Turning 70 years old on 11th June 2013, Iain Sinclair – writer, filmmaker, poet, walker, perpetual seeker of the perimeter and reluctant magus of the media school of psycho-geography – found it hard to resist the offer of the opportunity to make his choice of 70 films that related to, and are oft interwoven across his entire writing career. This was a chance to have these films shown in a variety of venues and resonant locations across London – a city Sinclair has made his own, a city he has (re)defined.
This book features both Sinclair’s initial 17,000 word explanation of the films chosen and their relationship to his novels and his life along with the resultant forensic documentation of this epic curatorial journey – film as mirrors, film as portals, film mutated through radio waves –additions to the teaming city ghost voices, film as a journey to no fixed abode.
Sinclair spoke at many of the events, a constant updating and realigning, placing his choices in the here and now and soon to come. Predicting, proposing, provoking. He was aided and abetted by old friends, fellow writers Alan Moore and Robert Macfarlane, film-making co-conspiriators Andrew Cotting (Swandown) and Chris Petit (London Orbital), along with film academics Colin MacCabe and Gareth Evans and other manifestations from his fictional/factional role call. All seventy of the events were documented and these words and images now form an impressionistic memento of Iain Sinclair’s 70x70 year, a defining corollary to this writer’s extraordinary life.
Films featured:
A Time for Dying
The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Ah! Sunflower (Allen Ginsberg in London)
Allemagne Année 90 Neuf Zéro
Around the World with Orson Welles
Asylum/The Final Commission
Beat
The Beat Generation
Berlin Alexanderplatz
The Bridegroom, the Actress and the Pimp
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
British Sounds
Bronco Bullfrog
Candy Mountain
The Cardinal and the Corpse
Chappaqua
Confidential Report/Mr Arkadin
Content
The Criminal
The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz
Cul-de-Sac
The Cutting
The Dark Eyes of London
Downriver/Vessels of Wrath
Estate, a Reverie
The Face on the Fork
The Falconer
Flight to Berlin
Germany in Autumn
Girl Chewing Gum/The Man Phoning Mum
Il Grido
Hackney 8mm Diary Films
Hackney Marshes
Hackney Shorts (Automaton and The Last Days of Dobson)
Hangover Square
In a Lonely Place
In the Wake of a Deadad
It Always Rains on Sunday
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
King Lear (Brook)
King Lear (Godard)
The Last Movie
The Last of England
The Lineup
The Long Good Friday
Mabuse Saga: Dr. Mabuse der Spieler, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse
Maggot Street/Maggid Street
Marine Court Rendezvous
Memo Mori
Le Mépris
Niagara
Nostalgia for the Light
Psycho
The Return of Frank James
The (Rudy) Wurlitzer Documentary
The Small World of Sammy Lee
The Sorcerers
Stromboli
Swandown
Sympathy for the Devil
The Tarnished Angels
This Our Still Life
Too Hot to Handle
Tornado
Touch of Evil
Two Weeks in Another Town
Vulcano
Walk the Walk
Written on the Wind
This book features both Sinclair’s initial 17,000 word explanation of the films chosen and their relationship to his novels and his life along with the resultant forensic documentation of this epic curatorial journey – film as mirrors, film as portals, film mutated through radio waves –additions to the teaming city ghost voices, film as a journey to no fixed abode.
Sinclair spoke at many of the events, a constant updating and realigning, placing his choices in the here and now and soon to come. Predicting, proposing, provoking. He was aided and abetted by old friends, fellow writers Alan Moore and Robert Macfarlane, film-making co-conspiriators Andrew Cotting (Swandown) and Chris Petit (London Orbital), along with film academics Colin MacCabe and Gareth Evans and other manifestations from his fictional/factional role call. All seventy of the events were documented and these words and images now form an impressionistic memento of Iain Sinclair’s 70x70 year, a defining corollary to this writer’s extraordinary life.
Films featured:
A Time for Dying
The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Ah! Sunflower (Allen Ginsberg in London)
Allemagne Année 90 Neuf Zéro
Around the World with Orson Welles
Asylum/The Final Commission
Beat
The Beat Generation
Berlin Alexanderplatz
The Bridegroom, the Actress and the Pimp
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
British Sounds
Bronco Bullfrog
Candy Mountain
The Cardinal and the Corpse
Chappaqua
Confidential Report/Mr Arkadin
Content
The Criminal
The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz
Cul-de-Sac
The Cutting
The Dark Eyes of London
Downriver/Vessels of Wrath
Estate, a Reverie
The Face on the Fork
The Falconer
Flight to Berlin
Germany in Autumn
Girl Chewing Gum/The Man Phoning Mum
Il Grido
Hackney 8mm Diary Films
Hackney Marshes
Hackney Shorts (Automaton and The Last Days of Dobson)
Hangover Square
In a Lonely Place
In the Wake of a Deadad
It Always Rains on Sunday
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
King Lear (Brook)
King Lear (Godard)
The Last Movie
The Last of England
The Lineup
The Long Good Friday
Mabuse Saga: Dr. Mabuse der Spieler, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse
Maggot Street/Maggid Street
Marine Court Rendezvous
Memo Mori
Le Mépris
Niagara
Nostalgia for the Light
Psycho
The Return of Frank James
The (Rudy) Wurlitzer Documentary
The Small World of Sammy Lee
The Sorcerers
Stromboli
Swandown
Sympathy for the Devil
The Tarnished Angels
This Our Still Life
Too Hot to Handle
Tornado
Touch of Evil
Two Weeks in Another Town
Vulcano
Walk the Walk
Written on the Wind
