Ian Christie: (Not) Coming Soon reviews
Review by on 22 Sep 2010
It isn't hard to be enthused and excited when listening to somebody as passionate and clearly knowledgeable in their chosen field as Ian Christie. Christie, a writer and university Professor, was on hand at the Festival yesterday to give a lecture exploring cinema's great unmade projects, entitled “(Not) Coming Soon: a short history of (as yet) unmade films”.
In under two hours Christie made an impassioned case for the study and (where possible) restoration of unfinished or wholly unmade movies by several celebrated directors. This included a clip from a partially restored version of Von Stroheim's ambitious 1928 Gloria Swanson project, QUEEN KELLY, as well as a look at Von Sternberg's ill-fated adaptation of I, CLAUDIUS (featuring a great performance from Charles Laughton), and a rare glimpse of Eisenstein's never completed IVAN PART 3.
He then paid special attention to the career of Michael Powell, and looked specifically at his un-realised version of THE TEMPEST, before finishing with pre-production art from David Lean's NOSTROMO (never made due to the director's ill-health) and Terry Gilliam's famous thwarted first attempt to make his DON QUIXOTE film (as documented best in LOST IN LA MANCHA).
All of these were discussed with a lot of background knowledge and detail, which complemented his heartfelt plea that film critics and historians take it upon themselves to spend more time studying the films never realised, through pre-production art, scripts and even, in many cases, footage. In doing so, he argued convincingly, we learn more about how movies are made and can even come to see director's careers in an entirely new light.
Robert Beames
In under two hours Christie made an impassioned case for the study and (where possible) restoration of unfinished or wholly unmade movies by several celebrated directors. This included a clip from a partially restored version of Von Stroheim's ambitious 1928 Gloria Swanson project, QUEEN KELLY, as well as a look at Von Sternberg's ill-fated adaptation of I, CLAUDIUS (featuring a great performance from Charles Laughton), and a rare glimpse of Eisenstein's never completed IVAN PART 3.
He then paid special attention to the career of Michael Powell, and looked specifically at his un-realised version of THE TEMPEST, before finishing with pre-production art from David Lean's NOSTROMO (never made due to the director's ill-health) and Terry Gilliam's famous thwarted first attempt to make his DON QUIXOTE film (as documented best in LOST IN LA MANCHA).
All of these were discussed with a lot of background knowledge and detail, which complemented his heartfelt plea that film critics and historians take it upon themselves to spend more time studying the films never realised, through pre-production art, scripts and even, in many cases, footage. In doing so, he argued convincingly, we learn more about how movies are made and can even come to see director's careers in an entirely new light.
Robert Beames
Film details
Ian Christie: (Not) Coming Soon
SPECIAL EVENTS
United Kingdom, 2000.
105 mins.
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