Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

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perkizitore
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#751 Post by perkizitore » Sun Jun 26, 2016 10:20 am

I particularly like the bit where he raves about this being the best blu-ray boxset of the last 10 years, as if blu-ray boxsets existed before then!

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sir_luke
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Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#752 Post by sir_luke » Sun Jun 26, 2016 10:48 am

Sounds like it was worth the complete financial ruin, then? One downside is that he will no longer be Clarke's Only Biggest Fan...

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Big Ben
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#753 Post by Big Ben » Sun Jun 26, 2016 11:01 am

Anyone want to take bets as to when he'll officially run his course there too?
sir_luke wrote: One downside is that he will no longer be Clarke's Only Biggest Fan...
Sadly true.

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domino harvey
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#754 Post by domino harvey » Sun Jun 26, 2016 11:35 am

If you are a fan of Britain, Alan Clarke and the BFI, you owe it to yourself to get that blu ray boxset. It's that essential, no exaggeration.
Probably the least exaggerated claim he's ever made and that's the one he qualifies? Who is he picturing swaying here? "Oh! Well, I am a fan of Alan Clarke, but it didn't occur to me until reading this post that a giant box set of decades' worth of Clarke's films would be an essential purchase."

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zedz
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#755 Post by zedz » Sun Jun 26, 2016 4:26 pm

domino harvey wrote:
If you are a fan of Britain, Alan Clarke and the BFI, you owe it to yourself to get that blu ray boxset. It's that essential, no exaggeration.
Probably the least exaggerated claim he's ever made and that's the one he qualifies? Who is he picturing swaying here? "Oh! Well, I am a fan of Alan Clarke, but it didn't occur to me until reading this post that a giant box set of decades' worth of Clarke's films would be an essential purchase."
Well, if you can be the world's biggest Alan Clarke fan and have only seen two of his films, you can probably still be a pretty big fan having seen none of them, so maybe this makes more sense to him than it does to us?

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swo17
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#756 Post by swo17 » Sun Jun 26, 2016 4:33 pm

I assumed he was referring to himself in the third person.

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Ribs
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#757 Post by Ribs » Sun Jun 26, 2016 4:34 pm

I also quite like the "I love it so much I bought two, but will hold onto the second until the price is gouged up so I can make bank" mentality. I totally understand why people do it even if it's a little wrong to me but it seems very oddly placed in his overall sentiment.

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sir_luke
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#758 Post by sir_luke » Sun Jun 26, 2016 4:52 pm

Ribs wrote:I also quite like the "I love it so much I bought two, but will hold onto the second until the price is gouged up so I can make bank" mentality. I totally understand why people do it even if it's a little wrong to me but it seems very oddly placed in his overall sentiment.
Sounds like he's only in it for the money, just like MichaelB and co.!

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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#759 Post by ALLCAPSAREBASTARDS » Mon Jun 27, 2016 10:05 am

I too am a fan of Britain.

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Gregory
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#760 Post by Gregory » Mon Jun 27, 2016 11:36 am

"You've always been a nation of proud people -- and leaders!"
RESPEK


By the way, anyone stateside received their set from Moviemail yet?

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CSM126
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#761 Post by CSM126 » Mon Jun 27, 2016 6:59 pm

Just received my copy. Shipping container looked fine but the set has a very minor ding on one corner. Don't care, I'm just excited to start in on this!

neal
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#762 Post by neal » Mon Jun 27, 2016 7:30 pm

I dove in over the weekend with Scum, which makes quite a statement, as everyone says it does. I followed this up with The Hallelujah Handshake after seeing that that's where Domino had started based on earlier recommendations.

I agree with what Domino has said above, more eloquently than I could manage.

I also have to say
SpoilerShow
that I'm left with the feeling that there's some commentary in this piece about the falseness of many members of any congregation and that the self-serving nature of "Henry Jones's" (fake) piety and his overzealousness is, in many ways, just an amplification of the nature of many adherents. I'm still kind of thinking this through and feel like I need to re-watch this to see if this holds up, but I figure I'll throw it out there.

The internal thoughts of the Methodist parishioners that we hear at the start of the film are off topic and self-serving -- football scores, asking God for a child, being lonely. There are thoughts about how the young should flee the church. None of which match with the outward piety. They're all putting up a facade, but one that is somehow socially acceptable while his is decidedly not. He's too enthusiastic, which is disquieting. He's too obvious with his lies (such as the memorization of the brochures from his presentation).

I also feel like there was a difference in the character of the internal thoughts of the Methodist parishioners and the Anglican. The latter were more inclined to think terrible things about "Henry" while telling no one of their inner skepticism. Their communal lie was pretending to be welcoming of him, while their priest's lie was that he contemplated "Henry's" well-being as a member of his flock at all.

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Big Ben
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#763 Post by Big Ben » Tue Jun 28, 2016 9:24 am


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swo17
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#764 Post by swo17 » Tue Jun 28, 2016 10:04 am

I believe this is the first time we've heard of the stock levels for one of these BFI limited editions.

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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#765 Post by perkizitore » Tue Jun 28, 2016 10:44 am

I am seriously tempted to get it from Zavvi for 90 GBP delivered now that the pound's value has plummeted. Should I wait for a possible sale or is it likely to be sold out by then?

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domino harvey
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#766 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jun 28, 2016 10:46 am

That depends on how many Britain fans there are in the world who haven't seen Alan Clarke's recommendation yet (I added him to the Board's Reference Guide FYI, so future generations understand all of these posts)

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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#767 Post by MichaelB » Tue Jun 28, 2016 11:22 am

[gets skates, puts them on]

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tenia
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#768 Post by tenia » Tue Jun 28, 2016 11:30 am

domino harvey wrote:(I added him to the Board's Reference Guide FYI, so future generations understand all of these posts)
Didn't realise there was such a thing ! (thank you Alan Clarke... I guess) It made me also realise it's good I've been asked by my colleague at Retro HD to stop posting screen caps with nudity (it was screwing with Google's referencement system), otherwise, I would have been deemed forever as a Gary Tooze plagiarist. :o

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Charles
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Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#769 Post by Charles » Tue Jun 28, 2016 1:00 pm

MichaelB wrote:
[gets skates, puts them on]
Or else you'll be having to buy Alan Clarke's second copy...

Werewolf by Night

Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#770 Post by Werewolf by Night » Tue Jun 28, 2016 3:22 pm

I watched Horace before bedtime last night and had dreams about a slow-witted but kindly giant. It's a marvelous piece of work which reminded me quite a bit of Harold and Maude (and I think I prefer Horace to it). Despite the surface similarities, though, it's such an original piece of work, and Clarke's modulation of tone (from the horror of Gordon's abuse to the comic relief of the conspiracy theorist whom even Horace and Gordon find just a bit too odd) is really refreshing. The last shot of Horace and his spider is both devastatingly sad and laugh-out-loud funny, and the film is full of moments like this where your sympathy for and identification with a character is challenged either by their behavior or by an element of the filmmaking that undercuts the pathos.

Odd feeling, though, when a Clarke film makes you glad that a character
SpoilerShow
(Gordon) is sent to an institution. Anything to get him away from that terror of a mother.
Last edited by Werewolf by Night on Tue Jun 28, 2016 10:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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zedz
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#771 Post by zedz » Tue Jun 28, 2016 5:27 pm

Well, my set finally arrived today, and unlike you lot, the box it came in was immaculate and unharmed. But somehow the box set inside had succumbed to self-harm on the long, dark, terrifying journey across the globe, and arrived with a crushed corner and one of the disc cases broken. But I wasn't buying it for the packaging (superb as it is, Nick).

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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#772 Post by CSM126 » Wed Jun 29, 2016 7:04 pm

Quick question: Anyone else notice the opening credits of George's Room going glitchy? When I watched it the credits froze and skipped. Fortunately the film itself played fine. Haven't had any other issues so far (having watched the Half-Hour Stories and Harecastle Tunnel so far).

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kidc85
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#773 Post by kidc85 » Fri Jul 01, 2016 9:18 am

BFI have added some Clarke to the BFI Player:

*The Gold Robbers: The Arrangement (1969)
*Achilles' Heel (1973)
Made in Britain (1983)
*Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire (1985)
Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1986)

Half-hour Stories:

Shelter (1967)
The Fifty-Seventh Saturday (1968)
Goodnight Albert (1968)
Stella (1968)

Those with an asterisk against them are free if you subscribe to Plus.

Werewolf by Night

Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#774 Post by Werewolf by Night » Fri Jul 01, 2016 10:14 pm

Not a lot of attention paid to The Love-Girl and the Innocent in the Clarke documentary, eh? I think Clarke did as fine a job as he could with some very poor material there. The first program in the set that I've had a hard time maintaining interest in.

By the way, I notice these programs have irregular running times: just over an hour here, just under 90 minutes there. What were programming blocks like on the BBC in the 70s? Did they fill the extra time before the top or bottom of the hour with news or short films, or did programs start at irregular times?

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feihong
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Re: Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC

#775 Post by feihong » Sat Jul 02, 2016 12:26 am

kidc85 wrote:BFI have added some Clarke to the BFI Player:

*The Gold Robbers: The Arrangement (1969)
*Achilles' Heel (1973)
Made in Britain (1983)
*Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire (1985)
Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1986)

Half-hour Stories:

Shelter (1967)
The Fifty-Seventh Saturday (1968)
Goodnight Albert (1968)
Stella (1968)

Those with an asterisk against them are free if you subscribe to Plus.

As a side note, does anyone know if the BFI player presents its titles in hi-def, or in standard? I can't get an answer from them.

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