Medium (Jacek Koprowicz, 1985)
Oct
2
A man in an impeccable, light-colored suit. His nose is bleeding. DPs: Jerzy Zieliński & Wit Dąbal.
“Those flowers, take them away;
they’re only funeral decorations.
This is The Fall and this is a drudge nation.
Your decadent sins will wreak discipline.
You puritan, you shook me.
I wash every day.”
Hail the New Puritan (Charles Atlas, 1987)
Sep
22
Fall
As it says on the tin, it's Mark E. Smith of The Fall (via). DP: John Simmons.
The Northern Hemisphere welcomes the autumn equinox
– The Fall, New Puritan (1979), via
A fictional day in the life of choreographer Michael Clark, company, and friends in preparation of the dance piece New Puritans.
The UFO Incident [Interrupted Journey] (Richard A. Colla, 1975)
Sep
19
Betty Hill (Estelle Parsons) observed from above. It's night, and tire tracks are visible. DP: Rexford L. Metz.
A Sunday in September (James Hill, 1961)
Sep
17
1961
A large group of bobbies attempts to block off the street in front of an Underground station. They're greatly undone by the large group of protesters behind them (via).
Television documentary about the nuclear disarmament demonstration at Trafalgar Square on September 17, 1961 (description via aforementioned link in the caption).
“In the next world war, I believe that both sides could stop before the ultimate destruction of cities so that both sides could retire for a period of ten years or so of post-attack recuperation, in which world wars four to eight could be prepared.”
The War Game (Peter Watkins, 1966)
Sep
16
An old man in uniform, possibly a mailman or traffic warden, stands motionless in a crowd of people. He looks off into the distance. DPs: Peter Bartlett & Peter Suschitzky.
– a leading American nuclear strategist
“I caused dreams which caused death … this is my crime.”
Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men (David Hinton, 1989)
Sep
14
Patrick Swayze – 2009
Two of the male dancers performing. They're lying on a black-and-white tiled floor. There's a heaviness to their bodies. DP: Nicholas D. Knowland.
Dancing, or Patrick Swayze who passed away on this date in 2009.
– Dennis Nilsen
Dennis Nilsen was a lonesome, closeted gay man in Thatcher's London, whose desperation lead to multiple horrific killings. He'd ritually bathe and dress the bodies, and held on to them for company. Radical dance troupe DV8's interpretation of Nilsen's transgressions explores the horror of the act in suffocating beauty.
Die Delegation – Eine utopische Reportage [The Delegation] (Rainer Erler, 1970)
Sep
9
0 h 20 GMT
Reporter Will Roczinski (Walter Kohut) picks up mysterieus signals through the ether (via). DP: Charly Steinberger.
We watch the final report by Will Roczinski, who sadly died in a car crash while working on a TV documentary about UFOs and the like. A fascinating early “faux footage” film from the BRD. One can only wonder how the average West German processed the fantastic premise.
“Sex is not to do. Sex is to watch.”
The Year of the Sex Olympics (Michael Elliott, 1968)
Sep
7
ESPN – 1979
The people of a suspiciously 60s looking future critically watch the audience of a reality TV show called The Hungry Angry Show.
Sports watching on TV for ESPN's debut.
– Nat Mender
All that's on TV is pornography and violence. Welcome to the Year of the Sex Olympics.
“He moved over to the window: a smallish, frail figure, the meagreness of his body merely emphasized by the blue overalls which were the uniform of the party. His hair was very fair, his face naturally sanguine, his skin roughened by coarse soap and blunt razor blades and the cold of the winter that had just ended. “
Nineteen Eighty-Four (Rudolph Cartier, 1954)
Aug
18
indigo
Winston Smith (Peter Cushing). We only see his frail looking back with the identifier KZ-6090, and his name SMITH W.
Indigo, in food or fashion*
– George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) (via)
* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.
“Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those? That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.”
Blue Remembered Hills (Brian Gibson, 1979)
Jun
16
Youth Day
The children playing in the Forest of Dean. From left to right: Raymond (John Bird), Angela (Helen Mirren), Willie (Colin Welland), and Audrey (Janine Duvitski). DP: Nat Crosby.
A [favourite] child character for Youth Day (ZA)
– narrator, after A.E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad
A group of children plays. It's sunny and lovely in the Forest of Dean, a day to remember for as long as one lives. The war, the second one, is one of the adults' plays and far away from the children's much simpler life. It seeps through, though. You may run around, imagining being a fighter bomber, putt-putt-putting while you do so. And your uncle, your uncle!, is a parachutist! And maybe your dad is missing and your mum is doing something that involves bed sheets, and the other kids are mean about that. That too. That too is the cruelty of blue remembered hills.