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im-basically-logan · 6 years ago

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me yelling abt the new sander sides episode because i have no chill

under the cut, friendos!

i’m typing this as i listen/watch the video btw so it’s all in order! also this is very long

that’s... an intro.

i love joan so much hghfhgjfdhjk

new channel news yay

Tweet Tunes blz come back

“give me my shirt back!”

i still love the intro to sander sides so much

thomas what the fuck. i’m so confused

“Cast: Thomas Sanders” that’s sander sides in a nutshell

also thats a big fuckin wine glass

dont eat bad chicken wraps blz

“yeah but what’s your actual job?” oof

the beginning is very slow paced imo blehh. a good reflection on thomas’ mood in the video tbh

“i feel bad about feeling bad” me all the time

i cant believe roman got slapped in the face

roman x katana otp uwu

“Logan!!! It’s Patton!!” that was both cute and kinda odd? did he think logan would be suspicious of him being deceit? probably not

logan really goin for those claps and syllables

“Although I am overcome by a titillating, tingly sensation whenever deadlines are met” l-logan? what??? did you just say?? i agree with roman’s reaction on this one.

the poor 4th wall. also i’m not belittled

patton called himself, roman, and logan daddy

VIRGIL!!!!

virgil flapping as he’s like “Are you serious??”

the countless amount of beeps as roman and logan argue.

bestest duo

god the stretching shit

ROMAN GOT CALLED THE FUCK OUT

i mean we been knew he’s insecure but still

“do you know how dangerous that is?”

“I’m shooting straight, even though I’m gay”

dfkghdfkjhdskj patton knows what everyone calms down with hghghgfh

i love how logan just immediately starts solving the cube lol

it was 25 seconds jfc logan

tfw you’re just so good at being creativity that you color the mona lisa with shitty colors

are.. are they making a vine reference?? with the loop thing??

F r o o t

S am e s i es logan s w ea t y B L Z

“get naked??” ROMAN PL E A SE

he was ready to strip what the F UCK

intact and wet?

hfgjkhdjk logan’s trying his best

Sometime’s we don’t know that there’s a question to be asked: clarified

LOGAN COMPLIMENT PATTON FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE

i want a cogitating cap but it’s $25 sobs

textbooks, m I S T A KES (roman jfc), PUPPETS!!

yes virgil defend pat

tbh i had the same thoughts as logan at first abt the adult thing..

roman you over did the chin, buddy

“you are unbelievably extra any time you get” “put a sOCK IN IT!”

and then virgil becomes a sock puppet

I LOVE HIM I’LL TAKE 5

sweet coraline!!! BA BA BAAAAA

“if by up you mean the opposite of down to do this” that was very convoluted

what is with roman not liking the word figuratively??? are you ok?? is there some secret angst behind the meaning of that word?

patton cursed again

is... 5 by 5 a thing???

jfc logan, you wear light wash jeans?? i thought they would be dark

oh and you hit roman in the eye

ngl i laughed because he’s a puppet and couldn’t blink

oh my god logan looks so regretful w h a t?

also L is a new nickname

“Maybe I should go” “NO”

o shit

slight throwback to when Logan left in moving on part 1??? :3c

hfdjkhfkjd like mAR IA

ew feelings

“i’d rather go live in a garbage can” same

thomas we love you so much feelings are weird

jfc patton.

“oh i’m sorry, EXCEPT I’M NOT!”

big oof at roman being called out

“oh my gosh, what is up your butt?” “... an ARM”

i mean he’s not wrong but i feel like he could’ve thought about that phrase a little more carefully

i really liked the text stuff when logan was talking about “Why?”

solid electric company reference yeet

SHSHDHGHSHSHDHHSHSHH

logan flailing his arms is a mood

“i could list off several factors that very well could be contributing to your doubts” someone let him sp e a k

and it’s virgil.

lmao that was a big “I’ll take what I can get” bit for logan ngl rip

hfgkdhjdkfs virgil as the count i’m

logan’s looks he’s giving virgil are m o o d s

“three depressing speculations, ah ah ah...”

“four uncomfortable characters in this room”

“jeez you slobbily eat some jam and accidentally make a jew puns and now you’re suddenly sensitive about being taken seriously?” “I’m not a joke!”

YI K E S

the logan angst i’ve been craving

logan blz hhhhhh

headcanon: adjusting his tie is a big stim

you can see virgil’s expression in the puppet when patton calls him a cute muffin wowie puppeteering is neat!

roman ur being an ass

“it’s too bad your brain isnt as big as your chin” “well you smell like FOOT” hfdjhgjfkdhs

there’s so many more logan screenshots i gottttttt yessss

“what? no-” too late, it’s musical time

“another song, really?” logan, you literally sang last episode

this patton angst return

“Did that work?” “Nope!” logan’s face at that. b o i did you not pay attention? to moving on pt 2? he was kinda there as thomas right?? maybe?? oh no

“I knew you’d listen to me as too scary to ignore” hello @asofterfan got that thing down to a T.

logan just looks so shook like “oh shit”

“but when you lo-care for someone...” virgil, we all heard it.

logan breaking down the musical into just the keyboard was p cool

hghgnhghfhsg THE ONE SHOT SLAM

ahdsdshjkdfsk i love this part with logan and thomas so MU CH

ALSO! I think there was a key change to something minor? sounded much more overlooming/scary as they ended their verses

“You’re lost” “I’m right here” “It’s okay. I was lost once too...” i’m just shook.

roman just hangs his actual dirty socks jfkdkfdh

that trumpet thoooooo

virgil just callin everyone out today

logince angst content yeet

“logic always has a part to play, logan” ye s s s s ss validate him, virgil

virgil is callin out and validatin everybody today

dont hug me i’m scared ref, nice

moxiety hug!!

“that god i can move my arms again”

i can’t say i was surprised with logan becoming a robot sorta puppet

“iron giant nerd!” yeah

“I’ve never felt anything in my life” no patton squeal?

oh my god logan just said beep boop what a nerd

virgil telling patton about the innocent talks thing was something i really liked and was expecting eventually tbh

logan giving roman a high five!!!

“you did the stretchy arm!” “it’s not as gross when a robot does it” i need to see the arm thing jfc

“Can you tell me how to get-” “How to get to sesame street!” they just all... left him. rip

logan can’t summon well or control his shapeshifting powers that well?? hmm?

i love that ending with the sesame street throwback again aaaaaa

the way roman and patton laughed in the end card?? what the hell lmao

thomas throwing shade at himself with his own characters is a mood

Thanks to everyone who works on Sander Sides!! This was the longest episode yet, I think. The team grew so much

#sander sides #learning new things about ourselves #ts spoilers #lo rambles

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specialtopic320research · 5 years ago

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Methods of Devising

Blog Two: Discuss a method of devising that a well-established company uses. Briefly discuss the companies work. Be detailed about the process and methodology they use to develop their product. What resonates with you that you might use in your own process?

The Dell’Arte School was originally opened in Blue Lake, California in 1975 under the name of Dell’Arte School of Mime and Comedy and then in the 1980’s changed to the International School of Physical Theatre, was founded by Joan Schirle and Jon’Paul Cook with the goal of creating a company and or school that followed long Jacques Copeau’s 'Vieux Colombie’ to create a resident ensemble that was the Dell’Art Players Company. According to the schools principles the idea of the students living as a group who work, study and live together as a community, encourage the direct understanding of the nature of ‘ensemble creation’, I think this is one of the most interesting and appealing aspects of this company is the opportunity to study and live in and around nature, as well as incorporating it into their productions;

“Majestic redwoods, the Mad River, the foothills of the mountains, and the power of the Pacific Ocean are a regular part of life, and the observation and embodiment of the forces at work in the natural world is an integral part of the training at the school” -("Professional Training Program - Dell'arte International”)

Other interesting elements of the company are their visions on the company and how it relates to its students and their relationship to their communities: We believe that artists must both earn the support of their community while continuing to challenge parochialism, bigotry, insularity and apathy. We balance exploration and experimentation with an awareness of what our audience wants, likes, hopes for, can tolerate, will be inspired by. As well as their list of important aspects towards a company and how they should act, interact and perform this is a sample of some of the aspects I think are the most important for devising:

The vitality of traditional popular forms and their power to attract, stimulate and entertain contemporary audiences

-The importance of collaboration -The ability of the actor-creator to make art that reflects the complexity of living, that is particular and universal -The ability of artists to manage their work -The belief in the value of our work to the field as a laboratory for exploration and development -The belief of reflecting the cultural, ethnic, social and historical diversity of our community as well as expanding it -The belief in the power of the arts for positively impacting the education and lives of young people ("Professional Training Program - Dell'arte International")

The most interesting method of devising that Dell’ Arte follow is the use of movement; the incorporation of movement through all of their productions, exercise and even their creative processes. It was difficult to narrow down aspects of their devising process that could be used as an example but the movement is something that has so much influence and information on it. After looking through many websites, books and online videos I found a collection of short but interesting clips of their practices and group work around movement and how much impact it has on their creative process and their ensemble.

This first video is their daily practices involving large scale movement and the whole group having to work together to create a moving organism

https://www.facebook.com/dellarteinternational/videos/623691138107053/

The next is their use of bodies as instruments and the sheer improv that is formed with these company members and a beat/rhythm on their bodies

https://www.facebook.com/dellarteinternational/videos/3017604681601104/

And the final video is a promotional video for the companies movement and gymnastic work with students and with the companies themselves

https://www.facebook.com/dellarteinternational/videos/623691138107053/

A collection of photos from their facebook also show the intimate and dedication each actor shows toward their project.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/dellarteinternational/photos/?ref=page_internal

The Dell’Arte School of international School of Physical Theatre focuses on a methodology known as the Alexander Technique, named after its creator Frederick Matthias Alexander. The focus was created to retrain habitual patterns of movement and posture. Sessions include chair work – often in front of a mirror, during which the instructor and the student will stand, sit and lie down, moving efficiently while maintaining a comfortable relationship between the head, neck and spine, and table work or physical manipulation. Which is similar to some of the practices we practice as a company here at Victoria much like our theatre games of ‘space jump’ or even ‘this is a chair’. As well as our physical warm-ups to music and engaging in the things around us like being given emotion and then walking around the space acting and interacting with said emotion. They also use a lot of improvisational techniques and clowning exercises. According to the website, the workload of the year is broken into two terms The Professional Training Program (PTP) is a one-year program for students ready to undertake a journey into the realms of actor-created theatre. This program is open to all performers, with or without a college degree. The PTP includes training in the AlexanderTechnique, physical awareness and responsiveness, vocal and movement improvisation, as well as the study of the mask, clown, melodrama, and commedia dell'arte, with ongoing research into the process of making theatre. Investigation of theatre dynamics, the actor and space, character and relationship takes place through assignments presented weekly in Performance Lab. The first term is devoted to physical self-discovery, with physical training and investigations in the natural world, classes in voice, mask, dance, yoga and improvisation, and weekly assignments developed in the ensemble and presented in Performance Lab. The second term continues classes in movement, voice and physical training, along with five-week studies and public performances of Commediadell'arte, Melodrama and Clown, followed by the Carlo Projects (original ensemble-devised works) and a week-long Rural Residency arts engagement in the community. All of these aspects of the program appeal to me in different ways but I think the majority of the programs on offer are similar to ours, which is appealing to me because the company and experiences I’ve made here are fantastic. The self-discovery aspect is one that speaks to me, in terms of being able to find out what I am interested in and whom I am becoming through theatre and the world around me.

#blog

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globalworship · 7 years ago

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All Saints Day: “in our hands the strength of thousands”

‘All Saints Day’ by British poet/theologian Christopher Villiers

Saints sung in statues, singing still, To guide us from the jagged rocks, On which we fall by our self-will, When we won’t be our Shepherd’s flocks. God is our Father: brothers near And sisters too — seen and unseen, Pray for us all to have no fear Of what the Judgement Day might mean. Some saints are known to God alone, And others praised throughout the earth, All by God’s grace did well-atone, And open hearts to blessings’ birth. The Church is our true family That stretches beyond earthly graves, If only we had sense to see, Our friends stand by the King who saves.

I’m delighted to report that Christopher’s books are in print! Sonnets from the Spirit is a collection of 52 icons in poetry on major episodes from Sacred Scripture, written according to the ancient practice of midrash, by my friend and award-winning, British theologian and poet Christopher Villiers. http://www.hopeandlifepress.com/sonnets-from-the-spirit.htmlhttp://www.amazon.com/Sonnets-Spirit-Christopher-Villiers/dp/0692594639

His second book of poetry, ‘Petals of Vision,’ was published in 2017. https://www.amazon.com/Petals-Vision-Christopher-Villiers/dp/0997792868/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

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Art: The Trumpet Shall Sound by Ira Thomas (@CatholicWorldArt.com)

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"All of the places of our lives are sanctuaries; some of them just happen to have steeples. And all of the people in our lives are saints; it is just that some of them have day jobs and most will never have feast days named for them." �— Robert Benson in Between the Dreaming and the Coming True: The Road Home to God

via Fr. Philip Chircop http://www.philipchircop.com/post/167010317267/all-saints-heres-one-quotation-to-walk-with

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Ten Women Saints Whose Stories You Should Know

http://englewoodreview.org/ten-women-saints-whose-stories-you-should-know/

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Eight Righteous Women, an Orthodox Icon

(Sts. Photini, Melania the Roman, Eudocia of Samaria, Pelagia, Macrina, Mary of Egypt, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Mesopotamia) http://www.archangelsbooks.com/proddetail.asp?prod=HTM-A113

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‘Handmaidens of the Lord,’ an Orthodox Icon by Plaskon Koory

Read about the 14 women in this icon at http://images.ancientfaith.com/afp/Handmaidens_explanation.pdf

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How can we respond to all the outrages inflicted upon women saints in Bible stories and in our lives? Here is a powerful, biblically-based service. "We Remember: A Ceremony to Lament and Honor Women." https://itistrish.com/2016/11/30/we-remember-a-ceremony-to-lament-and-honor-women/

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Perpetua is martyred in AD 203, in Carthage (modern Tunisia) https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/witness/perpetua

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As you celebrate All Saints today, consider this nugget of wisdom from Benedictine sister, Joan Chittister:

“For centuries the church has confronted the human community with role models of greatness. We call them saints when what we really often mean to say is ‘icon,’ 'star,’ 'hero,’ ones so possessed by an internal vision of divine goodness that they give us a glimpse of the face of God in the center of the human. They give us a taste of the possibilities of greatness in ourselves.” �— Joan Chittister in A Passion for Life: Fragments of the Face of God (Orbis Books, 2014) page ix

Looking back at your life, where and in whom, have you seen “fragments of the face of God”?

via Fr. Philip Chircop http://www.philipchircop.com/post/167013656347/possibilities-of-greatness-as-you-celebrate-all

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Prayer by Jan Richardson

God of the generations, when we set our hands to labor, thinking we work alone, remind us that we carry on our lips the words of prophets, in our veins the blood of martyrs, in our eyes the mystics’ visions, in our hands the strength of thousands.

From Jan’s book In Wisdom’s Path: Discovering the Sacred in Every Season.

http://paintedprayerbook.com/2011/10/29/inspired-on-the-feast-of-all-saints/

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What is All Saints Day? by Anglican priest Fr. Greg Goebel http://anglicanpastor.com/what-is-all-saints-day/

All baptized believers are a part of the People of God – a spiritual family that goes back to the beginning. This helps us know who we are, and shows us that we belong. We have a whole history that provides us with wisdom, passed on through God’s working though and in his people. It also points us to our future reunion, giving us hope that our longing for eternal fellowship will be satisfied someday.

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Read more of Christine Sine’s thoughts on ways to mark All Saints Day at http://godspacelight.com/2015/10/30/all-saints-day-a-prayer-for-the-week/

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yasbxxgie · 6 years ago

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In the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, a newly formed group called the Black Psychiatrists of America began to challenge their white colleagues to think about racism in a new way. Its members had been discussing for some time the possibility of creating an organization that would address their lack of representation within the key bodies of American psychiatry. But now, as one of these men, Dr. Chester Pierce, later put it ”we anguished in our grief for a great moderate leader,” and it seemed that the time for moderation on their side was also over. In Pierce’s words: “As we listened to radio reports and called to various sections of the country for the on-the spot reports in inner cities, our moderation weakened and our alarm hardened.”

Racism had led directly to King’s assassination, and not only had white psychiatry consistently failed to take racism seriously; it had, in ways both subtle and overt, enabled it.

The decision was thus made to organize black psychiatrists into an independent body that would use tactics of the civil rights movement to force American psychiatry to acknowledge both its own racism and its professional responsibility to address the scourge of racism in the country.

On May 8, 1969, representatives from the Black Psychiatrists of America interrupted the trustees of the American Psychiatric Association while they were eating breakfast, and presented them with a list of demands. These included a significant increase in African-American representation on APA committees, task forces, and other positions of leadership; a call for the APA to commit itself to desegregating mental health facilities; and a demand that any individual member of the society who was found to be guilty of racial discrimination be barred from practicing psychiatry.

The most fundamental demand made that morning, however, was that the profession begin to think about racism differently than it had in the past. Racism did not just happen because some bad people had hateful beliefs. Unlike many of their liberal white colleagues, who were fascinated by the potential mental pathologies of individual racists, the Black Psychiatrists of America (drawing on new sociological work) insisted that racism was built into the systems and structures of American life, including psychiatry itself. For this reason, as some of them put it in 1973, “institutional change (as opposed to personality change) are needed to root out and eliminate racism.”

Chester Pierce—the founding president of the Black Psychiatrists of America—was most concerned about the pernicious influence of one institution in particular: television. By 1969, virtually every American family home had at least one set. As one commentator at the time observed: “American homes have more television sets than bathtubs, refrigerators or telephones; 95 percent of American homes have television sets.”

Small children of all ethnicities were growing up glued to TV screens. This worried Pierce, because he was not just a psychiatrist but also a professor of early childhood education. And from a public health standpoint, he believed, television was a prime “carrier” of demeaning messages that undermined the mental health of vulnerable young black children in particular. In fact, it was Pierce who first coined the now widely used term microaggression, in the course of a study in the 1970s that exposed the persistent presence of stigmatizing representations of black people in television commercials.

It seemed to Pierce, though, that the same technology that risked creating another generation of psychically damaged black children could also be used as a radical therapeutic intervention. As he told his colleagues within the Black Psychiatrists of America in 1970: “Many of you know that for years I have been convinced that our ultimate enemies and deliverers are the education system and the mass media.” “We must,” he continued, “without theoretical squeamishness over correctness of our expertise, offer what fractions of truth we can to make education and mass media serve rather than to oppress the black people of this country.”

Knowing how Pierce saw the matter explains why, shortly after the founding of the Black Psychiatrists of America, he became personally involved in helping to design a new kind of television show targeted at preschool children.

The show had had originally been conceived as a novel way of bringing remedial education into the homes of disadvantaged children, especially children of color. Pierce, though, saw a different kind of potential for a show like this: one that could directly counter and counteract the racist messages prevalent in the media of his time. The issues for him were even more personal than they might otherwise have been: at the time, he had a 3-year-old daughter of his own. He thus agreed to serve as a senior advisor on the show, working especially closely with the public television producer Joan Ganz Cooney, one of its two creators (the other was the psychologist Lloyd Morrisett).

In 1969, the show aired on public television stations across the country for the first time. It was called “Sesame Street.”

It was not only the most imaginative educational show for preschoolers ever designed: it was also, quite deliberately, populated with the most racially diverse cast that public television had ever seen. All the multi-ethnic characters— adults, children and puppets — lived, worked, and played together on a street in an inner-city neighborhood, similar (if in an idealized way) to the streets in which many minority children were growing up.

Each show opened with scenes of children of different races playing together. Episodes featured a strong black male role model (Gordon, a school teacher), his supportive wife, Susan (who later is offered the opportunity to develop a profession of her own), a good- hearted white storekeeper (Mr. Hooper) and more.

Within a few years, Hispanic characters moved into the neighborhood as well. As Loretta Moore Long (who played Susan) later reflected: ‘“Sesame Street’ has incorporated a hidden curriculum … that seeks to bolster the Black and minority child’s self-respect and to portray the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural world into which both majority and minority child are growing.”

The radical nature of this “hidden curriculum” did not go unnoticed. In May 1970, a state commission in Mississippi voted to not air the show on the state’s newly launched public TV network: the people of Mississippi, said some legislators, were not yet “ready” to see a show with such an interracial cast. The state commission reversed its decision after the originally secret vote made national news — though it took 22 days to decide to do so.

“Sesame Street” would go on to become the most successful children’s show of all time. Over time, though, the radical mental health agenda fueling its creation was largely forgotten. Later critics would instead increasingly suggest that the show, as a straightforward experiment in early education, benefited white middle-income children more than its primary target audience of disadvantaged minorities, and in that sense had arguably partly misfired.

Chester Pierce, however, never lost sight of the hidden curriculum that, for him, had always been at the heart of “Sesame Street.” “Early childhood specialists,” he reflected in 1972, “have a staggering responsibility … in producing planetary citizens whose geographic and intellectual provinces are as limitless as their all-embracing humanity.”

What mattered most about “Sesame Street” was not the alphabet songs, the counting games or the funny puppets. What mattered most was its vision of an integrated society where everyone was a friend and treated with respect.

The program had originally been a radical experiment in the use of mass media to give the youngest generation of Americans their first experience of what Martin Luther King Jr. had famously called the Beloved Community: one based on justice, equal opportunity and positive regard for one’s fellow human beings, regardless of race, color or creed.

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brisbanelife · 6 years ago

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Docos about two creative Australian artists who denied convention premiere at MIFF

"In recent years the documentary form has changed and evolved. You can mix up the form a lot more now to get closer to the truth," notes Hosking, speaking from her home in the Sydney suburb of Enmore. Wright is an acclaimed playwright, theatre director, and stage and screen actor making his debut as a feature film director, while Hosking is a former print and television reporter who has been making documentaries since 2001. Both, however, distinctively point the way forward. Their narratives, and the methods they deploy to arrange them, don't filter a complex identity down into something simpler. Instead they add new layers and commentary, and they're willing to make that process part of the viewer's experience. When Wright first read an excerpt from Acute Misfortune: The Life and Death of Adam Cullen, journalist and editor Erik Jensen's 2014 biography of the artist, who died in 2012 from complications due to liver failure at the age of 46, he couldn't understand why someone would write about Cullen. Jensen, who spent four year in Cullen's erratic orbit as his biographer, defined with serrated precision his subject's work, lies, addictions, and self-serving philosophy. Wright, who had co-founded the innovative theatre company Black Lung at the age of 23 in 2006, had been intent on making feature films for several years. Jane Campion and Garth Davis, his directors on the former's 2013 television series Top of the Lake, where Wright starred opposite Elisabeth Moss, told him he would have to write something. When he fastened onto adapting Acute Misfortune, with Jensen as his co-writer, he placed the book under sharp scrutiny. Geoffrey Tozer and Paul Keating at the Australian Institute of Music. Photo: Peter Morris PMZ "I said to Erik in the first few days of adapting it that if we just repeat the conclusions then it has absolutely no reason to exist. We've got to interrogate it, we've got to pick it apart. You've got to be willing to be the bad guy," remembers Wright. "To Erik's credit he knew exactly what I meant and took it on, but there were times during the writing of the film that that was a more difficult proposition that it was as merely an idea." Jensen was just 19 years old "almost a child with a notebook," Wright says and working for the Sydney Morning Herald when he first wrote about Cullen. His book coolly recounts the tests flavoured with both affection and aggravation that Cullen subjected him to, including being shot in the leg with shotgun pellets. But Wright believed that if the book was Jensen's verdict on Cullen, then the film needed in turn to consider both men and the dynamic they shared. Acute Misfortune: Adam Cullen (Daniel Henshall) and Erik Jensen (Toby Wallace). Photo: Supplied "I say this is a provocation, but that book can be viewed as an act of revenge. I was fascinated by that, but I don't think that's what it is. It could also be seen as an act of dedication," Wright notes. "On the sleeve of Acute Misfortune it says it's a tale 'told at close quarters and without judgment', and I just thought that needed to be discussed. What culpability does Erik bring to it? Is he the equivalent of a conflict photographer?" "You meet Tom and you get a feeling for how passionate he is. He's very prepared, very driven, incredibly ambitious, and has a single-minded energy," says Daniel Henshall, the Australian actor whose chilling performance as a charismatic killer in 2011's Snowtown made him Wright's first choice to play Adam Cullen. Henshall would have three years to immerse himself in Cullen's life before he was joined by Toby Wallace (the Romper Stomper television reboot) in the role of Erik Jensen. "We talked about whose film it was. It's very much Erik's film it's through his eyes," adds Henshall, who lost 22 kilograms in the middle of the shoot to portray the ravaged, dying Cullen in his final days. "We meet Adam because Erik chose to meet and interview him. You see Adam through Erik's eyes and the edit makes that clear, which is a bold choice." One of Black Lung's guiding philosophies was to destabilise the narrative, and Wright brought that to Acute Misfortune. The film aggressively dispenses with the framing scenes that set up a conventional biopic, instead invoking the off-kilter world Cullen draws the ambitious, accepting Jensen into. Cullen's artworks, brushes and even clothes are used, yet information about the commercial art world is communicated through telling tableaus. The extensive and sometimes harrowing research isn't referenced in a linear timeline, it's distilled into the performances. It's all shot in the narrower than normal screen ratio of 1.37:1, the "Academy" standard used between the 1930s and the 1950s, which creates a sense of portraiture that references both the artist and the writer as they share what the director calls "the film's implication of inevitability". "Erik's experience with Adam reflects nearly everyone's experience with Adam," Wright says. "That is a profound closeness, great intellectual reciprocity turning into a painful exchange, and eventually becoming either violent or threatening to such an extent that the person had to leave. You're absorbing what it was to be in this position." Janine Hosking first brushed up against Geoffrey Tozer's life in 2011, two years after the former child prodigy's passing when a friend who worked in book publishing passed her a transcript of Keating's eulogy. "Geoffrey Tozer's death is a national tragedy," was the first line, and over 45 minutes it celebrated the pianist's rare gifts while delivering a broadside at the Australian arts establishment. It was a reminder of Keating as the parliamentarian who slayed his opponents in question time, but it was leavened with grief and affection. Hosking had wanted to make a documentary that involved music, and once she discovered the Tozer archive maintained (in a suburban shed) by his estate, the filmmaker knew that she had both the necessary material and, with Keating's help, the spine of the story. After a period of consideration he agreed. "He knew the power of what he was about to do, but he did it not knowing what other people were going to say about Geoffrey," Hosking says. "He was very insistent that the eulogy would be his final word on Geoffrey Tozer. I would have loved an interview, but he just wanted to do the eulogy and that was his only condition." Keating's voice is a compass in The Eulogy. He compares the pianist and composer to Nellie Melba, Percy Grainger and Joan Sutherland, but for all the herculean talents, which were obvious from an early age and gave him an international profile, Tozer and his first true believer, his mother Veronica, often struggled to survive financially and his legacy is near unknown in his homeland. But instead of simply justifying Tozer's greatness, the documentary with empathy asks whether Keating was right. One way of looking at The Eulogy is to consider it a trial, with Keating as the prosecutor. The role of the judge, impartial and probing, is played by Richard Gill, one of Australia's leading conductors and a pre-eminent music educator. Gill had met Geoffrey Tozer just once, and wasn't familiar with his music. There was a chance he would refute Tozer's supporters. "He could have. And Richard wouldn't have taken it on if he felt he was being used as a puppet. And that made it exciting there's this whatever's going to happen next quality," says Hosking, who shot Gill's initial reaction to a key recording Tozer made with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. "He was very sceptical up to that point. We'd said to him, 'Don't listen to any music until we're ready to play it to you', and now he's a Tozer fan. It needed someone to drill down and really look at Geoffrey Tozer's legacy." In one scene Gill holds a session with a group of teenage classical musicians, none of whom have heard of Tozer. They are, in a way, a jury ("his note clarity was so on point," one boy enthusiastically observes). There are also responses to Keating from those who held positions of power, and there are interviews, particularly with Tozer's one great love, that have a visceral emotional reach. But the film excludes recreations and an omnipotent narrator. "I don't like the voice of god disembodied narrator documentary. Once you take that out of the mix you have to look at different ways of emphasising the storyline you want people to follow through the characters," explains Hosking. "What I wanted to make sure happened was that this wasn't a hagiography. You don't have to believe the eulogy, you can check this out yourself by talking to Geoffrey's friends and listening to his music." Loading Both Hosking and Thomas M. Wright have taken real life events and made films that don't seek to merely represent or conveniently reduce their turbulent subjects, but see them through a clarifying perspective that goes beyond biography. Wright speaks of his attempt to, "pare the film back of all its noise and affectation", while via a sense of discovery Hosking brought her story "full circle". People often refer to what a life is owed, but perhaps this is what the lives of Adam Cullen and Geoffrey Tozer needed. The Melbourne International Film Festival runs from Thursday 2 to Sunday 19 August. For full details and tickets see miff.com.au. https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/movies/m28cover-20180723-h130nw.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed

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