The Queen's Guards (Powell, 1961): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6.20pm
This 35mm presentation, introduced by BFI National Archive Curator Jo Botting, is part of the Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger season at BFI Southbank. BFI update: We are pleased to announce that this screening will be introduced by actor Jess Conrad.
Rather than reproduce a review here's an extract from the Brad Stevens column 'Bradlands' in the October 2012 issue of Sight and Sound. Stevens explains why: 'An especially memorable event scheduled by The Art House Cinema Meetup, involved a rare
screening of Michael Powell’s The Queen’s Guards (1961) at BFI
Southbank earlier this year. Although the film’s reputation could hardly
have been worse – Ian Christie, who introduced the screening, virtually
apologised for it – everyone I spoke to afterwards seemed pleasantly
surprised. Several members of the group who attended our post-screening
discussion were familiar with Peeping Tom, and noted how the
protagonists of both films were attempting to simultaneously imitate and
rebel against their obsessively traditional fathers, the central
character of The Queen’s Guards being depicted as a helpless puppet (via
the toy soldier possessed by his girlfriend) and a fly caught in a
spider’s web (his crippled father moves around the family home by
swinging from steel bars attached to the ceiling). One of our members, Yusef Sayed, continued this discussion in an
email he sent me, observing that “the emphasis on the Captain’s trolley
rail system cast an eerie comment on a person’s actions being determined
by external barriers and guidelines. As you said, the ascent of the
stairs was striking and almost spider-like. The central character, too,
was obviously troubled by the feeling that he needed to fulfil a role
and stick to a tradition, stay within set codes of conduct – leading to
the uncertain feelings about following in his brother’s footsteps… This,
of course, leads to the idea of being governed by tradition,
expectations, identified only by your role in society, whether a soldier
or a gentleman…”
I had noticed Kim Newman heading into the screening, and subsequently
posted a message on his Facebook wall, noting that The Queen’s Guards
had “reminded me of John Ford’s The Long Gray Line (1954), another
CinemaScope film in which the director’s admiration for military
institutions struggles with an awareness of the neuroticism of those
institutions”; to which Kim responded, “I thought of the same Ford film,
but also saw odd connections with that 80s cycle about being in
not-really-needed services (Top Gun, An Officer and a Gentleman,
Heartbreak Ridge)… The nicest touch was the hero not taking his
girlfriend’s job as a fashion model seriously since all she does is
dress up in silly clothes and pose, when it turns out that the highlight
of his military career is exactly like that.” These discussions were clearly far more carefully considered than the
‘official’ discourses on Powell’s film, demonstrating how cinephilia
has been enriched by technologies all too frequently imbricated with
superficiality.'
Here (and above) is the opening scene.
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