LOVING HIGHSMITH

Loving Highsmith

A documentary about Patricia Highsmith, drawing on her diaries, journals and interviews and the memories of her friends and lovers. Part of the ‘Loving Highsmith’ strand.

As a writer Patricia Highsmith deservedly enjoys an exalted reputation; as a person, rather less so. As time went on she became almost as well known for her cantankerous behaviour and misanthropy as for her literary gifts. But Swiss writer/director Eva Vitija has here created what she calls a “love biography”, drawing extensively on Highsmith’s diaries and notebooks and on the memories of three lovers in particular: the American writer Marijane Meaker, the French teacher and translator Monique Buffet and the late German actor, director and costume designer Tabea Blumenschein. Some clips from the film adaptations of Highsmith’s work are included (for a much wider range of these see the talk ‘The Dark Angel on Screen’), but this film is less about these and the books she authored and more about the woman herself, her quest for love and her often elusive identity.

SWITZERLAND/GERMANY 2022 EVA VITIJA 84M

The Dark Angel On Screen

REFLECTIONS ON FILM AND TV ADAPTATIONS OF PATRICIA HIGHSMITH’S FICTION

A talk featuring clips from 20 film and TV adaptations of Patricia Highsmith’s novels and short stories – part of the ‘Loving Highsmith’ strand.

When her debut novel, ‘Strangers on a Train’, was made into a hugely successful film by Alfred Hitchcock, Patricia Highsmith was still in her 20s. In this talk, illustrated by a wealth of clips, Patrick Hargood, our Education Officer, will be looking back at eight decades of subsequent Highsmith adaptations, including European films by the likes of Wenders, Chabrol and Clément, and other versions of her work – many by British directors filming with American stars in Europe – such as Anthony Minghella’s ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’ (with Damon, Law, Paltrow and Blanchett). Twenty years after her death, Todd Haynes became only the second American director to film one of her novels; ‘Carol’, starring Cate Blanchett, ranks among the very finest of the adaptations. All these and more will feature in this talk, from the familiar to the forgotten, such as the Oscarnominated ‘The Glass Cell’, from Germany’s Hans Geissendörfer.

100M (INC

Q&A)

RACHMANINOFF: THE HARVEST OF SORROW

Tony Palmer’s outstanding documentary, made with the full participation of the composer’s late grandson, Alexandre Rachmaninoff.

The film celebrates the life and work of a remarkable musician and composer of genius who, forced into exile in 1917, became the greatest pianist of his day. It features soloists Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Mikhail Pletnev (with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado, and his own Russian National Orchestra), Valentina Igoshina, Peter Jablonski, Nikolai Putilin and the Kirov Orchestra and the Chorus of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg conducted by Valery Gergiev. With Rachmaninoff’s own words spoken by Sir John Gielgud, this is a unique and loving insight into a world long gone, but definitely not forgotten. We are supporting this anniversary with a screening of ‘Brief Encounter’, where the soundtrack used extensive extracts of Rachmaninoff’s ‘Piano Concerto No 2’, which greatly popularised the piece with audiences worldwide.

Sat

Auditorium Fri

Uk 2010 Tony Palmer 102m

We hope to welcome Tony Palmer to introduce his documentary.

Brief Encounter

The extensive use of Rachmaninoff’s ‘Piano Concerto No 2’ created the perfect romantic and melancholic mood to enhance the film. A masterstroke!

Based on Noël Coward’s play ‘Still Life’, ‘Brief Encounter’ is a romantic, bittersweet drama about two married people who meet by chance in a London railway station and begin an intense love affair. Sentimental yet down-to-earth and set in pre-World War II England, the film follows British housewife Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson), who is on her way home, but catches a cinder in her eye. By chance, she meets Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard), who removes it for her. The pair immediately get on, but they end up catching different trains. However, both return to the station once a week to meet and, as the film progresses, they grow closer, sharing stories, hopes and fears about their lives, marriages and children. It was Coward, as producer as well as screenwriter, who insisted on the use of his favourite piece of music, despite there being a composer, Muir Mathieson, waiting in the wings to create an original score. In the event, the Rachmaninoff, played by Australian pianist Eileen Joyce and the National Symphony Orchestra, raised the film’s emotional level sky-high.