Scratching the Surface - A Peter Strickland Thread

thread for hungarian-based English film director Peter Strickland.

quote is an innocuous phrase from a Berberian Sound Studio interview here.

I think it does a decent job of suggesting the way he delves under both genre and the ideas sex, revenge and horror, as well as implying the essential factor of sound in his film - sound as a space of exploration and scenery as much as the visual, to the point of representing another narrative of sorts.

I quite liked Katalin Varga without loving it, Berberian Sound Studio is the great film of recent years for me, one of my favourites of all time I think, and I thought The Duke of Burgundy was great as well, without being certain how much weight it carries... still thinking.

Duke of Burgundy posts ported across from the [url=Berberian Sound Studio]BSS thread[/i]:

just went to see the duke of burgundy. v enjoyable. long-game fetishism and lepidoptera. a small figure of eight of sexual domination.

― Fizzles, Sunday, 22 February 2015 15:43 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sound again central. the list of recordings listed at the end as if not more important than the visual scenery. pleasing joke in the credits - the informal English names of the moths and butterflies played by their Latin classification.

― Fizzles, Sunday, 22 February 2015 15:46 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

WHY NOT START A THREAD FOR IT?

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 22 February 2015 16:04 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

v nearly did - or a P Strickland thread - and still might, but the film itself feels a little lightweight. not all in a bad way - wish there were more films that were intriguing bagatelles - but I'm still thinking.

actually that's not true, I'm sitting in the cinema bar drinking, but that's what passes for thinking round my way recently.

― Fizzles, Sunday, 22 February 2015 16:16 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A Strickland thread would be better.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 22 February 2015 16:21 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Title keeps making me think of the Mr. Show Burgundy Loaf skit

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 22 February 2015 16:23 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no men in this film btw. relying on Morbs or someone equally well informed to mention other general release films where this is the case.

― Fizzles, Sunday, 22 February 2015 16:27 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's a really good question, and a unique aspect I'm not sure I've encountered reading about this film yet.

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 22 February 2015 16:36 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the film is superbly punctuated by lectures on lepidoptera, with slow scans of the all women audience - they're all fantastically dressed and individually beautiful - in the way that is sometimes demeaningly termed "striking". the only exception being a slightly toppling badly wigged mannequin.

this film is as much about dress and dressing up as it is about anything else. the visual and aural aspects of the fabric are v sensually indulged in.

― Fizzles, Sunday, 22 February 2015 16:41 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

very high among 2015's anticipatings

― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Sunday, 22 February 2015 16:43 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

will port all this over to a new thread when I get 'ome.

― Fizzles, Sunday, 22 February 2015 16:45 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Saw the trailer when I went to see Goodbye to Language (another film of tiny bits of very beautifully done sound) (as almost all Godard) and I quite like to see this as well.

― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 22 February 2015 20:03 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thanks for reminding me that I missed my chance to see "Goodbye to Language" in Chicago, apparently. How does Herzog get a 3D documentary about a cave into theatres, and Wenders gets a 3D doc about a dance into theaters, but Godard's lauded latest barely sneaks in for a couple of weeks? And alas because this is meant for 3D, I have a sad feeling that means I will never get to see it.

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 22 February 2015 20:13 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was quite taken with Duke of Burgundy.

The psych/soft folk soundtrack by Cat's Eye sounded good as well.

― the gabhal cabal (Bob Six), Sunday, 22 February 2015 22:38 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i missed this at ifc, sadface
josh, tbf, both herzog and wenders' films are narrative and about subjects people can easily grasp and are in focus

― the plight of y0landa (forksclovetofu), Monday, 23 February 2015 03:08 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hope I manage to see this next week.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 23 February 2015 03:27 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― Fizzles, Tuesday, 24 February 2015 08:54 (four years ago) Permalink

Will revive when I watch next week :-)

― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 13:10 (four years ago) Permalink

on 6 influences for DoB

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/peter-strickland-six-films-fed-duke-burgundy

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:46 (four years ago) Permalink

Just saw this and loved it, he has just about my favourite aesthetic of any director atm. His title sequences are a joy.

― ewar woowar (or something), Wednesday, 4 March 2015 17:26 (four years ago) Permalink

Some interesting and weird allusions to 2001 in this too, unless i imagined them.

― ewar woowar (or something), Wednesday, 4 March 2015 20:07 (four years ago) Permalink

Really enjoyed DOB, moreso than BSS in fact. Easy to see the whole role-playing aspect as a commentary on performance, with characters literally reading their lines from cue cards, or as an effective metaphor for the transactional, power-inscribed relationship that exists between author and audience. Also very smart on the way that other people's desires, even people we love, can bore us, or disgust us.

That sense of decadent European boredom reminded me strongly of Kumel's Daughters of Darkness at times, and it's easy to see the film as a very oblique vampire story, one where sleeping in a coffin becomes a fetishistic act.

Best line: "Would a human toilet be an acceptable compromise?"

― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Friday, 6 March 2015 08:57 (four years ago) Permalink

People certainly laughed at that line, the whole scene around the discussion of the bed with the disappointment in Cynthia's face as it can't be made in time for her bday was all round hilarious.

This was so beautifully designed and its sounds so well recorded -- it was the first time I felt surround sound as threatening and spooky by itself. Maybe it was where I was sat? V much like Goodbye to Language in that respect -- really nice to see two film where the material of film is being used a new, the space of cinema as a site for experiment on us poor viewers -- although its points around desire were easier to make something of than Godard's scattershot commentary.

― xyzzzz__, Monday, 23 March 2015 21:06 (four years ago) Permalink

That whole conversation would have seamlessly slotted into an episode of Blue Jam or maybe The Phantom of Liberty and it was funny, but also there was genuine pathos from Evelyn's character (the momentary look of horror) and it was also quite a humanising moment for both characters.

― xelab, Sunday, 3 May 2015 22:47 (four years ago) Permalink

The lip-quiver upon realising it'll take eight weeks to deliver the bed...

― p:s nerds know (dog latin), Monday, 11 May 2015 10:50 (four years ago) Permalink

i just wish i'd watched this on a decent system. as it happens we watched it on my computer screen with stereo speakers. Love the sequence of the moths piling up and getting closer and closer to the camera until it's just a static-y blur of wings and abdomens.

― p:s nerds know (dog latin), Monday, 11 May 2015 10:52 (four years ago) Permalink

There was a pretty good Strickland radio play on 4 this aft "The Len Continuum". Toby Jones voicing a hapless failed actor who peaked with a bit part in Never The Twain and it featured some Stricklandesque sonic diversions.

― xelab, Thursday, 18 June 2015 14:07 (three years ago) Permalink

This was a dull and sometimes awful movie.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 9 July 2015 00:01 (three years ago) Permalink

ahead of tonight's radio adaptation of the stone tape strickland selects his favourite horror soundtracks and films.

― Fizzles, Saturday, 31 October 2015 18:03 (three years ago) Permalink

Music and electronics: James Cargill
Vocal effects: Andrew Liles
Analogue effects: Steve Haywood and Raoul Brand
Sound mix: Eloise Whitmore

Written by Matthew Graham and Peter Strickland
Based on the original TV play by Nigel Kneale

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06g63fh

― Milton Parker, Thursday, 5 November 2015 22:01 (three years ago) Permalink

there's a link to a '3D sound' version down on that page which I would avoid; the best parts of this come with the abstract sound design, which doesn't fare well when rendered for binaural listening.

― Milton Parker, Thursday, 5 November 2015 23:06 (three years ago) Permalink

Score to "Duke of Burgundy" is gorgeous and evocative in a Wicker Man meets Picnic at Hanging Rock way. On par with Berberian

― Paisley Window Pane (Ross), Thursday, 13 July 2017 20:51 (one year ago) Permalink