Date: 23 October 2010 | Season: London Film Festival 2010 | Tags: London Film Festival
HIT THE ROAD
Saturday 23 October 2010, at 9pm
London BFI Southbank NFT3
Duncan Campbell, Make It New John, UK, 2009, 50 min
The story of the DeLorean car and its notorious entrepreneur’s Northern Ireland venture, assembled from found and reconstructed footage. During a momentous period in the province’s history, the manufacture of this futuristic vehicle was beset by its own troubles – governmental pacts, an inexperienced workforce and allegations of misconduct. This insightful film, with its Pinteresque finale concerning the plight of the workers, raises questions on documentary form and the representation of historical events.
Thom Andersen, Get Out of the Car, USA, 2010, 34 min
Andersen’s latest homage to Los Angeles takes time to stop and consider the temporary architecture of roadside billboards, community murals and hand-painted signs. A movie about the ephemeral sights of the city, with a rocking soundtrack of local music and the confused interjections of passers-by.
Also Screening: Tuesday 26 October 2010, at 2pm, NFT3
PROGRAMME NOTES
HIT THE ROAD
Saturday 23 October 2010, at 9pm
London BFI Southbank NFT3
MAKE IT NEW JOHN
Duncan Campbell, UK, 2009, video, colour, sound, 50 min
Make it New John tells the story of the DeLorean car, its creator John DeLorean, and the workers of the Belfast-based car plant who built it. The film deftly contrasts the DeLorean dream with its spectacular downfall during a critical period in Northern Ireland’s history, and the canonisation of the car – the DMC12 – as a symbol of the American myth of mobility. The son of an immigrant Romanian foundry worker, John DeLorean’s natural talent for engineering took him to the top of Chevrolet, General Motors’ most important division. Leaving this behind he persuaded the British Government to back his new venture – building a factory in Dunmurry in Belfast to produce a new sports car. Almost immediately beset by financial difficulties and allegations of embezzlement, DeLorean’s attempts to keep the factory open became increasingly desperate and corrupt, eventually leading to his arrest by the FBI. The factory – which employed 2000 workers – closed in 1982, having produced just over 9000 cars. As with the earlier works Bernadette (2008) and Falls Burns Malone Fiddles (2003), in Make it New John Campbell fuses a documentary aesthetic with fictive moments, using existing news archives and documentary footage from the 1980s as well as new 16mm material which imagines conversations between DeLorean factory workers. Campbell questions the documentary genre and reflects here on broader existential themes and narrative drives.
GET OUT OF THE CAR
Thom Andersen, USA, 2010, 16mm, colour, sound, 34 min
Get Out of the Car could be characterized as a nostalgic film. It is a celebration of artisanal culture and termite art (in Manny Farber’s sense, but more precisely in the sense Dave Marsh gives the phrase in his book ‘Louie Louie’). But I would claim it’s not a useless and reactionary feeling of nostalgia, but rather a militant nostalgia. Change the past, it needs it. Remember the words of Walter Benjamin I quote in the film: even the dead will not be safe. Restore what can be restored, like the Watts Towers. Rebuild what must be rebuilt. Re-abolish capital punishment. Remember the injustices done to Chinese, Japanese, blacks, gays, Mexicans, Chicanos, and make it right. Put Richard Berry, Maxwell Davis, Hunter Hancock, Art Laboe, and Big Jay McNeely in the Rock’ ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Bring back South Central Farm. Only when these struggles are fought and won can we begin to create the future. (Thom Andersen)
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