Identity crisis... Negatives (1968), BFI Flipside No. 053, Blu-ray

The trouble with you is you always want to be someone else, it’s a compulsion you have.

I’ve just watched the new Neil LaBute play* which uses a series of sexual relationships to deftly characterise a modern America in which nothing is as it seems and everything may or may not be transactional and following unseen rules too complex to state out loud. There is something in common with this film, director Peter Medak’s first feature and one that is unsettling, almost hard to watch, before ultimately revealing its true intent.

At its centre is the relationship between antique shop proprietors Theo (Peter McEnery) and Vivien (Glenda Jackson) which puts us on edge right for the start. For one thing they role play as the notorious Dr Crippen and his wife Cora/lover Ethel as the feeling takes them… This is very much Jackson on home territory, dominating with disdain and a vicious turn of phrase, leaving us unsure as to whether she is in character or within character. McEnery for his part is a most indecisive serial killer but clearly this is the point… when is a murder not a murder? When he is the victim or, and bear with me, a fighter pilot?

 

… when it comes to the action, you are a fool just like Crippen…

 

Dr and Mrs Crippen enjoy a moment

As Cora, Vivien relentlessly deconstructs her partner’s masculinity, and as Dr Clare Smith, historic collection curator at the Metropolitan Police Museum, points out in her interview on the disc about Crippen, Medak is clearly fascinated by British crime, with Jack the Ripper becoming the alter ego of Peter O’Toole’s character in The Ruling Class, and his films on the Krays and Derek Bentley. She provides excellent context on the characters Theo and Vivien play by detailing the extraordinary tale of the Crippen murder with the aid of clips of Donald Pleasance and Samantha Eggar in Dr Crippen (1962). Cora was indeed a dominant force in her marriage and her physically outmatched husband went to every length to support her ambitions on the stage… he found solace in the arms of the more diminutive Ethel but only after poisoning his wife, dismembering her and burying her in his basement.

 

It's an odd situation to base sex games on but original author, Peter Everett – who won the Somerset Maughan Prize for his book – who co-adapted the script with Roger Lowry, clearly knew what he was doing in his original tale of identity and the worlds we create for ourselves. Here the more defined personalities are the women and, as Dr Smith says, it is unusual to find a film of this vintage in which the projection of identity is focused on the male.

You always push me; you wind me up life a clock… 

Whatever the reasons, nobody seems happy in spite of all their trendy trappings and freedom to love how they like, is this the end of their relationship or the beginning of a darker turn? Like the shop they are surrounded and smothered by the past and cannot move without its direct consideration. If Hell was situated off the Fulham Road, this might well be it… an all the while, Theo’s father (Maurice Denham) lies in hospital dreading what he is convinced will be an operation he won’t survive. 

"All men are fools and what makes them so is having beauty like what I've got..." E. Wise

Then, as if the edge couldn’t get any sharper, into Theo’s life comes a German photographer, Reingard (Diane Cilento, so far away from The Angel who Pawned Her Harp…), who admits she has been following the couple for some time… and has a few suggestions to make to liven their sexual play time. She has her own “negatives” as she discusses meeting her father for the first time when she was 17 when, after appraising her, he tore off her dress leaving her naked. She wants to take positives of the couple but as with Vivien she is projecting a masculine fantasy onto the blank slate that is Theo, why a timid murderer and why not an heroic figure like Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron who shot down 80 allied planes in the First World War, honouring his victims with the casting of silver cups.

 

The battle for Theo’s persona rapidly escalates even though the two women are almost in alliance, but it’s a whirlwind of a film which is more about nuanced interpretation than a narrative straight line. Given their connection via Sparrows (see below) it’s interesting to see Stephen Lewis – who wrote that film – as a scrap metal dealer who sells Theo a Tiger Moth which is then planted on their roof terrace and painted in von Richthofen’s colours. Red… for anger and the mist of toxic masculinity descends on Theo and there is much to interpret and consider.

 

All I know is that talking about Crippen, Crippen, Cri-ppen… upsets you!

 

Mad about the Baron

Basil Kirchin provides the score including a winsome theme which is contrapuntal to so much of the human rage and conflict – some deceptively sweet sauce for the bitter battle especially when it’s used in a diegetic way as the camera pans up to reveal Glenda Jackson playing it on piano . Barrie Vince’s editing is whip smart throughout and whilst also providing visual counterpoints to the emoting, enhances the feelings of confusion and events moving out of joint with the character’s sense of wellbeing. He and Medak force the pace for the viewer and that’s something even modern viewers might find boggling in the cinema!

 

It's a very challenging debut and one that struggled to gain a release on completion but which we can now see as the foundation of Medak’s long career as well as being Glenda Jackson’s first film. She had been a member of the RSC with McEnery and he continued mainly in theatre and TV after films in the UK and France. Diane Cilento was well established as a film actress by this time – Academy Award nominated for Tom Jones (1963) and uses her experience to add so much sinister here, changing the direction and the mood with an impressive German accent.

 

This BFI release uses Severin Films super sharp 4k restoration and is the first time Negatives has been made available in any format in the UK and will be of particular interest to those who have followed Medak’s half century career on both the big and small screen – he directed episodes of The Wire and Breaking Bad as well as films such as The Krays (1990), Let Him Have it (1991) and classics such as The Ruling Class (1972) starring Peter O’Toole, Arthur Lowe and Carolyn Seymour (his second wife). He even found time to direct concert films for Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel.

 

The most talented actor in her family...

He arrived in Britain from Hungary aged just 18 in 1956 and having begun his career with Associated British Pictures he gained experience in a variety of roles and worked on films directed by Anthony Asquith, Val Guest and others. In her booklet essay, the BFI’s Jo Botting says his experience on Joan Littlewood’s Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963) was particularly important in his development. As she says, he would later favour… “unconventional narratives with larger-than-life characters – so Negatives was the perfect debut.” Hard to get life larger than Glenda, Peter and Diane…

 

Long may he reign and there’s two recent interviews with him in the extra special features below – as usual with the Flipside, the BFI are spoiling us!

 

Newly remastered from the original camera negative by Severin Films and presented in High Definition

 

Audio commentary by Tim Lucas

 

Audio interviews with Peter Medak (2024, 89 mins): two interviews with director Peter Medak, the first by the late author and film historian Lee Gambin, and the second with Severin’s David Gregory which was conducted at the director’s home

 

False Positive (2025, 11 mins): a newly recorded interview with actor Peter McEnery

 

Editing Negatives (2026, 31 mins): an interview with Barrie Vince, the award-winning editor of Negatives, Smashing Time and Deep End

 

Positives From Negativeland**: Scrapbook from a Grand Debut (2025, 16 mins): Peter Medak takes us through his production material for Negatives, as well as A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, recalling his memories of each experience

 

The Doctor Will See You Now (2025, 24 mins): an interview with Dr Clare Smith, the historic collection curator at the Metropolitan Police Museum, who discusses the life and crime of Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen

 

Image gallery

 

And, with the first pressing only, comes a handsome illustrated booklet featuring new essays by Dr Josephine Botting and William Fowler with notes on the special features and credits

 

The Blu-ray is released on 16^th March and you can pre-order from all the usual places or queue up at the BFI shop next Monday!

*America the Beautiful is at the Kings Head Theatre until 21^st March, details available on their website!

**I see the reference to the "Krautrock" classic track from NEU!

Diane Cilento gets out of the VW opposite Stamford Bridge

Rainbow’s End? Women in Love (1969), BFI UHD out now!

 

"She saw in the rainbow the earth's new architecture, the old, brittle corruption of houses and factories swept away, the world built up in a living fabric of Truth, fitting to the over-arching heaven."*

 

Well, this is a vibrant experience and one that must have caused considerable stir on release for its hyper-reality and naked male bonding between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates… all it needed was a needle drop of Sophie Ellis-Bextor to become modern iconic in an Emerald way. But no, this is a serious attempt to capture the lightning in a bottle of Lawrence’s prose and his questing subject matter with febrile performances not just from the men in love but the women too, Jennie Linden and the super-natural Glenda Jackson.

 

The book(s) and the film are full of new century yearning for meaning as the characters question humanity’s place in the industrial world as well as the post Freudian extended sexual universe. Women in Love is the sequel to The Rainbow which DH Lawrence had originally intended as one book covering the lives of the Brangwyn family and in particular the two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun. Ursula is the dominant character in the first novel and experiences a very Freudian sexual awakening after an affair with her teacher Winifred, before her romance with a soldier which ends in disappointment. Ursula’s search for a balanced love ends in the follow up, whilst Gudrun’s is just picking up momentum but it is the men who have the biggest questions.

Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson, Alan Bates, Jenny Linden and Eleanor Bron

 

A long time ago I studied The Rainbow for A-Level and so always have more affiliation with her character in this film and for me that is closer to the way Jackson plays Gudrun but having revisited both books I see the strengths of Jennie L’s performance as the most sexually mature of the components in the two main relationships. She is based on Lawrence’s own, no doubt long-suffering, wife just as her eventual husband in WIL, Rupert Birkin (Big Alan), is the writer’s cypher… raising the question of whether a man needs a deep emotional relationship with a best friend as well as a romantic love of a woman, to be fulfilled. Whether this alludes to a homosexual or homo-social ideal is open to debate but it’s likely that WIL is one of the first great openly bi-sexual books written by a man from Nottingham.

 

Say what you will about Ken Russell but he manages to convey so much of his subject’s intent, be they composers or authors, in his sometimes-overwhelming films. The pace of the passion, imagery and the scale of the expression can be bewildering but you just have to hang on and cling on for the ride. There are some fabulous scenes – Gudrun dancing in the woods for a herd of cows, the wedding of two of the town’s wealthiest young things Laura Crich (Sharon Gurney) and Tibby Lupton (Russell regular, Christopher Gable) as well as their tragic ending on the boating lake – genuinely distressing and horrible to witness).

 

Two sisters

There’s also the “blue stocking” brilliance of Hermione Roddice (Fab Four favourite Eleanor Bron) with her picnics and artistic pretensions, a pretentious ballet completely undermined by Rupert as he switches his affections to the more earthbound Ursula. Then the special effect that is Oliver Reed, whose Gerald Crich is a modernising businessman who ultimately cannot connect with his best friend in the way that he wants nor his lover Gudrun whose almost flippant creativity and refusal to commit to a shared reality will be the death of him.

 

Russell moves the story from pre- to post-war – when the book was written – and the themes are just as relevant there. Recalling my own grandfather’s experience in the war and afterwards, the shock of what he had experienced as a teenager in the Middle East and India during the war, led him to question the established order and for the son of a canal worker from Widnes, there were new possibilities and a new balance to be struck as a battered Britain searched for a “…world built up in a living fabric of Truth…”.

 

Ursula and Rupert: are they "complete"?

This is probably my and everyone else's favourite Ken Russell film and released on BFI 4k UHD it is irresistible especially with a bevy of beautiful extras including an interview with Russell’s son – see below.

 

Special features 

• Audio commentary with director Ken Russell
• Audio commentary with writer and producer Larry Kramer
• Second Best (1972, 27 mins): film starring Alan Bates, based on the short story by D H Lawrence 
• The Guardian Lecture: Glenda Jackson (1982, 77 mins, audio only)
• The Pacemakers: Glenda Jackson (1971, 14 mins): a documentary profile of the actor
• 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
• A British Picture: Portrait of an Enfant Terrible (1989, 49 mins): Ken Russell’s documentary on his life and career
• Human Relations: Alexander Verney-Elliott Discusses Women in Love (2025, 17 mins): a newly recorded interview with Ken Russell’s son
• ATV Today (1968, 10 mins): interviews with writer and producer Larry Kramer and actors Alan Bates and Jennie Linden on the set of Women in Love
• Billy Williams OBE BSC in conversation with Phil Méheux BSC (2015, 49 mins)
• Stills and collections gallery
• Original theatrical trailer
• Illustrated booklet featuring new writing by Matthew Melia and archive essays by Michael Brooke, Claire Smith and Vic Pratt; notes on the special features and film credits

 

The latter is only included with the first pressing so place your order now for a film that should be in the collection of every seeker after love and truth over a century after this work was first imagined.

 

You can order directly from the BFI shop and other reputable retailers!

 

Russell would eventually film The Rainbow with Sammi Davis as Ursula and Paul McGann as Anton in 1989, it would be compromised by budget constraints and took him years to get off the ground. By this time the sexual subject matter was not as shocking as it would have been in 1969 and yet it is still remarkable given the date of its inception in 1915. It’s sobering to think that the time between these novels and Russell’s filming date for Women in Love is less than between this release and the film… the search for balance and the Truth continues.

 

 

*Quote above from The Rainbow and here's the final page annotated by annoying 16-year old P. Joyce of Deyes High School Lower Sixth...

 

 

Lost in music… The Music Lovers (1970), BFI Blu-rau out now!

 

There is a big section of the British press that hated him, absolutely f*ckin’ hated him…

Quentin Tarrentino

Another whirlwind of sound and furious imagery from Ken Russell in a film that picks you up swirls you through Oz and drops you breathlessly back down to ground with a thump. I haven’t seen The Music Lovers since a late night viewing on HTV as a teen and whilst it hasn’t lost its power, I think I understand Russell’s approach far better now with another biography based on the emotional force of its subject’s work and the extent to which it was drawn from life. Ken’s all about the passion, the swings in a life’s mood than the dates and precise actuality. Every biopic is a deception anyway so why not embrace the inability to cover decades in a couple of hours and let your audience experience Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as he sounded and, upon this evidence, really felt.

"Music and facts don't mix. Tchaikovsky said: 'My life is in my music.' And who can deny that the man's music is not utterly fantastic? So likewise the movie! I sought to honour his genius by offering up my own small portion of his courage to create."*

I watched this sparkling new BFI Blu-ray with my Gen-Z daughter and explained that it was not only just a couple of years after homosexuality was legalised but also featured a star who is still getting some stick – a crass YouTuber - for the “mystery” of his sexuality, aged 90. For our Beth, this societal pressure is hard to conceive and she felt that this must have been such an opportunity for Richard Chamberlain to express himself with a freedom so long denied.

Tarrentino quotes Russell in response to a question about whether the critical consensus of his work ever got him down and Ken’s response was as you’d expect, “of course not… because I believe with all my heart in what I’m doing…” or words to this effect. Ken thereby gave permission to Quentin to follow his own path and no doubt was attracted to figures of similar creative resolution such as Lizst, Mahler and Delius. This film was followed by The Devils and The Boy Friend, both in 1971 a visceral golden year for the director.

The summation of critical views on Wikipedia shows that most recognised Russell’s cinematic abilities but felt he was being too self-indulgent and shocking in The Music Lovers, with the long campaign to obscure Tchaikovsky’s sexuality no doubt part of this view. That said, the film starts with a tour-de-force sequence of rapid cuts, single takes and hyper-kinetic character introductions at a fairground in St Petersburg as recreated in the backlot of Bray Studios in Berkshire. It closes with Tchaikovsky’s death and his estranged wife Nina (Glenda Jackson) being sexually assaulted in a lunatic asylum straight out of Russell’s own nightmares, scenes he would revisit for The Devils…

Russell’s son is interviewed by Vic Pratt on one of the extras and he said how his father would call “action!” before the actors were fully prepared and try anything to get them out of their habits and their typical riffs. When you have someone of the discipline and lightening skill as Glenda Jackson this approach brings out an extraordinary performance and one that is not an easy watch as her character arc heads into madness. Jackson acted in Women in Love and a total of six films with Russell, clearly she relished the challenge and she is, as the director said, his dream actress – fearless and so forceful.

By contrast, Chamberlain is less technical and flexible yet creates a superb portrait of a man who in Russell’s words, only really loved himself and his sister (to what extent we’ll never really know even though Ken had made up his mind). The actor does indeed have a quiet dignity as his director noted and that unknowable look that won so many hearts during his Doctor Kildare days is repurposed here in the depiction of the most conflicted of composers who wanted marriage but not a wife. Chamberlain was also an adept piano played and good enough to convince even though he was only hitting silent keys and playing along to the sounds created by Raphael Orozco as conducted by Michael Previn (who like Jackson, also worked with the great playwright Ernie Wise…).

Nina, even his sister Sasha, are attracted not just to the composer but also the power of his music and his relationship with his long-term patron Madame Nadezhda von Meck (Izabella Telezynska) exemplifies this perfectly, she not wishing to meet him in order to maintain the fantasy of a romance conducted almost entirely via written correspondence. Perhaps his only “straight” relationship is with Count Anton Chiluvsky (Christopher Gable, also in Ken's The Boy Friend), who only wants the man and not his music.

The script was written by Melvyn Bragg based on the book Beloved Friend, The Story of Tchaikowsky and Nadejda von Meck, a collection of personal correspondence edited by Catherine Drinker Bowen and Barbara von Meck. The letters contains many frank revelations as does the biography written by Tchaikovsky’s brother Modeste – played in the film by the excellent Kenneth Colley.

We know a lot about Pyotr Ilyich it seems but to get a feel of the great man, this film is as good as anything. It’s an experience that has a nasty turn but so did the lives and, for me, this was still at the point when Russell was controlled and could afford to be making oblique points through spectacular imagery and unsettled acting, pushing both performers and his audience to a reaction beyond their norm.

Another valuable release from the BFI and highly recommended along with another great set of extras which include a wonderful sequence of the great prima ballerina Galina Ulanova in "Swan Lake" in 1940, worth the price of admission on its own: such grace and purpose!

Special features:

• Presented in High Definition
• Newly recorded audio commentary by film historian Matthew Melia
• Interview with Alexander Verney-Elliott (2024, 20 mins): Ken Russell's son looks back upon his father's work, and remembers his own appearance in The Music Lovers
• Charlotte Bronte Enters the Big Brother House (2007, 16 mins): Ken Russell staged, directed and filmed this 'Radical Bronte' ballet for young people, illustrating Jane Eyre
• The Guardian Interview: Melvyn Bragg (1988, 76mins): ten years after the inception of The Southbank Show, Melvyn Bragg discusses his career in television and film writer Ronald Harwood, at the National Film Theatre in London.
• Galina Ulanova in "Swan Lake" (1940, 6 mins): one of the greatest ballerinas of all time is seen performing a dance from Swan Lake, in this rare film held by the BFI National Archive
• Musical Highlights from USSR Today (10 mins): edited highlights from three editions of the Soviet newsreel, gathering items about Tchaikovsky and Russian musical arts
• Costume designs (2024, 2 mins): original sketches by Shirley Russell
• Original trailer
• Illustrated booklet with new writing on the film by Matthew Melia, a new essay by Caroline Langhorst and contributions from Alexander Verney-Elliott and Lisi Russell

 

The booklet is only available with the first pressing only so get yourself over to the BFI’s shop as soon as you can!

 

Over the top, did someone say? Vulgar bombast devoid of fact?*

 

*Ken Russell, writing in The Guardian about the film in 2004

The first Elizabethans… Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), BFI Blu-ray

 

Whilst Helen Mirren is perhaps the only actor to have played both the first and the second Queen Elizabeth, Glenda Jackson played the first twice having just come off a very successful portrayal in the six-part BBC series Elizabeth R (1971) when offered the chance to reprise the role for this film. The original choice, Geneviève Bujold, had decided against playing her “daughter” after her award-winning turn as Anne Boleyn in Anne of a Thousand Days, also directed by Charles Jarrott and also produced by the Hal B. Wallis so, with Vanessa Redgrave nailed on as Queen Mary, they made Birkenhead’s finest actor, an offer she couldn’t refuse. Jackson’s one stipulation was that all of her scenes were filmed first in the initial three weeks shooting… such is the power of a Star and the pressing need for anyone to grow back their natural hairline.

 

Apart from the chance to see these two giants of British cinema and theatre playing such iconic roles, the film is jam-packed with some of the finest actors of the kingdom, Trevor Howard at his economical scene-stealing best, Nigel Davenport carrying an “atmosphere” of febrile energy throughout and, talking of which, New York-born, Irish raised and English-schooled, Patrick McGoogan who is thoroughly unsettling in darker ways. There’s also young Timothy Dalton, a rising star who formed an attachment with his Scottish queen beyond the film and for fifteen years. We also can’t overlook Daniel Massey either nor Ian Holm… but we’ll get to them all later.

 

Whilst contemporary reviews were very positive towards the players there were some brickbats for the slow pacing as well as historical inaccuracies/liberties… In his commentary, American film writer Sergio Mims makes a very good point concerning the narrative content in a year in which the film code lay smashed on the ground with so many “permissive” films released, all of which were more raunchy and daring than this historical “procedural”… it was hardly going to compete with A Clockwork Orange, Klute, Dirty Harry, Death in Venice or Get Carter; different agenda and style but wrongfooting some critics save Roget Ebert who could see the value of Redgrave and Jackson’s skills.

 

"Vanessa Redgrave is a tall, straight-backed, finely spirited Mary, and Glenda Jackson makes a perfectly shrewish, wise Elizabeth." Roger Ebert

 

Glenda and Vanessa

As for historical content, yes, the film has the Queens meeting, which they never did, but they did correspond and this creative shorthand proves a good way of personalising their relationship as well as addressing the manoeuvrings and bravery that led Mary to her fate. The film plays more due diligence to the progression of events than many subsequent films have, 2018’s effort especially… with Margot’s Liz being friends with Saoirse’s Mary, although Max Richter’s score is very fine. Talking of which, we have a John Barry score here, so right back ‘atcha 2018!

 

If anything, this Mary makes light of the historical detail with so many Shakespearean actors able to punch meaningfully through the detailed script with ease and meaning. Can any film "based on historical events" truly capture the full picture with anything like historical accuracy; all we can hope for is a reasonable flavour and, for those whose interest is piqued, the starting point for further researcher. Watching this film I automatically thought of the now later Hilary Mantel, who has done so much to humanise the historical novel with thorough primary source research matched with erudition and storytelling skill. What she could have made of Mary and Elizabeth we can only guess, for now though we have one of the most intriguing relationships in British History all illuminated by the extensive correspondence between the two, all recently on show at the British Library.

 

We start in France, on location at Château de Chenonceau, and young Mary’s husband Francis II falling victim to a seizure. The balance of power in western Europe was very precarious even as we look back on this Elizabeth’s long reign with questions of religion, succession and nobility all playing their part in destabilising a monarch with no heir. Mary was young but had arguably a greater claim and, crucially, a son, James.

 

Daniel Massey

Powerful though these women were, their weakness was often the men in their life, certainly in Mary’s case. Her cousin half-brother James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray (Patrick McGoohan) just wants to manage her, and rule, happy for her to be married and left in France and then, on her return to Scotland, frustrated by her marrying the impulsive Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (Timothy Dalton), a fine looking but weak-willed fop, directed at her by Cousin Elizabeth, to weaken her position and to draw her eye away from her suggested groom – and lover - Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (Daniel Massey).

 

“It's all very Game of Thrones…” as someone once said to me after one especially deft piece of politics at work… I didn’t study The Prince and Discorsi for nothing! Unfortunately for Mary she has to learn as she goes and doesn’t have the sound counsel Elizabeth has from Sir William Cecil (Trevor Howard) and even the well-intentioned promptings from advisor, David Riccio (Ian Holm) is undermined by his relationship with Darnley, un-historically intimate as it may possibly be.

 

Eventually Mary finds solace and support with James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell (Nigel Davenport) who, as film scholar Ellen Cheshire points out in her excellent booklet essay, is seen by some as a more abusive presence in her life. Here he helps give her the confidence to use her increasing maturity but she plays her hand badly and Elizabeth, whilst always offering her a way out, has little option in the end. One of her mottoes was video et taceo (I see and keep silent), and it’s hard to escape the conclusion that she simply made fewer mistakes.

 

Redgrave and Davenport

All the same, Mary’s son James was crowned king following Elizabeth’s death and from 1601, in the last years of Elizabeth's life, the way was prepared with the ailing Queen’s chief minister Sir Robert Cecil – son of William - maintaining a correspondence with James, then the Scottish King, in order to prepare for a smooth succession. Needs must when it comes to the continuity of our monarchy… and these people were ultimately on the same side.

 

As an historical film, Mary of course takes liberties, but as the chance to witness a face off between Jackson and Redgrave it’s hugely enjoyable. Vincent Canby in The New York Times, saw it as "a loveless, passionless costume drama…” but he must have been expecting a car chase, organised crime and more nudity. It stands up very well and looks gorgeous thanks to Christopher Challis’ cinematography.

Glenda abides

As is usual, the Special Features are a bit special!

• Presented in High Definition
• Audio commentary by film historian and critic Sergio Mims (2020)
• Isolated John Barry score with commentary from film historians Nick Redman and Jon Burlingame
• Riding High (2022, 6 mins): actor Frances White recalls her experiences on location
• The Guardian Lecture: Glenda Jackson (1982, 77 mins, audio only): from an interview at the National Film Theatre
• Now and Then: Vanessa Redgrave (1968, 30 mins): and interview with Bernard Braden for his never broadcast series
• Promotional trailer (1971, 4 mins)
• Image gallery
• Newly created audio description track
• Illustrated booklet with a fabulous new essay by Ellen Cheshire, biographies of Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson by John Oliver, credits and notes on the special features – this is in the first pressing only so be quick!

 

You can order the set from the BFI’s online shop or onthe Southbank where you will be tempted with plenty of other goodies…