The great days of cinema are not over: they live on in Terence Davies, writes Peter Hoskin
How to write about the cinema of Terence Davies? Words just don’t stand a chance. I could deploy every superlative going, and reduce every one of the three short films and five feature films he’s directed into their constituent parts — a dash of low-key acting here, some liquid camera movements there — but nothing could convey or explain the unique emotional power they have. Quite simply, his films need to be seen and experienced. And preferably on the silver screen, so the magic can really take hold.
It’s fortunate, then, that the fifth of those feature films — Of Time and the City, a documentary about Liverpool — is about to be released into cinemas. Like the earlier Terence Davies Trilogy (1976–83) and the two remarkable features Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and The Long Day Closes (1992), it is also an autobiography of sorts.
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