Feel Like Going Home

FILMS BY:
Scorsese
Wenders and
Figgis
In the USA, 2003 was officially named 'Year of the Blues' and executive
producer Martin Scorsese headed up an elaborate, multimedia project to
rehabilitate the roots of American music. Scorsese and six other
directors each contributed a feature-length documentary, following the
blues - the foundation of jazz, soul, R&B, and rock & roll - from its African
roots to its Mississippi Delta origins, up the river to Memphis and
Chicago, then to New York, the United Kingdom, and beyond. We've
secured theatrical 35mm prints of the three most popular titles, Wim
Wenders's The Soul of a Man, Mike Figgis's Red, White and Blues and
Scorsese's own Feel Like Going Home. Abundant in documentary footage,
interviews, clips, rarely heard recordings and new studio performances,
the films eschew the academic style of Ken Burns’ forays into American
culture, to lay down a more emotional, impressionistic experience of
their incredibly rich subject. "If you already know the blues, then maybe
these selections will give you a reason to go back to it. And if you've
never heard the blues, and you're coming across it for the first time, I can
promise you this: Your life is about to change for the better." — Martin
Scorsese.
“The efforts by Scorsese and his cadre
yield enough juicy goodness to satisfy
anyone who ever heard these songs and
found the truth.”
— Jason Anderson, Eye Weekly
“Wide-ranging, engaging, informative yet
personal, this was clearly a labour of love
for Scorsese.”
— Channel Four Film
© Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage
FEEL LIKE GOING HOME
USA | 2003 | 80 minutes | Censors rating tba
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenplay: Peter Guralnick | Photography: Arthur Jafa
Featured Performers: Corey Harris, Willie King, Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo', Otha
Turner & the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band, Sharde Thomas, Ali Farka
Touré, Habib Koité, Salif Keita, Toumani Diabaté, Son House,
Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines, John Lee Hooker
“It's hardly surprising Martin Scorsese opted to chronicle the give and take
between musicians from Africa and the Mississippi Delta for his personal
contribution to The Blues series… Feel Like Going Home boasts impressive
new performances and explanations of the past… Corey Harris, a Coloradoborn
blues guitarist who has made his home in New Orleans as well as
Cameroon, is Scorsese's traveler. He ventures into the Delta and culls
stories from fife player Otha Turner and former Jelly Roll Kings drummer
Sam Carr. With fellow Delta-inspired blues man Keb' Mo', the two explore
the mystery and music of Robert Johnson, the most enduring iconic figure
of Delta blues… In Mali, native musicians Touré, Salif Keita and Diabaté
proffer their takes on the centuries of tradition that inform their music…
Peter Guralnick's script is, as expected, precise and never interferes with
the interaction of the musicians.” — Phil Gallo, Variety. “It is the keynote
film in the series and is an outstanding introduction to the blues for anyone
who wants to understand the roots of the music and see it performed by
some of the most revered names in its history.” — Inside Out Film
Friday 18 March at 1.45 pm
Thursday 24 March at 6.15 pm
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With classic clips, lively interviews and
new performances, Mike Figgis explores
the enduring impact of the blues on
British music.
© D. Shigley
RED, WHITE AND BLUES
USA | 2003 | 93 minutes | Censors rating tba
Director: Mike Figgis
Photography: Barry Ackroyd, Mike Eley, John Lynch, Patrick Stewart
Featured Performers: Tom Jones, Jeff Beck, Van Morrison, Humphrey
Lyttelton, Lonnie Donnegan, B.B. King, Albert Lee, Chris Farlowe, Georgie
Fame. Archival Performances: Big Bill Broonzy, Rolling Stones, Cream, Alexis
Korner, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee
“Figgis sheds light on a portion of rock 'n' roll history that has often been
misunderstood or at least not told in its entirety. Incorporation of
American roots music into British popular music dates back to the '40s
when English acts championed an exact replication of early jazz. As that
phase petered out, skiffle music set American folk music to a backbeat…
Sequentially, the next stop was obviously the blues. The well-known part of
the story is that British acts of the 1960s championed American blues
musicians… Unknown to the young Brits, though, was that these musicians
were largely forgotten at home; the American blues revival that preceded
the British Invasion focused on the acoustic folk side of the blues and not
the harder-edged electric music that influenced the likes of Eric Burdon
and Mick Jagger. It's the lesser-known players, Georgie Fame and Chris
Farlowe, who proffer the great stories in Red White & Blues, with John
Mayall and Mick Fleetwood supplying lucid accounts of performing with the
legends themselves.” — Phil Gallo, Variety
Monday 28 March at 8.15 pm
Wednesday 30 March at 11.30 am
“These songs meant the world to me. I felt
there was more truth in them than in any
book I had read about America, or in any
movie I had ever seen.” — Wim Wenders
© Dick Waterman
THE SOUL OF A MAN
USA | 2003 | 100 minutes | Censors rating tba
Director/Screenplay: Wim Wenders | Photography: Lisa Rinzler
Featured Performers: Lou Reed, Lucinda Williams, Cassandra Wilson, Alvin
Youngblood Hart, Shemekia Copeland, Eagle Eye Cherry, Vernon Reid,
James “Blood” Ulmer, Los Lobos, T-Bone Burnett, Bonnie Raitt,
Nick Cave, the Bad Seeds, Marc Ribot, Garland Jeffreys
With: Skip James, Keith B. Brown, Blind Willie Johnson, Chris Thomas King
“Wim Wenders [Paris, Texas, Buena Vista Social Club] was among the
European baby-boom generation that resurrected the music of the
Depression-era blues musicians long since forgotten by their own
countrymen. Here he digs up three favourites - Blind Willie Johnson, Skip
James and JB Lenoir - and retells their stories through a mix of pithy reenactments,
archive recordings and film footage, Fishburne's
sympathetic narration and a raft of contemporary re-interpretations by
the likes of Beck, Nick Cave, Lou Reed, Bonnie Raitt, Cassandra Wilson, Los
Lobos, Lucinda Williams, T-Bone Burnett and The Jon Spencer Blues
Explosion. Slight in shape and modest in its claims - there are gestures
towards cultural contextualisation (the Depression, the Civil Rights
struggle and the John Mayall/Cream/Newport '64 revival, the treasure
chest recordings sent out to the stars with NASA's Voyager 1 that included
Johnson's 'Dark Was the Night'), but Wenders never elaborates the point -
it is at least a film with real feeling for its subjects.” — Nick Bradshaw,
Time Out
Thursday 24 March at 4.00 pm
Saturday 26 March at 5.30 pm