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The Long Day Closes



The Long Day Closes is the most gloriously cinematic expression of the unique sensibility of Terence Davies, widely celebrated as Britain's greatest living filmmaker. Bursting with both enchantment and melancholy, this autobiographical film takes on the perspective of a quiet boy growing up lonely in Liverpool in the 1950s. But rather than employ a straightforward narrative, Davies jumps in and out of time, swoops into fantasies and fears, summons memories and dreams. A singular filmic tapestry, The Long Day Closes is an evocative, movie- and music–besotted portrait of the artist as a young man.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New, high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary by director Terence Davies and director of photography Michael Coulter
• Episode from 1992 of the British television series The South Bank Show with Davies, featuring on-set footage from The Long Day Closes and interviews with cast and crew
• New interviews with executive producer Colin MacCabe and production designer Christopher Hobbs
• Trailer
• One Blu-ray and one DVD, with all content available in both formats
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Koresky

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Great to see Davies ushered into the collection (though it's a bit of a surprise to see this separated from Distant Voices, Still Lives.) If the commentary is a port from the BFI, it's a great one, as far as I recall. If it's new, even better.

Great film from Terence Davies and will see it without using my all region dvd player to see the region 2 BFI release i got last year. The BFI has a good transfer of the film but will be better to see it in blu-ray.

Absolutely beautiful film and worth buying even separated due to the Blu. Just a visual shock.

I assume this will be the BFI's HD master, which James White put together under Terence Davies and DOP Michael Coulter's supervision. They were very precise about the grading, apparently.

Took forever, but finally, a Terence Davies masterpiece is actually given a video disc release in the U.S. They were screening a new 35mm print of this at Film Forum late last year so I was wondering if something was on the horizon.

Actually several of his films have had US DVD releases with even his latest getting a Blu.

Fingers crossed that Distant Voices Still Lives is not far behind.

knives wrote:Actually several of his films have had US DVD releases with even his latest getting a Blu.

Ah, that's right. I should say his "greatest" films, meaning this and Distant Voices, Still Lives, which for my money are still his best.

He hasn't even made ten films yet. Let's not go about dividing especially when his movies have had such a concentrated through line.

Well, first of all, he's been making films for decades now. Even though he hasn't made ten films, he's been active in other ways and has been able to progress between works over long stretches of time. You can divide his works in some manner - the autobiographical films, then his stabs at literary adaptations, an experimental doc, etc. But I'm rating two of his films as his best and yeah, they're fantastic films. He's made other great ones, but what he accomplishes in those two are phenomenal. I'm not allowed to recognize that or something?

I just find it insane to take such a great and unified filmography and pick it at as if not every film is a master work.

Sorry, but that's a little ridiculous and hyperbolic. Not everything he did was successful, and it diminishes the unique achievements of his best work when you can't even distinguish them from something that is NOT a master work. Sorry, but The Neon Bible is not a great film. There's something to admire about it, but it's kind of a failure.

That's the one film of his I haven't seen so I guess you should take my statements as except The Neon Bible.

Yes, this film and Distant Voices, Still Lives are his best by a mile (or should I say kilometer), and along with his short films they have something in common which the later films do not: they are strongly autobiographical. All of his subsequent fiction films have been adaptations, and while it's probably too facile to say he hasn't "felt" the material as deeply, I suspect it's the truth. There's a creeping academicism in his last few films (you might call it classicism); they seem like "strong work," rather than revelations. What's more, as good as it is The House of Mirth seems fundamentally miscast, and Of Time and the City struck me as a mess (a deeply-felt one, I'll admit) despite all the plaudits.

By contrast there are passages of Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes that are the equal of anything in Powell and Pressburger and thus in the English cinema.

FrauBlucher wrote:Fingers crossed that Distant Voices Still Lives is not far behind.

Well, there's an off-the-shelf HD master available from the same source (another original James White creation), and I can't believe the subject of Criterion licensing it too wouldn't have come up in negotiations with the BFI.

Come to think of it, the trilogy is also available in HD.

jonah.77 wrote:Yes, this film and Distant Voices, Still Lives are his best by a mile (or should I say kilometer)

No, you shouldn't. Unless you're French or from a similar mainland European country.

MichaelB wrote:Well, there's an off-the-shelf HD master available from the same source (another original James White creation), and I can't believe the subject of Criterion licensing it too wouldn't have come up in negotiations with the BFI. Come to think of it, the trilogy is also available in HD.

I'm hoping that we'll eventually see something like a fully loaded Distant Voices, Still Lives release, featuring the trilogy of short films as extras, the way people have been speculating about an Eraserhead release that might include Lynch's early shorts.

jonah.77 wrote:Yes, this film and Distant Voices, Still Lives are his best by a mile (or should I say kilometer), and along with his short films they have something in common which the later films do not: they are strongly autobiographical. All of his subsequent fiction films have been adaptations, and while it's probably too facile to say he hasn't "felt" the material as deeply, I suspect it's the truth. There's a creeping academicism in his last few films (you might call it classicism); they seem like "strong work," rather than revelations. What's more, as good as it is The House of Mirth seems fundamentally miscast...

That's one of the problems with The Neon Bible. Occasionally it's fascinating to see Toole's book (and that period/culture) done in that way, but too often there's a distance from the material that makes Davies' approach seem like a formal exercise.

The House of Mirth is far better, a great, successful adaptation, but the casting definitely felt wrong in spots, especially with Eric Stoltz. It bothers me less in subsequent viewings, but his presence in the film hasn't grown on me either. I like Stoltz but he never clicks in that part.

The Neon Bible is a total misfire, but an interesting one. It looks less like a Terence Davies film than it does an American indie film by a young director who's way too besotted with Terence Davies films.

The House of Mirth has its imperfections but is nevertheless an out-and-out masterpiece, in my opinion. I'm with jonah on Of Time and the City: it doesn't work for me at all, which puts it down with The Neon Bible.

He's just so fucking grumpy in Of Time and the City.

He's typically like that, but yeah, if you weren't aware of his personality before, it's a bit off-putting to discover in that context.

Incidentally, assuming that this is the same commentary that accompanied the BFI DVD (a very safe bet, I'd have thought), it's an absolute joy - to say that Davies is in his element is putting it very mildly indeed.

zedz wrote:I'm with jonah on Of Time and the City: it doesn't work for me at all

I'm not completely down on the film but it did have some serious faults to it. For me the main problem was his voice, which just sounded awfully grating. Surely the movie would've been improved with a more practiced voice actor. It's like that guy from NPR's This American Life. Ugh.

Aw, I love his voice and I think the personal, sarcastic, violent quality of the film would go away with someone else.