’s prompt for the FilmStack #4 challenge was:“For this challenge, you can choose to share either your favorite needle drops, composers, themes, monologues, usage of voice-over narration, or directors who use soundtracks to further their storytelling. Expand upon how these key moments of sound usage helped to shape a scene or contributed to the emotions you had while watching it.”It’s a elegant a timely provocation. But one that, as usual, had the potention to take me in various directions with the high chance of overthinking. But I also want to adopt the challenge in my own way. Primarily it offered me a chance to gather together strands of thinking not just about specific moments of sonic brilliance in cinema, but about how centrally I think about sound when considering cinematic form and experience.As I’ve argued in articles, interviews, and countless podcast episodes, my sensitivity to the sonic dimensions of film - the textures, rhythms, ruptures, and flows - didn’t originate from traditional film theory. It emerged from practice. From the labour of editing audio. From sculpting a vocal performance out of raw speech. From the meditative, occasionally maddening process of syncing tone, pace, silence, and breath. From constructing what I’ve called elsewhere a cinema for the ears.And in that labour, I came to understand sound not as accompaniment to the image, but as a constitutive force in cinematic experience - one that shapes mood, narrative logic, emotional resonance, and ultimately, meaning.* Interview with Michel Chion.In 2022, I had the privilege of speaking with Michel Chion - arguably the most influential figure in the study of film sound since the 1970s. Few scholars have shaped a subfield so decisively. From his early collaborations with Pierre Schaeffer in the musique concrète tradition to his theoretical breakthroughs in books like Audio-Vision (1993), The Voice in Cinema (1982), and Film, A Sound Art (2003), Chion has tirelessly advocated for sound not as an adjunct to image, but as an autonomous, irreducible mode of cinematic experience.Chion’s intellectual reach is vast. His writings span Tarkovsky and Tati, Lynch and Kubrick, all while balancing the rigour of film theory with his own film work. His background in experimental sound practice continues to inform his work: his writing is steeped in a sensory materialism, attentive to the textures, rhythms, and ruptures that occur when sound meets image in time.Two of his concepts, in particular, have become touchstones for anyone thinking seriously about film sound.Audio-vision refers to the audiovisual contract - the idea that when sound and image are experienced together, they don’t merely combine but mutually transform one another. We don’t just hear and see; we audio-view. Image affects how we hear, and sound affects how we interpret the image. This interplay is not additive, but alchemical. Sound can make a static shot dynamic, imbue silence with dread, or shift emotional valence without any visual cue. Audio-vision, in Chion’s terms, is not just perception - it is meaning-making.The second concept is that of the acousmêtre - a portmanteau of "acousmatic" (a sound we hear without seeing its source) and "être" (to be). An acousmêtre is a voice that is heard but not seen - disembodied, hovering in narrative space, often invested with mysterious or even godlike power. Classic examples include the Wizard of Oz before he’s revealed, or the unseen narrator in Sunset Boulevard. The acousmêtre can manipulate perception, disrupt narrative hierarchies, and unsettle the viewer’s sense of control. When the source of the voice is finally revealed- what Chion calls de-acousmatization-that power often collapses. The unseen has become seen, and with it, the aura dissolves.In our conversation—facilitated beautifully through live translation by Johanna Bramli, sound artist and colleague at the University of Brighton—Chion expanded on these ideas with both clarity and philosophical depth. What struck me most was his insistence that sound in cinema isn’t simply something to analyse after the image. It’s something that shapes perception at the very threshold of experience. Listening, for Chion, is a form of interpretation, but also a form of ethics: of attention, of attunement, of acknowledging that what is cinematic often extends through sound beyond the visual frame.There are show notes and links for the episode that are available for paying subscribers below.* The Cinematic Voice - Audio EssayIn March 2020, I edited an episode of The Cinematologists Podcast entitled The Cinematic Voice. The voice in cinema is, in many ways, a phenomenon we take for granted. Since the advent of the talkies, the synchronised speaking voice - tethered to the moving mouth and body on screen - has become the default mechanism for narrative exposition and character psychology. Yet, as Chion has long argued, this seamless synchronisation is one of sound cinema’s most persistent illusions, a sleight of hand that masks the artifice of audio-visual construction.This episode, one of our most ambitious productions, brings together leading film scholars and critics to explore the cinematic voice in all its textured complexity. Each contributor examines different dimensions: the star voice and its industrial aura, the interplay between script and performance, the sonic aesthetics of vocal timbre, the affective and narrative power of voice-over, the distinct dynamics of the animated voice, and the haunting disembodiment of acousmatic presences. We also interrogate the politics of the voice - who gets to speak, who is silenced, and how listening itself can be an ideological act.The is a complex and expansive edit that draws upon many films, but each contributor selected a key film for analysis. There are: In the Heat of the Night (1967, Norman Jewison), Inherent Vice (2014 Norman Jewison), Only Lovers Left Alive (2013, Jim Jarmusch), Félicité (2017, Alain Gomis), Magnolia (1999, Paul Thomas Anderson), The Wind Will Carry Us (1999, Abbas Kiarostami), Annomalisa (2015, Charlie Kaufman), The Exorcist (1973, William Friedkin), The Great Dictator (1940, Charlie Chaplin). Formally, the episode is conceived as an audio essay: a sonic collage that cuts together interview segments with illustrative film clips and sound design. My intention was to create not just a piece of criticism, but an immersive experience - one that blurs the line between analytical discourse and artistic practice. I highly recommend listening with headphones to appreciate the full spatial depth of the mix.As always, Neil and I offer contextual reflections on the themes raised, but we also take a meta-critical approach, discussing how our production choices situate the episode within the broader ecology of film podcasting. In particular, we consider how formal experimentation in the audio realm can open up new ways of thinking about cinema; ways that aren’t tethered to the visual but that instead centre sound, rhythm, and vocal texture as primary modes of meaning-making.* The Lobster with Live Score from The Solemn QuartetBack in 2019, in another first for the Cinematologists, we are hugely excited to present The Lobster with a live score from the classical group the Solem Quartet and in association with Picturehouses cinemas. Live cinema events featuring musical accompaniments are becoming more prevalent as part of the auditorium experience; they echo cinema's past but also a look to the future as audiences seek out material experiences that go beyond or add onto traditional screenings, and perhaps look for a break from the digital. This event took place at the beautiful Gate Cinema in Notting Hill, to a packed house, I introduced the event and discussed the production with the musicians in a post-screening Q&A.Devised, arranged and performed by The Solem Quartet the screening included classic pieces including Beethoven op. 18/1, Shostakovich Quartet no. 8, Schnittke Quartet no. 2, Schnittke Quintet for Piano and Strings, Stravinsky 3 Pieces for String Quartet, Britten Quartet no. 1, Strauss Don Quixote. The music underscores beautifully the dark humour and surrealist milieu of Lanthimos' social satire.Winner of the 2014 Royal Over-Seas League Ensemble Competition, the Solem Quartet was formed in 2011 at the University of Manchester. The Quartet takes its name from the university's motto "arduus ad solem", meaning "striving towards the sun". In keeping with its name, the Solem Quartet’s first project was to play the Haydn Op. 20 “Sun” Quartets. Their repertoire is extensive, spanning the period from early Haydn to a broad spectrum of living composers including Larry Goves, Anna Meredith, John Luther Adams and Emily Howard, whose quartet ‘Afference’ they performed in a BBC Proms Extra broadcast, live on BBC Radio 3.* Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound - with director Midge CostinIn 2019, I had the pleasure of interviewing Midge Costin, a key figure in the world of Hollywood sound editing, about her documentary Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound. The film is a dynamic, accessible, and richly detailed account of how sound design has shaped - and been shaped by - the evolution of American cinema. What makes this work so compelling is not just its archival reach or behind-the-scenes insight, but the way it reframes sound not as an adjunct to image but as part of the very DNA of the cinematic experience.Costin herself brings extraordinary authority to the subject. Her C.V. reads like a highlight reel of 1980s and 90s action cinema: The Rock, Armageddon, Days of Thunder, Crimson Tide - all films where the visceral, bombastic soundscapes weren’t just background effects but narrative and emotional drivers. As a graduate of USC, she emerged from the same ecosystem that produced the likes of Walter Murch, Ben Burtt, and Gary Rydstrom - names that are now synonymous with modern sound design innovation. Her film pays homage to these figures but also positions them within a larger lineage of experimental, technical, and creative development.In our conversation, Costin spoke with great generosity and clarity about the often invisible labour of sound professionals - the way they work rhythmically, sculpturally, almost musically, to layer space, emotion, and movement into a film. Making Waves charts this work from the early studio era through the auteur-driven New Hollywood, right up to the digital present. What resonated most for me was how Making Waves links technical craft with aesthetic and emotional impact. This is not sound as ornament. It also demonstrates how experimental and intuitive sound practices have often led the way in film language, prefiguring visual innovation rather than merely following it. In this way, Costin’s documentary becomes an act of critical rebalancing-centering sound where it has too often been marginalised in the popular imagination of cinema history.As always, thanks for reading, watching, or listening.If you enjoyed this post and think to yourself yeah, I’d by this guy a coffee if he was in my local café please consider doing that virtually. It really does help sustain my work:I realise I’ve been meandering rather indulgently without actually addressing the core of Swabreen’s provocation. Here, then, are five films that I’ve selected in response to the challenge. Each offers a compelling instance where sound design is not simply functional or ornamental, but constitutive: woven into the narrative architecture, intimately bound to character psychology, and fundamental to the sensory-cognitive experience of the viewer - or rather, the audio-viewer. These are works where sound does more than support the image; it reshapes how we feel, interpret, and inhabit cinematic space.They’re all relatively recent films too. Not because I’m eschewing the canonical but because I wanted to highlight contemporary filmmakers who are experimenting with sonic form in ways that feel urgent, evocative, and formally compelling.Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2021)It’s hard to know where to begin with Memoria - a film that didn’t I simply watch but kind of inhabited. From the moment the first sound lands as guteral audio bomb - a low resonant thud, somewhere between an internal rupture and an external signal - we’re placed into a sensory riddle that is at once cosmic and deeply intimate. What challenged me most, and continues to haunt me, is the way Weerasethakul deploys sound not as atmospheric enhancement or narrative device, but as the film’s very ontology. The protagonist, played with ghostly precision by Tilda Swinton, becomes the conduit for a sound only she can hear. The sonic anomaly leads her, and us, on a journey that is less about resolution than attunement with the cosmos, no less. It’s also fascinated, in a satisfyingly technical way, with the practice of audio design. In the scene I’ve embedded below, a technician attempts to recreate the noise, becomes a metatextual reflection on cinematic sound itself: the labor of shaping waveforms into meaning, of aligning tone and affect in search of an elusive emotional truth. Throughout, the film’s quietude is not silence but attention. Every breath, every echo, every bird call seems choreographed to the rhythm of a consciousness slowly unfolding. The final act veers into the transcendent - part Kubrick, part Close Encounters, part psychedelic interior sci-fi - and while some may find that departure disorienting, for me it was the logical and lyrical destination of a film that dares to imagine sound as a portal, a memory, a time-machine. If you allow it Memoria vibrates within you, speaking directly to the body, to memory, to the uncanny pulses of lived experience.The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson, 2019)The Vast of Night is an underseen indie sci-fi, a nostalgic 1950s throwback that leverages sound not merely as ambiance, but as narrative architecture. What initially appears to be Cold War–era pastiche (radio crackle, switchboard plugs, magnetic tape hiss) becomes, through Patterson’s exacting design, the very substance of the story. From the opening scene, sound draws you in: cricket hums, distant train whistles, muffled cheers - all layered to situate us firmly in the sonic textual of small town nocturnal life. Yet it’s the “strange frequency” - interference on a switchboard line and then on radio - that catalyzes the plot. This unrecognisable sound, alternately eerie and compelling, slices through the calm, beckoning the characters - and the audience - into active listening and the feeling of dread. Moments of visual blackness punctuate the film, forcing a shift from the ocular to the auditory. In one standout sequence, we linger in total darkness or minimal framing as a military informant delivers a monologue. With nothing but voice, we are given a powerful reminder: that sound can conjure images more vividly than any frame can show.Working with a micro-budget (around $700K), Patterson embraces sonic minimalism as aesthetic strength. Every mechanical click, switchboard plugs, tape reels, radio dials, become a tactile beat in a larger rhythm, grounding the uncanny in the materiality of mid‑century tech. When the film suggests a climactic visual encounter, sound remains the true locus of mystery. In this way, The Vast of Night sidesteps genre spectacle and instead communes with the imagination via reverberation and resonance.Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, 2019)In Sound of Metal, sound becomes intrinsic to the auditory point of view of the protagonist, Ruben, as he undergoes a traumatic and abrupt loss of hearing. From the opening drumming scene, the film situates us directly within the intense, visceral world of a punk-metal drummer, with mixed live sound that conveys energy without tipping into overwhelming realism. That initial auditory immersion sets the stage for everything that follows. We don’t just see his loss - we feel it. The subtle shifts in auditory perspective are calibrated to unsettle us both physically and psychologically, aligning us intimately with Ruben's disorientation and anxiety.The film also innovates by withholding subtitles for sign-language scenes, forcing hearing audiences to share in Ruben’s isolation. This absence of translation mirrors the soundscape’s own absences and ruptures. When Ruben receives cochlear implants, the “return” of sound is far from a restoration. It’s distorted, echo-laden, and painfully synthetic, a metallic approximation of what he once knew. Sound designer Nicolas Becker employed IRCAM filters and real-time earpieces to simulate Ruben’s auditory hallucinations, while editor Mikkel E.G. Nielsen shaped the film’s rhythm so that both sound and silence become structural tools. The result is an immersive, embodied cinema in which sound design doesn’t just accompany the narrative, it’s a sculpting of Ruben’s evolving consciousness. Viewers aren’t simply observers; they inhabit his sensory world.For me, the film exemplifies sound as cinematic empathy; probing what it means to lose a sense we take for granted, and how its absence, distortion, and partial return become the emotional textures of a deeply human narrative.Sleep Has Her House (Scott Barley, 2017)Scott Barley’s Sleep Has Her House is an elemental work - one that refuses conventional narrative and instead immerses the viewer in a liminal, quasi-apocalyptic world of forests, clouds, darkness, and decay. The film’s visual textures, often described as painterly or expressionistic, are matched, if not surpassed, by its monumental use of sound. Barley constructs a sonic environment that resists being merely “naturalistic.” Instead, what we hear is hyper-natural - rain not as weather but as a metaphysical cascade, wind as ancestral whisper, thunder as tectonic force.In the podcast conversation I had with Scott, he speaks of sound as the “breath” of the film, something that not only supports the images but also conjures presences and absences. Many of the sounds in the film are heavily manipulated field recordings, stretched or layered to the point where they become uncanny - recognisable yet alien. This is particularly effective in conjuring a temporal dissonance: we are suspended in time, and the sound is what holds us there. It builds without crescendo, it drones without monotony. The forest in Sleep Has Her House doesn’t speak in language, but it does hum, roar, and exhale in ways that suggest both the sublime and the sentient.Barley also describes working with sound spatially - designing the mix so that the sound doesn’t just surround the viewer but seems to move through them. In that sense, the film’s sound design becomes a kind of immersive sculpture. Silence is just as crucial: long stretches of near-inaudibility heighten our awareness, demanding deep listening. These voids are not empty, but dense with potential, pulling the viewer into a contemplative state that is bodily as much as intellectual.Barley draws on the affective potential of what he calls “tonal atmospheres,” creating a resonant field in which emotions are not imposed but emerge slowly, almost geologically. The result is not sound as accompaniment, but sound as ontology - Sleep Has Her House breathes, murmurs, rages, and finally retreats, leaving you with the sense that you’ve experienced not a story, but an event, or even a visitation.The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, 2023)The Zone of Interest is a film defined by what it refuses to show. Set just beyond the walls of Auschwitz, Jonathan Glazer constructs an aesthetic of horror through omission; eschewing the visual spectacle of suffering for something more insidious and, in many ways, more ethically confronting. Johnny Burn’s sound design envelops the viewer in a ceaseless, inescapable sonic architecture: dogs barking, trucks idling, furnaces groaning, constant screams incessant pain. These aren’t occasional background textures, they are the relentless, ambient condition of the nightmare reality.And yet the characters, specific the Höss family who head Rudolf is commander of auschwitz, are able, somehow, to seemingly tune it out. They tend their garden, host tea on the lawn, and dote on their children - all while genocide unfolds away from their, and our eyes. The horror is acousmatic: we hear it, we feel it, but we do not see it. And that’s precisely Glazer’s intent. The moral violence here lies not in the act itself, but in the ability to normalise its sound. The runtime is modest, but the experience feels punishing, because it tasks the audience not with watching atrocity, but with listening through the veil of everyday life that allows it to persist. It produces a physiological sensation of dread, a kind of sonic abjection, that for me built into almost a physical sickness. This is sound design not as expression, but as sustained exposure.The Zone of Interest doesn’t dramatise the Holocaust; it constructs an immersive spatialisation of complicity. What the characters witness, choose to ignore, or directly perpetrate is not the central concern in the way it is in most Holocaust films. Instead, the film explores the terrifying depth of psychological compartmentalisation: how atrocity can be absorbed into the background of daily life, even in the face of a relentless aural experience that should penetrate every fibre of one’s moral being. For the audience, it becomes not just a question of endurance: over the course of the film, the cumulative weight of this inescapable off-screen nightmare implicates us in its presence. It is a study in complicity, where the sound design lives in the liminal space between knowing and imagining.If you are a paid subscriber, I really appreciate your support. Adrian joined this month, your physical postcard I am going to write in the London sunshine at my favourite coffee house, this weekend. If you enjoy the work I do here please consider becoming a paid subscriber for only £5 per month (or £50) for the year. The main thing is that you’ll be supporting more work in my main area of making film theory and film studies relevant and accessible (along with posts on non-cinema related subjects). You get access to the full spectrum of resources that I put up here.For Paid Subscribers below is a extensive reference list of books and articles that helped shape the content above. Also there is list of links to many of the film clips that were used to create the podcast, examples of the use of cinematic sound some very well know others more obscure. For anyone who wants to go into a deep dive.Also, if anything here strikes you as interesting, useful, or even mildly amusing, feel free to share it in the Substack app or on any of those other platforms we like to decry - but also can’t live without. Sharing and commenting (not just liking) is a gesture of curatorial practice and a small act of resistance against complicity with the algorithmic overlords.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit dariollinares.substack.comWelcome friends. Thanks for lending me some of your valued attention.This wasn’t the post I intended for today. I’m working on a longer exploration of current debates unfolding on Film Stack—particularly around questions of what Film Stack actually is—and the recent flurry of posts that allude, explicitly and implicitly, to a shared agenda or set of aims, i.e. a manifesto. Film and art manifestos have always fascinated me. Their parameters, their intentionality, and their fallibilities offer a snapshot of an individual or group sensibility at a given moment, bridging an interior state of mind with a reaction to a specific set of social, cultural, or political circumstances. I’m really interested in how the growth of a named community of thought on this platform - concerned with the future of cinema in its many interpretations - could be framed in the context of the history of film manifestos.That piece is to come (hopefully) next week.For this post I wanted to share some of the recent Cinematologists Podcast audio and writing that myself and co-host Neil have produced. Our last main episode is a brilliant episode that Neil ( [Indistinct Chatter] ) produced featuring an interview with film critic Ryan Gilbey about his new book It Used to be Witches: Under the Spell of Queer Cinema. It’s a wonderfully personal conversation of trust, empathy and curiosity, very much in keeping with the tenor of the book. Ryan’s personal reflections on how cinema shaped his identity will register with so many of us. This is allied to the depth of knowledge and critical passion for Queer cinema, the uses and contradictions of that term. Indeed, one of the most fascinating directions in which the conversation goes is the idea that film watching is a queer act in and of itself.The conversation covers many films as you would expect, but a key personal example for Ryan, and one the Neil and I discuss in out conversation, is Lucio Casto’s elegant romance The End of Century. At the risk of being reductive it reminded me of Linklater’s Before Trilogy, but with subtle time shifting mechanism that demand the most satisfying kind of critical labour. Call Me By Your Name would be another obviously touchpoint, but I also found something of the relational character empathy of Celine Sciamma - I’m thinking Petit Maman.The episode is underpinned by a greater level of poignancy which, I won’t go into here, but if you listen to the episode, you’ll get a sense of how myself and Neil needed to reframe the interview somewhat. You can download/stream the episode for free wherever you get your podcasts - below is the link to Spotify:For paid subscribers: I've added above the bonus podcast episode Neil and I recorded as an accompaniment to the main show. He was up in London from his home in Cornwall for these tapings. As we don’t often get the chance to record IRL, it’s always a pleasure to shoot the breeze, so to speak, in a more relaxed way—and without the barrier of internet lag.In this free-flowing conversation, Neil and I reflect on recent projects, shifts in our pedagogical and creative identities, and the deeper personal processes that underlie our podcasting practice. From there, we touch on the role of physical space and routine in our writing lives, particularly Neil’s decision to work from a local café in Cornwall as a way to disrupt solitude and cultivate a new creative rhythm. This spirals into a discussion about the psychological conditions that enable productive work, and how these are often at odds with the institutional structures we’ve historically worked within.A key thread that emerges is our shared ambivalence about our academic identities. We unpack what it means to move beyond the institution—not with disdain, but with a desire for more open-ended, hybrid forms of public engagement. This includes a reflection on Substack as a space for exploratory, essayistic writing that doesn’t require the defensive armature of traditional scholarship.Film wise Neil talks about S/He Is Still Her/E – The Official Genesis P-Orridge Doc, and I, in stark contrast, make a few “considered” remarks about enjoying the Star Wars/Disney series Andor.Also below, for paid subscribers, is the July newsletter article I recently wrote, entitled The Learned and the Learner.It’s one of those pieces that reflects on the serendipitous collision of ideas that have emerged through recent conversations, reading, and life events. I try to explore the fluidity between teaching and learning—how these “concepts” are something I’m continuously negotiating across different creative and intellectual contexts.I reflect on how our culture too often enshrines rigid binaries—teacher/student, expert/amateur, art/commerce—and how cinema, at its best, can offer a more dynamic and relational model of engagement. Drawing from the conversations above, along with my recent discussion with Adrian Martin and the piece I wrote on Cinemas and Film Education, I also bring in Zen concepts like “beginner’s mind” and the writings of Alan Watts and Shunryū Suzuki, positioning these ideas alongside my preparation for a new teaching role at the National Film and Television School.As always, thanks for reading, watching, or listening.If you enjoyed this post and think to yourself yeah, I’d by this guy a coffee if he was in my local café please consider doing that virtually. It really does help sustain my work:Also, if anything here strikes you as interesting, useful, or even mildly amusing, feel free to share it in the Substack app or on any of those other platforms we like to decry - but also can’t live without. Sharing and commenting (not just liking) is a gesture of curatorial practice and a small act of resistance against complicity with the algorithmic overlords.Lastly, if you value the work please consider becoming a paying subscriber. I know this is a lot to ask, so it’s incredibly appreciated. A subscription is only £5 (or £50 for an entire year). You’ll receive access to the paid portion of my work, which includes podcasts, extended interviews, and bonus writing. Every paid subscriber also receives an IRL postcard from me through the post.Peace and Love.The Learned and the LearnerIn the last few weeks, I’ve been grappling with an idea that I’ve intuitively known - perhaps for as long as I’ve been teaching - but which feels increasingly acute: that the processes of teaching and learning are not linear progressions from ignorance to knowledge, nor one-way transmissions from authority to acolyte, but rather an endless loop. A mutually constitutive relationship that defines how we engage with the world. Teaching is not the culmination of learning; it is its continuation. And learning is not the inverse of teaching; it is its condition.

With the podcast half-way through its tenth year it is a privilege to welcome back a former contributor to the show - read his piece on Clueless for The New Statesman that coincided with his previous appearance on the show - and long-time champion of The Cinematologists, Ryan Gilbey.Ryan's return is to promote and discuss his new book, the astoundingly good, It Used to be Witches: Under the Spell of Queer Cinema, published this month (June 2025) by Faber.Around the release date, I (Neil) sat down in Cinema 1 at the Barbican in London to discuss the book, the form(s) of Queer Cinema, Ryan's journey with his sexuality and how cinema is entwined and implicated, being a film obsessive, and the comfort of lists. It was a profound privilege to sit with an old friend to talk about his amazing work and this art form that we both love so much. Around this conversation, Dario and I discuss Queer representation and the cinema as a transgressive space, ownership and authorship of texts, and the way that the cinema space affects not only the viewing of a film but in this case, the experience of talking about film. Finally, we talk about the film End of the Century (Castro, 2019, Argentina) - I mistakenly describe it as a Spanish film in the episode, apologies - the film that accompanied my visit to the Barbican to see Ryan, and also the film that magically ends his transcendent and moving book.This episode of The Cinematologists is dedicated to Barney Gilbey.———Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/cinematologists———You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast, so please do that if you enjoy the show.———Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

A decade ago John Maclean made his debut feature, the brilliant Western Slow West (2015).It followed a run of brilliant short films and music videos, as well as some of the late 90s and early 2000s most distinctive music during his time in the Beta Band. Tornado - Set in the rugged landscape of 1790s Britain, Tornado (Kōki) is a young and determined Japanese woman who finds herself caught in a perilous situation when she and her father’s (Takehiro Hira) travelling puppet Samurai show crosses paths with a gang of ruthless criminals led by Sugarman (Tim Roth) and his ambitious son Little Sugar (Jack Lowden) (Source: Screen Scotland). In this episode Neil talks to writer/director John Maclean about the genesis of the film, his approach to genre and how the film negotiates and navigates the idea of being a genre film and a period film where both elements have been under-represented in the ways they are here. Elsewhere, Neil and Dario discuss how the film's story relates to contemporary notions of [digital] feudalism and representation, genre and audience subjectivity, film language and the cinematic and how (tongue in cheek) Maclean might be the new Hitchcock! ——— Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/cinematologists ——— You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow. We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast, so please do that if you enjoy the show. ——— Music Credits: ‘Theme from The Cinematologists’ Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

We're back with an episode featuring just Neil and myself discussing a cinematic topic we both are invested in: The crime/heist genre. The core of this chat is an examination of how the structures of the genre intersect with social, racial, and economic contexts in four specific films. Sparked by our shared admiration for Justin Kurzel's The Order, we trace the lineage of socially conscious crime narratives from classic noir to contemporary thrillers. We consider genre cinema's desire to convey a sense of prestige - think of the notion of elevated horror - and revisit some of the core theoretical foundations of genre as a self-contained system, as proposed by thinkers such as Steve Neale and Rick Altman. Then we tackle four films as case studies:The Order (2023) - Justin KurzelOdds Against Tomorrow (1959) – Robert WiseCollateral (2004) – Michael MannWidows (2018) – Steve McQueenWe analyse how each of these films, in varying ways, deploy genre frameworks to narrate the struggle for power, identity, and survival, and we interrogate the evolving relationship between cinematic pleasure and political subtext.ShownotesRick Altman - Film/Genre (London: British Film Institute, 1999)Neil Fox - Ashley Clark Curates BFI's Black Star - Director's NotesLuis M. Garcia-Mainar - Say it with generic maps: Genre, identity and flowers in Michael Mann’s Collateral - Screening the PastSteve Neale - Genre and Hollywood (London and New York: Routledge, 2000)Cayton Purdom - Mann Men - Los Angeles Review of Books———Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/cinematologists———You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast, so please do that if you enjoy the show.———Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

In late March 2025 we screened Oliver Stone's 1991 epic myth of 1960s America, The Doors, at Newlyn Filmhouse at the invitation of regular Cinematologist, filmmaker Mark Jenkin. The conversation following the screening covered Jim Morrison and the band, 1960s America, Vietnam, film form and the longstanding influence of the film on Mark's work, up to and including his new film, Rose of Nevada, due for release later this year. A few days after the screening news came of Val Kilmer's death and that prompted a rejigging of the release schedule for the podcast, so that Neil and Dario could talk in person about the film and Kilmer as an actor, on Neil's planned trip to London to do some taping. The result of that visit, and the live screening, can be found in this episode. It's part examination and celebration of Stone's under-discussed film and part celebration and analysis of Kilmer's work as Morrison and across his varied career.Neil and Dario talk about the actor's individual style and approach and legacy, while also using Dario's recent viewing of the documentary Val (2021) as a guide for understanding Kilmer's work in The Doors. If one of the aims of the screening for the podcast was to get more people engaged with Stone's work and Kilmer's performance, the latter's death means that is sadly more likely now and we hope this discussion adds to that ongoing conversation. Thanks to Mark for his commitment to and excitement in doing these screenings, as well as his generosity of thought and collaboration. As well, thanks to Newyln Filmhouse (Kernow) and the Garden Cinema (Covent Garden) for support at either end of the process to make this episode a reality.——— Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/cinematologists ——— You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow. We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show. ——— Music Credits: ‘Theme from The Cinematologists’ Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

As part of this year's Kinoteka Polish Film Festival, currently running in London, Michael Brooke has curated a complete retrospective of the criminally under-known Polish director Wojciech Has. The retrospective, starting from the 1st April 2025 and featuring screenings at the BFI and the ICA, contains Has's short and feature film work in gorgeous restorations. There are talks and events around the films, and the ICA has an exhibition of Polish film posters which is unmissable if you're in the vicinity.For this episode, Neil talks to curator Michael Brooke about Has's life and work, and legacy both within Poland and to a certain extent more widely. They also discuss the limitations of legacy due to decisions made by Has to stay in Poland. The conversation also covers Has's work as a film educator, Polish cinema more broadly and Michael's route to becoming an expert in the field, shedding light on how sometimes, things just happen that way. Elsewhere in the episode Neil and Dario discuss the impact of Has's work on them, at a time when both are particularly invested in the idea of the cinematic, where it can be found contemporarily and the need to engage with form intentionally as audiences, critics and filmmakers and not get drawn into the anodyne world of content that dominates screen culture generally. They discuss Has's work as a formal master, his approach to adaptation and the idea of filmmakers being in dialogue with each other despite the limitations of visibility of work, physical and political borders.———Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/cinematologists———You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.———Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

For the latest episode we are honoured to share a recent talk at Falmouth University's School of Film & Television by Rod Stoneman titled 'Amongst Artistic Forms of Thought'. Rod's talk discussed different and often radical uses of film form to move the art form and audience thinking into different, not literal, not factual, non information-driven places. To illustrate his talk he drew on a number of filmic examples including two different engagements with Hitchcock's work.To close the talk Rod discussed the work of his late friend Malcolm Le Grice, who had a deep association with the UK South West, as does Rod, and shared some examples of Malcolm's work to illustrate how radical, experimental and artistic (and prolific) he was, right up until his death late 2024. Here is a list of clips used, with links to more information and where possible, links to see the works - The Phoenix Tapes (1999) dir. Matthias Muller, Christoph Girardet.Section 4, Why Don’t You Love Me? (25 mins, 50 secs)It Felt Like A Kiss (2009) dir. Adam CurtisOpening 5 minutes, and the section on Enos the Chimp (from 19 mins, 25 secs)The Edge of Dreaming (2009) dir. Amy HardieHistoire(s) du cinéma (1988) dir. Jean-Luc GodardBerlin Horse (1970) dir. Malcolm Le GriceCatch The Sun (2000)Abstract Cinema (1993) dir. Keith GriffithsIntro, with Stan Brakhage and then Malcolm Le Grice interview (34mins in)Finiti (2010) dir. Malcolm Le GriceDark Trees (2019) dir. Malcolm Le GriceElsewhere in the episode Dario and Neil discuss the role and place of radical forms of cinema in film culture and reflect on Rod's talk and his thinking around different ways of engaging as audiences and filmmakers with thought, form and subjectivities.  Rod Stoneman is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Galway. He was the Director of the Huston School of Film & Digital Media from 2003-15 and Chief Executive of Bord Scannán na hÉireann / the Irish Film Board from 1993-2003. Previously a Deputy Commissioning Editor in the Independent Film and Video Department at Channel 4 Television from 1983-93. He has made a number of documentaries, including Ireland: The Silent Voices, Italy: the Image Business, Between Object and Image. He is the author of Chávez: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Seeing is Believing: The Politics of the Visual and Educating Filmmakers with Duncan Petrie. Following Malcolm Le Grice's death Rod wrote this obituary for The Guardian.----------Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/cinematologists----------You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.----------Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

It was an absolute joy to welcome actor, director, producer and writer Mario van Peebles to The Cinematologists Podcast. In London to show his new film Outlaw Posse as part of the Black Rodeo season at the BFI, I was able to talk with him and his son Mandela, who also stars in the film, about his lifelong interest in Westerns, particularly in the often cliched, often forgotten role of African American's in the Western mythos.Outlaw Posse is more of a companion piece than a sequel to his 1993 film Posse; this new work mines similar territory with its generic rawness infused with social commentary but with a kinetic direction that embraces spectacle.The conversation also covers the van Peebles' legacy; Mario's father Melvin one of the true blaxploitation pioneers, director of the now recognised classic Sweet Sweetback's Baadass Song; Mario's own journey in the industry, from his big break in Clint Eastwood's Heartbreak Ridge to his own seminal work as director of New Jack City.Neil and I discuss how wonderfully open and insightful Mario and Mandela were in the interview and further explore his perhaps under-appreciated body of work. We discuss the influence of New Jack City thinking about how that film triggered the New Black Cinema movement and influenced the aesthetics of 80s and 90s filmmaking in its wake._________For extra bonus content, including extended interviews, bonus podcast and our monthly newsletter consider joining our Patreon community: www.patreon.com/cinematoloigists _________You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show._____Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

We are really excited to be collaborating with the BFI once again, particularly for an episode on Belgian auteur filmmaker Chantal Akerman as they begin an in-depth retrospective of her work.In the autumn of 2022, Akerman's masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, was voted the greatest film of all time in Sight and Sound Magazine's once-a-decade poll. We covered that moment with a double episode - which would be a fantastic primer for this show if you haven't listened to it yet.The episode features a conversation in which Dario speaks to Céline Brouwez, the co-ordinator of the Fondation Chantal Akerman at CINEMATEK, and season curator Isabel Stevens. The discourse surrounding the Sight and Sound poll result and its aftermath as a cultural moment frames the chat. Céline discusses the incredible impact of the poll result on her organisation, and Isabel relives the night of the big announcement and the immediate shockwaves that ran through not only cinephile circles but the broader media.We talk about how the moment caused a something revaluation of what constitutes "great" cinema, not to mention great art, and provoked something of a minor crisis in cultural gatekeeping, particularly with regard to lists.One of the things that this BFI retrospective - entitled Adventures in Perception - is keen to address is Akerman's body of work beyond Jeanne Dielman. We go into this in detail, talking through the elements of archiving, restoration and presentation. We think through the breadth of her oeuvre, which has few generic boundaries. And, of course, we explore Akerman herself: her formative experience, the influence of her mother, and her rigorous form borne of a commitment to artistic commitment and morality.Neil and I then reflect further on the notion of a feminist/female cinematic perspective and the philosophical conundrum: can there be an objective definition of art?As part of the collaboration, we have four copies of the Akerman Auteur series of Sight and Sound to give to 4 sign-ups for our popcorn-level membership (which is £6 per month). So, if you want to grab one of these, sign up or upgrade ASAP. As part of the popcorn tier you will also get a physical postcard from either myself or Neil.Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/cinematologists_________You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show._____Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

We kick off season 21 and the tenth year of The Cinematologists with a special conversation with Belgian filmmaker Tim Mielants about his work on recent release, Small Things Like These, written by Enda Walsh (Hunger) and starring and produced by Cillian Murphy.In the conversation, Neil and Tim discuss film form and style, particularly the use of close-up, space and the Gothic, masculinity, grief and how being an outsider can provide a unique take on the material and experiences of people from a place that is not one's own.Elsewhere, Neil and Dario dig down into this idea of who gets to tell whose stories, the role of audience and character perception in understanding a film's perspective, and they discuss the upcoming season, which marks a decade since the podcast started and features the usual broad range of topics, guests and points of entry, with a big name surprise early on!Thanks to Alex Morris from Alternate Current PR for setting this up.Small Things Like These is on digital platforms now and Blu-ray and DVD 3 February—You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £3 per month.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.—Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

This is part 2 of our end of year review show in which we countdown from 5 to 1. As requested from our Patreon members and several other long time listeners, we've gone back to a top ten countdown, which was great fun to compile. Although Neil and I did not agree on our top choice, we did share several films that made both our lists. There was also one major disagreement, and it was fascinating to spend some time hashing that out.We also give some honourable mentions of which there were a few in a year where there was a lot to like, if not vintage, particularly in mainstream cinema. Interestingly, I feel like Neil and I have been somewhat outside the general critical consensus with our picks and, as always, throughout the episode we ruminate on where cinema is culturally.If you haven't already, I recommend listening to part 1 of the 2024 countdown first (this is for patreon members). We give some context to the entire list offering potential themes that define our lists, and discuss the cinematic year as a whole.----You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £3 per month.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.----Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

In a bumper episode, the penultimate one of the year, Dario interviews Jessica Hausner about her new film Club Zero and Guy Maddin, Evan, and Galen Johnson about Rumours. Both films have limited UK releases this week (Friday, December 6th), and, interestingly, though they are very different films, they have thematic connections, particularly in relation to contemporary crises, social critique, and satirical modes.Club Zero stars a very well-cast Mia Wasikowska as Ms. Novak, a girlish teacher whose radical ideas about diet lead a group of students down a dangerous path. Dario's conversation with Jessica and composer Marcus Binder explores influence, seduction, and the complexities of societal expectations through the lens of her film. They discuss the dangers of eating disorders, the pressures of social responsibility placed on children, the alienating dynamics of the school environment, and how misinformation can so easily be spread.Rumours boasts a stacked cast led by Cate Blanchett, who represents the leaders of the G7. Dario talked to director-writer team Guy Maddin, Galen Johnson, and Evan Johnson about the film at the London Film Festival. The conversation navigates the complexities of creative expression in film, touching on themes of self-perception, audience expectations, character development, and the balance between artistic freedom and commercial viability. They discuss the challenges of navigating genre conventions, the significance of casting choices, and the implications of stereotypes in representing national identities.Neil and Dario then reflect on both the interviews and films, examining their artistic choices, character development, and how well the themes capture contemporary anxieties around authority, ideology, and ambivalence. They also discuss the aesthetics of symbolism and the emotional distance created through cinematography, as well as the broader implications of anxiety and manipulation in youth culture. This leads to a reflection on how artists address the current socio-political moment, how crisis is influencing many film works in an implicit way, and whether a political cinema is possible while maintaining a unique voice in an uncertain, changing cultural landscape.Thanks to Tom Finney at Blue Dolphin FilmsThanks to Chris Lawrence at Film PublicityThanks to George Crostwait and the team at The Garden Cinema----You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £3 per month.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.----Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

In this return to the long-form interview format, The Cinematologists are deeply honoured to welcome Professor Vivian Sobchack to the podcast. In an incredibly profound and wide-ranging conversation, Dario discusses with Prof. Sobchack a diverse array of topics related to her work and life as one of the most important and influential thinkers and writers on cinema. The subjects covered include:The Evolution of Film Studies: Vivian reflects on film studies' early formation in the United States and the profound impact of phenomenology on the discipline. She shares rich insights into how our embodied experience shapes our interaction with films.Her Personal Journey: Vivian offers fascinating accounts of being a young female scholar during the early formation of film studies, providing unique historical perspectives on the discipline’s growth.Film Phenomenology: If the episode has a central theme, it is Vivian's groundbreaking legacy in film phenomenology. She contextualizes her work within a broader framework, contrasting it with Marxist and psychoanalytic film criticism, and highlights the distinct contributions phenomenology offers to the study of cinema.Cinema as an Immersive Experience: The conversation explores the intricate relationship between viewers and films, emphasising the shared, immersive experience that makes cinema a unique cultural and artistic event.Genre Analysis and Science Fiction: Vivian discusses her analysis of genre, particularly focusing on science fiction. She draws on the cultural and philosophical implications of films like Arrival, Inception, and Her.Reflecting on the interview, Dario and Neil unpack how Prof. Sobchack's work provides invaluable insights for developing more nuanced ways of thinking about the filmic experience. They discuss how her scholarship underscores cinema's role as a mirror to culture, technology, and the human condition. The episode highlights the importance of creating space for in-depth academic dialogue and explores the personal impact Sobchack’s work has had on the hosts. Neil and Dario also delve into the multifaceted relationship between cinema and its audience, emphasising the need to engage with film as an experience rather than merely consuming it.Prof Sobchack's Biography:Vivian Sobchack, born in 1940 in New York City, is widely regarded as one of the most influential American film theorists of the past 25 years. In the early 1990s, she played a pivotal role in re-establishing phenomenology as a vital methodology in film studies with her groundbreaking book, The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience (1992). Her work emphasizes the bodily and material foundations of film viewing, championing an existential-phenomenological approach to moving image media. This perspective is articulated with particular elegance in her celebrated collection of essays, Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture (2004).A trailblazer in the field, Sobchack was the first woman elected President of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (1985-1987) and received the organization’s Distinguished Career Achievement Award in 2012. She served for over 20 years as the sole academic member of the Board of Directors at the American Film Institute (AFI). From 1992 to 2005, Sobchack was Associate Dean and Professor at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. She continues to inspire new generations of scholars as Professor Emerita at UCLA.This episode is a 50-minute excerpt of the full 1 hour and 50 min conversation. The full interview is available on our Patreon site: Click Here Visit www.patreon.com/cinematologists for our extensive bonus content and to be part of our community. We also really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written, and we’ll mention it). Sharing on social media is the lifeblood of the podcast, so please do so if you enjoy the show.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdariofilms/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cinematologistspodcast---Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

In what is something of a throwback episode nowadays, Neil hosted a screening of Jeff Feuerzig's film about Laura Albert [JT Leroy] as the opening event of the 2024 Falmouth Book Festival, recording the post-film conversation for the podcast.For the post-film chat Neil was joined by the director of Falmouth Book Festival, Colin Midson, who had a unique perspective on the story, as he was the publicist for JT Leroy's first book, Sarah, when it was released.If you haven't seen the film or don't know the story of JT Leroy, we recommend you watch it, or look up the story before listening, not because of spoilers because you know we don't engage with that stuff, but because the story is so wild and incredible, you may need the context to really appreciate the discussion this time out.Around the live event recording, Neil and Dario get into ethics, charisma, celebrity, the aesthetic of cassettes, Warhol, and much, much more in a really deep and far-ranging discussion about a fascinating film.Thank you to Colin for his candidness and invitation to do the event, and for the Poly in Falmouth for hosting so beautifully, as always.___If you haven’t already, please consider becoming a subscriber to our Patreon channel: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologistsWe are expanding our output so if you enjoy the show and find value in the work, any support you can give would be very much appreciated. You can become a member for the same price as a coffee a month.We also really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.___Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

Our second London Film Festival main episode is here, and it's a bumper edition. Dario is in Falmouth visiting Neil, so it's something of a nostalgic live taping from the place where The Cinematologists started. The first film on the agenda is Alex Ross Perry's Pavements, which is a meta-documentary on a mercurial 90s band, Pavement. Neil, with his music film expertise, gives detailed context to the history and mythology of the band, whose cult status is deliberately explored by Ross Perry. It is another film that plays with multiple forms and perspectives and is also an instructive counterpoint to Soundtrack to a Coup d'etat (which we covered in the previous main show).This episode also features an interview with Australian director Justin Kurzel, who previously made the somewhat underrated version of Macbeth with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard (among an impressive ouvre). His LFF entry this year is a documentary focusing on Australian musician Warren Ellis. The film follows his career but also explores his dedication to a wildlife sanctuary in Sumatra, where rescued trafficked animals are nursed back to health.Dario then discusses the psychological drama Under the Volcano by Polish director Damian Kocur. It tells the story of a middle-class Ukrainian family finishing a holiday in Tenerife just as the war starts. It's another film that keeps the spectre of apocalypse in the background while focusing on the nuances of familial trauma and the ethical decisions they are forced to confront.Finally, Hailey and Ben join us to discuss Elton John: Never Too Late, a look back at the singer-songwriter's huge career in the context of his final concert in North America at Dodger Stadium.Our extended coverage of the festival is on our Patreon channel, to support the show please consider subscribing for as little as £2.50 per month. You get access to all our bonus content. We also really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written, and we’ll mention it). Sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast, so please do that if you enjoy the show.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdariofilms/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cinematologistspodcast---Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

In the first of our 2024 LFF double header on the main feed, Neil and Dario are joined by one of the two correspondents joining us for this year's coverage, Ben Goff.The focus of the episode are deep dives into key films for Neil, Dario and Ben from their early and pre-festival viewing, on the digital platform and at press and industry screenings on the ground in London, at BFI Southbank and Picturehouse Central. Each of the cinematologists take two films each to pore over, with Dario discussing Mati Diop's Dahomey and Athina Rachel Tsangari's Harvest, Ben delving into La Cocina directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios and India Donaldson's Good One. Finally, Neil goes long on Soundtrack to a Coup D'Êtat (dir. Johan Grimonprez) and short on Sofa So Good (dir. Thiele Brothers).Elsewhere there is discussion of approaches to festival viewing and a quick overview of Neil and Dario's response to Radu Jude's latest experimental pastiche/provocation/essay Eight Postcards from Utopia (co-dir. Christian Ferencz-Flatz), with some valuable insight from Dario's Romanian partner Bea. The Cinematologists is providing consistent, detailed coverage of this year's LFF over on its Patreon. For more information and to support the show, please visit https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists.---We are expanding our output so if you enjoy the show and find value in the work, any support you can give would be very much appreciated. You can become a member for the same price as a coffee a month.We also really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.---Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

In our second episode of the season, we discuss Neil's superb, recently published book Music Films: Documentaries, Concert Films and Other Cinematic Representations of Popular Music.We explore their significance, evolution, and the complexities surrounding their creation and reception, along with Neil's reflections on the challenges of writing for diverse audiences and the expectations of music fans. The conversation touches on the validity of music films in modern culture, the messiness of the genre, and the importance of representation, particularly regarding black artists and women in music. They also examine the ethical implications of music documentaries and the power dynamics at play in the portrayal of artists. Neil's book is so comprehensive we couldn't cover everything but some of the films under discussion include Don't Look Back (dir. D. A. Pennebaker, 1967), Lonely Boy (dir. Roman Kroitor and Wolf Koenig, 1962), Whatstaxx (dir. Mel Stuart), The Punk Singer (dir. Kathleen Hanna), In Bed with Madonna (dir. Alek Keshishian, 1991), The Last Angel of History (dir. John Akomfrah, 1996), American Interior (dirs. Dylan Goch, Gruff Rhys), Miss Americana (dir. Lana Wilson, 2020), and many more.Here's a link to Dario's Substack article: 10 Music Films you may not seen (and are free on YouTube)You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.Chapters00:00 Introduction to Music Films and Their Impact02:37 Neil's Journey with His Book06:34 The Validity of Music Films in Modern Culture08:54 Expanding the Canon of Music Films11:31 The Messiness of Music Films14:20 Writing for Diverse Audiences17:23 Navigating the Expectations of Music Fans19:50 The Balance of Coverage in Music Films22:55 Exploring Authorial Voice in Music Documentaries24:14 The Evolution of Music Film Styles28:40 The Role of Technology in Music and Film31:49 Gender Dynamics in Music Documentaries34:31 Exploitation in Music Documentaries37:28 The Complexity of Artist Representation39:28 The Importance of Black Artists in Music Films42:05 The Legacy of Music Documentaries46:46 Women in Music: A Historical Perspective50:47 The Power Dynamics in Music Films55:32 The Ethics of Music Documentaries___ If you haven't already, please consider becoming a subscriber to our Patreon channel: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists We are expanding our output so if you enjoy the show and find value in the work, any support you can give would be very much appreciated. You can become a member for the same price as a coffee a month. We also really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.___Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

We are back for the 20th season of The Cinematologists Podcast and our 10th year. Neither of us when we started out could have envisaged that we would have done what we have with the Podcast, spoken to so many fascinating film people and cultivated such a loyal audience. Indeed, this season represents something of a renewal, as is discussed in the first episode of the season. After taking a break from the last season Dario is back, bringing with him quite a few personal and professional changes that form the basis of a discussion about life, work and cinema. We reflect on how the context of academia has changed so much in recent years and this has affect how we both view what we do. The also conversation also delves into themes of identity, the value of teaching, and the tension between academia and capitalism, while also highlighting the importance of authenticity and passion in their work. As we look to the future, we are feeling invigorated and excited for new opportunities and the potential even more valuable and joyful experience in making the podcast and bringing to you.With Dario moving out of his full-time post and into a more freelance space, the Podcast will be aligning with that to some degree. Primarily this means we will be expanding the Patreon channel and hoping to sign up new members.Another aspect of this is we will offer as many episodes as possible early and in video format on the Patreon. Our plan is to drop the videos as bonus for you on a Tuesday the week they go out and then audio version will go out on the podcast feed on Thursday.The amount and variety of content you will receive will be much more significant. We plan to continue the newsletters and the after-show bonus episodes. Extended interviews will also be available in full only on Patreon, and coverage of events like the London Film Festival will be extensive.Because of this, we want to try to entice more listeners to join the Patreon. We would really appreciate your help. If you value the content, please take the time to recommend and share it with your colleagues and friends and, of course, on social media.We hope you enjoy the new season and all this new content. As always, please get in touch with any feedback or comments about the films we discuss. We always like to mention any interesting points that the listeners make on the show.We hope you love the new season and, as always, appreciate your continued support.___You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologistsYou can become a member for only £2.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.___Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

In the final episode of the latest season – Neil’s solo adventure – Neil talks to filmmaker, writer and comedian Scott Tanner Jones about collecting physical media. In an episode with a similar approach to the previous one with Kat Flint-Nicol, Neil brings to the podcast a conversation about themes and ideas that permeate his thinking around a particular area of film, and wider popular culture. In this episode Neil and Scott discuss their approaches to collecting films (and records) in physical form.The conversation takes in areas such as curating what you watch, interest in particular physical media boutique labels, how physical media isn’t the be all and end all, cataloguing the year in film in different ways, studio interest and care in their back catalogues, Scott’s favourite places in his adopted hometown of LA to watch movies, the demand on our eyeballs and they answer the question, is David Lynch quirky?Films discussed in this episode include Cocoon, Something Wild, Midnight Cowboy, E.T., Midnight Run, MaXXXine, La Chimera, Evil Does Not Exist and Hit Man.To close out the episode and season, Neil shares some of his thoughts on his favourite releases of 2024 so far, and his first half of the year in film watching more broadly.— You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow. We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists You can become a member for only £2. We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show. — Music Credits: ‘Theme from The Cinematologists’ Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

In the penultimate episode of the season, Neil sits down with friend and colleague Kat Flint-Nicol to think through British cinema. The aim was to focus on regionality, but the conversation is much-more wide ranging than that. It captures the complex intersectionality of place, class, genre, industry gatekeeping, and the relationship between industry and culture.  Films, places and texts discussed in this discursive chat include Rochester and Dickens, and David Lean’s Great Expectations, Terence Davies, The Commitments, Nick Love, Sexy Beast and the crime cinema that followed it, Muscle and Hyena, Guy Ritchie, Last Orders, Ray Winstone, Rose Glass and Shane Meadows.  It is fascinating conversation and hopefully provides insight into Neil and Kat’s current thinking about the complexities of British Cinema historically and contemporarily. — You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow. We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists You can become a member for only £2. We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show. Huge thanks to the publicist Chris Lawrance for making this conversation happen. — Music Credits: ‘Theme from The Cinematologists’ Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

As we enter the final weeks of the latest season, it is an honour to share this mini episode (a 45rpm single as opposed to 33.3rpm LP if you will) ahead of two final regular episodes before our summer break and the return of Dario for the autumn season.Neil was invited at short notice to chat to filmmaker Gary Hustwit about his revolutionary, generative film, Eno, about the life, creative practice and philosophy of Brian Eno. Having just released a book on Music Films, Neil was excited to talk to a filmmaker for a film that feels as close to the ideal of a music film - one where the form has a synchronous relationship with the subject - as is possible.So please enjoy this short conversation (hopefully a prelude to a longer one down the line) with Gary Hustwit, and if it’s showing near you, please try and catch the film, which due to a generative programme that works with an archive of historic and specifically filmed material, is different every time it is viewed - https://www.hustwit.com/eno.—You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.—Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

Pat Kelman, born in Essex but raised in Cornwall, has been an actor, filmmaker, theatre-maker and programmer. Presently, he finds himself releasing independent and arthouse cinema that other distributors deem too niche or challenging via his inspirational 606 Distribution company, as well as programming a wild collection of formative films and beloved double bills through his Pat's Film Club screenings that are hosted at Truro's wonderful WTW Plaza Cinema.  Neil has been a regular at the film club and has known Pat for a numhers of years and he wanted to sit down with Pat to talk about his life in cinema and the current state of independent film releasing as well as what informs the decisions he makes regarding what to screen at his film club. The conversation covers his formative years and the early film experiences that shaped him as a person - horror cinema and seeing certain films so/too young, the influence of filmmakers including Mike Leigh and Atom Egoyan, his time visiting London's infamous Scala cinema, the power of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (Forman, 1975), his experiences making improvised feature films and BFI funded shorts, by committee.  What defines Pat's career is how he invests in people, and trusts people, loves cinema and is a true cinephile. Towards the end he talks about his move into horror programming and re-releasing cult films as part of 606's evolution. It was a joy to spend time talking to cinema whose work is underpinned by perpetual enthusiasm for and belief in filmmakers and audiences, and cinema as an art form. — You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow. We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2. We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show. — Music Credits: ‘Theme from The Cinematologists’ Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

To coincide with the release of his latest film The Beast (starring Léa Seydoux and George Mackay), writer/director Bertrand Bonello came on the podcast to talk about AI and technology, acting, connection, memory, music and perplexing cinema.It was an honour for Neil to talk filmmaking and cinema - taking in Eyes Wide Shut, David Lynch and Sunrise - for the podcast, as Neil and Dario are big admirers of Bonello’s work and it’s a privilege to have one of the world’s most interesting contemporary filmmakers on the show.Highlights from the Episode:Perplexing Cinema: Bonello discusses his preference for films that engage viewers in active thought, asking questions rather than providing answers.Casting Insights: Learn about the challenges and triumphs of casting George McKay and the enigmatic Lea Seydoux, whose performances bring profound depth to the film.AI and Memory: The film’s exploration of AI delves into the subjective nature of human memory and emotion, highlighting the inherent limitations of technology in capturing the human experience.Music as Narrative: Bonello’s meticulous selection of music is more than an illustration—it’s a narrative tool that enhances character and story.Cinematic Time: Discover how Bonello plays with time in his films, creating a fluid and immersive experience for the audience.The Beast is released by Vertigo Releasing on Friday May 31st in UK cinemas and marks the filmmaker’s boldest and most cinematically adventurous film to date. It’s one of the films of 2024 and The Cinematologists is proud to have welcomed Bertrand on the show to promote the film’s release.Huge thanks to the publicist Chris Lawrance for making this conversation happen.—You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.—Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

The latest episode was the brainchild of longtime Cinematologist Mark Jenkin (Bait/Enys Men) who wanted to screen one of his favourite films, John Milius's Big Wednesday (1978) at his local cinema, the gorgeous Newlyn Filmhouse, in South West Cornwall. Over a languorous chat before the screening, and over some wonderful chips, Neil and Mark talk about the film and its director, surfing and Mark's upbringing in North Cornwall, the podcast, film programming, filmmaking and all sorts. During the conversation, the lovely staff from the Filmhouse pop in and out making sure the hosts are ok.After this the episode moves into the screen, where Neil and Mark intro the film and are joined afterwards by a large portion of the sell-out crowd to reflect on the screening and the many complex and moving elements of the film, before Neil and Mark say goodnight on the steps of the cinema as staff close it for the day.Thank you to Mark for choosing the film and being so generous with his time, thoughts and energy at the event. Thanks to Kingsley for manning the roving mic and thanks to Alastair and staff at the Filmhouse for their support, hospitality, and chips. —You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.—Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

On a recent visit to London, Neil and Dario sat down to catch up about Dario's break from this season's shows, the present and future of the podcast and some recent film releases they've both seen and enjoyed. They discuss two films they saw together across a relaxing shared weekend; Ilker Çatak's The Teachers' Lounge and Wim Wenders' Perfect Days. They also discuss Felipe Gálvez Haberle's The Settlers, which they have both seen, but separately. Conversation covers the context of the films they watched together, waxing lyrical about The Garden Cinema in Covent Garden, where they watched The Teachers' Lounge, as well as the invitation to think and converse provided by watching Perfect Days at home.Elsewhere Dario talks about the experience of being up close and personal seeing Brian Cox in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, and Neil discusses seeing Dev Patel's Monkey Man (2024) and Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Evil Does Not Exist (2023) which leads the pair into a discussion about the Japanese filmamker, a contemporary favourite of both Neil and Dario's.Oh, and very importantly, there were buns! Yep! Included in the episode is commentary and tasting of Dario's partner Bea's generous baking of cinnamon buns for your erstwhile hosts. (There are also in places some uneditable rogue coughs courtesy of two ageing podcast hosts. Apologies).---You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.---Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

To coincide with the UK cinema release, Neil talks to director Rachel Lambert about Sometimes I Think About Dying, her third feature film.The conversation covers making a feature that had a successful life as a short film, the artistic and thematic legacies of COVID, the importance of location and place, the all-too-human desire to be seen and the terror that comes with that, the importance of Buster Keaton and the genius of Punch Drunk Love, among many other things in a deep and far-reaching conversation.Elsewhere, Neil talks about how much he misses Dario and recent encounters with cinema that represent the Pacific Northwest on screen. To view the short film that is part of the conversation and the legacy of the film, you can see it here - https://vimeo.com/366086858For tickets to the live episode taping at Newlyn Filmhouse on Monday 15th April, for a film selected and introduced by Mark Jenkin, click here - https://newlynfilmhouse.com/NewlynFilmhouse.dll/WhatsOn?f=1002162—You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.—Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

The new episode of the podcast sees Alison Peirse, now Professor of Film Studies at University of Leeds, return to the show to update us on her work in videographic scholarship and Global Women's Horror Film studies. The episode follows the recent release of a stunning special issue of the vital MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture Journal, edited by Alison, featuring a trove of video essays looking at the role of women in Global Horror filmmaking, which serves as an output of a larger-funded project. The conversation covers some of the essays in detail, but more depth is paid to the process of making creative academic practice work that is inclusive, radical and disruptive, to feminist anti-patriarchal practices, the wonder of Sara Ahmed and the intricacies of being a newly minted Prof!Talk also covers Alison's much-missed newsletter The Losers' Club (which she promises will be back soon) and the feminist practice collective space Ways of Doing.Thanks to Alison for coming back to the show and for such an engaging and enlightening conversation.----You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.----Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

For the latest episode of the podcast Neil talks to filmmaker and academic Dr Nariman Massoumi about his wonderful short documentary Pouring Water on Troubled Oil (2023). MUBI: In 1951, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company set out to produce a publicity film promoting its activities in Iran. They hired the poet Dylan Thomas. This poetic film follows Thomas’s journey capturing his encounter with the country and its people as a political upheaval for oil nationalization unfolds.The film is not available to view yet, having been criminally overlooked by UK film festivals, but it will be at some point [and we will let you know when]. That didn't stop Neil talking to Naz about the film because in form, content and theme it has much to offer contemporary cinematic and cultural conversations. Their chat ranges across subjects and themes including documentary practice, archive work, sound design, proto-cinema and the poetic, colonialism and decolonisation and practice research in the academy.You can hear the Cinema16 conversation between Dylan Thomas, Maya Deren and others, from 1953, that Naz mentions here.For more information on Naz, visit here.Elsewhere in the episode, Neil recommends the music film Getting it Back: The Story of Cymande (Mackenzie-Smith, 2023), more information on that here.He also slyly mentions his forthcoming book, which you can pre-order here, or anywhere you get books.----You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.----Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

In the first episode of season 19 Neil takes the reins solo, with Dario on sabbatical, for a conversation with one of the UK’s leading filmmakers Jeanie Finlay, ahead of her popular and powerful new documentary Your Fat Friend, released in UK cinemas on Feb 9, 2024.Jeanie returns to the podcast having recorded a live conversation about her career to date and previous release, Seahorse (2019), at the film festival Neil co-directed in Luton, Filmstock. This conversation is wide-ranging. It covers her craft and cinematic process, her evolution and growth as a filmmaker, her commitment to creating more visibility for key emerging filmmaking roles around mental health and wellbeing, Fatness, the Internet, bias, being tender to yourself, embodiment and ethics. There is also moment where talk turns to her great friend Tom Butchart, the owner and star of Sound It Out [the shop and the film].Your Fat Friend tells the story of Aubrey Gordon following her emergence as a writer on medium [here’s a link to her first post as YrFatFriend, which Jeanie mentions in the conversation), through publishing her first book and becoming a hugely successful podcaster. It provides a profound, moving and challenging insight into a life lived online in a body that society takes umbrage with, showcasing Aubrey’s courage to keep having a vital conversation about Fatness in the face of vitriolic hate and violence and the real cultural change she is at the vanguard of as a result. Like all of Jeanie’s films, this is a film about those who are looked at but not seen and, like Seahorse, is a film about coming into being in a fuller way than was previously imagined by an incredible human being.For more information on the film and where to see it. Visit https://www.yrfatfriendfilm.com/----You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.----Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

In this final episode of 2023 (and season 18), we (Neil and Dario) ruminate on a year spent thinking cinematically and engaging with cinema in the unique way that has become the hallmark of The Cinematologists; thoughtful, personal, searching for meaning and meaningful experiences across the movie spectrum.We both share brief discussions of two films that stuck with us from different points of the year, Neil talking about Mark Jenkin’s short A Dog Called Discord and Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s The Future Tense, while Dario ponders Patricio Guzman’s My Imaginary Country and Samsara, directed by Lois Patiño.Then, we spend more time discussing three films each at greater length in what could be seen as their top 3 films of the year, if we were so inclined to frame them that way (and we go to great pains in the episode to make sure that they don’t come across as ‘ranked’). Dario shares his thoughts on and fondness for Laura Poitras’s All The Beauty and the Bloodshed, Celine Song’s Past Lives and Todd Haynes’s May December. While Neil decides to go deep on Cyril Schäublin’s Unrest (which he shamefully claims is set in the 1920s when it’s clearly late 19th Century!), Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains and Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves. ———Thank you to all our guests this season and to our listeners, we thank you for your continued support of The Cinematologists, and hope you join us for season 19, which commences in February 2024.———You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show._____Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of the Cinematologists podcast, we reflect on the pervasive apathy often accompanying the endless influx of new releases and how to combat nagging sense of FOMO which, at times, feels like it can never be satiated. When both of us saw Napoleon and agreed there wasn't much we wanted to talk about, and neither did a raft of art-house films on the various streaming platforms particularly get our juices flowing, we decided to unpack this troubling lassitude. Does the need to be "up with everything" rise and fall with the choppy waves of life? Or does our work as film lecturers naturally impact the pure desire just to watch films for their own sake? Perhaps it was something to do with that old chestnut: end of year "best of" lists. That collective social itch to define the year can seem so performative (having said that our 2023 round up will drop on the 23rd of December) . Never fear though, we work through the malaise; the value of celebrating the films that have demanded attention, spark conversations, and stayed with us, is more important to us that any arbitrary ranking.We do get to some films in this episode. Starting with Christian Petzold's Afire, a situational character portrait from German director Christian Petzold. Two friends, Felix, an art Student and Thomas, a writer, arrive at Felix's holiday home on the Baltic Sea with the intention of working. They arrive to discover the house is occupied by Nadja , played by Petzold regular Paula Beer. Her presence is a triggering point of distraction for the insufferable Thomas, whose loathsome self-involvement is tolerated by Najda, and then gradually deconstructed.  Iranian-British director Babak Jalali's  Fremont is a beautifully measured outsider tale that echoes the spirit of Jim Jarmusch. Anaita Wali Zada's compelling performance takes centre stage in a narrative that challenges Western expectations of immigrant tales. The film's philosophical undertones and political nuances offer something of a reversal of that well worn cliché that posits America as the promised land of freedom.In Leave the World Behind (Sam Esmail) we witness a stellar cast, including Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, and Kevin Bacon, navigating a series unexplained events during a family retreat to Long Island. Familiar themes of racial, class and political tensions add edge to a dynamic, unpredictable narrative of social breakdown which is often uncanny and visual striking throughout.This is our penultimate episode of the season. Just our end of year round up to come. As always we hope you enjoy the episode.--You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show._____Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

In this special bonus, to tide you over before we are back with full, regular episodes in the run-up to year's end, Neil talks to filmmaker Toby Amies about his stunning music film In The Court of the Crimson King: King Crimson at 50. The conversation coincides with the film's release on streaming platforms following a critically lauded festival and cinema run. Thanks to Toby for taking the time to talk to us.Elsewhere Neil recommends John Akomfrah's incredible new film (installation) Arcadia, at The Box in Plymouth, and the arrival of the wonderful music film Apocalypse: A Bill Callahan Tour Film on Ovid.TV ---You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show._____Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

Our own Prof. Neil Fox in his day job is director of Falmouth University's Sound/Cinema Lab, which is behind films such as Mark Jenkin's Enys Men (2022) and Chris Morris' A Year in a Field (2022) as well as Wilderness (2017), which Neil wrote and produced. Wilderness was also made with a student crew and was proof of concept for making a feature drama within the structure of a university course. With Dario delivering a module to second-year students called Professional Life Practice, designed to help students research and understand the creative industries and learn from working experiences, Neil very generously agreed to answer a range of questions on subjects including his ethos of film pedagogy, how students should use extra-curricula events to shape their careers, the process of developing Wilderness, how students were recruited and what roles they took, understanding a professional mindset, and how the students' experiences on the film shaped their career pathways. Neil is on top form in this talk which is why we have decided to put it out as a bonus episode. It's a hugely valuable insight for film lecturers in practice and screenwriting, and definitely for students in all areas of the creative industries.Prof. Neil Fox - [email protected] Dr. Dario Llinares - [email protected] _____You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow. We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2. We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show._____Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

A special for cinephiles and podphiles this week as we welcome the superb critic and broadcaster Rico Gagliano. Rico's official title is the Head of Audio at Mubi but it's his creative direction and voice that is the driving force of The Mubi Podcast. Indeed, the notion of creative auteurism is just one of the many topics covered in the in-depth conversation with Dario.We discuss a little of his background – his cinephile origin story – becoming a critic and moving into radio - his role at MUBI – the process and inspirations behind The Mubi Podcast – How the company views the podcast in relation to its overall brand and analyses of various seasons and episodes.Neil and Dario then continue the discussion around film podcasting particularly how the audio format at its best offers the opportunity for "narrative film criticism" and how the working through of ideas and opinions can find a useful space to negotiate between subjectivity and objectivity as well as ideology and aesthetics.It was great to discover that one of our listeners has set up a Cinematologists IMDB page - https://www.imdb.com/list/ls538725164/ It lists many of the films we have focused on for the main episodes, but also lots of films we have just mentioned briefly or in passing. Thanks so much to Sven Rufus for creating this example of paratextual content which is a great accompaniment to the show.---You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show._____Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe

No matter the status of cinema, films focused on Hollywood icons seem to always retain a healthy level of interest. A key question is: do they bring anything new to the understanding of a storied figure. Stephen Kijak the director of Rock Hudson: All that Heaven Allowed, released on UK streaming this week, embarks on a sweeping ambitious, and intimate portrayal of a star whose symbolism transcended, albeit unintentionally, the silver screen. From B-Movie matinees through to the ultimate romantic leading man in the melodramas of Douglas Sirk. From Old School conservative rancher in Giant, opposite the raw James Dean, through to campy comedies with Doris Day. Not forgetting the myriad clunky formulaic studio pictures and the one outlying cult classic, John Frankenhiemer's Seconds, a role that was simultaneously against type but in retrospect a deconstruction of his closeted sexuality. All the while Hudson enjoyed an prominent role in the "hidden in plain sight", gay subculture of Hollywood. TV stardom revitalised an ailing Hollywood career in the 70s but as Hudson remained closeted to the public into the 80s, the facade of leading man heterosexual imperviousness crumbled when he was outed as the most prominent victim of AIDS. Right to the end his homosexuality was kept hidden although, watching the details of Hudson's private life, recounted by many of his friends and lovers, one wonders how.Kijak's film is a classically structured documentary but one which astutely maps his constructed film persona his personal life using an array of clips which sync the implicit and often explicit queerness that one can read into his many roles. Neil and Dario discuss Hudson's status as an Hollywood Icon along with the formal approach of the documentary.ROCK HUDSON: ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWED - Available to download and rent on digital platforms from 23rd OctoberDigital platforms include (if you wanted to mention) Amazon Prime VideoApple TVGoogle PlayMicrosoftSky Virgin MediaTalk TalkBTThanks to Stephen for his time and to Chris Lawrence for setting up the interview.---You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show._____Music Credits:‘Theme from The Cinematologists’Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dariollinares.substack.com/subscribe