Loving Memory

[MichaelB]

Confirmed as an upcoming dual-format DVD/Blu-ray release in a recent BFI announcement - complete with early Tony Scott shorts as extras. These haven't yet been identified, but I suspect they'll include One of the Missing (1968) and Early One Morning (1969), as they're both BFI Production Board titles.

[Cash Flagg]

Extras from Play.com --

* One of the Missing (1968, 26min) An early, taught psychological drama directed by Tony Scott
* Boy and Bicycle (1965, 27min) Starring Tony Scott and directed by his brother Ridley Scott.
* All content newly transferred to HD from original film elements held in the BFI National Archive.
* Fully illustrated booklet featuring essays, credits and biographical information

[GaryC]

FWIW "Boy and Bicycle" can also be found as an extra on the DVD of Ridley's The Duellists - though not in a HD transfer, needless to say.

[MichaelB]

A tiny correction to my first post - it seems that Early One Morning was the original working title of Loving Memory and not a separate film. Sorry about that - but that certainly explains why it appeared to have been left out despite the BFI owning it outright!

[MichaelB]

Full specs announced:

Loving Memory
A film by Tony Scott

An extraordinary debut from one of Hollywood’s most bankable UK expats, Loving Memory is the dark tale of a mysterious brother and sister who live in isolation with their memories and a grisly secret…

Tony Scott, director of big-budget blockbusters and feature films such as The Taking of Pelham 123, Enemy of the State, True Romance, Top Gun and The Hunger, made his first feature when he was just 26.

The BFI, via its production fund, played a significant role in the launch of both Tony and his older brother Ridley Scott’s filmmaking careers. BFI funding enabled the post-production of Ridley’s earliest short, Boy and Bicycle (1966) as well as funding Tony’s One of the Missing (1968), both of which are included as extras in this Dual Format Edition release (DVD and Blu-ray discs).

Beautifully photographed by celebrated cinematographer Chris Menges (If…., Kes) Loving Memory features a stunning, sinister performance from Rosamund Greenwood (Village of the Damned, The Witches) as a haunted innocent.

The film was chosen to inaugurate the second NFT auditorium in September 1970 and was selected for the Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival a few months later. It had a successful run in film festivals and received considerable critical praise.

Previously unavailable for home viewing, this is the latest release in a series of early films made by established British directors which are preserved in the BFI National Archive and now brought to BFI DVD and Blu-ray. Past titles have included the work of Terence Davies, Bill Douglas, Derek Jarman, John Maybury, Isaac Julien and Horace Ové, and the BFI will be unearthing more buried treasures in months to come.

Special features
• All films presented in High Definition and Standard Definition (Blu-ray and DVD)
• One of the Missing (Tony Scott, 1968, 27 mins): taut psychological short about the lonely fate of a confederate soldier in the American Civil War
• Boy and Bicycle (Ridley Scott, 1965, 28 mins): follows the adventures of a truant schoolboy – played by the young Tony Scott – as he cycles around Hartlepool
• Illustrated booklet with newly commissioned essays 'The Films of Tony and Ridley Scott' by Kim Newman and 'The Scott Brothers and the BFI' by Christophe Dupin; film notes, original stills and full cast and crew credits

Release date: 23 August 2010
Dual Format Edition (DVD & Blu-ray) / RRP: £19.99 / cat. no. BFIB1077 / cert 15
UK / 1970 / black and white / English, optional subtitles for the hearing-impaired /
52 mins + 55 mins / original aspect ratio 1.66:1
Disc 1: BD25 / 1080p / 24fps / PCM mono audio (48k/16-bit)
Disc 2: DVD5 / PAL / PCM mono audio (48k/16-bit)

[willoneill]

Will this be region-locked B or region-free?

[perkizitore]

Will the shorts be in HD, Michael?

[MichaelB]

Will the shorts be in HD, Michael?

Special features
• All films presented in High Definition and Standard Definition

[perkizitore]

Yes, shorts are films indeed!

[MichaelB]

No great surprise, as everything's owned outright by the BFI, but I can now confirm for definite that this title is region-free.

[GaryC]

A minor nitpick, but calling Loving Memory a feature is something of a stretch considering it's all of 50 minutes long...

ETA: I always thought an hour was the minimum running time for a film to be feature-length, but it appears that it varies, and some official definitions (including the BFI's) go as low as 40 minutes. So I'll give the BFI this one!

[MichaelB]

A minor nitpick, but calling Loving Memory a feature is something of a stretch considering it's all of 50 minutes long...

ETA: I always thought an hour was the minimum running time for a feature, but it appears that it varies, and some official definitions (including the BFI's) go as low as 40 minutes. So I'll give the BFI this one!

A feature is technically anything longer than three reels, or around 33 minutes.

Actually, the reason why Loving Memory is only 52 minutes long (admittedly nearer 50 on the DVD) is that it was part of an early initiative by the BFI Production Board to make films that could plausibly be programmed as supporting features by sympathetic venues. Realistically, the BFI couldn't afford to make features back then (Herostratus was a major exception, and indeed rather emphasised why this was a bad idea as it took years to complete and was constantly running short of funds), so this was a halfway house that would offer aspiring filmmakers the chance to make something more ambitious than a short. Bill Douglas' Childhood and My Ain Folk were beneficiaries of the scheme, as was Terence Davies' Children.

Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that medium-length films were very hard to programme, so by the mid-70s the BFI (aided by a substantial increase in its grant) had moved into features proper.

[GaryC]

There have been occasional sub-one-hour films released in cinemas as main features, another British example being Dutchman (1967), directed by Anthony Harvey. It has had a US DVD release, but has never been on VHS or DVD in the UK, and I don't remember nor can trace a TV showing. Possible Flipside item perhaps?

There were a few in Australia, some of which have come out on DVD - for example Night of Fear, which was a rejected TV pilot released into cinemas, and Phillip Noyce's Backroads.

[ellipsis7]

52 minutes long sounds suspiciously like it was also aiming at an UK TV screening - that would be the running time for a television hour, allowing for commercial breaks...

[MichaelB]

I think it's just a coincidence - the Terence Davies and Bill Douglas mini-features had different running times. I'm not sure the BFI had much involvement with television in the early Seventies - that came later, with the arrival of Channel 4.

[ellipsis7]

I suppose it could be a coincidence... It's worth noting that Sir Denis Forman of Granada TV, one of television's great innovators, a previous Director of the BFI, and a moving force behind Channel Four (which ITV totally funded for the first 10 years), was chair of the BFI from 1971-73... I think he had some hand in getting Bill Douglas' films as a trilogy through the Production Board, I believe I read it was easier to sign off on them that way... And from the success of MY CHILDHOOD, Forman was able to push for funding for full features as described by Mamoun Hassan, then Head of the BFI Production Board...

In competition with star-filled films that cost millions, My Childhood won the Silver Lion at Venice in 1972 . Its success helped the BFI to move into feature production. It represented, I argued, the beginnings of an alternative cinema in Britain. Denis Forman, then chairman of the BFI, pointed out to the government that the BFI was doing what the National Film Finance Corporation, the quango responsible for film funding, was not interested in. Minister for the Arts Lord Eccles was persuaded. The BFI went into features and the budget was increased twentyfold.

[eerik]

First review. Those screenshots look great.

[MichaelB]

The framegrabs are superb, but it's a shame that review doesn't tackle the short films in any depth - the misspelt "taught" is a dead giveaway that that whole extras section is a cut and paste from the original press release! I'd have thought these films would be of greater than usual interest given that they're effectively Ridley and Tony Scott's film debuts.

[MichaelB]

Beaver - a total rave.

[antnield]

My copy arrived today (MovieMail proving once again that they're a great at BFI pre-orders) and, even though I'm only SD-capable at the moment and had a brief skip through the contents, the films look absolutely superb. However, I just wanted to make a quick mention of the booklet. Kim Newman offers a typically shrewd overview of the three films, Christophe Dupin places them within the context of the BFI Production Board, and - most interesting - there's a 1970 interview with Scott from Time Out in which he mentions his love of Miklos Jansco and how they "represent more the direction he sees his films taking". Funnily enough, I've never once thought of Jansco whilst watching any of his subsequent features; The Red and the White and Top Gun don't exactly make the most obvious bedfellows!

[MichaelB]

Mondo Digital:

The HD transfer here is a pure knockout from start to finish, with exquisite detail visible even in the smallest crevices of the many striking long shots of the countryside. It's really beautiful and once again demonstrates how mesmerising monochromatic photography can be on Blu-Ray.

[cdnchris]

Blu-ray

[MichaelB]

The Digital Fix.

[knives]

there's a 1970 interview with Scott from Time Out in which he mentions his love of Miklos Jansco and how they "represent more the direction he sees his films taking". Funnily enough, I've never once thought of Jansco whilst watching any of his subsequent features; The Red and the White and Top Gun don't exactly make the most obvious bedfellows!

That threw me through a loop too. As much as I enjoy Scott's movies I would not use Jansco as a point of comparison, but considering his statements elsewhere in the booklet about narrative I think that's what he means. They do have a somewhat odd similarity going on in their virtual nonexistence.