Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

[MichaelB]

I'm afraid I don't know any more about the BFI's retail plans than you do.

[Alan Clarke]

Ok MichaelB, that's fine. I'll just keep my pre order. Not long left now!

Another quick question, which version of Scum do you guys prefer, the original BBC TV version or the theatrical release that was made a few years later? Also, and WHY do you prefer so and so version???? I've only seen the Theatrical version.

[Werewolf by Night]

I believe most everyone prefers the TV version (though I expect there to be one or two contrarians on this board; there always are). I prefer the TV version because it is so much more raw and biting. It's been about 10 years since I've seen either, though, so that's about as specific as I can get.

[swo17]

We discussed the different versions earlier.

[Alan Clarke]

I believe most everyone prefers the TV version (though I expect there to be one or two contrarians on this board; there always are). I prefer the TV version because it is so much more raw and biting. It's been about 10 years since I've seen either, though, so that's about as specific as I can get.

I see. I'm very excited to see the TV version based on what you've just said, Werewolf. This set is going to be a feast for me. Amazing stuff.

These cult labels have been killing it this year - First Arrow Films with the wonderful Rainer Werner Fassbinder blu ray set, and now BFI with this glorious Alan Clarke blu ray set. Now that leaves Masters Of Cinema with their chance to shine with their own all out set....I gently suggest a 10 film boxset Samuel Fuller's greatest films

[RossyG]

I prefer the cinema version of Scum. I think Mick Ford is a much better Archer, the performances in general are better (the Archer and the senior Warder scene springs to mind; also Archer reading the letter), and the visuals, especially the use of Stedicam, are more interesting. I also really like the location and it's wintry feel, adding to the air of melancholy. Maybe the loss of the "be my missus" scene is a shame, but the other omissions - the opening recapture, the boys in the bath, Angel naked on the stairs - are no loss, in my view. And the film is way more brutal. I still wince during the suicide scene.

I'm not being a contrarian, by the way. The film version has a cult following here in Britain. The TV version, for obvious reasons, is far less well known.

[MichaelB]

I prefer the cinema version of Scum. I think Mick Ford is a much better Archer, the performances in general are better (the Archer and the senior Warder scene springs to mind; also Archer reading the letter), and the visuals, especially the use of Stedicam, are more interesting.

Sorry for the pedantry, but Clarke wouldn't discover the Steadicam for another three years, and that's actually Phil Méheux's astonishingly steady hand-held camerawork - when I interviewed him a couple of years ago he told me he was very proud of his work there. Ironically, he'd originally been approached to shoot the original Scum and had turned the job down because he'd just left the BBC to go freelance and didn't want to get sucked back in.

[RossyG]

Ah, thanks for that. It's an amazing shot, probably my favourite single shot in cinema.

[MichaelB]

Méheux had a pretty impressive 1979 - he shot Scum and The Long Good Friday more or less back to back, and they're still being watched today.

Like Clarke, he cut his teeth at the BBC, where he learned how to work quickly and resourcefully for far less money than the project ideally needed - hence his fondness for hand-held camerawork (often self-operated) because it speeds things up enormously if the cameraman knows what he's doing.

[Alan Clarke]

So only his films from Made In Britain and onwards featured consistent steadicam work? Why was Clarke so obsessed with the steadicam as opposed to just a regular shoulder rig anyhow? I mean, he proved he could get smooth shoulder rig shots, and his steadicam work only serves to follow his characters, so wondering why he was obsessed with it.

[Alan Clarke]

Also, anybody else feel that Nick Love's 'The Firm' remake is underrated? I thought it was surprisingly good when I watched it, far better than it had any right to be. Love's films are usually hollow and macho, but I felt a real sense of affection for his version. Easily his best film.

[Thornycroft]

Cine Outsider on Penda's Fen

[McCrutchy]

Looks brilliant one minor irritation why couldn't they put the out of his own light documentary all on one disc splitting it over a number of discs means swapping discs to watch it, one disc only has a 13 minute part on .

I suspect this is because each section of the documentary pertains directly to the contents of the rest of the disc that it's on, and so it's by far the most logical method of organising it. Are you really going to sit through a nearly four-hour documentary about Alan Clarke in one go? Surely it makes much more sense to work through his career chronologically, watching the relevant bit of the documentary when the subjects under discussion are freshest in your mind?

I have to agree that the organization really mars the presentation of the set, Michael. I think we all understand that cost was a key factor here, and that the BFI tried to be as Blu-ray-friendly as possible, but at the very least, if they were forced to include part nine of the set as DVD, then that's even more of a reason to simply place the new documentary on its own disc(s) (either Blu-ray or DVD) to create a uniform viewing experience for that documentary. We all know that you love the BFI (as we all do), but it is funny to see you alternately defending them placing some SD content on DVD, and then also defending them placing other SD content on Blu-ray as upscaled HD, even when that content is also being pressed to DVD discs anyway. More to the point, the fact that you now have to watch part nine--and only part nine--of the new Clarke documentary on DVD, after watching the previous eight parts in HD on Blu-ray, and then continuing on to watch the three final parts in HD on Blu-ray--is just plain dumb, really.

Unfortunately, I don't agree that it makes the most sense to watch the documentary in piecemeal form, either. That's certainly not what I was expecting to do, and I don't know that many of us were, either. In fact, I expected from the start that BFI would be forced to place the documentary on DVD discs at the end of the set (though honestly, my dream was to get the entire documentary and extras slate on 1-2 BDs), and while I wouldn't have bemoaned them mixing multiple DVDs and Blu-rays with relevant parts of the documentary, the fact that they essentially fell short by just one disc is annoying to say the least. I can certainly understand DVD for the last disc of other, shorter video content, but if other discs are going to be upscaled to HD, then surely, there was a better solution for presenting the all of the new documentary in native HD, too. Even in the worst case scenario, they could have mastered part nine (of the documentary only) in HD on, say, disc ten, to keep to the chronological order as much as possible, while ensuring that the documentary was available in 100% HD, instead of 92% HD and 8% SD.

Of course, it won't keep me from buying the set, but that doesn't change the fact that the organizational structure here is, frankly, frustrating.

[MichaelB]

We'll just have to agree to disagree. I stopped reading at the phrase "just plain dumb", which was wholly uncalled for.

[McCrutchy]

We'll just have to agree to disagree. I stopped reading at the phrase "just plain dumb", which was wholly uncalled for.

I apologize if my choice of words offended you, but I feel the point I'm making is valid. It seems silly to present almost all of a new native HD documentary in HD, except one small part in the middle, which is on DVD, simply because two features were deemed unnecessary to upscale and place on Blu-ray.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

This set being a large enough time investment, I found it quite intuitive to tailor that documentary to each disc. Especially since I can only watch it disc by disc over weeks rather than a concentrated few days.

[MichaelB]

I apologize if my choice of words offended you, but I feel the point I'm making is valid. It seems silly to present almost all of a new native HD documentary in HD, except one small part in the middle, which is on DVD, simply because two features were deemed unnecessary to upscale and place on Blu-ray.

As I said, we'll have to agree to disagree. There's nothing "silly" or "dumb" about an entirely rational presentational decision that's clearly been weighed against presentational and budgetary realities.

This set being a large enough time investment, I found it quite intuitive to tailor that documentary to each disc. Especially since I can only watch it disc by disc over weeks rather than a concentrated few days.

Exactly. Given the sheer volume of source material to get through, even if there weren't other practical reasons for this arrangement, it also makes perfect sense from a viewing perspective. I'd much rather go through the documentary section by section with the relevant source plays fresh in my mind, and I suspect that the documentary was structured with this in mind from the outset.

[MichaelB]

The Digital Fix on The Firm and Penda's Fen.

[McCrutchy]

I apologize if my choice of words offended you, but I feel the point I'm making is valid. It seems silly to present almost all of a new native HD documentary in HD, except one small part in the middle, which is on DVD, simply because two features were deemed unnecessary to upscale and place on Blu-ray.

As I said, we'll have to agree to disagree. There's nothing "silly" or "dumb" about an entirely rational presentational decision that's clearly been weighed against presentational and budgetary realities.

All I am saying is that in a set where a new, native HD documentary has been divided into twelve parts, and eleven of those twelve parts are presented in native 1080/50i, I would have appreciated being able to watch all of that documentary in the same way, without having to suddenly drop to DVD quality for one short chapter, before resuming the documentary in HD. Clearly, that was possible with a (very) minor concession to the chosen presentation method, so it's just a shame that it wasn't done here. I'm all for preserving sensible chronology, until it means we're shortchanging parts of the presentation of the set itself to do so. I'm well aware that extras are extras, but they also cost time and money, too. They deserve to be represented in the best way possible.

[Alan Clarke]

I'm with Michael and Jean Luc on this. I like the idea of the a documentary extra being structured to the content on each disc. The first time I encountered that was on the Rainer Werner Fassbinder boxset, and it seems like such a logical thing to do that I am surprised it hasn't been implemented until recently.

Quick question about these Half Hour Episodes....are they like proper Alan Clarke? Like thematically speaking? i mean, if you like his films are you likely to like these half hour eps?

[MichaelB]

Quick question about these Half Hour Episodes....are they like proper Alan Clarke? Like thematically speaking? i mean, if you like his films are you likely to like these half hour eps?

Yes. Try The Gentleman Caller if you want a perfect taster - even coming to it blind, you'd have a pretty good guess as to who directed it from the first half, and you'd be absolutely certain by part two. But they're all superb - he was amazingly confident right out of the blocks.

[zedz]

I apologize if my choice of words offended you, but I feel the point I'm making is valid. It seems silly to present almost all of a new native HD documentary in HD, except one small part in the middle, which is on DVD, simply because two features were deemed unnecessary to upscale and place on Blu-ray.

As I said, we'll have to agree to disagree. There's nothing "silly" or "dumb" about an entirely rational presentational decision that's clearly been weighed against presentational and budgetary realities.

All I am saying is that in a set where a new, native HD documentary has been divided into twelve parts, and eleven of those twelve parts are presented in native 1080/50i, I would have appreciated being able to watch all of that documentary in the same way, without having to suddenly drop to DVD quality for one short chapter, before resuming the documentary in HD. Clearly, that was possible with a (very) minor concession to the chosen presentation method, so it's just a shame that it wasn't done here. I'm all for preserving sensible chronology, until it means we're shortchanging parts of the presentation of the set itself to do so. I'm well aware that extras are extras, but they also cost time and money, too. They deserve to be represented in the best way possible.

I was so alarmed by your lengthy complaints that I have consulted with a number of health professionals, and they all assure me that I will survive watching nineteen minutes of talking heads in SD. They said "Just take a deep breath, imagine that it's ten years ago, and that you have a THIRTEEN-DISC ALAN CLARKE BOX SET as compensation for your spiritual agony."

[MichaelB]

It's probably worth adding a couple of fairly crucial details:

1. The splitting-up of the documentary turns out to have been contractually unavoidable, since the contract with the BBC only permits clips to appear on the same disc as the relevant full-length productions.
2. The interviews come from a wide range of sources, many of them 4:3 SD and somewhat elderly. Anyone expecting all or even most of it to be in glorious pin-sharp HD from beginning to end might as well brace themselves for disappointment now.

In retrospect, it might have been easier just to give each part of the documentary a separate title and treat each segment as a standalone "extra" pertaining specifically to the material on the same disc, because that's pretty much the way that it was planned from the start. The crucial point is that it was never intended to be a full-length documentary to be watched in a single sitting - the South Bank screening was a one-off anomaly.

[Big Ben]

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I think we should be grateful that this set is coming out at all. A majority of it being in High Definition is just a bonus.

I eagerly await the discussions that will happen here and hope to see more newcomers like myself!

[McCrutchy]

In retrospect, it might have been easier just to give each part of the documentary a separate title and treat each segment as a standalone "extra" pertaining specifically to the material on the same disc, because that's pretty much the way that it was planned from the start. The crucial point is that it was never intended to be a full-length documentary to be watched in a single sitting - the South Bank screening was a one-off anomaly.

See, that makes more sense. I had indeed envisaged that this was meant as a single documentary (like Shoah or The Voyage) which could be consumed in piecemeal form. If it is what you describe above, which seems to me to be "independent" featurettes about the relevant Clarke works that can be viewed in any order, then that obviously changes things, and, in particular, makes placing those extras on the ninth DVD disc much more sensible. That sounds like why we were so at a loggerheads, Michael, and I apologize.